Recruits swamp Navy, Air Force (shades of NAM?) [View All]

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050124/1a_lede24.art.htm

OK. I was only 12 when the last troops were pulled out of Vietnam. Did people rush into the Navy and the Air Force in an effort to avoid being in "the back-packing Army and Marines?" I'm a Navy guy, but I've been in for over 20 years. True we haven't lost a ship in war since WWII, but the stuff we do can be dangerous. Anyway, I wonder if the young people are seeing the writing on the wall and are making plans to get into the Navy, or GOD FORBID, the Air Farce, I mean Force.


WASHINGTON — While the Army and the Marine Corps are straining to meet their yearly recruiting goals, the Air Force and the Navy are having banner years and may wind up turning away thousands of potential recruits.

The Air Force says it is so overstocked that it has a backlog of about 9,000 enlistees who have not yet been called to duty. It has slashed its 2005 recruiting target from 35,000 to 24,000. Together, the Air Force and Navy say they are planning to reduce the total number of troops by more than 27,000 in 2005. In contrast, the Army and the Marine Corps, which are providing the bulk of ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, are adding more than 12,000 troops this year.

One of the primary reasons the Air Force and the Navy are so flush with troops and willing recruits, personnel experts say, is that those branches have suffered relatively few casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think the most obvious explanation is that you're less likely to be killed or wounded in the Navy or Air Force,” says Richard Kohn, a professor at the University of North Carolina who studies military culture.