On Thursday, the United States Army relaxed their tattoo policy in hopes of meeting their recruitment goals. With this new policy, soldiers and recruits are able to get tattoos on their hands, the back of their necks, and behind their ears, depending on the size and number of tattoos. That policy change follows a similar one from 2015 when the Army started allowing recruits to get tattoos on their legs and arms.
And on Friday, the U.S. Army announced that recruits do not need to have their high school diploma or their General Education Development (GED) certificate to join the U.S. Army as long as they enlist before basic training ends (on October 1).
On Monday, NBC reported record low numbers of young Americans who are eligible to serve, and within that number, they found an even smaller percentage of Americans who would want to serve. The dwindling numbers show an unrealistic future for the all-volunteer force (AVF), which hasn’t had to rely on a military draft since 1971.
“This is the start of a long drought for military recruiting,” said Retired Lieutenant General Thomas Spoehr of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank which promotes conservative policies. He says the last time recruitment was this low was in 1973, the year the draft officially ended and the U.S. pulled their troops out of Vietnam. While Spoehr says it isn't a guarantee that the draft will return, he does believe that this is the year to re-examine the sustainability of the all-volunteer force.
There are a few different reasons as to why at least 71% of young Americans are unfit to join military service: drug use, obesity, physical health issues, mental health issues, misconduct, and a lack of talent and skills are hampering today’s youth and keeping them from making the cut, according to the Army’s Public Affairs Office.
And just last month, those numbers shrunk even further, with Army Chief of Staff General James reporting McConville that only 23% of Americans ages 17 to 24 are eligible to serve in the military.
The low recruitment numbers could be a reflection of how the public views the U.S. military overall. An internal Defense Department survey shows that 57% of those (young Americans) who answered it believe they would experience emotional or psychological problems if they served in the military.
Overall public trust in the military is also shrinking, with only 45% of Americans having a “great deal of trust and confidence in the military,” according to a 2021 annual Reagan National Defense Survey by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
In addition to that, only 13% of young Americans who answered a survey conducted by the Pentagon had parents who served in the military compared to 40% who had military parents in 1995, further hampering the military’s popularity among America’s youth. High school students (often those with middle class parents) are being encouraged to go to college before they choose a career such as the military, says Kate Kuzminski from the Center for a New American Security.
“Changing the mind of parents is the really tough part, particularly if these are parents who worked really hard for their children to go to college,” said Kuzminski.
For fiscal year 2022 thus far the Army has only met 40% of their enlisting goals, with only three months left to lift those shrinking numbers. However, summer break (after high schoolers graduate) is usually when the military sees a rise in recruitment numbers.
The Coast Guard has only filled roughly 55% of their goal for active-duty enlistments, and the Air Force has 4,000 less airmen than their target number for this month, the lowest number of recruits for the Air Force since 1999.