Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
sargent,

Uh, NO!!!!! I have plenty of time working with airmen in ground tours, beyond the usual ETAC types, and no way. It is kind of like teaching a first time shooter. It is better to deal with raw material than those who have already developed "bad habits". I have worked with some great airmen and such, but I would rather deal raw recruits from the street than and airman that was mandatorially reclssed into the Army.
You wouldn't even be able to break them down in recruit training? Alternatively, you could just take every other person who enlists and just divert them. Akin to how the Marine Corps would take "volunteers" out of the Army draftees.

In any case, it's not a long term solution, and it's mostly a comment on the USAF role in OIF. But wouldn't it be better reduce the tension on the Army now with an emergency stop gap rather than continuing to grind it down? Is it better to get recruits via a reduction in the enlistment standards? Where are you going to get a large mass of people fast? A tactical retreat is often difficult to swallow, but sometimes it's the thing you need to do to get some breathing room to regroup and organize for an effective counter-assault. So yes, it's a suboptimal solution, but the Army is in a suboptimal situation.