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July 07, 2005

Army Reenlistment Rate Is Healthy

According to this article at Military.com, while we hear that enlistments are down due to the public's supposed "disenfranchisement" with the war in Iraq, it seems that Army reenlistments are on the way to exceeding this year's target numbers, a large part of those numbers coming from among elite forces.

Through the end of May, 45,333 soldiers had reenlisted, said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon. That's 70 percent of the Army's full year goal.

....Nearly 11,000 soldiers from the elite 18th Airborne Corps, which includes four of the Army's 10 active divisions, have "re-upped" this year. That's about 86% of the corp's full year goal, said the corps commander, Maj. Gen. Virgil Packett.

"The 18th Airborne is carrying the Army right now in retention," Packett said.

And leading the corps is the 82nd Airborne, which has reached 97 percent of its annual goal, even though it has deployed regularly to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 82nd's paratroopers are "a special cut of American society," Packett said. "It takes a cut of a different person to jump out of an airplane."

Staff Sgt. Daniel Metzdorf decided to reenlist even though a roadside bomb blew off part of his right leg last year while he was in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne. 

Interestingly enough, while so many of our young people are being turned off to enlisting and going to Iraq by the anti-war(anti-Bush, using the war as a political tool to attack our President) Mainstream Media's aggressive and continuous downplaying of the importance of what our brave military personnel are doing over there, it seems that tens of thousands of people who have been fighting the war know the truth; They see why we are there and are willing to remain in harm's way to help accomplish the mission.

Where do they find heroes like Sgt. Metzdorf, true patriots who, even having lost a limb, are willing to return to hell on behalf of their country? They find them among Americans who are proud of their country and the freedom America stands for, neither of which means anything to the anti-war liberals in our society nor to the spineless Democrat butt- munchers that march to their beat.  

Posted by Seth at July 7, 2005 02:44 AM