Posted on 07/27/2022 10:38:54 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Recruiting among the nation’s military branches is at historically low numbers as COVID, woke leaders and an anti-military culture are keeping young people away. President Biden’s debacle in Afghanistan is also sure to be on the minds of those thinking of joining up, with some wondering, “if the Commander-in-Chief won’t stand behind the military, who will?”
The Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve, meanwhile, in early July barred 57,000 troops from their duties and cut their pay and benefits. It’s no wonder people don’t want to serve.
“We are on the cusp of a military recruiting crisis,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) told Politico, citing Covid, obesity among would-be recruits, competition from the healthy civilian labor market, and an overall low interest in serving. “When Republicans take control of Congress in a few months,” he added, “averting the recruiting crisis will be a top priority of the Military Personnel Subcommittee.” Gallagher is the top Republican on the House Armed Services’ subpanel.
Politico writes that it’s “widely considered the worst recruiting environment since the end of the Vietnam War.” Here are the numbers:
The Army has reached 66 percent of its goal for the fiscal year ending in September, and the Navy is at 89 percent, according to data compiled from October 2021 to May 2022. Even with rates of 100 percent for the Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, that leaves the department [of Defense] with a total rate of just 85 percent.
Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva said in a 2018 speech that “only 1 percent of our population today will ever wear the uniform of this nation in any of its incarnations—soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, active, Guard or Reserve.” We ask a lot out of very few in this country. If recruiting numbers continue to drop, we’re in real trouble.
RedState has reported on the services’ desperate efforts to encourage more volunteers to join, with the Minnesota National Guard placing a $77,000 ad buy in an LGBTQ magazine, and the Army toying with the idea of dropping its requirement that enlistees have a high school diploma or GED, but then realizing what a stupid idea that was and backtracking. Military.com went to press Tuesday with the story of how the Army is giving recruits who fail to meet initial body fat and academic standards a second chance by launching two pilot programs to help them lose weight and/or improve their aptitude test scores.
We’ve also covered how the woke silliness currently being peddled by military leaders isn’t sitting well with soldiers and potential soldiers. Alex Parker reported on how the Army will reportedly force female soldiers to shower with biological males who identify as females, while the Navy will allegedly allow sailors to use whichever locker room suits their gender identity. There’s also a huge emphasis on race:
Woke ideology being instituted throughout our military is a grave threat to our national security.
When I was a soldier, I was taught to protect and defend the county I love – not that America is racist. This ideology has no place in our Armed Forces.
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) July 23, 2022
Writes Jeff Groom in Spectator World:
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. (Emphasis mine.)
Military brass is trying all sorts of things to change the dynamic, but so far nothing appears to be working. It’s a concerning situation, especially given that relations with China and Russia are not exactly friendly right now. I think the best bet would be to cool off on the woke agenda and just make young people watch Top Gun: Maverick.
One has to wonder how many Antifa and BLM are going in? Who applies for the FBI, CIA, ATF or Homeland any more? Patriots? To what?
I would say, wokeness is a major reason for the problem. It may not be the only reason for the recruiting problem, but it surely could be a BIG reason for it.
I’ve been out of the military for 20 years now but I see pictures of active duty members on the internet who are clearly overweight who would of have released if they didn’t loose the pounds back when I was in. But now I’m seeing them in the upper ranks. So clearly the standards have lowered.
Grand Dad remembers all too well getting smuggled back into the country, into Travis AFB at zero dark thirty, to avoid the antiwar protesters. (Who are now the elder statesmen in Congress.) We don't buy the "Thank you for your service..." BS. Where were they when we went came back?
Get out, and try to pick up the pieces, back to college, where it was safer to invent some fiction that we were in LA, working in a car wash, rather than 1 year in boot camp and AIT or BITS, a year overseas, and two more years at Pendleton? You were either a juicer, (drunk), or a doper. Anything else, you were out in right field.
Dad spent 3 years dusting radios at Lejeune, interrupted by a year in the Sand Box, or Down Range at some FOB, with ROEs that made you wonder why we were there at all, with the occasional IED that you couldn't respond to by flattening the nearby village.
These are the people who were at the Bleeding Edge, like his G'Grand Dad who waded ashore at Tarawa, and still jerked when a car backfired.
And now he's supposed to just roll over when some fairy that outranks him hits on him? (It's known as the Pink Mafia, and they run most bases and posts.) The kids who enlisted 4 years ago are bailing, when they aren't getting pushed out for refusing the Jab, and they are talking long and loud to their cousins and brothers and sisters.
A year and a half ago I intercepted a recruiter cold-calling one of my sons when he was still in high school. Told him, “Code Pink military should be recruiting at the gender studies department. Leave my son the f-— alone, or you’ll be sorry.”
I’m a USMC vet from a family with a tradition of military service going back to the American Revolution. None of my boys (five of them) showed any inclination to enlist, and I discouraged them every time it came up.
You raise a good point, I suspect sexual harassment imitated by a certain protected status group get swept under the rug.
The MAIN reason is JOE BIDEN. Who, in the world, would want to put THEIR life on the line for this thankless bastard? He cares NOTHING for America and he thinks people want to defend America for HIM? I do not even understand why his SS do not all get up and quit.
Some of us were just kids in high school. What exactly were we supposed to be doing when we had no jobs, no income, and no car?
I was appalled by what I saw on the TV when reports of that came in. And now I’m not supposed to thank our vets for their service when I could not do it then?
Go woke, go broke.
Even applies to the military.......
Better yet, reap what thou hast sown.
Maybe when Reagan was President. And during both Bushes. But now it's a job. So you don't see any patriots left.
I told my son, about that navy family tradition, forget it. It ends with me
How do you conquer a nation without firing a shot?
Put Democrats in power.
I would never recommend a person who believes as a classic liberal to join the military. It is woke and broke.
Wokeness is THE major reason.
If military brass doesn’t seem to have any brains or balls they’re gonna have a problem recruiting.
Libtardism corrupts everything it permeates
Under Biden the military has turned quite hostile to whites and Christians
Where I work there’s a kid who told me he’s enlisting with the U.S. Army because they offered him a $50,000 signing bonus. But they also told him he needed to lose 100 lbs. before he’d be allowed to join up. So yeah I guess there is a crisis.
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