MORE NOVAK ON IRAQ

Army's recruitment crisis deepens

May 26, 2005

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak26.html


Retired Army Lt. Col. Charles Krohn got himself in trouble with his superiors as a Pentagon civilian public affairs official during the first 3-1/2 years of the Bush administration by telling the truth.

''Army recruiting is in a death spiral, through no fault of the Army,'' Krohn told me. In a recent e-mail sent to friends (mostly retired military), Krohn complained that the ''Army is having to compensate for a problem of national scope.''

Krohn says this reality is accepted by recipients of his message. It also meets agreement from active-duty officers I have contacted but who cannot speak publicly. They ponder how an all-volunteer force can be maintained when generals say there is no end in sight for U.S. troops facing an increasingly sophisticated insurgency.

Krohn's message goes on to say ''the recruiting problem is an unintended consequence of a prolonged war in Iraq, especially given the failure to find WMD.'' He therefore calls for a ''national consensus to address the root causes'' of the recruiting problem -- that is, the war in Iraq.

That means the problem goes beyond mechanics of recruiting and the details of volunteer service and is found in the war itself. Paraphrasing Rumsfelds' comment about going into battle with the Army we had, Charles Krohn said: ''The war we have now is not the war we started off with. It's much more serious.''