It was the second-largest drop in a nation in which all but one state recorded a decline in the number of new recruits who had completed four years of high school, according to the National Priorities Project, which tracks military enlistment data.

The Army has sought, in past years, to ensure 90 percent of its recruits are high school graduates.

Just six in 10 Utah Army recruits were high school diploma holders in 2006, down from eight in 10 the year before.

Maj. Larry Croucher, commander of an Army recruiting company in Ogden, said he believed a variety of factors contributed to the decline in the number of high school graduates the Army recruited last year.

"I'm sure the economy plays a big factor in it. I'm sure the war plays a factor, too," he said.

Croucher noted the Army has paid special attention recently to recruits who have not obtained their high school diploma or passed a high school equivalency exam, setting up a Web site - www.march2success.com - specifically targeting those who need to pass a standardized test in order to qualify to join.

"Often, we run into people who may not have their high school degree but still want to serve their country," Croucher said. "We want to be able to help them."

Croucher said he believed the Army was obtaining quality recruits.

But were they "high quality''?

That's the term the Department of Defense uses to describe recruits who have both a regular high school diploma and scored in the upper half of the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Fewer than half of new Army recruits from Utah - and fewer than 40 percent from Nevada, which is also overseen by the Salt Lake Army Recruiting Battalion - were so designated, according to the National Priorities Project, which obtained its data from the Pentagon.

North Dakota was the only state to put more high school graduates into Army fatigues in 2006 than 2005, increasing its number of diploma-holding recruits by one-tenth of 1 percent. It also enlisted more high-quality recruits.

Overall, Army recruitment in Utah fell nearly 5 percent in 2006, a year in which the state continued its status as a place that, despite popular support for the nation's current wars, ranks among the bottom of contributors to the active-duty Army. The state ranked 47th in enlistments per capita in 2006, according to the National Priorities Project using data from the Department of Defense.

Arkansas led the nation in enlistments, putting about 25 out of every 10,000 enlistment-aged residents into an Army uniform - nearly three times the Utah rate.

The most recent numbers relate only to active-duty Army recruitment. Other military branches were not immediately available, though in past reviews Utah has ranked low in recruitment across all branches.

Utah's low recruitment numbers are often attributed to the state's largely Mormon makeup. Young men from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints often choose to accept a mission calling from their church, spending two years proselytizing at a time when many of their peers are considering military service. As an apparent correlation to the state's low enlistment numbers, Utah's contribution of service members in Iraq and Afghanistan ranks among the lowest in the nation, according to Department of Defense deployment records and a recent analysis by The Salt Lake Tribune. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, about 9,300 individual service members from Utah have deployed to the two combat zones, according to the Pentagon. That placed Utah 36th in per capita participation in the nation's ongoing wars.

And in active-duty deployments, Utah ranked second to last. Often called "the nation's reddest state," Utah has consistently led the nation in its support for President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. An August poll by The Tribune found 54 percent of Utahns support Bush on Iraq - a rate nearly 20 percent higher than national numbers collected during the same time. Anita Dancs, research director for the organization that collected the Army recruitment numbers, told The Tribune last month she feels Americans should take note of such distinctions.

"It's important for us to understand who the people are who we are sending to war," she said. "We all ought to know who they are and where they are coming from." Utah does appear to do better at recruiting reservists, however.

Utah National Guard officials reported in 2005 that the National Guard Bureau had asked them to hire more recruiters in an effort to increase enlistments as recruitment elsewhere was declining.

State-by-state data from the National Guard were not immediately available, but a Utah National Guard spokesman said enlistments of non-prior-service recruits in Utah increased nearly 30 percent in 2006.

mlaplante@sltrib.com