Dakota Beacon

America’s all-volunteer military force is 50 years old as of July 1 accounting for five decades without a draft. Defense of the United States has relied on that small 1% of our citizens who choose to serve in the armed forces. This in the face of an increasingly hostile and unfriendly world, i.e., China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and others.

Attracting new recruits to fill the ranks has become much more challenging. Recruiters face the twin challenges of historically low eligibility and low interest among young Americans. Just 9% of Americans aged 16-21 expressed a willingness to consider a military career in 2022 down from the pre-pandemic norm of 13%. A whopping 77% of young people in the U.S. would not be able to join even if they wanted to. Obesity, lack of education, and criminal or drug abuse records are the principle disqualifiers according to data from both the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, finding enough young people qualified to serve will be a moot point if they are not willing to serve in the first place. But this reveals only half of the problem. The other half constitutes retaining good people on active duty and stopping the exodus.

Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) serves as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) tasked with overseeing the authorization of the defense budget. Rogers understands that our military cannot rely on hardware alone to win wars. He is seeking input to determine if improvements in pay, benefits, and morale of troops can be made legislatively to better attract new recruits to join as well as to retain active duty personnel. The types of issues studied include inflated housing costs, food insecurity, child care shortages, and spouse unemployment and underemployment. The lowest-ranking service members make less than $2,000 per month. While this may be offset by the military paying for food and housing, some 20,000 active-duty soldiers currently require food stamps. Additionally, medical care and prescriptions for military retirees remain under assault with each new Congress. “If we want to maintain this 50-year experiment of an all-volunteer force, we need to get this right. We’ve had the best defense and military in the world with an all-volunteer force because you have people who want to come in.”

The elephant in the room stifling recruitment, and which the Biden administration and the top military leadership refuse to concede, is “wokism.” Here is a key point to remember. Nearly 80% of current recruits come from military families. Not surprisingly, a 2021 poll found fewer military families are willing to recommend military service to their kids. Other veterans are pushing young people away from military service as a less-than-optimal choice, thus deepening U.S. armed forces’ recruitment crisis. Even the Wall Street Journal has taken note of this grim situation.

Most new recruits have at least one family member with a service record. These family members, however, increasingly question whether the potential costs of military service including endless conflicts around the world, rising rates of PTSD and suicide, and a reliance on welfare programs are worth it -- particularly following the unacceptable fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Military leadership has faced significant criticism, as well it should. It has focused on “woke” initiatives prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over substantive combat training. This has deepened the recruiting crisis by alienating potential recruits. To illustrate how matters have been made worse, the Navy recently used an active-duty drag queen -- Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, stage name Harpy Daniels -- as a “digital ambassador” from October 2022 to March 2023. The excuse was to “explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates.” Apparently no one lost their job over that screw-up. And Navy recruiting accessions did not increase.

At the close of the 2022 fiscal year, only the Marine Corps -- the smallest Defense Department service except for the Space Force -- met both active-duty and reserve recruiting goals. The Army, the largest of the services, was in the worst position falling short by 15,000 active-duty troops, even after lowering its target by 9,000 troops.

No one expects 2023 to bring better prospects for recruiting and retention.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).