signing on - unemployment lines or front lines

For the first time since the draft was suspended the US military has enlisted as many new soldiers as it needs. In the Bush administration’s second term, recruitment was so difficult that military analysts seriously considered whether the Army might be overstretched to breaking point. The maximum age of enlistment was raised from 35 to 42. Standards for physical fitness, mental aptitude and emotional stability were drastically lowered and a record number of convicted criminals received a waiver that allowed them to serve their country.

The defence department undersecretary in charge of personnel, Bill Carr, admitted the recession has played a major part in helping recruiters achieve their goals, adding that “the unemployment we had not directly forecast allowed us to be, for much of the year, in a very favourable position”.

The Pentagon’s director of accession policy, Curtis Gilroy, went further, saying that widespread redundancies and a chronic lack of entry-level jobs are driving school-leavers into the armed forces.

Last month, veterans gathered outside the Army Experience Centre, in a Philadelphia shopping mall, to object to the computer simulations inside, which let youngsters pilot a Black Hawk helicopter, play at counter-insurgency on games consoles and “take part in an authentic battle scenario”.
Vietnam veteran Bill Perry told reporters that teenagers “can’t really handle something like this and understand that war is not a game. It’s not going to be like an arcade when you’re in Iraq or Afghanistan.”