COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The stories are making the rounds among Fort Jackson's battalion commanders and drill sergeants.

There's the one about the recruit who showed up for basic training missing a trigger finger.

There are tales of several trainees who arrived missing toes.

And another whose X-ray showed a drainage tube running from his brain to his chest.

Most of the stories are, to the Army's dismay, true.

At Fort Jackson, a training post that is the portal of entry to 35,000 Army recruits each year, new soldiers have arrived recently with hepatitis C, severe psychological disorders and histories of confinement to mental institutions.

Early this year, officials at the post hospital noticed that admissions to their psychiatric ward had nearly doubled from the previous winter to 69.

In recent years, such physical and mental problems have been a hazard of recruiting tens of thousands of new soldiers. But a number of Army commanders say they have never seen such an increasing flow of people who clearly have no place in uniform.

From boot camps to operational bases across the United States, the military is suffering from a progressive, systemic disease. Far too few people want to join America's all-volunteer military, and far too many of those who join want to leave.

Short of a remarkable, and as yet unforeseen, turnaround, the United States will have a smaller military or a dumber military or perhaps both, many career officers quietly have concluded. Barring a recession that could create an instant recruiting pool, the force is unlikely to withstand a manic pace of life defined by never-ending overseas missions.

David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, says the services are headed for a personnel train wreck that will be solved only by radical solutions.

"The nation is going to have to think about what sort of military force it wants and how it's going to get it," he warns.

Unless the United States suffers a major economic downturn, Segal says, "These problems are not going to go away."

In the past year, every service except the Marines has faced an emerging shortage of recruits and regular troops.

The Army expects to miss its year-end goal of 74,500 recruits by 7,000 to 8,000 -- nearly the equivalent of a "light" division such as the 10th Mountain based at Fort Drum, N.Y.

Next year could be worse, Army commanders privately admit.

The losses, some speculate, could force the service to shut down one, or perhaps two, of its 10 active divisions. The large combat units are the foundation for fighting major wars.

The Navy, which missed its goal of 55,000 recruits last year by nearly 7,000 sailors, is experiencing a frightful exodus of enlisted people. Retention statistics show that among new, mid-career and experienced sailors, the Navy is far short of retaining enough people for a fleet some 18,000 people short.

While it needs 38 percent of all new sailors to stay for a second enlistment, only 27.8 percent are doing so, down from 31 percent a year ago. Among mid-career enlisted personnel, the Navy needs 54 percent to stay in uniform, but only 42.8 percent are choosing to remain. And perhaps most telling, only 47.4 percent of third-term sailors are choosing the Navy as a career, far below the 62 percent that are needed.

The Navy is not having much better success keeping officers on submarines and surface ships, with retention rates 11 to 14 percentage points below what's needed to keep its force of about 320 ships steaming.

The Air Force has its own woes. The service is so short of air-traffic controllers it has curtailed flight hours at a number of stateside bases. Like the Navy, the Air Force has seen a rapid and escalating exodus of skilled workers. For the first time, the Air Force has been forced to air paid television commercials seeking recruits.

Turning to television

Despite a decision to spend more than $50 million on television recruiting ads this year and next, the Air Force is in danger of not meeting its enlistment goals for the first time in two decades.

Historically, no service has had an easier time recruiting than the Air Force. Yet in a country of 270 million, it might not be able to find 33,000 enlistees this year.

That comes on top of departures of skilled people that are so damaging the service that it approved a policy last month to keep some officers and enlisted members from leaving, noting national-security concerns during the air war over Yugoslavia.

The reasons for the military's growing distance from the American public are in a few ways obvious: A roaring peacetime economy is gobbling up every available worker.

Some are subtle, such as the one cited by Lt. Col. Jim Helis, a senior Army recruiting commander:

"The missions in Somalia and Bosnia have not produced any heroes," Helis says, noting that families of many potential recruits won't allow their children to join unless recruiters can promise they won't be sent to Third World backwaters.

The other reasons for the military's woes can be found in veterans' halls, on college campuses and in Hollywood movie studios, where today's military has failed to create mythical warriors to match the 1980s' "Top Gun" and "Rambo."

Military retirees are angry over health-care cuts and are not promoting military careers. College enrollment is at an all-time high, thinning a marginal recruiting pool. And baby boomers raised on Vietnam don't feel connected to the military.

The 'Net Generation'

The source of the disaffection also can be found in millions of Internet-connected American homes, where the "Net Generation" lives. In its own research, the Army acknowledges that the characteristics of today's young adults don't mesh with military life.

Maj. Rick Ayer is among a growing number of Army officers studying why Net Generation young people seem less likely than their predecessors to join the service.

"There has been a real shift in their attitude about where they can get the skills, the personal assets they need to succeed in life," says Ayer, who heads Army Recruiting Command's research at Fort Knox, Ky.

"It's a shift toward civilian industries, jobs and education as the place to pick up those skills."

Lt. Col. Fred Kienle, who commands a basic-training battalion at Fort Jackson, has witnessed changes in youth attitudes that he believes are profound. Reflecting on 21 years in the Army, and the daily headaches of training marginally interested recruits, he makes this observation:

"We have a world-class problem."

Petty Officer 1st Class Felix Martinez leans across the table at the air-operations building at Mayport Naval Station, Fla., and blurts out a bittersweet truth.

"I'm willing to die for my country," Martinez says. "But I will not recommend the military to my son."

The military just doesn't take care of its people like it once did, he says.

Seated around a wood-paneled conference room, a half-dozen sailors share stories of where they believe the Navy is headed.

Shangri-La is probably not among the ports of call. A few are hopeful things will turn around. But most are tired, overworked and concerned about how Uncle Sam will find people in the future. The Navy, its fleet cut by a third to 324 ships, soon may have to send out an SOS for warm bodies. Strapped to fill even the downsized fleet, naval commanders announced recently that they would no longer dismiss sailors who failed the service's regular physical-fitness tests.

Army officials say they are considering a similar move.

Having greatly increased the number of recruiters and lowered standards to take significantly more teens without high-school diplomas, the Navy isn't expecting a shortfall this year.

However, the Navy these new sailors will enter might shock some of them.

Ethan Williams, a petty officer third class, works on gas-turbine helicopters at Mayport. While his maintenance shop should have "six to eight people," Williams says, it has three.

He plans to leave the Navy after seven years, though he loves his job.

"It's kind of scary," Williams says, describing the shortage of manpower and the continued exodus of experienced sailors.

Helis, the Army recruiting commander, describes the downward spiral that has vexed the military's best planners.

Because so many people are leaving the military today, he says, it creates a larger demand for new recruits. The Army and other services, driven by the annual need to find about 200,000 new enlisted people, must recruit increasingly uninterested prospects, who leave at a higher-than-normal rate.

The result is an ever-escalating workload for career military people that is reminiscent of the U.S. military's decay after Vietnam.

"We don't know how to break the cycle," Helis says, trying to describe the services' attempts to get off the treadmill.

The Army is losing 37 percent of all soldiers before they complete their first enlistment. Many, Helis and others believe, simply don't want to be there. Although the volunteer enlistees are under contract, they can leave for numerous reasons, from physical problems to failure to adjust to military life.

Heavy workload

It is common to walk onto most military bases today and find a veteran noncommissioned officer doing the work of two or three people.

That kind of workload won't sustain a downsized military of 1.4 million, especially with a vibrant civilian economy offering good-paying jobs.

Says one Army commander who's served 20 years and fears for the future: "I can't believe the military leadership thinks we can do what we do around the world with this size force."

Col. Clyde Slick has seen a couple of generations of Marines come and go, from the post-Vietnam days when castoffs filled the military's ranks to the Pentagon's remarkable renaissance in the 1980s.

Slick now heads Marine Corps recruiting in the Southeast from his office at Parris Island, S.C. The good news: The Marines are finding enough recruits this year.

The bad: It's never been this difficult, Slick says, and he's "doing it on the backs of my recruiters."

Workweeks of six and seven days are common, Slick says. Getting enough recruits, known in Marine parlance as "making mission," is part of the Corps' deeply ingrained work ethic.

In recent months, some Marine recruiters have succumbed to pressures facing all military people today. In the Southeast region of 465 Marine recruiters, one attempted suicide recently, and two were admitted to psychiatric wards for treatment.

"Trying to balance the intense environment they are in, family life and other personal issues, that creates the strain," Slick says.

The pressures that he describes aren't limited to the Marine Corps.

So far this year, three Army recruiters have committed suicide, compared with one in all of last year. The deaths have raised concerns among commanders about the mental state of those charged with recruiting from a largely uninterested public.

The Marine Corps' difficulty in winning converts can be summarized in a three-word phrase. Slick describes his recruiting market as young people who are "slightly damaged morally."

Many have experimented with marijuana, committed misdemeanor crimes or "gotten into some mischief" as teen-agers.

"We're not talking about dealers, pushers, ax murderers or auto thieves," he says, pointing out that the military doesn't recruit hardened criminals.

The question he faces every day: Does he see potential among the many troubled young men who want to become Marines?

"We have to determine which ones are good young folks," he says.

It is an inexact, but emerging, science.

When asked how many of his potential recruits fall into the "slightly damaged" category, Slick answers:

"The majority."

Dave Moniz wrote this article for Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Pub Date: 07/18/99