Anxious Time for Military Recruitment

Brian Moody signs up more soldiers for the Army National Guard than just about any other recruiter in Indiana. Across kitchen tables around the state, he has usually had an easy time convincing young people and their families that the military offers them what they want.

Until he met Jeff Fayette’s mom.

“I came out of that house, and the dad had not said anything, and the mom said: ‘The people at work tell me you’re trained to lie to me. My son is not fighting for anybody in Iraq. He’s going to stay right here and he’s going to be my baby,’ ” Moody said. “That’s the kind of feeling we’re up against now. I tell you, it’s real easy to get depressed.”

As the war on terrorism stretches into its third year, and the violence in Iraq drags on with no end in sight, Moody and other military recruiters across the country are starting to get nervous.

So far, the war’s bad news has not translated into a widespread falloff in military recruiting and retention. But in the National Guard, which for decades has bolstered its ranks by signing up high school juniors like 17-year-old Jeff Fayette, the deepening anxiety about the steady drum of casualties in Iraq is beginning to take its toll.

Reservists -- civilians trained as soldiers and subject to call-up for full-time duty by the military when needed -- were until recently asked to serve relatively infrequently. But over the last decade, their use has increased. And in the last two years, more than 212,000 reservists and National Guard troops have been mobilized for war overseas and the fight against terrorism at home, the biggest mobilization of citizen soldiers since World War II.

This year, for the first time in seven years, the Army National Guard -- the largest organization among the military reserves -- is uncertain of meeting its recruiting goals. As of Aug. 31, it was 13,459 soldiers short of its target of enlisting 62,000 troops by the end of this month. Guard officials say that because the organization is so big, with members in thousands of communities, it is particularly vulnerable to bad news. Pentagon officials are tracking the Guard’s experience closely, concerned that the shortfalls it is beginning to register could signal a broader recruiting drought ahead.

Among high school juniors the decline has been the greatest -- more than 12% off the target of 7,000 for that group. Recruiters say teenagers still show great interest in joining -- attracted by the opportunity to be part-time soldiers and go to college on the government’s dime -- but resistance is mounting from the parents who must give permission for under-18 recruits to enlist.

The still-sluggish economy makes it easier, recruiters say, to sign men and women up for the active-duty military services. Job protection, benefits and educational opportunities continue to make the military an attractive option, they say. And the surge of patriotic feelings and excitement about military service after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon continue to propel potential enlistees through recruiters’ doors.

But National Guard recruiters say they are coming up against a force at least as powerful as economics or patriotism: parental instincts. In Jeff Fayette’s case, his mother, Julia Couch, said that if her youngest son had asked her to sign his enlistment papers a few years ago, when the world seemed more at peace, she probably would have done it. Military service goes back a long way in her family, and on her factory worker’s salary, it is hard to see how Jeff is going to afford college without help from somewhere.

But on the crisp winter evening when recruiter Moody sat with her on the family’s front porch on Indianapolis’ East Side, the television inside was tuned to a CNN reporter saying the nation was girding for war. Three of the kids Jeff used to play football with were in Afghanistan. And terrorist threats seemed to be everywhere.

“ ‘Aren’t there enough older people, grown men, to send over to Iraq? You have to go after 17-year-olds?’ ” Couch recalled asking Moody. “We are a very patriotic family. But I’m not going to sign what I felt like might be my son’s death warrant.”

With at least 29 National Guard members and 18 reservists dead in Iraq and with tours of duty in Iraq getting longer, recruiters concede that Couch is not the only parent to have blocked a child’s enlistment.

“What we’re telling these kids, well, it’s just not taking,” said Steve Long, a National Guard recruiter in Fayetteville, N.C. “They’ll tell you right up front that they are interested in the college program. ‘We didn’t sign up to get shot at, we didn’t sign up to get deployed,’ they tell you. And these days, I can’t sit across that dinner table at that family’s house and tell them they’re not going to be deployed. The fact is, the way things are, it would be a miracle if they didn’t get sent overseas a long time before they get to go to college.”

The military continues to show an overall ability to keep recruiting new members, despite the increasing dangers and long deployments facing troops. All of the active-duty services have met or exceeded their recruiting and retention goals this year. The Army Reserve was 651 new recruits short of its goal in June, but has more than made up the shortfall since.

Military officials acknowledge that the numbers are somewhat deceiving.

Straining to ensure it has enough troops to handle its commitments in Iraq and elsewhere, the Pentagon issued orders this year preventing tens of thousands of soldiers who are serving in Iraq, or have served there recently, from leaving service until further notice. That makes retention numbers look bigger than they might otherwise.

When troops are not permitted to leave service, the military needs fewer new recruits to reach its personnel limits, which are set by Congress. And as long as the orders are in force they have a domino effect on military recruiting and retention.

Even in military units not affected by the orders, troops serve under fixed-term military contracts. That means that thousands of soldiers who may want to get out of service may not be eligible right away.

Still, there are convincing reasons for people to continue joining and serving in the military. Congress passed large pay raises -- more than 20% on average last year -- that have made military service more attractive in a down economy. Recruiters also have been offering significant monetary bonuses for troops with important skills who enlist and reenlist. And for those serving overseas in support of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, there are significant tax benefits and additional combat pay.

Indeed, while many active-duty and Reserve military families feel a financial squeeze when one member is deployed, an Army survey of reservists mobilized between August and December 2002 found that 58% of the families had increased income during deployment.

Added to the financial calculation is the more intangible effect of patriotism, pride and their converse -- the stigma of quitting in wartime.

“This is not something we can expect to last indefinitely,” warned James Hosek, an analyst at Rand Corp. who studies the effect of military deployments on recruitment and retention rates. “Past data suggests that troops are very resilient, but the entire volunteer force works on the idea that individuals have limits. And the experience in Iraq involves high risks and in some cases extremely long deployments that go beyond anything we’ve seen recently enough to study. Eventually something’s got to give.”

There are more than 30,000 Guard soldiers and 50,000 reservists in Iraq today, the largest such battlefield presence since the Korean War.

Now, the part-time soldiers are being asked to do more. This month the Army announced that about 20,000 reservists and National Guard troops stationed in Iraq would have to serve a full year from the time they arrived in those countries, extending their tours in some cases for as long as 11 months.

Tricia Gould stayed in the military she loves through one challenge after another -- including being married to another officer stationed elsewhere. For years, she commuted 1,000 miles a week to her post. When their first child was 3 months old, her husband was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But when it looked like both she and her husband might be sent to Iraq -- and their two children might be sent to relatives six states away -- Gould decided to resign her commission as a nurse in the Air National Guard. It was a painful decision, said Gould, who has a brother in Iraq and another in the ROTC.

“Times have changed drastically since even when my husband went to Bosnia in 1995,” Gould said from her home in Elkridge, Md. “We knew that there was the chance that we could both be deployed when we went into the service, but it was a real shock to see it happening to so many of our friends and to think that it could happen to us.”

Defense officials say the ultimate effect of the long deployments on the military -- the financial and emotional strain on military dependents, the potential erosion of the desire to serve if troops continue to be subjected to random violent attacks -- is being monitored closely by the Pentagon.

“Keeping people is a top priority all the way from the secretary of Defense on down,” one senior official said. “I personally am surprised that we are doing as well as this, all things considered.”

For years, the Guard has brought in more than 7,000 recruits a year by offering high school juniors the chance to start basic training between their junior and senior years. They finish their training after graduating, then serve while attending college full time.

But this year, with more than 30% of the Reserve and National Guard mobilized, recruiters have had to tell parents that there is a good chance that the 17-year-old who signs up today will be in Iraq -- or wherever the war on terrorism moves next -- in as little as 16 months.

“Even in peacetime there is a trepidation among parents about signing on the dotted line. What parent would not be more concerned during wartime?” said Lt. Col. Michael Jones, the national director of marketing and advertising for the Guard. “Parents are coming into the recruiter’s office in person and saying: ‘I want you to look me right in the eye and tell me what my son is going to be doing. Can you tell me if I sign this I am not putting him in the path of a bullet?’ ”

Long, the Fayetteville, N.C., recruiter for the National Guard, believed so strongly in the worth of the Guard program for high school juniors that when each of his two eldest sons turned 17, he encouraged them to enlist.

That was before the 2001 terrorist attacks. Now both are in an armored division scheduled to deploy to Iraq in February to replace the 4th Infantry Division.

“To be honest with you, I really wish they didn’t have to go,” Long said. “With both of my sons, we didn’t really think about putting them in harm’s way, because the Guard was never known before 9/11 to have really gone on that many deployments. I mean, sure, hurricane duty or something. But 9/11 changed everything. Now I sort of feel responsible. And I tell you, my wife is pretty upset.”