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By Matthew Dodd

Legendary playwright William Shakespeare, penned one of my favorite quotes in his world famous play, Macbeth: "Nothing is but what is not." That quote tells me to beware of what appears on the surface to be blatantly obvious, and to not be surprised if the truth emerges as different, if not opposite, from first impressions.

According to some recent news stories, Marine recruiters have failed to meet their recruiting goals or quotas two months in a row after over ten straight years of monthly successes. Many in the news media interpret these unheard-of failures from a few short months ago as a sign that our global war on terrorism, and especially the war in Iraq, is unpopular with the general public and may potentially lead to the demise of our future over-worked and increasingly ineffective armed forces.

I want to briefly examine the public news media's assessments, and then explore the possibility that today's recruiting failures are actually the first necessary steps to our long-term success in the global war on terrorism.

The first news media assessment is that the drying up recruitment pool is a sign that the general public is growing increasingly dissatisfied with the global war on terrorism and with our on-going efforts in Iraq. The articles I have read about the recruiters' failures include quotes from recruiters and Marine Corps Recruiting Command officials that say that a greater percentage of parents are now actively restricting or prohibiting their children from pursuing the Marines as a legitimate post-high school option. Fears about extended combat deployments and the risk of death in those combat deployments seem to be foremost in those parents' minds.

In an article on March 2, Reuters reporter Will Dunham included the following quote from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee that addressed parents' concerns about their children being recruited: "What the recruiters are telling us is that they have to spend more time with the parents. And regardless of whether the individual American is 17 or 18 or 19, parents have influence - rightly so - on the decisions that these young men and young women are going to make."

Are these parental concerns based on facts or hype? Well, an article by New York Times reporter Eric Schmitt on Feb. 3 seemed to legitimize parents' concerns when it comes to their children being recruited to become Marines:

"[T]he Marines make up about 21 percent of the fighting force in Iraq now but have suffered 31 percent of the military deaths there, according to Pentagon statistics."

I am a career Marine officer but have never had a recruiting tour of duty. I have known and served with many Marines who were former recruiters. My understanding is that although the Marine Corps went over 120 straight months meeting its recruitment goals or quotas, it never rested from one month to the next. Of note, a three-year recruiting tour was actually considered 36 consecutive one-month tours, and the margin of success each month was sometimes too close to call until the last few hours of the month. Keep in mind that the Marines' recruiting successes over the last ten years have been largely during times of peace.

It is also my understanding that the Marine recruiters' margin of failure these past couple of months has been too close to call until the last few hours of the monthly reporting periods. I can see how the "swing votes" from slim success to slim failure could be explained by an increase in the number of fearful parents discouraging their kids from enlisting in the Marine Corps.

The news media's second assessment is that our recent recruitment failures may potentially lead to the demise of our over-worked and increasingly ineffective armed forces in the years ahead.

As I understand it, the media's logic is that increased general public eroding of confidence in the overall global war on terrorism will lead to fewer recruits. That trend in turn will lead to a constant over-use of our existing forces, causing greater morale and retention challenges for our existing personnel that will steadily reduce the quality of the all-volunteer force to the point where we will encounter a classic, self-perpetuating downward spiral of declining quality and quantity in the ranks.

But I have not heard nor read anything that would definitely validate the pessimistic logic described above. Being an optimist, and a firm believer in the U.S. armed forces' collective ability to adapt and overcome any obstacle over time, I disagree with the media's assumptions and inferred conclusions. Only time will tell if I, or the news media, had the more accurate logic.

Applying Shakespeare's warning, what if today's recruiting "failures" are actually the first necessary steps to a long-term success in manning the global war on terrorism?

Okay, so more parents are influencing more potential Marine recruits to delay or stop seriously considering enlisting in the Marine Corps. Sure, the overall number of recruits will go down. The immediate impacts will be that Marine recruiters will work even harder to produce more recruits, and/or the Marine Corps Recruiting Command will train and then put more recruiters on the streets to produce more recruits.

Either way, I see the overall percentage of recruits who are committed to the realities of today's Marine Corps - more frequent extended combat deployments to confront fanatical terrorists on their home soils - actually going up. As that percentage goes up, I believe it is a very good possibility that we will see the peacetime mentality being replaced by a more pure warrior mentality necessary to sustain the prolonged fight against our most-determined foe. To me, that kind of mentality shift is a good thing - a very good thing.

As an example of the peacetime mentality being confronted with the realities of today's warrior mentality situation, look at the comments of Pablo Paredes, the U.S. Navy sailor who chose to make a public media event out of his decision to abandon his fellow Marines and sailors on the pier where their amphibious assault ship was loading out to deploy to Iraq. In a March 6 statement in The Houston Chronicle, Paredes included the following insights:

"On Dec. 6, as my fellow sailors and Marines boarded the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, I decided that I could not join them. After years of serving in the Navy, I would not assent to participate in a mission I knew would lead to the loss of human life."

"There are no winners in war. There are only those who lose their life, those who lose someone close to them and those who lose their humanity - but none who win."

"In my time in the Navy, I was not killing or hurting anyone, just trying to make ends meet. Eventually, I understood that I could not be a part of an organization whose sole purpose is violence. I could not hold a job that required me to take other people's lives to make my own living. My uniform became a badge of shame, and I could 'study war no more'."

"During my time in the service, I always sought out those tasks where I knew I would not be called upon to push a button that would take a life."

"But when I was assigned to the Bonhomme Richard, I knew that the days of tunnel vision were over. The ship was taking Marines to Iraq, and boarding it would make me complicit in the violence they were bound for."

If meeting peacetime recruiting goals or quotas means recruiting folks who will abandon shipmates about to deploy into harm's way, who will call those who willingly go into harm's way losers, who will join the military because they are led to believe or choose to believe that the military is just a job, who will view their military uniform as something shameful, and who would knowingly shirk their specific military duties, then I would hope we never again meet our peacetime recruiting goals or quotas.

Put another way, I believe fewer uncommitted recruits may just result in a "culling of the herd" phenomenon where the quality of our forces will more clearly prevail over the quantity of our forces. I am not saying that we should not be concerned about missed recruiting goals, reduced force levels, and increased retention problems, but we should also not jump on the obvious conclusion because it fits nicely into some people's pre-conceived personal or political agenda, or because it is the easiest and neatest way to look at a very complex and emotional issue.

When it comes to passing judgment on or assessing the real impacts of the Marine Corps' recent two-month recruiting slump, I believe it would be wise to heed the observation of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus from 2,500 years ago: "Things love to conceal their true nature."