Recruiting An Irish Bull

©Bill Gnade 2005

After winning an important football game, Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry allegedly told an interviewer, "Football is so incredible, it's unbelievable." I once told a girlfriend, in a moment of silly flirtatiousness, that "I love to swim in the ocean, but I prefer to swim in really large bodies of water."

A well-known writer on language has cited these kinds of statements as examples of what are called "Irish Bulls," statements that sound logical but contain an oftentimes glaring incongruity. According to one encyclopedia, "With a gun in each hand and a sword in another", is a quintessential Irish Bull.

Perhaps you've heard Woody Allen's famous Irish Bull, regarding his assessment of a particular New York City restaurant: "The food is lousy and the portions way too small."

Likewise, you might have heard a more cynical, even desperate one pronounced by critics of the Iraq War: "The war is a failure, there are too many soldiers dying, and we sent too few soldiers to fight."

Hopefully you are able to discern the incongruity: If there are too many soldiers dying, why would you want to send more? To have more killed?

That a rebuttal to my apparent sarcasm could be offered that insists fewer soldiers would be dead if there were more soldiers fighting along side them is tenable, but nonetheless dubious. How does having MORE soldiers in a hot zone protect American soldiers from assymetrical terrorism, where an insurgency randomly bombs moving and stationary targets; where the enemy is without uniform, flag or headquarters; where there is no enemy line? Would not MORE soldiers mean more targets, and thus more deaths?

It surely would.

Related to all this is news that US military recruitment quotas are not being met, particularly in the Army. Guesses as to why point to "violence" in Iraq, which turns off potential recruits (New York Times, today); an improved economy and job market, making military duty less attractive; hostile parents toward the military and even (get this) anti-recruiters who follow military recruitment officers through towns, schools and colleges in an effort to direct people AWAY from the military (The San Francisco Chronicle, today); and just plain old suspicion that recruiters are dishonest about the obligations and risks of military service.

That recruiters face an uphill battle is clear. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes Diane Rejman, a member of Veterans for Peace, who speaks to students about military duty.

"When I talk to students, I try to make it very clear to them, I write on the blackboard, 'The purpose of the military is to kill and be killed.'"

That's a hard bit of propaganda to overcome: The purpose of the military is to kill, AND to be killed.

But I have a different assessment as to why military recruitment levels are down, and while I admit that they are speculative, they strike me as reasonable and probable, and even rather simple. Yes, there is intense pressure to prevent the military from recruiting (though the same military should have sent MORE troops to Iraq, or so John Kerry and Friends argued during the 2004 election cycle). Moreover, if one hears Democrats gripe about the economy, which is their wont to do when they are in the minority, one can be assured that they will have to dance about the recruitment woes with delicacy and more refined speech. For a strong economy is a good thing; and thus, low recruitment numbers indicate something that is not baleful, but good.

My sense is that the reason recruitment is down is because the War on Terror is having the effect the Bush Administration intended. That effect is rooted in a revision of the Containment Policy of the Truman Doctrine. That policy was initially drafted to contain the flow of communism, to resist it from expanding. Prior to the Iraq War, Democrats and numerous peaceniks called for the US, with the UN, to "contain" the Saddam Hussein regime, and not do battle with it. In fact, French officials felt that Hussein was indeed contained, and had been for years.

But the Bush Administration tweaked that idea: Instead of containing the "regime", the Administration chose to oust it, and in so doing, it aimed to contain the "fight", or at least the "threat". And, at least in the most cursory assessment, that fight has been contained rather well.

Thus, my sense is that those families whose children might be readily disposed to join the military actually see the fight contained in the Middle East, and not running loose in the streets of New York. Moreover, I think it can be argued that low recruitment numbers not only prove this general optimism, they indicate that the majority of American familiies that support the military believe indeed that America is "safer now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power."

And I am confident that if Americans felt themselves threatened (irrespective of sundry polls that suggest they do feel threatened), military recruiters would have no problem filling quotas. If there is another attack in America like that which assaulted our souls on 9/11, flags will unfurl and patriotic songs abound.

I think low recruitment numbers are a good sign of good things, though I know, to some, my saying so is just more Irish Bull.

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