How The Military Services Did This Year in Achieving Recruitment Goals

Recently I wrote an article about the difficulties the military services are facing in meeting recruitment goals these days. The problem seems to be multifaceted, involving things like the effects of the Covid pandemic, low interest in military service, and, one of the most troubling things, declining physical eligibility rates. While all of this is troubling, there are some bright spots.

The Marine Times recently reported that the Marine Corps was one of the only branches to fully reach its recruitment target numbers this year. It is also one of the smallest branches of the U.S. military. Despite the above stated issues, the Corps seems to have overcome these enlistment issues, at least this year.

The Navy Times reported as well that the Navy was able to reach its enlistment targets for this year but was not as successful in achieving the same with its efforts to recruit for its officer corps. I was not able to find information as to why this was so and would not like to speculate on the reasons for this problem in recruiting at the officer level.

As far as the Air Force is concerned, they just barely met active-duty recruiting goals. They also reported that the military’s newest force, the Space Force, which is our smallest service, will meet its recruitment goals.

Take a brief look at the Marine Corps numbers here. The Corps gained 28,608 new active-duty enlisted for fiscal year 2022. This was 8 more souls than its expected goal for the year. It did just as well with its Reserve enlisted recruitment, signing 4,602 new Reserve Marines. Unlike the Navy, the Marine Corps met its goals at the officer level in both the active-duty and reserve elements.

Despite the success here, the Marine Corps, and all of the military branches, are finding their recruitment efforts ever more challenging. Jim Edwards, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command, is quoted in the Marine Times article saying, “Compounding effects of the COVID pandemic, reduced school access, a decline in eligible population, historic low propensity, decreased public confidence, media inflation, and a growing military and civilian divide have placed great stress on day-to-day recruiting operations. These challenges remain prevalent and will continue to challenge our recruiting force during FY23.”

According to the Marine Times article, 99% of the new recruits are high school graduates, much higher than the 90% standard proposed by the Defense Department. 67% of these new recruits “scored in the top three tiers of the Armed Forces Qualification Test.” Again, this was higher than the DOD standard of 60%.

The Corps achieved another “historic high” in that some 35% of its new officers come from diverse backgrounds, including 15% women. 11% of their enlistment quota this year was women as well. One of the small bits of good news for the Marine Corps is very important here too. They were able to reduce their recruitment needs for FY22 because of the fact that they experienced higher than usual retention rates among their active-duty and reserve troops this year. This is the first time in the last ten years that the Corps has exceeded its retention goal and it is already working hard on maintaining higher retention numbers in the coming year.

These are, indeed, challenging times for the military services. Some of the issues are truly troubling for the future. We are living in very dangerous times and the need for a healthy, well-trained, effective military force may be even more important today than it has been for some time. Should we not be worried about the fact that the 18-35 age group that is eligible for military service is becoming more and more physically ineligible to serve? And maybe we should be even more concerned about the negative attitudes around the military and the idea of service in general.

Despite the troubling realities of our times, it is good to see that the Marine Corps has been successful in both the recruitment and the retention areas this year. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of better trends in the future. OooRah!