Army misses recruiting target for first time since 2005:
WASHINGTON – The Army fell short of its recruiting goal for 2018, missing its mark for the first time since 2005 as it looks to grow its force strength in the face of growing threats from competing world powers such as Russia and China.
The Army has launched a large-scale review of its recruiting practices, senior service officials said Friday. The service will pour millions of dollars into revamping recruiting facilities and bolster its recruiting force after falling about 6,500 recruits short of its goal for fiscal year 2018, which will end Sept. 30. The Army had hoped to enlist 76,500 recruits in 2018, a goal that was lowered from 80,000 in April after more soldiers than expected elected to remain in the service.
The Army blames competition with the civilian job market for reduced recruitment.
8 comments:
One way to deal with this is to say that 4-years of US military experience (with an honorable discharge) is the same as a 4-year college degree for all Federal jobs and try to get major corporations to adopt same policy.
Go in the military and see the world or go to college and saddle yourself with crushing student debt? The military would look like a much better option.
So Trump's Presidency is hurting the Army!
Chris, policy is downstream of the job market. I'm not sure that the Fed.Gov needs to do this, at least if the economy continues to do well. A tight job market will drive policy, not the other way around.
Have to disagree. When the Mass National Guard started offering free tuition as part of enlistment - the enlistment numbers went way up. Remember you'd be targeting high school graduates many of which have never been in the workforce. A graduating HS senior may weigh military service more favorably if they thought a fed job with preference to military members could be an option instead of all that student debt.
On top of that - after military service you'd also have the GI Bill if that HS student decided then they'd prefer to go to college.
I retired from a job where I worked with teenagers who would soon find themselves in a situation being leagally an adult with no family support, no skills, and no full-boat rides to college. I thought the military would be a good fit for a few of these youth.
I knew that the old "join the military or go to jail", back in the day, was an epic fail. If you talked to people who did intake processing at stockades you find that, usually, undisciplined youth with, emotional problems, and criminal thinking continued on with that behavior in the military.
In rare cases it turned a kid's life around.
But I digress: So, I went and talked to the recruiters for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
At this time they all required a high school diploma (IIRC the Marines would accept a GED), any felony conviction was a disqualifier (the Marines would look at felonies on a case-by-case basis), chronic drug use was also a disqualifier (chronic drug use was defined as having used marijuana three times).
The most telling comment from the Marine recruiter was:
"We know what we can do for them. We want to know what they can do for us."
The last numbers I saw were that 80% of today's youth, due to physical conditioning, mental illness, emotional problems, drug use, judicial issues, or education, cannot even qualify to apply to join our military.
I am doubtful that many of those who succeed in being accepted could endure the physical, mental, and emotional rigors of boot camp or basic training.
But, maybe they could. I remember when VOLAR instituted Stress Cards.
Times have changed: when my brother was at MCRD one of the recruits attempted suicide. "Attempted" being the operative word. The next morning the Drill Instuctor brought in an instruction manual about the proper ways to successfully commit suicide. The entire platoon was required to read the manual, sign inside the back cover, and return it to the DI the next morning.
And if you wanted to see fear in a recruit's eyes mention Motivation Platoon.
Fat guys? No problem: diet and running everywhere they went.
Drill Instructors, Drill Sargents and there ilk, for thousands of years, have been the most efficient teachers the world has ever produced.
Pain is a wonderful teacher. Humor gets you through the pain.
Technology, tactics, and training are game changers, but I think it was it was Louis Awerbuck who said at the end of it all it will come down to one man wearing cut-offs, flip-flops, and carrying an M98 standing on a hill.
I partly blame all of this due to the loss of so many JROTC programs at the middle/high school level. Seriously. Make them back into the Cadet Program they used to be, in the 50's and 60's, before they got all floppy and progressive. Encourage more students to try the programs, have a summer-camp program between 11th and 12th grade (mini boot camp with other stuff,) bring back shooting as part of the curriculum. All those good things.
Maybe even, gasp, pay 11th and 12th grade students for meeting performance goals. Money does talk.
That, and also increase Vo-Tech at the high school level. We need more Vo-Tech schools and less Performing Arts schools. Seriously, do we need more actors than HVAC techs?
Oh, and bring back mandatory Physical Education, starting at the Elementary and going all the way to 12th Grade. And ya better have a damned good reason to skip.
If I, with all my allergies (seriously, really really BAD allergies) could do PE somewhat successfully, then most of these kids can do it.
The military always hurts for recruits when the economy is good.
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