NYT: Its Recruitment Goals Pressing, the Army Will Ease Some Standards

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/politics/01recruit.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

To help meet its recruiting goals at a time when its forces are strained by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has lowered some requirements for recruits.

The changes are among the clearest signs yet of the military's growing problems in recruiting and retaining soldiers. They mean that many hundreds of prospective recruits who would have been rejected in the past could be enlisted.

Army officials characterize the changes as modest, reasonable and well within quality standards mandated by the Pentagon and Congress. But they amount to the first relaxation in Army recruiting standards since 1998, when a strong economy hurt military recruiting.

Army officials said Thursday that for the recruiting year that started this week, at least 90 percent of new recruits must be high school graduates, compared with 92 percent last year. And up to 2 percent of recruits can be enlisted even if they scored in the lowest acceptable range on a service aptitude test, compared with 1.5 percent last year.

<snip>

...aides to two Colorado lawmakers, Representatives Diana DeGette, a Democrat, and Joel Hefley, a Republican, say their offices have received calls from several soldiers at Fort Carson, Colo., as well as Fort Riley, Kan., and Fort Lewis, Wash., complaining of pressure to re-enlist with the alternative being deployment to Iraq.

[PaDUer]

1. KICK..n/t

[rfkrocks]

2. Kick again

From "i don't do quagmires" but only catastrophic successes Rumsfeld-this crew in power has actually broken the armed forces in a way resembling Vietnam-the volunteer army is not reenlisting and the ready reserve is not ready-how can the public believe that our Shrub is the great troop leader-mark my words the thin line of the military is starting to wear out and Shrub has no plan to repair it

[Dems Will Win]

4. Wrong, Shrub does have a plan:

PRINT THE PDF: http://somnamblst.tripod.com/draftalert.pdf
HANG THIS FLYER EVERYWHERE

This is a SPECIAL MILITARY DRAFT ALERT. THIS IS NOT THE RANGEL DRAFT BILL, THIS IS NEW! THIS IS BUSH QUIETLY READYING THE COMBAT DRAFT AND HAVING THE SELECTIVE SERVICE CREATE A NEW DRAFT FOR 2005.

In May, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article about a document they received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was revealed that the SSS is currently “designing procedures” for the implementation of a “Skills Draft” after holding a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department. The top-level This draft would change the very mission of the Selective Service and require “virtually every young American”, male and female ages 18-34, to register for the Skills Draft and list all the occupations they are proficient in to fill labor shortages throughout nearly the entire government.

Here, for the first time, is the FOI document itself:

http://blatanttruth.org/selective_service091304.pdf

This document is real, having been acknowledged by the DoD and the SSS when they said no action is being taken on it at the present time, as reported:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html

Although Congress would have to approve new legislation to create a Skills Draft or reinstate the combat draft, Family Circle reported in its July 13 issue that Karl Rove has polled GOP members of Congress in September 2002 to see if they would support the President if he requests reinstatement. The Republicans said they would vote for the draft.

In addition, the SSS itself has said that it is “designing procedures” (Seattle PI, May 1, 2004) to implement the skills draft, meaning designing the compliance cards and the data fields needed to keep track of “virtually every young American” and their skills. Acting Director of the SSS Brodsky has also said the Skills Draft is the “top priority” of the Selective Service for 2004. The Issue Paper options include:

- Allow a non-combat draft for shortages in critical skills, without calling a combat draft.

- Fill labor shortages of all kinds throughout not only DoD but the Dept. of Homeland Security and other agencies, especially high-paying professionals like computer networking specialist or linguist.

- Create a single-point, all-inclusive database, in which every young person would be forced to send in a “self-declaration” of all of their critical skills, chosen from a long list of occupations like the Armed Forces Specialty Code. The usual penalties of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine would apply to all non-registrants.

In the secret planning meeting document, the next steps strongly recommended by SSS Acting Director Brodsky were:

1. “Promptly” redefine the SSS Mission to draft men and women up to age 34 for skills, and deliver them within 90 days or sooner to the Department of Defense. Program a massive database to be ready to enter millions of names of those registering their critical skills.

2. Expand mission to deliver personnel in skills draft to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including FEMA, NSC, Border Patrol, INS, Customs, Corporation for National Service, Public Health Service and other agencies.

3. Form interagency task force to provide Administration with recommendation on this skills draft for the entire government.

4. Obtain White House Statement of Administration Policy on the future of the SSS.

5. Be prepared to market the skills draft, raising the non-combat age to 34 and the drafting of women to the Armed Services and Appropriations Committee.

In contrast to this planning and preparation to create a targeted draft, Kerry plans to spend an additional $7 billion to strengthen the Volunteer Army in what is essentially a “No-Draft Plan”. Moreover, Kerry is strongly opposed to the neo-con plan revealed in Wes Clark’s book Winning Modern Wars, in which Clark was told by a senior Pentagon official that invasions of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Somalia were planned and still to come over the next three years.

MORE: http://blatanttruth.org/draft.php

BUSH '04 = DRAFT '05

KERRY '04 = PNAC OUT THE DOOR!

[leftchick]

3. kinda ruins rummy's excuse for no draft....

remember a couple years ago when he was denying a draft because of the "quality" of soldiers you would get?

[54anickel]

8. Yeah, but he only needs more cannon fodder now. Back then he was

still delusioned by the romanticized idea of a high tech war he constantly spewed. Smart bombs, limited casualties (if you don't count the non-US participants), etc.

He's still itching to just use high-tech to blow the place off of the map, but he needs cannon fodder for now to "prove his point".

[jumpstart33]

5. Well, we lowered the standards for the Presidency, so why not?

Let's get all the dimwits we can to fight and die for Halliburton and the Bush family dynasty.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MADem]

7. FORCE SHAPING tools

The military applies what are termed force shaping tools to modulate their numbers. When they want to shrink the force, they raise AFQT test score minimums, make advancement tests more difficult, rigorously enforce weight standards, test more vigorously for illegal drugs, and make physical readiness tests more difficult.

When they are desperate, they lower test score requirements so that personnel who are essentially functionally retarded can enter the service, admit obese personnel, look the other way on the 'gay' thing, let people bullshit their PT test scores, and test for drugs less frequently, and when finding positives, send the individual to ART 15/Captain's Mast/Office Hours for punishment (fine, restriction) rather than muster them out of service.

You can expect to see these force shaping tools applied as a first step, coupled with the IRR recall, a retired personnel recall, the back door draft (AKA YOU CANNOT LEAVE!), and the special skills draft. But mark my words, if Iraq blows up, and if Bush is reselected, anticipate a draft. Charlie Abell (a little shit with a fake graduate degree from a diploma mill, former Army 0-5 failure to select for O-6, political appointee-type in the asskissing mold of an Ollie North, but without as much intelligence--not that that is saying much) is working this issue hard and under the radar. For what it is worth, there is not a soul on active duty who likes that wimpy, suckup asshole, and even the career civilians think he is a dickhead. The plan is formed, it is ready to roll. Within a year of announcement, troops will be pouring out of the pipeline if needed.

The only challenge they have is that if a massive mobilization takes place, they will have to convert some installations, as all services have fewer training facilities than they did during the Cold War. If I were managing this part of the effort, I'd go with prefab construction on existing facilities in climates where year round training is possible--say, Texas? Gotta take care of your buddies....all you need is primitive billeting, a chow hall, a gear issue warehouse, a parade ground, training areas, a place for classrooms, facility support and admin/personnel, a base exchange and a medical/dental facility. It doesn't have to be fancy, it just needs to have all the basic bells and whistles. Halliburton could have them up from scratch inside a month. If using existing facilities at a base that has been closed but not turned over following the last drawdown, they could have it ready for inspection in two weeks.

We've seen what a fuck up war outsourcing has been. Ole Pervez has done a fine job finding Usama, hasn't he? (He's probably living in Musharraf's guest house!). This current stupid war is taking our treasure and some of the blood of our finest citizens, the next bad decision by the weecowboy will take the blood of our children by the barrel full.

[Nimrod]

9. What color is this red card?

"R... E... D... Red!"

"Now how about this green one?"

"G... R... E... Blue!"

"Blue? That's close enough. C'mon!"

(Kudos to anyone who knows where that came from.)

[shanti]

10. pretty soon

it will only be a GED that is necessary to join. but what do they care, they're only cannon fodder :grr:

[truthisfreedom]

11. we are LESS SAFE as a direct result of bush's failed leadership

we are relying on less-educated, lower-standards recruits who represent a less-competent segment of the population. we need the most highly educated, highly-trained military in the world, not a bunch of slacker losers like bush.

[sonicx]

12. more ammo for kerry

"the best military in the world is lowering its standards because we can't make recruitment goals."

[MisterP]

13. Vietnam!