Forced to shrink, Army National Guard gets pickier

[Kadie]

Forced to shrink, Army National Guard gets pickier
By MEGHAN BARR, Associated Press Writer Meghan Barr, Associated Press Writer – 23 mins ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Suffer from a bad case of acne? That could disqualify you from joining the Army National Guard. Too many speeding tickets? In today's slimmer, smarter Guard, that could keep you out, too.

Under pressure from the Pentagon to trim its ranks, the Guard has been quietly phasing in new restrictions that make it harder to enlist.

"To get in now, you have to be the cream of the crop," said Sgt. 1st Class Brian Clum, a recruiter in Ohio.

Military officials portray the cutbacks as an effort to trim excess from a Guard force that was bloated from years of successful recruiting, especially during the recession.

But there are suspicions inside the Guard and out that the reductions are part of an effort to shift the burden of fighting overseas onto the active-duty Army and ease the public outcry over the way that Guard units — part-time soldiers normally called into action during hurricanes and other disasters at home — have been sent on long, repeated combat tours in Iraq.

In fact, while the Pentagon has cut the National Guard by about 9,000 soldiers to 358,200 over the past six months or so, the nearly 549,000-strong active-duty Army is under orders to recruit 70,000 new soldiers by the end of September and 22,000 more in the coming fiscal year as the fighting in Iraq winds down and the war in Afghanistan escalates.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090902/ap_on_re_us/us_slimmer_national_guard_1

[Horse with no Name]

1. So the powers that be

close the door on one long-standing military option so that will force some applicants to take what is behind door number 3 (Army, Marines)...disgusting.