General Huly and other top Pentagon officials said that while recruiting efforts might be faltering at the moment, re-enlistment rates, especially among combat-hardened units, remained exceedingly strong.

General Hagee said the initial wave of bonuses had increased re-enlistment rates among infantry units, but Marine officials said they did not have specific figures readily available.

Additionally, re-enlistment rates were at an all-time low.

Admiral Zumwalt breezed through his four-year plan in three months, and then worked to improve the re-enlistment rates through a series of plain-talking memorandums called "Z-grams."

Long deployments were said to be causing divorce rates to go up and re-enlistment rates to go down.

So far, re-enlistment rates have been stronger than expected and have helped cushion the impact of the Army's recruit shortage.

That is more than the Army, at its present strength, can handle without paying a heavy price in future combat readiness and re-enlistment rates.

So far, that problem seems to be under control here, at least in terms of re-enlistment rates.

(Indeed, the Buffalo Soldiers had a lower desertion rate than white soldiers and a higher re-enlistment rate.)

Recruitment studies show that Hispanics' re-enlistment rates are also the highest among any group of soldiers.