Posted on 10/17/2017 11:11:45 AM PDT by PROCON
Army Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the Army's chief of staff, administers the oath of enlistment to 26 recruits in New York City, April 1, 2009.
The military is facing a growing recruiting crisis: 71% of Americans between 17 and 24 can’t meet the minimum criteria for service, which places the burden of service on an ever-small and shrinking pool of troops with a family history of joining the military.
At an Oct. 12 Heritage Foundation panel in Washington, D.C., Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and former Air Force one-star general told attendees “the single most important ingredient to readiness is the constant flow of willing volunteers.”
Yet with less than a third of the population eligible for service, “it’s a red flag for our country,” Bacon said. “If we don’t turn this around, where does the world’s strongest military recruit from?”
Some quick math shows what the services are up against. For the Army, the recruiting goal for the coming fiscal year is roughly 180,000 new soldiers. According to a detailed analysis by Army Times, only 9.7 million out of the 33.4 million Americans between 17 and 24 meet the Army’s minimum standards. The reasons for disqualification range from failure to meet weight and fitness standards, misconduct, medical issues, mental health, and substance abuse concerns.
Once you take into account whether or not the remaining 9.7 million are enrolled in college — and that the Army doesn’t want the bare minimum for its future soldiers — the recruiting pool shrinks to just 1.7 million. And that’s before you get to those who are even interested in enlisting. What you’re left with is just 136,000 potential recruits interested in joining out of the original pool of 33.4 million, Army Times reports.
(Excerpt) Read more at taskandpurpose.com ...
That the universities have driven ROTC chapters off campuses and the Left has destroyed the Boy Scouts should concern everyone about the present and future of national defense.
I’m ineligible due to the fact I take anti-seizure medication. Nevermind how pathetically out of shape I am.
Oh, and I’m 32 so I’m pretty long in the tooth for the military.
I was super skinny in basic. Weighed 125 lbs and the guys ahead of me and behind me in my squad were both about 15 lbs overweight. Every single meal the DI’s would short them and give me their share. Ended up gaining 15 lbs in basic and then had a late growth spurt at about 19 where I finally filled out. Went in with 37 chest and 27 waist. 2 years later I had 41 chest and 29 waist.
Most young men now have been fed ADD meds because of feminist anti-boy teaching practices. Military won’t take kids with a history of psychoactive drugs.
Yes, just another downside of the high-tech generation.
Yep - I gained 20 lbs in bootcamp.
3 squares a day and LOTS of exercise...
Not to mention the West Point crisis.
Perhaps that's a recent rule because my nephew, (on the clueless SIL's side), was drugged early on and joined the Army about 8 years ago.
You can get waivers, but it’s a long process and it depends on the diagnosis.
I wonder if the other services are having the same problem, ‘cause the Army would be my LAST choice to enlist. That’s why they needed a draft.
Basic does break you down and build you up; but, the problem is after that where you’re given freedom and not forced to run and march miles a day.
I was in the Navy from 2002-2008, and the amount of morbidly obese people in the Navy was shocking to me. I doubt it’s gotten any better.
The Marine Corps. is the only branch that still enforces “military appearance” with passion.
When I was growing up we spent after-school and Saturday hours in empty lots and at a nearby school or park field playing pickup baseball, boys and girls together. We spent time at playgrounds which were not only for little kiddies in those days (i.e. trapezes, rings and other equipment).
We walked a mile to the bakery or the drug store and back for mom a couple times a week afer school. We walked or biked to school, even high school, even in winter through snow. We swam in the local public pool. We were, in the main, lean kids....and fit.
Nowadays, almost every single ElHi kid I see in a store, or on the street or hanging in the mall is walking around with a toy glued to his/her ear or in-hand. I drive past parks and playgrounds on weekends, and they are deserted.
Thank God many kids today are involved in some athletic or after-school activity program or other, but the vast majority today are living lives texting with friends, hanging out here and there chatting with friends (texting all the while) or sitting at the computer whiling away their leisure hours on vacuous social media sites instead of participating in any type of healthy exercise.
Many of their parents are just as bad...and we all know it as we see it almost every day we go out somewhere. Yesteday at Publix, a woman shopper was so engrossed in her phone conversation in the middle of an aisle she didn't even notice she was blocking movement for three different people with carts. She finally, and grudgingly, moved so we could pass.
Our society, younger and older, is becoming self-absorbed and neurotic. The military will find things getting tougher rather than easier in regards to recruitment, male and female alike.
Leni
I keep suggesting a very low cost way to raise the quality of enlistees. The three big problems are overweight, out of shape, and illiteracy.
Get a patch of land, surround it with a fence. Put wooden barracks, an admin building, and a mess hall in it. The whole place is run by veterans.
Prospective enlistees who do not make the grade are on a three month cycle. Overweight are on an individualized restricted diet. They and the out of shape are on a PT regimen. They jog everywhere they go. Starting slow, they end up exercising in one way or another for six or so hours a day.
The illiterate enlistees spend their time in the classroom, with some time to exercise to stay in shape.
They wear civilian clothes they brought with them. They cannot leave the camp until they are done, one way or another. Any screw ups or other fails and they are kicked out with no chance to enlist.
The veterans and camps themselves are rated on how many of their graduates make it through basic training. So they don’t just get them by the standards, they have to motivate them to succeed.
As they increase the quality of enlistees, it will also raise the quality standards of basic training.
Another disturbing thought is that those who are of military age now have grown up having subversive and degenerate liberal propaganda drilled into their heads by public schools and the entertainment and news media.
The Army isn’t for everyone. For one thing you have to have a higher IQ than a Marine recruit would have. :-)
It sure wasn’t for me. I joined the Navy, and the last year I was in proved to be the best year of my life. Oh, would I do it again!! LOL
I went to Basic in '88 ("Be All You Can Be" Army,FT, Benning) and we had just one fat guy who died on a long run (God rest his soul)and had a few guys who were jail or Army. I believe a few went Ranger and had fine careers. The new "Army Strong" era has military advances that are incredible but overall, the recruits outside of Infantry and SF etc. are just bodies to fill MOS. After 9/11 the recruiters would take anyone and later Obama took a big Obama on the military. It's time to refit and tool for future war.
How old s the fat guy in shorts ???
Leni
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