bringing back the geezers

recruiting matters

The least appreciated problem the U.S. military confronts late in March of 2024 is not China, Russia, or Iran. As much as the debt continues climbing, we actually have options to pay it down when we choose to take them. What we are not apparently able to do is recruit sufficient women and men to serve in the armed forces.

A plea from the Army for retirees (those with a minimum of twenty years’ honourable service fit this category) to return to the force is jaw-dropping. Yes, the Tampa Times story indicates that one must meet the fitness standards (more on that below) and its unlikely someone over 70 would be chosen but this is suggested solution still astonishing.

To be precise, the call is for people from the Army, Reserves, or National Guard to identify themselves as willing to return to the force should a critical billet open for which the individual qualifies. This is not a guarantee of employment, although those taking up the option will still receive their entitled retirement benefits in conjunction with salary for the ‘new’ commitment. This is not offering sign up bonuses, either, as so often occurs for critical positions outside of the services or as retention incentives.

The business of defending our globe, it now turns out, is a lot more expensive in many ways than we realised when the Cold War ended and the Unipolar Moment began in 1992. The Defense budget increased by about 62% since the beginning of this millennium (and please recall that a huge number of voices argue we are underspending against the China threat). In the final Clinton budget (AY 2000), the Defense budget was $553 billion; the Biden budget twelve days ago requested $849 billion. Big bucks for a big world.

Conducting defense, however, takes humans whether it’s as drone operators or as riflemen. The Navy, Air Force and Army anticipated a combined shortfall of 26,000 recruits last year out, with each service confronting a slightly different percentage of success. Why has this been happening repeatedly?

Fitness standards are a huge problem for all of the services. With two thirds of Americans obese or overweight, we ought not be surprised so many young, defined now as between ages 18 ad 42, are eligible for recruitment but do not meet the weight or fitness test levels required to function in the active force. Huffing and puffing up ladders on a submarine isn’t just an annoyance but can have knock on effects for others awaiting their turn, at a minimum, and more importantly accomplishing a required task for the entire ship. The kids who cannot make the fitness levels are a red flag for our nation’s health costs years from now but they certainly are not going to make it in the service. The Marine Corps, with its visible public relations campaigns over the decades about lean and mean in the fighting machine confront this far less often—they also hit their recruitment goals.

Changes in drug laws across the nation are another issue. While Colorado, Oregon, and even my own state of Maryland, along with many others, currently allow marijuana sales and consumption, federal prohibitions remain in place. Acknowledging drug use certainly is a step in the process through which possible recruits must register their past consumption. In an era of downgrading concerns about the dangers, we ought find no surprise that this is a major barrier to enlistment. I, for one, would rather have drug free folks with their hands on buttons, knobs, or key codes.

The Vietnam era military lowered standards to meet staffing goals with disastrous results. Ask someone who served by 1982 about the multiplicity of problems the drug tolerance policies or lower education levels allowed. Today’s armed forces need much more highly educated, capable, and astute airmen, sailors, soldiers, and Marines rather than merely breathing bodies to fit goals. Yet, lowering standards is a decided possibility as no one, including recruiters, likes failing to meet trumpeted goals.

Military recruitment tends to surge in periods of widespread patriotic fervour. The incredible civic pride born of the 9/11 tragedy long ago faded. Is our current political division also feeding this downturn? It’s hard to imagine the seemingly perpetual suspicion of institutions not affecting the services as clearly linked not only to the federal government but as top-down organisations by nature which do not value dissent for its own sake. The idea one joins the armed forces, then has a vote in each and every decision, the implication of so many ‘freedoms’ we hear about, doesn’t bode well. The military is hardly a democratic machine in other words.

Afghanistan and Iraq certainly provided disincentives because of dangerous and repeated deployments, not to mention profound questions about why we were even there. War is not a fun event, even with the improved technology. With so few of us actually serving, it’s too simplistic to forget the sacrifices and long-term effects. The ramifications of long-term conflict rather than brief but decisive victories in modern warfare is undermining the willingness of young to follow that path should they have other options.

While President Biden is not getting much credit for what many are calling a booming economy, many young are still finding adequate financial alternatives to joining the All Volunteer Force for at least a minimum tour of say five years. When the economy bottoms out, as will happen at some point as all economy cycles ebb and flow, then the guarantees provided by military recruiting will appear more positive but we are not there. The nation needs recognise that recruiting may face a much longer downturn than we seem to think at present.

For all of the rancor in our political system, it’s hard to overestimate the lure of options other than disciplined service when the country has been at war non-stop for thirty years. We have already de facto commonly extended officer careers below the general officer rank beyond the traditional thirty years before mandatory retirement. Officers are staying billets, by request, for three, four, or seven years because the services prefer keeping them than having to find someone else to fill the holes. If this is what peace looks like, what will war be?

Perhaps returning to service those who worked in sensitive billets is the correct answer but that strikes me as unproven. Stop gap measures sometimes become permanent yet we had reasons we asked people to retire at 30 years or age 52ish. Yes, general officers can serve longer and enlisted can serve into their 60s but the demands on the body and mind are real. I laud the creativity in working to solve the problem but what this tactic is not doing is forcing us to ask whether we really need pursue some of the commitments the nation currently does. The National Security Strategy of each administration has some boilerplate about defending democracy and extending our values abroad: is that a bridge too far for Americans today as indicated by their lack of commitment to serve? It’s worth a thought.

Perhaps we don’t need the positions filled but we are on autopilot. Something else to sort through as we figure a path ahead.

Thank you for thinking about what your armed forces ought do to assure the highest quality defense force in the world. It matters to us for so many reasons. I appreciate your rebuttals, thoughts, and suggestions. I have my own biases and know they are not necessarily accurate reflections of how we as a nation address this problem.

It’s sunny but brisk today. Brr. I want to get these old bones out to plant but not today. A walk was the best we could do but it was pretty.

Michaela Burrow, ‘U.S. Army seeking retirees to come back to work amid manpower crisis’, TampaFree Pres.com, 22 march 2024, retrieved at https://www.tampafp.com/u-s-army-seeking-retirees-to-come-back-to-work-amid-manpower-crisis/?utm

Department of Defense, ‘Department of Defense Releases the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Defense Budget‘, https://www.dod.gov, 11 March 2024, retrieved at https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3703410/department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2025-defense-budget/

Larry Korb, Laura Conley, and Alex Rothman, ‘A Historical Perspective on Defense Budgets’, CenterforAmericanProgress.com, 11 July 2011, retrieved at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-historical-perspective-on-defense-budgets/