Category: U.S. Army

The Army is gearing up for what is expected to be a very challenging year of recruiting after missing last year’s recruiting numbers by 15,000 troops:

Some of the recruiting troubles, such as declining trust in military institutions, have been known for years, defense officials have said. Others, like the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, are new.

“Only 9% of young Americans are interested in serving in the military,” Wormuth said, referring to a recent Defense Department survey that found only about 23% of young Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 years old meet all eligibility requirements without a waiver. Nine percent is the lowest amount since 2007.

Wormuth, 53, who has been Army secretary since May 2021 and was formerly undersecretary of defense for policy under President Barack Obama, identified many problem areas – but also detailed a series of new changes that are intended to solve them.

A key component, she said, is refuting negative perceptions about the Army, particularly when it comes to Generation Z Americans, who were born between the latter half of the 1990s and the early 2010s. (……….)

“They want community. They want purpose. They want what they’re doing to matter,” said Wormuth, who was director of the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center before she became Army secretary. “I think we really need to reintroduce the Army to the country, to young people, to their parents, to influencers.”

In September, officials from four military branches also told a Senate panel that recruiting is becoming more difficult and they underscored many of the same challenges that Wormuth pointed out.

“We anticipate the recruiting environment to be even more challenging in 2023 and beyond,” Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Some of the most serious problems, Wormuth said Friday, are the change in lifestyle that comes with joining the Army and the negative perceptions in the public psyche, particularly among parents.

“[Parents are] worried that if [their] kid joins the Army they’re going to suffer psychological harm or they’re going to be sexually harassed,” she said. “So we have to put our money where our mouth is — actions speak louder than words. We have got to show results in this area and not just talk about it.”

“Life in the Army is not easy,” she added. “So, we have got to take care of our soldiers. We have to make sure they have safe workplaces where there is good morale.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It is official now that the Army did not meet its recruiting goals for this past fiscal year:

The Army fell about 15,000 soldiers — or 25% — short of its recruitment goal this year, officials confirmed Friday, despite a frantic effort to make up the widely expected gap in a year when all the military services struggled in a tight jobs market to find young people willing and fit to enlist.

While the Army was the only service that didn’t meet its target, all of the others had to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year on Saturday. (……)

“In the Army’s most challenging recruiting year since the start of the all-volunteer force, we will only achieve 75% of our fiscal year 22 recruiting goal,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The Army will maintain its readiness and meet all our national security requirements. If recruiting challenges persist, we will draw on the Guard and Reserve to augment active-duty forces, and may need to trim our force structure.”

Officials said the Army brought in about 45,000 soldiers during the fiscal year that ended Friday. The goal was 60,000.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The recruiting environment out there is tough right now and the Army is adjusting its recruiting requirements to adjust:

The U.S. Army is doing away with its requirement that enlistees have a GED or high school diploma, a move designed to help meet recruiting goals.

In what it described as “limited eligibility,” U.S. Army Recruiting Command said it is moving to a “whole of person” approach, “understanding some quality candidates may have just reason for being unable to complete their education.” The change means a high school diploma or its equivalent won’t be required, but applicants must score 50 or greater on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and meet all other standard enlistment criteria.

“This opportunity means that individuals who left high school prior to graduating due to uncontrollable circumstances, such as caring for a terminally ill family member or working to provide for their family, will not be considered ineligible for service solely because they were unable to graduate,” Recruiting Command said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I actually thought these Army recruiting videos were pretty clever. Having worked recruiting before patriotism and serving your country is not the number one reason most people join; the benefits is a major reason which these ads help to highlight:

The Army’s latest recruitment video series has targeted American society in a daring bid to entice the country’s youth to become soldiers.

Rather than highlighting the unique opportunities that military service can provide, the branch has gone full petty, comparing what some consider baseline human rights benefits to the much weaker ones provided by the average American workplace.

The clips, featured on YouTube, essentially say, “the Army isn’t great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than working elsewhere.”

Focused on benefits like homebuying, paid parental leave, vacation days and pension plans, the underlying message of these videos seem less about recruiting and serve more as a commentary about the sad state of affairs for the average civilian employee. There are currently five of the ads, all part of a series called “Know Your Army.”

Army Times

You can read more at the link, but here is my favorite commercial:

After years of development and testing the Army has gone from having an age and gender neutral fitness to one that is basically the older fitness test that had age and gender scoring scales, but additional events. Here is the score card that shows the max and minimum standards per event:

The full scorecard can be downloaded at this link.

So who thinks this is actually going to happen?

The U.S. Army plans to install a microgrid on all its installations by 2035, field fully electric tactical vehicles by 2050, and ensure all operational and strategic exercises and simulations consider climate change risks and threats by 2028.

These are just a few of the goals the service outlined in its new climate strategy, published Feb. 8.

“The climate strategy is important to address the changing climate and the threats that are coming from climate change — both how our forces operate in a climate-altered world, but what the Army can do to influence this and to mitigate our greenhouse gases and to reduce the effects of climate change,” Paul Farnan, the Army’s acting assistant secretary for installations, energy and environment, told Defense News in a Feb. 7 interview.

Army Times

You can read more at the link, but notice how these initiatives are always pushed out to some far off date like 2050.

This is a pretty cool story that the young girl from the great Korean revenge movie, “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” is now an officer in the U.S. Army serving in Korea:

An American child actor who played an important role in a critically acclaimed South Korean film is now stationed in the country her grandparents emigrated from in the 1970s. 

“Because of them, I’m here now,” Army 1st Lt. Kirsten Kwon told Stars and Stripes earlier this month. “They’re the reason why I’m an American citizen.”

Kwon, 28, is the executive officer of the U.N. Command Honor Guard Company, roughly 50 service members who carry out the command’s ceremonies, such as dignified remains transfers, and provide security for high-ranking officers. (……..)

Kwon’s film career began at age 10 when a South Korean casting director heard her speaking English and asked her parents if they were interested in a role for her in an upcoming movie.

That film, “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance,” featured a star-studded cast and was directed by Park Chan-wook, who is described as “the man who put Korean cinema on the map,” according to a New York Times Style magazine column from 2017.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Last December a battalion command team in the 2nd Infantry Division were suspended for anonymous racism claims. Well now it has been found out that the racist claims were unfounded though the battalion commander was relieved any way for a poor command climate:

In December 2020, Army officials announced the command team of the 602nd Aviation Support Battalion, Lt. Col. Sean McBride and Command Sgt. Maj. Mario Salomone III, was “immediately” suspended when 8th Army “received allegations of racism, bigotry and discrimination in one of our formations via the Eighth Army Anonymous Assistance line.”

However, the ensuing Army Regulation 15-6 investigation found that McBride and Salomone did not violate the service’s Equal Opportunity policies.

“I am continuing to pursue options for appeal of this investigation and am humbled by and grateful for the outpouring of support I’ve received from those I’ve served with over the past 26 years,” McBride told Army Times when reached for comment. “More importantly, I’m proud of the soldiers of the Warhorse Battalion who continued to provide dedicated support to their fellow soldiers despite a global pandemic and challenging command climate on the Korean Peninsula. It was an honor to serve as their commander and I remain tremendously impressed by their accomplishments.”

But McBride’s rebuttal memo, which Army Times also obtained, expressed dismay at how senior leaders had announced the suspension following anonymous complaints that ultimately weren’t substantiated as EO violations.

“Commanders at echelon made public statements announcing my suspension from command and accusing me and CSM Mario Salomone of racism, bigotry, and discrimination on their official Twitter feeds,” McBride said in the memo. “Articles [about the suspension] define my online persona to this day. My professional and personal reputation has been destroyed [by unsubstantiated allegations].”

Army Times

I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but what made his case so unusual was how the senior military leadership in USFK and 8th Army on social media the racism claims that were ultimately unfounded.

Remember 2020 was the year of racial justice protests and that is the only explanation I can think of, of why something like this was tweeted out before any investigation was done. The Army leadership wanted to get ahead of any criticism of racism regardless of what the investigation found. LTC McBride essentially was “cancelled” by the Army. Good luck to him trying to fight back because it is going to be hard to get the Army to admit they screwed this up, but hopefully other senior leaders can learn from and prevent something like this from happening in the future.

I guess we will see if this is something that comes to more Army installations:

Leaders at Fort Knox, Kentucky, will punish dozens of soldiers unvaccinated against COVID-19 who were caught entering on-post facilities without wearing a face mask last week, Army officials confirmed.

“The Fort Knox senior commander [Maj. Gen. John Evans] and other commanding generals across Fort Knox are preparing to issue approximately 40 General Officer Memoranda of Reprimand to individuals found to have violated General Order Number 1, dated 17 May 2021,” said Fort Knox spokesperson Kyle Hodges in a statement emailed to Army Times.

Army Times

You can read more at the link.