Saville says about half the new recruits each year typically come from the Army, but many who are leaving are choosing not to enlist in the Guard now since it is not looked at as being “part-time” anymore. That’s made the National Guard more dependent on recruiting graduating high-school students, who have been reluctant to join after reading headlines about the number of Guardsmen being called to duty—and, in some cases, being killed—in Iraq.





Kerry acknowledged that the military’s stop-loss methods—which include delaying retirement and preventing enlisted personnel from leaving the service, as well as extending tours abroad—have increased forces by an estimated 30,000 troops. But he vowed that should he become president, he would add 40,000 more troops who “will not be soldiers who’ve already been on the front lines but new volunteers trained and ready to defend their country.” Hunter says the new defense bill passed by the House this week, would add close to that, about 39,000 more troops. He doesn’t see a problem in filling any newly created slots in the military. “You have an all-volunteer military, which is a little more than half the size we had in 1991 during the gulf war,” says Hunter. “And last I checked, most of the recruiters are meeting their goals.” But some branches are having a harder time recruiting new troops than others. “The challenges are greater than usual this year,” says National Guard spokesman Reginald Saville. The National Guard is down by about 5,000 to 6,000, he says—lower than usual for this time of year, when recruiting typically goes into high gear. That’s in part because members of the National Guard, once nicknamed “weekend warriors” because of their part-time service requirements, are being called to duty in large numbers. The National Guard is supposed to maintain a force of about 350,000 (the Air National Guard has about 107,000 members). About half of the Army’s National Guard are now either mobilized or on alert (meaning they’ve been told there is a strong possibility they will be mobilized). “We have gone from being a strategic reserve force to being an operational force,” he says.