- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Staff
Sgt. Richard Guzman is on the front lines of one of the U.S. Army's toughest
battles in years, and he's not in Iraq.
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- He's an Army recruiter trying to coax young men and women
into volunteering to serve at a time when U.S. ground forces are engaged
in a bloody guerrilla war halfway around the world.
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- "To me, recruiting used to be easy. Right now, you
really have to hunt for those ones who really want to do it (Army service),"
said Guzman, who recruits in New York City's Harlem section.
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- Nearly two years into an Iraq war that has left more
than 1,500 U.S. troops dead and another 11,200 wounded, recruiters like
Guzman are having to work hard as the Army strives to sign up 80,000 recruits
this year to replace soldiers leaving the service.
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- The Army in February, for the first time in nearly five
years, failed to achieve its monthly recruiting goal. It is in danger of
missing its annual recruiting target for the first time since 1999.
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- Recruiting for the Army's reserve component -- the National
Guard and Army Reserve -- is suffering even more as the Pentagon relies
heavily on these part-time soldiers to maintain troop levels in Iraq. The
regular Army is 6 percent behind its year-to-date recruiting target, the
Reserve is 10 percent behind, and the Guard is 26 percent short.
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- The Marine Corps, the other service providing ground
forces in Iraq, has its own difficulties.
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- In January and February, the Marines missed their goal
for signing up new recruits -- the first such shortfall in nearly a decade
-- but remained a bit ahead of their target for shipping recruits into
boot camp.
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- Iraq marks the first protracted conflict for U.S. forces
since the end of the draft in 1973, which ushered in the era of the all-volunteer
military.
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- If the military fails to attract enough recruits and
America maintains a large commitment in Iraq, the nation may have to consider
some form of conscription, said Cato Institute defense analyst Charles
Pena. "This is getting dicey," said Pena.
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- PARENTS, AUNTS AND UNCLES
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- Lt. Col. John Gillette, who commands the Army recruiting
battalion in New York City, said young people and their families are asking
questions about the war.
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- "Instead of just talking specifically to the applicant,
we're talking to the applicant's parents, and, in some cases, extended
family -- aunts, uncles -- just to answer their questions and concerns
as well," Gillette said.
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- Guzman said he reassures families that a recruit will
get the normal nine weeks of basic training and further individual training
and not just be shoved in a uniform and sent into combat. "They think
that after two weeks in basic training, they will be deployed overseas,"
Guzman said.
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- Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith said
recruiters do everything they can to allay the apprehension of recruits
and families. "But there are certain things that we just can't talk
our way through or give a hard answer to, like, 'Will I be deployed?' That's
just not something a recruiter can predict."
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- The improving economy and civilian job opportunities
also are factors in recruiting, Smith said.
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- Army Secretary Francis Harvey said the active-duty and
reserve components have added 3,000 recruiters since last year and increased
enlistment bonuses to try to lure new soldiers.
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- "So we've got a challenge, but we're certainly not
going to give up," Harvey told a congressional panel.
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- Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute
said there has been a migration of recruits away from the ground forces
toward services less likely to be in harm's way in Iraq -- the Navy and
Air Force.
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- "There's a bottom line to the recruiting debate.
People don't want to die," Thompson said.
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- The problem is even more dire than it appears because
the Army, through "stop-loss" orders, has forced thousands of
soldiers designated for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to remain in uniform
when their volunteer service commitment ends, thus keeping recruiting needs
artificially low, Pena said.
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- Some of these soldiers may remain in the Army involuntarily
for up to 18 months beyond when they were scheduled to leave.
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- "The military can hold things together on a relatively
short-term basis through some fairly extreme measures like 'stop-loss'
and making much greater use of Reserve and Guard units to fill the requirements
in Iraq," Pena said.
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- "But you cannot do this indefinitely. At some point,
you break the force. And the question is: how close are we to that breaking
point?"
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