I was reading Nomad’s post about Army recruiters not making this year’s recruitment goals and I began to think that the Army was the only branch of the military that was tasked to expand by 30,000-50,000 soldiers so not meeting the recruitment goals is not at all that surprising. All the other branches of the military that were not required to expand, met their recruitment goals. If the Army was not tasked to expand it would have met it’s recruitment goals as well.

Then I read this post from Greyhawk that tipped me off to this great post from the Big Lizard that explains that the Army is not yet in a recruiting crisis much more elegantly than I ever could:

So let’s review the betting: among people who have never been in the service, and who therefore probably get nearly all their knowledge of the military from news and entertainment shows on TV and in the movies, recruitment is slightly down from expectations, though probably enough to maintain the level of troops we have now.

But among soldiers who have actually fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who therefore know what is really happening on the ground from personal experience, re-enlistment rates were met. In fact, since the goal is to retain more people than normal (to meet the goal of increasing troop strength by 30,000 — right?), it’s safe to bet that the re-enlistment goals were higher than in previous years… which means there are more veteran troops in the Army than before, which would partially mitigate the lower numbers of raw recruits.

Since one experienced soldier is worth several kids straight out of boot camp, I’d say we got a bargain.

I agree that combat veterans are worth much more to our Army than just raw recruits and the Army is keeping their veterans in the service.

Let me give this issue some ancient historical perspective to better understand the importance of combat veterans. In 331 B.C., Alexander the Great brought 45,000 seasoned combat troops into battle against roughly 250,000 Persian soldiers during the Battle of Gaugamela located ironically in Northern Iraq near Mosul. This battle would decide who would rule all of the vast Persian Empire. The Persian King Darius was over confident that his vastly, numerically superior force would crush Alexander’s army. He let his numbers deceive him because many of his soldiers were peasants given a spear and little armor and put out on the battlefield against a harden Greek army with the best armor, weapons, and tactics available during those times.

To make a long story short, Alexander’s army outnumbered 5-1 crushed the Persian Army using their experience, weapons, and tactics. This allowed the Greeks to rule the greatest empire of the time, Persia unopposed. Alexander’s army would continue to roll up victories based on the fact that he was able to keep his hardened warriors and not rely heavily on raw recruits. Alexander never lost a battle because of this .

Although today’s American Army may not be able quickly expand it’s overall numbers, it is succeeding in keeping it’s combat veterans. This fact along with arming our soldiers with the best weapons, protecting them with the best armor and equipment, plus continuing to develop innovative combat tactics will ensure that America’s military remains the strongest in the world.

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