The age 18-24 demographic is 12-13% of the over age 18 population. Do the math. Do we need that many Americans in uniform except during a major world war?
It’s not about numbers it’s about who’s in office. Enlistment dropped from Obama to Trump and increased under Trump and now is declining under Biden. There are trends. No one wants to put their life on the line for someone who hates America and wants to fundamentally change it.
Exactly. Think of all the talent and innovation opportunities wasted by devoting so many human resources to that, at arguably their prime years for starting to do big things.
Can you imagine Bill Gates tied up in Military service in his early 20s?
Vietnam? The first US death was too many for that silly project.
As for Korea, the Chinese had relatively unlimited manpower to keep killing as many US troops as we could send. Ike was right to end it.
While recruitment has been rough for a while, the idea that we’re not getting recruits is a bit silly. I’m glad you said virtually instead of literally. I do actually appreciate that.
Who has said that we are not getting any recruits? Also, I’ve been the one putting out the stats like this:
Department of Defense, polled people ages 16-24 about their likelihood to join the military and why or why not. When asked, “In the next few years, how likely is it that you will be serving in the Military?” 2% replied, “Definitely,” and 7% replied, “Probably.”
I also worked in a high school for over 20 years, and during that time only a handful of my students went or were interested in joining the military.
I was only aware of three who actually joined. Two females who went in as officers, one Coast Guard, the other Army, and one guy who went into the Marines but got an early discharge.
The sad thing is that shortly after WWII the OSS advised that we align with Ho Chi Minh instead of helping France reestablish their colony in Vietnam, to help keep Mao’s China in check. The whole thing could have been avoided, although admittedly, there is no knowing how that would have turned out either.
Jesus, I didn’t say we’re getting no recruits…but you did say virtually NO ONE(and all caps was you) wants to join the armed forces. You didn’t say literally and I said I appreciated that. But what did you mean then? Some services are meeting their goals and some aren’t. How does that fit with “virtually NO ONE” is joining up?