What do you see as the military's greatest challenge in 2023 and why?

Counterproductive leadership

Politics

Mental health awareness and family counseling!

Looking back at my time in service, I can remember the incidents that contributed to my PTSD. I don't remember much, if any training about mental health during my time in the mid 1990's. I believe had I started treatment sooner, that I may have made a career in the Army. I've met many veterans with mental health and/or family problems since I got out in 1996. I volunteered with the American Legion from 1997 to 2002. I knew many veterans that struggled with addiction trying to cope with the extreme experiences they had during their times in service. I've personally known a few veterans to attempt or complete suicide. It seems to me that addressing mental health should also be part of the overall medical treatment during service. The whole "drink some water and walk it off or take 2 of these and get some rest" was a poor way to handle things back then. I believe having a regular mental health screening for service members could help identify and reduce the effects of some conditions. I think that by helping current service members with mental health problems could increase retention thereby keeping experienced soldiers longer.

I know my mental illness has impacted my relationships. I also know that getting support from family and friends increases my chances for recovery. However, my poor mental health has made it difficult to maintain the close relationships that could improve my recovery outcome. I understand that my poor mental health contributed towards my inappropriate behavior towards my closest relationships and pushed the people I needed to help me get better away from me. I remember there being relationship problems with many of the people I served with back during the 1990's. I hope that the military understands how vital a stable home life contributes to a soldier's overall health and that a soldier's mental health is an important part in maintaining a good social network of support for each service member. I hope the military could institute some training for all our service men and women on how to build and maintain healthy social connections.

Plus, I wish more veterans would volunteer within their communities to show by example that our love for our nation did not end with our service. I strongly believe that all veterans either active duty, reservist, or retired should get involved publicly to lead the way for others to follow in lifting up The United States of America as The Greatest country in the world. The satisfaction, pride, and social connections I've gained from volunteering has helped me in my road to recovery from mental illness. Knowing I served our nation with honor and helping my local community with humility has given me a peace in my heart that carries me thru hard times. Knowing that I have done good things locally and national helps me with the negative thinking that comes with my mental illness. I cant be "all bad" if I've done "some good".

I've never been good a writing but I hope in my rambling sort of way that I got my point across. Mental health is a serious issue for retention and for having a high quality life after service.

Recruitment. The current generation has a completely different mindset than all of the previous generations

Recruitment and retention. The recent rules and decisions regarding the COVID vaccine has decimated not omly our retention and recruitment numbers, but morale. We’ve got serious problems ahead with many of the policies and decisions being implemented.

That is an easy question. Joe Biden! He has done more to destroy the military than any adversary we have ever faced. As to recruiting and retention, his woke policies have directly impacted that. As examples; the COVID requirement, intentionally singling out conservative members, the renaming of military forts, and pushing gender issues. A majority of recruits come from the South. They tend to be religious, conservative and proud of their military traditions. As a former Army recruiter, I can tell you for sure in the area I had, it would be very hard indeed to recruit. Leftists tend not to be patriotic. They don't join the military generally, that is if they could even qualify. The debacle in Afghanistan drastically cost moral for the currently serving troops. That information comes from my two active duty sons.
As to the defense budget, spending millions to address global warming instead of spending money on training, equipment, and readiness. We have lost face on the world stage and we are seen as a weak nation and weak military.

I see the greatest military challenge of 2023 unfortunately is the US Government itself. I know this will probably tick some people off but, it is my opinion. First, with all of the sensitivities, feelings, & emotional issues, Aside from protecting our Country and guardsmen protecting states as needed and all of them under constant scrutiny and recording, They have to watch what they say, they have to be sure not to offend anyone, they have to consider people's pronouns and what people identify as and I personally think that these issues are a huge distraction and they won't be able to give 109% of their efforts. Soldier's in today's military can't give it their all because along with all of these distractions, they're also constantly worried about dishonorable discharges, getting into legal trouble, etc. We've all been paying attention to the news and just one negative accusation can now literally end someone's career and change a person's life forever. Second, With the war in Ukraine and the inevitable war about to happen with Taiwan, our Government leader's are giving away our countries personal offensive and defensive weapons along with billions of dollars. Our country it seems according to the news stories around the world is provoking Iran, North Korea, China and Russia. The world knows what the United States is capable of and yet we're spending millions/billions of dollars in constant live war games, launching missiles, continuous wear and tear on all Naval vessels and equipment. We won't be prepared for a large scale war. I understand and sympathize with Ukraine and Taiwan but we have to also take in effect that all of the weapons, Defense equipment, Tanks, Jets, Patriot Missile Defenses, ammunition, weapons, nuclear deterrents.. That is all taking away from our own military. We have record numbers of illegal immigrants constantly coming to the border, hundreds/thousands of them are serious criminals and threats to our general population. Drug cartels, drug mules, Human trafficking, rapers, murderers, assaults, thefts all of which is also costing the United States millions of dollars and is a huge safety issue plus the constant lawsuits from American organizations who want to just let everyone in and our Government leader's seem to be doing nothing. They provided food to a very large number of illegal immigrants and they let all of that food rot and go bad in protest for better food. I am a Disabled Veteran and I'm unable to work. I have to go to the local food shelf for help but they're only allowed to provide 2-3 days worth of food once every 30 days. I go without food many days and illegal immigrants are wasting food out of greed? I feel so bad for what our soldier's have to put up with in today's military and with our current government leadership. I think we should use our military to defend our borders and fix our country for rom within. We need to stop giving everything away, stop unnecessary government spending and invest in our country. Rebuild our defenses, build back our military arsenal. Provide our soldier's with better equipment and protections. Once we've fixed our own countries issues and supplies, then we can start to help others countries. I know some of this got off topic but, I think the government is our militaries greatest challenge of 2023.

Recruiting. Hands down, recruiting is going to be the military's biggest challenge in 2023. There is an image problem with all branches of the service. They just don't appeal to this newer generation of potential soldiers and sailors.

Good afternoon. Excellent post. Thank You for sharing this. The greatest challenge this year for the Military I would have to say is recruitment and retention. All of the branches of the Military are struggling to recruitment qualified personnel and retaim them as well. Also, the numbers keep havr been decreasing since the Navy came out with the High Year Tenure system, and the Army with its Retention Control Point. I've witnessed in both active duty and Navy Reserves a lot of Sailors who involuntarily separated because He or She didn't fall under a certain criteria. The same went for Active duty and Army Reserves. Ironically, the Navy and Army didn't have enough manpower to function properly since it came out with those two programs.

Chinese blockading Taiwan