Military service should be mandatory Americans, especially baby boomers, should be ashamed of themselves. How can the world's richest population let its military go begging for recruits? Each year, the military services -- Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy -- establish recruiting goals to maintain adequate numbers of personnel. The numbers change annually depending on, among other factors, service needs, recruitment figures the year before and retention of current troops. Most informed folks are familiar with the sorry statistics, but let me repeat them for the record: The Air Force has a goal of 33,800 for this year; it expects to fall short by 1,700. The Army needs 74,500 but will miss the mark by 6,300. Currently short of its goal of 53,200, the Navy expects to have enough recruits by week's end. Because of its unique tradition, the Marine Corps is the only branch that consistently fills its quota. In all, according to the Associated Press, the services need 197,115 recruits to maintain a force of 1.4-million. Why are the services having such a hard time recruiting? One obvious reason, according to the New York Times, is that the number of people between ages 18 and 22, the prime age for recruits, has dropped to approximately 21-million, 5-million fewer than in 1980. Another major reason, of course, is that the economy has opened job opportunities to those who otherwise might see the military as an option. These two are real reasons for the shrinking recruiting pool, but I see another reason, one that is perhaps at the heart of the problem: As a group, those between 18 and 22 are not patriotic. And perhaps even worse, too many baby-boomer parents and other "influencers" -- teachers and coaches -- bad-mouth the military. As the New York Times reports, many of these adults are still angry about the Vietnam War, or they never wore a uniform. Either way, the result is the same: hostility toward the military. The solution? We should bring...
