Recruiting Kamakaze's

Steve Duin discusses how reality has forced changes in recruitment for the volunteer military.

When the war fails, correct the marketing plan

Their caskets return in the dead of night, far beyond the reach of the television cameras. The official letters of condolence to their families are signed by a machine. Their armored vehicles often aren't. When their tour of duty in Iraq is up, the Army can use its stop-loss power to keep them locked in the combat zone.

And the cannon fodder has finally figured that out. Army National Guard recruiters have conceded they are missing their enlistment targets by 30 percent. As Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum told the New York Times last week, "We are correcting, frankly, some of our recruiting themes and slogans to reflect a reality of today. We're not talking about one weekend a month and two weeks a year and college tuition. We're talking about service to the nation

But it's not working.

But if, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld contends, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had, there aren't enough video-game enthusiasts in line. Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, says recruiting is a "precipitous decline," a daunting development in a war without end and for a country without a draft.

And it's not simply the raw recruits who are balking at spending a year in Iraq. Individual Ready Reserves are soldiers who were honorably discharged but can be called back to active duty at any time. The Associated Press noted Monday that of the 2,288 IRRs ordered to report at Fort Benning, Ga., by Oct. 17, 628 -- or more than one in four -- are still unaccounted for.

We are asking for kamikaze volunteers for the volunteer military?

I'm reminded of the classic Cheech and Chong comedy routine in which the World War II commander of a Japanese kamikaze squadron briefly reviews the day's battle plan for his troops.

"Today," he exhorts, "you will take your kamikaze airplane high into the sky, over the Yankee aircraft carrier, then take the kamikaze plane down, crashing on the deck, killing yourself and all aboard. Before we have the ceremonial sake toast, are there any questions?"

A hand rises tentatively in the back of the crowd: Honorable general-san: Are you out of your flipping mind?

Sounds a little like that soldier in Kuwait who asked Rummy a question doesn't it?

When Republican senators like Chuck Hagel of Nebraska are flogging the Pentagon for failing this country and its troops -- "They underestimated, they understated, they undervalued the complications and the difficulties and the dangers," Hagel said Sunday -- small wonder guys on the front lines have reached the same conclusion.

So what is the recruiters jobe like theses days?

Those recruiters better work on their pitch. It's one thing to sell snow to an Eskimo and quite another to sell a kamikaze mission to a volunteer.