army recruiting

* earlier i mentioned that i expected the army recruiting numbers to be 'a few hundred' higher than the purported quota. i was wrong:

"The Army, the most closely watched service in terms of recruitment, continued its steady comeback among both its active and reserve components after a springtime slump. During December, the Army recruited 741 new members, 106 percent of its goal; 4,456 National Guardsmen, 108 percent of its goal; and 1,341 Army Reservists, 102 percent of its goal, DoD officials said."

the reason i was wrong is because i didnt realise that the army basically does ZERO recruiting in December. Apparently nobody wants to plan to die at war-on-xmas time. In December, they recruit only 1% of the annual total.

Here's a graph from last year from the NYT. I actually slammed the NYT for this because i assumed that they didnt get the data correct. i apologise to the NYT.


i actually love this graph. apparently the army went for years and years hitting its monthly quota within 1 or 2 % - month after month. for some reason, whatever mechanism they had been controlling to smooth out the numbers completely fell apart in February. Since February the numbers have been consistently out by 10-40%. But the greatest lie is in that December 04 number - i'm pretty sure that anyone familiar with numbers would doubt that they could predict that number as accurately as their other numbers - there's way too much inherent volatility.

(for newer readers, i've kinda got a fascination with army recruiting numbers since this post - not least because atrios linked to it. i like the propaganda element of the story, as much as these numbers are essentially a referendum on the stupid war)