The U.S. Armed Forces all are on target to surpass their enlistment goals this year, and area recruiters say the big reasons are the sluggish economy and a desire for college money -- not necessarily a surge in patriotism after Sept. 11.

"Nobody's come in and said, 'We want to do something for our country,'" said Petty Officer Matthew Enos, a Navy recruiter in Cape Girardeau. "They're talking about needing a job or money for college. Patriotism hasn't changed as far as high school kids around here."

Enos said that the patriotic boost is primarily coming from veterans who "have been there and seen it before."

He said patriotism may impact the main recruiting age -- late teens and early 20s -- but he said they're less likely to verbalize it as a reason they're joining.

Locally, he said the Navy is 20 percent ahead of its goal.

Capt. Christopher A. Burns, commander of the Cape Girardeau Recruiting Co., said the Army has seen more interest since Sept. 11, but added it's difficult to gauge how big a factor that is.

"There's been a quite a bit of interest in the Cape Girardeau area," he said. "We have met our mission goals already as a whole. But, honestly, we haven't had a mad dash of young men and women coming in saying they want to do their part on the war on terrorism."

But Burns said that isn't a slight against those who are signing up for other reasons.

"I'm not sure every kid we talk to is in tune with the world situation," he said. "They know it's going on, and we do a good job of explaining it to them."

The Air Force and Marine Corps also say they're meeting their enlistment goals after a recruiting slump in the late 1990s.

That slump prompted all the services to increase the number of recruiters and boost advertising. The Army ditched its old "Be All You Can Be" slogan last year in favor of "An Army of One."

The economic slump also has had an effect. The Army estimates that about 3,000 of its recruits joined because of the economy. The Army's nationwide goal is 79,500 new troops for the year ending Sept. 30. The Army already has recruited 19,000 people toward next year's goal.

The Navy and Air Force have commitments for enough recruits to meet their goal, though not all the recruits have entered basic training. The Navy's goal is 46,500 and the Air Force's target is 37,283. The Marine Corps' goal is 38,642, and the service had signed up 31,523 by July 31.

A new Army initiative to recruit people directly into its special operations forces has been a success, according to the U.S. Army Web site. Those elite soldiers have been key to the war in Afghanistan working with anti-Taliban forces on the ground and guiding pilots to their targets.

The goal this year was to recruit 400 people into the special operations forces, and 445 people have joined so far.

smoyers@semissourian.com

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