A little over a year ago, the Editorial LiveJournalists ran a misleading, internally-inconsistent editorial that began by trying to tie a decline in Army recruiting to the war in Iraq:
OF the many institutions buffeted by the controversy over the war in Iraq, the U.S. Army has been one of the more bruised. For the first time since 1999, officials announced, the Army expects to miss its yearly enlistment goals. As of June, only 47,121 recruits had signed up to fight – just over half the number needed to meet the annual quota.
We previously addressed some of the substantive problems with this editorial, leaving aside any consideration of the political point the Editorial LiveJournalists were trying to make.
Interestingly, though, Robert Burns of the Associated Press reported earlier in the week on some interesting news about Army recruiting this year:
The Army is ending its best recruiting year since 1997 and expecting similar success in 2007, despite the weight of grim war news from Iraq, Army Secretary Francis Harvey said Thursday.
In an Associated Press interview, Harvey said the Army will enlist its 80,000th soldier on Friday, reaching its goal for the year with eight days to spare. That is a considerable turnaround from last year when the Army missed its target for the first time since 1999 and by the widest margin in more than two decades.
At the start of this recruiting year, which began Oct. 1, 2005, many questioned whether the Army would reach 80,000, given the many alternative career options available to young people and the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war. But a package of new financial incentives, new recruiting approaches and a bigger recruiting corps did the trick.
The Editorial LiveJournalists were all too happy to trumpet the Army’s bad recruiting news last year. We’ll be looking forward to their editorial on the Army’s recruiting rebound this year.
