New polling has revealed that a majority of Americans, 54.4%, would discourage a young person close to them from joining the US military. However, a larger majority, 61.2%, said they would encourage them to join via the officer route, either through a service academy or the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC).
The poll, taken by the Rand Corporation, comes as most branches of the military are failing to meet their recruiting goals. It contradicts a study released last month by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute that said a slight majority would encourage young relatives to join the military.
Republicans were more likely than Democrats to recommend to a young person close to them that they should join the military, but both parties were roughly aligned when it came to recommending they join an officer program.
The study also showed that despite the hesitancy to recommend a young person close to them join the service, Americans still hold overwhelmingly positive views of US troops. Respondents agreed with positive stereotypes about veterans 30 - 80% of the time, while respondents only agreed with negative stereotypes 3 - 20% of the time.
Only the Marine Corps and Space Force met their recruiting goals in 2023, both of which have much lower recruiting goals than the Army, Navy and Air Force.