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Guard Reports Serious Drop in Enlistment
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - In the latest signs of strains on the military from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to $15,000.

In addition, the head of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, said on Thursday that he needed $20 billion to replace arms and equipment destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan or left there for other Army and Air Guard units to use, so that returning reservists will have enough equipment to deal with emergencies at home.

The sharp decline in recruiting is significant because National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers now make up nearly 40 percent of the 148,000 troops in Iraq, and are a vital source for filling the ranks, particularly those who perform essential support tasks, like truck drivers and military police.

General Blum said the main reason for the Army National Guard's recruiting shortfall was a sharp reduction in the number of recruits joining the Guard and Reserve when they leave active duty. In peacetime the commitment means maintaining their ties to the military with a weekend of service a month and two weeks in the summer.

Over the last 30 years, General Blum said, the Guard has counted on these soldiers with prior military service for about half of its recruits. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, many of these soldiers have been hesitant to join the Guard because of the increasing likelihood that America's citizen-soldiers will be activated and sent to Iraq or Afghanistan for up to 12 months. Indeed, many of the active-duty soldiers the Army would like to enlist in the Reserves have recently fought in Afghanistan or Iraq, and some have no inclination to do so again...

...General Blum's remarks come just a few days after the chief of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, told The Dallas Morning News that the Army Reserve recruiting was in a "precipitous decline" that if unchecked could inspire renewed debate over the draft. General Helmly told the newspaper that he personally opposed reviving the draft....

...Some military personnel specialists offered a much more pessimistic forecast and said the lower recruiting numbers were the harbingers of tougher times to come.

"I don't think this is an aberration," said David R. Segal, a military sociologist who directs the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. "I think we're going to see significant shortfalls in recruitment, and I think we're to begin to see retention problems. We're also going to see increasing concerns at the state level about how the Guard will man itself and perform its state missions." ...