Posted on 12/30/2022 8:18:14 AM PST by rktman
The military’s standards for committed members and new recruits have dropped in 2022 as the services struggle to overcome challenges in filling the ranks.
Army recruiting plummeted in 2022, while the remaining services just made their recruiting goals for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, according to Department of Defense (DOD) data shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The military is scrambling to adjust policies in a way that attracts more recruits, prompting some lowering of physical fitness and academic standards that could negatively impact military readiness, a military expert told the DCNF.
“The military and the administration are trying to overcome the greatest recruiting challenge they have ever faced by reducing certain standards,” Thomas Spoehr, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told the DCNF.
The Navy opened up the service to more prospective sailors who score at minimum levels on entrance examinations that test physical and mental aptitude on Dec. 5, Cmdr. David Benham, a Navy Recruiting Command spokesperson, told Military.com. New guidelines will allow 7,500 recruits, or roughly 20% of the new active duty enlisted cohort, from the lowest acceptable aptitude level to join.
While the Navy met its fiscal year 2022 recruiting goal with a surplus of just 42 sailors, the target for 2023 raises the ceiling by an additional 4,000 new applicants, according to Military.com. Officials insisted the change did not reflect a lowering of standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
One of my most memorable experiences was the wetting down party given from the essence of the bilges of my ship by my senior chief when I made LTJG. His first action was the Battle of the Coral Sea. What a privilege for me.
I will never recommend anyone joining the armed forces as it currently stands.
I enlisted in 1976 and left to finish my college degree in 1981. Since I was five years old my best friend is a gentleman who happens to be black. We never thought about it and I never went through any type of race crap until I got to my Permanent Party base and was introduced to two black guys from Philly. They said they would never shake the hand of a Cracker. The only other black people I found were racist were the ones in the EEO office. They were black and some of the most racist people I ever have seen.
As far as duty during the awful Carter years: We had no funding. I was on Missile Combat Crew and we lived 40 feet underground with the keys to the Titan II ICBM’s and their nine megaton weapon. That idiot came up on the Primary Alerting System (from the NMCC) on a 4th of July and told us how much he supported us and had ensured we had everything we needed to do our duties. We were sitting down in the Launch Control Center in the middle of some Kansas farmer’s field, and the temps were around 100 degrees down there. While Carter was jabbering I was watching our propellant tank monitor hover around the pressure that would take our missile off Alert and this was because there was no money to upgrade the water chiller system that kept the complex, especially the Launch Duct, cool.
My whole crew was laughing and rolling our eyes while Carter lied to us and all the Alert forces.
It was a different time.
Crazy job you had. I was watching a documentary about that Atlas explosion...the way the guy talked about seeing that socket fall. As he talked about it, you could see from his face it was clearly replaying in his mind.
Falling in slow motion...clink....smack, hitting the rocket. I swear, I could almost see that happening in my own mind.
That was a Titan II down at Little Rock, AR, killing one person. I was stationed at McConnell in Wichita, KS. Two years before the Little Rock disaster we had the "Rock, Kansas" disaster. No explosion but over 14,000 gallons of oxidizer leaked, killing two people and destroying the complex. I volunteered and spent three days out there with the disaster team.
It was a dangerous job being on crew for that weapon system. We were authorized Hazardous Duty pay but it was never funded until after our leak at Rock. I know a lot of us that have serious health issues from living underground with that system and I have been affected as well, just not as bad. There were a lot of toxic substances down there that we inhaled or touched every Alert.
LOL, yes a Titan. I commonly switch things like that.
Yes, I can image missiles had nasty stuff.
I grew up on military bases and we were always getting into stuff. I remember going into an abandoned building and ripping a huge asbestos plaster shell off a pipe, so I could fling it against that wall where it would completely explode fill the room with powder and we were covered head to toe with it.
We found a pint bottle that was full of pure mercury. We took it home and played for about a year with it. Crazy.
Heh, it wasn’t hydrazine or anything like that, but damn, were we ignorant.
My bad Professor. Sury it dont mete yur gramatikil staindurds
I sure do. The army needs grunts far more than social worker graduates. I had a school chum that only made it through high school because of social promotion but he retired as a senior Master Sgt.
My first oath was in 1955.
Thanks for that. I was 8 then. 😂👍
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