9/11 Still Resonates for Some Recruits

9/11 Still Resonates for Some Recruits
Sep 11, 2012
Military.com
by Richard Sisk

When the planes hit the World Trade Center, Caitlin Stubbs of Sergeantsville, N.J. was a 6-year-old on vacation with with her family in California.

She remembers that her parents wouldn’t let her watch the TV, and she remembers learning later that her father would have been on business in one of the Twin Towers if not for the California trip.

The memory of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that killed 2,753 in Lower Manhattan, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 in Shanksville, Pa., may have faded as a motivating factor for young people thinking of joining the military. But for Stubbs, it’s still personal.

“If I could, I’d go Recon,” said the 17-year-old, who has signed up with the approval of her parents to report to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C. later this year.

The Marines don’t allow women to serve in its Force Reconnaissance teams of special operators. She has set her sights on joining one of the Female Engagement Teams operating in Afghanistan. The teams reach out to women who are barred by tradition from speaking with unrelated males.

Eleven years after 9/11, about 12 percent of potential recruits still cite the terrorist attacks as a factor that made them want to join. Contrary to popular belief, recruiting offices didn’t fill up after 9/11 like they did after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A modest rise in enlistments followed 9/11, but that increase quickly dissipated as the nation got caught up in two grinding wars.

By 2006, the services were missing recruiting goals. They began lowering standards and offering enlistment bonuses to draw volunteers. In 2003, 94 percent of Army active-duty recruits had high school degrees. Four years later that number had fallen to 82 percent, according to the Army Recruiting Command.
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