Why Our WOKE Military’s Having Problems Recruiting Young People Today

My personal comments are in BOLD below – also see list at end adding to reasons why today’s military having major problems recruiting young people and I’ll add retaining first term military up for re-enlistment. Don’t listen to misinformation that recruiting and retention are going fine.

Pentagon’s Leftist Politics Causing Loss of Trust in Military – and a Recruiting Crisis

By Paul Crespo – American Action News May 28, 2022

ANALYSIS – Despite the mounting global threats to the United States, and the increasing potential for significant conflict between great powers, the Biden Pentagon can’t understand why it is facing its worst recruiting environment in decades.

It is time they look inward and see how their own leftist policies at the Department of Defense (DoD) are mainly to blame.

While obsessing over woke leftist causes and ‘diverse’ recruits not normally interested in military service, the Pentagon is alienating the vastly greater number of patriotic conservatives who normally fill our military ranks.

At the May 5 Army posture hearing with the Senate Committee on Armed Services, top military leaders sounded the alarm about recruitment. The Christina Post reports:

According to top DoD leadership, this is the most challenging recruiting year since the beginning of the all-volunteer force almost five decades ago. The Army announced that even after being forced to cut 12,000 soldiers, it still cannot fill its ranks. In addition to this, the percentage of young Americans qualified to join the Army is now at the lowest point ever at 23%.

While an increasingly obese, unfit, and mentally unhealthy society is partly to blame for fewer young Americans qualifying physically or mentally for service, the Pentagon itself is a big part of the recruitment problem.

Much of this crisis is caused by a growing lack of trust and confidence in the U.S. military. And much of this among its core recruiting pool – conservative patriotic young Americans.

Note: 65% come from Red States – no surprise here

Currently, only 11% of all those aged 16-21 answered “definitely or probably” in their likelihood to “serve in the military.”

According to a Reagan Institute survey, the percentage of Republican respondents saying, “they had a great deal of confidence in the military,” dropped dramatically from 87% in 2018 to “53% in 2021.”

And look no farther than the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, for a prime example of why this is happening.

And its not just the Army – all the services have been corrupted at the top and at the Service Academies.

The loss of trust by many conservatives comes primarily from a perceived liberal bias at the top of DoD. Many conservative media sources have decried what appears to be DoD following “political” priorities of the Biden Administration, including perceived targeting of conservatives in uniform. The bias became so obvious that even traditionally liberal news sources have opined about the problem.

Note: There is no “perceived” liberal bias but a real socialist bias as evidenced by Biden SOD Austin immediately ordering a 60 day stand down for commanders to root out “extremists in the military which is code for Trump supporters.

The Atlantic, a known liberal source, published the following: “Where (Milley) deserves greater criticism is his congressional testimony from a few weeks ago … he went on to connect racism to the attack on the Capitol: ‘I want to understand white rage … What is it that made thousands of people assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?’”

The “white rage” statement by General Milley infuriated conservatives, as it was perceived both as an endorsement of critical race theory and of partisan political narratives.

Note: Again this is no perception but the TRUTH – CRT instruction has been mandatory in the military of the O’Biden regime.

The bias perception was compounded by Bob Woodward’s and Robert Costa’s book Peril quoting senior military and civilian DoD leaders with statements undermining Trump and showing partiality to Democrats.

If the Pentagon doesn’t quickly step back from its far left, woke policies and rampant Democrat-linked politicization, conservative Americans’ trust and confidence in the military will only continue to plummet.

Note: Loss of respect and confidence continues and the problem is not the enlisted and junior officers in the trenches; the problem stems from the WOKE top levels among the General Officers and Admirals.

And with it, the recruitment numbers for our nation’s fighting forces.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AmericanActionNews.com

They sure as hell represent the views of most veterans who honorably served and the majority of those in the trenches serving today. I personally do not and will not recommend any young persons join our military or seek a commission by any means as long as the Marxist Obama 3/O’Biden Administration is in power. 

Author Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Defense News. A defense and national security expert, he served as a Marine Corps officer and as a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at US embassies worldwide. Paul holds degrees from Georgetown, London, and Cambridge Universities. He is also CEO of SPECTRE

Following are more reasons why the Obama 3 Administration and their WOKE Generals/Admirals are having trouble recruiting and retaining today’s military personnel:

  • Exemptions from Deployment for up to a year for pregnant females and even military spouses once baby born.
  • Field Lactations Stations.
  • Opening Every military position including close combat to women.
  • Time Out Cards during basic training.
  • Mandatory instruction on Critical Race Theory.
  • Changing Chaplain’s Corps to entirely non-denominational.
  • Terrible Rules of Engagement for those in combat in Iraq & Afghanistan & elsewhere resulting in unnecessary deaths and maiming.
  • Afghanistan pull out travesty.
  • Allowing transgenders to serve and paying for sex change operations.
  • Facilitating Nation Building rather than Combat Readiness.
  • Islamization of our military.
  • Promoting traitors like Alexander Vindman.
  • Allowing enemies to capture our fully armed gun boats and run rings around a fleet of our combat ships.
  • Training emphasizing Diversity, inclusion and equity rather than combat operations that leads to such disasters as 2 modern destroyers colliding with merchant ships on the high seas and resulting in deaths of sailors.
  • Promoting a policy allowing military to refuse assignments based on perception they will be discriminated against because of LGBTQMxyz or other tendencies
  • Renaming every military post named after Confederate Generals (despite fact that Congress enacted a law stating that those who fought on side of south are considered US veterans) Following Civil War I (AKA the War of Northern Aggression, the war between the states etc.) our people’s representatives made a conscious decision to name many of our military installations after CSA generals in an effort to amicably re-unite our nation. At the time, our national wounds were still fresh and this effort was made to honor the bravery of the CSA military. The signs at the gates are set with steel posts in order to be permanent. The name of the installation is not fastened with Velcro(tm) and should not be changed just because a bunch of people who have no understanding of history, decided to throw a hissy fit.
  • Following guidance that Climate Change is the #1 threat to national security.
  • Relieving Commanders for displaying views against LGBTQMxyz.
  • Going soft on traitors like Bergdahl whose desertion in combat resulted in deaths of 6 US soldiers looking for him.
  • Changing physical fitness standards to gender neutral thus reducing any kind of reasonable standards – Reducing the standards and requirements for graduation from tough combat courses such as Rangers, Force Recon, Special Forces, Crucible, SEALs, etc. so that women could pass and be “qualified.”
  • USMC using rainbow colored patches and bullets in celebration of “Pride Month.”
  • Suppressing information on sexual harassment in military where the leading suspects are not heterosexual males.
  • Ridding the service of “toxic masculinity” and replacing many former warriors with pajama or Pillsbury dough boys.
  • Cancelling the culture of the former military that most of us were proud to serve and replacing the “warrior spirit ethic/ethos” feared by our enemies with something we are hard pressed to identify with that is no longer feared by our enemies.

And I’m sure you can think of other ridiculous military polices in place under O’Biden, Austin, Milley, etc. which have grossly undermined morale and the ability to fight and win in combat.

I know we still have brave, strong soldiers in the trenches today, serving honorably but for how much longer under these circumstances?

©Royal A. Brown, III, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.). All rights reserved.

3 replies
  1. Dave
    Dave says:

    So they’ll recruit foreigners and promise them free citizenship after a certain amount of years serving. Gotta promote the drag queen story time under DIEversity.

    Reply
  2. Robert E Jones
    Robert E Jones says:

    The military needs to concentrate on retaining persons finishing their first enlistment. They have already proven themselves. It’s harder and more costly to find few recruits when you add in the cost of processing applicants, advertising, salaries of recruiters, support staff, maintaining larger basic training facilities and the failure rate from basic training which is approximately 10 to 15 percent depending on the service. Retention is the key to sustaining a viable military with the dramatic decrease in qualified applicants. Another way and less desirable would be to institute the draft with one year of active duty and four years of active reserves or national guard and provide educational benefits. I was a Marine recruiter from 1972 to 1980 and faced many of the problems finding qualified applicants to join.
    Respectfully Submitted
    Robert E. Jones GySgt USMC

    Reply
    • Royal A Brown III
      Royal A Brown III says:

      Agree Gunny but retention is way down because our smart military are seeing how the Obama 3 Administration is treating them including ordering standowns to root out so called “extremists” which is code for conservatives as well as terrible Rules of Engagement giving the edge to our enemies in combat; forced Critical Race Theory training; denegration of the Chaplain’s Corps; etc. etc.

      Reply

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