Monday's New York Times once again finds a way to spin military numbers in a less-than-honest way to make the situation in Iraq appear worse than it is. Last year, when various military branches were failing to make their (increased) recruiting targets, it was front page material. A few months later, when recruiting goals were being made (and exceeded), the story was buried inside.

Likewise, today's article warns us of the large numbers of captains leaving the Army at their earliest opportunity.

Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate
By THOM SHANKER
Published: April 10, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 9 — Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.

It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.

Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning.

Helpfully, the article comes with a chart which points out that the numbers of young officers leaving is still below what it was at the end of the Clinton administration. It's also worth noting that while the article says that senior officers are "alarmed" at the departures, no one is quoted as actually saying that.

The article also includes the obligatory bash on the Army's recruiting targets.

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Army has had a far more difficult time in its recruiting than the other services, because the ground forces are carrying the heaviest burden of deployments — and injuries and deaths — in the war.

Of course, when it comes to what this article is about -- captains -- it's not much of an issue. According to icasualties.org, of the more than 2,200 American servicemen who have died in Iraq since the invasion three years ago, only 33 of them were U.S. Army captains who dies as a result of hostile fire.

What's truly interesting about this article is that it would be so easy, and perhaps more informative, to simply flip the entire article around and make it a very pro-Army piece. You see, the really interesting (and counterintuitive) part of the piece is what the Army is doing to keep young officers.

For young officers receiving their commissions in 2006, the Army will guarantee slots in the most sought-after branches of the service — aviation, armor or intelligence, for example — in exchange for an extra three years in uniform.

Similarly, if a young officer wants an initial posting to a desired location or an opportunity to earn a master's degree, the Army will guarantee either choice in exchange for three more years of active duty.

The West Point graduating class of 2006 responded at levels even higher than anticipated by senior officers at the military academy, with 352 of the 875 seniors — 40.2 percent — signing on to the program as they approached the date in late May when they would be commissioned as second lieutenants.

"It is an amazing response," said Lt. Gen. William J. Lennox Jr., the West Point superintendent. "It has exceeded how I thought the class would respond."

Across the entire Army this spring, 3,420 newly commissioned junior officers are expected to enter active duty, according to the Army's personnel office. Of those, 1,124 — about one-third — have agreed to serve an extra three years in uniform under the new program.

According to Army statistics, 718 signed up to choose their career track, 289 contracted for the graduate school opportunity — 257 of them from West Point — and 117 wanted to pick the location where they, and their families, would be based.

The graduate school program was carefully structured to keep officers in uniform even beyond the extra three-year commitment.

After completing a master's degree program, an officer also has to repay the Army with three months of service for every month back in the classroom. This could push some officers beyond an automatic 8 years of service, toward 12 years — at which point, goes the thinking of the senior officers who devised the program, they may decide to stay in for a full 20.

Of course, if the reporter led his story with this program and how successful it is, it wouldn't have made the nytimes.com front page. Before Vietnam, I suspect that the retention program would've been the news and the slight uptick -- but still historically low -- in the numbers of captains leaving the Army would've been buried deeper in the story. There's a herd mentaility nowadays in the press that the only news out of Iraq is bad news and the reporting reflects that.

The Army has done an ingenious thing to keep smart and talented officers -- unfortunately, you'll have to read beyond tomorrow's jump to find out about it.

*UPDATE* USA Today reports today that the Army overall is surpassing its retention goals.

The Army was 15% ahead of its re-enlistment goal of 34,668 for the first six months of fiscal year 2006, which ended March 31. More than 39,900 soldiers had re-enlisted, according to figures scheduled to be released today by the Army.

Strong retention has helped the Army offset recruiting that has failed to meet its targets as the war in Iraq has made it harder to attract new soldiers. The Army fell 8% short of its goal of recruiting 80,000 soldiers in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, although it is exceeding its goal this year. Army recruiting figures for the first half of the year are to be released today.

The Army has met or exceeded its goals for retention for the past five years, records show. It was 8% over its goal for 2005, and 7% ahead of its targets for 2004. The number of re-enlistments has exceeded the Army's goal by a larger margin each year since 2001.

Why don't you get that information in the New York Times?