All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 6, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
01:00:37
The Recruitment Gap: One Branch Crushes it, Others Continue to Fail
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
quality people to fill its ranks.
All branches of service, except for one.
So today we're gonna talk a little bit about why this might be, and we're gonna give the kudos to the branch that is reporting, according to them, that they are not only gonna meet their goal, but exceed their goal going into the next fiscal year.
So stick with us, don't go away.
We start now.
Hey everybody and welcome here to the next installment of the Richard Leonard Show.
As usual, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you for joining us.
I really appreciate you being here.
Before we get started on today's discussion, we are going to, of course, let you know how and why this show is made possible, and that is Cortez Wealth Management.
Get yourself over to AmericaFirstRetirementPlan.com.
Sign up for their webinars.
They happen on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7 o'clock Eastern Standard Time.
Let Carlos and his staff talk to you about how to plan, create, and execute a tax-free retirement plan This is your opportunity, folks, to get some really good information about how to secure yourself a plan that is going to do you very well when you decide to quit working.
And enjoy the fruits of your labor for the rest of your days, whatever that looks like for you.
So get on over to AmericaFirstRetirementPlan.com.
Sign up for the webinar.
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns when it's over, please, please, please get ahold of Carlos and or his staff and let them answer your questions and help you over any obstacles that you may have.
AmericaFirstRetirementPlan.com.
Get on over there.
Okay.
As I discussed in the intro, and at the risk of beating a dead horse, we've talked about this issue of low recruitment numbers and finding quality people and things like that before on the show.
But I came across some information a few days ago that was suggesting that there is one branch of service that will not only meet their goal but crush it and go into the next fiscal year come October 1st with a large chunk of their next year 2024 goal completed as it relates to getting people in.
And so before we get to the specifics of the branch and all that other stuff, I want to kind of just share with you a little bit of information that I found within the last month or so about interest, right?
National interest in joining our nation's military.
And this information I found came from an article that was posted on June 16th, so a little bit, well, quite a bit longer than a month ago, but still within the last couple months, so I believe that the information is still valid.
Now, it suggests that 9%, 9% of service-eligible individuals, both male and female, Only 9% of all those young adults are interested.
Interested in joining the military.
9%, folks.
That's alarming.
Up until, I think it was, what did they say here?
It was a year or two ago, the number was 23 to 26%.
Which, in my opinion, is still pretty low.
I would think that any country who is taking care of its people, any country that is a strong role model for the rest of the world, can sport a strong, viable military to defend its borders, to ensure that we're all safe.
Like this proverbial blanket of freedom that we've talked about before.
But why?
Why are the numbers declining so rapidly?
I mean, if you think about it, right, the amount of people that wear our nation's military uniform, whether it be Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard even, and now even the Space Force, Which is, the Space Force is the smallest of the branches.
I believe that their annual goal of enlistment is like 500 people.
And from what I understand, I haven't done, to be honest with you, I haven't done a whole lot of research about the Space Force.
And up until about a year ago, I wasn't even sure if it was like a real serious thing.
And I don't want to say that I'm one of those people that just doesn't believe in things out in space, like we're alone in the galaxy, in the universe.
I think it's probably possible that there's other stuff out there.
But I digress.
But this article suggests that There are such things as marijuana, for example, right?
Marijuana is legal at this point today, in August, the first week of August of 2023, recreational marijuana is legal in something like 23 states in the union.
But it is still something that is a disqualifier And so part of that argument is, well, if I can go enlist in the military and openly admit that I have three fingers of scotch a day after work, or I have a couple of beers a night while I'm watching my stories with my wife or whatever, And every other weekend maybe I go out with the boys.
And sometimes we drink too much, sometimes we don't.
Whatever.
I can still join.
Excuse me.
But if I admit openly that a couple times a week I sit in my recliner, play some Madden or Call of Duty or watch the latest Netflix craze, And smoke a little marijuana or have a gummy or whatever, however people consume marijuana these days, which from what I understand is quite a few different ways.
That disqualifies you.
It disqualifies you from service.
And so, I don't know, I believe that it's probably a decent argument that needs to be taken into account.
Maybe that's something that as a country we need to look at, right?
I mean, If this is something that is becoming legal all over the country and pretty soon more than half the states in our country are going to have legal Recreational marijuana use.
Maybe that's something that we need to talk about.
Not like us, you and me, but maybe the powers that be need to talk about it.
And I'm not saying that, you know, let the pot smokers in the military and don't ask any questions about it.
But I think it's something that certainly should be up for discussion.
Other things are just qualification standards in general.
It was about a year or a year and a half ago, the Department of Defense rolled out some new initiative and some new tracking system that allows them to see and know just about all of your medical history as it relates to prescription medications.
So, for example, If you are just turning 18 years old and you walk into an army recruitment station and your intent is to join the United States Army and you fill out your paperwork and tell them well you know when I was 13 I was going through a rough time my parents divorced or you know my My sister died
or whatever the case may be and I fell into a depression and my parents had me treated and I took some antidepressants or something like that.
That automatically disqualifies you, right?
Automatically disqualifies you for a period of time.
If I remember right, it's maybe something like three years or two years or something.
If you are an individual, which nowadays our young people are being prescribed medications for things like ADHD and ADD, ODD, at alarming rates, it's a disqualifier.
But here's the thing.
If I get in the army, With the understanding that I've never taken Ritalin or Adderall or Prozac or anything like that for those types of issues.
But two years into my enlistment, all of a sudden I'm diagnosed with ADHD and some doctor prescribes me Ritalin or Adderall.
No problem.
It's no problem at all.
So my question is, are things like this a disqualifier or are they not?
And I was in a meeting earlier this week, and this exact scenario kind of came up in a conversation.
And the gentleman that had kind of put this opinion out said, It surprised me because I know this person.
I've worked with him in the past while I was in uniform.
He's the kind of guy that really doesn't really let his personal feelings and opinions kind of out.
But it was surprising to hear it.
I agree with them a thousand percent.
Are things like this a qualifier or are they a disqualifier?
And if there are, if it's not a big deal that two years after I get in or 10 years after I get in or six months after I get in, all of a sudden I'm diagnosed with something that requires a prescription drug to treat, well, why can't I get in with it?
Especially if I can display that it helps me more than it doesn't help me.
And I think that these types of things are very well known in communities and the word gets out, right?
I mean, people aren't naive to the fact that, hey man, if you take Adderall, you don't have to get in the military.
So I think there's a lot of folks that go to these stations and say, nope, I've never, never taken anything.
Well, now this new system will a thousand percent catch you in a lie.
There's other things such as politics, right?
Politics is something I don't like to beat on on this show.
I think we get enough political BS talk.
Everywhere else we get our information.
But I can say that there's a lot of political agendas that are swaying our communities, right?
You know, I believe that the far right is talking about all this wokeness and how it's destroying our country and there's all these examples of it.
And the far left is talking about, you know, far right extremism and they just clash.
And this whole thing has just blown up.
And now in the middle of it, one of the casualties of this huge disagreement between the left and the right, which I don't even know if we call it Democrat and Republican anymore.
I think we just call it left and right.
Just two sides of bullshit, if you ask me.
I have left certain things kind of in the middle, if you will, and one of them being the military, because these types of conversations and these issues are shaping the opinions of the young people that may or may not choose to join the service.
And I think that we may be losing out on some very good Individuals that could be strapping up some boots, putting on a uniform and doing some really good things for us as a whole.
And so it's really just kind of too bad.
And the other part about it is that...
I don't want to say that it's forbidden, but...
When you're wearing a uniform, you're not really allowed, right?
You're not really allowed to have an opinion.
You don't talk about it.
It's taboo.
You certainly can't be ragging on the President or the Congress or the Senators or this or that, the other thing.
You kind of just got to go to work, do your job, do as you're told, and at the end of the duty day, go about your business.
And if you want to have those opinions outside of the uniform that says United States whatever branch across your heart and the flag on your sleeve, then so be it.
But understanding that you're always, whether you're in a uniform or not, a steward of this country and the service in which you represent because You wear that service on you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whether or not you're in a uniform.
Those types of things are important.
And those are things and principles and values I don't know that we want to move away from as it pertains to our military services.
But we certainly don't want to compromise All those other values that we have outside of a uniform.
And so maybe our youngsters are just kind of torn.
They have this moral conundrum going on in their heads.
And they're choosing on the better side a caution and just saying, no, I don't think it's going to be for me.
And I'll go out and do something else.
And there's a whole lot of other ways to earn a living and a lot better living, mind you.
I mean, I'm pretty confident that not a whole lot of people join the military to be rich.
In fact, I know that there's not hardly anybody that joins the United States military to become wealthy.
I mean, if you stay in long enough and you reach the higher ranks, you do pretty well for yourself.
But there's nobody who's 18, 19, 20 years old thinking, yeah, I'm going to go join the Army or the Navy, and we're going to be living high on the hog.
That's just not a thing.
Anyway, we've run out of time in this segment.
We'll be right back.
We'll continue on with these thoughts.
Stick with us.
Hey folks, welcome back here for the next segment.
Let's continue.
So we were talking about different reasons why our numbers of interested young folks to join the service may be down to 9% from 23 just a year or two ago.
We covered a few different things.
The last one I want to touch on is something that is extremely serious and I think that it is something that is, well, it's very hard for me to understand how and why this happens in general, let alone in the military.
And that is the issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment within the military.
And the problems that our services have had Keeping it at bay and combating it and handling the issue.
It's not something that is talked about enough.
In fact, it's probably something that needs to be put out into the stratosphere even more so people know more about it.
And maybe I should be doing that instead of just bringing it up now after 72 shows.
But it's an issue.
It's a real thing.
And I just don't get it.
I don't understand how, even in the civilian world, how anybody can feel that it is acceptable to To assault somebody that way and to violate somebody that way.
And then add on top of it this commitment that you make.
This commitment that you make when you join a club or for...
Let's just call it a family, right?
You make this commitment to be part of this family.
And then assault them.
Military sexual trauma is a real issue, folks.
It's a huge issue.
And unfortunately, for whatever reason, it seems that it's swept under the rug quite a bit.
And why?
Who knows?
If I had to guess, part of the reason that it is not talked about enough and it's swept under the rug a whole lot more than it should, well, it shouldn't be at all, but a whole lot more than we like to think is because a lot of people have a lot to lose.
And from the little bit I know, And the little bit of experience I have with it, serving with people who have experienced this type of thing or other people that I've worked with or friends of mine who have experienced this.
I never experienced it myself.
None of my soldiers that I was...
Directly in charge of or none of the people that I directly served with on my team or in my platoons never, as far as I know, experienced any of this type of thing.
But I know enough people that have.
And more times than not, the perpetrators of this disgusting stuff, this unforgivable act Are people that are levels above the member that's getting violated or assaulted.
And unfortunately, Those folks have a whole career to lose.
They have a retirement to lose.
In some cases, they have families to lose.
They're married, they got kids, they got mortgages, they got this, that, and the other thing.
None of that is an excuse.
None of that's a good excuse.
But I think that people try very hard to keep these things under wraps.
And then, of course, you have the men and women.
And it happens a lot to men as well, not just to ladies.
But the ones who are assaulted for whatever reason aren't comfortable coming forward.
Or they're not comfortable being loud enough when they come forward for these people to be held responsible.
And that's another thing that I don't quite understand, but it's not for me to pass judgment on because I've never been in that situation.
But I also think that these are reasons why Folks are not interested in joining the military.
And things like military sexual trauma, as I said, are not talked about enough.
I don't think enough people know about it, but I think that there are folks that do know about it, and it is something that will hinder folks from joining.
The other part about all of this is it's not just...
The enlistment numbers.
When we talk about enlistment numbers, it's not just, you know, Tony and Debbie walking into a recruiting station, talking to a recruiter, signing a bunch of paperwork, showing up at MAPS, taking a NASVAB, getting a physical, raising their hand, taking an oath, and then going to basic training.
But we also have things like service academies, right?
We have the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, West Point...
We have all those.
Those numbers are way down as well.
And those are schools that you need political appointments to, right?
So if your son or daughter wants to go to the Naval Academy, for example, it's not as easy as just signing up and applying to be accepted.
There's a whole process.
There's a whole process.
You have to go through your elected official, usually your member of Congress, and go through a selection process, an interview process with past academy graduates and be selected that way.
It's a whole board process to go through.
But the amount of people that are interested in doing that even is extremely low.
And they only take the best of the best, you know, like you got to have a 4.0 and you have to prove that you have community service under your belt and that you're doing good things in the community and that you're a good person.
But even those places have their issues.
And so there's all these things that we talk about that are keeping people from joining.
What is it that the 9% of young folks that do join, what is it about military service that keeps them in the process, that keeps them going to the recruiter, that keeps them joining?
I mean, there's a lot of reasons for us to talk about why folks are not joining.
What are some reasons why they are?
And to be quite honest with you folks, I think that that list is a lot shorter, unfortunately.
You know, we talk about an all-volunteer force.
And how an all-volunteer force has been a huge success for this country, right?
I mean...
We haven't seen a draft since Vietnam.
Our numbers were booming.
The United States of America had put forward an elite fighting force for a very long time, and I believe that in many instances we still are an elite fighting force.
What I worry about is, are we going to continue to be an elite fighting force?
But let's not forget that less than 1% of the population of this country stands in the ranks of our nation's military.
Across all...
Across all branches of service.
Less than 1%.
It's astounding.
And so when we put it in those numbers...
It doesn't seem like only 9% of those eligible are willing to join.
It doesn't seem like it's a really good day.
That's not a lot of folks.
But The same article that gave us these numbers also gave us some good information about this idea that the military in large part for a lot of people is quote unquote, a family business.
In fact, it says here, in fiscal year 2022, as many as 80% of new recruits had a relative That had or was currently serving in the United States military.
That's just a relative.
And some 30% had reported that one of their parents was serving or had served in the military.
And so it's a generational thing.
I mean, let's think about it.
How many people do you know that Currently are serving or have served that are the first generation.
The first one in their family ever to serve in whatever branch of military that they're in.
I think it's pretty few and far between.
I think a lot of times nowadays when you find first generation service members, most of them or a large number of them Our first generation immigrants.
Which I think is a great road to citizenship, if you ask me.
Especially at a time when we have a crisis, in my opinion, at our border.
One of the biggest wars, I think, that we are going to be faced with, if we're not already faced with it, is the conflict at our borders.
Mostly at our southern border, but I don't know that it's going to be long before the northern border is going to become a huge conflict as well.
Not by the Canadians.
I think the Canadians love their place as long as that Trudeau idiot quits messing with them.
But they got a lot of people from other countries flooding into Canada that are trying to work their way down into America as well.
And so possibly the only silver lining to any of that is that if we're not careful and enough of these assholes get in and enough of these dirtbags get into our country and wreck enough stuff, that this won't be a desirable place to be anymore and they'll stop coming here and then we can rebuild it bigger, better, and stronger.
But I would prefer that we don't have to go through all that malarkey.
It's sad, really.
It's sad to think about where we've been and watch and think about and watch the transition into where we're going, where we're heading.
So, I don't know.
I think that when we start now talking about recruitment numbers and goals, And branches of service that aren't only going to meet their goals but crush it.
They're going to crush their goal.
And go into next year with almost half of their goal completed.
It makes me wonder why.
What is it about these particular branches that people like or don't like?
And I guess I don't know because I only served in one.
And there's all this healthy banter, right, between branches of service.
You know, the Army and the Marines kinda banter back and forth, and the Army and the Air Force certainly banter back and forth.
And to be quite honest, we all kinda rib on each other, but it's not okay for an outsider, right, to rib on anybody.
But at the end of the day, when bullets are flying, things are blowing up, and things are being destroyed, If you have that flag on your shoulder in the U.S. Air Force or U.S. Army or U.S. Marines or United States Navy or whatever it is that's on your chest, draped over your heart, we're all a family, right?
We're all on the same team with one common goal.
Because we all take the same pledge.
We all raise our hands and say the same oath.
In fact, when I rose my hand to enlist, I want to say there was only out of, there might have been 18 to 20 people in the room all doing their oath of enlistment at the same time.
I want to say there was only two or three of us, maybe four, that were going into the army.
The rest were Marines and Navy and Air Force.
But we all said the same words.
We all took the same oath and we all made the same promise.
We all made the same promise to defend this land against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to do so with honor, integrity, and courage.
And I wonder if those are some of the values that we're missing, that we're missing in our young people.
It would seem to me that they're slowly dwindling away.
Nobody wants to take this oath.
Nobody wants to bear the burden.
And for some, I understand, right?
For some folks, I can understand.
I understand that maybe the burden is too heavy to carry.
Maybe they're intimidated.
Maybe they're scared.
Or maybe they just don't care.
But it's alarming to me to think that our young adults, day by day, are growing older and less and less of them Give a shit about the welfare of this country.
Less and less of them care about the success and the growth of their nation and the pride.
The pride I believe that we all should have.
That kind of warm feeling you get when you look up and see the flag flapping in the wind.
Makes me proud.
It makes me proud to be a part of it.
Especially because it's not something that we get to choose, right?
You don't get to choose who you're born to.
You don't get to choose who your parents are.
You don't get to choose what country, what nationality you are when you're created.
When God brings you into this world, you don't get to choose.
And I believe that we're lucky.
I believe we're lucky to have been born into this, created and put into this country, into this culture.
Now don't get me wrong, there is a ton of great cultures and great people from all over the world.
But we by far have the best, the best one.
And it should be.
And we should be prideful of it.
You should be able to look up at that flag and have it kind of warm you a little bit.
You should be able to kind of smirk a little bit and go, yeah.
That's who we are.
That's us.
This is our home.
And it seems like those are the things that are Are missing.
They're slowly going away.
And for what?
All in the name of some political agenda?
Is that part of it?
I don't know.
I guess I don't have all those super in-depth answers, but it's just too bad.
It's too bad that we have to watch the slow decline of our country.
And I wonder, if you're watching this or listening, my question to you is, and you've served in the military or you're close to somebody who has or know somebody well who has or is serving, How do you feel about it?
Or how do you think that your loved one feels about it or would feel about it if they've passed away?
Like those of you who have family members that served in World War II, for example.
And all the things that they went through.
Everything that they did and sacrificed for us to be here and do what we're doing and have what we have.
I wonder what they would say.
And sometimes I wish I could do things like bring General Patton back to life because I'd love to hear his take on current times.
I'd love to hear what he'd have to say about all this stuff going on.
Like, quite simply, just something quickly.
I'd love to hear what General Patton would have to say about this.
This thing cracks me up.
This cocaine in the White House, right?
Like, do all these people think that we're stupid?
And I know I said I don't like to get political and talk about politics, but this thing really grinds my gears, right?
How effin' dumb do these people think that we as Americans really are?
Of course that freak show did cocaine in the White House.
That's a drug addict's dream, right?
And I can almost promise you, knowing the way that drug addicts minds work just a little bit, I'm not an expert.
But Stu Peters and I spent many, many, many years chasing down fugitives And majority of them had drug issues.
So you kind of get to know how they think and what they're doing and the kind of way that they act.
So when a coke head, meth head, piece of garbage like Hunter Biden goes to the White House to see his senile dad and his clueless mother Of course he's gonna go in the Lincoln bedroom or wherever the hell they found this cocaine at, do a couple lines, and I guarantee you, folks, I guarantee it.
When he left there, he got on his little encrypted cell phone and called some of his homies or some chick or somebody and said, you'll never believe where I just did a line of cocaine.
Right in Lincoln's bedroom.
How many people can say they did that?
I would be willing to bet half of my next paycheck.
I can't bet my whole paycheck because I don't have to sleep in the garage because I'll be in trouble.
But I'd be willing to bet that that scenario in some way played out that way.
And all these people think that we're so gosh dang stupid that we think that, whoa, they're conducting some investigation and nobody really knows what happened.
Stupid.
It's absolutely asinine.
Dumb.
So dumb.
Anyway, I digress.
Stick with us.
We'll be right back.
Hey guys, I want to take one quick break here to talk to you about our friends over at Goldco.
Give Goldco a call today.
The number there is 855-920-3196.
Call them today and talk to them about how to back your Roth IRA with up to $10,000 of free silver.
It's no secret that our economy and our country may just very well be swirling.
Swirling right down the toilet.
So, It is no time like the present to back your plan with precious metals such as gold and silver.
So call Gold Co.
today.
Their number, again, is 855-920-3196.
Don't miss out.
Call them today.
Tell them The Richard Leonard Show sent you.
One last time, the number is 855-920-3196.
Hey guys, welcome back here for the last segment of the show.
Sorry, I kind of got off in the weeds there.
But honestly, man, that whole Hunter Biden cocaine thing just...
When I heard about that, there was zero...
It took me about three seconds to make up my mind about whether or not this dude did it.
Of course he did.
Absolutely.
It was just too convenient, right?
Well, he was there that day or whatever, and well, it's just this big mystery.
Yeah, okay, whatever.
Anyway, let's get back to the topic of discussion.
So, out of all our branches of service, the one branch that is going to crush its goal and go into next year Almost halfway done with their 2024 fiscal year goal is the United States Marine Corps, which is awesome.
And so, as I was saying before, we like to banter back and forth, right?
And my first thought when I read this was some smart-aleck comment about, well, I really hope that...
I really hope that the Marine Corps is getting their fair share of crayons for these men and women to snack on.
But I mean, it's impressive, right?
With everything going on, they're not only going to meet their goal, but they're going to exceed it.
And so I took some, I took a few things, I took some information out, and I'll just, I'll read through it for you here real quick.
Marine leaders say that the Corps will make its recruiting goal this year, while the active duty Army, Navy, and Air Force all expect to fall short, which we already knew it's not a surprise.
The services have struggled in the tight job market to compete with higher paying businesses for the dwindling number of young people who can meet the military's physical, mental, and moral standards.
So there's another thing, right?
Meeting the standards.
We talked about qualification standards, but not only is it the medications and, you know, mental health issues or physical medical issues, but it's also academics, right?
There is an alarming amount of young people who cannot even meet the basic Score for the entrance exam, the ASVAB. And that's alarming also.
Now, I will tell you that it's been, I'm not going to say how many, but many, many, many years since I'd taken this test.
And it wasn't easy.
But it certainly wasn't impossible to meet the basic standards, the minimum standard.
And in fact, if you are a person who is not great academically, but you're good in other areas, that test is designed to pick those strengths of yours out.
And not necessarily always disqualify you, but recommend you for other parts or other jobs within the military.
For example, I served with a gentleman, a great guy, a really good guy, but scored below the charts on the ASVAB test.
Just not academically sound guy.
And that's okay.
But you know where he blew that test out of the water?
Was the mechanical.
The mechanics.
I forget what that section is called.
But this test gives you something called GT scores.
So in different areas, it'll measure your ability to do things like mechanics and spatial recognition, problem solving, this, that, and the other things.
So there's a bunch of different, they call them GT scores.
His mechanical scores were genius level, apparently.
And so even though his total overall score was below the piece of paper, below the charts, they allowed him in to be a mechanic.
Which is what he wanted to do anyway.
And he was an amazing mechanic.
And what I'll tell you is that it was because of his efforts, along with a few other people, him and some other folks designed some bracketing systems while we were in Iraq to help give us some extra protection in our Humvees from roadside bombs.
And it saved my life.
It saved my life when we were hit with an IED that was pretty damn large.
And so I, for one, am glad that the tests, that kind of test, picked that up for this individual.
Because who knows if the person that would have been in his position had he not been allowed to join would have been able to come up with the same thing.
So meeting the requirements, mental, moral, and physical.
And the physical one, I think that we already can assume, right?
We have a problem with overweight youth in this country.
All those things are something that is not a secret.
But the Marine Corps historically has put an emphasis on selecting top-performing Marines to fill recruiting jobs.
And so maybe this has another part to play in why they are crushing goals.
And I'm not here to say also that the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army don't put their top-performing people into recruiting roles.
But the one thing I will say is that The Marine Corps, compared to the other three big ones, is a lot smaller.
So they have, in my opinion, when they talk about their top tier Marines and their top performers, there is probably a bigger pool of top performers to choose from to rotate in and out of recruiting.
Because if you don't know, a lot of times recruiting for active duty military members is a It's not like a job that you pick to go into when you join.
You're kind of put there for a time.
You do your turn, and then when you're done, you go back to whatever your job is.
But here's their mission.
The Marine Corps will meet their mission and expect to have 30% of their 2024 goal when they start the next fiscal year on October 1st.
So not only are they meeting their mission for 23 this year, but they are exceeding next year's mission.
Well, not exceeding it, but they're going to be 30% met.
They're going to be 30% of the way already when the first day of the fiscal year hits, October 1st.
And, folks, the military fiscal year is October 1st.
That's when it starts.
More broadly, military officials say that they expect the Marine Corps to achieve its recruiting target of more than 33,000 Marines this year.
In 2022, the Navy, Air Force, and Marines had to eat into their pools of delayed entry applicants in order to make their goals, and the Marines will avoid that this year.
So what that means is that in 22, the Army, Navy, and the Air Force had to dip into their delayed entry applicants, which means folks who were going to go in After they graduated high school or they were doing the split-up,
you know, where you go to basic training before your senior year and then you go to your advanced training after you graduate and then on to wherever you're going after that.
And so if I read all the information and understood it properly, they were having to allow people to come in, enlist, join, and even though they may have not been ready to ship out the basic training yet,
They had them in a holding pattern, so they had some sort of reporting requirement or something like that for these folks to fulfill on a weekly or monthly basis until they shipped out to basic training, but they were essentially In the military while they were waiting for their time to ship out.
But these branches had to do that in order to meet their goals.
And why are these goals important?
These goals are important because funding.
As a large part of it.
These branches ask the federal government for X amount of dollars to recruit, train, and put qualified members of their branch out into the service to perform whatever job it is that they do.
And if you don't meet that, then you don't get it next year.
I imagine is how it goes.
And so they want to meet those goals or exceed them because especially if you exceed them, then you need more of that money, more than that amount of money the next year and so on and so forth.
But here's a little tidbit about the size of the branches, right?
The Army has a recruiting goal of 65,000 soldiers for 2023, which is nearly double of the Marine Corps, and expects to fall substantially short.
The Air Force and the Navy officials say that they will also miss their goals, although the Space Force, the smallest, which is the smallest service, Does its recruiting within the Air Force stations.
So when you walk into an Air Force recruiter, there is also a desk for Space Force.
They kinda like the Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy.
Essentially, the Marine Corps is a sub-branch of the Navy.
The Space Force is a sub-branch of the Air Force.
And the Space Force is going to meet its goal for sure, but they only need 500 people a year to meet their goal.
The biggest challenge is that a number of Marine hopefuls cannot pass the military academic test, which is the ASVAB. That is a widespread problem.
So here's how they fix that.
The Army recently, in recent years, set up a program that targets recruits that score below 30 on the test.
30.
If I remember right, they had like a chimpanzee take this test and it scored a 31.
At least that's what they told us when we went.
So if you scored a 31 or less, you're dumber than a dang chimp.
But I think over time we've all learned to see that chimps are pretty smart.
But anyway...
A program for recruits who score below a 30 on the test and provides schooling for weeks to help them pass.
In the last year, in 2022, the last fiscal year, 8,800 soldiers have successfully gotten through the class and went on to basic training.
And so that's great, right?
They have found a way to provide remedial training to these individuals who want to join the service.
But aren't necessarily there academically.
But at least 8,800, and they didn't talk about how many didn't, the classes and the extra training didn't work out for.
But think about that, folks.
There's at least 8,800 people, 8,800 young folks that weren't academically sound enough to pass the military entrance exam.
That's alarming.
Because someday we're all going to be sitting in some home with diapers on.
And these are the folks that are going to be in charge of our well-being one way or another.
And either we're going to be prosperous or we're going to be watching this place burn.
So lastly, because we're running out of time here, I'm really sorry to rush through this.
Bonuses, right?
Marine Colonel, Jennifer Nash, who was interviewed for this article, they were talking about bonuses and enlistment bonuses.
I've heard the Army offer up to $60,000 enlistment bonuses for some careers like IT and networking careers, which is very, very important and highly needed.
But the Marines have this idea that your bonus for joining the Marine Corps is that you get to call yourself a Marine.
That's your bonus.
There's no dollar amount that will get you the title of United States Marine Corps, they claim.
She also went on to say, if you told me that you'd give me $10 million worth of advertising and I can do something with it, or you would give me 10 good looking in shape Marines in a uniform, what is going to get me the most value?
She said, give me those 10 Marines and give me one day.
We'll go out and we'll get more out of that than the $10 million in advertising.
And so, although that's a pretty ballsy statement, I applaud the Marine Corps' willingness to go out and earn it.
And so, folks, this is the type of thing I think that we need to be discussing and thinking about, not just for The sake of having a strong military, but our future in general.
And for parents and grandparents and family members, it is so important in my opinion that we teach our young people why academic and moral success is paramount.
Not only for military service, but just for the overall survival of our herd, right?
Of our people and our country.
Anyway, we've run out of time.
I had a whole lot more thoughts to get to, but of course, I lost track of time as usual.
Thank you so much for joining us.
I hope that you have an amazing week.
Take care of yourselves and each other.
We'll see you next week.
▲
Export Selection