Wokeness and military recruitment
The House Armed Services Subcommittee for Military Personnel held a hearing last week to discuss the growing national security crisis arising from the military’s cratering recruitment numbers. A potpourri of Pentagon nincompoops all universally lauded the Defense Department’s ideological obsession with “lived experiences” and “diversity for diversity’s sake.” While championing the Marxist military’s decision to waste over six million man-hours of training on the dangers of “extremism” and “white privilege” and the seminal importance of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” not one Pentagon official could muster a real answer as to why recruiting numbers are so disastrous.
DEI is considered a must, not just in the military but in education, business, entertainment, and just about everything else. Its great value has taken on the aspect of a self-evident truth in the eyes of those who promote it, despite a lack of hard evidence. The hearings on the military were no exception:
Gil Cisneros, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, argued, “Diversity, equity and inclusion are essential to unit cohesion and trust.”
The Army’s Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Agnes Schaefer argued, “A diverse and talented force of trained and cohesive teams is the most important indicator of our readiness.”
The Navy’s Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Franklin Parker argued that diversity would increase “our military readiness and maritime dominance by accessing the full range of our nation’s talent.”
The Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Alex Wagner insisted, “Our diversity and inclusion initiatives [are] informed by science and business best practices, congressional mandates, data-focused policy reviews and assessments, and the lived experiences of Airmen and Guardians.”
Lived experiences. Sounds like the military has become one big group therapy session. And yet:
…[A]s House Armed Services Subcommittee for Military Personnel Chairman Jim Banks (R-IN) noted, the officials did not provide any data to back up their statements.
Because there is little to none. This isn’t about DEI actually doing any of the things these officials say it will. That’s is about massive virtue-signaling. It’s one of the main requirements for appointment to these jobs in the Biden administration. What’s more, military high-ups who don’t agree with the extreme importance of DEI probably don’t get promoted these days, either.
It certainly doesn’t appear to be about maintaining or increasing recruitment, which is way down:
.@RepJackBergman asked civilian officials for the DOD and each service whether DEI is a positive or negative for military recruitment. Each one said "positive" or "very positive."
Bergman asks why the military is underwater with recruiting then.
Awkward silence…
— Kristina Wong ?? (@kristina_wong) March 23, 2023
But actually, recruitment seems to be down for a variety of other reasons, and it’s hard to gauge how much “wokeness” matters in the decline. This is disconcerting:
The Raleigh Recruiting Battalion sent 7,200 people to take the education test last year; only 56% of applicants passed. Around 3,800 people were screened medically but only 74% or 2,800 were medically cleared in 2022.
The percentage of applicants getting cleared medically has dropped from 81% in 2020 to 74% in 2022 for the Raleigh Recruiting Battalion.
“The vast majority of our population in America is not qualified for military service. That’s the reality,” Newdigate said.
He said increasing mental health challenges and vaping among America’s youth has shrunk the pool of medically qualified applicants further.
I’m not sure why vaping would matter.
This Fortune article from February reports on some surveys that supposedly indicate that “wokeness” is not the problem:
But the Army says that on average, only 5% of the respondents in the surveys listed “wokeness” as an issue, compared with 13% who say they believe that women and minorities will face discrimination and not get the same opportunities.
Each survey involved 600 subjects 16 to 28, and the series was taken last spring and summer. The army hasn’t given out enough details to know how these people were chosen and how the questions were framed, but I submit that the fact that only 5% cited wokeness doesn’t mean much because we don’t know who those 5% were how they compare with the military population.
Only a very small percentage of young people ever join up with our all-volunteer military; gone are the days when it was a more common rite of passage for men because of the draft. Here are some demographics from 2021 for the regular army: male/female 84% to 16%, and about 50% come from these states:
Texas (12.1%)
California (9.9%)
Florida (8.5%)
Georgia (4.9%)
North Carolina (4.7%)
New York (4.6%)
Ohio (3.4%)
Virginia (3.1%)
You can see that, if the surveys didn’t have a similar demographic breakdown – and I bet they didn’t – they’re not tapping into the population that ordinarily would be joining the military. If they don’t properly measure that population, they may be useless. For example, those 5% who are deterred by the wokeness of the military might just be the group that ordinarily would be signing up and now are not. The rest may not have been attracted to the military in the first place.
Kurt Schlicter makes makes some good points on recruiting
The Pentagon can’t meet its recruiting goals, and, of course, the fault is our young people, our potential soldiers, for being unwilling to sacrifice their time, and sometimes their lives, in support of the bizarre social pathologies that our garbage ruling class embraces.
He points out that these surveys suggesting that DEI is not the problem have no data on who was surveyed.
We just had former admiral and current Biden Baghdad Bob, smarmy State Department Spokesperson John Kirby, announce that a “core part” of United States foreign policy is “LGBTQ+ rights.” You know, not a lot of normal people particularly want to suffer and bleed for that blue coastal fetish.
Kirby is enough to convince most healthy teens to avoid the military. How does a PR guy (PIA) get to be an admiral?
They hired people to go out and poll young people to find out why young people were not willing to commit their lives to the hands of people whose gross incompetence and total corruption have been on display for the last several decades. And here’s a surprise. You’re gonna be shocked. The answer was exactly what the brass wanted it to be, exculpatory. Turns out the answer the contractors delivered is nothing that challenges the ruling class’s established prejudices or preferences. No, the answer is that American kids are too fat and too sick and mostly too scared to man up and die in the service of our trash, ruling caste fantasies.
Yup, that’s the approved answer. A young relative just quit after 20 years as a senior SeeBee noncom. He tells about the DEI lectures and the crap they all have to endure and how happy he is to be out and making good money with his military learned skills.
Costly and idiotic “wokeness” is but one of the multitudinous problems plaguing our bloated and inefficient military, as well as rampant corruption (hundreds of billions squandered) and worthless leaders (Austin and Milley being “dumb and dumber”), in addition to the long string of expensive “nation-building and regime-change” failures over the last two generations and a ludicrous number of bases located in dozens upon dozens of countries around the globe. The current warmongers of both parties in DC’s swamp are now encouraging a more bellicose attitude towards China, certainly our most dangerous rival but a nation which could certainly inflict upon us a humiliating defeat should we ever be foolish enough to consider any military action over Taiwan.
There’s also that vax mandate.
They may have turned it off for the moment, but they’ve made it clear that if they want they can turn it back on again, at will.
The truth is, though, that they want to degrade the military and destroy its morale.
Make America Great Again has been replaced by Make America God-damned Again (courtesy of the Rev. Wright).
Devotion to country is anathema, so it has to be turned into devotion to Democratic Party/woke “morality”. To Global responsibility (AKA fighting climate change), to understanding that white people are evil and that everyone else (except those who believe in merit and hard work) are to be treasured, pampered, privileged.
Anyone with half a brain would say, “Screw that”…
And they do.
– – – – – – –
Compare and contrast:
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/03/14/as-military-recruiting-numbers-dip-to-record-lows-bidens-woke-army-works-to-destroy-morale/
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/03/14/canadas-military-must-strive-to-become-an-anti-racist-organization-national-defence/
DEI officials in any organization – business, military, academic, govt. agencies – are nothing more than political commissars.
So far they are not equipped with pistols to shoot in the back of the head those who are not in accord with the correct group-think, but hey, just give it some more time.
As far the the US military is concerned, the top generals as well as the Sec. of Defense should be court martialed for gross incompetence and criminal negligence (think the Afghan disaster) , stripped of their rank and booted out of the military with a dishonorable discharge; and that’s if they receive leniency (which they sure as hell do not deserve).
The same downward trend is also affecting the service academies: In 2022, there were 28% fewer applicants to the Air Force Academy compared with 2021; a 20% drop for the Naval Academy; a 10% drop for West Point. The service academies– a major source of the next generation of military officers– attributed the drop to two factors: 1) COVID-19 restrictions on applicants visiting schools that interested them; 2) an overall smaller population of high school seniors headed for college.
Although the article doesn’t mention wokism by name, . . . the military lifestyle has become less appealing to younger generations, even with the benefits a service academy education offers. Additionally, fewer young adults would qualify. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee personnel panel, said during an April hearing — citing Pentagon information — that just 8% of young Americans have seriously considered joining the military. Only about one-quarter of young Americans are even eligible for service these days, a shrinking pool limited by an increasing number of potential recruits who are overweight or are screened out due to minor criminal infractions, including the use of recreational drugs such as marijuana. Those eligibility standards apply to students at the service academies just as they do to those immediately shipping out to boot camp.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/08/19/applications-service-academies-plummet-amid-recruitment-and-pandemic-woes.html
Vaping and minimum physical fitness standards,
specifically aerobic capacity (mile run in x ammount of time)? Not that vaping, like smoking tobacco or weed, could have adverse health effects …….
And retention is cratering, as well as recruiting.
After 20 years of a meat-grinder, ending with the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, just about every military veteran I know – to include my daughter and myself – is advising their younger relatives of suitable age to not even consider it.
Between incessant wokery, forcing the untested and disastrous covid vaccine on otherwise healthy young adults, and the total disaster in top leadership that is Thoroughly Modern Milley and Affirmative Action Austin … well, the Biden administration can go find another set of suckers to feed into whatever war they are contemplating.
Those of us who have served, are serving (while eying the exits) and would have served have had enough.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that if the Biden junta does bungle us into a war, and there aren’t enough left to fight it – that they will have a go at reinstating a draft.
Putin and Xi have got to be laughing their asses off, unable to believe their good fortune that the USA has done this to itself voluntarily.
Whenever the economy turns down recruitment goes up…except for this time. This was true for me in the late 1970s and has been true since the advent of the all volunteer military. This tells me that something is very wrong.
If you were considering military service you might be closely following any news concerning our armed forces. You might get the impression that the leaders of the our forces are not serious, not concerned with the martial virtues. And it can all be found online now, easy to see.
Further, there is the sense that the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles are widely seen as, at a minimum, embarrassing missteps.
I’ve told my 22 year old son that the military is not a good option right now and thankfully, he agrees.
Om,
I know more than a handful of people who are daily smokers (cigars and/or cigarettes) who compete in 25K’s. Not just partake in them, but compete and finish in the top half.
Complimented retired Navy lifer by acknowledging that Navy guys and ex-convicts
are best at swearing, insulting and creating derogatory comments.
He informed me that they couldn’t do that any more, or might get writ up for
hurting somebodies feelings.
Still plenty of tough guys in the service. One reason enlistment is down has to be that less people see the military as a way out of poverty, joblessness, and despair, as well as opportunity to learn something and continue education afterwards.
Gawd. What has happened to my country . . . to my civilization?
Once again I’ll say it: I feel like that dazed and bewildered White Russian officer in “Sunstroke” seems to have felt as he tried to make sense of what had happened in Russia since the Bolsheviks seized power.
I really think I have almost reached the point where I no longer feel connected to the America that is, only to the America that was.
Vaping?? Armies of smokers, led by the cigarette-smoking FDR, cirar-smoking Churchill and pipe-smoking Stalin, defeated the abstemious antismokers Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. And now vaping is a disqualification? So vapes are worse than fags?
I doubt that many of the draftees and volunteers during WWII could pass the fitness test of today. That does not mean that those not passing the fitness test today is a good thing.
Remember when Obama cashiered a bunch of admirals and generals in the Pentagon because he wanted to elevate woke admirals and generals? This is the military that resulted. Unprepared, under equipped, unmotivated and unlike to prevail in a major war. So what could go wrong?
Related to Mike K’s comments, the military’s health requirements often change to reflect the needs of the services. When I went through ROTC, all of my fellow cadets could pass our Physical Fitness Test, but several of us couldn’t qualify for roles we wanted because of health concerns. Mine was vision (despite a 98 percentile on the AFOQT), another had asthma (again wasn’t a problem during PFT’s), my roommate that took a commission was nearly disqualified for a heart murmur and didn’t get the combat slot he wanted. This was during the “peace dividend” years of the nineties. So unless they specify exactly what the health standards are, take question the statistics. That’s not a statement of disagreement about fatness and dropping education standards. However, you can’t even be in ROTC without being in college and maintaining a certain physical fitness, yet even then recruitment doesn’t lead to contracts.
Barry Meislin ~ “The truth is, though, that they want to degrade the military and destroy its morale” Exactly! They are not on our side.
I had to stop at the characterization of “diversity” as “essential to unit cohesion.” Merely contemplating that single assertion has befuddled me. What the Honorable Undersecretary is saying is that he and his superiors (I assume) regard it as given that differences will help soldiers to unite, and indeed that they can’t do so without these differences. That which is by nature non-united is thus required to bring about unity? It might almost be a Zen koan or something.
I wonder if Mr. Cisneros has ever been shot at in battle. A fast glance at his professional bio as posted on the DoD website suggests he may not have been, seeing as he was commissioned in the Navy in 1994, a period during which there was not much in the way of kinetic action on the high seas, at least not that I recall, leaving aside the odd Somali pirate. I wonder if he would have a slightly different attitude on the diversity question had he been in a real fight at any point.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the fact that a variegated body of soldiers can often fight together effectively in our armed services; I just stumble on that word “essential”.
I spent 7 or 8 years examining military recruits. First it was in LA, then in Phoenix.
Asthma was a major no no because of the tear gas exposure in basic training. Many other disqualifying conditions, like positive drug tests, could be finessed. The problem with black recruits was drugs and arrests. I remember one kid who told me he had 17 half siblings and did not care if he ever saw any of them again. He had some scars from self mutilation but I hope he got a waiver to get in. Lots of Chinese applying in LA. They wanted citizenship and I did not think they were security risks.
I wonder if these kids are going to put up with the DEI crap.
I would guess military service runs in fine families / groups, and people with recent experiences talk.
The hard line taken on the Covid jab, the fubar Afghan withdrawal, the Stand-down after Biden’s coronation to address white supremacy with struggle sessions, and the constant dei propaganda all contribute to a negative viewpoint of going into the military for many.
It’s sad to see such an important institution being deliberately castrated.
I was in five different Navy squadrons over the years of my career. (21 years) I’ve attended quite a few squadron reunions over the years since I left the Navy. What has been most notable for me has been meeting with former enlisted men who went on to become very successful businessmen. In spite of their success, they still viewed their time in the Navy as memorable and as having helped them become the successes they that they were.
We were taking some young men who were just one step ahead of the law in those days. (1954-1975.) Juvenile delinquents who were allowed to go free if they would enlist in the military. Bootcamp shaped many of them up. Some eventually came to their senses when the CPOs would “counsel” them out behind the barracks. I had a long talk with one such man. He remembered me and the CPO who shaped him up. He told me that he learned the discipline he needed to start his own business in the squadron, and he felt he owed a debt to the Navy. Those were different days though.
Nav y Air was pretty white in my day, but we had a small number of black men who became aviators and navigators. They were good men and well qualified. Never a problem because they could do the job. In those days, if you couldn’t hack it, you would be transferred out or assigned some paper pushing job pretty quickly.
I can’t conceive of what the military is like today. White rage, DEI, and transgender surgeries? Puleez!
If I’m XI and Putin, I would be pretty happy with how things are going. The U.S. is abandoning fossil fuels and castrating its military. They’re going to be able to replace us as the world’s number one power without firing a shot.
“One reason enlistment is down has to be that less people see the military as a way out of poverty, joblessness, and despair, as well as opportunity to learn something and continue education afterwards.”
Given that all too many military people end up on food stamps when retiring or getting RIFF’d, are you surprised?
Woke companies won’t hire “trained killers” who are probably all “far right extremists”, and that’s most companies these days.
What’s more, military high-ups who don’t agree with the extreme importance of DEI probably don’t get promoted these days, either.
Hasn’t this been going on since the advent of the Obama administration? There were stories going around of the non-promotion/retirement of masses of senior officers who felt that warfighting was more important than political correctitude.
One reason enlistment is down has to be that less people see the military as a way out of poverty, joblessness, and despair, as well as opportunity to learn something and continue education afterwards.
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The military does not take recruits with psychometric scores below the 14th percentile and does not take recruits whose criminal record exceeds a certain severity. No doubt the military can be a great place for the young man suffering from youthful anomie, but it cannot do much with the hard cases. We are not, in our own time, free of youthful anomie.
The chairman of the JCS said White (capitalized or not) supremacy is the greatest threat to America.
https://www.jcs.mil/Media/News/News-Display/Article/2272024/no-place-for-racism-discrimination-in-us-military-milley-says/
We just had a great victory in Kabul after two decades of combat and social reconstruction, resulting in the Taliban defeating the army we trained and equipped. (Defeated by armed insurrection force having a zero Covid vaccination rate and no hospitals overwhelmed by Covid patients while they did it). The Congress really has to ask what has happened to recruitment?
Perfectly rational decisions have been by the largest demographic group of potential recruits. That group makes up 60-75% of the population (depending upon your definition of their skin color). Congress should simply ask the military professionals if it is “OK to be White”. They will certainly get the obligatory DEI answers, and it will be fun to watch.
One other factor is obvious. There is a war in Ukraine, which the Russians appear to actually be winning, a war in which the neocons across the US and its allies in NATO are pushing for active US involvement. It is not surprising that given those facts recruiting levels are down.
which the Russians appear to actually be winning
==
The term ‘winning’ does not mean what you fancy it means.
Frederick chimes in with his own reality about Russia winning in Ukraine. Time will tell.
Off the rails, just like that. And of course the dread Neocon pirates.
More globetrotters please.
Indeed
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/27/the-easiest-way-to-derail-europes-green-plan-for-america-is-to-stop-us-funding-for-ukraine/
Any one know what’s up with the coast guard ? Grandson has shown some interest .
They regard the military and the police as their adversary if they cannot destroy it they corrupt it
It may be significant, or it may not … but something might be going on, within the military. My daughter says that all the various mil-meme pages kept up by active-duty troops that she follows have all gone radio-silent in the last fifteen or twenty hours.
Don’t know what – but something may be going on.
“13% say they believe that women and minorities will face discrimination and not get the same opportunities.”
Perhaps this is BECAUSE of all the woke, dei stuff. When promoting all this dei stuff, the military is saying that there are serious problems in the military with the treatment of women and minorities, and that these problems have to be addressed.
On vaping and smoking:
Generally speaking the race organizers decide what the maximum allowed time for participants (when they close the course and roll things up). There are time standards for ceeded participants and typically for runners to self select what pace cohort they are in.
A smoker or vaper probably isn’t running a sub 3 hour marathon.
Apples and oranges, minimum qualification standard for military personnel vs recreational runners who finish whenever, IMO.
Jack Bergman achieved the highest military rank of any graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College. A few years back after he’d been elected to congress the alumni magazine did an article on him but never mentioned that he’s a Republican.
om,
I agree with you. Everyone I know who is serious enough about distance running to regularly enter races and try to be competitive in their age* group are on the fanatic side of the bell curve about their health (I’m not one of them). They look at things like eating dessert or drinking a non “Ultra” beer as akin to injecting poison. I can’t imagine any of them choosing to be daily smokers. Maybe a cigar once or twice a year, but daily?
*When young many of us paid little attention to diet and lifestyle, and that’s likely still the same with many young runners these days, but I can’t imagine a serious, even semi-serious runner over the age of 30 who smokes. What’s the point? Why spend all that time training and watching what you eat to limit your lung capacity with cigarettes?
I quit smoking over 33 years ago.
Cold turkey on a bet. Turned out it was my mother’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!
Had my second child and started running 5 years later.
As much as I miss cigarettes (and I do!*) since becoming even the light recreational runner that I am, I would no more light up a cigarette than slit my wrists. I just couldn’t do that to my lungs now that I can feel them working.
I can’t imagine any serious runner smoking.
Sorry, not buying it.
*Shaking one out of the pack, lighting up, inhaling, blowing smoke, waving my hand in the air to punctuate a statement, crushing one out in an ashtray… Keeping off the last 5 lbs… Why oh why do they have to be bad for us?