Why So Few U.S. Military Recruits?
According to this article, “Every branch of the military is struggling to make its 2022 recruiting goals.”
I’m sure this is a complicated matter in which there are several contributing factors. Here are a few points of speculation on my part:
• Perhaps a minor issue but one worth mentioning: American culture is far more focused on money as the definitive measure of success than it’s ever been before. The pay, especially for enlisted personnel, is poor. You’ll make more at Walmart, who just raised its base employees’ pay from $12 to $14.
• The U.S. military understands that its ultimate commander is the U.S. president, and most military personnel were appalled by Trump’s behavior between 2017 and 2021. This was more pronounced in the upper echelon, where our most vocal generals and admirals would have done anything legal to remove Trump from his position.
The Military Times repeatedly published the results of surveys that showed how roundly despised Trump is by our armed forces. This was brought into the fore by his regarding them as “suckers and losers,” and his overriding the internal judicial system to pardon a war criminal. An old friend, an extremely well educated man who recently retired as a Marine Corps colonel in the judge advocate system, said this “slap in the face” to everyone who has served, is serving, or will ever serve in the military, was one of the most indefensible abuses of power ever seen from a U.S. president.
• The GOP wants to stop supporting Ukraine against a clearly illegal invasion from a neighboring autocratic regime. Many young people coming from rural America where perhaps traditional values mean more than they do elsewhere, are thinking: These people have no moral standards. At best, they are cowards. I was raised to be a person of honor. I didn’t graduate at the top of my class, and I’m not going to medical or law school, but no one can tell me that I’m not an ethical human being, and that I should join ranks with criminals who are rooting for a war criminal to take over a democracy, while arresting, torturing, and executing innocent people.
• They may also think about practical matters. If Putin prevails in Ukraine, he’ll be in the Baltics and/or Poland before I make corporal. He’ll have a head of steam, and I’ll die fighting a war that my country, if it weren’t run by corrupt traitors, would have cut off long before it started.”
Would-be recruits understand that almost half the nation, i.e., the Republican party, is as likely as not to win the presidency in 2024. We could even have Trump again, in which case, many of them would just as soon be a part of the Mafia or the KGB. They’d certainly rather be framing houses or tending bar than working for peanuts for a re-instated traitor to undermine what’s left of world democracy.
Our military has served us well for almost 250 years. Maybe it’s time to start honoring, and stop abusing, these loyal young Americans, who live by the values for which our nation formerly stood.
