Army may miss recruiting goals for 2015
USAToday reports that the Army is looking at missing it’s recruiting goal for the first time in six years, for the third time in the last 20 years.
“It is a challenging mission, and we’re not going to get around that,” [Major General Jeffrey Snow, USAREC commander] said. “And there are indications that the economy is going to continue to improve. ”
[…]
The shortfall in recruiting comes as the Army is planning to pare 40,000 soldiers from its ranks over the next few years. Despite that reduction to 450,000 men and women, the Army still needs about 60,000 young recruits a year to fill out its combat and support units.
Yeah, the economy is the problem. The economy was singing along during the Iraq War and folks were getting shot up, and the Army didn’t have any problem recruiting volunteers. But then, the Army wasn’t bending over backwards to appease every social engineer with a brain fart of an idea back then either.
For the first 10 months of fiscal year 2015, recruiters made more than 415,000 appointments with young men and women interested in the Army. Those resulted in just over 50,000 signing up to serve. For the same period in 2014, they made 371,000 appointments and had signed up 52,000 soldiers.
“We made more appointments,” Snow said. “We conducted more appointments. Yet there were fewer contracts achieved.”
Yeah, well, what happened to all of those gays who were going bolster the ranks? Surely, females just itching to be Rangers are knocking down those recruiters’ doors. Maybe the floodgates will open when they let transsexuals serve openly – so they’ve got that demographic working for them.
It couldn’t be that Congress and the White House are working hand-in-hand to reduce pay and benefits, while making retirement from the military less appealing.
The services struggled during the Carter years, too, you know when bonuses and pay were meager. Then Carter tried to bribe us with a 36% pay raise the month before the 1980 election and the following year, Reagan gave us another 35% the following year and newbies were beating down the doors. So much so that we could boot the VolAr troops who joined for the colorful bedspreads with their 65 GT scores.
But, hey, maybe those new uniforms will draw them in, or they could change the color of the berets.
Category: Big Army
The economy is always a factor, but frankly, it’s not the primary factor.
As stated above, how are you going to get your basic 17-21 year old to serve with the social experimentation going on? Selling the service is always hard, made even more so by all the horseshit like breathalyzers before duty, new uniform regs every six months, people willing to dime your ass out for an ARCOM, and the list goes on.
If I had kids of military age, my advice to them would be to look long and hard at all the alternatives, and even then, don’t plan on making the military a career.
As a retired guy (near 30 years of service), I’d have a had time telling either of my kids that its a good time to enlist.
Its not the economy, its that kids aren’t as willing when they are seeing their older brothers and sister and parents shown the door. The same phenomenon happened in the early 90’s.
Trust is a fragile thing.
Silentium Est Aureum…Could not have said it better sir. Thank you.
Opening the door for the TG’s and the Caitlyn Jenner squad of commandos.
A company of trannys that looked like Jenner coming over the hill would scare the shit out of ISIS
Dunno, dude; they might look good compared to the local goats. 🙂
Shocker. All the while good combat tested leaders have left in droves. Good job Big Army. Congrats. You’ve got the army that you wanted.
As an Army retiree of 23+ years (retired in 2011)…and now a contractor working on a military base I have seen and still see alot. It is true that the social experiments pushed on the military is having a negative impact now. guys don’t want to REUP any longer….and we all know that the joe on the street will listen to current and former military before they believe a recruiter. We have a wave of men and women that are hitting the streets and saying that its just no longer owrth it. Families, friends, neighbors all here this and they now are pushing the potnetial recruits to go talk to these recently discharged folks. It will not change until policy does after the next POTUS takes over.
I saw a whole box of the Army’s colorful (anti suicide) blankets at a surplus store. Made me think of Germany and drunk roommates always vomiting on their multi color.
I think it has less to do with the economy and more to do with the fact that being in the service just sounds like it sucks. Deployments are low, fuckfuck games are at an all time high, social experimentation, waning pay and benefits…I recruited for the Marines so for the most part kids joined because they wanted to be billy badasses that wanted to just do their 4 and get out. It was really, really hard to compete with the Air Force though when they were grabbing up the highly qualified kids on the basis of “it’s the easiest service bro, you get the same pay and benefits too.” If I had a son I’d tell him to join for 4 years to get the GI Bill and move on. I don’t care how much the service sucks, that GI Bill will ensure you won’t be in debt for the next decade just to get a piece of paper that may or may not help you get a job.
Well, civilian jobs in STEM fields really do pay better and offer longer-term employment opportunities without the possibility of being shot and killed on the job, so I’d say the military in general needs to take a harder look at itself.
I do know that the Navy has an annual sponsored robotics competition for high school students to build and demo robots using PVC and just basic electronic materials, and Comcast now has a sponsored icebox derby for STEM-oriented kids in high school and middle school, using old refrigerators as the cars.
This is where stuff comes from and where the jobs are. I don’t think the military heads are quite getting that part, since they’re more concerned with office politics than doing the business of being military and defending this country.
Oh, they get it, Ex.
All the services have a huge need for technical skills too, not just trigger pullers.
Nuclear Power is a prime example. Take the best and brightest, and back in the day, crush them until 50-60% attrittion, lather, rinse, repeat.
Some would say there’s a “pump versus filter” mentality today, given that the attrition rate in NF/AEF is “only” about 30-40% today.
But there are still a lot of MOS/NECs that make corporate recruiters drool, even without a STEM degree.
Science/Technology/Engineering/Math (STEM) jobs do pay well, Ex-PH2. But I’m not sure trying to attract more of that crowd helps DoD out all that much overall – in part because IMO doing so won’t be all that successful. Those who want to serve will, in spite of existing roadblocks; those who don’t, won’t. First: STEM jobs require, well, ability in math. SERIOUS ability in math. There simply aren’t that many kids that have the requisite level of ability coming out of high school these days. Far too few come out having taken 2 yrs of algebra plus 1 yr of geometry, trig, physics, and chem. That’s really the absolute minimum – and only then if their high school was damn good at instructing those subjects. Second: the DoD does have a fair number of STEM jobs/positions. However, precious few of those outside the comm/cyber/nuclear technician fields are in uniform these days – and there aren’t all that many of those. Most doing the STEM “fun stuff” (e.g., somehow involved in developing new stuff) are federal civilians and/or contractors. And of those civilians in STEM positions that are in DoD, not all that many are actually doing the “fun stuff”. Many instead end up supervising or managing contractor efforts that actually do the “fun stuff”. Scientists and engineers generally don’t find management all that much fun. There are any number of reasons why it’s worked out that way over time. The push for privatization during the Reagan years was one (can’t really speak much farther back), and IMO kicked off the process. (It also resulted in a large civilian talent exodus). Folks who want to concentrate in sci/tech/eng/math simply don’t tend to stay in uniform – they tend to get out and do what they want to do instead. Third: in STEM jobs, sector experience and recency of experience matter. But the military rotates people way too fast to achieve the former, and often does so in a way that precludes staying current in any given new technology. Plus, many if not most “fun” STEM jobs (development) require degrees. Not that many… Read more »
If I were in my early twenties, and was looking for a career, I would frankly be very suspicious of joining the military, despite my love for it. I would think to myself, “Why would I try to join the military now, when they’re drawing down their forces? They’re throwing away the experienced combat soldiers, and replacing them with green kids? Why is that?”
Think about it? Do you really want to join an employer that is downsizing? In the civilian world, that translates into that business having financial problems, right? Who wants to take a job and be fired a few months later? No one I know.
At this point, I’d have to concur with Sorensen25 above: do 4 and go GI Bill, or do the Academy/ROTC scholarship route and do the commitment afterwards. Then take a good hard look at what’s available, without a huge debt hanging over your head.
I’d not recommend going in with a full career in mind today, officer or enlisted, unless that’s simply your chosen path in life and no other will suffice.
It’s the reason I left in 1974. Enough is enough.
Yeah, the post-Vietnam cutbacks sucked. I was still a youngster then, but lived near a military installation and had friends who were brats – so I saw what their folks went through.
That was a rough time to be in uniform.
I agree with you Hondo. A career in the special operations community may be the only exception and I am not even sure of that anymore.
I don’t think most 18-21 year olds really worry about factors like that, I know I wasn’t aware of it.
So let’s see here Hmmmm, we have taken your retirement away. We are going to strip your medical away, we are turning the military in to a Freak Show. We will lower the standard so people can become infantry or Rangers. So the others in those units can triple woke loads. WTF ! ! !
Been said plenty of time, I have plenty of friends who are being shown the door.
There are even bureaucrats at HRC telling people between 18 and 20 years they have to leave “right now” instead of getting to 20, even though they are in sanctuary and are allowed to stay until they have 20 good years.
Bureaucrats and bean counters and showing people the door without any thought for anything other than saving a buck.
I would add that the Army “administration” isn’t keeping their bean counters in check either. Letting them do whatever they want instead of “erring on the side of the Soldier” and/or being there to SUPPORT Soldiers, rather than support their own ass in a chair.
I came in right after DS/DS and experienced it all through the 90s as well.
So all that needs to happen now is, in the next couple of years we’ll go to war and won’t have any of the experience and knowledge we should have KEPT around to ensure the slick-sleeves know how to fight the fight. (Though again, the bean counters won’t care either way because they’ll be riding a desk in HRC, the Pentagon, and other echelons above reality)
I’ve got news for the bean counters and firing squadsters: we ARE going to be at war, whether they like it or not, and the people they are dumping now, with 18 months or so to go, are the first people who will get recalled, period.
Don’t think so? That PN I talked with a few years ago at my car dealership told me she had processed in someone who had been out for 10 years. Critical rates will be recalled first, so tell your buds to keep their duds. They may need them.
PH2,
I just hope to God the kids come back if they’re recalled. There’s going to be a lot leaving with a very bad taste in their mouths about the military.
Mike
You got that right, Mike.
The mistakes being made now are going to cost us down the road.
My guess is that a large number won’t come back unless forced. If they separate and have completed their full MSO (today, 8 years total) – and they didn’t enter the Reserve Components on separation – if enlisted, they get discharged. Uncle Sam then has no real way to compel them to return short of re-instituting a draft (or equivalent).
Officers who’ve completed their MSO and any “add ons” due to schools, PCS, etc . . . can achieve the same by resigning their commission and not accepting a reserve commission, or by resigning their Reserve commission. That severs military ties.
The people that are likely to find themselves the stuckees in such a scenario are (1) members of the Ready Reserve; (2) members of the IRR who’ve not completed their MSO; (3) reserve officers who went into the IRR but havent completed their MSO or who never resigned their commissions after completing their MSO, thinking they’d be automatically discharged at the end of their MSO; and (4) military retirees (active and Reserve, including grey area). If I recall correctly, under current law all of those categories can at least theoretically be involuntarily recalled to active duty if medically qualified to serve and not beyond maximum statutory age.
When I went to Iraq in 05, we had “retired reserve” Senior NCOs deployed with us.
In the Reserves everyone is “compelled” to go Retired Reserve because the pay scale continues to climb until you hit 60 for pension. So the “RR” was called up for certain shortages quite a bit. If you “Separate” with your Reserve letter, your pay scale stops at the day you got out.
Though, most of them were solid and did excellent.
Originally posted by Hondo: The people that are likely to find themselves the stuckees in such a scenario are (1) members of the Ready Reserve; (2) members of the IRR who’ve not completed their MSO; (3) reserve officers who went into the IRR but havent completed their MSO or who never resigned their commissions after completing their MSO, thinking they’d be automatically discharged at the end of their MSO; and (4) military retirees (active and Reserve, including grey area). If I recall correctly, under current law all of those categories can at least theoretically be involuntarily recalled to active duty if medically qualified to serve and not beyond maximum statutory age. The Ready Reserves consists of the Troop Program Unit (TPU), Individual Mobilization Augmentees (IMA), and Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Both TPU and IMA are considered SELRES. The Ready Reserve (TPU/IMA/IRR) would be the first in line for mobilization during a full or partial mobilization. After qualified members of this group are mobilized, attention would focus on the qualified members of the Standby Reserve, Active Status List followed by Inactive Status List (Congressional call up). Next up, the Retired Reserve Group. One group, retired within a certain amount of years post retirement. The second group would be those that retired beyond the certain amount of years past retirement. The third group would be those who have retired with disabilities. After all of these groups cough up people qualified for mobilization? The draft. It may start concurrently as the different reserve categories get called up. Laws impacting the draft can be changed to bring more people into the military. After the military draft, there’s the militia draft, federal and state level. Someone’s got to hold the fort in case of full mobilization for overseas combat, or to augment the military to repel invasion. Males from 17 to 45/46, able bodied, not in the military, not in any organized federal militia, are members of the “reserve” militia. State laws use the same criteria, or they expand on it. Many civilians don’t realize that they’re subject to both a federal and state militia… Read more »
I’m tracking the officer part, for officers that didn’t resign, or who haven’t been removed from the officer rolls by board action. The last part was more for veterans who were enlisted prior to the expiration of their contracts.
One issue with that will be, a lot of people they are showing the door to, they are QSPing, QMPing, Medically chaptering, etc.
The way they are kicking those Soldiers out, they can’t / won’t come back because they cannot enlist back due to how they were separated and coded on their DD214s. On the same note, they can’t go to the Reserve Component because of how they were coded.
Out for 10 years and forced back in? Color me skeptical. If somebody is off their IRR time after leaving, they can’t be recalled. Lifetime recalling can only technically be done for retirees.
Missing the obvious:
The potential recruits see how we are throwing away lives in tyrolean fluster-cluck “missions” where the purpose seems to be to bleed all over some third-world hit-shoal, then walk away in a deliberately engineered “end game” that looks a whole lot like “quit so the other guys win”.
Whatever the plan at the start, whatever the original goals and motives, the people of the USA collectively allow the so-called “leadership” to whizz it all away.
And we have. Again. The Islamo-Cong just overran Viet-IraqIstan. if not in totality, then certainly in effect. And a whole bunch of folks here not only stood by, they freaking well cheered it on.
Even a 17 year old is usually bright enough to see that this is a colossal waste of, and absolute betrayal of, the folks who do sign up. I take considerable hope from the fact we still get folks willing to sign up anyway, and take the risk.
It is 1975 all over again folks. But I do not see the Reagan we need moving into the spotlight. The next decade is going to be bumpy. We are going to have to be patient, determined, and relentless in fixing this mess.
Ruck-up. it is going to be a long march.
“Folks here” = “voters in USA”
The new uniforms are pretty cool though…
I can say right now that the number of appointments is probably exaggerated. Not due to USAREC smoke and mirrors, but rather to individual Recruiters. The USAREC Portal tracks everything: initial contact, appointments, follow up, and so on. As someone with less than stellar production, let’s just say that I got really good at admin. An old PSG told me I had to learn how to bullshit, and that I did. When a Station Commander insists on HS Senior and recent graduate appointments, they get “made”. Funny how many were subsequently cancelled or rescheduled, though.
The Army always wins in the end, however. I lasted over three years as a detailed Recruiter. Now I’m once again DA selected for a special duty–Drill Sergeant. I look forward to the experience and change of scenery.
Must be doing something right to get all those “cushy” jobs . . . . (smile)
Tell me about it…I get selected for everything except SFC these days. 🙂
I did the same thing. Recruiter in 94-97 (talk about soul sucking time), and Drill Sergeant in 05-07.
Drill Sergeant is MUCH better. Yes the hours suck ass, and you will get sick from whatever the little shits (also known as IET Soldiers) and you may actually have to fight down the urge to slap the shit out of one (or more) of them.
BUT…
In Recruiting, when “Johnny Six-Pack” tells you to “fuck off” you have to eat that and Continue Mission.
As a Drill Sergeant, IF Private McFuckFuck dares to tell you to fuck off…he has a bad week, and he will NEVER think about or do again.
ALSO, when the Higher Ups threaten you with anything, you have heard it all (from people who know how to threaten) from USAREC.
GOOD LUCK BATTLE!!!!
I was an AIT instructor from 2000 to 2004. I loved that job, working with the troops, teaching them how to be CA Soldiers, etc.
Funny you mention being sick. I think there were about 3 total weeks of my 4 years there that I wasn’t sick. The diseases that permeate and maintain in the barracks of IET troops could be utilized as chemical weapons to destroy other armies.
The part that was stressful was dealing with justifying my POI, why I needed things for the course, getting support for my course, keeping standards as they were, etc. Especially after 9/11 we had some high mucky-mucks saying “test them until they pass!” and “they aren’t here to learn that shit, they’re here to do PT” among other things.
It was the best opportunity I’ve had in my career to handle things at the lowest level, use NCO authority, and to make trainees into effective and functional Soldiers.
Thanks, recruiting wasn’t my cup of tea, but I lasted over three years and kept both my rank and integrity. Drill should be interesting and more rewarding in the long run.
My hats off to you for completing recruiter duty. I was “voluntold” for that BS in the Marines and hated every minute of it. Not so much because it was a glorified admin job, but never being able to take a day off and the constant threats/fuckfuck games from the command if anything went wrong, whether or not the issue was in your control. Despite being “successful” it felt like being a Private all over again. Glad it’s done.
Bogus appointments were SOP from the beginning of tracking conversion data. I’ll never forget one knucklehead recruiter who got a bunch of phony leads at a HS career fair and faked appointments made and *conducted* with potential recruits named Frank Zappa, Ben Gay and others. Dude was too dumb to realize the names were fake. Needless to say he was fired and sent back from whence he came.
If you read full article all the other branches are on track to reach their goal, only the army is not. All the rest are going through the same “equality” gender bender crap. I know the army has higher need in numbers, however seems as though it’s more specific to is.
However, most of the other services are making only minor reductions in force level over the next 2 years. The Army has publicly announced that it’s cutting 30,000 over the next 2 years – and may cut more after that.
Youngsters are generally quite naive. But they’re generally not stupid, and they can see handwriting on a wall.
A lot of times almost missing accession mission is due to stupid big Army games, i.e. closing the door on otherwise qualified applicants to drive up the percentage Cat I-IIIA enlistments. Needlessly restrict IIIB (esp female) and PS categories, or only allow PS 18X option. There was a lot of game playing during the 1990s drawdown.
The Marines never have a recruiting issue because they are small and get the people who want to BE Marines.
The Air Force pulls people in with their benefits. As I’ve told people for years the difference between the Army and the Air Force is:
In the Army, the mission comes first, if there’s anything left over we’ll take care of the troops. In the Air Force, we’ll take care of our personnel, then we will complete the mission.
The Navy, Air Force, and Marines are 200ish thousand personnel, plus or minus 25K. They are each about half the population of what the Army is.
But, at the end of the day, there are a lot of factors to this. However, a big issue right now within the Army is “The beatings will continue until Morale improves.”
That’s a good point, Topski. Time was one could say that if you’re pretty smart and not into real military shit, you went Air Force; if you were gay or wondering, need I say it? And if you were just this side of a homicidal mania or just captivated by dress uniforms, you went Marines. Everyone else went Army. So, where is everyone else?
Dammit. I forgot the Coast Guard. I have no idea who goes into the CG.
Coast Guard? Here we go again thinking they’re part of the military. Bahahahahaha.
I keed, I keed.
In 1940 lots of reserves were called to active duty. There were not enough rifles to issue one to each guy. There was not enough of anything. My father was on division sized maneuvers in Louisiana and his Transportation company had to simulate a truck convoy. The had only a few tricks so they pulled a russian parade. Driving the same couple of trucks past a point so the other side would report a large formation. Jeeps became tanks and boards became rifles. A piece of culvert became a gun tube. We were not ready for a war that had been brewing for years. We will be no more ready for the next one either.
The same thing happened in the early 80s and in the 90s as well.
I went to BNCOC in the late 90s and we were given pilot navigational maps that we couldn’t plot MGRS on to plot MGRS coordinates with as part of the evaluation. When we said, How are we supposed to do that? Why don’t we have real maps? “Uh, there isn’t any money for maps, so this is the best we’ve got.”
Speaking of which, anyone else get hit by the good idea fairy in NCOES where for a while they were using student handbooks full of BLANKS in them you were expected to fill out while you were in class? We were given those, but our instructors weren’t given a master copy of the book so they didn’t even know what some of the blanks should be. I don’t think that lasted more than a year. (The person who did it probably got promoted and moved on already.)