VANISHING VOLUNTEERS.

The article focuses on the difficulty of the U.S. Department of Defense to recruit new personnel and to retain those who are already in the service. David S. Chu, under secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense for personnel and readiness, says that 2007 will be a challenging year for all the services. Security missions have led to an increased overseas deployments of the personnel since the September 11 terrorist attack, military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.