Now, this does not come from me, but from your right-wingers following the links in the "Update" notes. Army has exceeded re-enlistment numbers.

Now, from me. At first sight - cool. Those who currently serve in the army like it and want to do more of the same. Except... there is a huge pressure on enlisted personnel to re-enlist. There have been reports on how recruiters basically cheat potential recruits - people who do not depend on them in any manner. Do you think soldiers whose contracts are up are handled with care? I only have anecdotal evidence: a student of a colleague (we work in the same group) finished his tour in Iraq (MP), came back and was able to avoid reenlistment by bolting town for two full months in "unknown direction". But common sense suggests that lack of success in new recruitment puts more and more pressure to reenlist those who are already in the army.

So, I'd take their rhethoric with a solid grain of salt.

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Well, if you want to tell stories, you can also tell us about people who signed up for the army service or national guard - thinking that there will be no war. And now, when there is one, they feel cheated. Of course, they presumed that Army is just some special welfare institution created for no other reason then to get them through college.

There is no way that a person who does not want to re-enlist can be pressured into it. Total bullshit. When I resigned from my company I also did hide from my manager for two weeks, not answering his calls and taking long lunch - because I did not want waste time on him trying to persuade me to stay. Was I pressured to stay? Yes. Is this a reason to claim that someone tried to force me? Yeah, riiight.

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Leaving the more general question of the purpose of army (defense, anyone) off, and getting back to re-enlistment. You paint two different pictures with these two phrases:

Of course, they presumed that Army is just some special welfare institution created for no other reason then to get them through college.

and

There is no way that a person who does not want to re-enlist can be pressured into it.

So, who is serving in the army: complaining weaklings or the pride and joy of the nation? To believe your second phrase, I would have to also believe that army consists exclusively of strong-willed individuals with well-established life goals. While some people in the army (just as anywhere else) belong to this category, it is somewhat silly to expect this to apply to every single soldier.

The difference in opinion: you think re-enlistments come from the strong-willed individuals who want to continue to serve out of whatever their honorable motivations are. I think current success in re-enlistment is attributed to additional pressure put forth on people who would have been
let go in a peacful year.

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So, who is serving in the army: complaining weaklings or the pride and joy of the nation?

Mostly pride of the nation. But, of course, there are few weaklings. I have no idea why you decided to use one of the very few as an example.

As it is, I do not get your point. Of course, when a valueable team member tries to leave, his superior will likely pressure him to stay. I have been there. However, in my case, better job prospects in the ewn place outweighed all the pressure and salary raises they threw at me in the old one. So? If a soldier stays, it is because this pressure (P), sense of the mission (M), sense of duty (D), and, yes, money (m), benefits (b) - all of this together outweighed the hardships of the service (H). Now, when you talk about re-enlistment, you talk about people who know fucking well what those harships are. You can say whatever you want, but those guys weigh their options KNOWINGLY.

So, what are you driving at? P+M+D+m+b > H. If P << H, then you whole story is meaningless. Otherwise, you must claim that the pressure that is put on the soldiers to re-enlist is comparable to the hardships of serving a year in a combat zone - including a chance to be killed, unbearable heat in summer, MRE and so on. Basically, all Iraqi insurgents combined are less fear some then one screaming platoon sergeant, asking you to stay, right?

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I know that reenlistment is high and first time enlistment is low, there is no news in it for me. This is not so much about news as it is about analysis.

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As far as I heard, US Army is barely meeting goals, or barely missing them, something like that. That, however, true only about the US Army and only about the people who are enlisting for the first time in the US.

Marines, NAVY and Air Force (the cool ones) have no problems. Also, re-enlistment rates are very high. Which, basically, means that people who actually served in Iraq tend to enlist more then normal while those who heard about things from the US media - tend to enlist less.