July proved to a good month for the US army's recruitment target. This branch of the US armed forces has struggled to meet its recruitment targets but last month it signed up 8,085 new recruits, beating its target of 7,450.
Still, when the army finishes its financial year on 30 September it is expected to be 7,000 short of its 80,000 recruiting goal. With public support for the war in Iraq steadily dropping, the army chief of staff, General Peter Schoomaker, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that next year "may be the toughest recruiting environment ever."
That's no surprise when the army is up against the likes of Cindy Sheehan, who is camped outside George Bush's Texas ranch in protest at the death of her son in Iraq. Media coverage of returning casualties from Iraq, such as this powerful piece in the Washington Post does the US army no favours either.
Given this unpromising context, Business Week reports that the army will spend more money on recruitment ads next year, about $320m up from $240m this year. As it helpfully points out this amounts to $4,000 per recruit if the army signs up 80,000 next year - more than twice what Toyota spends to woo a new customer.
As part of this marketing drive, the army has plans for 15 televised town hall meetings in which carefully selected soldiers will put a positive spin on the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile TV ads will target parents with one featuring a mother's voice-over: "Thanks for bringing the best out the best in my child."
For those keeping tabs on the Pentagon's recruitment efforts, the CounterRecruiter website, a project of the Indypendent, the newspaper of the New York City Independent Media Center, provides useful information, including the army's controversial attempts to recruit from schools and universities.
Yet while the army struggles to fill its ranks, this appears not to be the case with the navy, air force and Marines. According to Strategy Page, a site specialising on military issues as its name indicates, the army seems to be having trouble attracting those applicants who were unable to get into the other services.
James Dunnigan, the editor in chief of Strategy Page, also notes that the army is having no trouble getting people who have served in Iraq to re-enlist. By the end of the year, the army expects to get 4,000 more re-enlistments than it expected, he writes. Yet even he does not deny that the army is having trouble getting new recruits. Given the situation, any idea of sending US troops to Iran must fill the army with dread.
