Recruiting problems for US Army may be worse than feared

Report leans toward women in combat - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - December 13, 2004:
"All-male FSCs [Forward Support Companies], the paper states, 'creates potential long-term challenge to Army; pool of male recruits too small to sustain force.'"

This article by Pentagon correspondent Rowan Scarborough examines Army efforts to sidestep a legal requirement to notify the Congress if it changes the policy that forbids putting support units containing women in the same location as all-male combat units, known to bureaucrats as collocation. This is precisely what the Army wants to do, placing FSCs as part of the headquartes of each combat brigade.

The issue is not whether it makes sense to collocate FSCs with the combat brigades they serve, It probably is a good idea to bring those support function under the brigade commander's direct authority since timely logistics is a key element of the fast-moving style of he modern Army. The question is whether we should have women in forward areas during combat. So far the Congress has said no; so, how can the Army say yes?

The sentence I quoted above is the real surprise here. It seems to contradict the airy assurances that we have no serious recruiting problems as we move into year four of the global war on terror.