U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 5 months ago
These are tough times for military recruiting. Almost across the board, the armed forces are experiencing large shortfalls in enlistments this year — a deficit of thousands of entry-level troops that is on pace to be worse than any since just after the Vietnam War. It threatens to throw a wrench into the military’s machinery, leaving critical jobs unfilled and some platoons with too few people to function.
But longer-term demographic trends are also taking a toll. Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years. And shifting attitudes toward military service mean that now only about one in 10 young people say they would even consider it.
To try to counter those forces, the military has pushed enlistment bonuses as high as $50,000, and is offering “quick ship” cash of up to $35,000 for certain recruits who can leave for basic training in 30 days. To broaden the recruiting pool, the service branches have loosened their restrictions on neck tattoos and other standards. In June, the Army even briefly dropped its requirement for a high school diploma, before deciding that was a bad move and rescinding the change.
The Army is the largest of the armed forces, and the recruiting shortfall is hitting it the hardest. As of late June, it had recruited only about 40 percent of the roughly 57,000 new soldiers it wants to put in boots by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
Even with that much cash, there’s still a shortfall of recruits, and the ones they’re getting stand a larger chance of being subpar.
But they’re being dishonest about why. This does a better job of explaining it.
Imagine you are an eighteen-year-old, white, Christian male in Georgia with a family history of military service. As you progressed through your teen years, you watched Confederate statues being torn down and military bases being renamed, endless media and elitist demonization of your culture as racist and deplorable and backwards, and military and civilian leadership that thinks diversity and inclusion (i.e. fewer white men) is best thing since sliced bread. Would you volunteer? Identity politics works both ways. Trash my tribe and I won’t associate with you, let alone risk my life. It shouldn’t be a shock, then, that those expressing a “great deal of trust and confidence in the military” dropped from 70 percent in 2018 to 45 percent today.
The long-term health of the all-volunteer force that began in 1973 now appears to be in serious jeopardy. The general public’s declining connection and trust in the nation and its institutions paired with the elites’ incessant culture war targeting the very Americans who traditionally served in the highest numbers spells trouble.
Combine this with some 60,000 enlisted men and officers who don’t want to take the debilitating jab, who may soon be fired, and it all makes for a terrible situation of the U.S. military.
This is basically very easy to understand. Patriots don’t want to serve in a woke military. The woke don’t want to serve in a patriotic military where instead of job training they may get sent to fight in whatever latest foreign misadventure the rulers see fit.
It’s all very logical and predictable and by design.
On July 16, 2022 at 11:39 pm, George 1 said:
Without even looking into it very far, I think it is safe to say that those 60,000, are probably the best soldiers in the military.
They are certainly the smartest.
On July 17, 2022 at 12:20 am, Dan said:
All part of the plan. The DECADES long plan to destroy America.
On July 17, 2022 at 1:09 am, Aesop said:
I haven’t deep-mined it, but I heard the legion of the unvaxxed and unwilling runs closer to 260K. (That may include reservists and Notional Guard units.)
Either way, that would literally decimate the military, removing well over 10% of all personnel currently under obligation.
And with Big Green only hitting 40% of goals, in 3 years or less, either we go back to a draft Army, or the Army becomes the ceremonial 3rd Regiment at Arlington National Cemetery, and the Navy and Air Farce all go into mothballs.
Fun times.
On July 17, 2022 at 8:16 am, Papa Sierra said:
Good. Fewer real men who might be used for nefarious purposes. Like Washington and many others, I fear a large standing army. The US is blessed with two large oceans and two weak neighbors. We need an active, albeit smaller, navy and Air Force, but most of the army and marines should be reserves. This will make it more difficult for our feckless politicians to meddle with other countries. And we can no longer afford a large military because we’re broke.
And I hate to say it but I kinda hope that Biden is successful in starting a war with Russia. Let the army try to fight them with the 4th intersectional brigade full of jabbed myocarditis “soldiers”.
On July 17, 2022 at 10:27 am, I R A Darth Aggie said:
Very few of the woke would deign to serve even in a woke military, if they can pass the physical requirements.
On July 17, 2022 at 11:20 am, Frank Clarke said:
http://dispatchesfromheck.blogspot.com/2013/08/over-there.html
http://dispatchesfromheck.blogspot.com/2019/12/another-reason-to-oppose-war.html
On July 17, 2022 at 12:38 pm, Rivenshield said:
This is, as our host points out, not incompetence. It is malice. The military is being slowly. clumsily, but surely molded into a force fit to be deployed against the American people:
https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jul/11/adam-schiff-wants-pentagon-rule-would-block-congre/
On July 17, 2022 at 1:51 pm, Papa Sierra said:
Physical fitness requirements have already been lowered to allow women into combat units, and now you are required to shower with trans people.
On July 17, 2022 at 2:41 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Re: “And with Big Green only hitting 40% of goals, in 3 years or less, either we go back to a draft Army, or the Army becomes the ceremonial 3rd Regiment at Arlington National Cemetery, and the Navy and Air Farce all go into mothballs.”
Or, the deep-state policy wonks get something for which they have lusted for years – namely, an American foreign legion. Dramatic declines in enlistment and retention numbers provide the perfect excuse for creating an American counterpart to the famed French Foreign Legion, i.e., a military force whose personnel are drawn from the ranks of foreigners.
Being foreigners, they will have no loyalty to the nation or its founding ideals, per se, and will follow the orders of the officers appointed over them, even if those officers were to order them to fire upon American citizens, for example, or round them up and put them into stockades and prison camps.
Since these recruits will not be American, they will have few or no rights under our laws, so can be used and abused as their overlords see fit, and then discarded. Should the recruit make it through his seven years of enlistment or what have you, he’ll then be granted “citizenship” by the state.
In essence, these men will be mercenaries by another name. Empires and nation-states in decline have made us of them many times before in history. Should it come to pass here, it will be yet another sign of our status as a failed or hollow state.