You know a war is unpopular...........

.......when nobody shows up to fight it. That's apparently the problem the Army is running into.
Army Officials Voice Concern Over Shortfall in Recruitment

The Army is so short of new recruits that for first time in nearly five years it failed in February to fill its monthly quota of volunteers sent to boot camp. Army officials called it the latest ominous sign of the Iraq war's impact on the military's ability to enlist fresh troops.

"We're very concerned about it," Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday when asked about recruiting shortfalls in the active-duty Army and Army Reserve. "When people ask you what you worry about the most, I say there's just two words: people and money."

In February, the active-duty Army shipped 5,114 recruits to boot camp, 27 percent below its goal of 7,050; it was the first time since May 2000 that the Army missed a monthly goal. For the first five months of the current fiscal year, the Army has met 94 percent of its goal of 29,185 new soldiers in basic training. Over all, the Army plans to bring in 80,000 new recruits this year - 3,000 more than last year - to replace soldiers who retire or do not re-enlist.

This is the first test of the All Volunteer Army during a protracted war.

But some independent military personnel specialists warned that the traditional kinds of incentives that have cured recruiting woes in peacetime had never been tested in a prolonged war with large overseas combat deployments.

"What we don't know is if the old tools - more recruiters, bonuses and education benefits - will work in the same way as they have in the past," said Beth J. Asch, a senior economist specializing in military personnel issues at the RAND Corporation, a military-financed research organization.

One of the problems is a shrinking pool of high school students who have agreed to enlist upon graduation. This is in part because as the war becomes unpopular more and more parents are talking their children out of enlisting. They feel the war is not worth the death or injury of their children. Do you feel a draft yet?