Recruiters struggle to find an Army
Will we need a draft if we maintain Bush’s nation building foreign policy?
The Army is struggling to find volunteers for an unpopular war, despite recruiting bonuses of up to $20,000 and pay increases for enlistees that have beaten inflation by 21 percent since 2000.
It met its numeric goal of 80,000 recruits last year, but it paid a price in terms of declining numbers of high school graduates and lower scores on skills and physical tests. The percentage of minimally qualified Army recruits, known as Category IVs, has quadrupled since 2002, and the percentage that required special health or moral waivers has risen sharply as well.
And many recruiting problems preceded the Iraq war.
So what’s really making good Army volunteers so hard to come by and, in a larger sense, sapping America’s ability to fight a ground war or occupy foreign soil?
See, there is an upside to creating a North American Union.
Just think of the large number of new recruits we’ll be able to afford (and who will join) when we have the unwashed Mexican masses at our disposal.