All active-duty components made their recruiting goals in November, Defense Department officials said today.Recruiting has lagged for some Reserves: "The Army Reserve last month signed up 1,888, or just 79 percent of its 2,376 goal and the Navy Reserve signed up 687 recruits, or just 91 percent of its 755 goal." We've seen this hoped-for (by some) meltdown myth before-but the quality of recruits is up, not down:
The Army made 105 percent of goal, the Navy 100 percent, the Marine Corps 104 percent, and the Air Force 100 percent. In raw numbers, the Army goal was 6,150 in November, but the service recruited 6,485 new soldiers. The Navy recruited exactly 2,887; the Marine’s recruited 2,095 vice a goal of 2,012; and the Air Force recruited exactly 1,877 airmen in November.
Military-wide, more than 60 percent of all recruits come from the top half of the aptitude categories, and more than 90 percent are high school graduates, David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said during a Pentagon news conference in July.Indeed, contrary to Rep. Charles Rangel (D–NY), the demographics of the U.S. military match almost exactly those of the United States as a whole.
“Typically, we see an above-average high school graduate” processing through the Baltimore MEPS, Larsen said.
Army Master Sgt. Mark Schoeppner, an Army liaison with the station, bristles at talk that military standards have dipped. “There’s a perception that we will allow anybody in, and that’s absolutely wrong,” he said.
Schoeppner pointed to big improvements he’s seen in the force during his 19 and a half years in the military. “It’s way better than when I came in, and I feel very comfortable sleeping at night, knowing that we have not lowered the standards,” he said.
The quality of new recruits “gets better and better every day,” agreed Marine Gunnery Sgt. Derrick Benton, a Marine Corps liaison who meets one-on-one with Marine recruits as they process through the station.
(via Instapundit)
3 comments:
> Indeed, contrary to Rep. Charles Rangel (D–NY), the demographics of the U.S. military match almost exactly those of the United States as a whole.
... but you'll NEVER hear the media mention that.
Me? Frankly, I hope the Dems are so ridiculously stupid as to push for the draft. I thought they were imbeciles to get behind the whole Gay Marriage thing in 2004, it was such an obvious loser for them (not only igniting the far right to get out but also alienating a large portion of their religious black base) and it almost certainly cost them the election, looking at the numbers.
"Rock the Vote"? LOL-- unlike all the efforts of the Dems to appeal to the 18-24 demographic to get out and vote, The Draft could Do It -- just not "for the Dems"... A strong effort by the Dems to reinstate the Draft would produce probably the greatest landslide in history -- against the Dems.
Its amazing that the Dems play a double game of undermining our military and then saying they support them.
But hey, its all propaganda. Unfortunately for them, they are Americans so these efforts are self-defeating.
They continue this activism in an effort to grab power, but if they are fully successful then they would have mortally undermined the institutions that they wish to take over.
That is why they are useful tools.
Cases Like Mario Lozano's will hamper future recruiting efforts if he's convicted. We need to ensure he's not convicted.
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