The US military ended Fiscal Year 2023 on September 30 with nearly every branch reporting large lapses in their recruiting efforts.
(U.S. Army photo by Jazika Levario)
Missing Soldiers and Sailors
Navy: 7,450 missing enlisted sailors
Army: 11,000 missing enlisted soldiers
Air Force: 2,777 missing enlisted airmen
Space Force: 65 more than goal of 537
Marines: 351 more than goal of 39,153
Their failures to lure people into the military are despite numerous new efforts. The Navy has reduced their standards for performance on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, claiming that it wouldn’t make the service weaker. They also have stopped kicking out people who can’t get promoted.
The Army is putting a Lieutenant General in charge of a supposedly more professional team of recruiters and has created the Future Soldier Prep Course in an attempt to get potential recruits to shed weight and/or smarten up enough to pass the ASVAB.
The reasons young people aren’t signing up include the higher pay and better benefits skilled youth can obtain in the civilian market and ineligibility due to having tattoos or being obese or failing the ASVAB. Plus, standards against use of marijuana or having prior medical conditions are seen as farcical by potential recruits. Air Force Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller said that only 1 in 11 people in Gen Z have a “propensity to serve.”
Panic seems to be setting in for some who are paying attention to these failures. The Heritage Foundation’s Thomas Spoehr used words like “death spiral” and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has admitted that “we have not been recruiting very well for many more years than one would think.”
Projections for the new fiscal year (ending September 2024) haven’t been made public yet. But it seems that the military hasn’t learned from their experience. The Navy, already short by nearly 7,500 sailors, thinks it is going to convince even more to join with a recruiting goal that has gone up 2,900 from 37,700 to 40,600. The Army seems to be more realistic. After being 15,000 soldiers short in FY 2022 and 10,000 in FY 2023, Christine Wormuth said that the Army would “settle on something lower than 65,000 for 2024” as their unannounced goal. Similarly, the Air Force has lowered their goal from 26,877 to 25,900 airmen.
There are young men who still are inspired to serve. In South Carolina. I have two nephews now honorably discharged with PTSD: a Marine and an Army Ranger. I have another (Marine) nephew currently on a ship in the Mediterranean.
I spoke recently with my first cousin who is a retired Colonel in Air Reserve.
– Space Force offers excellent technology training – thus has gained recruits.
– The Marines offer an exclusive, small club of men who are highly regarded by all the forces. (I know a 77- year old who still introduces himself as a Marine.)
My cousin says since the forces display our society, everything wrong with Americans shows up in clear relief. Those who have signed a contract should now make the best of it. If they do, they will mature into responsibility, and they will receive training that can get them jobs outside of the armed forces.
We need to require two years of service to our country, perhaps for both men and women. Conscription should offer multiple ways to serve. My cousin and I see conscription coming but hope for the ‘multiple ways.’
Thank you and your staff for offering hope in the midst of despair and facts instead of illusions.
Judith, Thank you for your comments. We are sorry to hear that your nephews are suffering wtih PTSD and hope that they have been able to find effective help with that.
Part of Quaker House’s mission from day one has been to help provide information and counseling for people struggling with their participation in the military, first because of the draft and then after “voluntary” enlistment. The evidence that recruiters frequently overstate or even actively misrepresent what that participation is going to be like is overwhelming. And when added to the fact that they are usually working with young people who have not yet fully developed critical thinking skills nor the actual brain development to be able to make “adult decisions,” it is important to provide space for the continuing discernment that is at the heart of Friends’ testimonies.
Dear Wayne::
As a South Carolinian, I was brought up to respect the U.S. military.
– I am a Quaker by convincement and have found it impossible to adequately express my pacifist sentiments to any of my family (not that I was consulted by my nephews).
– For example, my brother who was drafted into Vietnam, served faithfully without using drugs. He will only say, “You learn to respect this country; when I returned I started studying the Constitution.” He is also a man of deep religious faith.
– I feel some Quakers like me who were not born into Quaker families, who did not go to Quaker schools lack the deep pool of certainty of the evils of war that would allow me, for instance, to speak clearly and briefly about war to other South Carolinians.
There’s a workshop in this for you, Wayne. Let me know if you ever consider putting one together.
As with so many issues, the range of opinions about the military across the Society of Friends is vast. Certainly there are many who have had experiences like yours and your family’s as well as many (both life-long Friends and convinced ones) who have never had direct involvement with the military.
I think your suggestion of a workshop on these issues is an excellent one and will begin thinking how to proceed with that.
Thank you!
I love you, Wayne.