Interest high in military, but few are signing up.(Chicago Tribune)

CHICAGO _ A generation ago, Howard Hammond's father-in-law talked him out of joining the military during the Vietnam War.

On a recent day, Hammond sat in an Air Force recruitment office on Chicago's North Side, trying to persuade his son to enlist.

"I think he'll be good at it," Hammond said as Dustin, 20, watched a video about boot camp. "They need people now."

It is not an easy sell. In the days since terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, interest in the armed forces has skyrocketed. Enlistment, however, has not.

Officials of all four branches of the military say they received a flood of calls, office visits and clicks on their Web sites. But few people are actually joining.

The lack of enlistments has led some to question young Americans' patriotism, but others say it is difficult to draw conclusions.

Because the government has capped the number of soldiers in the military at 1.4 million, a goal reached weeks before the end of the fiscal year Sunday, some say there is little incentive for recruiters to sign up new recruits.