The United States Armed Forces is falling dangerously short of its recruitment goals. One of the biggest problems for each branch is the smaller and smaller pool of eligible recruits.
About 12% of eligible youth show interest in military service. Many don't qualify because they are obese. Of those who do, Army drill instructors routinely find on the first day of basic training that most of their recruits can't pass the initial physical fitness test (one minute of push-ups, one minute of sit-ups and a one-mile run).
Emphasizing the severity of the crisis, Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson was surprisingly frank in his assessment of the recruiting situation. While Brunson said that the Army had failed to market the career advantages and benefits that come with service, the fact that “only 23% of the people that are of age to serve are actually qualified” means America as a whole has a problem.
Task & Purpose reports:
The criticism of younger Americans' fitness isn't unique. The Defense Department has made it clear that it worries Generation Z might not be physically capable of service, with their “brittle” bones not prepared for the strain of boot camp.
The Army, while not alone in its recruiting troubles, has been trying several strategies to try and make military service more appealing to potential soldiers. McConville has said the Army will not lower its recruiting standards, as it has done in the past, so instead it is launching a program to get potential soldiers trained and educated enough to meet those goals. The Future Soldiers Preparatory Course launched last month as a pilot program, and those in it will go through a 90-day training period.
Beyond the messaging Brunson advocates for, and the training the Army is hoping will help bolster numbers, the service branch is trying a classic tactic: money. The Army has set up multiple types of enlistment bonuses, including one as high as $50,000, for soldiers who will both join the military and deploy to basic training as soon as possible.
The overall decline in fitness among younger Americans has coincided with physical education losing its priority in schools, skyrocketing portion sizes and increasing screen time affecting children both physically and mentally.
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But they have no problem taking guys pretending to be women and women pretending to be men. Do they pass the sanity examination?
The Problem or Situation of Obesity is evident everywhere I look! I went to a Club & as the Dance Music was playing, I being 61 tried to motivate or challenge the Young one’s to a Dance song playing “Shake Your Body” & they just sat there as if they actually could not move even if they wanted to. I see them going to medical or wearing medical devices like leg & arm brace’s as if they are physically hurt & needed Pain Meds! We may be dealing with a Medically induced Addiction, where Medical is Magnifying the Problem! Big Pharma is a Serious Culprit that is causing Serious Problem’s within every age group! I, am “Army of One” Civil Servant was Attacked by Medical, because I said No to Drug’s that I did not need. I am an Aerobics Pro that has tried for yrs. to get the People to move, yet they all seem to think Avoiding what I do to look like I do & be as strong as I am, to be to difficult & excusing themselves with fabricated injuries was much easier, yet they do see they are Wrong. WE NEED TO IMMEDIATELY MAKE PHYSICAL FITNESS A TOP PRIORITY IN EVERY SCHOOL!! The same problem exists in the Workforce, where the only part of an employee’s hand that seems to work is their opposing thumb’s. The Problem is far greater then we originally thought & We May have to force the Younger Generation’s to Move. We the United States are in No Position to Defend Ourselves is the Truth!
The Armed forces have already lowered their physical and even their minimum mental IQ standards to try and meet their collapsing recruitment. But the problem is way deeper and more fundamental than fat, lazy youth. Their CRT training and “woke” recruitment ads featuring “rainbow bullets” on Marine helmets will destroy all future recruiting. While one of the most diverse parts of society the military is still made up of 67% white patriotic Americans. How many do you think will want to join and organization that teaches them that they are “racist oppressors”? Or want to join a military that sent their best and brightest to be killed and maimed for twenty years in a fruitless war only to be abandoned by their feckless Commander in Chief and top Generals in a humiliating and embarrassing withdrawal?
The last meritocracy in American is being systematically destroyed by Democrat ideologues and the Russians and the Chinese are rolling on the ground laughing.
The new woke policy of the army has limited the interest of many young fit Americans that used to fill the roles of defending our county.
Don’t forget the indoctrinated pansies, general. Bring back the draft. If nothing else it’ll get rid of a bunch of them like it did back in the 60s.
& Woke within leadership also hurts
So first we have CRT indoctrination and the expulsion of conservative soldiers, then we have a socialist government threatening to use the military against our citizens, and now we learn that the obese are not only in the Victoria Secrets advertisements, but everywhere in our society.
Not only is our military at risk, so is the rest of the society.
They also are not very smart.
Since I have seen the shameful way the military has treated its members over the last decade or so (how many young soldiers have we imprisoned in our country for doing their jobs —–strictly political reasons, to appease foreign governments?) I would never approve of any friends or family members joining the military. Then we have the military forcing long time carrier members out over the stupid ineffective and unsafe covid shots instead of giving them exemptions as required by law. An exception is the disgraceful Navy which refuses to even allow those who refuse to take their poisonous shots to leave the military but instead imprisons them in sewage soaked dungeons reminiscent of what we would expect in communist and 3rd world countries.
Yes the physical fitness of our recruits is a concern, but we are asking them to join an outfit that is currently tied to political ideas that are foreign to our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I would not expect anyone to want to join a military that is commanded by officers and a commander in chief that swore the oath but does nothing to implement it. Not only that but our commander in chief has as much as said that he would order the military out to destroy those who disagree with his politics. Saying he would deploy the Air Force and our nuclear arsenal if he wished, against those whose only crime seems to be to make America great again. Obviously, who would want to put their life on the line for this moron or his ideas, borrowed from Marx, Mussolini, and the CCP government in China? Who would want to invest a lot of time in an organization that might give you the boot for the way you voted in the last election or for refusing an ineffective experimental shot for a disease your own government helped to develop and deploy against you and your Country? They may not be as well educated, these days, but they still aren’t as stupid as Washington thinks they are.
Payll2 above make many valid points.
And let us not forget the callous disregard for and the betrayal of those loyal troops who refuse the sinister experimental vaccine that is causing cardiovascular inflammation and even death among so many young people who otherwise might live many more years. The COVID was naught but an overblown paper tiger that killed not even as many as a wicked flu epidemic, yet numbers were vastly inflated to cohjure up smoke and mirrors to conceal radical socioeconomic corruption. There, I’ve said it.
The Pentagon of lickspittles is ‘molding’ the Armed Forces to become so ‘woke’ that normal red-blooded Americans will seek better employment and no one can blame them for doing so. The top brass seem to have forgotten that the chief objective is not blend in with the LGBTQ crowd (maybe 3& of the entire population). Chief objective is defend our nation and our way of life.
If this article is talking about the Army, why does it say boot camp? Boot camp is what the Marines do, the Army has Basic Training.