{"id":130906,"date":"2022-09-19T12:31:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T16:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=130906"},"modified":"2022-09-19T12:31:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T16:31:18","slug":"decline-of-all-volunteer-force-endangers-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=130906","title":{"rendered":"Decline of all-volunteer force endangers America"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dr. Mark T. Esper details trends in recruiting and other factors that do not help the state of the US Military. Factors such as obesity, drug use, physical fitness, academic aptitude, etc., reduce the pool of qualified candidates. There is also a disconnect between the segment of the population who has served, or who has a family in the military, and the segment of the population who did not serve and who do not have a family member in the military.<\/p>\n

From Fox News:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The fact is the pool of Americans aged 17-24 who are qualified and interested in serving continues to shrink. When I was secretary of the Army in 2018, 71% of these 34 million young people could not meet the military\u2019s entry requirements due mostly to obesity, drug use, physical and mental health problems, and criminal misconduct. Four years later, that number is even higher. Further, of the 23% eligible to serve today, another 10% don\u2019t meet the military\u2019s academic standards. Worse, of the 3.5 million young Americans remaining, only 9% (~320,000) have a proclivity to serve. A nation of 332 million people should do better than that.<\/p>\n

The numbers are all heading in the wrong direction, driven by broader cultural and lifestyle trends and a population unfamiliar with the less than 1% of the U.S. population in uniform that protects them. When the draft ended in 1973, most young people had a family connection to the armed forces who could explain military life and encourage service to country; today that number is far lower. Major reductions in the size of the U.S. military and in the number of bases across the country after the Cold War\u2019s end contributed to this problem. A “knowledge gap” has grown over time due to civilians\u2019 lack of interaction with those in uniform. This has led to an “identity gap” that inhibits many from considering a stint in the armed forces. It\u2019s no mystery why a military caste has developed in America, with nearly 80% of today\u2019s service members having a family member that served. All of this affects a broader set of civil-military relations with which the nation is wrestling.<\/p>\n

The scope and scale of these trends are beyond the ability of the Pentagon to remedy. There are actions the services can and are taking, but these only address the problem at the margins. Because the ability of the military to defend the country depends directly on a sizable force of top-notch volunteers, this is a national challenge that must be addressed at the highest levels.<\/p>\n

This means the White House and Congress must work together to reverse the underlying trends. They could begin by standing up a bipartisan commission of esteemed leaders, much like President Richard Nixon did in 1969 when he decided to end conscription. This time, rather than creating the AVF, the new panel\u2019s mission would be to save it. As such, commissioners must focus on the key issues: increasing the pool of young people qualified to serve and raising their interest in doing so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the opinion piece is on this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mark T. Esper details trends in recruiting and other factors that do not help the … Decline of all-volunteer force endangers America<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}