Like I always say....

If you keep 'em poor, you get your army without drafting. "Volunteers."

The Pentagon reports that for the year 2004, its 15,000 recruiters have already recruited over 212,000 people, surpassing its goal of 210,000, at a cost of $ 14,000 per recruit, and Marine Staff Sergeant Mark Ayalin at Quantico Recruiting Command confirms, ''Recruitment figures haven't been affected by the situation in Iraq at all.''

[...]

A 1996 Navy Recruiting Command study admits ''In our analysis, family incomes proved to be the most important economic variable - Enlistment rates are much higher when income is lowest and college enrollment rates are low.''

[...]

''Economic conscription is easier when the economy gets bad. Recruiters often amplify the bad economic conditions and present themselves as the only strategy," explained counter recruiter and former publisher of AWOL magazine Mario Hardy.

The No Child Left Behind Act, enacted in 2001, and the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year of 2002 have made economic conscription much easier.

Common Dreams article

Not that you get the best recruits, but hey, they can still shoot (even thought they may shoot a few friendlies from time to time)...

But poverty often breeds higher crime rates and more acute medical problems and recruiters find themselves in a catch 22 situation. "Because of drug use, criminal offense, weight and other health problems, only about 3 of every 10 potential recruits are even technically eligible to join the Army on today's standards, but recruiters are pressured to recruit two or three "bodies" a month. Therefore they have to lie," said an Army recruiter on active duty wishing to remain anonymous. According to military lawyers and recruiters, the ''lies'' involve serious deception. "The system is structured using lies to get people in," explained director of the Washington-based Center of Conscience and War, J. E. McNeil.

"Recruiters don't just lie about the money for college, their Military Occupational Specialty or tell them they won't go to combat. They tell the recruits to lie about their medical and drug histories and their criminal records. There's widespread deception and dishonesty," said military lawyer Luke Hiken. "Pretty much everybody I knew in the Marines had to lie about their medical history to get in," said former assistant recruiter Chris White. "One guy had previously attempted suicide; he went crazy, cut his neck, and had a big scar from it. I told him to say he fell off a truck into a barb-wired fence; he got in. Some guys would tell me they did coke or heroin; I'd tell them "it was weed," said the Army recruiter.

In the Vietnam era, Judges often offered enlistment as an alternative to prosecution and jail time. But after Vietnam, Congress passed legislation to prevent this practice. But former recruiters and military lawyers affirm that it is still taking place in a more covert form, with judges often working in concert with recruiters to drop charges.

You go to war with the army you have.