According to retired U.S. Army colonel and now MSNBC military analyst Jack Jacobs in an interview with Keith Olbermann, the
Army is about 6 months away from a serious crisis resulting from the problems in recruiting. The Army has overtly lowered its recruiting goals from 8,050 to 6700, and still missed its goals by 25%. According to Jacobs, the Army will start increasing signing bonuses and lowering standards, which means we will have a larger, but less effective military force. Way to go Bush Administration!
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OLBERMANN: To speculate about that time, Army recruiting down 42 percent in April, they lower the quota by 18 percent for May, still miss the quota by a quarter. Can you do the rough math here? At what point do we run out of the personnel required just for the commitments we already have? JACOBS: Well, I think we‘re probably at the limit now. I think we may have if—another six months or so before things really get dire, and something significant is going to have to be done."
