Defense officials say the Army probably won't meet its 2005 growth targets for the Guard and Reserve

• Originally published in the Los Angeles Times March 17, 2005 Thursday Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

By  Mark Mazzetti, Times Staff Writer

The Army is unlikely to meet its 2005 recruiting goals for the National Guard and Reserves, with the prospect of lengthy deployments in Iraq scaring away potential recruits for the Army's active and reserve ranks, senior Defense officials said Wednesday.

The Pentagon is struggling for the second straight year to bolster the ranks of its troops once known as "weekend warriors" who now make up more than 40% of the 145,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq.

"We anticipate that recruiting challenges will continue in 2005," said Charles S. Abell, a senior Pentagon official in charge of personnel issues, in prepared testimony to a congressional committee.

"The Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are at a high risk of falling short of their recruiting objectives."

The assessments given to Congress on Wednesday follow months of shortfalls and represent the bleakest assessment yet of recruiting prospects for the Army's part-time soldiers.

The Army is also having difficulty meeting its recruiting goals for active duty soldiers, and one top general said Wednesday that the Army could miss its monthly targets in March and April. Yet, officials expressed confidence that the Army would hit its year-end active duty targets as more recruiters are trained and dispatched this summer.

"We're guardedly optimistic on the active side," said Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.

Responding to the growing recruiting crisis, the Pentagon is adding 2,200 recruiters to the Army National Guard and Reserves, and it is reassigning 250 active duty recruiters to begin working for the Guard and Reserves.

The Marine Corps has had similar recruiting difficulty this year, missing monthly targets in January and February for the first time in more than a decade. Yet a top general testified Wednesday that the Marine Corps would meet its monthly target in March and its year-end target.

"The last two months we failed," Marine Lt. Gen. H.P. Osman said. "In March, we're going to get it back on track."

Pentagon officials have long feared that the deadly insurgency in Iraq, combined with the fading memory of the Sept. 11 attacks, could eventually take their toll on recruiting in the Army and Marines Corps.

Although recruiting shortfalls among reservists began to emerge last year, it has been only in the last few moths that the two services began seeing recruiting shortfalls for active duty troops.

Last month, the Army missed its target of 7,050 active duty recruits by 1,936, the first time it had missed a monthly target since May 2000. The Marine Corps missed last month's target by 192 recruits. Pentagon officials cite the war in Iraq as a primary reason for the sluggish recruiting, and some fear a long-term slump among certain demographic groups.

Last summer, a study commissioned for the Army found that the share of blacks entering the Army had declined by one-third in the past five years, despite efforts by the Pentagon to attract young recruits with signing bonuses.

"More African Americans identify having to fight for a cause they don't support as a barrier to military service," concluded the report.

A second study last spring predicted long-term problems in recruitment of women, as the Iraq war has placed female soldiers in harm's way unlike any previous U.S. war has. More than 30 have been killed.

Although the Marine Corps expects to meets its year-end goals, senior Marine officers also are worried about the war's impact on its pool of potential recruits.

Last month, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, said that with the war in Iraq still raging, many parents were advising their children to wait before signing up for the Marines.

"They're saying, 'It's not, maybe, a bad idea to join the Marine Corps, but why don't you consider it a year from now or two years from now,' " he said.

"So the recruiters are having to work much harder out there right now."