By Courtney Kube
Every branch of the US military is struggling to meet its fiscal year 2022 recruiting goals, according to multiple US military and defense officials. Figures obtained by our sister network NBC News show both a record low percentage of young Americans eligible to serve and an even smaller fraction willing to consider it.
The officials explained that top Pentagon leaders are looking for ways to find new recruits to fill the ranks of the volunteer force.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks view the deficit as a serious problem, and have met frequently with other leaders.
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“This is the beginning of a long military recruiting drought,” explained retired Lt. Gen. Thomas Spohr.
Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank.
He said the military hadn't had this much trouble recruiting since 1973, the year the United States left Vietnam and officially ended the draft.
Spoehr said he doesn't think a draft revival is imminent, but "2022 is the year we question the sustainability of the all-volunteer force."
The pool of people eligible to join the military continues to shrink, with more young men and women than ever disqualified for obesity, drug use or criminal records.
Last month, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told Congress that only 23 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 are qualified to serve without an enlistment waiver, compared to 29 percent. % of the last years.
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An internal Department of Defense survey obtained by our sister network NBC News found that only 9% of young Americans eligible to serve in the military had any inclination to do so, the lowest number since 2007.
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The survey sheds light on how Americans' views of the military and the growing civilian-military gap may also be factors in declining recruitment, and how public attitudes could cause recruiting problems in years to come.
More than half of young Americans who responded to the survey - about 57% - think they would have emotional or psychological problems after serving in the Army.
Almost half believe that he would have physical problems.
"They think they're going to be physically or emotionally shattered after they serve
," said a senior US military official familiar with recruiting issues, who believes a lack of familiarity with military service contributes to that perception.
Among Americans surveyed by the Pentagon who were in the target age range for the draft, only 13% had parents who had served in the Army, down from about 40% in 1995. The military believes that parents are one of the greatest influences for service.
A military personnel policy expert says middle-class parents, including the new middle-class, often encourage their children to go to college before choosing a career, hurting enlisted personnel recruitment.
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“Changing parents' minds is the really hard part, especially parents who have worked really hard to put their kids through college,” said Kate Kuzminski of the Center for a New American Security.
She noted that recruitment ads are increasingly targeting the parents of potential recruits.
"That's where they try to win hearts and minds," she added.
General trust in US government institutions is also declining, and that has affected the US military as well.
In 2021, the Reagan National Defense Annual Survey, conducted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Institute and Foundation, found that only 45% of Americans had a great deal of trust in the military, a 25-point drop from 2018.
A military recruiting center in Times Square in New York. Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The trend is likely to continue as the military overall shrinks and familiarity with the service continues to drop, according to officials.
In 2021, an Army study revealed that 75% of Americans between the ages of 16 and 28 knew little or nothing about this institution.
“This recruiting crisis is like a wave moving slowly toward us,” explained a senior defense official involved in recruiting and personnel issues.
“As the Army has been shrinking and the public has become less and less familiar with those in uniform, it has been growing.
And the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated it,” he added.
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A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.
This year's numbers
The Army is about 40% through to its FY22 enlisted recruiting mission, with just over three months remaining in the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
The last term - the summer - is normally the time when the services recruit more candidates after graduation from high school.
The Space Force will also likely hit its target, according to US military officials, but as the Army's newest branch it only expects to recruit about 500 naval soldiers this fiscal year.
The US Air Force, for its part, needs to recruit roughly 100 times as many airmen, some 50,000, but is more than 4,000 short of where it should be at this point in the fiscal year.
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While the Air National Guard and Reserves are unlikely to achieve their goals, active duty is carrying them out on a week-to-week basis, according to a senior US military official.
“We are hopeful that active duty will serve its purpose.
Hopeful, but not sure,” the official clarified.
The last time the Air Force missed its target was in fiscal 1999, and the last time it was in 1979.
Navy officials, who have been using the summer movie
Top Gun: Maverick
, starring Tom Cruise, to try to lure recruits, say they hope to finally meet their active duty and overall strength goals.
The active-duty Marine Corps is likely to hit its recruiting goals this year.
However, the Marine in charge of the troop recently told Congress that 2022 is "possibly the most challenging recruiting year since the inception of the all-volunteer force."
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The Coast Guard lags behind its active duty numbers for this year.
He has met 80% and 93% of his targets for reserves and officers, respectively, but has only met 55% of his target of 4,200 active duty enlistments.
How to solve it
To address the growing crisis, the Pentagon is reviewing some of the more than 250 criteria for disqualification from service, including some medical conditions that have historically required recruits to obtain a discharge from service or have kept individuals out of the military. uniform entirely, according to multiple US military and defense officials.
For example, in the past, conditions such as asthma and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) could disqualify someone from service if the recruit had symptoms after their 13th or 14th birthday.
But now the Pentagon is reviewing whether individuals who have been asymptomatic for a shorter period of time could join without a waiver.
The Army is also discussing allowing service members to use platforms like TikTok to attract recruits.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump ordered a ban on the social network because the Chinese company that owns it collects biometric information from users.
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“We have to be where the recruits are, and TikTok is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world,” said a defense official involved in personnel matters.
The Pentagon is also trying to increase recruiting by targeting more influencers like parents, teachers and coaches, creating recruiting stations with multiple services in them instead of service-specific locations, and even moving recruiting offices to better neighborhoods, according to multiple US military and defense officials.
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The Pentagon may also put more effort into recruiting eligible DACA recipients, according to the officials.
Long-term challenges, such as declining eligibility and confidence in the military, are only part of the problem, according to US military and defense officials.
More recent challenges such as the national labor shortage, inflation, and the effects of COVID-19 have also affected recruitment.
The two years of the coronavirus have led to the cancellation of air shows, a drastic decrease in in-person recruiting efforts and a greater number of people who want to work from home.
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Kuzminski agrees that the pandemic hurt recruiting, but adds that another challenge has been political pressure on some school districts to keep recruiters off campus.
Face-to-face meetings can be a powerful incentive to enlist.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth recently created a recruiting "tiger" team, which meets every two weeks to discuss ways to approach recruiting.
"The Army, like other services, is facing the toughest recruiting market in 20 years," Wormuth explained to NBC News.
“I expect these recruiting market headwinds to persist, so we need to improve how we recruit in this new market environment,” she added.
"In March 2022, we began a comprehensive review and analysis of our recruiting policy, organizational structure, and marketing practices. The recommendations from this review, along with other immediate steps we are taking, will help the Army address the challenges recruitment process and to position Army recruiting for future success," he explained.
The military offers flexible contracts from 2 to 6 years, choice of duty stations, a program where enlisted men can be posted with their friends, and a $10,000 fast boarding bonus.
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Some of the service branches are offering unprecedented bonuses for enlisting or re-enlisting, up to $50,000 for certain specialties in the Army, Air Force and Navy.
But a US military official said bonuses can only help so far.
"We can throw money at the problem all we want, but until we change the way young people see us in uniform, we're going to have to fight to get them to raise their right hand."
