Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Military Meets Recruiting Goals

From the San Francisco Chronicle of all papers:
The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month and could eventually be more than a year ahead of schedule in its plan to grow the force to 202,000 members.

All military services met or exceeded their monthly recruiting goals in April, with the Marine Corps signing 142 percent of the number it was looking for, the Pentagon said.

The Army signed 101 percent of its goal, recruiting 5,681 against a goal of 5,650. The Navy and Air Force met their goals — 2,905 sailors and 2,435 airmen.

The Marine Corps enlisted 2,233 recruits against a goal of 1,577.
Recruiting tends to increase during hard economic times (are we in one of those or not), but tends to decrease with the obvious chances of actually going to war.

That the Marines are bringing in neaerly 50 percent more than they target either speaks to faith in the Corps as an institution, or lowball planning. I rather think the former than teh latter.

The comments have some of the expected blather about kids who didn't finish high school, blah blah blah. The truth is, the military in general provides an amazing, if occupationally targeted education and the opportunity to expand one's education. Many senior enlisted personnel have college degrees obatined while in uniform--paid for in large part by the military.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That's a piece of good news! Kudos to those military recruiter and marines recruiter.