From Draft NOtices, October-December 2024
-- Lauren Reyna Morales
For the past several years, all branches of the U.S. military have experienced declining enlistment rates. Defense Department stakeholders have given varied explanations for this trend. Some espouse the ultra-conservative military-has-gone-woke narrative, while others cite a shift in young Americans’ perspectives on U.S. militarism. Some argue it’s because recruiters don’t have sufficient access to potential enlistees at high schools. Others point to the fact that a growing number of Americans are unable to meet standards required for enlistment, even if they had an interest in doing so.
No doubt there are a multitude of reasons for recent recruitment shortcomings. Regardless of the explanation, the military is working overtime to address the problem.
The Navy’s mission to contract 37,000 sailors in fiscal year 2023 fell short by a staggering 7,700. Despite this failure, Navy officials boldly raised recruitment goals to 40,600 enlistment contracts in 2024. The Navy also implemented controversial adjustments to enlistment criteria to widen the pool of prospective enlistees. The changes included raising the enlistment age to 41, eliminating the absolute requirement of a high school diploma, and admitting more extremely-low test performance candidates. These unconventional efforts seem to have paid off. Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral Rick Cheeseman stated in August that the branch will comfortably exceed its enlarged goals for the 2024 fiscal year.
On August 28, Rear Adm. Jim Waters, head of Navy Recruiting Command, and Rear Adm. Jeffery Czerewko, Commander of Navy Education and Training, discussed with reporters what was referred to as this “catastrophic success.” The officials acknowledged that the decision to welcome low-scoring recruits was a key component for the Navy’s recent success. Of note, the new recruiting cohort has a high proportion of enlistees with low scores on the mandatory Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT). In December of 2022, the Navy started to accept individuals who scored 10 out of 100 on the test, which is the absolute lowest score permissible for any military enlistee. The Navy utilized its waiver authority in order to fill up to 20% of its new cohort of recruits with these ultra-low-scoring enlistees; as a result, 6,400 applicants scored 30% or below on the AFQT. The waiver was only temporary; the Navy quit recruiting bottom-tenth percentile scorers in May and stopped accepting scores of 20% or below in August.
The easing of enlistment requirements continues to rely on the Future Sailor Prep Course, which was introduced in 2023 to help new recruits increase their test scores and improve their physical fitness. The course aims to increase underperforming enlistees’ eligibility to fill service positions for which they would have otherwise been unqualified. Czerewko, the Commander of Navy Education and Training, contends the Navy is “completing society’s work here” by helping people who might have viewed themselves as “dumb” realize that they can progress within the military. Officials admit the situation is not ideal but also claim it has “not resulted in higher training attrition rates or other personnel problems.”
The Navy’s loosening of enlistment requirements certainly assisted in boosting recruitment numbers, although it may cause a slew of new problems in the present and future. It seems logical that other military branches will want to replicate this model as a way to increase their own declining enlistments. Time will tell how far the military will go with lowering standards in order to keep their ranks stocked with bodies. What cost will they be willing to pay for doing so?
Information sources:
Hodge Seck, Hope. “How low-scoring applicants ‘primed the pump’ for Navy recruiting boost.” Navy Times, Sept. 5, 2004. Available at: https://www.navytimes.com/
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/).
