Unemployment is working! U.S. Army Waiting List Near Record Levels

[Karmadillo]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-army-waiting-list-record-levels-high-unemployment/story?id=12495054

U.S. Army Waiting List Near Record Levels With High Unemployment, GI Bill
By HUMA KHAN
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29, 2010

The combination of lower recruitment target numbers, a weak economy and the implementation of the GI bill has made waiting lists, officially known as the Delayed Entry Pool, longer than they have been in recent years.

<Edit>

In recent years, the Army lowered standards to boost recruitment, including allowing those with low test scores and even criminal records to join. But after years of such incentives and hefty bonuses, recruitment interest has not only surged but the quality of Americans who have expressed interest has improved considerably.

For the first time since fiscal year 1992, nearly all of the Army recruits -- 99.9 percent -- in fiscal year 2010 were high school graduates.

"It's a great time for us. We're very pleased with the way things are going. The characteristics of the people we're recruiting are near all time highs," Maj. Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army recruitment command at Ft. Knox, Ky., told ABC News.

The higher number of high school graduates "was a good sign and we have been able to restrict the number of waivers we give for conduct, so that's been an improvement as well," he said.

more...

[emulatorloo]

1. Graduate school applications are up too.

Not everything is a "secret govt conspiracy."

Google will give you lots more articles, but here is one to get you started:

http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-Applications/124387/

September 14, 2010
Graduate-School Applications Spiked After Economy's Plunge
By Peter Schmidt

Chronical of Higher Education

The number of people applying to the nation's graduate schools spiked after the economy tanked in 2008, a new report by the Council of Graduate Schools shows.

The report, released today, says applications to graduate schools in the United States rose by 8.3 percent from the fall of 2008 to the fall of 2009, the last year studied by the council as part of its annual comprehensive examination of trends in postbaccalaureate education. By contrast, over the previous five years, from 2003 to 2008, the growth in applications to graduate schools had been relatively flat, rising by an average of less than 1 percent annually. Historically, applications to graduate schools generally have surged in recessions, as people who have trouble finding work have gone back to school to earn advanced degrees expected to help them in the job market.

Among those seeking to enter graduate school in 2009, the most popular fields were business, engineering, and the social and behavioral sciences. The area with the fastest growth in interest, however, was the health sciences, in which applications rose by 14.6 percent over the period studied.

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[Donnachaidh]

2. And the rich don't have to pay $300 to keep their spawn out of the trenches!

They did the same for the Civil War, dragging the Irish kids right from the boats to the battlefields.

[stray cat]

3. Someone needs to volunteer to hire the 25% of military applicants that lack sufficient literacy

Or math skills to get in

[emulatorloo]

4. Great idea. A Soros type maybe?

[musette_sf]

5. kicking

because it is a sad truth, that we ignore or minimize at our peril. The mercenary "volunteer" armed forces is NOT a good thing for our kids and for our nation's society as a whole.

I suppose some will disagree and rail against the idea of a draft (or for mandatory national service terms for young adults, for that matter), but the fact remains that in the 60s, we DID change the world - because we had skin in the game.

A participatory democracy requires participation. Other forward thinking nations require a period of national service from their youth. I don't get why this would not be a source of pride, and I don't get why many (on DU, too) equate a relatively short period of national service to "coercion".

This will not be a popular post, but I think it needs to be said. I have believed for years that a mandatory national service program for youth could do more to help rebuild our nation, both our infrastructure and our social malaise, than any one single initiative. Our nation no longer has any great equalizers where diversity can triumph over small-minded prejudice and self-interest. Public schools - decimated by the Reaganites/Nixonites on forward. Public universities - now as financially out of reach as Ivy League schools to the middle and lower classes. Mandatory military service - now a mercenary army populated by a good number of sociopathic bad actors.

flame away

[Karmadillo]

6. +1

nt

[Snarkoleptic]

7. The abundance of labor will surely drive down profits over at Xe

...NOT.

>edited for addition of mini-rant<
The existence of military contractors creates two classes of soldiers.
When two classes exist, one is considered more expendable.
More fallout from lurch toward privatization.