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2005-06-29 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by Steve 2005-06-29 15:37|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Is this an artifact of high school seniors graduating in June and figuring out that a high school diploma won't get you dick in the marketplace, or have we turned a corner on recruiting? (The assumption being that this might be a spike due to graduation rather than the beginning of a trend.)

Posted by Jonathan">Jonathan 2005-06-29 15:49|| 2005-06-29 15:49|| Front Page Top

#2 Officials blame a strong economy and the continuing carnage in Iraq. Say what? That'd be a rationale for not meeting goals, but how do they (Fox News) rationalizre meeting the goals in June? Sloppy bookkeeping? Raising the enlistment age? Lowering the standards? Michael Moore? Turbin Dick?

Posted by Bobby 2005-06-29 15:54|| 2005-06-29 15:54|| Front Page Top

#3 Or, for that matter, how do "the officials" (whoever they are) explain meeting the goal, if not due to the strong economy? And carnage. Can't forget carnage.

Posted by Bobby 2005-06-29 15:56|| 2005-06-29 15:56|| Front Page Top

#4 No surprise they met the June goal. All the high schoolers graduated. Historically, in summer the military has the highest recruitment.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-06-29 16:16|| 2005-06-29 16:16|| Front Page Top

#5 i would assume the june blip would already be factored into the goal.

Posted by liberalhawk 2005-06-29 16:42|| 2005-06-29 16:42|| Front Page Top

#6 I can kind of understand this. If you want to be a Paratrooper or a Ranger, then you expect combat and the fact we are actually in combat doesn't faze you.

OTOP, if you aren't sure what you want to do, or if you are looking for "free" training in diesel mechanics (or whatever), then the fact the cowardly terrorists try to target the "non-combat" MOSs makes working at WalMart to pay tuition to Devry look a lot better.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-06-29 16:47|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-06-29 16:47|| Front Page Top

#7 the continuing carnage in Iraq.
It's very similar to the Frist Battle of the Somme.

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-29 17:25|| 2005-06-29 17:25|| Front Page Top

#8 "No surprise they met the June goal. All the high schoolers graduated. Historically, in summer the military has the highest recruitment."

I think you have the answer right there. Its seasonality. We may still have a problem.

If they would take 45-year olds for a year...

Posted by buwaya 2005-06-29 17:52|| 2005-06-29 17:52|| Front Page Top

#9 ...Okay, listen carefully and I shall explain the likely sleight of hand involved here.
All the services have a Delayed Enlistment Plan of one sort or another - that is, you actually enlist in, say, February but you don't go to basic until June or July. Those people are supposed to be counted during the months they actually did their paperwork, took their physicals, and entered the DEP.(Actually, you can go up to a year later, but I digress.)
What I think the Army has done here is count the DEP people who reported to basic from 15 May to 15 June as June enlistees - even though they were already counted when they processed the first time.
The key here is that nobody seems to be willing to discuss actual numbers. That right there tells me there's been some shenanigans somewhere. It's been done before, all the services (except the USMC) did it at one time or another while I was recruiting 89-93. There is no other way you can possibly explain the serious problems they had within the last 45 to 60 days followed by a turnaround this dramatic.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2005-06-29 19:36|| 2005-06-29 19:36|| Front Page Top

#10 You hit the nail on the head, Mike. 30% of al enlistees come via delayed enlistment. In 2004, when the recruiting goal was increased (for the 30,000 increase in army size) from 60-65,000 to 77,000, the pool of delayed enlistees was brought forward to meet the new recruting goals. It's like in sales, do you book a sale this quarter to make your numbers, or leave it till next quarter to have a little margin. Thus 2005 recruiting (80,000 goal) began with a large deficit since their were few delayed enlistees left in the pool.

Posted by ed 2005-06-29 19:54|| 2005-06-29 19:54|| Front Page Top

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