Posted on Jul 20, 2023
How would you solve the military recruiting challenges currently facing DOD?
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The recruiting struggles continue across all branches. What is causing it and how should it be addressed?
https://www.wsj.com/story/the-us-army-expects-to-end-up-15000-recruits-short-this-year-b5e9de86
https://www.wsj.com/story/the-us-army-expects-to-end-up-15000-recruits-short-this-year-b5e9de86
Posted in these groups: 
Recruiting
Readiness
79V: Retention and Transition NCO (USAR)
79R: Recruiter
8411: Basic Recruiter
Recruiting Readiness 79V: Retention and Transition NCO (USAR) 79R: Recruiter 8411: Basic Recruiter
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 442
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That question is a lot like asking "How should we re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?" after it started sinking. The challenges the military establishment faces are both of their own making (due to a culture which has been fundamentally transformed) and in the American culture writ large. Whatever we get will be a new culture made up of whatever America is now. It won't be the same stuff of the Cold War years, because that country and that military establishment is dead and gone. If you're a white heterosexual Christian male, you already have a target on your back. Bottom line on bottom- you can't fix the recruiting woes if you have an institution which is not welcoming to those who have faithfully served in it for generations, and a nation which is a twisted, deformed version of what it once was.
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I would start by sending the right people into the areas we want to recruit from; someone they can relate to in their own lives.
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SFC Casey O'Mally has some excellent ideas. And I heard they are bringing back "Be All You Can Be" which was great. I also recall a commercial that went something like "Join the Army, travel to Germany...you will work hard and train hard, but when you're off duty you're in Germany!" Over the years when the new troops came in to chat with the "Old Man" I'd hear reasons for joining like school, training, and usually a desire to serve. I advised them that whatever their reason for joining, our job was to train to win wars. One quit on the spot. Sadly it seems the desire to contribute to something larger than oneself has diminished - but not disappeared. Judging from my own limited experience it seems the younger generations have, to some extent, been raised with the expectation that things should be given to them as opposed to earned. Appealing to that IMHO will not result in attracting quality recruits. I am trying to stay away from politics, but since the CINC is a politician, it does have a bearing and again, IMO some of the current policies are impacting recruiting. Unless the services return to a focus on their primary mission - winning wars - which is only possible with support from above - things will not change anytime soon unless the economy crashes. On the bright side, with technology improving by leaps and bounds we have a good shot at maintaining a very lethal military, even if it is smaller.
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I did a paper on this exact issue a few months back. Simple fix, a four-day work-week. The military is competing in an extremely tough market for candidates. The benefits that once were very enticing aren’t very comparable to entry-level civilian jobs. A strong statement needs to be made that will let the population know they’re cared about. The internal changes that would be forced by this decision would be enticing just as well.
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I don’t know but I feel like if you fought for your country you should be tax exempt. Just me.
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So I noticed (interestingly enough) that no Warrants have commented on this thread. So I'll chime in here, since we're opinionated as all hell. Plus we don't have any feelings, so smile on and pile on brothers and sisters!
So first off, I think SFC O'Mally has some great ideas, and one (or all) of them executed correctly could help stem the tide. I joined back in the mid-Eighties partially because I needed a job and the college money, but also because I had family members that had served. Well, the economy is great right now, plenty of jobs, and there are lots of pathways to college (or even success without college) so those aren't big incentives anymore. Also, older family members that have served are becoming increasingly rare.
At the end of my first few hitches (just shy of the critical ten year, career make or break) I got out. It was the mid-Nineties, benefits (college and re-enlistment bonuses) were lousy, and I couldn't get promoted. Adios Uncle Sam!
Fast forward to the early 2000's. 9/11 happened and I got a bump on the head, so I decided to re-up. I wanted to go to Afghanistan and get in the fight. I hadn't been that patriotic since joining during the Cold War, when the USSR was the enemy. And, if you look back, right, wrong, or indifferent, during OEF, OIF, and OIR, none of the Services had any trouble meeting recruiting goals. There were real-world missions, adventures, benefits - all of it! I've never been sorry I came back (OK, maybe a few days in Iraq lol).
Now, I'm not suggesting we go start another misguided war with no exit strategy (far from it!). However, Russia never was anything better than a frenemy, China has joined the list of competitors, and let's not forget North Korea. So I do believe that inspiring a sense of mission would greatly help improve the numbers. We have very real enemies threatening our way of life and we need to show young people how a life of service could help protect it.
So first off, I think SFC O'Mally has some great ideas, and one (or all) of them executed correctly could help stem the tide. I joined back in the mid-Eighties partially because I needed a job and the college money, but also because I had family members that had served. Well, the economy is great right now, plenty of jobs, and there are lots of pathways to college (or even success without college) so those aren't big incentives anymore. Also, older family members that have served are becoming increasingly rare.
At the end of my first few hitches (just shy of the critical ten year, career make or break) I got out. It was the mid-Nineties, benefits (college and re-enlistment bonuses) were lousy, and I couldn't get promoted. Adios Uncle Sam!
Fast forward to the early 2000's. 9/11 happened and I got a bump on the head, so I decided to re-up. I wanted to go to Afghanistan and get in the fight. I hadn't been that patriotic since joining during the Cold War, when the USSR was the enemy. And, if you look back, right, wrong, or indifferent, during OEF, OIF, and OIR, none of the Services had any trouble meeting recruiting goals. There were real-world missions, adventures, benefits - all of it! I've never been sorry I came back (OK, maybe a few days in Iraq lol).
Now, I'm not suggesting we go start another misguided war with no exit strategy (far from it!). However, Russia never was anything better than a frenemy, China has joined the list of competitors, and let's not forget North Korea. So I do believe that inspiring a sense of mission would greatly help improve the numbers. We have very real enemies threatening our way of life and we need to show young people how a life of service could help protect it.
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Back to basics. Go and ask the active force "why did you join?" Then come up with a recruiting strategy that targets those motivators. There's a lot to learn when we listen to the consumers, because at the end what a recruiter sells is a personalized future. But first, you need to know who's buying. Been there, done that.
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Stop teachng gang members to use weapons, raise recurring standards and pay.
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Win wars. How? Congressional members in office during a lost military conflict are banned from running for Congress. General Officers are discharged for the same and lose their retirement. This will fix retention. Anyone who has a problem with this didn't die in a lost conflict.
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SPC Athelred Davis
SFC (Join to see) You don’t understand mitigating risk by holding leadership accountable or incentivizing politicians to refrain from involving themselves in military decisions? They’ll either refrain from starting conflicts or if unavoidable make better decisions on what is necessary to achieve victory. Unless your missing the point that few people want to waste the time in a fruitless endeavor. If the latter is what you’re struggling with…I doubt any explanation will suffice.
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SPC Athelred Davis
SFC (Verify To See) - Amendments have happened, there will be more. You seemed resigned to just giving up. Am I sure this is a way to stop politics from interfering in what is necessary to win a conflict? Yes. We went from stuffing guys into ball turrets on aircraft as being entirely acceptable, to not being able to accept losses at all. We have adopted this silly notion that the enemy can do whatever they want, but us playing by the rules somehow makes the situation better and that ended with civilians we disarmed clinging to the side of aircraft.
"A statement from U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called the enactment of the constitution a 'turning point for the Afghan nation. We are witness to a major milestone in putting behind the era of the rule of the gun in Afghanistan,' it said. Khalilzad said the United States would stand by Afghanistan as it put the constitution into practice and prepared for the presidential and parliamentary elections." - CNN January 26, 2004
We committed to DDR in Afghanistan, effectively disarming the population requiring either a security force that would defend the new government or some semblance of a military coalition. We have about 600 military bases around the world, but couldn't put one in Afghanistan for some reason. We ignored the Afghanistan MOI either failing to issue weapon permits or charging $10K USD per permit, which is to say only certain groups could afford that. We permitted the Taliban to exist, and then doubled down on that by legitimizing them when we permitted them to have a say in diplomacy. Then there's the ridiculous ROEs, and the shoddy upstream of programs like the JEFF program and CEXC failing to produce PELs. Never mind the futility in reconstruction efforts laden with corruption, waste....resources which could have been used to secure the government in place. What do you think is going to stop things like that, how do you fix that? What, maybe we can entice people to enlist with college money....that's the solution? Give me a break. Where the rubber meets the road is big k little c, that's what gets shit done, not some noodle that has hopes to make money working some cushy job as a cubicle rat. I see people babbling about woke, and that drivel, but where does it come from, who is responsible for that, how does that translate to the battlespace and if indeed it fails to deliver results, proven results from passed military operations....who is ultimately held accountable for what is likely weakening our defense mentality? How do you stop that? You don't know....you're over there throwing your hands up because you probably don't even see the real problems with our military.
"A statement from U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called the enactment of the constitution a 'turning point for the Afghan nation. We are witness to a major milestone in putting behind the era of the rule of the gun in Afghanistan,' it said. Khalilzad said the United States would stand by Afghanistan as it put the constitution into practice and prepared for the presidential and parliamentary elections." - CNN January 26, 2004
We committed to DDR in Afghanistan, effectively disarming the population requiring either a security force that would defend the new government or some semblance of a military coalition. We have about 600 military bases around the world, but couldn't put one in Afghanistan for some reason. We ignored the Afghanistan MOI either failing to issue weapon permits or charging $10K USD per permit, which is to say only certain groups could afford that. We permitted the Taliban to exist, and then doubled down on that by legitimizing them when we permitted them to have a say in diplomacy. Then there's the ridiculous ROEs, and the shoddy upstream of programs like the JEFF program and CEXC failing to produce PELs. Never mind the futility in reconstruction efforts laden with corruption, waste....resources which could have been used to secure the government in place. What do you think is going to stop things like that, how do you fix that? What, maybe we can entice people to enlist with college money....that's the solution? Give me a break. Where the rubber meets the road is big k little c, that's what gets shit done, not some noodle that has hopes to make money working some cushy job as a cubicle rat. I see people babbling about woke, and that drivel, but where does it come from, who is responsible for that, how does that translate to the battlespace and if indeed it fails to deliver results, proven results from passed military operations....who is ultimately held accountable for what is likely weakening our defense mentality? How do you stop that? You don't know....you're over there throwing your hands up because you probably don't even see the real problems with our military.
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