The left still lies: after a record-breaking July, military recruiting and reenlistment increased again:
Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, credited recruiters for the promising recruiting statistics for August released Monday.Underlying data here.
Every service met or exceeded its monthly active-duty recruiting goal, and three of the six reserve components met or exceeded their August goals.
The Air Force achieved 104 percent of its active-duty goal; the Navy, 103 percent; and both the Army and Marine Corps, 102 percent.
In the reserve components, the Marine Corps Reserve met 119 percent of its August goal; the Air National Guard, 108 percent; and the Air Force Reserve, 101 percent.
Defense officials expressed optimism about the two services that fell short of their reserve-component goals in August, but still had improved over their July rates.
The Army National Guard met 82 percent of its August recruiting goal, up from 78 percent in July, and the Army Reserve met 91 percent of its August goal, compared to 80 percent in July, officials reported.
As before, reenlistment is especially strong among troops in Iraq or Afghanistan:
More than 650 soldiers with the Idaho Army National Guard serving in Iraq have signed up to stay on duty, setting a record for combat-zone re-enlistments, the 116th Brigade Combat Team's public affairs staff said.Question: why should successful recruiting and reenlistment be excluded from "all the news that's fit to print?"
Sgt. 1st Class Jim Blake, the officer in charge of retention for the brigade, said the Idaho Guard members aimed to surpass the high of 400 re-enlistments achieved by the 256th Brigade Combat Team from Louisiana in July.
More:
A new GAO Report (05-952) contains final FY04 recruiting data:
- In fiscal year 2004, all active components met their goal.
- In fiscal year 2004, the active services accessed over 16,400 officers to active duty. Only the Air Force, with its shortfall of 12 percent (comprised mostly of medical specialty direct appointments), missed its commissioned officer recruiting goal that year.
- In fiscal year 2004, the components accessed about 118,000 enlisted personnel to the RC, and all components except the Army National Guard and Air National Guard met their goal.
(source: GAO Report 05-925, page 64)The GAO also found no evidence of racial disparities among casualties.
Still More:
John Byrnes on media bias:
It appears that the MSM and allied liberal organizations are launching a full on campaign against the Army now. There’s the continued inaccurate and misrepresented story of recruiting shortfalls, which can’t seem to explain that the Army was only short of about 1000 recruits this year. We fell seven thousand short of a goal that was higher by 8,000 than last year. Re-enlistment more than made up the difference to keep the Army numbers the same. We are only short of our goal to grow the Army.And read Byrnes in the comments below:
Why are the MSM, and liberal bloggers, and posters so gleeful over this issue? Will the world be better for it? How is the Army's misfortune their fortune. Its pure schadenfreud. But so happy are they at a negative portrayal of the Army that they willfully distort fact and defend mistruth. In the last four years liberal America has truly forgotten who the enemy is.(via Clayton Cramer and Jawa Report)
8 comments:
You know anyone can cherry pick their statistics to make a point, but that doesn't make it balanced or right. Yes while many branches of the military have met their goals the army, national guard, and army reserve will likely miss thier goals for the year (check out this article in that liberal commie rag the Stars and Stripes http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=30757&archive=true). This is newsworthy. I would also like to point out, mainstream media (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12514612.htm) does mention the branches that did meet their goals.
Yes, of course, two Army components (Reserves and National Guard) fell short at 91 and 82 percent respectively. But their accessions rose from the previous month.
Of course statistical cherry picking is possible. But you've no evidence, nor could you: because the Army actually increased its goals for July--and more than met them! And I remind you lefties relied on these very goals in "A section" stories stressing shortfalls. You can't both use, and then dispute, the same benchmarks. Indeed, your suggestion that the numbers are unreliable would make debate impossible.
Finally, as you say, Reuters covered the success in August. But "the July recruiting numbers hardly hit the news at all." Moreover, only a few papers covered the August numbers, all following the Reuters anti-military slant.
'I would also like to point out, mainstream media does mention the branches that did meet their goals.'
But it doesn't make front page of the WaPo. Only negative news is worthy.
Lousy recruitment and retention numbers are indicative of the unpopularity of the war. Good numbers are indicative of nothing.
If by some chance the MSM did present the good numbers as prominently as you might like, the anti-war crowd would simply shift the goalposts. The good numbers would be interpreted as a "stealth draft", in which the poor, uneducated, and minorities are seeking employment in the only place that's hiring amidst the despair of the terrible economic conditions confronting us everywhere nowadays (if not everwhere, at least in the parallel economy inhabited by leftist cranks).
The Stars and Stripes a "liberal commie rag"??? Somebody has been ingesting a few too many artificial substances!
Morse:
Matt was being satirical.
Yes I was being sarcastic, and sorry this took me so long to respond.
While the army did significantly raise its numbers this summer that does not change the fact that they are going to miss their yearly quota by thousands (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050930/ap_on_re_us/army_recruiting_slump_4).
As for the National Guard and Reserve, I would say that missing 9 percent perhaps isn't as bad as missing 18 percent, but it still equates to thousands which I believe is significant. By the way do you know how many times in the past year and a half the national guard has actually met its quota?
Anyway, my point here is that while I agree that this does not constitute a crisis at this time, it is a problem. And as a liberal, I don't appreciate being called a liar for being concerned for a problem I still believe exists.
A couple of things come immediately to mind. Number one is that one reason that Reserve and Guard recruitment is down, is that active Army RE_enlisttments are up. It makes sense that soldiers making a choice between reupping for active service, with their current unit often, or joining the reserves or guard will opt for the active side knowing that deployment lays ahead in either case. This is particularly true for first termers who have a reserve commtiment, even if it is just the IRR.
Number two: Why are the MSM, and liberal bloggers, and posters so gleeful over this issue? Will the world be better for it? How is the Army's misfortune their fortune. Its pure schadenfreud. But so happy are they at a negative portrayal of the Army that they willfully distort fact and defend mistruth. In the last four years liberal America has truly forgotten who the enemy is.
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