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Originally Posted by Sty
Um I don't quite get this. My friend who works in Kitty Hawk just told me that he's going to be 'kicked out' of navy in the next six months because they needed to get rid of 60k persons. He's one of those guys.
So they need more men but they're at the same time short of men?
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yeah, this is true. the Air Force is required to reduce down about 40K in the same way. congress places a legal limit on how many people can serve in each branch of the military. there is also something like a 3% buffer the services are given if they end up going over a bit. sometimes, the military (for practical, economic, or political reasons) cannot accurately predict the ebb and flow of people from their jobs.
the thing is... no matter our force size or structure, the mission goes on. the navy is REQUIRED to trim the 60k guys in whatever way hurts them the least but their duties are still expanding with a two front war and no guarantee of peace in sight. this is were the backdoor draft that smooth was talking about comes in. they must do more w/less... so stop loss restrictions are put in place and the servicemen that remain must shoulder additional burdens.
one more thing... when you hear that the military is short of men, it's often referring to specific career specialties. they are short of meteorologists, engineers, computer specialists etc. but not short of actual volunteer numbers. recruiting quotas have been met easily for the enlisted force and i know they're still raising standards for officer candidates to sift through the abundance of applicants.