Recruiting in September

As I've noted before, the supposed "recruiting crisis" is a myth. Indeed, active duty recruiting increased for the third straight month:


(source: DOD News Release No. 1034-05 (Oct. 11, 2005))
Over the fiscal year ending in September, other than the Army (92 percent) all services met or exceeded their active duty recruiting targets. In total, "the services signed up 163,259 new active-duty enlisted members between Oct. 1, 2004, and Sept. 30, 2005."

Moreover, contrary to biased media reports, the Iraq war hasn't depressed morale. During the past 12 months:

[T]he Army, Marine Corps and Air Force all exceeded their annual retention goals for fiscal 2005, according to DoD statistics. The Navy achieved a 91 percent retention rate for its mid-career sailors.

As Christian Lowe observes in the Weekly Standard, "retention is at an all-time high. The soldiers and Marines fighting the war on terror at boot-level like their job and want to stay." In fact, "re-enlist rates are especially high among units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Reserve forces recruiting also was good, led by the Air Force Reserve (178 percent of target), and four of the five remaining components between 94 and 109 percent of predictions. Only the Naval Reserve fell significantly short, at 70 percent. And National Guard recruiters are optimistic for FY06.

Surprisingly, the ultra-liberal Seattle Post-Intelligencer gets it about right. Elsewhere, readers see only MSM lies and leftist fairy tales. So much for journalistic ethics and reality-based liberals.