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 2 y ago
Responses: 436
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We need to do like other countries, mandatory service. If you're too obese, off to Fat Camp before you serve your country. If you're too weak, off to Fitness Camp beforehand.
Private Bone Spurs has a lot of gall calling our service member 'losers'. The dust on the boots of those that served is worth more than he will ever own.
Private Bone Spurs has a lot of gall calling our service member 'losers'. The dust on the boots of those that served is worth more than he will ever own.
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SSG Carlos Madden
Just to pile on a bit even though it's a little off topic, the US education system and parents have really failed the last several decades on prioritizing physical fitness and diet. Way too many kids are fat and eat like crap and it's a legitimate readiness issue. Back in WWI they had to DQ a large percentage of draftees because they were borderline illiterate. That was a readiness issue so they standardized education and did something about it. They need to take a similar approach to physical fitness.
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Problem 1. Drugs
Problem 2. Overweight issues
Problem 3. The lack of interest.
Attract new Recruits with more and new benefits.
1. Extend Va benefits by adding more medical treatments to satellite facilities. Recruit more community health centers facilities. Currently for myself I am looking at having to drive 3 hours for an orthopedic hand surgeon, when there is one right here in town.
2. Enlistment for 4 years of active duty should get 2 years of Free Collage with an honorable discharge. The current cost of collage is insane, considering in most cases you're paying to go over the things you learn in high school for two years. You stay in for 8 or more years 4 years of Free Collage. College dropout in the first two years is mostly due to financing, so why not. Our fathers had the best G.I. Bill.
3. Lift the bans of recruiters from entering schools! Ban stupid Rules from schools for recruiters should restrict them to the career center one day a month at lunch time. That is total BS! A recruiter should at least have a space they can use in the lunchroom and an area in the library. Schools are receiving government funds they shouldn't be allowed to restrict the government access.
4. Change the registration for the draft, from the Post Office to recruiting stations. Considering the draft is part of the military process.
4. Start adding women to the registration of the Draft!
What good for the gander is good for the goose.
6. Explain the benefit that that is better to enlist into something now! That is more in line with their future goals, rather than being drafted and serving the needs of the military later. If your recalled back to duty at least you know what job your were trained to do. Due to current world conditions
Problem 2. Overweight issues
Problem 3. The lack of interest.
Attract new Recruits with more and new benefits.
1. Extend Va benefits by adding more medical treatments to satellite facilities. Recruit more community health centers facilities. Currently for myself I am looking at having to drive 3 hours for an orthopedic hand surgeon, when there is one right here in town.
2. Enlistment for 4 years of active duty should get 2 years of Free Collage with an honorable discharge. The current cost of collage is insane, considering in most cases you're paying to go over the things you learn in high school for two years. You stay in for 8 or more years 4 years of Free Collage. College dropout in the first two years is mostly due to financing, so why not. Our fathers had the best G.I. Bill.
3. Lift the bans of recruiters from entering schools! Ban stupid Rules from schools for recruiters should restrict them to the career center one day a month at lunch time. That is total BS! A recruiter should at least have a space they can use in the lunchroom and an area in the library. Schools are receiving government funds they shouldn't be allowed to restrict the government access.
4. Change the registration for the draft, from the Post Office to recruiting stations. Considering the draft is part of the military process.
4. Start adding women to the registration of the Draft!
What good for the gander is good for the goose.
6. Explain the benefit that that is better to enlist into something now! That is more in line with their future goals, rather than being drafted and serving the needs of the military later. If your recalled back to duty at least you know what job your were trained to do. Due to current world conditions
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LTC William Oliver
Or you could change basic training or add remedial training. It worked for me and my platoon. I came into the military late. I was 35 when I entered Officer Basic. All of the people in my group had been recruited for specific skills. The oldest recruit was 62 years old. I was one of the younger folk. As you might expect, we were mostly not prime physical specimens. Our DI acted more like a personal trainer than anything else. We didn't have a lot of ability coming in. Most of us were in middle age shape. But we were fairly highly motivated, and our DI took advantage of that. The 62 year old guy couldn't do a single lap when we started, but passed his PT test at the end straight up. At the end of the program, of the 50 or 60 of us, only three failed the final PT test as I remember. All of those who failed were middle-aged female nurses who could never develop the upper body strength to do the required push ups and such. It was devastating for them.
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SSG Douglas Shaffer
LTC William Oliver - I think we are addressing the combat arms and alike, Specially Skills are handled differently than 18-year-old infantrymen, and this is where the problem lies recruiting younger people who have no idea of what it is they want to do, sure you have those that ae going off to college because that is what mom and dad wants them to do. Then you have those that have no ambition to go to college or anything else for that matter or they don't have the recourses to do so. Yet when offered a job with some college benefits, they don't want to do it, or they can't, when I was recruiting, I had a lot of kids that would fail the drug test, or they were overweight, along with those that didn't graduate high school. The list goes on.
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LTC William Oliver
SSG Douglas Shaffer - I understand. I guess I was just thinking of how transformative my time in the military was. I was overweight when I was recruited, and since I was coming in as an officer, I had to lose the weight *before* I showed up at Ft. Sam. But... even as a Medical Corps officer, being in the Army changed my attitudes, my lifestyle choices, my physicality, my work ethic, and a number of other things. As a physician, I know that some of those changes have probably have added 20 years to my life span. My gut feeling is that a lot of these kids have problems getting in specifically because they need the transformation that the military would provide. I have advised my kin not to join, because they will be discriminated against when it comes to promotion and opportunities -- and they are already aggressive self-starters -- but in general I can't help but think that a few years with a few good NCOs are exactly what many of these kids need.
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Problem 1. Drugs
Problem 2. Overweight issues
Problem 3. The lack of interest.
Attract new Recruits with more and new benefits.
1. Extend Va benefits by adding more medical treatments to satellite facilities. Recruit more community health centers facilities. Currently for myself I am looking at having to drive 3 hours for an orthopedic hand surgeon, when there is one right here in y town.
2. Enlistment for 4 years of active duty should get 2 years of Free Collage with an honorable discharge. The current cost of collage is insane, considering in most cases you're paying to go over the things you learn in high school for two years. You stay in for 8 or more years 4 years of Free Collage. College dropout in the first two years is mostly due to financing, so why not. Our fathers had the best G.I. Bill.
3. Lift the bans of recruiters from entering schools! Ban stupid Rules from schools for recruiters should restrict them to the career center one day a month at lunch time. That is total BS! A recruiter should at least have a space they can use in the lunchroom and an area in the library. Schools are receiving government funds they shouldn't be allowed to restrict the government access.
4. Change the registration for the draft, from the Post Office to recruiting stations. Considering the draft is part of the military process.
4. Start adding women to the registration of the Draft!
What good for the gander is good for the goose.
6. Explain the benefit that that is better to enlist into something now! That is more in line with their future goals, rather than being drafted and serving the needs of the military later. If your recalled back to duty at least you know what job your were trained to do. Due to current world conditions
Problem 2. Overweight issues
Problem 3. The lack of interest.
Attract new Recruits with more and new benefits.
1. Extend Va benefits by adding more medical treatments to satellite facilities. Recruit more community health centers facilities. Currently for myself I am looking at having to drive 3 hours for an orthopedic hand surgeon, when there is one right here in y town.
2. Enlistment for 4 years of active duty should get 2 years of Free Collage with an honorable discharge. The current cost of collage is insane, considering in most cases you're paying to go over the things you learn in high school for two years. You stay in for 8 or more years 4 years of Free Collage. College dropout in the first two years is mostly due to financing, so why not. Our fathers had the best G.I. Bill.
3. Lift the bans of recruiters from entering schools! Ban stupid Rules from schools for recruiters should restrict them to the career center one day a month at lunch time. That is total BS! A recruiter should at least have a space they can use in the lunchroom and an area in the library. Schools are receiving government funds they shouldn't be allowed to restrict the government access.
4. Change the registration for the draft, from the Post Office to recruiting stations. Considering the draft is part of the military process.
4. Start adding women to the registration of the Draft!
What good for the gander is good for the goose.
6. Explain the benefit that that is better to enlist into something now! That is more in line with their future goals, rather than being drafted and serving the needs of the military later. If your recalled back to duty at least you know what job your were trained to do. Due to current world conditions
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The the woke garbage in the trash. The only purpose of the military is to train, fight, and win wars, not to get an attaboy from the ACLU
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The shortage of recruits is because our military age possible recruits are being given so much by the current regime. (example paying off student loans) I would solve the problem by reinstating the draft. The overweight would quickly trim down in Basic Training. It would give them all a purpose in life!
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Start the draft up again. It would help young people grow up and learn about thenselves. Semper Fi
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Several factors:
1. Recruiters are placing an unnecessary amount of effort to recruit people based on "social constructs" as some like to put it. Joining the military is about defending this country and its way of life, not whether you're black, white, gay, trans, Christian, or Muslim. Recruiting can and should absolutely work to advertise where each demographic congregates, but they shouldn't be pandering to any of them.
2. Many Veterans who have left the military are describing their experiences after they leave more candidly, and are identifying the significant amount of training and efforts being placed on things that are not related to the work they were sent to do. Training gets far too repetitive simply because some people fail to put it to use properly. Instead of punishing and or simply having individuals retrain after they screw up, we just make everyone take the training annually or more. Take suicide training for example... This was an annual requirement (I'm sure it still is), and it seemed to get longer and more intense each year. I'm sorry but when suicide rates go up, despite the ramp up of training, adding even more training isn't going to solve the problem. On top of that, in order to facilitate much of this training, servicemen and women are expected to take time out of their primary role to lead or take it. I once read that the #1 reason pilots in the Air Force said they're leaving the Air Force is because they spend more of their time with additional duties vs their actual job.
3. To emphasize #2 comment on additional duties and what Veterans are speaking out about, this has reached a ridiculous state. We reduce the numbers in certain career fields (even eliminating the career field all together) and pass along those duties to those that remain. Additionally, lower ranking members are expected to do so much more with so much less. When I came into the Air Force, it was not uncommon to see a Captain Flight Commander have an Civilian/Airman admin assigned to them for the purpose of clerical work. Today, Lt Cols are lucky to get them. Some have even opted on their own to get rid of them and have the remaining people under them take on those duties. Not because they wanted to, but because they been given the directive to reduce manpower. Eventually this boils over and those who remain are overwhelmed with additional work that isn't their core duty.
4. Next, there is a lot of talk about toxic leadership and unfortunately, I saw this get worse over my 27 years working within the DoD. Leaders have become more risk adverse, all about CYA, caring less about the actual welfare of their troops (unless CYA comes into play), and they play games to get ahead. Truly bad people are navigating their way through the system to make rank, and when they take command (or even simply just "lead" a number of people in general), they create a toxic environment in which more and more servicemen and women (good ones) decide not to put up with it and leave. The problem is, most of those who practice an overabundance of CYA vs taking managed risks, are the ones I describe. They are playing the game vs looking at how to best get the mission done.
5. We are no longer at war and as much as I do not want to bring politics into this, President Biden has essentially made many young Americans question why we bother going to war in the first place by pulling out troops of Afghanistan. Not that I want war, but it cannot be denied that the military does not do well in recruiting when there are no significant wars being fought. Case in point, look at the recruting numbers in 1999, prior to 9/11. What happened then? Balkan war was over, Persian Gulf War was reduced to no-fly zone enforcement and Clinton was slowly ignoring the activities in Iraq and the Middle East in general after his final significant military action of Operation Desert Fox. Things were slowing down and there wasn't much of an emphasis on joining the military as a result. The same thing has come full circle. Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, there are little to no military actions going on around the world, and the military has far less to do which could appeal to the average American. However, I say this is a calm before an impending storm.
To sum it up, we have a perfect storm of risk adverse and toxic decisions coming from our leadership, an overabundance of additional duties, counterproductive recruiting goals, and a lack of significant crisis action to appeal to the American people. I'll also add that we continue to enable, ignore, and pander to those who speak ill of this country, driving their numbers and actions up.
1. Recruiters are placing an unnecessary amount of effort to recruit people based on "social constructs" as some like to put it. Joining the military is about defending this country and its way of life, not whether you're black, white, gay, trans, Christian, or Muslim. Recruiting can and should absolutely work to advertise where each demographic congregates, but they shouldn't be pandering to any of them.
2. Many Veterans who have left the military are describing their experiences after they leave more candidly, and are identifying the significant amount of training and efforts being placed on things that are not related to the work they were sent to do. Training gets far too repetitive simply because some people fail to put it to use properly. Instead of punishing and or simply having individuals retrain after they screw up, we just make everyone take the training annually or more. Take suicide training for example... This was an annual requirement (I'm sure it still is), and it seemed to get longer and more intense each year. I'm sorry but when suicide rates go up, despite the ramp up of training, adding even more training isn't going to solve the problem. On top of that, in order to facilitate much of this training, servicemen and women are expected to take time out of their primary role to lead or take it. I once read that the #1 reason pilots in the Air Force said they're leaving the Air Force is because they spend more of their time with additional duties vs their actual job.
3. To emphasize #2 comment on additional duties and what Veterans are speaking out about, this has reached a ridiculous state. We reduce the numbers in certain career fields (even eliminating the career field all together) and pass along those duties to those that remain. Additionally, lower ranking members are expected to do so much more with so much less. When I came into the Air Force, it was not uncommon to see a Captain Flight Commander have an Civilian/Airman admin assigned to them for the purpose of clerical work. Today, Lt Cols are lucky to get them. Some have even opted on their own to get rid of them and have the remaining people under them take on those duties. Not because they wanted to, but because they been given the directive to reduce manpower. Eventually this boils over and those who remain are overwhelmed with additional work that isn't their core duty.
4. Next, there is a lot of talk about toxic leadership and unfortunately, I saw this get worse over my 27 years working within the DoD. Leaders have become more risk adverse, all about CYA, caring less about the actual welfare of their troops (unless CYA comes into play), and they play games to get ahead. Truly bad people are navigating their way through the system to make rank, and when they take command (or even simply just "lead" a number of people in general), they create a toxic environment in which more and more servicemen and women (good ones) decide not to put up with it and leave. The problem is, most of those who practice an overabundance of CYA vs taking managed risks, are the ones I describe. They are playing the game vs looking at how to best get the mission done.
5. We are no longer at war and as much as I do not want to bring politics into this, President Biden has essentially made many young Americans question why we bother going to war in the first place by pulling out troops of Afghanistan. Not that I want war, but it cannot be denied that the military does not do well in recruiting when there are no significant wars being fought. Case in point, look at the recruting numbers in 1999, prior to 9/11. What happened then? Balkan war was over, Persian Gulf War was reduced to no-fly zone enforcement and Clinton was slowly ignoring the activities in Iraq and the Middle East in general after his final significant military action of Operation Desert Fox. Things were slowing down and there wasn't much of an emphasis on joining the military as a result. The same thing has come full circle. Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, there are little to no military actions going on around the world, and the military has far less to do which could appeal to the average American. However, I say this is a calm before an impending storm.
To sum it up, we have a perfect storm of risk adverse and toxic decisions coming from our leadership, an overabundance of additional duties, counterproductive recruiting goals, and a lack of significant crisis action to appeal to the American people. I'll also add that we continue to enable, ignore, and pander to those who speak ill of this country, driving their numbers and actions up.
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SSG Carlos Madden
I think these are all valid points. For #2 I feel that social media has magnified a lot of issues within American society and the military. And after 20 years of war, there's plenty of material and people to be consumed by the next generations. For #5 I don't think it's a Biden thing or a Dem/Rep thing. I think that regardless of the POTUS this was going to happen mostly because after multiple administrations and two decades, people are asking themselves "What did we accomplish? Why would we do this again?" It was inevitable.
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What about “retention”? Kids being recruited today are expected to be “fit” though many of their parents who serve, teachers…..are not.
I have suggested to the White House several years ago, we need a National Health and Fitness Strategy…let’s use our Resources such as Active, Guard, State facilities and use our instructors who love to instruct…
We all, including me, could really use some “shaping up”…..you never know what’s coming…China does it
I have suggested to the White House several years ago, we need a National Health and Fitness Strategy…let’s use our Resources such as Active, Guard, State facilities and use our instructors who love to instruct…
We all, including me, could really use some “shaping up”…..you never know what’s coming…China does it
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Don’t give the same benefits to reserves and make education on base a priority again. Should turn hobby shops into technical schools too and bring back real MWR
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