Armed Forces News

The Army National Guard will miss its fiscal 2004 enlistment goal of 56,000 by about 5,000 soldiers, said Brig. Gen. Frank Grass, Guard deputy director, on July 29. “We’re just about 2 percent under our authorized end-strength of 350,000,” he said. In the past, 50 percent of the accessions each year were prior service personnel and 50 percent non-prior service. But, as of June 30, the mix was 42 percent prior-service members and 58 percent non-prior service. “It’s quite obvious why,” Glass said. “If you are coming off of active duty and you want to start a career or a family or you want to go to college, you will probably end up getting mobilized again.” He noted that the active component has the stop-loss program in place. “So the availability of prior-service personnel is way down,” he said.