I assume I misunderstood what you were saying here:
I’m going on the 2% number I noted, along with the numbers I looked at for number of high school grads (4 million) to the number actually enlisting (about 35,000). I’m also considering my own experience (albeit anecdotal) as a high school educator.
I gotta admit that the end of my time in was forty years ago, but way back when there was enough available manpower that if you were due to get out before an overseas rotation, you were assigned to shore duty for the duration and somebody else filled that slot.
Actually it’s simple. Commercial airlines. That’s why military pilots keep getting bled.
Why stay in the Navy or Air Force when you can go get paid a ton more working for someone like Delta or United? And chances are you’ll get on a good route that takes you to exotic places around the world and get your vacations there for free or cheap?
It happens to pilots a lot more because of how in demand their skill set is on both the military and civilian side. The airlines pay crazy money for experienced pilots with a lot of flight hours. Which during an Air Force or Navy stint you’re gonna get plenty of, making you super attractive to fly a 737 or something.
Honestly, the US military is probably lucky in the sense that PMC companies aren’t bigger than they already are. Because I’m sure they would love to pluck guys from Delta or DEVGRU coming back off of a tour. But there’s a ton of legal issues around private military contractors that make it less attractive for those guys. None of those issues with a private airline.
No night carrier flight ops, no extended deployments due to some retard’s foreign policy, fat paycheck, domestic or international routes, hotel beds instead of a ship’s rack. Nope, can’t imagine why.
For transport aircraft pilots yes, but there is not much demand by Commercial Airlines for fighter pilots and not much desire by fighter pilots to fly heavies.
Fighter pilots fly jumbos in the civilian world. A YouTuber I follow flew F-16s in the Air Force and flies 737s now. He does reaction videos to aviation news and has written a couple of books.
Historically speaking, enlistment increases during economic downturns and slows down when higher wage entry jobs are plentiful. That’s assuming peace time, since during war time you get motivated people wanting to join regardless of economics.