When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld invoked emergency powers in January and authorized the Army to temporarily increase its ranks by 30,000 soldiers over the next four years, he fanned the flames of an already hot policy debate about the size and force structure of the post-9/11 U.S. military.
Despite ongoing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other terrorist havens around the world, Rumsfeld had previously resisted increasing the military's ranks, arguing instead for reorganizing existing forces. His about-face -- a new policy that focuses on solving what he said were short-term needs by issuing temporary orders to prevent soldiers from retiring in a time of war -- was nonetheless a tacit admission that the military does need to grow if it is to fulfill all of its new missions.
Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill, led by Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), have been pushing for a more permanent solution to what they believe will be the military's long-term needs in the war on terror. They have been calling for an 8 percent force expansion that would require not only new legislation authorizing a personnel increase, but also innovative approaches to bring more young Americans into military service in those areas with the greatest needs: infantry, military police, medicine, engineering, and transportation.
The Democrats are right to push for more personnel in addition to a clearly needed restructuring of existing forces. But for the Democrats' force expansion efforts to be successful they must look beyond traditional approaches to military recruitment. In October, the military began taking in the first recruits through a new National Call to Service enlistment program that is the most significant change in recruiting since the creation of the all-volunteer force. This approach should be an integral part of our long-term efforts to close the military's growing manpower gap.
The National Call to Service program enables volunteers to sign up for 15 months of service on active duty followed by 24 months in the reserves -- a radical departure from the four- and five-year active duty enlistments that are now the norm. First proposed by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) in their Call to Service Act of 2001, the program is designed to help meet our growing personnel demands by offering America's youth a voluntary equivalent of the draft: a way to serve their country in uniform in a time of need without choosing a military career. By assigning short-term citizen-soldiers to high-demand military occupations that require shorter training periods, the program offers the promise of addressing critical personnel shortages while also sharing wartime sacrifice more broadly throughout society.
Evidence of early successes among the first 600 recruits, in a class that will reach 3,600 by the end of this year, suggests that the program is already beginning to fulfill its promise. The short-term program has a higher percentage of college-educated and college-bound enlistees than traditional enlistment programs; it is providing immediate relief to the active-duty military positions experiencing the greatest manpower shortages; and it is on track to deliver experienced soldiers into a reserve force that has been stretched thin by frequent mobilizations since 9/11.
Until now, broadening the military's recruiting base to include more young Americans with college experience has been a particularly frustrating challenge. In the traditional career-track enlistment programs, only about 6 percent of enlistees have any college education. But 27 percent of the initial recruits to the National Call to Service program have attended college. This successful demographic expansion of the military recruiting pool will help ensure that we can meet more ambitious overall recruiting targets, while also sharing the burden of service more widely and equitably.
A key test for the program will be its ability to bring more young Americans into those military jobs that are suffering the greatest manpower shortfalls. It bodes well that the program's first graduates from basic training are now serving almost exclusively in the positions with the greatest need. The Armed Services are also beginning to see advantages in the program beyond the initial help in recruiting for the active duty force. "You're not only getting the 15 months of active-duty time, you're also getting the 24 months in the reserves," said Frank Shaffery, assistant chief of staff for operations at the Army's recruiting command. "You're accomplishing two missions at the same time." This could prove particularly important in coming years as recruitment and retention of reserve personnel is strained by constant mobilizations.
The National Call to Service program's initial results point to the power of policies grounded in the progressive tradition of active citizenship and mutual responsibility. But there is still a long way to go before the program is truly an integral part of our efforts to close the military's manpower gap. The Bush administration has shown little interest in it. The president signed the defense authorization bill that established the program, but he never endorsed the initiative and has done nothing since its inception to facilitate a robust implementation. In fact, the centerpiece of his wartime citizen mobilization efforts -- the Freedom Corps service initiative -- doesn't mention a military service option at all.
Without direction from the commander-in-chief, Pentagon leadership capped the number of positions in the first year of the National Call to Service program at 3,600 recruits -- less than 2 percent of all enlistments in the coming year. The first class of recruits is big enough to demonstrate the effectiveness of this national service approach, but a much larger program is needed if we are to meet the challenges ahead. So as Democrats move forward in developing a permanent solution to the military's manpower gap, the National Call to Service program deserves to be a central part of their plans.
Blueprint Keywords: Extra NCLB
