However, do the old Gray Lefties of that paper even read their own stuff? Go to the 12^th paragraph in the very same article and read:

In 2001, but before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 9.3 percent of the Army's young officers left active duty at their first opportunity. By 2002, the number of those junior officers leaving at their first opportunity dropped to 7.1 percent, and in 2003, only 6.3 percent opted out. But the number grew to 8.3 percent in 2004 and 8.6 percent in 2005.

That's right, before 9/11 9.3% left active duty and now, at the very height of the most fierce fighting in Iraq there are fewer, only 8.6%, leaving. If the NY Times was not so blinded by hatred of George Bush the headline should have ran, "Young Officers Leaving Army at a lower rate than before 9/11". But that would have been a positive headline, eh?

So fewer military men are leaving now, during war, than before 9/11 when we had PEACE! Yet the NYT and MSM are whining, "oh the tragedy - the droves and droves of men failing to re-enlist - oh my God!!!!!!"

Rags like the NYT are the same ones that moan and bitch about the high numbers of military deaths in Iraq ignoring the known statistics that annual military casualties now are less than the number that died during the peaceful reign of the pacifist Carter.

Blog, Lies, Damn Lies, and (MSM) Statistics

Even during the (per MSM) Utopian peacetime of Bill Clinton's term, we lost 4302 service personnel. H.W. Bush and Reagan actually lost significantly more personnel while never fighting an extensive war, much less a simultaneous war on two theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan). Even the dovish Carter lost more people during his last year in office, in 1980 lost 2392, than W. has lost in any single year of his presidency.

In 2004, more soldiers died outside of Iraq and Afghanistan than died inside these two war zones (900 in these zones, 987 outside these zones). The reason is that there are usually a fair number that die every year in training accidents, as well as a small number of illness and suicide. Yet the MSM would make you think that US soldiers are dying at a high number in these zones, and at a significantly higher number than in past years or under past presidents. This is all simply outright lies and distortion.