Fri Sep 8, 2006 7:52 PM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a big turnaround from a year ago, the U.S. Army will achieve its 2006 goal of 80,000 new soldiers despite lingering reluctance by some potential recruits to join amid the Iraq war, officials said on Friday.
Adding recruiters, sweetening enlistment bonuses, accepting older volunteers and even tolerating more tattoos helped the active-duty Army rebound from fiscal-year 2005 when it fell almost 7,000 recruits short of 80,000, officials said.
"We will make our 80,000 mission (for new recruits) for the fiscal year," said Maj. Gen. Sean Byrne, the Army's director of personnel management. Fiscal 2006 ends on September 30.
But some defense experts argued the Army, which provides the bulk of ground forces in Iraq, had been able to make its goal only by taking lower-quality volunteers who previously might have been rejected.
"The real question is: how low are we willing to let the quality of the Army decline while we continue in this war?" asked Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense in charge of manpower issues under former President Ronald Reagan.
The Army has already met its annual goal for re-enlistment -- current soldiers volunteering for another tour of duty -- and overall will grow by about 10,000 from the level of 492,700 soldiers at which it stood at the start of fiscal 2006, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty.
"The bottom line is: we're recruiting the force that we need in the numbers that we need. We're doing considerably better than we were last year," Byrne said.
The Army in August made its 15th monthly goal in a row for sending new recruits to boot camp, positioning it to reach 80,000 this month. It was 4 percent ahead of its year-to-date goal with a month left in fiscal 2006 with 72,997 recruits through 11 months, nearly the total for all of fiscal 2005.
Bad recruiting results in spring 2005 helped make last year one of the Army's worst since the start of the all-volunteer military in 1973.
GUARD AND RESERVE
The Army's two part-time components both also missed their 2005 goals. Byrne said the Army National Guard was expected to make its 2006 goal. It stood 1 percent behind its year-to-date goal at the end of August.
The Army Reserve missed its August goal by 38 percent and was 6 percent behind its year-to-date goal with a month left to close the gap.
Army officials say the 3-1/2-year-old Iraq war, in which about 2,660 U.S. troops have died, has made some potential recruits and their families wary of enlistment.
"You watch TV and you see explosions and you see people getting hurt and you hear casualty reports. And clearly no one wants to see a loved on get hurt. That's the downside," Byrne said. The upside is that the war may motivate some people to volunteer to "do the right thing to support their country," he said.
Critics note the Army has accepted more recruits with past criminal conduct or medical problems and more from its lowest acceptable category of recruits, as well as hiking the age cutoff for enlistment to 42 from 35.
Korb, now an analyst with the Center for American Progress, said of this year's recruits, "There are at least 5,000, maybe as high as 10,000 people, who five years ago couldn't have gotten in."
Byrne said, "I am more than satisfied with the quality of the soldiers, the young men and women we are bringing in."
The Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force made their August numbers and were on pace for their 2006 goals.
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