How would you solve the military recruiting challenges currently facing DOD?

It's too late. After waiving criminals with felony records and allowing them to serve, it kinda went to crap from there. Retaining people who don't want to be retained and kicking out good to great leaders & troops is also a bad idea.

I think the new politically correct woke military deters the kind of people who would be likely to join, to appease the kind of folks who wouldn’t. In general people who join are conservative-leaning, patriotic, freedom-loving young men who are proud of their country and want to serve it. Talking about gender pronouns or promoting drag queens who are serving on active duty makes most of the aforementioned group uninterested in joining. I was appalled when Gen. Milley said he wanted to understand “white rage”.

In 2007 when I first enlisted in the Army, you were expected to be tough or become tough. We were training to fight and destroy the enemy in close combat, and we’re willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of that goal.

By 2012 soldiers were getting in trouble for singing vulgar cadences, or for offending someone. I recall a specific event at Fort Leonard Wood where a soldier was counseled and berated by multiple levels of leadership for giving a presentation where he included a clip from full metal jacket, despite warning the audience that the clip contained offensive language.

Start over with Alpha men. And I mean START OVER!

Few of the factors causing it are new, they're just worse than they used to be. The average American is less fit for service these days: physically overweight, suffering clinically significant mental and emotional issues, and temperamentally unsuited due to institutions that have taught them to be fragile in the face of hardship rather than resilient. Marriage and fertility rates have dropped, so fewer potential recruits have family traditions of service. And of those who do, many parents no longer want their children to follow them into uniform. Neither side of the political aisle still have full faith and confidence in the military, Congress, or our Commander-in-Chief. Much of our country has decided that our nation isn't worth defending in public debate or our history books, much less in any armed conflict. Is it any surprise that students being taught that "America was NEVER Great" are uninterested in laying down their lives to protect it?

How should it be addressed? I've been in recruiting and retention meetings for the Army, FBI, and NSA. I've read the surveys. Yes, there's a baseline of pay, benefits, and educational opportunities necessary for us to even be considered, but that just gets us in the door. It's true that little or nothing at can do will fix the shrinking size of the eligible pool. The biggest issues have more to do with broader culture and where we are looking.

I am a plain-spoken person, so please forgive my bluntness. The military will NEVER have the pay and benefits package to compete directly with the private sector for top talent. We need to focus on pitching what makes us different (challenge, service, comradery, etc) and we also need to be looking in different places for different people than the private sector recruiters. We need patriots willing to work hard, get dirty, and face danger. We can't match the private sector ceiling of six figure paychecks and penthouse corner offices, so we need to focus our recuiting on the people who care more about the floor offer: three hots and cot, a steady paycheck, a boss who will mentor you rather than replace you, coworkers who will have your back when times are tough, and a mission that gives meaning to your work. The heights of the economy may belong to folks with money, connections, and degrees, but we don't need any of that, so we really need to be making our recruitment pitch less to the Ivy League graduates who already have better offers and more to the high schoolers in economically depressed towns who aren't getting any other offers. The military has always said that great leaders are made, not born, so let's actively go looking for the recruits who need us just as badly as we need them, then invest the time, training, and even therapy needed to get them fighting fit.

Then there's retention... I'm a firm advocate that the Army needs to bring back Specialist as a separate track. I have served with far too many excellent specialists who chose to get out because they don't want to be NCOs. Some manage to become warrants instead, and a few return as DACs, but most just leave because when their choices are "Up or Out" they'd rather get out. The Venn diagram of people fit enough for ACFT, technically skilled enough for their MOS, and socially+administratively skilled enough to lead others is too small for our needs. So we're either going to have to find ways to make 2 out of 3 good enough: maybe reduce the physical standards for noncombat MOS SMs, accept that some of our most technically adept SMs aren't interested in being Leaders and we need to find ways to retain that technical talent without putting them in positions that don't leverage them effectively.

What we could do is actually use social media to better the view of the military. The military is looked upon as being hard. So soften the image a bit. Make it more palatable for the younger generations. Talk about the VA housing programs, GI Bill, the actual pay they'd get (all they see is base pay and that sucks.) All those are huge issues with them. If they knew it's WAY easier and cheaper to get a house using VA... If they knew their higher learning would be mostly if not all paid for... If they knew they'd be making a lot more that minimum wage and get unmatched career training... These are all items young millennials and Gen Z constantly b***h about.

I know someone is going to call me out on the pay thing and say it's shit. You'd be utterly wrong.
Here's why:
Taxed: Base pay
Untaxed: BAS, BAH, COLA (both conus and oconus)
Never added value items:
-Free healthcare (Average US health insurance for a male under 35 is close to $500/month not including his family.)
- Free Dental (Average mal under 30 is $80-150/m not including family)
- Free gym membership (yeah I'm grasping at straws but, $50/m is still money)
- Free legal (This is damned expensive on the outside)

That's essentially another $700+/m extra they need to add to their base salary. It's not looking too bad now is it?

Doing the math:
E1 base salary for 2024 - $2017.20/m
BAS - $460.25/m
Let's use Vegas as I live here for BAH - $1485.00
Extra savings: $700
That's $4,662.45/m or $55,949.40/yr plus an E1 is only taxable on approx $9k/year after basic deduction. The RMC calculator says $51k/yr so that tracks.

Average salary for a Gen Z is $41k pretax.
In Vegas, it's $33k pretax. Tell any Gen z, and gen alpha, you know how they can make $56k/yr right out of highschool and they'd loose their minds.

vote the commiecraps out of office. go bak to what the Military is supposed to be, not some retarded DEI fascst organization. No women in combat roles (the Nazi's and the Soviet Union not to mention the Chinese did that). Take Basic training back to what it used to be. When my father went through basic, the Drill Instructors could beat the crap out of you. When I went through basic training, they couldn't lay a hand on you, but the COULD peg you in the skull with that Smokey the bear" hat (I still have the mark, lol).

The military is not a training ground for pussies and anarchists. We we, are and always will be, in a single job. To support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. we fight wars and kill enemies. it's our thing. It's what we used to do best. Like everything else, the Democrats have taken us from the top to the bottom.

Get rid of the old military generals who now wear dresses instead of a mans uniform. Bring back the draft and teach these lazy ass kids some responsibility seeing their parents cant. If a young man comes into the USA illegally then he has to do 3 years of service to be eligiable to stay here. If your in this country then you can serve.

Lack of patriotism and responsibility. Education and benefits are one. But the current Administration’s lack of respect and transgender, homosexuality recruiting is a problem!

First, actual reports from real military authorities have stated that the transition to a new electronic health records system that is being used as part of the recruiting process is having a significant impact on recruiters' ability to recruit qualified individuals. As stated in numerous articles on this, they can no longer fudge the information for the purpose of getting recruits who might otherwise not be qualified.

Second, the base pay needs to be increased. Bonuses paid out over a five-to-six year period while enlistees are making peanuts isn't going to cut it anymore.

Third, recruiters are going to have to be honest with potential recruits about the physical impact of service and how the military and VA address that. Younger generations are seeing veterans come back with severe problems that recruiters aren't honest about. Those with options are likely not-to-keen on the whole "I might have PTSD or severe joint and back problems when I get out and may want to commit suicide as a result" thing that's reality for so many of our troops.

Fourth, the military needs to seriously address the rape epidemic in our military. It turns out that young people - especially women - aren't too big on rape or on the military's lackluster response (to put it lightly) to the problem. Sweeping it under the rug and calling it "military sexual trauma" is disgusting. It's RAPE. That's what it is. And people don't like it, no matter how much older male enlistees and officers try to blame the victims for it.

Fourth, military and political leaders need to be honest about what it is that people are serving for. Young people KNOW that it's not "to serve the country", be patriotic, or whatever else recruiters are telling them. They KNOW that its' to server energy companies', military hardware companies', and other contractors' interests. They KNOW that we're in the Middle East not to defend the US but rather to defend energy companies' interests (exactly 100% of everyone here who believes otherwise is a fool. Period.). Being honest with potential recruits and why taxpayers should pay for what energy companies should be doing on their own dime might go a long way towards building trust from the beginning.

Fifth and finally, stop demonizing LGBTQ people. It turns out that younger people aren't as bigoted as older people. Just like people eventually got used to the idea of black people and women serving in the military (and doing so with distinction), they need to get used to the idea of LGBTQ people serving openly. People who object are no different in any way whatsoever from the bigots who objected to black people from serving because their presence might offend the delicate Southerners' fragile feelings.

There's two competing political issues, and then a third structural one. Conservatives (including many in this thread) complain the military is "too woke." While progressives complain about sexual abuse numbers and lack of LGBTQ inclusion. Also many far left youth don't want to be a part of an "imperialist empire." Both sides, left and right, are partially right in terms of perspective. Both sides politically benefit by saying how far the military has gone the other way politically. The reality of course is somewhere in the middle. That's all smoke and mirrors.

What the people in this thread are missing is what it's like to try and join the military these days. It takes months, and you have to scrap together every bit of medical documentation going back to when you were a child. The slightest problem, like childhood asthma, or ADHD medication requires a waiver. Don't even get me started on the difficulties put in place if you're trans. The process takes months and requires obscene amounts of paperwork. Recruiters famously coach their recruits to lie on official documents (is that really how we want to introduce recruits to the military?).

I've worked on the military medical documentation (specifically GENESIS) as a Soldier, a recruit, and as a civilian contractor data scientist. It's a disaster.

Simply getting through the accessions process, for little pay, high chance of sexual harassment/assault, little social support, is impossible. Kids are just not finding it worth it, and they are absolutely right.