Recruiters struggle to find an Army

Frank Greve
McClatchy Newspapers

THURMONT, Md. — The Army is struggling to find volunteers for an unpopular war, despite recruiting bonuses of up to $20,000 and pay increases for enlistees that have beaten inflation by 21 percent since 2000.

It met its numeric goal of 80,000 recruits last year, but it paid a price in terms of declining numbers of high school graduates and lower scores on skills and physical tests. The percentage of minimally qualified Army recruits, known as Category IVs, has quadrupled since 2002, and the percentage that required special health or moral waivers has risen sharply as well.

And many recruiting problems preceded the Iraq war.

So what's really making good Army volunteers so hard to come by and, in a larger sense, sapping America's ability to fight a ground war or occupy foreign soil?

Pentagon and outside experts cite these factors in order of importance:

* While risks to U.S. troops are far lower than they were in most previous wars, young adults and their parents find them unacceptably high.

* Parents who went to college want their kids to go to college. So do parents who didn't. As the college-bound percentage of high school students has risen to two-thirds, the percentage that intends to enlist in any branch of the military has fallen by nearly two-thirds.

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