Delusional General Peter Pace & Co.

“When a respected leader like Mr. Murtha, who has spent 37 extremely honorable years as a Marine, ... has served the country extremely well in the Congress of the United States - when a respected individual like that says what he said, and 18- and 19-year-olds look to their leadership to determine how they are expected to act, they can get the wrong message.”

Kimberly Hefling, “Murtha Denies Causing Recruitment Woes,” AP, 1/06/06.

… Our troops' morale is sky high as you saw and they are properly proud of what they accomplished here in Iraq and Afghanistan and Djibouti and elsewhere.

General Peter Pace.

Kim Gamel, “Pace Urges More Sunnis in Security Forces,” AP, 1/04/06.

“From our perspective,” Corporal Warren said, “we don't see much as far as gains. We're looking at small-picture stuff, not many gains. I was wondering what it looks like from the big side of the mountain - how Iraq's looking.”

“Well, Iraq's looking good,” Mr. Cheney replied. “It's hard sometimes, if you look at just the news, to have the good stories burn through. Part of it is that what we're doing here, obviously, takes time. It's hard, tough, day-in, day-out kind of work that all of you are involved in. But from our perspective, from the standpoint of the president, we spend a lot of time on it between us. It's probably the single most important problem on our platter that we have to deal with - and we do every day.”

Richard W. Stevenson, Robert F. Worth, “Cheney Cites Progress During Surprise Visit,” New York Times, 12/18/05.

General Rochelle: Today's conditions represent the most challenging conditions we have seen in recruiting in my 33 years in this uniform. We are faced with very low unemployment; the first time that the all-volunteer force has been challenged in sustained land combat -- I believe that the total casualties are up over 8,000. And in point of fact, we now have very, very low propensity to enlist, both on the part of our young Americans and likewise on the part of influencers -- and by that, I mean parents, coaches, other adults whose opinions matter to our young 17-to-24-year-olds -- to recommend Army service. Those couple to provide a very, very challenging environment.

… Q: Could you explain why you think that parents and young people don't have a propensity to join?

GR: I don't have a lot of research to answer that question, merely Department of Defense-level research that does tell us … that parents are less inclined today than they were immediately after September 11th to recommend.

Q: But if you don't have reasons, you can't address that. Knowing that they are less inclined is one thing, but knowing why they are less inclined allows you to address the problem.

GR: Well, if we attempt to address every problem, I think it would simply water down our message. What we are attempting to do is focus on the value of service. And the secretary of the Army has launched a campaign … [which] elevates [service] to the level of patriotism; elevates it to the level of service to country, service to nation.

… Q: How do you account for the drop in -- or the problem you're having with African Americans?

GR: I can't account for it statistically except to say from 20 percent down to 13.4 percent.

… [Advertising is] terribly important because it not only gets the Army's message of who we are -- the “brand,” if you will -- in the mind of the target market, the young men and women we would recruit, but also the influencers. And I should tell you that that's not a small challenge today, given the fact that that if you look at our society, fewer individuals than even 10 to 15 years ago have had Army service -- influencer, as well, and, obviously, our 17- to 24-year-olds. Therefore, it's important for us to be able to communicate just who we are, our values, what we stand for, and what we have stood for for this nation for 330 sic [230] years next month.

Q: On the same topic, you've got that new series of ads out there focusing on parents now.

GR: Yes.

… Q: You've talked about the -- sort of the outside forces that are damaging recruiting. You folks have missed recruiting goals for the last several months in a row. What do you change either in your command or the Army as a whole to try to get those numbers back up? Is there anything more you can do or that you're considering to try to address those factors and get more people to join?

GR: Well, among other things, we're appealing more to the sense of patriotism. Pardon me.

We have done a lot with respect to incentives, and -- phenomenal support from the secretary of the Army and the chief of staff for the Army in the resourcing vein; whether it's people, dollars, materiel. Total support.

And I happen to know that the secretary of the Army and the chief of staff for the Army as well as the undersecretary met with Mr. Rumsfeld this morning. I was not a part of that meeting; therefore, I can't comment on it. But the resourcing -- the resourcing is there. Everything we need to be able to provide incentives -- I'll give you a few examples.

We recently raised the Army's monetary incentive for going to training -- when we would like a young person to attend training for the regular Army to a $20,000 level. We took the Army College Fund from $50,000 to $70,000. We have just recently expanded the 15 -- the National Call to Service Enlistment Option -- which is 15 months plus training, plus the individual ready reserve time or selective reserve time -- let me not mislead anyone on that; that's very important -- taking that nationwide, when it had been more narrowly focused as a test program to attempt to appeal to those who would otherwise serve, but are looking simply to be able to do so at a shorter -- for a shorter duration.

I could go on and on.

Q: Have you noticed any improvements from that, or are you at sort of a point of diminishing returns of what -- (inaudible)?

GR: We clearly are not at a point of diminishing returns. It's only -- it's only been several -- frankly, 45 to 60 days.

… let me answer your question specifically, though, with respect to some reason why I think, personally, the results of the national call to service enlistment option was a bit disappointing. When you only focus it in a narrow area, you deny yourself then the ability to advertise nationally. The only advertising you can do is in that narrow market segment. And it -- that is a diminishing return. And that was one of the reasons I sought to take it nationwide, so we could advertise it more broadly.

… We are a volunteer force, and that means that we are open to all comers, male and female, every single race and ethnicity.

… let me tell you that right now, through April [2005], we are 6,600 below the glide that I would -- that would place us right on par with achieving the mission.

… The first alternative is always training, always. And that is to refine the techniques of how you tell the Army story to a young man or woman in such a way as to have it overwhelmingly compelling.

Army Recruiting Commander Briefing, Maj. General Michael D. Rochelle, 5/20/05

Sec. Rumsfeld: I'm told that this -- I guess it's Stars and Stripes. I haven't seen the article, so I -- I'm not an expert on it, but I'm told it was an informal and admittedly non-scientific poll. And one would have to say that if you take a couple hundred thousand people and looked across them, you're going to find people at every point in the spectrum in terms of their views and whether they're up or down or happy or sad or whatever. And I don't know that I would be a good judge of morale. I try to be a judge. I try to go out there and talk to them, and I do talk to a great many of the troops. And one has to say that -- you've been there. You've seen how they are. They seem up and recognizing the importance of the task they're doing and proud of what they're doing. On the other hand, I'm sure that you could go to any one of those groups and find people who are concerned about something, or unhappy, or don't have sufficient access to Internet or telephone to their families, or that may have –

Gen. Myers: As you can tell from the secretary's remarks, morale is really important, and -- because it's people who get the job done. And I -- there should be no confusion about that. We often focus on the high tech piece of our business and the equipment and so forth, but in the end it's the individual soldier, sailor or marine -- sailor, Coast Guardsman that make the difference. So morale of our folks is very important. I've read the articles. Well, I've skimmed the Stars and Stripes. I've read the one that was in the Washington Post, I think -- was it today? -- whenever it was. And it's useful insight. We go -- we -- both the secretary and I put our tentacles out to people who have visited -- congressmen, others. We just met this morning with a group of senators who had recently visited both Afghanistan and Iraq, and we asked them those questions -- you know, "How do you find the soldiers?" -- because they'll talk to constituents, they'll see people that we don't see. And I always worry -- as a four-star, somebody's always -- you know, they're bringing us all the happy folks. And, you know, I want to see the folks that have complaints, and sometimes they won't let them near me. (Laughter.) So we know that phenomenon exists out there, and that's why we have our tentacles out. And I don't think we could ignore how tough conditions are in Iraq. I mean, we are still a nation at war. We're at war against terrorism. The focus right now is Afghanistan and Iraq, Iraq being probably a more dangerous place right now for our troops that are on the front line of this battle. And their living conditions, while, hopefully, improving, are still pretty austere. And, while they're volunteers, and while they raised their right hand and they wanted to go defend their country and are proud to do that, our obligation is to try to make life, as the secretary said, as predictable, to provide as much quality of life as we can for them, to allow them to connect back to their families back here. You know, there were several months where we didn't have the phones and the ways for them to do that. So this is a very tough and difficult environment. And the survey, as I read it, about a third said their morale was low, two- thirds say it was above average to average. Dr. Cohen, Eliot Cohen, who studies these matters, says he's surprised the numbers for morale are so high. It's something we take very, very seriously, we look at all the time. We query our commanders, General Abizaid on down.

Secretary Rumsfeld Briefs on Defense Department Operational Update, 11/16/03.

Stars and Stripes Morale Survey 2003

Military Times Poll, “Morale,” 1/03/06.

Gordon Trowbridge, “Troops sound off,” Military Times, 1/03/05.

Gordon Trowbridge, “Disconnect cited between troops, civilian leadership,” Military Times, 1/03/05.

Gordon Trowbridge, “‘Mission a factor in generally high morale,” Military Times, 1/03/05.

Monica Davey, “Iraq Looms Close for Private Recruited in Wartime,” New York Times, 1/02/06.

Ralph Nader, “Why Our Military Despises Donald Rumsfeld,” Commondreams, 12/31/05.

Monica Davey, “A Veteran’s Iraq Message Upsets Army Recruiters,” New York Times, 12/27/05.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll Dec 16-18 2005

Shailagh Murray, “Decline in Support for War Worries GOP,” Washington Post, 12/04/05.

David Brooks, “The Age of Skepticism,” New York Times, 12/01/05.

Howard Kurtz, “Official Optimism,” Washington Post, 12/01/05.

Thom Shanker, “On the Front Lines, Many Say Morale Remains Strong,” New York Times, 11/21/05.

Damien Cave, “Vital Military Jobs Go Unfilled, Study Says,” New York Times, 11/18/05.

James Dao, “2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark,” New York Times, 10/26/05.

RT Strategies National Omnibus Poll Nov 17-20 2005

“The lost battle for hearts and minds,” Independent, 10/24/05.

Anna Varela, “Mother begs for end to killing,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8/12/05.

Damien Cave, “For Army Recruiters, a Hard Toll From a Hard Sell,” New York Times, 3/27/05.

Thomas E. Ricks, “Troops cite low morale, poor leadership in Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/27/04.

Damien Cave, “Uncle Sam Wants You. But He Need to Adapt,” New York Times, 5/08/05.

Monica Davey, “Recruiters Try New Tactics to Sell Wartime Army,” New York Times, 6/14/04.

Matthew Taylor, “Prince Charles seeks to boost troop morale in Basra,” Guardian, 2/9/04.

Ann Scott Tyson, “Media caught in Iraq’s war of perceptions,” Christian Science Monitor, 11/18/03.

Gabriel Kolko, “Iraq already looks ominously like Vietnam,” Age, 11/10/03.

Bob Keeler, “Lost in Iraq (and Washington): U.S. Troops,” Newsday, 7/21/03.

Ann Scott Tyson, “Troop Morale in Iraq hits ‘rock bottom,’” Christian Science Monitor, 7/07/03.

Steven Lee Myers, “Anxious and Weary, G.I.’s Face a New Iraq Mission,” New York Times, 6/15/03.