Recruitment into the all volunteer U.S. Army has gotten so bad that even though the service revised its recruitment goals downward for May, it missed the lowered goal by 25 percent.

The New York Times is reporting that on Friday, the Army will announce that only about 5,000 new troops were recruited last month. Their original goal was 8,050 for May, but the Pentagon quietly lowered the goal to 6,000 earlier this year.

The issue hits home even to Americans who don’t read a newspaper or watch the news. Anyone with a teenaged boy in the family or among their friends knows that registering for the draft is still a requirement for every young man in the United States on his 18th birthday.

In fact, last year, the Selective Service registered 15.6 million young men between 18 and 25 years old.

As crises heat up in and around Iraq, in North Korea, Africa and around the world, the Administration faces an increasingly skeptical public when it issues its denials that a draft is in the works. When asked about the issue at a recent , Secretary of Defense gave this typical response:

“Some people are running around saying we ought to go back to the draft. …. I’ll tell you, that is one of the worst ideas I can imagine. We don’t need to draft people. We’ve got plenty of people,” he said during the April trip. “We sure as the dickens don’t need a draft.”

Shorter: Who are you going to believe, America – me or your lying eyes?