A new poll shows the American public ranks the U.S. armed forces first in terms of trust among American institutions.
The American public’s pro-military bent, uncovered by a Gallup survey, could help the Army and Marine Corps meet recruiting goals and counter a trend that has been growing among moms and dads since the Iraq war began not to recommend military service to sons.
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“It does help in a general sense, and it speaks to the respect and integrity that the military as an organization engenders among the American public,” Curtis Gilroy, director of the Pentagon’s accessions policy office, told The Examiner.
Gallup polled Americans on 15 government, business and cultural institutions, asking, “Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one?”
The military scored 69 percent of those answering a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence. Next were small business (59 percent) and the police (54 percent). Ranking last was Congress at 14 percent.
The military’s high standing with the American public comes despite generally negative news media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon believes that coverage, and a death toll that exceeds 3,500 in Iraq, helps explain why parents are less inclined to recommend military service. The Examiner reported June 4 on an internal Pentagon survey that showed such a propensity by parents has dropped from 40 percent to 28 percent between 2005 and 2006. Mothers are even more reluctant to recommend military service, with the numbers willing to suggest a military career falling from 36 percent to 25 percent during that period.
But overall, the American public’s respect for the military should help recruiting, officials said.
“Parents, for example, can respect and support the military, but may not want their children to join,” Gilroy said. “I must say, though, that recruiting would be harder if the military were not so well respected.”
The military’s recruiting task got tougher this year. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced he was enlarging the Army and Marine Corps active forces _ which do most of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan _ by 92,000 to ease the stress on troops performing multiple deployments.
The Army missed its May recruiting goal by almost 400, but is 2,000 ahead of the pace needed to reach a target of 80,000 inductees this year. It is offering high schoolers larger signing bonuses and college tuition.
