Posted on 04/23/2018 6:06:51 PM PDT by pboyington
Two days ago, it was reported that the Army will fall short of its goal to recruit 80,000 new soldiers this year.
According to the Associated Press:
Army officials say the updated goal will be 76,500. Six months into the recruiting year the service has brought in just 28,000 new soldiers.
Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the main effort is to grow the Army to 483,500, as approved by Congress.
The struggle to meet this year’s higher recruiting numbers — which were a significant hike over last year’s recruiting mission of 69,000 — was expected, mainly due to the favorable American economy and increased competition from private sector employers who are able to pay graduates more money.
Maj. Gen. Jeff Snow, head of the Army’s recruiting command, predicted late last year that the higher enlistment goal would be difficult to meet this year, considering the combination of economic factors and the military’s need for recruits to pass strict physical testing that many young people can’t complete.
“This mission is going to be a significant challenge for the command,” he told The Associated Press in December. Meeting the increased mission this year, Snow said, could force the Army to take in more recruits who require waivers for marijuana use, low test scores or other more basic health issues.
Data on waivers issued this year was not available Friday morning. But, in December Snow said his goal for 2017 was to have fewer than 2 percent of the new recruits be considered “category four,” meaning they scored 31 or less, out of 99, on the aptitude test. Army leaders have also endorsed that 2 percent limit, even though the Defense Department allows up to 4 percent.
Defense officials have also complained that despite the last 16 years of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the American public is increasingly disconnected from the military, and they say many people have misperceptions about serving and often don’t personally know any service members.
No doubt, Snow has a tough job. He’s trying to create soldiers out of thin air and the only way possible to maintain the numbers is by cooking the books and counting re-enlisting soldiers as new recruits.
Eventually, those troopers who are re-upping will be leaving the service or retiring one day. The Army, like all organizations needs fresh blood.
And, they ain’t getting it.
Does Snow know a perfect storm is brewing with Army Recruiting? I doubt it. He’s in the eye of the PC hurricane which has moved up the Potomac and is centered over the Pentagon deluging it with social engineering hail.
Yes, the economy is getting better because of President Trump’s economic policies. But, the economy was booming in the 1980’s under Reagan and the military was swelling with recruits and with young people who wanted to become officers as well.
Army Recruiting also has to deal with a whole generation of Millennial recruits or wannabee recruits who are essentially made of Jello. Besides the fact that Millennial men are the weakest in American history, many are largely uninterested in joining the military.
In the Millennial world, it’s “Ask not what you can do for your country, it’s what everyone can do for you.”
And, that’s a problem…
Combine the Millennial generation’s patriotic lethargy and sense of entitlement with Baby Boomer and Generation X parents who never served and know nothing about the military.
The era of the American dad telling his son to join the Army because it will make you a man is over.
If that wasn’t a big enough problem for the Army, there’s another reason and perhaps the most worrisome one why it’s not meeting its recruiting goals.
In Middle America, there are still some Millennial men who are red-blooded patriots who, in prior times, would have been considering a military career, even a short-lived one before heading on to college. This last bastion of young men now view the Army as feminized to the point of no return.
Back in the 80’s, joining the military was still seen as a right of passage; something tough and macho to do.
How macho can an Army be that has lactating mothers expressing breast milk in the field?
Joining the Army is now longer seen as a right of passage to manhood. How can it be? Its ranks are filled with waddling women in Maternity Army Combat Uniforms.
Why would any young man want to go to Ranger School now, when Ranger School graduated Major Lisa Jaster, a 37 year old Mommy of two? If Mommies can make it now through what used to be some of the toughest military training in the world; what is the allure of going to Ranger School in 2018? Apparently, Ranger School has now graduated over a dozen women, yet no one from Congress has been given access to any records, including the Green Cards (Ranger School Report Cards) for any of the females. In fact, when Congressman Steve Russell requested the records, he was told they had been destroyed. Instead of the records and Green Cards, Russell was sent some half-assed white paper detailing how women were competing with men at Ranger School.
Yeah…
How about Special Forces? Sadly, that’s on its way to being flushed down the PC commode as well. A couple months ago, several members of the Special Forces Qualification Course cadre, in a scathing 14 page letter, revealed that there are no physical standards to become a Green Beret anymore. The Army dropped the standards to allow women to graduate. Why would any young man want to join the Army to one day serve in Special Forces, when your great-grandma could become a Green Beret?
Across the board, the Army and the rest of the services are shredding standards to accommodate women and in the process, they’re hammering a nail in the coffin of recruiting the type of men who served in the combat arms and special operations.
The Army is committing Hari-Kari. If anyone on active duty knows the real reason the Army isn’t bringing in recruits, no doubt they’re keeping silent.
To utter the truth in the Pentagon in 2018 is tantamount to committing blasphemy.
Mad Dog has no actual control over the PC military of today, I saw it begin with the USN long ago under Zumwalt-—long hair, beards, affirmative action promotions, losing privilege of rank, officers and chiefs calling everyone by their first names, and the list goes on until we get where we are today and only a fool thinks the rot will not continue.
Things will change quickly when the body bags are piled high enough.
If you want equality with men you need to be equal in all things, even dangerous pursuits.
Does the U.S. even need a large standing military at all?
I ask this question not in the context of military "needs" as they are presented in articles like this one, but in the context of the U.S. Constitution and the proper role of the Federal government.
The simple truth is that there is no constitutional justification for having hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops stationed all over the globe. If I join the U.S. Army tomorrow and my first assignment out of training is anywhere other than the southern border of the United States, then the U.S. Army should have an enlistment goal of ZERO.
IMHO At this point in history, the smaller the standing US army the better. Defense money is better spent on the Navy and Marines which has a predominately “outward” facing mission.
A standing Army can only lead to no good. A large well equipped Navy/USMC OTH is essential to national security.
Good job, sir. Well done, and thank you.
‘Retiring at the end ofthe month from After 32 years. Glad to go..’
thank you for your service...
“So you’d rather have the good ones sit it out and leave it to the weak ones you’re complaining about? Good strategy.”
In this political correct environment that we’re in, who do you think has the power? What do you think will happen to you if you express a totally normal opinion about a homosexual or woman getting special treatment? What does an 18 year male do when his homosexual company commander propositions him in boot camp? How do you handle working for someone not qualified for the position but promoted due to political correctness (I’ve got the t shirt for that one)? No thanks.
I have to agree with Suthener on this. I retired in 1995, but have kept working on-post in the legal field. The liberal, feminist, pro-homosexual atmosphere is simply poisonous. Spending days away from field/mission training to receive "training" in how to be accepting of homosexuals and their lifestyle, sexual harassment training, equal opportunity training ... all aligned to enforce the idea that straight men, and particularly straight white men, are not to be trusted, not to be believed, not to be worth anything.
It doesn't matter whether you're a newbie E-2 or within a week of retirement after 20 years: your future depends on how the Command is looking at the "flavor of the week" with respect to diversity, sex/gender, or race attitudes and how it will affect the commanders or play in the press.
For the last couple of years, I have been discouraging friends' children from going into the military, any Service. It's just too dangerous to risk your future against the threat of not being politically correct or having to stare down the threat of a court-martial for innocent situations arising from those types of interactions.
Patriotic Kids fear the politically correct climate
We have a family friend who is in Army training now six months in
He says it’s. a hot mess
Politically correct crap permeates everything
One big orgy of white girls with jungle fever
And thug life
Low discipline and morale
He went in wanting to study diesel and one day have his own shop
Now he’s entering combat groups trying to become a member of an elite branch of the Army combat bound not because he wanted to be a recon ranger courting danger to being with
But according to him that’s where the only real men are who act right like they give a shite
Instructors included
He got in. Fight with two guys stealing from his locker ...sounds like prison....he had to undergo anger consultation since he beat them and of course we know what color they were ..he’s very talented as a fist fighter
It’s been a disappointment to him
He now looks forward to Afghanistan ..lol...not exactly his plan when he joined up
He was orphaned at 12 within three years by a car wreck and then cancer
Both parents, he’s lived with us a bit
He hasn’t had a good life and we encouraged him to join mostly to attain college help in time
He’s headed to Fort Campbell now so we’ll be able to visit
I worry about his safety of course
God Bless him and those supporting him ........ Political correct leftists are corrupting every damn thing they can. A life long battle.
Really? As if the worse they will have to do is "stare down the threat of not being politically correct"? Again, my question is, so you'd rather have the good ones sit it out and leave it to the weak ones you're complaining about? And where does that leave our military readiness? There are always challenges and roadblocks in life, I believe one of the things the military teaches is how to adapt and overcome. Sure, you can advise people to stay out of the service, but where does that leave us in the long run?
And that leaves us where as a country? The military is one of the places where people learn things are not always rosy in life and there are challenges, roadblocks and things we don't like all day long. It teaches how to adapt and overcome. But, just because we don't like something about it, we're going to advise others to stay out? Doesn't bode well for us, then. It will ultimately be our fault.
In combat, you can shoot back. Against PC Command, anything you say can and will be used against you. You can adapt and overcome against the enemy. You really can't against your own commanders.
We're still pretty much screwed either way: the military needs to be nuked from the bottom down to clean it up. At least this way the lives of countless straight and patriotic young men aren't ruined in the process.
I guess, in the end, we're just going to have to trust in God and the militia. Belonging to the organized military services is a suicide run ...
Don’t forget China’s 2 (used to be 1) child policy and if it is a girl, gone. They have too, too, many men and their culture has not decimated men into thinking they are worse than women.
2014= “Chinese Men Outnumber Women by 33 Million After Decades of Gender Bias”
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/gender-01222015125826.html
And do you think their Sec of Def when he is fired from the Corps will visit any of his Gold Star families?
The global Stalinist propaganda war is winning. Gotta get this pendulum to swing back to biological science instead of social psychology.
That’s a tough story. Morale sounds as bad as the late Vietnam era... Trump needs to get on this.
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