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Home Front: WoT
Army Guard Refilling Its Ranks
2006-03-13
The Army National Guard, which has suffered a severe three-year recruiting slump, has begun to reel in soldiers in record numbers, aided in part by a new initiative that pays Guard members $2,000 for each person they enlist.

The Army Guard said Friday that it signed up more than 26,000 soldiers in the first five months of fiscal 2006, exceeding its target by 7 percent in its best performance in 13 years. At this pace, Guard leaders say they are confident they will reach their goal of boosting manpower from the current 336,000 to the congressionally authorized level of 350,000 by the end of the year.

"Will we make 350,000? The answer is: Absolutely," said Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

The rebound is striking because since 2003, the Army Guard has performed worse in annual recruiting than any other branch of the U.S. military. The Guard was shrinking while it was being asked to shoulder a big part of the burden in Iraq. Together with the Army Reserve, it supplied as many as 40 percent of the troops in Iraq while also dispatching tens of thousands of members to domestic disasters.

Today, the Guard is surpassing its goals and growing in strength -- a welcome boost for an all-volunteer Army stretched thin by unprecedented deployments. In recent months, the Guard enlisted nearly as many troops as the active-duty Army, even though it is a much smaller force. Indeed, the Army Guard, present in about 3,500 U.S. communities, will launch pilot programs this year to recruit for the entire Army. "We're seeing quantum leaps," said Lt. Gen. Clyde A. Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard. "We should probably be America's recruiter for the Army."

A driving force in this year's early success, Guard leaders say, is that thousands of Guard members have now returned from Iraq and are reaching out to friends, old classmates and co-workers -- widening the face-to-face contacts that officials say are critical to recruiting. Guard members "are staying with us and want to fill up units with their neighbors and friends," Blum said in an interview. "Now that they're back -- watch out."
Posted by:Nimble Spemble

#11  Dibbs on the ticket concession.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-03-13 21:13  

#10  My thought, exactly, RC. That article suggested standards were being set higher to explain shortfalls - no one's giid enuff for the new Army.

Maybe we could arrange to two authors to meet?
Posted by: Bobby   2006-03-13 19:56  

#9  (Is it me, or is Mendiola being particularly incoherent tonight?)

Can't see any difference.

Oh, and how does this story line up with the "'Murricans Too Fat For Military" story?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2006-03-13 09:31  

#8  Expect the lefty whining blogs and MSM who screamed about 'short falls' acknowledging this bit of news? Nah, me neither.

The real good part, is that the old strap hangers who enlisted not expecting to be sent into harms way, are now shuffling out of the system, and people that are now coming in are doing so with eyes wide open. That's going have to make the reporters' jobs harder to dig to find the malcontents. Although the Jayson Blair School of Journalism is still a respected member of the profession trade.
Posted by: Flineque Angush9511   2006-03-13 07:09  

#7  it's still a pain in the ass

Images can cure that! LOL


Born: Jan 20, 1920 in Rimini, Italy

Died: Oct 31, 1993 in Rome, Italy

Posted by: RD   2006-03-13 02:19  

#6  I don't get the reference, RD. However, RD, Dan Darling, it's still a pain in the ass to scroll through his material. He didn't even respond to my negative remark!
Posted by: Edward Yee   2006-03-13 01:55  

#5  I wonder if Joe has any extra?

Joe 200 8 1/2
Posted by: RD   2006-03-13 00:56  

#4   I think that sometimes our friend Joe compensates for not taking regular dosages of his prescribed medication at the appropriate times during the day by taking them all at once.
Posted by: Dan Darling   2006-03-13 00:47  

#3  Whats a Motherly Commie Airborne Army = OWG America-based Peace-keeping Force for the protection of Washington to do - SO MANY MALE BRUTES, NOT ENOUGH VIAGRA OR CHEMICAL CASTRATIONS!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-03-13 00:43  

#2  "We're seeing quantum leaps," said Lt. Gen. Clyde A. Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard. "We should probably be America's recruiter for the Army."

*grin* Well, if they let you... ;-)

(Is it me, or is Mendiola being particularly incoherent tonight?)
Posted by: Edward Yee   2006-03-13 00:42  

#1  Mexilamists in the SW, Spetzlamists making anarchy and mayhem all along the Straits of Malaccas to the Sea of Denmark and Norway; and a big, mostly empty country called Canada between Alaska and the Lower 48, which vv the MSM Muslim Terrorists like, demanding America attack them while Russia-China to save them.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-03-13 00:41  

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