A little on army manpower issues.

First, another story on how army recruiting fell below goals last year. I only mention it because it contains this gem:

Opinion surveys indicate that daily reports of soldiers dying in Iraq have dampened young people's interest in joining the military, prompting the Army to try new ways to make the war work in its favor.

Ya think so, eh?

And please notice the clever phrasing of this. It is the "daily reports of soldiers dying" that is dampening recruiting, not that the soldiers are actually dying daily.

Then from an LATimes piece on how 3,000 AirForce personnel are being pulled into 12 month ground roles in Iraq comes this frightening revelation.

Nonetheless, the reassignments come as another sign that the Pentagon is struggling to meet the demands of what military officials have begun calling "the long war."

And then just to get a grip on how short the army is in Iraq, look at the jobs that AirForce and Navy personnel are taking over. (ssems that the core shortages are around interrogation and prison guard.)

Air Force officials said they are expecting to commit another 1,000 airmen to missions such as guarding prisons and driving trucks over the next few years, but they don't plan to make these jobs "core competencies" within the Air Force. .....

The first Air Force interrogation teams were deployed to Afghanistan this year. Most belonged to the Air Force's internal investigative service, had experience questioning suspects and didn't require additional training. But subsequent Air Force interrogation teams, drawn from an array of unrelated jobs, are undergoing 16-week interrogation courses at the Army's intelligence academy at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. ......

By summer, the Navy expects to have retrained 3,000 to 4,000 sailors as prison guards, cargo handlers and for other jobs that have traditionally fallen to the Army.

By the way, Bill, one of the changes in the national army recruiting strategy is to change a significant portion of their television ad buys from national to local. Thought you might find some interest in that.

And finally, "one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer...."

The National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher share of U.S. casualties in Iraq, their portion of total American military deaths nearly doubling since last year.

Reservists have accounted for one-quarter of all U.S. deaths since the Iraq war began, but the proportion has grown over time. It was 10 percent for the five weeks it took to topple Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and 20 percent for 2004 as a whole.

The trend accelerated this year. For the first nine months of 2005 reservists accounted for 36 percent of U.S. deaths, and for August and September it was 56 percent, according to Pentagon figures.

I'm sure it's the reports of the deaths that are the problem.

And while on the topic, let me add this from the WaPo this AM

The (Army National) Guard has been targeting 18-to-25-year-olds in online ads that promise three free iTunes music downloads to anyone who agrees to be contacted by a military recruiter.

After three months, more than 770 people have downloaded, although it is too early to tell how many of them will join up, said Lt. Col. Mike Jones, deputy division chief for National Guard recruiting.