In calling for such an increase, President Bush said the US military must be positioned to deal with terrorists for a generation to come. The White House has some reason to believe that a call for a larger military may not be overly controversial. In the past, Democrats in Congress have called for such a move. In part, this reflects their criticism that the war in Iraq has been prosecuted with too few US troops, and that the pace of rotations in and out of Iraq is such that the Army is now close to breaking.

For more than a year, Schulz, 59, has worked for Serco Inc., a company hired by the Army to test how well private headhunters do compared with the enlisted men and women who do the job. If the sales pitch works, the Army gets a new recruit, Serco gets paid and Schulz is rewarded. In July, he received a bonus of nearly $10,000 from Serco after signing up nine recruits.

The Army National Guard and Reserve posted their worst monthly recruitment efforts since last summer, falling well short of their goals for April.

According to Major Mark Spear, who commands 44 Army recruiters covering more than 50 communities north and west of Boston, the urge to serve has waned since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. After 101 percent of his area's enlistment goal was reached in fiscal 2003, the numbers dipped to 84.4 percent in 2004, fell to 55.7 percent in 2005, and stand at 45.2 percent for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June. Bush's plan for stemming illegal immigration by using National Guardsmen in a support role called for 2,500 troops to be on the border by June 30, and 6,000 by the end of July. But National Guard officials said Thursday that they probably won't reach the 2,500 target until early to mid-July and won't make the 6,000 deadline, either.

When Army Reserve Capt. Bradley E. Schwan sought to resign his commission last year, he thought that getting out of the Army would just be a matter of filing his paperwork. His eight-year service obligation was over. He was ready to move on to a law career. But the Army had other ideas.

As troops fight in Iraq and as America debates whether to tighten or loosen immigration controls, tens of thousands of immigrants -- not all of them legal -- are following a time-honored road to citizenship by serving in the armed forces. The prospect of swelling military ranks with foreigners, even those who go on to become citizens, alarms some advocates of tougher immigration rules.

The Navy and Air Force are training their sailors and airmen for war duty far from the seas or skies: jobs typically performed by a strained Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Guard officials argue that Iraq showed that their units were not given enough resources and said the Army must ensure they have sufficient training, soldiers and equipment if it intends to deploy them regularly. Although the Guard has 34 combat brigades on the books, only about 15 were considered capable of overseas service. Iraq showed that even those required significant upgrades of equipment and training before they could be sent to war.

Despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than 1 in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out. Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on the front lines while on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, with little or no counseling or medical monitoring.