US military force at 80-year low, Pentagon urges ‘national call to service’

[DaisyDay]

Why would anyone want to sign away so much of the freedom they enjoy just to end up damaged one way or another from a useless escapade like Iraq II ?

Money, community and a sense of purpose? For some, it is a decent deal.

 

[RDKirk]

I think bouncing from one pointless war abroad to another might have more to do with dwindling recruitment numbers than one single vaccine dose out of countless the military are required to take, no questions asked, no exemptions or any kind of diversity training they have recently had.

While certainly, some have probably left for these silly, and very petty politically charged reasons, I think not wanting to die for Israel or Ukraine or Afghanistan might have more to do with people seeing through the complete nonsense that is recruitment today.

I might almost agree, with regard to what's going on in an 18-year-old's head. Those youngsters aren't generally thinking about those immediate political issues.

However, over the course of time, military service has turned into a "family business." A great percentage of people entering the military today do so because they have close family members who were successful in the military. Those members today, more than ever before, advising their relatives and acquaintances to stay away from the military, and things like the COVID vaccination and the withdrawal from Afghanistan are big reasons why. I personally never thought we should have been in Afghanistan (I had done too much reporting on the Soviet debacle there, and saw the same thing happening to the US), and I was in favor of withdrawal...but not the way it was done.

Also, there is a far different zeitgeist among Generation Z that rejects anything that's going to demand a significant period of accountability, persistence, and sacrifice.

 

[RDKirk]

What no one seems to be mentioning is that if the US Army can't keep numbers up, we may well see a return of the draft.

That's not going to happen. At least, not a general draft. A general draft is for cannon fodder, and the US is not going to fight another cannon fodder war that would last long enough to initiate a draft.

A small specialty draft might happen, like the "doctor drafts" of Korea and Vietnam.

But not a general draft.

 

[durangodawood]

Money, community and a sense of purpose? For some, it is a decent deal.

Yeah. Obviously some people actually sign up despite my protests of incredulity. It just seems like a terrible deal to me, with the odds being that your efforts, curtailed freedoms, and possibly dire risks will be wasted on some pointless venture. At least that the lesson Ive drawn during my lifetime.

Balanced against that would be income stability and the sense that, just by being in the military, no matter what the deployment du jour entails, you are part of the actual defense of the country simply as a member of a deterrent force.

 

[seeking.IAM]

Reminds me of the 1970's Viet Nam-era poster: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"

 

[Laodicean60]

I deterred my boys and girls from joining the service because I didn't feel there was a purpose, maybe war fatigue.

 

[durangodawood]

Reminds me of the 1970's Viet Nam-era poster: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"

In the back of your mind is "what if they gave a war and just the other side came?" Its happened.

 

[FireDragon76]

What I suspect is the problem is things like the soldiers expected to pay for equipment left in Afghanistan. (See Soldier blasts Biden after getting charged for gear he left in Afghanistan ). That doesn't inspire confidence. I also suspect, but cannot prove, that many who would otherwise be attracted to military service is not exactly enamored with the current administration.

That's really far-fetched conjecture.

A very real problem for the military is that the vast majority of younger Americans cannot meet the physical fitness standards, or they have mental health problems or histories of drug abuse that are prohibited from enlistment.

 

[Vambram]

That's really far-fetched conjecture.

A very real problem for the military is that the vast majority of younger Americans cannot meet the physical fitness standards, or they have mental health problems or histories of drug abuse that are prohibited from enlistment.

I am a veteran of 27 years serving in the Army and now the Army National Guard. I know for a fact that in my state, recruiting is falling below stated goals for several reasons which have already been listed by others in this thread. I also know that a reason for lack of new recruits, as well as retention goals to keep soldiers in military service, is in fact that many young men and women who would have considered joining and/or staying in the military really are enamored at all with the Biden Administration.

 

[RDKirk]

That's really far-fetched conjecture.

A very real problem for the military is that the vast majority of younger Americans cannot meet the physical fitness standards, or they have mental health problems or histories of drug abuse that are prohibited from enlistment.

That's true, but I'm not sure of the real statistics. The DoD likes to quote "75% are disqualified," but in reality, the DoD only knows about those who actually apply and are subsequently disqualified. The DoD doesn't know what those statistics might be for the great majority who don't apply.

But to be sure, those factors are significantly greater now than, say, a half century ago...when I enlisted.

 

[dogs4thewin]

The big draw I saw on Career Days (representing our company) was post-military college benefits for those who didn't want to make a career of it. Know of a person who that dazzled to the point that his family was stunned when he was deployed (Hellooo...you join the military, you're subject to deployment). This was decades ago, BTW, so it wasn't a new development.

What I suspect is the problem is things like the soldiers expected to pay for equipment left in Afghanistan. (See Soldier blasts Biden after getting charged for gear he left in Afghanistan ). That doesn't inspire confidence. I also suspect, but cannot prove, that many who would otherwise be attracted to military service is not exactly enamored with the current administration.

What no one seems to be mentioning is that if the US Army can't keep numbers up, we may well see a return of the draft.

The draft has its own drawbacks ( particularly now when in general people's thoughts are what can my country do for me.)

 

[Ana the Ist]

I think the phrase "has been" is the catch - in 2011 that's true, but in 2023 it is not.

According to Active Component Demographics (army.mil):

White, Not Hispanic: 53.6%,​

Black, Not Hispanic: 20.3%, ​

Hispanic: 17.6%, ​

According to the US 2020 Census:

White, Not Hispanic: 57.8%, ​

Black, Not Hispanic: 12.1%,​

Hispanic: 18.7%, ​

I'm sorry....does that matter in some way?

I didn't realize that calls for diversity have absolutely nothing to do with historical events or past trends of diversity.

I am certain nobody would agree with the statement that diversity has something to do with this year and this year alone....or even just last year.

Wasn't the whole point of diversity an attempt to "correct" whatever past trends in racial representation were? Does it only matter what they currently are?

For example, I thought the whole reason why those who claim to care about diversity never mention the NBA, NFL or any other sports leagues was because the underrepresentation of white athletes was justified by the exclusion of minorities from these leagues for so many years.

Also....while you're explaining this....

I'm certain that past levels of disproportionate participation was due to racism (that's certainly what you'd say about the disproportionate whiteness of officers, for example) so is the current over-representstion of black enlisted people also due to racism?

Or is it something else?

I mean, obviously I don't believe any of the diversity issue is anything more than the thinly veiled racist beliefs of whomever came up with this political rhetoric but I'm sure you have a coherent explanation...

Men are over-represented as compared to women at all levels. White people are over-represented as officers as compared to enlisted. Black people are over-represented as enlisted as compared to officers.

I'm sure you wrote that wrong...black people are over-represented as enlisted military members as compared to officers?

Isn't every group over represented compared to officers? They're officers after all...there are less of them by design.

The pandemic years were hard on most people. I hope we can manage to stay out of the coming wars.

Uhh...how many candidates are seriously campaigning on keeping us out of wars? Trump and Ramaswamy?

Also the only candidates that don't require large contributions from the military-industrial complex to run for office....as if that is somehow connected lol.

I think as long as the Democrats succeed in keeping Joe...war is definitely going to be the norm, as well as any mainstream Republican candidates. I forget if DeSantis is pro-ukraine or not....but if I had to guess, he is.

Also, it's worth pointing out, it doesn't matter what candidate gets elected....we are going to support Israel. We could elect Tlaib and we would be supporting Israel. It literally doesn't matter how unpopular it becomes on the right and left. As a foreign policy decision...the only other option is not helping Israel...which is disastrous if they begin to lose a conflict. No president wants to be the one known for sitting out while the Holocaust 2.0 happened. If they are winning...the least anyone should expect is weapons sales to Israel, aid packages, intelligence sharing, etc...even if we don't put boots on the ground I'd expect boats in the water.

We essentially have one friendly ally in that entire region and we use them as leverage against everyone else. No president will give that up for nothing....and there's nothing gained in supporting Palestine or even larger nations like Syria, for example.

 

[Desk trauma]

The draft has its own drawbacks ( particularly now when in general people's thoughts are what can my country do for me.)

It could, at the very minimum, not enslave people to fill recruiting quotas.

 

[RDKirk]

I think the phrase "has been" is the catch - in 2011 that's true, but in 2023 it is not.

According to Active Component Demographics (army.mil):

White, Not Hispanic: 53.6%,​

Black, Not Hispanic: 20.3%, ​

Hispanic: 17.6%, ​

According to the US 2020 Census:

White, Not Hispanic: 57.8%, ​

Black, Not Hispanic: 12.1%,​

Hispanic: 18.7%, ​

I was just about to quote those more realistic statistics myself.

Men are over-represented as compared to women at all levels.

And should be. Despite feminism, most of military combat still involves a lot of donkey work and physical deprivation, and men still do better with donkey work and physical deprivation. The military prefers that the people promoted to higher levels have done their share of donkey work and deprivation at the lower levels...which is reasonable.

White people are over-represented as officers as compared to enlisted. Black people are over-represented as enlisted as compared to officers.

White people are overrepresented in college, and officers are all college graduates.

When you break it down by college graduate proportions, college-educated blacks are exactly as overrepresented as military officers as non-graduate blacks are overrepresented as military enlisted.

The problem, then, if you want to call it a problem, is in the percentage of blacks going to college. It's not a problem caused by the military.

And this is where I defend the military. When I saw that some military facilities have DEI offices larger than their Services units (the people who do all the cooking, cleaning, yardwork, laundry, et cetera), I realized that DEI is a massive grift. They've got more people doing DEI than keeping the base operational. When I enlisted a half century ago, the military still had massive racial problems. But the military also put fixes in place for those in the 70s, and the fixes worked...which is why you see blacks more heavily represented at the highest uniformed levels today in greater percentages than the civilian community. Of course, the military being as it is, they are able to apply fixes by command, so they happen. Find a leak, patch it. Find a crack, repair it.

I remember when a racial discrimination incident was discovered in my unit in the mid-70s. It so subtle that even the young black men involved didn't realize they were being discriminated against. But that resulted in the end of the careers of the commander and First Sergeant.

But it also means that the military never needed DEI, especially on the massive scale that it's been implemented.

 

[rturner76]

WHy would anyone want to risk their neck just to guard poppy fiels/oil fields.diamond mines or clean water? The US military is just hired out to secure international business interests. Nobody is fighting for freedom or democracy. If they were, they may have been successful in the past90 or so years. the lobbiests with the most money get to mover the military where they want to destablize the region in order to rape that region of their natural resources.

 

[Fantine]

We have Army and Air National.Guard units nearby, and there were extensive deployments (with a short ramp up training first, since they are not on regular duty.)

One man I know was deployed twice, one year each, while trying to get his physical therapy degrees.

Several ANG people I know were on multiple deployments, although AF deployments are shorter, 3-4 months.

The Guard got them through. An old bf of my daughter's just did a year deployment.

During the Vietnam Era people joined the Guard to stay home, but in the 21st century they serve overseas as often as most in the regular Army.

 

[Ana the Ist]

My (rather limited) understanding is that the only branch hitting their recruitment numbers are the Marines and it’s not because of enlistment incentives but because they’ve consistently done a good job with their tough guy branding. Being “a Marine” still has some cache where being “a sailor” or “a soldier” apparently does not. It would seem that “cannon fodder” is the one job that people are still signing up for, if for no other reason than it comes with clarity of purpose. I guess I understand how that can appeal to some, even if I’m not one of them.

I don't want to blow stink on the military but...there's a reason we recruit young men full of testosterone. We tell stories of heroic battle and glorious triumph to recruit soldiers...not stories of missing limbs from hidden ieds and severe psychological trauma. The truth is far from the story we tell because, honestly, who would sign up for the truth? We need soldiers because war is often a reality...killing and dying for your nation isn't a great job.

It's not as if we are alone in this...all nations do it. Many Arabs have strapped bombs to themselves thinking 40 virgins await them in paradise.

I'm more concerned about things like...

1. Chinese spy balloons we're lied to about. First it was an errant weather balloon. Then it supposedly happened under Trump. Now we're told that a choice was made not to shoot it down. None of this makes sense...and this administration doesn't have the guts to even condemn China for it.

2. Our enemies are making moves. Russia is making moves, Iranian terrorists are making moves, China is always making moves....they smell weakness and they are right. Our president can't find his way offstage. The last one left top generals in a pile of smoke and shrapnel and didn't apologize for it. How long are we going to fund Ukraine and hope that drones will end up winning the war?

3. The youth. They side with our enemies against our allies and have little to no understanding of real hardship. They think someone using the wrong pronouns is trauma, hate much about our nation, and believe they are entitled to be CEOs despite no ability to solve problems and little contact with the real world.

4. Merit. I'm not talking about the cartoonish redefinition of merit where people complain about hard work not getting them ahead...it's about ability. Merit matters...almost always. Look at Harvard. They have a president who's main qualifications are being a black woman. She's failed the students....and ruined the reputation of one of our greatest educational institutions. Despite media fact checkers claiming it's not a big deal, her own university claiming they investigated and she's only committed a few minor mistakes....some 48 instances of plagiarism have been found. By her own university's standards....she shouldn't have a degree let alone run the place.

 

[Ana the Ist]

WHy would anyone want to risk their neck just to guard poppy fiels/oil fields.diamond mines or clean water? The US military is just hired out to secure international business interests. Nobody is fighting for freedom or democracy. If they were, they may have been successful in the past90 or so years. the lobbiests with the most money get to mover the military where they want to destablize the region in order to rape that region of their natural resources.

We aren't currently raping Afghanistan of natural resources. In fact, if we were doing these things I would imagine that we'd be in a much better position economically.

We didn't win WW2 over 2 major powers and fully industrialized nations because we were fighting for freedom or democracy. We won because there were no war crimes...not really. Not for the winning side. These were existential threats and after the horrors of WW1 (arguably the worst war to be in) we were deeply isolationist. The near fall of Great Britain was the deciding factor.

If the British fell (and because Ireland had agreed with the nazis to not fight) the German war machine would have only had 1 front to fight on....the eastern one with Russia (who did far more than the US in defeating Germany). With all their attention turned to Russia, it's entirely possible that Germany could have solidly controlled all of modern Europe. With the Japanese as allies...they could have patiently waited for the best time to end the US. Our entry into WW2 could have began on US soil.

The point though....is that the rules of war were written by the victors, as they are now despite our imagination telling us otherwise. Iran can't fight us openly...so they arm and direct terrorists who they can claim they have no control over. Why? Because these terrorists are attacking non-military targets. They go after commercial ships that both hurt us economically and help Iran. This is how Iran gets around "war crimes" that we like to pretend mean something but they don't. How many Taliban leaders are currently facing a tribunal for war crimes?

We bombed German cities into dust...and the non-combatant citizens with them. People begin to reconsider surrender as an option whenever they are about to lose everything....their people, their culture, their land....everything. We dropped atomic bombs on Japan...and around the same time, they lost their gains in Manchuria. Their military had plans to make the fight as long and as difficult as possible to get a better deal when they finally surrendered. When it became apparent no reinforcement from mainland Asia would be arriving and the second atomic bomb proved we could continue making and dropping them....they suddenly had to consider they would lose everything. They surrendered.

Since then we have fought with bizarre rules about killing only certain people and what is considered "immoral" in warfare. We bomb enemies...give them band aids....and tell them we're friends. They smile, pretend to agree, and continue killing us. Eventually we realize they aren't giving up and go home...and why would they??? We aren't going to take their land or stuff...nor will we kill the women and children. As long as they keep fighting...we will eventually leave...something our enemies have known since Vietnam. We haven't learned much since then....except that we are terrible at nation building.

Why did ISIS take over Iraq so quickly after we left? Because they were a threat to everyone and they weren't leaving. Women and children weren't safe....and surrender was a better option at the time.

 

[RDKirk]

We have Army and Air National.Guard units nearby, and there were extensive deployments (with a short ramp up training first, since they are not on regular duty.)

One man I know was deployed twice, one year each, while trying to get his physical therapy degrees.

Several ANG people I know were on multiple deployments, although AF deployments are shorter, 3-4 months.

The Guard got them through. An old bf of my daughter's just did a year deployment.

During the Vietnam Era people joined the Guard to stay home, but in the 21st century they serve overseas as often as most in the regular Army.

That got changed in the 80s. Prior to the 80s, the active duty got called first everywhere until they ran out of active duty forces. During the 80s came the Total Force concept, in which in many areas, primarily in the Army and Air Force, the AD force became more like a continuous mission cadre who stayed where they were, and when they needed "mo' bodies" to send to some new place, that would come immediately from the Guard and Reserve. So, today active duty might wind up on a regular short or long overseas tour to someplace with a continuous mission, say, South Korea, and stay there during a new conflict. But Guard and Reserve are more likely to be deployed to a new trouble area.

 

[RDKirk]

I don't want to blow stink on the military but...there's a reason we recruit young men full of testosterone. We tell stories of heroic battle and glorious triumph to recruit soldiers...not stories of missing limbs from hidden ieds and severe psychological trauma. The truth is far from the story we tell because, honestly, who would sign up for the truth? We need soldiers because war is often a reality...killing and dying for your nation isn't a great job.

Testosterone in young men is more basic than that. The military can start with 19-year-old men who are out of shape and put them into shape in a few weeks. It gives 19-year-olds the ability to jump out of planes, suffer microfractures in their ankles and knees, and heal virtually overnight to do it again in a couple of days. It gives 19-year-olds the ability to walk around all day with 90 pounds of gear--again suffering microfractures in their ankles and knees, healing with a few hours of sleep, and doing it again the next day.

Older men and women...not so much. A much larger proportion of older men and women will break quickly and permanently.