They just can’t admit the elephant in the room. Maybe they should read: Evidence that the DEI/CRT agenda in the military DOES hurt recruiting and retention, now up to 113 pages of comments.
The 42-Year-Old Airman: Air Force and Space Force Raise Max Age for Active-Duty Recruits (Military.com, 26 Oct 23)
Under a new policy change, active-duty Air Force and Space Force applicants can join up to the age of 42 — meaning the services are now willing to take the oldest recruits out of all the Department of Defense military branches.
“The Air Force made this change to align with [Department of Defense] policy,” Brown told Military.com on Thursday. “This opens the aperture to allow more Americans the opportunity to serve.”
The increase in the enlistment age comes nearly one month after the Air Force announced it missed its active-duty enlistment goals for the first time since 1999. Other services have also taken the same approach in recent months.
In November, the Navy raised its maximum enlistment age from 39 to 41, citing the need to “widen the pool of potential recruits, creating opportunities for personnel who wish to serve, but were previously unable due to age.”
The sea service’s change made it the Department of Defense branch with the oldest potential recruits, but now that distinction goes to the Air Force and Space Force. The Coast Guard, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, also changed its maximum enlistment age to 42 in November.
In fiscal 2023, which ended last month, the Air Force missed its enlisted active-duty recruiting goals by 11%, getting only 24,100 of the enlisted airmen out of the 26,877 it needed. . . . (read more)
Big Bonuses, Relaxed Policies, New Slogan: None of It Saved the Military from a Recruiting Crisis in 2023 (Military.com, 13 Oct 23)
Despite a barrage of hefty bonuses, loosened and more progressive enlistment requirements, and even the creation of innovative pre-boot camp programs, the U.S. military mostly fell short in efforts to bring more Americans into the services over the past year — and it’s unclear how or when that will change.
Of the five Defense Department service branches, only two met their active-duty enlisted recruiting goals for fiscal 2023 — the Marine Corps and the Space Force, by far the smallest services and with the lightest recruiting burden.
The others, the Army, Air Force and Navy, fell short. Every service — with the exception of the Marine Corps, which squeaked by, in some cases by just one person — missed some element of its target numbers, whether from the reserve, National Guard or officer goals.
The military took a variety of innovative approaches to inspire young Americans to join up, including reviving the Army’s 1980s slogan “Be All You Can Be,” the Air Force loosening prior tattoo and drug testing policies, and the Navy rolling out record-high financial incentives up to $140,000.
But those efforts ultimately did not push the services over the line of their recruitment goals. . . . (read more)
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