And the hits just keep on rollin'

This time courtesy of the New York Times;

article from the New York Times


"Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick is trying to retool the Army's strategy for fighting a war within a war: persuading young people and their families that the military is a good choice, even when combat duty is almost certain. The general has plans to attract teenagers with video games, Web sites, cellphone text messages and helicopter simulators in the back of 18-wheelers. He wants to win over parents through commercials on the Food Network, visits to rodeos and Nascar races, and recruiters who have recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and can address concerns about war. And if that fails, General Bostick also has cash: $40,000 in bonuses for some recruits who take dangerous jobs; $1,000 for soldiers who persuade friends to sign up."

Here are some more choice tidbits . . .

-The resources to enlist people include "roughly 8,000 military recruiters nationwide, hundreds of civilians at Fort Knox, an advertising budget of about $200 million, and a horde of marketing tools, including a fleet of 13 tractor-trailers retrofitted to show off the Army's latest technology."

-Bad boys!: "Last May, the Army retrained its recruiters on ethics after several were found to have cut corners to enlist unqualified soldiers."

-Oops: "And for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Army, the Army Reserve and the National Guard all fell short of their recruiting goals. The active-duty Army missed its target of 80,000 recruits by about 8 percent, its biggest shortfall since 1979."

-More fun: The Army met its recruiting goals for the past 3 months but "more than 10 percent of the recruits had scores on the military's aptitude test that were near the bottom of the scale — more than double the annual 4 percent limit set by the Department of Defense." and "The Army's monthly goals were smaller, too." Uhhh....

Then they go on to talk about the economy, competing with private sector jobs. Come ON people - can't you see where this is all going?!?!?