Join the Army and Stop Breathing

Army recruitment goals are down - about fifty percent under their needs - and I'm surprised that anybody's surprised by this. While the Army has been trying to attract warm bodies the other services have been shedding them. The force cuts in the Navy and Air Force have been about forty five thousand (more or less) and the Army had been expecting that a good percentage of these would naturally go into the Army because, I suppose, they assume that these sailors and airpersons love the military so much that they'll find some way to stay in. Or maybe that they want their twenty year pension so bad that they'll do anything to secure themselves that comfy retirement. Wrong-O. That didn't happen. Hardly any of the sailors or air-humans that were let go then went into the Army and the Army was very mystified by this. As a service to the Army I'll explain why. They should remember that there has always been rivalry between the services and that a sailor views himself as a sailor and that's it. Same with the Airforce. Speaking as a former sailor I can tell you that we had unkind names for people in the other services - very hurtful ones,really. The last thing on Earth any other service person would want to do is to learn how to fire a rifle and crawl through the mud. Not our cup of tea, you know. Plus, these sailors and airpeople that have been cut are really, kind of, the dregs of their respective services or if not dregs exactly, at the very least, the ones that the Navy and Airforce thought they could do without. What does it tell you when these people decide to pass on your offer? Well, for one thing it means they probably don't want to die. The retirement they are more likely to earn for themselves in Iraq is a permanent one under six feet of Earth with a pretty white cross over their heads. I'm not saying anyone's a coward exactly, but when you've already served your country and then some, it seems more than reasonable that somebody else takes their turn. But it's a volunteer Army and the patriotic motivation to serve your country is much more of a theoretical one in this instance. Iraq didn't attack us, wasn't going to attack us, and turns out not to even have had the means to attack us. I know, Saddam Hussein was a real bad man who killed millions, but if that were all it took then we should be in Africa right now because there are even worse bad men there who are killing even more people. Oh, right. They don't have any oil. Never mind. What was I thinking? So, no one's volunteering even though the Army is now trying to entice them with a fifteen month enlistment. Now, who on Earth do they think they're fooling with that? You can become just as dead in fifteen months as you can in sixteen, so, no thank you on that one. Anyways, pretty much everybody's aware of the double cross the Army's been pulling on their soldiers right now, and fifteen months still means as long as they feel like keeping you, because that's precisely what happened to the men and women who had their enlistments involuntarily extended. So, no thank you again, Army. We aren't going to have a draft. Don't worry about that. Bush already told us that and he's always been one hundred percent honest and straight forward with the American people, and if I were a draft age eligible male right now I certainly wouldn't be heading for Canada for my extended vacation, because I would just trust everything that this guy says. I also wouldn't suddenly start going around spouting out about how 'gay' I was, either, if I were you, since that would make you inelgible to serve your country - not that you're going to be forced to - since I repeat: We aren't going to have a draft.