LIVE: How to Overcome the Military Recruitment and Retention Crisis

We are 5116, and we are here to do this job today. Please, please feel free to talk to us. I'm Jim Hunt, I'm a media specialist, and today I'm going to be talking about how it's been going on in the military. Our military has been through a lot. Of course, it's been through a lot, but it's also been through a lot. Last year, I found out yesterday, it was like 25,000, nearly 2,000 soldiers. So obviously, we've had the clearest conversations with all the military veterans. I'm excited to talk about this issue with our student panel here. We have here, to my left, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Waltz, who has served since Florida's 6th Regiment in the U.S. House. He also served as a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee 11 times in the country. He's also a combat veteran three years away and continues to serve as a colonel in the U.S. Army National Guard. We also have Thomas Flohr here. He's a retired police sergeant general with over 36 years of service in the U.S. Army. He now serves as the director of the Heritage Foundation, which is international. So I want you to start today just by kind of giving some context and answering the question, why is this such a serious crisis? Why is this a place we don't care about? And then what do you feel like led us to this decision? Yeah, sure. Well, we've seen just in the last year, really two, but it's really come to a head in the last year that the military, and particularly the Army, has had the worst recruiting year since Vietnam. And that, okay, that sounds significant, and it is. But they didn't just miss. They missed by a mile. First, the Army lowered its top line by 10,000 because they knew they weren't going to make it. And after a significant push, they still missed by 15,000. And just to put that in context, that 25,000 is roughly two divisions, two divisions plus, I would say, of soldiers that are not coming into the system. That alone, we just put a snapshot, we kind of put a wall or an end date on that, and we didn't roll into a following year of falling short. Easily five to seven years later. But unfortunately, I don't think that'll be isolated to this just this year. We're going to continue to see a rolling crisis. And at that point, at some point, we can't staff the overall volunteer force. And that, in and of itself, becomes a whole different national conversation. So you take that piece, and then it has all kinds of still on effects. The Pentagon, I expect, in this next budget request, will do what it often does, which is throw money at the problem. That money will be diverted from somewhere. Likely from other training, operations and maintenance, and other types of accounts. Again, throwing money at potential recruits to come in. And so that will then have a still on effect. And then, of course, it has an effect on readiness. As normally, these soldiers would have matured, become sergeants, lieutenants, become captains. You don't build that corporate expertise over time. So that gap, that bubble, tends to move throughout the force over the next decade or two. So it has all kinds of effects. And then I wanted to get into the other services. I think the quick story there is that every other service made their numbers just barely. But what they did is they kind of robbed the computer that they call. They have a thing called deferred enlistments. Meaning someone had already signed up, but they were going to join in the future, and they accelerated those assessments. So they could see a ballooning effect in the next year or two when they don't have those deferred enlistments that they were relying on. How did that happen? So let's talk about the crisis. Yeah, this crisis has been building for some time now. We didn't really see it coming. At least most people did not. In the 2018 crisis, we were building about 6,000. People thought that was a one-time anomaly. We can suffer through this, and we can find a way. Ever since 2018, we really have not been able to achieve our goals. This is part, in my view, of the longer plan that we're going to see throughout the rest of this country. Many things are driving us. The labor market is very tight. But we've been there before. We've had low unemployment in this country before, and we did not have a crisis twice before. What's different is that we have less and less Americans qualified to do research. That's a thing too. But we're also seeing an increase in the willingness of Americans to serve. That's being driven by a number of tentacles as we get into these less veterans in society, less trusted Americans in the military, many other things. But as the Congressman specifically said, we only missed it for two people in 2018, about 6,000 soldiers. This year, we missed it by 25,000, or something like that. It's bigger than what we ever had before. I think there's some fundamental aspects of American society and American youth that are also driving this. The General mentioned a shrinking pool of recruits that meet basic requirements. There have been a number of studies that have shown now that we have an increasingly obese and unhealthy population within our youth that can't meet the very basic military requirements just for entry. The Army in particular is trying to address that by now having a pre-basic training so that to get these kids, 17, 18, 19-year-olds, who are so out of shape into a basic level of fitness. I think it's a fitness problem as children are obviously less rural, more urbanized, tend to be doing things like video games rather than playing stickball. I think there's all kinds of reasons why we have a nutrition problem with food deserts and other types of issues within our youth. But then you also have an increase in drug use. You have an increase in criminal records. And when you combine all of that, we only have, according to the military, according to the Pentagon and a number of studies, roughly 22 to 28% of our youth that could even be recruits. And that's an issue in and of itself. And then you layer on top of that the narratives that are out there. When you have the Secretary of Defense, the first African-American Secretary of Defense, has his first action as Secretary of Defense to have a training stand down because of the overwhelming problem of white supremacy in the United States military, which I think was a completely false narrative. But it set the narrative within, I would think, and I'm looking forward to working with Tom and the Heritage Foundation to get some data behind this, but what minority parent or community would want their young African-American or Latino son or daughter to join a military that the first African-American Secretary of Defense is overrun with white supremacy? I would think not. And then on the flip side of that, you have, I think, a lot of families in the Midwest and the South that hear constant stories about a woke military that demonizes white people, frankly, and really has this narrative of oppressor and oppressed rather than we're all Americans. And they don't want their kids to join. And then overall, you're hearing stories of 22 suicides a day and PTSD, which is great that we're getting that awareness out there. But on the other hand, I wonder, and again, we need to get some data behind it if that's important. And talking about that, I mean, so there's a cultural issue and then there's also, you've got that fiscal talk for a second. You've seen some services responding by trying to relax fiscal standards now, breaking them down and trying to complicate our assessment. Yeah. So almost about the goal there would be to increase the amount of people. But that in itself might have some issues for all vulnerable members of our who are not ready to fight. So how do we navigate that? What are your views on that? Well, I've often said that the debates that are going on around these cultural wars need to be set aside. They really do. It's a massive distraction from having our military ready to fight. That doesn't mean we don't teach history. That doesn't mean we don't have a very effective task when it comes to Native American race relationships that happen. But we have to move forward and we have to maintain a combat focused military. Number one. Number two, one of the lessons from Ukraine that we've seen is that war is not all by remote control and lasers from space. It is urban. It's brutal. It's physical. And physical fitness standards matter. My point has been rather than physical fitness standards as we've just seen the Army attempt to do or trying to do to the point that even Senator Tammy Duckworth who lost both her legs in combat said she could run the two mile standard faster than what the Army is proposing right now. They've lowered the standards that much. She meant that as a bit of a joke but it had a very serious point. I put legislation into this defense bill that says our physical fitness standards should match the shot. Obviously it is very different, a very different standard to be in the infantry, to be in the artillery, to have to haul this heavy equipment when it comes to armor than it is to be a cyber warrior or a pilot or a supply sergeant. So the legislation I have in directs the Army to go back to a gender neutral standard. It's about what it takes to do the job and what's needed to do the job, not about black, white, or brown, gay, straight, or any of those other issues. What do we need in the foxhole together to get the job done? General, what are the sources doing now? Obviously the Army is really breaking a full core presence right now. They're late to the party, but now they're trying hard. So I talked to General McConville and his staff and they have their future soldiers prepping for Jackson South General to get people up to speed physically and mentally. The Army has to do everything they can to make We have to make the Army The problem is bigger than the Army, it's bigger than that. Pentagon is a society, it's an American problem, and we need to make public service and military service attractive to them. We have taken that population to the brink. Place in, just assume they would walk into our recruiting center, that's no longer the case. The Army is also putting the best people in the crew, that's the crew that for the longest time Recognizing the error in their ways is pretty important. I mean, all people are going to do it, but the more quality people are back in the crew. And if I could add to that too, I told you that's the sort of thing that we're at, that's the sort of thing that we want to do, that's what we want. But I hope there is a full representation of the Pentagon, but most of the people the vast majority of soldiers I know, men and women, regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic background, they want to jump out of planes, kick in doors, defend America, learn a great skill, and do good stuff for their nation. Recruiting commercials that we've spent millions on that talk about a young lady with two moms and that should be accepted. Of course we want everyone respected, and I want equal opportunity for everyone to serve this great country. And yet your recruiting base of the 25% that still meet the standard in the Midwest and the South, and they want to go do cool stuff, right? I just think that, I hope there's a recognition that we're really missing a part there. And secondly, I think some of it's just been basic marketing strategies. I was talking to a team over two years ago, and he said one of the things that they're learning from is they pulled most of their television and radio commercials and ads, thinking, and I don't think this is incorrect, that most young people are obviously digesting online, not watching TV. They weren't wrong, but what they've realized now is the influencers, the parents, who are helping make these decisions are still watching TV, they're still watching cable news, they're still listening to radio, and they're shifting back to that. So I think there's been some room to save on top of those bigger issues. And then finally, our leaders have to get out there and go serve it, to the general's point. Receiving days and days of PowerPoint briefs and making budget decisions, or if they call it a job, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Army, or Commandant of the Corps, but they've also are leaders in the schools, in the communities, talking to people about why they need to do this. I just haven't seen that, I've seen a lot of hand-wringing about climate, and about everyone, gender issues, and sexuality issues, and all of those issues, but not saying this is a great place to be, that's what we do. And, you know, to that point, you told me you had been in the community for a long time, as a military service. Do you think COVID had an impact on this, or do you think it would be as a person I think that's a big thing, you know, and so everybody shut down during COVID, and we're still feeling the lagging effects of that, school scores are down, and that included, but not included in the vaccine. Speaking of COVID, there's another thing that we talk about often, but that is COVID vaccines, but to come into the military, you must either agree or you must have the vaccine, and about 33% of young people haven't gotten the vaccine in the United States, they're not getting it, so we can debate the merits of the COVID vaccine, but it is a factor, it's influence, and it's a factor of where we are in the system. Chairman, I would just ask the question a little bit differently, and it's just a pet peeve of mine, so bear with me. It wasn't necessarily COVID, it was our response to COVID. It was the shutdown of our schools that in my view should not have happened in the way that it happened, that it was. Everything from the RSV pandemic right now, the respiratory disease that's going on in children, who are exposed, to recruiting, to learning loss, and in Florida, what Governor DeSantis had, our schools open five days a week, in person, August of 2020, while other locales, state and local employers are doing the same thing. Thank you. I don't fully buy that excuse from the Pentagon, because in a lot of places, Georgia, Florida, they're recruiting schools in the South and the Midwest, and many of those schools were closed. I think what was still shut down, from the standpoint of travel, TDY, training, was the Pentagon, right? They shut themselves down, so this excuse, well, we couldn't get the schools, it was no, you weren't allowing your recruiters to travel, you weren't allowing them to have their moves. You shut yourself down, Pentagon, leadership, not necessarily the schools in the South and the Midwest. You talked a lot about recruitment issues. I want to talk about retention of employees. When you think of the issue of retention, it's A, it's as severe as it can get. And then, how do our potential solutions work? We have the same issues when it comes to retention. So, I'll start with that. So, retention is not as bad. We're starting to see some pain points within the services that the Army has met in retention goals last year. All the other services did as well. But it's starting to loom as a thing. The good news about retention is, these are people that are in the military already, we just have to stay. We have many more levels to influence their lives. We can work on compensation facilities and programs. We can give them bonuses. We can tell them that we're gonna give them a choice assignment next. So, we have a much greater influence of this population already in service. For society out there in the world, we have very few levels to try to bring them in. We would know if they were going to be our threshold. Once they're in, it's much easier to stay in. By and large, most people who get in love with the state, stay in any of the services that we provide. So, we can't take retention for granted, but right now, it's not bad. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. I would say that retention is where we're also seeing the vaccine coming into play. So, we have, not to pick on the Army, but it is shared that the crisis is most acute, and we have the 25,000 shortfall. Again, that's 15,000 plus the pandemic number. But, the last numbers I've seen, and I'm looking forward to getting a new number, the Army, Reserve, Guard, and active duty were looking at a total of another 20,000 that they were seeking to discharge over the vaccine mandate. So, now we're talking four divisions. And I can tell you, Florida just came through two hurricanes. One in particular was absolutely devastating. I have yet to come across a constituent who said, I didn't want to be rescued because I don't know if that Guardsman or Coast Guard men and women, or what have you, had their vaccine. They took all the help they could get. Well, we have over a thousand just in the Florida National Guard who are facing this right now. Here's the thing, no question. The Pentagon has been all in limbo, right? They put in a religious exemption. We're not getting word back. Although, I think that process has been a rubber stamp process, as good as it can. They just said, I absolutely have issues with it. Then, they aren't getting paid for their drills. They aren't being sent off to the schools. They need to be promoted. So, they're kind of in this purgatory where a lot of them are saying, the heck with it, I'll get out. And I think from an optimist standpoint, that looks a lot better. But no, no, we didn't discharge them. They just left. Well, you kind of starved them of their careers, right? I mean, and it's just wrong. On so many levels. I know this is such a controversial issue. I know there's a lot of people out there that say, an order is an order. You don't get to pick your shots. I get that. Most of the shots, all of the shots are going to come out the gun. That's just not true. It's not true. And it is going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars of available recruiting funds. And the whole predicate was stop the spread. We've seen now, our understanding of the vaccine has greatly changed. If it doesn't stop the spread, then I think we're going to have to do something about it. I think the CDC is changing. So this is something I think we'll have to do with the rest of the country. That was a long way to go. No, it was good. Yeah, it was good. You know, the response cost, I mean, if an order is an order, but it doesn't fit short-sighted and soft-hearted, you don't need to really think through the limits of the stuff that everyone's talking about. I want to talk to you a little bit more about the NBA game. So next year, the National Football League is going to have, I imagine, quite a bit of influence on the NBA game. How does this issue compare? You mentioned that you're going to face this with other programs and resources. How do you see this kind of playing out? What are the other prices that the NFL is talking about Well, first, we'd have to vote out this last one, which was late in June, and then we'll dive right in to the next one. I mentioned in a similar report, fiscal standards that we have in this area, we would have to buy a contract that would be a special contract that would be a special contract. I think we need a lot more technology and a lot more data. Again, I'm looking forward to working with Tom on a panel on this issue here, and some surveys to understand why are recruits saying that? Why are some making initial contact with recruiters and then not working with them? And then, one of the things I'm very interested in is about, now in multiple generations away from the draft, statistics I've seen, 50 to 60% of young people who do join come from military families. And I'm interested, are we looking at a double punch in that people are leaving the military early and then telling their children not to join. Anecdotally, I'm receiving a lot of calls on from veterans, not only am I getting out and telling my son and daughter not to join this military, a lot of that is allowed by the perception of wokeness within the military, and some of it's real, and some of it's heard. But I think we need a lot more data. Let me add to that. So even though the NBAA for 2022 hasn't been finalized, signed into law yet, we were due to develop most of the vaccination in March of this year. And at that point, the recruiting crisis wasn't a recruitment crisis. It really was a public health crisis. So as a consequence of that, there's not much in the NBAA to talk about public health questions. Or something like that. There is no real money applied, there's probably no real guidance, policy. That's unfortunate, hopefully we have time. Coming here, they looked into this, and see that there's a lot more, a need to enact new policies in the state of New Hampshire that let Americans know about the value of their vaccine. So just two additional points. One thing that we've heard a lot about, and we've had personal hearings on, is the new healthcare software. That anytime I say software, the Defense Department or government but we're already hearing that this Genesis software is really placing a very strong burden on the recruits. Any type of basic medication, modern day is not uncommon for a 15-year-old to have taken Xanax, take a prescription, you know, experimented with some type of CD-Gum or what have you. And apparently, again, there's constant calls on this. The amount of paperwork that is going to require is such that it's going to be in the way of the grads and the professors. So that's one thing we're taking a look at. There's some thought on this. I have long been an advocate of a comprehensive service for the recruits. I don't think we can go back to the grads, but we're talking about giving people a debt, free college and other things that the left want. I think it's reasonable for the taxpayer to get something in exchange for that. That doesn't have to be in the military, but it could be in national parks or inner city tutoring or Peace Corps or in FEMA Volunteer Corps for disaster relief. But I think we need to get young folks incentivized to serve, they graduate high school, they're serving the recruits. Then let's start talking about the taxpayer funded educational services. If we have done things, we have to prove that we're going to try to do again like the Kansas Junior ROTC, high school, starting earlier with those rather than that first recruitment output. I'm sorry, there was a commission on national service that came out I think two, three years ago that had some fantastic recommendations and it's very well done, very well done. We'll continue to provide pieces of that. I just want to add that the recruiters access to high school, there's some places that are open to friendly to the military, recruiters have access to some of the guidance. There's other juniors that can recruit from high school that can do it. So that would be an area, I would, especially since these students choose to go to a high school that we do, I mean that's the policy of the college. And for me, I was in the JROTC in high school and that for me was my first introduction to the military and that's what made me want to serve and that's the critical part is to get that known. So let me just mention that about JROTC. There's about 3,000 JROTC soldiers in high school. The bad news is there's over 20,000 high schoolers. So you can see that's a very small number of high schoolers chosen by JROTC. We were fortunate to go to one that hadn't, but most did not. Is that on any individual board of education? How many levels is that? Where do you see it? Congress sets a cap on the number of JROTC programs that we funded every year. That cap can increase every year. Congress increased it. But you're right, the school district has also requested part of that. They've cost them that. They've paid half the load of their salaries. It's kind of a mutual kind of thing. I think it's a great program. Yeah. I wondered about something you mentioned. You said that this issue back in COVID-19 in the AA, we've had this issue since the summer. What happened there? Why did we, why did this apply to the staff? Were you a part of this in the summer? There was, well, there was certainly discussion of it. We kind of got some indicators and warnings in the spring, but to Tom's point, I mean, really, the years, the legislative tax breaks were done. And that's about the time the services, we may fall short by September, October. That's when we also started to lower the, lower the table of all hot dogs. So there were some indications, but it wasn't just the way the cycle worked. And so we were all in the army, and it was still our, the army can do that, but they don't like to wait until they're defeated. And so by April, the army is saying, it's going to be a hard year. Indications are bad. We're just going to double down and try harder. And I got the army we all know and love, but that's, there was no, by the time April came around, it was already clear that we had to do it. How long do we see this place lasting? Is this something that we can, much of the VA, or, you know, if we take this more seriously, is it something that goes beyond a year, or is it beyond the term of law? Yes and yes. I think the broader societal issues that we discussed are the longer term underlying, underlying issues of getting young folks back into a mindset of service, appreciating that we deserve, and feeling like there's a benefit to them. How do we get young folks where, you know, they're coming out as better citizens, leadership, teamwork, followership, discipline, and you do it with people that don't look like you, right? And I think that is a huge missing point from today's society, where we're in our own little bubbles, getting fed, you know, information through social media and through cable news that only reinforces, you know, our perceptions, and one of the great things about the draft is that it was a force on all elements of American society. It got over your biases, and it was a force to rear in to kind of help you out. That is a longer term, but I think Tom, we've hit on a number of things that the services could do. How they're advertising, leadership out in areas, getting the best of the military into the recruiting force. Then the other sort of, and the overall narrative, but then you're, again, you're looking to, sort of, we need to attract more minorities and women, but then a constant narrative, but this leadership is masculinity, and the overwhelming problem of white supremacy, yet their own study, their own data shows 100 service members out of 2.1 billion, and 20 years ago, 5,000 are actually in the state of New York. I think all of those things would probably be better, but it's going to be a problem. It's going to be a problem. In the past, the military has kind of taken on an economic, recessionary balance. They say, well, I have no other option. I don't think that changes. I don't know. You talked about maybe a recession next year. I don't think that changes the situation. I think this military recruitment crisis is here, and it really is a societal thing. I want to talk to you about the importance of your services. Why is that important? Why is that so important? Well, I mean, I think the world is seeing right now the performance of a basic military, and that's the Russian military. That's a military that's not bought in, and they're buying body and soul into that effort. They didn't sign up for it. They're being forced into it. And if you compare that to, I think that the number one attribute of the United States military is just having the best, the most stealthy, the most tanked-punched system. It's educated, motivated, disciplined force the world has ever seen. That is the result of a lot of good policy since the 1970s. It's a constant, constant pattern. The threats that we are facing here are getting even more pressing. We're in a tiny economy that is starting to put a foot forward in some ways. That is outmatching us in some key areas, plus Russia, plus Iran, plus North Korea, plus a still centering global terrorism problem. If we can't fix this, if the economy doesn't float out, then we will have to look at some form at some type of military backup, some type of troops. I know that is very controversial to put out there, but if you look at the timeline over the next five to seven years with the threat lines that we're facing, either we see, throw up our hands as a global power, we'll fix this problem or we get a little more drastic. We are in a country that we have to go back to the 50% of the students we're taking. Try the all-volunteer model, but don't go back to the 50%. This is not some intangible remote possibility. It is true, but that would be a threat as America is a threat. Countries that depend on troops are normally only two years of service without prison years or so. So, a soldier or a service member that's only been in two years is barely trained, barely in service. So, to make these patriotic systems where terrorists testify to the view of the Korean people, so you think about that, you don't have the view of the organization out of it. You've got to go back to society so that you can be able to have volunteers of our students who've worked three, four, five years in the service, much more experienced, much more competent, and have the ability to do what they do. And without that, we would never be where we are today. Specialized in training other militaries around the world, allies with the military, and there's three things that we have on the table. You can't make great non-commissioned officers. A lot of other militaries try, and they fail, and you end up having a lieutenant in the field, basically 30 privates, and so forth. That is our secret sauce. NCO4, that government, that's what it is. When I was a lieutenant captain at Tucson, I was a fellow that was just enumerated as a senior. After 12, 15 years, getting done, right here, at the private lab. Well, as a computer, a lot of times, nobody's back at home, and I wonder when I get home, what kind of takeaways, what can I produce as a student that's going to help me express what I'm doing in the military, in the service, and how I can respond to those expectations. I'll start at your parents' day, and you can talk more favorably, or favorably, about your parents. Even if you didn't serve, you can cite examples, you can talk to your children about, I'm not saying push them towards the military, but at least don't disturb them. A lot of times, people get disturbed. So, as a parent, you can do that, but in your community, you can help, you can point out, you can support, and accelerate that movement. That movement. So, it can require a huge change, but it's a subtle mindset, that when you graduate from high school, going to the military, you can go over and think through the rest of the college. You know, nowadays, Americans are living that 80, 85 years of age. There's enough time to graduate from high school, go in the military, and go to college, and do whatever you want to do, and maybe even have a second career after that. I know, by the way, that college is now a 10th grade. So, you know, I think this idea that there's two paths to go down. You can either go in the military, or you can take the college track. That's more of the balance. You can do it all. Especially, for the top 20, especially with the military, that's hard. you really can't, in many ways, have your degree. You have a little cash in your pocket. You get some training. You have nothing on your resume. I can't tell you how many employers that I've seen walk in the door oh, it's the military. you can go to college, or college. That all, that immediately evades all kinds of things. All kinds of things. So, I've encouraged businesses to do this. Everybody says they support a veteran. Well, a veteran needs to go to retirement. Right? And, when people see that, then, I think that is, that's not a temporary loss. But, again, the narrative has been, military, in many ways, has been one of the most repressible in history. For desegregation, in 1940, decades before, civil rights, were taken, as a means to serve, older people. you know, go into a, value of benefit of a veteran. Where, anyone can succeed, in such a pathway, out of poverty. For, so many people, whether it's, you know, a white kid from Appalachia, or, a kid from a, from an inner city, or anywhere in between. It's, just generally, just a pathway, over to the middle class. For so many, in a pathway, to an education, of the middle class. Our leaders, gotta, often, benefit. Not, by the way, I have yet to come across, a veteran, who says, I regret, my service. I mean, they, you know, they only served, two years, 80 years ago. And, you see these veterans, still looking back, on that time, the relationship, what they've learned, and, the factors, of that. Those are, the narratives, that we see, going forward. And then, finally, especially, for young kids, who, had to retire, we gotta look at, who are heroes, now. Right? Who are we putting forward, as the heroes, we want to emulate. And, also, honor, veterans, by their, camouflage, and, their, background, and, culture. Thank you, so much, for being here. I'd like to ask, for, your comments, or, any other questions. And, for everyone, who's, coming on here, please, check our website, and, check out, our website,