Military Recruitment Success in 2024
Prep Courses, Policy Tweaks Largely Drove the Military’s Recruiting Success in 2024
By Konstantin Toropin , Steve Beynon , Drew F. Lawrence and Thomas Novelly
After years of negative recruiting news and headlines, all the military branches managed to eke out wins this year and meet their recruiting goals — largely aided by new programs and policies that allowed them to sign up recruits who would have been disqualified in previous years.
However, despite the wins this year, between ambitious goals for 2025 and deeper issues relating to Generation Z, the services may not be out of trouble yet.
The story of this year’s recruiting successes largely comes down to two broad changes that all the services made in some fashion — loosening the rules on who could join and increasing the number of recruiters.
Both the Army and Navy saw success this past year largely as a result of programs that were aimed squarely at allowing otherwise disqualified candidates to still sign up and join the service.
Giving credit where due, Big Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course approach seems to have merit. The two prep courses provide sub-standard applicants who cannot pass the ASVAB or are too overweight a path to serve. Selectees have 90 days to come into compliance with the Army standards and then can ship off to basic training. If they fail they go home and standards are maintained. Compare this to the Navy’s approach of opening the floodgates to Cat IV recruits, those in the lowest aptitude percentile allowed. As LPO I know which I’d rather have in my shop.
Category: Big Pentagon, The Stupid is Strong
Yup, we know how it goes…
Does that graphic mean eventually the military is going to start enlisting children? That would be one way to get the feral ones off the streets.
Could work…
That would be one way for our kids to keep up with the Russian and NorK kids!
Yes, indeed.
Last year (2023) after a 20+ year grind my wife’s two sisters and their families emigrated (legally) to this country and settled here in Middle Georgia. At the time of their physical receipt of their green cards, the ages of the “children” were 20, 19, 17, and 11.
The 17 year old successfully graduated from High School here and turned 18 in May. I assisted in his signing up for Selective Service. He has expressed an interest in joining the Marine Corps. I’ve taken him to look around Parris Island.
One thing I noticed with all three older kids is that they are unfamiliar with US standardized tests. So we have our own little boot camp on those type tests, SAT, TEAS, AFQT, ASVAB, AFOQT, etc. They are all in good physical shape but the testing will be the hurdle they will have to meet.
How did your kid like PI?
A lot of countries don’t use the multiple choice format. If English is not their first language, picking the ‘ most correct ‘ answer that hinges on subtle language differences can be quite difficult.
Congrats USAFRetired! It took 24 years and 6 months to get my wife’s brother, wife and 2 “former infants” an US Embassy interview in the Philippines. 3 of the 4 are here now. Working now on teaching nephew USA driving regulations vs Philippines, where he had no license and they had no traffic rules. He has an interview coming up as an Fire Department EMT after working as an instructor for the Philippine Red Cross and a hospital Radiology Tech. He wanted to joint the Army but needs to lose weight. Niece finishing up her last semester to be a Physical Therapist and she will be here.
Are Cat IV recruits like the Project 100,00 types of the Vietnam ere?
Don’t ask a question you already know the answer to.
Loosening the rules on who could join and increasing the number of recruiters.
And how about lowering target numbers.
And who wants to spend an additional fucking 90 days in a course and THEN go to OSUT?
I lOvE dIvErSiTy.
DiVeRsItY mAkEs Us StOnGeR!
Nice. That looks like it was crafted by sLurPer 41. Except, he may have left this mortal coil.
“…loosening the rules on who could join and increasing the number of recruiters.”
We’ll see how this pans out in the coming years. Many of those allowed to enlist due to relaxed standards–even those who successfully completed the Prep Course–are probably going to go back to their old ways. If they struggled to pass the ASVAB, they’ll likely end up doing poorly on later written tests, such as those required for NCOES or for some schools. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m picturing someone who finally got a 35 on the ASVAB and feels like they are “set” now that they’re in the Army. A steady paycheck and most of their needs taken care of, why not go back to doing the minimum and having epic online gaming sessions nightly?
Probably worse will be those who needed to lose weight and/or get into better physical shape. Nearly every Army installation has a Burger King, Charley’s, Taco Bell, Popeye’s, and other fast food, not to mention the Shoppette options of Tornados and XXL burgers. Training environments are ideal for “fatties” to excel in, as diet and exercise are closely monitored. I say this as someone who occasionally ballooned up myself, when I received Drill Sergeant orders I tipped the scales at 220 lbs. A few months later, I reported to the school at 180 lbs.
As for the increased number of Recruiters, this means that there will be a large number of disgruntled former Recruiters in a couple of years. Once-motivated SSGs get DA Select, spend three years outside of their MOS, then get treated like outcasts when they return to the force.
Or treated like shit while on the street. The Staff NCOIC of the office that Hack worked out was the biggest asshole he ever met in his career, and that is saying a lot. Not only was he dick, he was stupid dick. One of the Recruiters somehow got into everyone’s SRB’s, and said Marine told Gunnery Sergeant Peniscranium what Hack Stone’s ASVAB scores were, which were significant higher than his. “You may be smarter than me, Stone, but I still outrank you.” To which Hack replied “I can always get promoted, but you will never get smarter.” The most satisfaction that Hack had in the last year was finding his mug shot on line. It seems like n some jurisdictions they don’t tolerate people violating restraining orders.
Déjà vu, baby!
We did the ‘ fat camp ‘ thing at out Boot Camp. Obesity is so common nowadays, it’s good to have a program for recruits who need to improve their fitness and learn about healthy eating. Of course, some of them gained the weight back. But most didn’t.
As far as I have been able to find out, the minimum AFQT score for all services is still 31 for HS graduates and 50 for non-graduates.
Any correction would be appreciated.