In Attempt to Boost Recruiting, U.S. Army Secretary Shuffles Deck Chairs on the Titanic
The U.S. Army completely misdiagnoses what is causing its recruiting woes, and rearranges Army command reporting in an attempt to “fix” the “problem”
As we have covered numerous times, U.S. military recruiting has been abysmal for quite a while, with the various branches routinely missing their recruitment goals:
- As Recruiting Numbers Shrink, U.S .Air Force Expands Body Fat Ranges in New Requirements
- Military Recruitment Crisis Underway as Biden Admin Continues Emphasis on Wokeness, Vaccine Mandates
- Air Force and Space Force Raise Their Maximum Enlistment Age to 42
- U.S. Coast Guard Making Drastic Cuts, Citing Recruiting Woes
- Woke Military Struggling to Reach Recruitment Goals
It has gotten so bad that the military has even resorted to using drag queens to boost reporting, as we reported: Navy Drag Queen Recruiters – Definitive Evidence that the Military has Lost Its Way
But the most brutal hit has been the U.S. Army, which “has hit 40% of its recruiting goals this year [2022], with the struggle to fill the ranks seemingly so grim the Defense Department reduced its planned total force size because prior recruiting goals were out of reach.”
So you would think that the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth, pictured above, would dismantle the woke, transgender-centric Army that she and her Biden Administration cohorts have promoted to date and which is the apparent cause of the military’s recruitment woes.
Well, if that’s what you thought, you would be wrong.
In a breathless Army Times love fest entitled “Exclusive: The inside story of how the Army rethought recruiting“, the Army’s recruitment woes are allegedly largely out of the Secretary’s “control,” and caused a host of factors that have nothing to do with the Army’s own policies:
The Army can’t control childhood obesity rates. The Army can’t control the falling rate of applicants medically or legally eligible to enlist. Nor can the service stop seismic shifts in the labor market, or control the falling percentage of veterans, who are traditionally the most influential and trusted advocates for military service among the U.S. population.
But what the Army Secretary can do, despite alienating the majority of the country with its woke, transgender hit parade, is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic:
But Wormuth, who announced sweeping recruiting reforms last week, is focused on what the Army can control.
Some of the organizational moves can occur almost immediately with a stroke of her pen:
- Recruiting Command, led by Maj. Gen. Johnny Davis, will now directly report to Army headquarters, instead of Training and Doctrine Command.
- The Army Enterprise Marketing Office, headed by Brig. Gen. Antoinette Gant, will now directly report to Recruiting Command.
Other changes will take years, though Army headquarters will soon issue orders detailing how the effort will unfold, Wormuth said.
Some of those reforms include: focusing on recruiting Americans who have attended some college; creating experimental recruiting units to try new approaches without having to meet a quota; abolishing involuntary recruiting assignments in favor of a specialized recruiting MOS; or even bringing in those without prior service, but with relevant experience, to serve as recruiters.
Of course, Wormuth only took these current and planned actions after assembling a large group to “diagnose” the Army’s recruiting problem:
Perhaps the group’s most important contribution, Wormuth said, was to “diagnose the problems and give us the opportunity to make sure that across the Army, we all…see the problem in the same way.” [The group] focused on factors that the Army could influence.
In recent years, Army and Defense Department data has shown that fewer young Americans can see themselves in uniform, recruiters are increasingly less productive, the academic quality and fitness of applicants has declined, and the Army’s once numerous soldiers-in-waiting have dried up.
One of the major causes [the group] identified: the U.S. labor market has evolved in recent decades, but the Army’s accessions structures had not, Wormuth said. The trends run deeper than recent phenomena such as high employment. [emphasis added]
The remainder of the article goes into more detail about how the Army is going to refocus its recruiting force to be better at recruiting, but conspicuously absent is any discussion about why “fewer Americans can see themselves in uniform,” or why “the Army’s once numerous soldiers-in-waiting have dried up.”
That is unfortunate, but as the saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see, and it is obvious to me and many of my fellow military veterans that young people are not going to be attracted to serve in a military where drag queen servicemembers are encouraged to flaunt their multiple personalities, where military members are given copious amounts of free time and free health care to transition from one sex to another, where female servicemembers are required to shower and use toilets with men claiming to be women, where servicemembers are required to suffer vast amounts of DEI training, and where promotion is based on skin color more than technical and tactical competence.
Take a look:
Our woke they/them military is at it again. We’re screwed. pic.twitter.com/PnzXfeqc7U
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 30, 2023
Ron DeSantis said the U.S. Military is in dire straits with recruiting. He said adversarial countries are laughing at drag queens doing U.S. military recruitment ads. DeSantis is right!
For the love of God, stop making transgender women military officers, men and women soldiers… pic.twitter.com/80H6tx4O3Q— 𝔹𝕦𝕕… (@bud_cann) July 18, 2023
The following is rather long-winded suggestion by a fellow veteran to do what is already happening:
People ask “what should we do? Just not join the military anymore and let it fall into further decay with people who don’t care about their oaths joining instead?”
First, the DOD isn’t going to even come close to meeting their quota without middle America. The oathbreakers are…
— Shoe (@samosaur) December 1, 2023
Kurt Schlichter, as always, adroitly sums it up:
This article represents total failure in a complete misunderstanding of why the Army is failing to recruit. The problem for the Army is it can’t admit the problem, which is the Army sucks. https://t.co/bw3OpYa5vB
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 3, 2023
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“So you would think that the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth, pictured above, would dismantle the woke, transgender-centric Army that she and her Biden Administration cohorts have promoted to date”
Anybody with even an IMPULSE to think that a “historic female” Secretary of the Army would even consider this has been doing too much partying with Hunter.
A sign certain that there’s a problem – that you have a Christine Wormuth as the Secretary of the Army.
It’s not the female part, it’s the lack of a meaningful connection to the Army. Tulsi Gabbard or Tammy Duckworth might be as woke, but I doubt it, but both served in a combat theater and heard shots fired in anger.
Neither could be nearly as clueless
Wormuth and what picking her represents is EXACTLY THE ISSUE
She needs a trans”woman” to come along and reset her priorities.
Every once in a while one of our military leaders actually gets it right. I heard Secretary Austin today say that the purpose of the military is to fight and win the nations wars, decisively. Looks like Secretary Wormuth didn’t get the message. You don’t recruit warriors by advertising sexually confused leaders and drag queens. I would not have signed up under today’s “leadership”.
No mention of one of the largest pools of recruits that aren’t enlisting, the legacy soldiers. The ones who have a generation, often times more than generations of service within a family want no part of the modern military.
They want no part of the current military culture, they see the treatment soldiers received during covid, many of them experienced the poor living conditions as they grew up , They see the mountains of bureaucracy they have to navigate to get the benefits they earned. They see endless deployments with no real purpose, no well defined mission or goals.
I had an uncle who was a Marine aviator in late WWII and Korea. I joined the Corps in 1970. My son joined in 1981. His son sat down with both of us last spring after graduating high school to talk about joining the Corps. Reluctantly, we both said, “Don’t do it. The woke shitstorm hasn’t overtaken the Corps as badly as the Army, Navy and Air Force, but the Corps is not that far behind.”
He decided on college and a civil engineering degree from a religion based university. He is looking to work for a small firm that ignores “woke” when he graduates. He, and we, would still consider the Corps as an officer candidate if it strangles DEI and woke in the next three years.
I hope it does. He would make a fine Marine.
And they see political “leaders” who simply abandon our friends and expensive equipment, while doing absolutely nothing to protect our own military people from easily foreseeable and preventable attacks, all of which happened in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The Army cannot… control the falling percentage of veterans, who are traditionally the most influential and trusted advocates for military service among the U.S. population.”
Those are EXACTLY the people who don’t want their kids anywhere near the incredibly dangerous shit-show full of clowns you have built.
They have seen the elephant and know what’s required to survive and win in combat. Then they watched the basic principles and traditions of their military being pissed on and discarded by the marxists now in power.
They don’t want their kids to be cannon fodder in the initial massive defeats this country IS going to suffer if we fight a theater level war anytime soon.
They’ll wait until the diversity hires, and the people who hired them, are killed off and then maybe they will show up, as they always have before, to save our nation.
What amazes me about the basement dwellers is they always have an opinion but they wouldn’t serve to save their lives.
Looking at the current military, it’s probably the only smart thing they’ve ever done
This is intentional and has been planned out in the Obama days. First you get rid of the warriors, starting with the command structure. Then you get rid of the pros with vaccine mandates. Now that the military is low on volunteers, what comes next? (Hint: places in California are looking to hire illegals as police officers).
Now, what does a military with illegals in the ranks look like? A military with no allegiance to Americans is what.
“Now, what does a military with illegals in the ranks look like? A military with no allegiance to Americans is what.” That’s a military that can and WILL be used on home soil to round up and imprison or execute political dissenters and those on a “list”. The damage is done, now how to fix it before it gets out of control.
We are an armed society thanks to the 2bd Amendment Now. How many are willing to shoot soldiers in a US uniform?
The way things are going, I guess we’re going to find out.
One of my firearms instructors was at a “fun house” exercise. In it, a uniformed police officer came out of the building running toward him in a hostage/terrorist scenario. He “shot” him. Anyone can wear a uniform. Intent is the issue. It boils down to whose laws and whose orders. We have seen law and order turned on its head as exemplified by many incidents. Ruby Ridge, Waco, J6. Unfortunately, no one in their right mind could uniformly do nothing for all occasions. There are instances where nothing is certain and one can only power through. Can we absolutely trust “law enforcement” these days. Sadly …no. After the above examples can the Federal enforcement personnel be absolutely trusted? It is a matter of who is feared/respected the most. Is it earned or demanded? I rest my argument.
“How many are willing to shoot soldiers in a US uniform?”
If they are blatantly violating their oath to uphold the Constitution…
I’d shoot the officers first.
Looks like the final days of Rome, when mercenary soldiers turned on the Romans who both loathed them, and depended on them.
a lot of military age Chinese males have been crossing the border
Add Quds forces and others.
“Now, what does a military with illegals in the ranks look like?”
Late-stage Rome.
Which incidentally was not the best time to be a Roman citizen.
Subotai Bahadur
Our armed services are destined to lose “Institutional knowledge” when those who know what they are doing retire.
The blind will be leading the blind.
Okay, U.S. Army recruitment is down 40%. But this should be viewed in perspective with its other equally important goals: correct pronoun usage is at an all-time high and reported incidences of misgendering are at historic lows.
Enemies, take notice!
Even if the Army were to dial back the “woke” (which ain’t gonna happen) there is another obstacle: who would want to be sent to war under the leadership of Joe Biden? And I say that as someone whose first Commander in Chief was Jimmy Carter.
Remember, this is the SecArmy who wanted to reduce intergenerational enlistments to prevent the rise of a “military class.” She and her ilk have to go.
They don’t want the young white young man from mid America
And now, he doesn’t want you
Why would a white male fight for a country that then refuses him jobs or a college slot because he’s a white male?
Why would any male fight for a country they that requires him to register for selective service, or risk losing benefits that others who don’t shoulder that burden receive?
Men have to register, or they aren’t eligible for student loans, women and illegal aliens don’t
And much more.
Just in time to encourage new enlistments today Brandon said that if Congress doesn’t loosen the purse strings for Ukraine that he will maybe have to put US boots on the ground.
We should put American boots on the ground
Right on the jugular of the democrat crime syndicate…
Affirmative destruction of everything good.
Time to send sexual deviants back into hiding.
Bring more competent immigrants.
Expel all illegals.
Set a minimum IQ to hold office, too many stupid people in office.
If the military were serious about their recruitment problems, they’d start by getting rid of all the freaks, starting from the top down.
They are taking the same action Budweiser did after their sales of Bud Light plummeted.
HELP. PLEASE HELP
my estranged-but-slowly-mkaing-progress son called me the other day. He wants to join the navy. I thought I was safe from military children as this is the only child old enough and desperate enough to join; and he HATES being told what to do.
they are telling him they will send him to school for 2 years to learn how to repair the nuclear engines on the big ships, and he LOVES that. He is also desperate for direction in his life.
How do I express my concerns about joining the military at this juncture without ruining our new relationship?
You yourself probably can’t. Find a family friend that has served and have them talk to your son instead about the pros and cons about serving in the current military.
Morning Sunshine,
Encourage him to join. The nuclear service is safe and he will learn a lifelong skills that will make him uber-valuable in later life. I agree that “woke” is bad, but surprising “woke” does not survive in the STEM or the “Trades” because Physics and Math and Science and Electricity could care less about your feelings or how you identify…
He will be paid to learn lifelong skills that are required at all nuclear facillities both military and civilian that no liberal arts major can touch.
Tell him to avoid the VAX at all costs, but the new wokeness should only infect basic training (advise him to keep his head down and say nothing). The rest of his navy career will be hanging with the non-woke individuals in the STEM and Trades that will have no time for WOKE.
And, congratulations! there really are no parenting guidebooks, just best guesses, but it looks like your raised a young man that wants to do something more with his life than play video games and get participation trophies.
God’s speed to you and your son 🙂
Mim Moco
I can’t imagine why fit, CIS men – the kind of human beings that have been most desired in combat for the last several millennia – don’t want to serve in a Department of Defense led by a bunch of dopey girls and fat old men.
Afghanistan anyone? Incompetence? Abandonment of Americans and friends of America? Belittling of soldiers? Belittling of service? A lying, cheating. law-breaking scoundrel of a President/Commander in Chief? Who would ever want to go to war on the orders of Joe R. Biden, who might not remember that he’s president from moment to moment? There are an awful lot of reasons to stay out of Joe Biden’s army.
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
It is clear that the Biden Admin does not run the military properly. The sorts that previously were consistent military are not desired or or pushed down or out. They have lead to choosing people that are not normal and do not fit the military. If they go with illegals then we will end up with more non Americans in the military over time.
Well, they are running it their way… The ChiCom way.
The diagnosis that this is “rearranging deck chairs” is very close to the mark.
First, a manager’s manager (with no combat experience) will always see problems in terms of reporting structures and having the correct management in place. This is rarely the correct way of looking at things but seems to be management 101 in America today.
Second, when generals at the Pentagon were told to figure out how to fix the problem, their first thought was to preserve their own billets. They know perfectly well that the real problems aren’t going to be fixed by the current Army command but, like leftists always do, they prioritize feathering their own while they can.
“Nests.” Feathering their own nests.
Sigh
solution is simple, start drafting!
IMO, it won’t be long before it happens. The feminists who pushed for equality better get ready for the Selective Service registration requirements to be applied to women.
From July 2023
“Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said she expects within weeks to begin drafting a proposal for a recruiting overhaul so sweeping that Congress might need to pass legislation to enact all of it.
Depending too much on military families could create a “warrior caste,” Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.
There are sixth and seventh-generation military families. There is a ‘warrior caste’ insofar as you have families who have fought for this country since the War of Independence. They showed up, they bled, and now they’re to be replaced by drag queens and identity politics quotas.
“The Army is strategically deploying recruiters to communities across the country based on demographics, ethnicity, race, and gender,” Wormuth had claimed in a written statement.”
Napolean said to not interrupt the enemy when they are making a mistake.
If it only affected them, I would agree.
A few observations.
1. I went to school.with the current CG of Recruiting Command MG Davis, he was a year ahead of me at New Mexico Military Institute. We were both 19/20 years old at the time for context and while it may be unfair, he never struck me as overly intelligent or insightful back then but didn’t come across as a dumbass either. He was,.like the rest of us a motivated young man trying to earn his Army Commission. I will say I never envisioned him as a General Officer.
2. The Army Times article referenced here is from early October of this year for context. In November the Army G1, essentially the Army HR, figured out they had effed up. How? They hadn’t been paying attention to the number of Soldiers that had graduated from the Recruiting Training School and with retirements and end of tour/PCS/ETS for Soldiers currently assigned as Recruiters they were way short. These things happen you may say so how many short? Try 800 short.
3. What does Army G1 (HR) decide to do about this problem? They issued orders to 800 Non Commissioned Officers (NCO) to report to Recruiting School. So far so good. However the orders had a report date SIX DAYS from issuance. Here’s some more context. Recruiters and Drill Sergeants are usually not filled by volunteers b/c folks understand that working with 17/18 year olds who ain’t really IN the Army until the graduate basic training is a potential career killer. One false accusation by a PO Private or Private to be and your career advancement is over even if you survive to stay in. So the background checks for these guys is extensive b/c the Army doesn’t want headlines about a Drill SGT or Recruiter effing the Privates. Neither can have any physical profiles or and admin flags on their records. Basically they gotta be the among the best 25% of NCO on paper to get in the door but no sane NCO volunteers. Usually the incentives provided to them get them enough people but there have always been some ‘voluntold’ maybe 1/4 to 1/3.
So the Army knows they ain’t making mission in Recruiting. Do a big study, a deep dive. They change things up, become innovative and announce their cool new plans to great fanfare in Oct. (FWIW this how it always goes, ‘the guys before us were old farts, stuck in the past, they weren’t doing it right and that’s why it didn’t work, our modern vision, technological expertise and precision implementation… yada, yada’)
A month later Army G1 has to involuntarily assign 800 NCOs to attend Recruiting School and report in less than flipping week. There poor MFs had to tell their Spouses and Kids to pack their shit and move right before Christmas b/c Big Army effed up. The folks in charge don’t display even basic levels of competence. This is bigger than these 800 folks. Every Family in the Army sees this and wonders if they are next. Retention of Soldiers is more important than recruiting and retention is gonna drop ..again as if the foolish Covid Jab mandate and mismanaged Afghan withdrawal weren’t enough self inflicted wounds to retention.
Youv arevwondel
It appears my much longer post got stuck on moderation for naughty words. Fair enough, there were lots of them b/c I was/am very salty about this. Short version is this story came out in the Army times in early October. About a month or so later the Army G1 (the Army’s HR) figured out they had shortfall in number of graduates from the Army Recruiting School.
To give context there are weekly, monthly, quarterly stats briefed up the chain to show what happens with basically everything to do with the Army. Someone messed up and others who should have picked up on it did not. At least not until it was too late. What does Big Army do? Sent orders to 800 NCOs to report to Recruiting Training…. in SIX days. Yep, in Nov they sent 800 of the, on paper anyway, top 25% of NCOs in their grade an involuntary assignment order to an assignment most avoid like the plague.
So despite the rollout of the new/improved Recruiting Scheme the brainiacs at Big Army couldn’t keep track of how many actual live bodies they were gonna have to implement it. Simply unforgivable negligence IMO. Mich bigger in scope than just these 800 NCOs and their families b/c given the scale of this screw up everyone with any sense is wondering if they are next to be sacrificed for the greater good.
And we all thought Durbin’s idea was stupid! Where are there millions of combat-aged men available right now? In every sanctuary city and the border states! Talk about an army that will never refuse a command!
Turban Durbin strikes again….