The Pentagon says that the Army is on track to meet its year recruiting goals despite challenges in regards to a decreasing amount of young people in America that meet minimum recruiting standards:

Some of the newest recruits in the Army’s “Active First” program visit the Pentagon Jan. 10 and listen to Army leaders. Under the program, recruits serve first on active duty and then in the National Guard.

Despite challenges in recruiting 17-to 24-year-olds, Army leaders said Wednesday the service is on track to meet recruiting goals this year, and will not lower standards to do so.

The Army faces major challenges in recruiting from the under-24 demographic group, due to education, health and conduct deficiencies, said Lt. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, commanding general of U.S. Army Accessions Command. At a Pentagon media roundtable Feb. 11, he told reporters those challenges disqualify seven of 10 military applicants.

“We think education is a strategic issue for the country,” Freakley said. “Nationally we have a 70- percent high school graduation rate. We have not lowered our standards, but the goals from the Office of the Secretary of defense are that 90 percent of those who come in the all-volunteer force have graduated from high school.”

Last year, 83 percent of Army recruits were high school graduates.  [Army.mil]

The demogoging of high school diploma recruiting rates is something I have covered here before at the ROK Drop.

Now here is something I see quite a bit more compared to years past:

Obesity: big concern

“Our second challenge is with health,” said Freakley. “Of 32 million 17- to 24-year-olds, 3.2 million of them are childhood obese, that’s 10 percent. Several years ago, one in 20 Americans was obese, but that’s closing in soon on one in four.”

Freakley said many of those 3.2 million have childhood diabetes, muscular skeletal issues and that the youth of today have 8-percent less bone mass, which translates to stress fractures from running and more youth using prescription drugs.

Considering the challenges of a reduced recruiting pool combined with a growing Army it is only through hard work that recruiters are able to make the recruiting missions like they do.  However, the worsening economy may actually be a blessing for hard worked recruiters if jobs continue to become scarce in the civilian world.