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

The newer and younger generations are not being taught to take pride in America and that to serve your country is an honor and should be an option to give back. They are being taught to hate the military as a bunch of baby killers. The left has an agenda to weaken our military which it has been able to do across all branches and across the board. Regulations has loosened up, changing base names, bad press, unpopular career choices, etc...

I just finished 30 years; I won't suggest service to any of my kids, friends' kids, or anyone I know; environment is not conducive to honorable service. Too many policies based on politics and agendas over readiness. Too many tasks and duties not related to fighting and defending our nation. Many "easy" fixes could be fixed with a stroke of a pen, but our nation has become far too political and too many people only support when "their side" is in power. Bring back true meritocracy and keep politics (all sides) out of our core tenets of service. Our society also needs a decades long education of what it means to serve and the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. I would advocate for a draft lottery with an updated GI Bill to start but none of this matters without pride in Country.

Get woke culture out of milirary! Leaders that civilians hear/read about are too political. Check out Administrations new Joint Chief Staff.

After this administration killed 13 service members, would you want to join.

1. Eliminate the stupid pronoun b. s.
2. Make the physical fitness requirements MUCH tougher for all services.
3. Force those who exceed body fat regs OUT of the service if they continually fail performance tests.

I joined the Army in 1978 after seeing a TV ad showing a female air-traffic controller in uniform. I realized that could be me! I stayed in for 9 years.

1. Fighting in wars without any clear obtainable objective, so that we just stay there a long time, loose a bunch of men and women, injure many more, then pull out without having accomplished anything long term, doesn't seem like something a lot of people want to do.

2. After serving and sacrificing greatly, having the government turn their back on you, label you as a domestic terrorist, and deny you the heath care you require due to your service is not really appealing either.

3. This country is a sh!tshow right now. Turn this country back into something worth fighting for, and more people might be willing to do so.

My humble opinion is if you want to recruit Gen Z and beyond, you have to listen to them and what's important to them. Some of its easy, computer literacy and drone proficiency, but others are understanding their view of the world and that they are the most educated and fair minded of the generations. That's my take.

Im going to try and avoid any politics because a lot of the posts and replies have turned into that.

1) Pay needs to be increased; private sector jobs pay much better and provide an incentive for troops to get out along with aspiring men and women to not join.

2) The rampant SHARP and EO issues need to be clamped down on. If a huge swath of former military members are telling folks that SHARP and EO is rampant and not being worked on in the military then people are going to be turned away from joining.

3) Grooming standards need to be realigned. Allow men to have beards for example, it works for our European allies I am sure it can work here.

4) Military skills need to be able to better translate over into civilian careers and those skills need to be marketed to the public as a resource worth joining for

I’m sure there are more ways to fix the issue but that’s my two cents from what i’ve seen and heard from people in and out of the military as issues

You can do all the campaigning you want. But if you don’t have people to train these new recruits then what’s the point. The Military is pushing people out that can still do jobs. I was medically retired and that was it. They could have put me anywhere and made me non deployable. These kids getting jobs behind desks and never deploy. There is a lot we can do because we are still young enough to train these new troops. What I’m saying is we didn’t want to leave but you made us anyways. God bless you all going forward.