I don't think most civilians realize just how strict (and absurd) the screening process is. When I went to enlist at 17 I had a cut on my knee that started bleeding during one of the medical tests (they make you walk across a tile floor on your bare knees for 10 yards or so). The doctor running the screening station wanted to make me come back a week later once the cut healed, otherwise they were going to fail me. Thankfully someone more senior overrode him and I was able to enlist. People get disqualified for having used marijuana once as a teenager, for well-controlled asthma that hasn't flared up in years, or for seeking treatment for anxiety, depression, or ADHD. Once you are in the military, you are strongly incentivized to not seek treatment for anything that could get you medically separated, particularly any mental health issues whatsoever. I understand there are standards but the current system basically assumes that any issue is disqualifying until the recruit can prove it isn't (and sometimes not even then).
I would only disagree with your penultimate sentence. There are certainly some career fields where diagnosed mental health conditions could have negative consequences for your career; specifically I'm thinking of members enrolled in PRP. But my understanding is that a diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD is not a career killer and will not usually result in a medical discharge. Getting access to care still requires jumping through a lot of hoops but I wouldn't want to discourage anyone that's considering enlisting or commissioning to avoid doing so if they think they might receive a diagnosis later in life. My experience is entirely limited to the Air Force though and different branches might have different restrictions that I'm unaware of.
Per the article, past use of ADHD meds can absolutely prevent someone from signing up
> Multiple recruiters on the ground, from different services and locations, are more blunt in their assessments. They say Genesis has ended an applicant’s ability to gloss over or knowingly ignore minor medical issues, such as past use of ADHD meds or inhalers, before signing up.
and a second quote without the disqualifier "ADHD meds", instead pointing to just mental health causes like ADHD or depression
> That makes it harder, some recruiters say, to squeeze applicants through despite past maladies they did not disclose — such as ADHD, depression or a years-old broken bone. Recruiting numbers suffer as a result. Previously, such applicants could enlist if they concealed, or genuinely had forgotten about, these issues.
This article mostly talks about full-time recruiting, but a friend recently went through this while getting recruited to the reserves. One purpose of the reserves is to allow the military to hire mid-career professionals with specific in-demand technical skills.
My friend had used a telehealth counseling service during acutely stressful events and Genesis demanded records that the service couldn't really be bothered to produce. It refused records from the actual doctor. Genesis's nitpicky follow-ups really went poorly with the modern standard for customer service, which is mostly nonexistent outside of billing. The back-and-forth went on for 8 months until my friend gave up.
It was a very long time ago and I forgot some of the details. I just remembered the doctor who examined me was somewhat amused by my bad eyesight, bad feet, and poor lungs. I never drank (at the time), smoked, or did any drugs prescribed or otherwise. I did have excellent grades and I guess I wore my heart on my sleeve and my intense desire to enlist and do what it takes was plain to see. The recruiting officer had a few words with me, thanked me for my desire to serve, and checked I believe his strong recommendation for my enlistment and eventual commission. There was no mention of my physical condition. At the various schools I struggled with some of physical requirements. Mostly the ones that required explosive strength. Even then they gave me extra help so I could do things like pull ups and clean & jerks. I have to say the military for all of its faults and problems was one of the best places I have ever worked at and I look back on my experience quite fondly.
I talked to an ROTC cadet about recruiting this past week and I mentioned how easy it was to be disqualified. She told me it comes down to the military not wanting to be responsible for your death. E.g., if a soldier with depression enlists, there's a much higher chance of that solider taking their own life. Basically, poor health (mental or physical) means poor metrics.
Like in many things in life, follow the incentives. Recruiters tell people to lie on the medical forms because that boosts the recruiters' metrics. But somebody with a high rank doesn't want unhealthy troops because they'll be grilled if those troops aren't fit for battle, or worse, take their own lives, so they may keep arguing for stringent health screening criteria.
The article describes an interesting situation where strict enforcement has exposed problems from old rules. The title is a bit of a play on words, and the article doesn't touch on huge factors for military recruiting overall like the historically low unemployment rate.
I'm a little surprised (but maybe shouldn't be, given that it's from a publication called "Military Times") it doesn't also touch on the fact that young Americans largely don't think that joining the military is a noble goal or a stable career path. They grew up watching the US get involved in disastrous wars, do some pretty bad shit to civilians and prisoners of war overseas, and then let countless veterans fall into poverty when they get back.
Perhaps not for nothing that "America starts wars for oil" is a well-tread Zoomer meme.
None of that seemed to dampen recruiting among my generation, whose parents fought in 'Nam. Things are a lot better for Afghanistan War vets than they were for Vietnam War vets.
I suspect it's more a cultural change than anything specific to the military. Different times, different attitudes.
This does not mention the numbers. one-third of applicants are denied for medical. Once the Pentagon started issuing waivers in 2022 (recent expansion last month from 39 to 54 conditions, with restrictions; ex, one year no treatment for adhd) this fell to 20% from 33%. I estimate that if they only restrict the intake medical history to conditions that disqualify a candidate from active duty, they’d get the numbers they want.
https://usafacts.org/articles/military-recruitment-is-down/ ("USAfacts.org: Military recruitment is down. Why don’t young Americans want to join? A diminishing pool of Americans are eligible to join the Army, Navy, or Air Force. An even smaller pool want to.")
And then you get in. I came out of combat training a PFC with commendations, albeit a Hollywood Marine.
Know...
They aren't hitting you because the trash can bounced off the bed you were next to.
If they don't like you they'll make you exercise yourself until you break your hip.
You aren't violating the Geneva convention if you accidentally hit the person with that weapon that is not approved for use against people if you were targeting the equipment you were standing next to.
Honor, courage, and commitment you say?
I made the mistake of saying.
After two weeks of painting curbs and cutting the lawn with hedge trimmers, I found myself moving from Monterey to the Mojave in my dress blues. There I found myself in a Catch-22 style administrative black hole where I couldn't get orders until I was assigned to a school and couldn't be assigned to a school until I had orders.
There were some incredible people but it was a very mixed bag.
My son had enormous enthusiasm, good health, ambition.
His experience in the army eroded most of that. Fumbled recruiting promises; repeated injury and incompetent treatment; frustrated advancement goals. Ended up a Sargeant, could have done so much more. Eventual medical discharge from accumulated health problems.
I'm reminded of a passage from Neal Stephenson's The Confusion:
"Jack's chief source of discomfort, then, was a feeling well known to soldiers of low rank, to doctors' patients, and to people getting their hair cut; namely, that he was utterly in the power an incompetent."
I have been trying for many months to commission into the Reserves. I have a number of reasons to want to do this, not least of which is that I know that they are severely lacking manpower in the field I work in and I want to do my part in remedying that. Every time I have spoken with a recruiter, they have told me that the only way in is to get "undiagnosed" with ADHD in writing, wait a year, then get past MEPS and immediately get re-diagnosed so that I can continue taking the medication I need to actually do the job I have. One even told me he just got his diagnosis the day after MEPS. I have spoken with people all the way up to a Major about this and it really is just that stupid to get in, for no real benefit, since the military does not care if you have ADHD once you are in.
This is a huge issue in civil aviation, too, for people wanting to become pilots. ADHD (if you currently require medication) is disqualifying and there are many illnesses, especially neurological, that will disqualify you if you were ever in your life diagnosed, regardless of whether you are currently displaying symptoms or taking medication. This applies if you want to fly passenger airliners down to a little two person Cessna. And now we have a shortage of pilots throughout the training pipeline.
Government applications for things in general have way too many “have you ever in your life” questions. No recognition at all that people change throughout their lives, medically and otherwise.
Went through this with my son, whom the recruiter recognized as very well suited for a particular specialty. But the lying and the whole rigamarole about being diagnosed once in because "everybody knows what's going on" made him lose any interest.
> "What it takes to get in the Army is, quite frankly, a lot of fraud and perjury," one recruiter said.
I knew a guy who retired from a TLA after a long period of doing security checks on new hires. He said that people who try to be honest generally fail the interview. "If you ever apply there, just say "No" to everything."
The problem with a state surveillance program that has unintended consequences is that the state can't "unsee" things about citizens. "The old way" can't be gone back to because not only the informal networks no longer exist but also because going back would tell everyone and many more would try to go through these "informal channels". Just in the situation of gay people, "don't ask, don't tell" was sometimes the policy before it became official policy and once it was official policy, it was doomed to be replaced because the state's ability to know simply always increases.
... and the article is likely related to the current headlines[1]. And here, I'd note that if the state starts looking for the "gender non-conforming", it's going to be finding more and more of them.
As someone who spent a twenty-year active and reserve career as an aviator on a childhood ADHD waiver, the military needs to take a hard look at what is and is not disqualifying.
There are legit concerns here - medical conditions that are treatable after an ambulance ride or urgent care visit in the US or a modern country may require medical evacuation in theater. Medicines may not be able to be resupplied depending on logistics, and people who require them often have to deploy with a 90-180 day supply of what they need. And though the military has much to do to eliminate toxic leadership, military service will be inherently stressful in the best of units, which indicates against admitting people with certain mental conditions.
That said, I'm skeptical that things like milder ADHD cases, some other milder or resolved mental issues, sprains, broken bones, etc. truly need the amount of scrutiny and skepticism that military medicine gives them. Seems to my non-doctor point of view that disqualifying potential enlistees or commissionees en masse is the "easy button." It doesn't incur risk to say "no," only "yes." But if medical doesn't take a hard look on when to say "yes,' we're missing the next Jack Kennedy (whole hosts of issues), Bill Halsey (shingles), or who knows what superstar commander who'd take us through the next big fight.
Also, banning recruiters from schools is juvenile and disgusting. I'm thankful I had a mom and dad who supported my dream to fly jets off an aircraft carrier instead of trying to crush it for their own selfish fears.
They don't actively target poor schools. The military recruits from the middle three quintiles of the population; it is literally a middle-class insitution by definition.
I called it disgusting because it disgusts me when people immaturely tar military service as immoral or lesser. There is no shame in serving the duly-elected government of a constitutional liberal democracy, and every human society which exists needs a military. Witness Ukraine.
There is certainly a lingering, and I don't think unjustified, perception that recruiters prefer the desperate and the easily swayed, even if the leadership does not. This dates back to the Vietnam era, and Project 100,000.
Part of it is that middle-class as defined on that page is specifically those who are poor enough to not be able to afford college from their family's preexisting wealth, but not so poor that they qualify for need-based full-rides at most schools. So you get a lot of kids joining up for the GI bill, and not necessarily out of a surplus of innate patriotism or sense of civic duty. Not all, I'd say about 1/3 of the people I've known who served signed up specifically for the GI bill, but those that did joined the Navy or the Air Force, or they signed up prior to September 11 (one friend signed up in August of 2001, just before the start of his senior year of high school).
There's also the issue that as family income drops, the odds of meeting the entry requirements also drops. As family income drops, the odds of a having a criminal record rises (this is true for a lot of different reasons, only some of them the would-be applicant's fault). For all of their recruiting issues, the military still has baseline occupational standards. You have to be able to place high enough on the ASVAB to be admitted to your preferred branch of service, and as a standardized test, it still correlates to socioeconomic background. That is, if you're poor, you're probably going to do worse on the ASVAB, regardless of your actual aptitude.
I am sympathetic to the desire to keep recruiters out of high schools and colleges, but that's mainly because it seems perverse to me to let kids sign up to kill and die (and risk prison for trying to weasel out of it) before they're old enough to buy alcohol or rent cars. I think we should keep recruiters out of high schools and colleges for the same reason we should ban student loans: most 18 year-olds simply lack the experience and discernment to understand what they're signing up for.
I hope you understand the reasons I strongly resent your condescension in that last paragraph. If you're not old enough to sign up for the service, you're not old enough to live on your own or hold down any other job.
Colleges in particular are a peculiar place to scoff at people's decision-making skills, considering the end product of that particular environment is a commissioned officer who in just 3-4 years will be responsible for flying a fighter into combat, commanding an infantry company, or standing Tactical Action Officer watch in charge of employing the full weapons loadout of a guided missile destroyer. Junior military officers hold responsibilities and accountabilities at a young age that their civilian counterparts couldn't dream of holding.
Go look at what those 25-year-olds were doing off the coast of Yemen recently in the most intense sustained combat ops the US Navy has seen since World War II.
I get that. There are two distinctions between "any other job" and military service, which I think matter, and I'll get to.
But, you're also not wrong. If I say you're not old enough to sign up for the service, I'm also saying you're also not old enough to say get a loan for $40,000 of tuition without so much as a credit check. I'm less appalled at military recruiters on high school campuses, and more appalled at the weird magic we all believe happens at 12am on everyone's 18th birthday. Like, yesterday, you were too immature to sign a lease, or buy a rifle, or vote, and you should 100% listen to people in authority, because they know what's best, but today, you're more than mature enough to take on every shred of responsibility for all the things you are legally entitled to, and if any of those people in authority take advantage of you for their own selfish ends, it's at least 50% your fault for what happens to you.
I do draw a distinction between serving in the military and any other job for 2 reasons. First is the obvious. There are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where you may be asked to take a life. Most police departments require that police be over 21, even. Second, there are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where if you just up and decide one day that the job is not for you and quit, no-call-no-show, you go to jail, and permanently damage your ability to get any other job and certain kinds of government assistance, for the rest of your life. Its weird to me that we're just a-ok with (again) 18 year olds making that decision, given that we don't let them buy handguns or alcohol, or rent cars. We obviously, as a society, decided they lack the good judgement to make those kinds of decisions, and accept those kinds of responsibilities on their own.
What I'm saying is that buck privates getting ludicrous financing terms on a Dodge Charger from the dealer nearest the barracks is such a meme for a reason.
There's an argument that jobs which can take a life require more maturity, and there's been talk of specifically limiting jobs like infantry to older, more mature, and more physically-trained people.
That said, the vast majority of military jobs are not combat-coded. They involve mundane things like fixing aircraft, crewing ships, doing admin paperwork, moving boxes, and so on.
I want to be super clear here, I actually have no special objections to e.g. recruiting in high schools for college ROTC programs. As you say, the goal is to produce an effective officer at the other end of years of development, but also years of just maturing and growing up outside of the home. A good friend of mine actually separated from the Air Force (as a captain) and subsequently rejoined specifically to do that (as a stepping stone for getting a waiver to fly an A-10, but he was deemed just a little too colorblind for that, and so he resigned as a major), and it didn't seem at all problematic.
My issue is specifically with recruiters driving enlistment right out of high school, especially for jobs that don't have much of a civilian equivalent market. My friends the nuke techs, or the guy I knew who did something with missile controls on a guide missile cruiser were pretty much in the same spot as when they started, but with the GI bill (although only one of those three used it). The guy I knew from high school who deployed to Afghanistan got a Purple Heart and a Combat Lifesaver certificate, but not much else before he was old enough to buy a beer.
Yeah, its an important job, but its just a job, and we don't let Walmart try to drive applicants in 3rd period. If the steady diet of nationalism and militarism that kids get from age 3 on isn't enough to get them to join up, maybe we should rethink letting them interrupt Algebra 2 to dangle $50k in front of a bunch of 17 year olds.
The dichotomy serves the military. If someone has a health condition and they lie about it then the military is not at fault for death or injury of the liar. They want to set extremely tight controls on health conditions and then have recruiters tell recruits to lie (only that part isn't explicit ). That way they aren't liable. Someone just didn't get the memo before implementing Genesis.
It's like speeding, if everyone is always speeding, then a police officer can always pull you over for whatever secret reason they have. If everyone lies to get into the military they can always blame the victim for lying.
This article doesn’t mention morale or “esprit de corps” which was considered so essential that Clausewitz had a separate section in his writing for his thoughts on the subject.
The whole point is that those things are totally irreverent if you can't actually get somebody into the corps without going through months of bullshit paperwork over minor injuries from years ago.
Perhaps there needs to be some acknowledgment that people aren’t perfect and soldiers don’t need to be and a more flexible, nuanced screening process. A system that required dishonesty wasn’t honorable and it seems odd to blame the software/system that exposed that.
Calling it "not honorable" is a little overwrought. It's just an example of bureaucratic stupidity being worked around as military members have done for decades if not centuries.
I think you are saying that if you are not ready to lie on a form, you do not belong in the military, and thus it is an appropriate control during recruitment?
Life exists in shades of gray. If you read the article, it spells out this dilemma quite clearly. The problem is that the military generally ran on a pool of recruits post-Vietnam who were largely effective and got the job done. This happened despite military doctors setting sometimes-unrealistic standards for who could get in at all, or who needed voluminous amounts of paperwork for a waiver of standards. Kids hid conditions, and recruiters made tough calls to balance what kids truly were a bad fit (asthma, major mental issues, morbid obesity) as opposed to the track star who merely had a broken leg once.
Now Genesis came along and made everyone strictly play "by the rules," and exposed the problems with this kind of black-and-white thinking. It turns out the standards the military was REALLY operating on were not the standards they thought they were getting. And the standards they REALLY were operating under got the job done, whereas the strictest standards they COULD apply would result in not being able to staff the force, because doctors were not willing to incur enough risk.
Ultimately, it becomes a question of whether or not to break a rule at potentially little or no consequence to accomplish an important goal, or to be so pedantic at applying the rules that the organization cannot achieve its goals. The FAA and airlines have the same problem. Scores of airline pilots hide and fail to report medical conditions so as not to lose their jobs. And eventually someone goes nuts and tries to crash a commuter plane. But for that one nutjob who obviously shouldn't have been flying, there's scores of airline pilots fudging their paperwork and seeing docs off-network for cash who nonetheless safely and effectively fly their aircraft. So what IS the standard, or what should it be? Because the black-and-white standard then becomes just a lie doctors tell themselves to avoid risk.
I think we agree that it’s the rules that need to change. The software just made that clear, and those making it don’t get to change the rules — their bosses bosses do.
We are taught to never lie. The problem is that the military is also a vast bureaucracy and is a bit schizophrenic in that the left hands knows don’t do that again but the right hand keeps doing it. One example is that the Army has been struggling for decades with impossible to achieve unit mandatory training. We call it pencil whipping, lying to ourselves, and it is a known problem and yet the problem keeps growing. The best we can do is to follow the letter of the regulation.
I helped develop software for warfighters and it became clear that the most effective officers and enlisted members were those who understand when to follow doctrine and when to exercise independent judgement.
Think of the last time you interacted with a tech support person who refused to deviate from their script. Now imagine that, but directing operations in a war zone.
> A system that required dishonesty wasn’t honorable and it seems odd to blame the software/system that exposed that.
Personally I would place the majority of the blame on the people who designed and deployed this software.
At best, inflexible software that programmatically enforces standard operating procedure is ignored by the folks on the ground.
At worst, it craters mission readiness until someone with sufficient authority to make "a more flexible, nuanced screening process" takes notice and updates doctrine.
>Political leaders and partisan pundits blame today’s recruiting crisis on everything from so-called “woke” diversity training to kids these days being too fat and lazy to cut it.
>Military brass have blamed an under-educated public, a roaring civilian jobs market and bad perceptions of service fueled by negative headlines.
>But multiple recruiters who spoke with Military Times blame Genesis above all else.
Lol, they're probably all right to various extents.
I'm gonna lose less than zero sleep over reduced availability of cannon fodder for future boondoggles in the sandbox. God forbid the people who call the shots exercise a little more restraint. If there is a true need to have more bodies in uniform then the political will will surely materialize to get it done.
In high school I met my very good friend, a young man obsessed with the military. He ended up at the Naval academy, and then an officer in the navy.
To put it bluntly. The sort of young man who does this is not at all into the various social programs the military has now been implementing. Moreover, they started scrutinizing the basic, popular political beliefs of many of the recruits. Those interested in the Navy tend to be of a particular political persuasion, and even those who do not share that tend to have similar underlying belief structures.
What my friend wanted to be a career ended up being the minimum required years of service. It's unfortunate. They lost a loyal, educated officer. For what? What was gained by their novel program?
At the end of the day, the military is a thing that many young men are attracted to. We can debate the reasons why until the cows come home, but the military can choose to either build upon that innate attraction or pursue a different direction, and they've frankly chosen the latter. At every step of the way, they trample upon the factors that led these young men to join, and then they wonder why no one wants it anymore.
From my perspective, they've achieved something that few civilizations in history have managed, which is to make the armed forces actively unattractive to vast swaths of young males.
What's the nuance here? Was the person a criminal or a would be terrorist?
This whole comment is weird, what "political persuasion" is here? The armed forces do not filter out people of a "particular political persuasion" unless this phrase means "person with ties to terrorist groups".
In particular, his social media was scrutinized for being a Trump supporter, which like I said, is also the leanings of more than half the voting populace. He doesn't post anything really, but was notified that they were looking.
None of what you said there is true. That’s not how these investigations work. The idea that the Navy screens out conservatives is laughable. Your friend is lying to you.
The vibe matters to recruitment. Whether it's a lie or not is frankly immaterial. People decide based on feelings, and if the Pentagon had any sense, they'd work to make sure the feelings were one of benevolence and camaraderie.
You know... if there were no recruiting crisis, your criticism would be fine, but since there is a recruiting crisis, maybe it would behoove those in power to listen.
I think your friend did something and doesn't want to talk about it. Even the armed forces folks that were in January 6th got a slap alone. I've friends in the armed forces and if there's one thing they said no one cares about is your politics, specially at recruiting, they just want more bodies, as long as you don't have a swastika tattooed or show up with a KKK hood you're going to get in.
> the various social programs the military has now been implementing
Social programs? You mean the policy of not discriminating based on gender or sexual preference?
> they started scrutinizing the basic, popular political beliefs of many of the recruits
It seems prudent to scrutinize political beliefs that might be incompatible with treating a non-cishet male colleague as an equal (or a superior, as the case may be) or regarding such colleagues with dignity and respect.
They asked a rather simple question, it's weird that you seem to be dodging it. It's unlikely your good-friend was turned away because they were were ideologically-opposed to the military having any social programs for housing, or for healthcare, or for family support, or for post-service education.
So again, which "social programs" were you referring to in your argument?
He wasn't turned away. He left, honorably. No one kicked him out or suggested it. He just didn't feel welcome and saw the winds changing.
It really ought to be obvious, but many of the sorts of young men who join the military and who are attracted to it and would make good fighters are not into transgender troops, women in combat, or flamboyant homosexual men (they're not into flamboyant straight men either). Many of the type of troop we need are attracted to the military because it is -- historically at least -- a men's hierarchical organization. Not only has the military embraced social issues that turn men off, it also offers dual standards (physical standards are lower for women) and affirmative action when promoting (yes... it's still legal for military academies to use affirmative action... they're exempt!). We can either accept this reality and have enough people volunteer, or ignore it, and be where we're at today.
This is not controversial, and honestly is irrelevant to my or yours belief system.
Which is why I asked the question of the purpose of the military. It's not a jobs program. It's to hone warriors who will protect this country. Now, if the Pentagon says we need X warriors and only Y < X show up, this is a problem because the country is undefended. There are a few ways out. Either the pentagon is wrong in its estimates of how many troops are necessary for national security, or, by embracing these novel social issues, the military has eroded national safety, thus negating the very purpose of its existence.
these same folks probably would have been against the integration of black folks back in the day which would have been considered "woke" then. Just like always, this will pass.
Is it just the social programs that are at fault? The comforts of modern life may be equally culpable here. Often young men would turn to the military to get out of hostile domestic situations (lack of space, food, opportunities). The comparative wage gap relative to the private sector is also a factor. This was previously masked due to lack of information but the internet makes it trivial to gauge the disparity.
> Moreover, they started scrutinizing the basic, popular political beliefs of many of the recruits. Those interested in the Navy tend to be of a particular political persuasion, and even those who do not share that tend to have similar underlying belief structures.
Yeah, completely wrong. Great article on this from one of my former flight instructors.
To summarize the article, and paraphrase and editorialize, I've heard a lot of criticisms of the US Navy culture ("boat feudalism" is one of my favorites), but I don't think anyone has ever seriously accused the US Navy of being so open, egalitarian, and woke as to become even the second best navy on the planet.
> the various social programs [...] basic, popular political beliefs [...] a particular political persuasion [...] similar underlying belief structures [...] their novel program [...] the factors that led these young men to join
There's a lot vague references here to things that are never revealed. I don't think I'm alone in perceiving it as an author deliberately hiding guilty details which would devastate the "reasonableness" of their complaint.
To illustrate the idea:
Person A: "The state cannot criminalize healthy joint exercises, natural bodily functions, and freedom of expression! This is an outrage to be condemned by every free-thinking man!"
Person B: "For the last time sir, you can not fastball-pitch your own feces at people in line for the movie you dislike."
> the military is a thing that many young men are attracted to
I have high doubts about this in modern days. Military used to get some recruits, then keep a good chunk of them because of sunk cost fallacy once you realize the hardships. Nowadays, you can see the sacrifices you have to make in your life by just googling it, and just not signing up for military. It's just less "sexy and cool", even from hyper-masculine perspective.
As far as this median voter representative is aware, folks haven't been calling "patriotism" as "racism" for a decade, folks have been pointing out racism (both bigotry and structural) for a decade.
As with all things related to recruiting: the real issue is comp.
I'm sure it has to do with fighting a bunch of "wars" for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I'm sure the dudes who got their legs blown off in Iraq for "reasons" feel great about it.
Let those who want to serve, serve, medical issues notwithstanding. Basic training can filter out those who are physically incapable of serving. The medical should only be done after that, to weed out certain issues like epilepsy, which may not be revealed during basic but could pose a liability when deployed.
It doesn't serve anyone to proceed with training if there's a disqualifying condition. We bear the same costs only to then decline to admit the candidate, and for that individual, it is a tremendous waste of time, energy, and opportunity.
Is eight weeks of basic training really that much higher in cost compared to a comprehensive medical work-up? The effort is mostly borne by the candidate. I'd wager the latter is significantly more expensive to the military.
A nice limited hangout. Within the suspended reality field of the current USA military, the loss of a warrior culture must not be addressed. In fact, hidden. You are richly rewarded to place emphasis on almost anything else.
If it's fifty years of feminization, and seniors 22 years ago had mustaches and were smoking cigarettes, just think what us knuckle-draggers were doing in the class of 1973. (Only a few guys smoked cigarettes, and apart from one beard-growing contest one year, facial hair was not permitted.)
Why would any modern military want a warrior culture? Warriors fight for personal glory, not maximum operational effectiveness. E.g. a warrior culture would never use drones to their fullest extent, despite their demonstrated effectiveness, because killing people via drone isn't glamorous. Modern militaries want soldiers, not warriors. Consider the idiom "soldier on". A single warrior beats a single soldier, but soldiers scale much better.
Man, all this agile/servant leader bullshit can work in the Sillicon Valley, but try that shit while covering from Russian artillery fire.
And no, Warrior Culture has nothing to do with your prejudiced view, I'd die for my former brothers, because they would die for me. I would never do the same for anyone in my scrum team.
I don't think most civilians realize just how strict (and absurd) the screening process is. When I went to enlist at 17 I had a cut on my knee that started bleeding during one of the medical tests (they make you walk across a tile floor on your bare knees for 10 yards or so). The doctor running the screening station wanted to make me come back a week later once the cut healed, otherwise they were going to fail me. Thankfully someone more senior overrode him and I was able to enlist. People get disqualified for having used marijuana once as a teenager, for well-controlled asthma that hasn't flared up in years, or for seeking treatment for anxiety, depression, or ADHD. Once you are in the military, you are strongly incentivized to not seek treatment for anything that could get you medically separated, particularly any mental health issues whatsoever. I understand there are standards but the current system basically assumes that any issue is disqualifying until the recruit can prove it isn't (and sometimes not even then).
I would only disagree with your penultimate sentence. There are certainly some career fields where diagnosed mental health conditions could have negative consequences for your career; specifically I'm thinking of members enrolled in PRP. But my understanding is that a diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD is not a career killer and will not usually result in a medical discharge. Getting access to care still requires jumping through a lot of hoops but I wouldn't want to discourage anyone that's considering enlisting or commissioning to avoid doing so if they think they might receive a diagnosis later in life. My experience is entirely limited to the Air Force though and different branches might have different restrictions that I'm unaware of.
Per the article, past use of ADHD meds can absolutely prevent someone from signing up
> Multiple recruiters on the ground, from different services and locations, are more blunt in their assessments. They say Genesis has ended an applicant’s ability to gloss over or knowingly ignore minor medical issues, such as past use of ADHD meds or inhalers, before signing up.
and a second quote without the disqualifier "ADHD meds", instead pointing to just mental health causes like ADHD or depression
> That makes it harder, some recruiters say, to squeeze applicants through despite past maladies they did not disclose — such as ADHD, depression or a years-old broken bone. Recruiting numbers suffer as a result. Previously, such applicants could enlist if they concealed, or genuinely had forgotten about, these issues.
This article mostly talks about full-time recruiting, but a friend recently went through this while getting recruited to the reserves. One purpose of the reserves is to allow the military to hire mid-career professionals with specific in-demand technical skills.
My friend had used a telehealth counseling service during acutely stressful events and Genesis demanded records that the service couldn't really be bothered to produce. It refused records from the actual doctor. Genesis's nitpicky follow-ups really went poorly with the modern standard for customer service, which is mostly nonexistent outside of billing. The back-and-forth went on for 8 months until my friend gave up.
It was a very long time ago and I forgot some of the details. I just remembered the doctor who examined me was somewhat amused by my bad eyesight, bad feet, and poor lungs. I never drank (at the time), smoked, or did any drugs prescribed or otherwise. I did have excellent grades and I guess I wore my heart on my sleeve and my intense desire to enlist and do what it takes was plain to see. The recruiting officer had a few words with me, thanked me for my desire to serve, and checked I believe his strong recommendation for my enlistment and eventual commission. There was no mention of my physical condition. At the various schools I struggled with some of physical requirements. Mostly the ones that required explosive strength. Even then they gave me extra help so I could do things like pull ups and clean & jerks. I have to say the military for all of its faults and problems was one of the best places I have ever worked at and I look back on my experience quite fondly.
I had anticipated that this would've ended with you becoming Captain America.
I talked to an ROTC cadet about recruiting this past week and I mentioned how easy it was to be disqualified. She told me it comes down to the military not wanting to be responsible for your death. E.g., if a soldier with depression enlists, there's a much higher chance of that solider taking their own life. Basically, poor health (mental or physical) means poor metrics.
Like in many things in life, follow the incentives. Recruiters tell people to lie on the medical forms because that boosts the recruiters' metrics. But somebody with a high rank doesn't want unhealthy troops because they'll be grilled if those troops aren't fit for battle, or worse, take their own lives, so they may keep arguing for stringent health screening criteria.
The article describes an interesting situation where strict enforcement has exposed problems from old rules. The title is a bit of a play on words, and the article doesn't touch on huge factors for military recruiting overall like the historically low unemployment rate.
I'm a little surprised (but maybe shouldn't be, given that it's from a publication called "Military Times") it doesn't also touch on the fact that young Americans largely don't think that joining the military is a noble goal or a stable career path. They grew up watching the US get involved in disastrous wars, do some pretty bad shit to civilians and prisoners of war overseas, and then let countless veterans fall into poverty when they get back.
Perhaps not for nothing that "America starts wars for oil" is a well-tread Zoomer meme.
None of that seemed to dampen recruiting among my generation, whose parents fought in 'Nam. Things are a lot better for Afghanistan War vets than they were for Vietnam War vets.
I suspect it's more a cultural change than anything specific to the military. Different times, different attitudes.
This does not mention the numbers. one-third of applicants are denied for medical. Once the Pentagon started issuing waivers in 2022 (recent expansion last month from 39 to 54 conditions, with restrictions; ex, one year no treatment for adhd) this fell to 20% from 33%. I estimate that if they only restrict the intake medical history to conditions that disqualify a candidate from active duty, they’d get the numbers they want.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-n... ("Vox: America isn’t ready for another war — because it doesn’t have the troops. The US military’s recruiting crisis, explained.")
https://usafacts.org/articles/military-recruitment-is-down/ ("USAfacts.org: Military recruitment is down. Why don’t young Americans want to join? A diminishing pool of Americans are eligible to join the Army, Navy, or Air Force. An even smaller pool want to.")
https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-recruiting-crisis-vete... | https://archive.today/W23Jq ("WSJ: The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join")
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2024-08-15/military-sexu... ("Stripes: Military sexual assaults far exceed DOD estimates, new report finds")
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/suicide-now-the-primary-cau... ("Boston University: Suicide Now the Primary Cause of Death among Active Duty US Soldiers")
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-sham... ("Rolling Stone: The Shameful Way America Treats Its Veterans")
With my apologies to Jordan Belfort, "Sell me on this job."
And then you get in. I came out of combat training a PFC with commendations, albeit a Hollywood Marine.
Know...
They aren't hitting you because the trash can bounced off the bed you were next to.
If they don't like you they'll make you exercise yourself until you break your hip.
You aren't violating the Geneva convention if you accidentally hit the person with that weapon that is not approved for use against people if you were targeting the equipment you were standing next to.
Honor, courage, and commitment you say?
I made the mistake of saying.
After two weeks of painting curbs and cutting the lawn with hedge trimmers, I found myself moving from Monterey to the Mojave in my dress blues. There I found myself in a Catch-22 style administrative black hole where I couldn't get orders until I was assigned to a school and couldn't be assigned to a school until I had orders.
There were some incredible people but it was a very mixed bag.
My son had enormous enthusiasm, good health, ambition.
His experience in the army eroded most of that. Fumbled recruiting promises; repeated injury and incompetent treatment; frustrated advancement goals. Ended up a Sargeant, could have done so much more. Eventual medical discharge from accumulated health problems.
I'm reminded of a passage from Neal Stephenson's The Confusion:
"Jack's chief source of discomfort, then, was a feeling well known to soldiers of low rank, to doctors' patients, and to people getting their hair cut; namely, that he was utterly in the power an incompetent."
I’m surprised they don’t want kids who broke bones when they were younger. Seems like that’s exactly the kid you want under arms.
I have been trying for many months to commission into the Reserves. I have a number of reasons to want to do this, not least of which is that I know that they are severely lacking manpower in the field I work in and I want to do my part in remedying that. Every time I have spoken with a recruiter, they have told me that the only way in is to get "undiagnosed" with ADHD in writing, wait a year, then get past MEPS and immediately get re-diagnosed so that I can continue taking the medication I need to actually do the job I have. One even told me he just got his diagnosis the day after MEPS. I have spoken with people all the way up to a Major about this and it really is just that stupid to get in, for no real benefit, since the military does not care if you have ADHD once you are in.
This is a huge issue in civil aviation, too, for people wanting to become pilots. ADHD (if you currently require medication) is disqualifying and there are many illnesses, especially neurological, that will disqualify you if you were ever in your life diagnosed, regardless of whether you are currently displaying symptoms or taking medication. This applies if you want to fly passenger airliners down to a little two person Cessna. And now we have a shortage of pilots throughout the training pipeline.
Government applications for things in general have way too many “have you ever in your life” questions. No recognition at all that people change throughout their lives, medically and otherwise.
Went through this with my son, whom the recruiter recognized as very well suited for a particular specialty. But the lying and the whole rigamarole about being diagnosed once in because "everybody knows what's going on" made him lose any interest.
Interesting, I would have assumed any army would have a higher proportion of people on the ADHD spectrum.
Apparently it does, just none of them happened to know about their condition before they joined. What are the chances?!
maybe you can get in as a contractor?
> "What it takes to get in the Army is, quite frankly, a lot of fraud and perjury," one recruiter said.
I knew a guy who retired from a TLA after a long period of doing security checks on new hires. He said that people who try to be honest generally fail the interview. "If you ever apply there, just say "No" to everything."
The problem with a state surveillance program that has unintended consequences is that the state can't "unsee" things about citizens. "The old way" can't be gone back to because not only the informal networks no longer exist but also because going back would tell everyone and many more would try to go through these "informal channels". Just in the situation of gay people, "don't ask, don't tell" was sometimes the policy before it became official policy and once it was official policy, it was doomed to be replaced because the state's ability to know simply always increases.
... and the article is likely related to the current headlines[1]. And here, I'd note that if the state starts looking for the "gender non-conforming", it's going to be finding more and more of them.
[1] "Donald Trump ‘to expel all transgender people from military’" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/11/25/donald-tr...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/11/25/donald-tr...
As someone who spent a twenty-year active and reserve career as an aviator on a childhood ADHD waiver, the military needs to take a hard look at what is and is not disqualifying.
There are legit concerns here - medical conditions that are treatable after an ambulance ride or urgent care visit in the US or a modern country may require medical evacuation in theater. Medicines may not be able to be resupplied depending on logistics, and people who require them often have to deploy with a 90-180 day supply of what they need. And though the military has much to do to eliminate toxic leadership, military service will be inherently stressful in the best of units, which indicates against admitting people with certain mental conditions.
That said, I'm skeptical that things like milder ADHD cases, some other milder or resolved mental issues, sprains, broken bones, etc. truly need the amount of scrutiny and skepticism that military medicine gives them. Seems to my non-doctor point of view that disqualifying potential enlistees or commissionees en masse is the "easy button." It doesn't incur risk to say "no," only "yes." But if medical doesn't take a hard look on when to say "yes,' we're missing the next Jack Kennedy (whole hosts of issues), Bill Halsey (shingles), or who knows what superstar commander who'd take us through the next big fight.
Also, banning recruiters from schools is juvenile and disgusting. I'm thankful I had a mom and dad who supported my dream to fly jets off an aircraft carrier instead of trying to crush it for their own selfish fears.
“ banning recruiters from schools is juvenile and disgusting”
And I think letting them in is problematic . They only target the poor schools anyway. Which actually is pretty ‘disgusting’ to me.
You don’t get to claim the moral high ground here.
Nor do I, but I wasn’t attempting to by using words like ‘disgusting’ to describe any difference in opinion.
Why did you do that?
Why are you unable to talk about this without reaching for such obvious rhetorical props?
> They only target the poor schools anyway.
The three schools around me are among the richest in the state and all have recruiters visit regularly. What’s your source for that belief?
Prejudice, most likely.
They don't actively target poor schools. The military recruits from the middle three quintiles of the population; it is literally a middle-class insitution by definition.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military
I called it disgusting because it disgusts me when people immaturely tar military service as immoral or lesser. There is no shame in serving the duly-elected government of a constitutional liberal democracy, and every human society which exists needs a military. Witness Ukraine.
I think its more complicated than that.
There is certainly a lingering, and I don't think unjustified, perception that recruiters prefer the desperate and the easily swayed, even if the leadership does not. This dates back to the Vietnam era, and Project 100,000.
Part of it is that middle-class as defined on that page is specifically those who are poor enough to not be able to afford college from their family's preexisting wealth, but not so poor that they qualify for need-based full-rides at most schools. So you get a lot of kids joining up for the GI bill, and not necessarily out of a surplus of innate patriotism or sense of civic duty. Not all, I'd say about 1/3 of the people I've known who served signed up specifically for the GI bill, but those that did joined the Navy or the Air Force, or they signed up prior to September 11 (one friend signed up in August of 2001, just before the start of his senior year of high school).
There's also the issue that as family income drops, the odds of meeting the entry requirements also drops. As family income drops, the odds of a having a criminal record rises (this is true for a lot of different reasons, only some of them the would-be applicant's fault). For all of their recruiting issues, the military still has baseline occupational standards. You have to be able to place high enough on the ASVAB to be admitted to your preferred branch of service, and as a standardized test, it still correlates to socioeconomic background. That is, if you're poor, you're probably going to do worse on the ASVAB, regardless of your actual aptitude.
I am sympathetic to the desire to keep recruiters out of high schools and colleges, but that's mainly because it seems perverse to me to let kids sign up to kill and die (and risk prison for trying to weasel out of it) before they're old enough to buy alcohol or rent cars. I think we should keep recruiters out of high schools and colleges for the same reason we should ban student loans: most 18 year-olds simply lack the experience and discernment to understand what they're signing up for.
I hope you understand the reasons I strongly resent your condescension in that last paragraph. If you're not old enough to sign up for the service, you're not old enough to live on your own or hold down any other job.
Colleges in particular are a peculiar place to scoff at people's decision-making skills, considering the end product of that particular environment is a commissioned officer who in just 3-4 years will be responsible for flying a fighter into combat, commanding an infantry company, or standing Tactical Action Officer watch in charge of employing the full weapons loadout of a guided missile destroyer. Junior military officers hold responsibilities and accountabilities at a young age that their civilian counterparts couldn't dream of holding.
Go look at what those 25-year-olds were doing off the coast of Yemen recently in the most intense sustained combat ops the US Navy has seen since World War II.
> If you're not old enough to sign up for the service, you're not old enough to live on your own or hold down any other job.
Most other jobs that an 18 year old can get do not require a multiyear commitment.
I get that. There are two distinctions between "any other job" and military service, which I think matter, and I'll get to.
But, you're also not wrong. If I say you're not old enough to sign up for the service, I'm also saying you're also not old enough to say get a loan for $40,000 of tuition without so much as a credit check. I'm less appalled at military recruiters on high school campuses, and more appalled at the weird magic we all believe happens at 12am on everyone's 18th birthday. Like, yesterday, you were too immature to sign a lease, or buy a rifle, or vote, and you should 100% listen to people in authority, because they know what's best, but today, you're more than mature enough to take on every shred of responsibility for all the things you are legally entitled to, and if any of those people in authority take advantage of you for their own selfish ends, it's at least 50% your fault for what happens to you.
I do draw a distinction between serving in the military and any other job for 2 reasons. First is the obvious. There are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where you may be asked to take a life. Most police departments require that police be over 21, even. Second, there are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where if you just up and decide one day that the job is not for you and quit, no-call-no-show, you go to jail, and permanently damage your ability to get any other job and certain kinds of government assistance, for the rest of your life. Its weird to me that we're just a-ok with (again) 18 year olds making that decision, given that we don't let them buy handguns or alcohol, or rent cars. We obviously, as a society, decided they lack the good judgement to make those kinds of decisions, and accept those kinds of responsibilities on their own.
What I'm saying is that buck privates getting ludicrous financing terms on a Dodge Charger from the dealer nearest the barracks is such a meme for a reason.
There's an argument that jobs which can take a life require more maturity, and there's been talk of specifically limiting jobs like infantry to older, more mature, and more physically-trained people.
That said, the vast majority of military jobs are not combat-coded. They involve mundane things like fixing aircraft, crewing ships, doing admin paperwork, moving boxes, and so on.
I want to be super clear here, I actually have no special objections to e.g. recruiting in high schools for college ROTC programs. As you say, the goal is to produce an effective officer at the other end of years of development, but also years of just maturing and growing up outside of the home. A good friend of mine actually separated from the Air Force (as a captain) and subsequently rejoined specifically to do that (as a stepping stone for getting a waiver to fly an A-10, but he was deemed just a little too colorblind for that, and so he resigned as a major), and it didn't seem at all problematic.
My issue is specifically with recruiters driving enlistment right out of high school, especially for jobs that don't have much of a civilian equivalent market. My friends the nuke techs, or the guy I knew who did something with missile controls on a guide missile cruiser were pretty much in the same spot as when they started, but with the GI bill (although only one of those three used it). The guy I knew from high school who deployed to Afghanistan got a Purple Heart and a Combat Lifesaver certificate, but not much else before he was old enough to buy a beer.
Yeah, its an important job, but its just a job, and we don't let Walmart try to drive applicants in 3rd period. If the steady diet of nationalism and militarism that kids get from age 3 on isn't enough to get them to join up, maybe we should rethink letting them interrupt Algebra 2 to dangle $50k in front of a bunch of 17 year olds.
The dichotomy serves the military. If someone has a health condition and they lie about it then the military is not at fault for death or injury of the liar. They want to set extremely tight controls on health conditions and then have recruiters tell recruits to lie (only that part isn't explicit ). That way they aren't liable. Someone just didn't get the memo before implementing Genesis.
It's like speeding, if everyone is always speeding, then a police officer can always pull you over for whatever secret reason they have. If everyone lies to get into the military they can always blame the victim for lying.
This article doesn’t mention morale or “esprit de corps” which was considered so essential that Clausewitz had a separate section in his writing for his thoughts on the subject.
That isn't the subject of the article. The subject of the article is how to even get people in the door to form teams with in the first place.
People who walk out the door talk.
The whole point is that those things are totally irreverent if you can't actually get somebody into the corps without going through months of bullshit paperwork over minor injuries from years ago.
Perhaps there needs to be some acknowledgment that people aren’t perfect and soldiers don’t need to be and a more flexible, nuanced screening process. A system that required dishonesty wasn’t honorable and it seems odd to blame the software/system that exposed that.
Calling it "not honorable" is a little overwrought. It's just an example of bureaucratic stupidity being worked around as military members have done for decades if not centuries.
I think you are saying that if you are not ready to lie on a form, you do not belong in the military, and thus it is an appropriate control during recruitment?
Life exists in shades of gray. If you read the article, it spells out this dilemma quite clearly. The problem is that the military generally ran on a pool of recruits post-Vietnam who were largely effective and got the job done. This happened despite military doctors setting sometimes-unrealistic standards for who could get in at all, or who needed voluminous amounts of paperwork for a waiver of standards. Kids hid conditions, and recruiters made tough calls to balance what kids truly were a bad fit (asthma, major mental issues, morbid obesity) as opposed to the track star who merely had a broken leg once.
Now Genesis came along and made everyone strictly play "by the rules," and exposed the problems with this kind of black-and-white thinking. It turns out the standards the military was REALLY operating on were not the standards they thought they were getting. And the standards they REALLY were operating under got the job done, whereas the strictest standards they COULD apply would result in not being able to staff the force, because doctors were not willing to incur enough risk.
Ultimately, it becomes a question of whether or not to break a rule at potentially little or no consequence to accomplish an important goal, or to be so pedantic at applying the rules that the organization cannot achieve its goals. The FAA and airlines have the same problem. Scores of airline pilots hide and fail to report medical conditions so as not to lose their jobs. And eventually someone goes nuts and tries to crash a commuter plane. But for that one nutjob who obviously shouldn't have been flying, there's scores of airline pilots fudging their paperwork and seeing docs off-network for cash who nonetheless safely and effectively fly their aircraft. So what IS the standard, or what should it be? Because the black-and-white standard then becomes just a lie doctors tell themselves to avoid risk.
I think we agree that it’s the rules that need to change. The software just made that clear, and those making it don’t get to change the rules — their bosses bosses do.
We are taught to never lie. The problem is that the military is also a vast bureaucracy and is a bit schizophrenic in that the left hands knows don’t do that again but the right hand keeps doing it. One example is that the Army has been struggling for decades with impossible to achieve unit mandatory training. We call it pencil whipping, lying to ourselves, and it is a known problem and yet the problem keeps growing. The best we can do is to follow the letter of the regulation.
https://www.ausa.org/articles/no-time-literally-all-requirem...
I helped develop software for warfighters and it became clear that the most effective officers and enlisted members were those who understand when to follow doctrine and when to exercise independent judgement.
Think of the last time you interacted with a tech support person who refused to deviate from their script. Now imagine that, but directing operations in a war zone.
> A system that required dishonesty wasn’t honorable and it seems odd to blame the software/system that exposed that.
Personally I would place the majority of the blame on the people who designed and deployed this software.
At best, inflexible software that programmatically enforces standard operating procedure is ignored by the folks on the ground.
At worst, it craters mission readiness until someone with sufficient authority to make "a more flexible, nuanced screening process" takes notice and updates doctrine.
Eh. I’m very, very mid/basic. I had no problem. I even got a waiver from the Surgeon General at the time
Today being (2023)
>Political leaders and partisan pundits blame today’s recruiting crisis on everything from so-called “woke” diversity training to kids these days being too fat and lazy to cut it.
>Military brass have blamed an under-educated public, a roaring civilian jobs market and bad perceptions of service fueled by negative headlines.
>But multiple recruiters who spoke with Military Times blame Genesis above all else.
Lol, they're probably all right to various extents.
I'm gonna lose less than zero sleep over reduced availability of cannon fodder for future boondoggles in the sandbox. God forbid the people who call the shots exercise a little more restraint. If there is a true need to have more bodies in uniform then the political will will surely materialize to get it done.
In high school I met my very good friend, a young man obsessed with the military. He ended up at the Naval academy, and then an officer in the navy.
To put it bluntly. The sort of young man who does this is not at all into the various social programs the military has now been implementing. Moreover, they started scrutinizing the basic, popular political beliefs of many of the recruits. Those interested in the Navy tend to be of a particular political persuasion, and even those who do not share that tend to have similar underlying belief structures.
What my friend wanted to be a career ended up being the minimum required years of service. It's unfortunate. They lost a loyal, educated officer. For what? What was gained by their novel program?
At the end of the day, the military is a thing that many young men are attracted to. We can debate the reasons why until the cows come home, but the military can choose to either build upon that innate attraction or pursue a different direction, and they've frankly chosen the latter. At every step of the way, they trample upon the factors that led these young men to join, and then they wonder why no one wants it anymore.
From my perspective, they've achieved something that few civilizations in history have managed, which is to make the armed forces actively unattractive to vast swaths of young males.
What's the nuance here? Was the person a criminal or a would be terrorist?
This whole comment is weird, what "political persuasion" is here? The armed forces do not filter out people of a "particular political persuasion" unless this phrase means "person with ties to terrorist groups".
In particular, his social media was scrutinized for being a Trump supporter, which like I said, is also the leanings of more than half the voting populace. He doesn't post anything really, but was notified that they were looking.
None of what you said there is true. That’s not how these investigations work. The idea that the Navy screens out conservatives is laughable. Your friend is lying to you.
The vibe matters to recruitment. Whether it's a lie or not is frankly immaterial. People decide based on feelings, and if the Pentagon had any sense, they'd work to make sure the feelings were one of benevolence and camaraderie.
You know... if there were no recruiting crisis, your criticism would be fine, but since there is a recruiting crisis, maybe it would behoove those in power to listen.
I think your friend did something and doesn't want to talk about it. Even the armed forces folks that were in January 6th got a slap alone. I've friends in the armed forces and if there's one thing they said no one cares about is your politics, specially at recruiting, they just want more bodies, as long as you don't have a swastika tattooed or show up with a KKK hood you're going to get in.
My friend was not rejected, but an actual officer in the navy.
> swastika tattooed or show up with a KKK hood you're going to get in.
Highly doubtful since he's -- to use the colloquial term -- 'of color'.
> the various social programs the military has now been implementing
Social programs? You mean the policy of not discriminating based on gender or sexual preference?
> they started scrutinizing the basic, popular political beliefs of many of the recruits
It seems prudent to scrutinize political beliefs that might be incompatible with treating a non-cishet male colleague as an equal (or a superior, as the case may be) or regarding such colleagues with dignity and respect.
> Social programs? You mean the policy of not discriminating based on gender or sexual preference?
What is the point of the military?
They asked a rather simple question, it's weird that you seem to be dodging it. It's unlikely your good-friend was turned away because they were were ideologically-opposed to the military having any social programs for housing, or for healthcare, or for family support, or for post-service education.
So again, which "social programs" were you referring to in your argument?
He wasn't turned away. He left, honorably. No one kicked him out or suggested it. He just didn't feel welcome and saw the winds changing.
It really ought to be obvious, but many of the sorts of young men who join the military and who are attracted to it and would make good fighters are not into transgender troops, women in combat, or flamboyant homosexual men (they're not into flamboyant straight men either). Many of the type of troop we need are attracted to the military because it is -- historically at least -- a men's hierarchical organization. Not only has the military embraced social issues that turn men off, it also offers dual standards (physical standards are lower for women) and affirmative action when promoting (yes... it's still legal for military academies to use affirmative action... they're exempt!). We can either accept this reality and have enough people volunteer, or ignore it, and be where we're at today.
This is not controversial, and honestly is irrelevant to my or yours belief system.
Which is why I asked the question of the purpose of the military. It's not a jobs program. It's to hone warriors who will protect this country. Now, if the Pentagon says we need X warriors and only Y < X show up, this is a problem because the country is undefended. There are a few ways out. Either the pentagon is wrong in its estimates of how many troops are necessary for national security, or, by embracing these novel social issues, the military has eroded national safety, thus negating the very purpose of its existence.
When was the last time the military was used to “protect this country”?
these same folks probably would have been against the integration of black folks back in the day which would have been considered "woke" then. Just like always, this will pass.
Is it just the social programs that are at fault? The comforts of modern life may be equally culpable here. Often young men would turn to the military to get out of hostile domestic situations (lack of space, food, opportunities). The comparative wage gap relative to the private sector is also a factor. This was previously masked due to lack of information but the internet makes it trivial to gauge the disparity.
Can't even be a racist homophobic misogynist officer in the NAVY! What's the world coming to!
> Moreover, they started scrutinizing the basic, popular political beliefs of many of the recruits. Those interested in the Navy tend to be of a particular political persuasion, and even those who do not share that tend to have similar underlying belief structures.
Yeah, completely wrong. Great article on this from one of my former flight instructors.
https://jecurtis.medium.com/ship-to-shore-f0910048c451
To summarize the article, and paraphrase and editorialize, I've heard a lot of criticisms of the US Navy culture ("boat feudalism" is one of my favorites), but I don't think anyone has ever seriously accused the US Navy of being so open, egalitarian, and woke as to become even the second best navy on the planet.
> the various social programs [...] basic, popular political beliefs [...] a particular political persuasion [...] similar underlying belief structures [...] their novel program [...] the factors that led these young men to join
There's a lot vague references here to things that are never revealed. I don't think I'm alone in perceiving it as an author deliberately hiding guilty details which would devastate the "reasonableness" of their complaint.
To illustrate the idea:
Person A: "The state cannot criminalize healthy joint exercises, natural bodily functions, and freedom of expression! This is an outrage to be condemned by every free-thinking man!"
Person B: "For the last time sir, you can not fastball-pitch your own feces at people in line for the movie you dislike."
> the military is a thing that many young men are attracted to
I have high doubts about this in modern days. Military used to get some recruits, then keep a good chunk of them because of sunk cost fallacy once you realize the hardships. Nowadays, you can see the sacrifices you have to make in your life by just googling it, and just not signing up for military. It's just less "sexy and cool", even from hyper-masculine perspective.
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Yeah I'm sure it has nothing to do with telling people that patriotism is racism for a decade.
Definitely the medical records system instead.
As far as this median voter representative is aware, folks haven't been calling "patriotism" as "racism" for a decade, folks have been pointing out racism (both bigotry and structural) for a decade.
As with all things related to recruiting: the real issue is comp.
I'm sure it has to do with fighting a bunch of "wars" for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I'm sure the dudes who got their legs blown off in Iraq for "reasons" feel great about it.
Let those who want to serve, serve, medical issues notwithstanding. Basic training can filter out those who are physically incapable of serving. The medical should only be done after that, to weed out certain issues like epilepsy, which may not be revealed during basic but could pose a liability when deployed.
It doesn't serve anyone to proceed with training if there's a disqualifying condition. We bear the same costs only to then decline to admit the candidate, and for that individual, it is a tremendous waste of time, energy, and opportunity.
Is eight weeks of basic training really that much higher in cost compared to a comprehensive medical work-up? The effort is mostly borne by the candidate. I'd wager the latter is significantly more expensive to the military.
It costs tens of thousands of dollars to put one person through basic training. So yes, it's more expensive than a comprehensive medical workup.
And the disruption to the failed candidate presumably ranges from “my old job’s gone” to “I’m now attending my own funeral”.
A nice limited hangout. Within the suspended reality field of the current USA military, the loss of a warrior culture must not be addressed. In fact, hidden. You are richly rewarded to place emphasis on almost anything else.
How many years did you serve? Because this is not a problem I saw in twenty years in uniform.
Ya I would assume those already recruited into the military have a warrior mentality.
But the article is talking about recruiting first from the general public. American men have very much feminized over the past 50 years.
I remember back how the high school seniors at my school in 2002 had mustaches, were smoking cigarettes, they looked like full grown men.
Something has changed. I think a social premium on safety also results in a poorer recruiting class in the U.S.
If it's fifty years of feminization, and seniors 22 years ago had mustaches and were smoking cigarettes, just think what us knuckle-draggers were doing in the class of 1973. (Only a few guys smoked cigarettes, and apart from one beard-growing contest one year, facial hair was not permitted.)
Why would any modern military want a warrior culture? Warriors fight for personal glory, not maximum operational effectiveness. E.g. a warrior culture would never use drones to their fullest extent, despite their demonstrated effectiveness, because killing people via drone isn't glamorous. Modern militaries want soldiers, not warriors. Consider the idiom "soldier on". A single warrior beats a single soldier, but soldiers scale much better.
Man, all this agile/servant leader bullshit can work in the Sillicon Valley, but try that shit while covering from Russian artillery fire.
And no, Warrior Culture has nothing to do with your prejudiced view, I'd die for my former brothers, because they would die for me. I would never do the same for anyone in my scrum team.