A Perfect Storm is Brewing in Army Recruiting

Two days ago, it was reported that the Army will fall short of its goal to recruit 80,000 new soldiers this year.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Why would a decent person join an organization that is so politically charged that their efforts can be destroyed by any number of liberal people at any time and without recourse??

Even in the 1980’s the USAF was passing out Article 15s like candy. I had a trainee come straight from tech school that had 3 of them already.

Considering what is going on in the world you should be happy not everyone feels the way you do. Our military is pretty necessary in my opinion. Thank goodness we still do have people willing to serve.

Every organization is politically charged and driven at this point- if they are not they are attacked until they change or sued out of business. PC is the name of the game everywhere.

People who are saying young people should not join the military because of the PC stuff- so where are they going to go to work that is not the same way? If they speak out against it in a civilian work place they lose their job or career or get lawsuits and even criminal charges if anyone can think of any. The company they work for is required to be PC, or not able to function.

Our military is a reflection of our society, always has been. We blamed the schools when they went left, now we blame the military? We let the left run things into the ground in every direction and now are blaming the military for the fall out it has been forced to deal with- brought to them by we the people who voted for all this- or didn’t vote against it or speak out, or stand up against it in large enough numbers.

Conservative college students are ridiculed, graded unfairly, and even tossed from class for speaking out against PC and yet most are still encouraging their kids to go to college, even insisting they go to college.

Not everyone is willing to serve in the military for whatever reason- or no reason at all and that is ok; but I don’t know where people expect this to end if enough are not willing to serve. I don’t know how to expect change if no one is willing to even try.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.