Posted on 05/10/2021 6:35:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Bloomberg is out with a Monday report chronicling the sad state of affairs the US military has found itself in - notably trying to lure eligible recruits from Generation Z with a cartoon series dubbed "The Calling," which will run on YouTube during May and June.
As Bloomberg notes, "The Army—the U.S. military’s largest service—faces a complex set of problems: the eligible recruiting pool into all military services is small; and the newest generation of prospects, Gen Z, has had almost no contact or knowledge of the military, which has largely fought wars abroad since 2001. The Gen Z cohort grew up with technology, the internet, and social media."
The videos feature Emma, the self-proclaimed spoiled kid; David, the Hawaiian kid who at first didn’t let himself dream about becoming a pilot; Rickie, who grew up in a religious Haitian family in Florida; Janeen, a singer performing on cruise ships who joined the Reserves with the help of her Vietnam-veteran father; and Jennifer, born to first-generation Dominican immigrants, who worked long hours to make ends meet. -Bloomberg
It gets worse.
According to the report, almost 71% of those aged 17 to 24 - roughly 24 million out of 34 million people - are ineligible to join the military because of "obesity, lack of high school diploma, or a criminal record," according to Pentagon data.
In order to lure the eligible Gen-Z'ers, the Army will be spending $425 million on marketing, with the goal of recruiting 60,000 to 70,000 active-duty soldiers, along with 40,000-45,000 National Guardsmen, and 13,000 to 17,000 members of the reserve. To do this, prospective recruits will be served content on YouTube via 15-second trailer. If a person watches at least 10 seconds of the ad, they will see a two-to-three minute episode of the recruiting cartoon, followed by an invitation to hop over to the Army's website.
"Gen Z flips through social media like it is an Olympic sport, and in order to get them to stop their thumbs for a few seconds, you’ve got to surprise them," said Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, the Army’s chief of enterprise marketing. "The Calling has got a much more different look and feel than anything else than not only the Army has done—but nobody in the military has done something like this."
America's foreign adversaries must be laughing their asses off.
Only 29% of Generation Z eligible for military service because of obesity, lack of high school diploma, or a criminal record: Pentagon pic.twitter.com/BZHV9xnoG0 — zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 10, 2021
Even beyond that, they’ve also purged and rejected their traditional base of recruits.
The genetically enhanced Chinese Soldiers of our Chinese Overlords will protect their American Territory.
It is certainly not my father’s army anymore.
The Woke and the Joke ruined it.
The Chinese, I would guess.
If the only goal is to get our kids into shape for military service but is not military service in itself, what’s stopping us from doing this?
‘The Calling’ is positively satanic. It clearly says ‘White men, eat sh*t and die. The Army wants no part of you. We want a military of evil mercenaries, queers, identityless floaters, confused psychos and misfits who will be happy to murder Trump Americans en mass.
“Who Will Defend The Country in the Future?”
Younger people see nothing to defend here - and the open borders are one of the reasons.
We’re essentially conquered without a kinetic war as it is.
Maybe after we get the political & educational end of things straightened out & flying right side up, then we can work on getting the military back to what it should be. It might call for reinstatement of the draft as well.
With conscription there would be no need to draft them. We’d leave ourselves open to the absurdity of drafting cheerleaders while the fullbacks stay home. We’d have the opportunity to reverse the sexual integration of units, remove the romantic element and also raise physical fitness standards.
The goal is to make them fit for military service *prior* to their service itself. The better quality the recruits, the better the trainees, with much less need for *remedial* training, that basic training is not really designed to do.
A practical goal is to make the pre-camp recruits *better* than the typical recruits, so the word gets out that pre-training is the way to go for the majority.
Eventually, pre-camp can be improved by making up for missing schooling, such as literacy, and then can even incorporate classrooms for things like military history, culture and traditions. Subjects that normally take years to learn, if at all, when on active duty.
not at all absurd
they can be placed in logistics roles
armies need clerks and non-coms as well
Why would you want to put the romantic element on the combat team when a draft would provided all the men you need into the Army. We don't draft people into the Navy or Air Force but there would be an incentive to join as there was up to 1973.
I think they should have the Trump and Romney boys in that lineup.
Not quite what I was looking for. What I would target are those that are 20-50 pounds overweight, who have never exercised, and are generally borderline for health because of it. Smokers, drinkers, “otaku”-types who have spent years playing games on computers.
These are far more common among civilians. A pre-camp would go for a complete health rebuild. This is why they are all on individualized diets and six days a week exercise under supervision.
It could even have goal rewards for meeting and exceeding standards.
Once again, the higher this can raise the average for basic camp, the better their training there can be. And the cost to the military would be peanuts compared to about anything else.
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