DOD Recruiting – In The News

The Army Is Losing Nearly One-Quarter of Soldiers in the First 2 Years of Enlistment

Military.com | By Steve Beynon
Mar 7, 2025

“The Army is grappling with a staggering attrition rate among newly enlisted troops, even as recent recruiting figures suggest the service is clawing its way out of a yearslong enlistment crisis.”

“Nearly one-quarter of soldiers recruited since 2022 have failed to complete their initial contracts, according to internal Army data reviewed by Military.com.”

“It remains unclear why the Army is losing so many soldiers, but one explanation could be the declining quality of its recruiting pool. One-quarter of all enlistees last year had to go through at least one of the Future Soldier Preparatory Courses, which were set up as a sort of silver bullet for recruiting woes — getting applicants up to snuff with academic or body fat enlistment standards before they ship out to basic training.”

“According to service data, roughly 25% of prep course soldiers do not make it through their first contract and wash out of the Army within the first two years of their enlistment. But even more strikingly, soldiers who do not attend the prep courses aren’t that much different — they have a 20% attrition rate.”

“I don’t know what an acceptable attrition rate is, but we have to meet people where they are,” the senior Army official told Military.com. “The quality of new soldiers is an enormous problem we’re paying for. But that’s just where the country is.”

“In February, Military.com reported on Defense Department inspector general findings that the service might be skirting its own rules on recruiting, sending applicants to the prep course designed to help them meet body fat standards even though they were too overweight to even qualify.”

Army to meet 2025 recruiting goals in dramatic turnaround, denies ‘wokeness’ is factor

Jan 17, 2025 – PBS News

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth:

“What’s really remarkable is the first quarter contracts that we have signed are the highest rate in the last 10 years,” Wormuth said. “We are going like gangbusters, which is terrific.”

Army’s Fitness Waiver Experiment Backfires As Overweight Recruits Strain Program

Story by Billy Adams Tampa Free Press Feb 26, 2025

“…at the Army Training Center and Fort Jackson (ATC&FJ), where the initiative’s ARMS 2.0 pilot ran from February to May 2024, oversight crumbled. Of 1,181 trainees, 14%—163 individuals—exceeded even these relaxed thresholds, some ballooning as high as 19% over the limit.”

“The report pins much of the blame on Gen. Gary Brito, head of Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), who “unilaterally” bumped the allowable excess to 10% without authorization.”

“over a third of trainees arrived so overweight they were dismissed on the spot, clogging an already strained system.”

The Oak Bay Starfish Take:

Some will say obese teens and young adults are to blame for the big recruiting crisis. Thousands of young, intelligent and athletic Americans participate in college athletics each year. Certainly, they would qualify to enlist- no rehab/prep program required.

Why are these people not showing up at the recruiting office? Any questions from newspeople?

Currently serving four-star officers and high level DOD civilians brought us a US Armed Forces recruiting crisis.

Thousands of American families have now had a loved one who did one or more tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Will they support new enlistments?

Decades after the lessons of Vietnam, it feels like the people who run the Pentagon specialize in undeclared/unwon wars.

Understandable why young people and their parents and grandparents would take a dim view on all this.

If DOD was an NFL team, sports talk radio would feature comments like:

The Dept. of Defense was nowhere to be found on 911. We haven’t won a war since.

Any college or pro football coach would have been fired a dozen times over for what DOD has done with the US Armed Forces during the fake GWOT era.

Flag officers and high level DOD civilians built careers made of undeclared/unwon wars. Now they must mastermind ways to recruit a new generation.

US Armed Forces Recruiting Crisis

In past decades, people could do time in uniform, then return to the US with a feeling that they were living in the best country on the planet.

In recent years The Troops have been sent to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and Syria. All this to keep a post 911 USA safe & secure.

Back home, drug addicts are camping on the sidewalk.

Comments posted with this KOMO News article explain what is going on now.

A giant/$51.6 billion (every 12 months) US Dept. of Homeland Security with more than two decades of experience and lessons learned fails to keep cartel product from arriving in all 50 states.

American Families

Will you question the idea that sending troops to Iraq was essential to keep terrorists away, but somehow, cartel drugs are able to show up in all 50 states?

Cartels move product into all 50 states:

DEA High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas:

“…HIDTA-designated counties are located in 50 states…”

The Show Must Go On

A big Homeland Security/made for TV show of force at the Super Bowl each year. Staged by the same people who fail to keep cartel product from showing up in Hometown, USA.

Welcome Home Troops

Thanks for doing time/risking your ass in Iraq and Afghanistan, working to keep a post 911 USA safe & secure.

Don’t worry-The Super Bowl and public affairs will be safe: