from The Epoch Times:
The United States military is facing recruitment shortfalls with only the Marine Corps and the newly created Space Force meeting 2022 enlistment quotas, an issue that could undermine the Pentagon’s readiness to address the “pacing challenges” posed by the People’s Republic of China and Russia.
The U.S. Army in 2022 missed its recruiting goal by 15,000 active-duty soldiers, or 25 percent of its target, leaving the nation’s largest military force 7 percent smaller than it was just two years ago.
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The U.S. Navy came within several dozen enlistees of its 2022 goal but only after lowering its recruiting quota, increasing its oldest enlistment age to 41 from 39, and relaxing other standards.
While the U.S. Air Force met its 2022 recruiting goal, in 2023, it anticipates it “will miss its recruiting goal for the first since 1999,” according to Alex Wagner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs.
Wagner was among eight officials representing the individual military branches and the Pentagon to testify on March 15 before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee’s Personnel Subcommittee about issues confronting the military’s 2.1 million active-duty members, the department’s 700,000 civilian employees, and their families.
“Today the military faces a recruiting crisis,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said, noting that in 2023, it’s expected that “the Army and Navy will miss the mark by 10,000 each,” fostering an “unprecedented” challenge that will be the nine-member subpanel’s “top priority to fix” in the coming two years.
Shrinking Recruit Pool
Pentagon and service branch officials said the shortfalls are partly attributable to endemic obesity, educational deficiencies, mental health problems, and criminal backgrounds that disqualify more than three-quarters of the nation’s service-eligible population from serving in the military.
Officials also cited a “historically strong” job market, salaries, housing, access to health care, and the demands of active duty service among factors contributing to the recruitment shortfalls.
Taking care of military families and individual service members’ needs is “just as much a readiness issue” as having the weapons and equipment to fight, Subcommittee Chair Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said.
Warren cited plans within the Biden administration’s $886.3 billion Fiscal Year 2024 budget request to enhance access to health care, child care, and upgrade military family housing all part of a campaign to boost recruitment.
Among Pentagon initiatives to improve recruiting is a proposed $40 million marketing campaign that will complement and amplify each service branch’s recruitment programs.
