In 1998 and again in 1999, the Army missed its recruiting goals. But the challenges then were modest compared to what the Army faces today, said Dr. Curtis Gilroy, the Defense Department’s director of recruiting policy.

“And that’s primarily because of the Iraq War,” said Gilroy. “It’s really very, very different” than in the late 1990s.

The problem then was a budget miscalculation. Recruiting services had too little money for advertising and too few recruiters on the street to compete for volunteers in a thriving economy.

“We had record low unemployment (of) 4 percent. Also, we were drawing down the force so we cut budgets at the same time,” Gilroy said.

Today’s challenge centers on the continuing deployment of 140,000 ground forces to the war zone of Iraq with no exit plan on the table. The Marine Corps is still getting the recruits it needs. Not so the Army.

From October 2004 through June this year, the Army enlisted 47,121 recruits. That was 14 percent below goal, for a shortage of nearly 8,000. The Army National Guard was short by 23 percent, or 10,400 recruits, and the Army Reserve by 21 percent, down 4,100 volunteers. Those are significant shortages. Gilroy cited four factors, three of them tied to Iraq.

The first is an expanding job market. As in the late ’90s, the U.S. economy is strengthening. Current unemployment is 5 percent, Gilroy said, down from 6.3 percent in June 2004.

A second factor is a bigger recruiting mission. Worried about the strain from Iraq operations, Congress ordered active Army strength raised by 30,000 soldiers over three years. To achieve that growth, the Army raised its recruiting target for 2004 in mid-year, from 72,000 to 77,000. For fiscal 2005, it raised it again, to 80,000.

The third factor is the Iraq war, Gilroy said. “That is critical. It’s the first protracted conflict that the all-volunteer force has been engaged in.”

Prospective recruits obviously weigh the dangers. But Gilroy said the war increased the “frequency and duration of deployments” and also forced the Army to issue “stop-loss” orders to block scheduled separations or retirements of thousands of soldiers with critical skills.

“Those have been significant issues for a lot of service members and their families,” Gilroy said.

The fourth factor, widely acknowledged now by military leaders, is the declining propensity of parents, teachers and other “influencers” of American youth to recommend they join the military. Mothers, in particular, said Gilroy, “are very concerned about their sons and daughters joining the military and are not encouraging it.”

Among today’s youth, the sharp drops in propensity to enlist have been among blacks and women, Gilroy said. In June of 2003, 10 percent of recruit-age women surveyed said they were inclined to enter service. By last November, the figure had fallen to 7 percent. Over the same period, the percentage of black youth likely to join fell from 21 percent down to 11.

Army recruit quality too has slipped, as measured by test scores and percentage of recruits with high school diplomas. But quality, for the most part, remains above Defense Department benchmarks, said Gilroy.

Through June this year, 89.3 percent of Army recruits were high school graduates, a slight dip below a 90 percent benchmark. In contrast, through the first nine months of fiscal 2004, almost 97 percent of Army recruits had diplomas.

Army recruit test scores also have fallen but remain above the 60 percent benchmark. Through June this year, 71 percent of recruits had test scores of average or above. The comparable figure for the first nine months of fiscal 2004 was 78.4 percent.

Gilroy said recruit quality is still strong. In fact, no part of this recruiting challenge has shaken his confidence in the all-volunteer force.

“Obviously, how the Iraq war turns will be significant,” he said. But recruiting budgets and enlistment bonuses are being raised, and political leaders, including the president, have begun to urge more youth to serve.”

A return to conscription, he said, would only deepen any hard feelings in America toward the war.

“We would now be coercing these individuals into serving … and that would actually exacerbate the problem,” Gilroy said.

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