Utah's rate of contribution to the Army was less than half the national average. Relative to the youth population in each state, only North Dakota and Washington, D.C., enlisted fewer soldiers into the Army in 2007, according to the nonprofit National Priorities Project, which released its fourth annual analysis of military recruitment data on Tuesday.

Alabama led enlistments, but the story there and in almost every other state was one of Army recruiters signing up fewer well-qualified recruits, according to the project's director, Greg Speeter.

Recruits are considered "high quality" by the Department of Defense if they have a regular high school diploma and score in the upper half of the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Seventy percent of recruits nationwide met that benchmark in 2007, down 13 percentage points from two years earlier.

Though the project has in past years let the Pentagon's data speak for itself, Speeter was unequivocal in detesting the war in Iraq, which he attributed as the root cause for lowered enlistment rates and standards.

"Young people are naturally thinking twice before signing up to fight an unnecessary war with no end in sight," he said in a statement.

Although the project used the Pentagon's own definition of "well-qualified" as a baseline for its reporting, Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith took issue with the way the information was presented.

"Every soldier who we put in the Army is qualified," Smith told The Associated Press. "We don't put unqualified people in the Army, but it's something we're watching."

In the past, demographic researchers have opined that Utah's low active-duty enlistment rate likely is tied to its predominantly Mormon population. Many male members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints go on a mission when they are 19 years old, a time when others are considering enlisting in the military. The state appears to fare better than average in its enlistment of National Guardsmen, but not enough to push the rate at which Utahns have served in the nation's ongoing wars anywhere close to the national average, according to a 2006 Tribune analysis of Pentagon deployment data.

mlaplante@sltrib.com