Military Recruiting  by Tom Reynolds

The United States military services are missing their recruitment goals which should be of concern for all citizens.   Derrick Morgan, Executive Vice President of the Heritage Foundation, said that 2022, “was the worst year for recruiting since the advent of the all-volunteer force, and 2023 is shaping up to be as bad or worse.”

Remember the quote supposedly attributed to the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto: "You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass."  At a time when the Biden administration wants no rifles behind those blades of grass, who will protect us?  We all need to be concerned as to why this recruiting deficit is happening. 

The Heritage Foundation established the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness (NIPMSR) to explore some answers to these issues.  The panel is composed of a distinguished group of policymakers, thought leaders, veterans, and defense experts, including:

• Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee and a combat-decorated Green Beret.

• Michael Berry, vice president of external affairs, director of military affairs and senior counsel for First Liberty Institute.  He served for seven years on active duty as an attorney with the U.S. Marine Corps.

• Lt. Gen. Robert D. “Rod” Bishop, Jr., retired U.S. Air Force, chairman of the board at STARRS (Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services).

• Lt. Gen. Robert D. “Rod” Bishop, Jr., retired U.S. Air Force, chairman of the board at STARRS (Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services).

• Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, specializing in U.S. national defense policy with a focus on strategic deterrence. Heinrichs served in the U.S. House of Representatives as an adviser to former Rep. Trent Franks.

• Jeremy Hunt, a media fellow at Hudson Institute. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was later deployed to Ukraine. Hunt was a recent candidate for the U.S. Congress.

• Earl G. Matthews, an American government official and attorney who held senior positions within the Department of the Army and at the White House. Matthews has been an Army Reserve officer for 23 years, including three years deployed to combat zones and is still serving as a colonel in the Army Reserve.

• Lieutenant General (USA, Ret) Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, retired U.S. Army, the 25th National Security Adviser and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

• Morgan Ortagus,  the founder of Polaris National Security, a venture capital investor who also served as spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State from 2019 to 2021. She is also an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

• Sixty-eight percent say they have witnessed politicization in the military;

• Sixty-five percent are somewhat or very concerned about this development; 

• Fifty-three percent say the military has become “too politicized;”

• Sixty-eight percent say such politicization would impact their decision to encourage their children to join the military;

• Seventy percent say lowering physical fitness standards to “even the playing field” are of great concern and lowers their trust in the institution;

• Seventy percent say the focus on “climate change as a top national security threat” has lost their trust;

• Eighty percent say changing policies allowing unrestricted service of transgender-identifying persons have decreased their trust in the military;

• Sixty-nine percent said the inclusion of Critical Race Theory books on the reading list for the Chief of Naval Operations was concerning;

• Sixty-eight percent said they were concerned about reports of sexual assault.

NIPMSR gathered data from active-duty military which shows specific areas of policy concerns and hits us like a 2 by 4 with some of the answers.  The new  data released by The Heritage Foundation on January 12th reports:

Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL), who chaired the panel, summed it up well: “The Pentagon should be focused on winning America’s future wars rather than prioritizing divisive programs and issues…The Pentagon should be focused on how best to counter our global adversaries like China and recruiting the best and brightest to our ranks…It’s more clear than ever that Americans are losing faith in what should be America’s most trusted institution and the current recruitment crisis facing our military is evidence of that.”

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth disagreed when she said that she isn’t “sure what ‘woke’ means” but added, “If ‘woke’ means we are not focused on warfighting (or) we are not focused on readiness, that doesn’t reflect what I see at installations all around the country or overseas when I go and visit.” 

(Note: Wormuth is a career bureaucrat with a political science and fine art Bachelors Degree and a Masters of Public Policy who has never served a second in the military - but she is married to a retired Navy officer.  Biden’s Army Secretary doesn’t know what woke is even though her top generals and admirals are promoting it and Biden’s Supreme Court nominee did not know what a woman is…  No wonder Biden thinks Hunter Biden is the smartest person he knows.  By Biden’s standards, Hunter just might be that!)

In April 2021, before the Biden administration had a chance to “reform” the military, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported: “Nearly 2 decades of conflict has degraded U.S. military readiness—the forces' ability to fight and meet the demands of their assigned missions. The National Defense Strategy states that DOD should be ready to operate in all warfighting domains—ground, sea, air, space, and cyber.”

GAO also stated, “DOD has a plan to recover readiness, which includes goals that align with the national strategy.”

Maintenance issues were frequently mentioned by the GAO as needing readiness recovery. 

Politicization of the Pentagon was not one of those pre-Biden goals.