http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050711/us_nm/arms_usa_recruiting_dc_1][/PLAIN]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Army National Guard, struggling more than any other part of the U.S. military to sign up new troops amid the
Iraq war, missed its ninth straight monthly recruiting goal in June, officials said on Monday.
In danger of missing a third straight annual recruiting goal, the Army National Guard fell 14 percent short of its June recruiting target, the
Pentagon said. Three quarters through fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30, the Army National Guard stood 23 percent behind its year-to-date goal.
"I can tell you their goal is at risk, so we're concerned," Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said of the 2005 goal of 63,002 new soldiers.
...
Mark Allen, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon, said another factor was that a declining number of soldiers at the end of their regular Army commitment were joining the National Guard. Allen said traditionally half of the National Guard was soldiers with prior military service, but the figure was now 35 percent.
"If you left the Army today and the reason you left was because of the overseas deployments, if that was a negative for you, why would you get in the Guard and face the same thing?" Allen asked.