(The Center Square) – The Pentagon came up short on its recruitment goals.
The Defense Department’s senior officials testified Wednesday about shortfalls in Army, Navy and Air Force recruiting in the fiscal year that ended in September at a hearing of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee. The Marine Corps and Space Force made their recruiting goals.
The military services together missed goals by about 41,000 recruits in fiscal year 2023, said Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Ashish Vazirani.
“That number understates the challenge before us as the services lowered [their] end-strength goals in recent years, in part because of the difficult recruiting environment,” he said. “The all-volunteer force faces one of its greatest challenges since inception.”
The all-volunteer force was created after the draft ended in 1973.
Vazirani cited multiple reasons for the recruitment shortfall, which he called “complex and multifaceted.”
Among the reasons: A strong economy that means more options for young people, a smaller eligible population, Generation Z’s generally low trust in institutions and fewer young people with family members who have served in the military.
In 1995, 40% of young people had a parent who served in the military, Vazirani said. By 2022, 12% had a parent who had served.
“This has led to a disconnect between the military and a large share of society,” he said.
Vazirani said that “while the picture of the current recruiting environment is acutely difficult, the Defense Department and the military services are working together to resolve issues, improve processes, and expand awareness of the many opportunities military service offers.”
In September, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report on military housing. It detailed sewage backups and inoperable fire systems are among the safety hazards that U.S. service members living in barracks face. The report found such conditions undermine quality of life and military readiness.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that the Pentagon’s assessments of conditions at barracks “are unreliable” and “observed barracks that pose potentially serious health and safety risks – such as broken windows and inoperable fire systems – and that do not meet minimum [U.S. Department of Defense] standards for privacy and configuration.”
Conditions were so bad in some places that service members sometimes took “drastic action, such as getting married, just to leave the barracks,” according to the report. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops live in barracks, which are for the most junior-ranking unmarried service members without children or other dependents.
This is just indicative of the rotting of the current administration in Washington. From the demented crook in the White House to all his moronic staff (including the DEI appointee as Secretary of Defense LLoyd Austin who is nothing but a democrat hack). How could we expect the state of the U.S. armed forces to be in tip top shape?
I retired from the U.S. Navy. When I first enlisted in the Navy all branches of service were disciplined and honorable. Thief’s and homosexuals were were not tolerated as soon as they were identified they were thrown out of the service. We functioned as a team, not as an individual.
But Today under the Democrat Party’s immoral, dishonorable insistence the U.S. military has become a LGBTQ social club, where one’s feeling are more important than defending our U.S. Constitution and our country.
Today there is no way I would even consider joining any U.S. military LGBTQ social club, or recommend it to any of my family.
My sentiments exactly. EVEN In my latter 5 years in from 07-12, we were still disciplined and had camraderie. NOW DAYS who knows..
MILITARY FALL SHORT OF ENLISTMENTS,! … Recruits tell on ( TIK-TOK, A CHINEESE INTERNET,) ” talks about the poor level of pay and complains about the Food on ( TIK-TOK,) reminds one of the old Quote, ” THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND.”
Author unknown.
In today’s world of America bashing, patriotic guilt inducement, and the erasing of the concept of heavenly rewards, just who wants to die for one’s country, or these days come home from war mutilated beyond recognition, all for the preservation of secular socialism? History has proven that secular socialism that preaches and demeans the concept to personal accountability, sacrifice or anything that a real creator might demand in punishment of reward, produces American mindsets of just “Go for the Gusto” because there is no God or heaven, and your chances for lasting pleasure are finite and futile with death the end of all your existence. Just get it all while you can, no matter how you get it, or who you hurt in the process. When Rome was great they followed Horace’s admonition of “Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori” ,,,(It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country). General Patton improved on this by telling his troops it is better to make the SOB enemy die for their country, followed with modern Liberals designing as many ways they can for THE PEOPLE to die for them, especially in taxes you pay after death, just like you can vote after death, the only concept of a resurrection in their sick twisted self-serving religion.
inluminatuo “because there is no God or heaven, and your chances for lasting pleasure are finite and futile with death the end of all your existence.”
Democrats and the self-righteous may go along with you on that statement.
But to those of us who know, trust, have faith in and love Jesus Christ the son of God, the Lord God Almighty “Yahweh” know that it is wrong.
I would not serve in today’s military is because it has no honor, morality, discipline, credibility or patriotism.
One can not respect a Commander and Chief like the disgraceful, treasonous, corrupt, sock-puppet like Joe Barack OBiden
If this trend continues a draft will be inevitable. I for one don’t know how today’s fragile youth will be able to handle the rigors of the military.
Assuming they’re even PHYSICALLY capable of being drafted.
Just wait. based on the number of guest US receiving. the armed forces will get a much-needed boost in the near future. US families in yesteryear produced 3, 4, 5 offsprings but now 1 maybe 2. We’ll need the bodies.
YOU assume these illegals, will JOIN OUR military?