The U.S. Army set its recruiting sights on “a few good men” and that’s just what it’s getting – a few. Too few.

In May, for the fourth month in a row, the Army fell short of its recruiting goals, according to the Defense Department. The good news for the Pentagon was that the Marine Corps, which had also struggled to meet its targets, landed 61 recruits to spare. But the Army was more than 1,600 short.

Arguably, an improving civilian job market has contributed to the problem, but the Navy and Air Force meet their enlistment goals. Most of the nearly 1,700 American military personnel who have died in the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq have come from the Army, including National Guard and Reserve units, and Marines, which do the ground fighting. As the war has continued and the casualty lists have lengthened, those two branches’ ability to attract new volunteers has ebbed.

A Defense Department survey taken last November showed that the percentage of parents willing to recommend military service to their kids had dropped from 42 to 25 since August 2003.

Re-enlistment figures are acceptable among those whose terms are expiring. Interesting but not surprising. In an all-volunteer military, longevity generates incentives in the form of higher pay and vested pension benefits. In time, though, the ranks of career soldiers and Marines will have to be replenished, meaning the armed forces can’t take the enlistment shortcomings lightly.

Apparently they haven’t.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Susan Paynter recently recounted the tale of a Sedro-Woolley teen who was hounded by Marine recruiters and ultimately lured to what was billed as a “chin-ups” contest for hip prizes but turned into a grilling sales pitch. At one point, as Paynter tells it, the boy had his cell phone taken away so he couldn’t contact his family. It took an attorney to get it back along with some papers he unwisely signed.

An anomaly? Maybe, but reports of underhanded recruiting techniques are so widespread that the Pentagon recently shut down recruiting offices for a day to conduct refresher courses in ethics.

Government officials show no interest in a draft, so it would seem a strange time to arbitrarily limit the pool of candidates for recruitment. Yet the feeble recruiting numbers have not shaken the Pentagon of its resistance to gays and lesbians in uniform. And when the Pentagon sought the flexibility to use women in combat roles, Congress shot it down.

Something is out of kilter when confused teens are duped into signing enlistment papers while capable, willing citizens are denied the opportunity to serve.