Army Recruiting Crisis: Problems, Responses and Prognosis

When there is a visible enemy to fight in open combat, many serve, all applaud, and the tide of patriotism runs high. But when there is a long, slow struggle, with no immediate, visible foe, your choice will seem hard indeed.

President John F. Kennedy

U.S. Naval Academy graduation address, June 6, 1961

The ability to acquire sufficient quantities of high-quality U.S. Army personnel has been imperative since World War II, when the United States became a superpower with global security responsibilities. Conscription sufficed from September 1940 until December 1972, except for a brief suspension in the late 1940s. The current reluctance of many eligible U.S. youths to enlist during a "long, slow struggle" against will-o-the-wisp terrorists who spurn Marquis of Queensbury rules unfortunately makes it increasingly difficult to fill our volunteer Army with enough suitable recruits.

The following survey reviews recruitment practices during the past 30-plus years in ways that reveal why some ploys worked well while others failed. Peacetime and wartime demands differ dramatically in fundamental respects, but the current crop of Army policy makers nevertheless could learn a lot from successes and mistakes during the post-Vietnam period.

Post-Vietnam Problems And Responses

Recruiting statistics hit rock bottom after the Vietnam War, when desirable prospects customarily shunned the newly minted all-volunteer force. Far too many Army enlistees during that virulently antimilitary era were poorly educated teenagers whose prospects for gainful civilian employment were abysmal.

Corrective actions. Visionary Maj. Gen. Maxwell Thurman began to turn those trends around as soon as he took charge of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) in 1979. He got a big boost before long from Commander in Chief Ronald Reagan, who restored military service to its rightful position as an honorable profession, and from Congress, which enacted statutory limits on the maximum number of high school dropouts the Army could enlist and minimum acceptable scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT).

Max coined the slogan "Be all that you can be" which, coupled with high-pressure public relations campaigns, incrementally eradicated widespread perceptions that enlistment in the Army was disgraceful. "Be all that you can be" mirrored Thurman's professional philosophy, which he described in February 1983 before members of Congress, who authorize force levels and furnish essential funds.

"The overall purpose of setting high human goals," he announced, "is to help every member of the Army family reach his or her full potential. We can easily teach soldiers to perform tasks by rote, but it takes a far more subtle effort to unlock their creative powers."

Gen. Thurman emphasized quality, because skilled personnel cannot be quickly replaced. "If a soldier with 15 years experience leaves the Army for greener pastures," Thurman explained, "he takes his accumulated experience with him. If we recruit another soldier to take his place, the size of the Army stays the same, but it will take 15 [more] years to replace the competence."

Thurman's recruitment tactics opened with honest, realistic, effective messages tailored to influence carefully targeted audiences. He emphasized tougher standards that, as he put it, "changed the Army's image of itself." Standards he set greatly increased the percentage of self-starters who possessed essential skills. Hard chargers who survived severe reductions in force knew "they had been recognized and rewarded for their professionalism, self-discipline and competence."

Thurman concurrently took steps to replace a sizable crop of "woefully inadequate" noncommissioned officers with winners whom subordinates could respect. He treated unit and family cohesiveness as inseparable concerns because, in his words, "if soldiers are torn between the Army and their families, the Army usually loses."

Steps to improve pay, allowances, medical care and accommodations accordingly were important parts of his agenda. Finally, Thurman was a true believer in the Total Army, and therefore applied his recruiting and retention policies to the Army Reserve and Army National Guard as well as the active establishment.

Thurman wrapped up his program with these perceptive words: "If we fail to bring in ... competent soldiers now, the malaise may not be apparent for another decade, but the symptoms will be present from the moment standards are lowered. When the disease can no longer be ignored, it may be impossible to effect a cure without starting from the beginning." His military superiors and potentates on Capitol Hill read that message loud and clear.

Commendable results. Army enlisted personnel improved substantially before Thurman pinned on a third star and left Army Recruiting Command to become deputy chief of staff for Personnel in 1981. High school graduates soared from less than 60 percent in fiscal year (FY) 1976 to more than 90 percent by FY 1982. The number of misfits and malcontents dropped dramatically. Three combat arms on the cutting edge (infantry, armor, field artillery) boasted far more high school diplomas than ever before, which gave their capabilities a grand boost. Continued applications of Thurman's policies prepared the U.S. Army to fight and win with minimum casualties when the ground phase of Operation Desert Storm began in January 1991. "The modern professional Army ... [indeed] came into existence" as a direct result of his influence, according to a contemporary Army press release.

Present-Day Problems

Our all-volunteer Army, currently scattered around the globe, is heavily engaged in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan. War with North Korea and/or Iran conceivably could explode on short notice. USAREC, which must compete with civilian employers in a robust economy, consequently finds it increasingly difficult to attract high quality recruits. The resultant Regular Army, still the world's best measured by any yardstick, is too small to meet immediate needs. Army Reserve and Army National Guard units, which take up the slack, experience serious strains, and back-to-back unit rotations from home stations to Iraq or Afghanistan are commonplace. Conscription, which could fill gaps, remains politically unsupportable.

Army officials, as a direct result, on June 10, 2005, announced a recruiting crisis. Basic training centers presently operate at less than half capacity. The need for 30,000 new troops to fill 10 new Army brigades creates a challenge "of historic proportions," according to USAREC's current commander, Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle. A Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) spokesman flatly stated that "a massive influx" of recruits is essential this summer.

Desperate measures to maintain sufficient troops began in September 2002, when the Army promulgated unpopular stop-loss policies that retain reluctant dragons in uniform at least until 2006, whether they like it or not. A Federal Appeals Court in San Francisco, Calif., on May 13, 2005, denied petitions to scrap involuntary retention. Recurrent reliance on reservists puts their civilian jobs in jeopardy and severely strains family relationships. Orders recently recalled 5,600 members of the Individual Ready Reserve who previously completed specified periods of active duty but remained vulnerable because their contracts had not expired. Something like 100,000 artillerymen, air defenders and others in low demand for counterinsurgency missions are being retrained as infantry, military police, intelligence analysts and civil affairs specialists. Some marginal performers, who until recently would have been discharged without regret, may soon stay in uniform. Revised rules permit USAREC's headhunters to sign increased numbers of high school dropouts, while reserve components welcome 40-year-olds who are long in the tooth for privates. Army leaders may soon ask Congress to double bonuses for prized recruits from $20,000 to a whopping $40,000.

Corrective Courses of Action

Our Army eventually will be unable to maintain its feverish operating tempo, much less cope well with additional contingencies, unless senior U.S. politico-military policy makers turn debilitating trends around. Calls for conscription seem unrealistic, given congressional reluctance, which reflects the will of most Americans. Three thousand noncommissioned officers drawn from the top third of their peer groups (more than enough NCOs to man two infantry brigades) recently augmented the current crop of recruiters, but results likely will be disappointing in 2005 and equally discouraging later, because those reinforcements are saddled with the same presentation techniques and policy guidelines that restrict the rest of USAREC's anglers. Stop-loss discourages potential recruits, who fear similar entrapment when their contracts expire. The law of diminishing returns limits benefits from pay boosts and bonuses. Loose enlistment standards would compromise combat capabilities just as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Supplements described below thus seem worthy of serious consideration.

Solicit public support. The most creative recruiting programs imaginable would fail to satisfy our Army's minimum requirements under current conditions, because it is business as usual for most U.S. civilians, whose skepticism concerning protracted combat in Iraq severely constrains the pool of suitable volunteers. Strong, sustained public information programs emanating from the Oval Office and elsewhere on high consequently are essential. A constant stream of positive accounts about progress in Iraq and Afghanistan could preempt or help counterbalance negative reports that shape prevailing opinion every day. Accompanying wake-up calls should strive to convince the American people that if U.S. armed forces depart while Iraq remains dangerously unstable, chaos not only could spread across the Middle East to our detriment, but perceived defeat almost certainly would encourage enemies everywhere to invigorate attacks on vital U.S. interests at home as well as abroad, including values that the American people have cherished for more than 200 years.

Tailor recruiting themes. Television, radio, print media and personal appeals produce the best possible results only if Army recruiters first identify what tempts the most promising prospects. Themes that prompt young men and women to enlist while combat flares on several fronts with no end in sight are particularly important, because the woods are not full of young patriots like professional football star Pat Tillman, who left a highly profitable, high-profile job to become a Ranger private. Tailored approaches are imperative, since enticements that turn on any given audience tend to turn off others.

Macho men, for example, along with women who long to break out of traditional molds, respond well to "Send me in, coach" slogans that emphasize excitement, adventure and opportunities to make a difference. Gen. George S. Patton's pep talk on D-Day eve was a bit too earthy for current recruiting purposes when he told his troops: "Thank God that, at least, 30 years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks what you did in the great World War II, you won't have to say, 'I shoveled [bleep] in Louisiana.' " But a slightly expurgated version might work well today: "Would you rather tell your grandchildren you answered your nation's call when our way of life was at stake or tell them you sat out the global war on terrorism drinking beer, playing beach volleyball and otherwise living the good life while others battled the bad guys?"

Gung-ho teenagers nevertheless slip through recruiting nets, because sales pitches designed to persuade apprehensive (often antimilitary) parents, clergy, high school teachers, guidance counselors and coaches fall flat too often. USAREC's two-star commander knows there is an urgent need for new tactics to stop the precipitous decline of black soldiers, but has not figured out a sure-fire formula. Regular Army recruiting techniques differ from those that suit reserve components, which demand recruits with dissimilar motives and skills. The quest for creative thinkers as well as savvy salesmen consequently deserves an urgent priority.

Slightly relax acceptance standards. The U.S. Army still subscribes to peacetime, steady-state enlistment standards set in the 1980s. They demand that 90 percent of all recruits possess high school diplomas and that two-thirds occupy the top half of AFQT scores (which, contrary to common opinion, measure trainability more accurately than intellect). Recruits from Category IV-the lowest that Congress allows to enlist-cannot exceed two percent and those accepted must be high school graduates.

Combat capabilities would not suffer appreciably if Army policy makers accepted, say, 85 rather than 90 percent high school graduates, 50 rather than 67 percent in the top half of AFQT scores and five rather than two percent of applicants in Category IV. One "Old Army" first sergeant, for example, wistfully recalled the illiterate mortarman whom he lost during force reductions during the 1980s, because he "could make a lot of Joe Colleges look sick when it came to applied math. He never did know what the hell the mil formula meant, but when we wanted somebody on the base piece for split-hair shooting, he was our man." That same topkick also longed for his Cat IV motor sergeant, who "could make some sort of magic with pliers and wire that kept more vehicles off deadline than any outfit in the motor park." Similar exceptions suggest that highly selective, slightly relaxed acceptance standards might be a reasonable way to relieve shortages significantly without serious side effects.

Expand the GI Bill. Young men and women who are long on brains but short of cash should snap at expanded GI Bill benefits that promise four years of free college, including tuition, books, enrollment fees, room and board at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT or any other university that accepts their application after they complete a four-year hitch. (The GI Bill between June 1946 and May 1949 prepared me for gainful employment that lasted the next 46 years and enriched the remainder of my life.) Restless undergraduates who believe they need to take a break but cannot decide what course to follow constitute particularly lucrative targets. Graduate education in law, medicine, business administration or other professions could attract another large crop. Offers to pay off or waive all student loans would be welcome.

Enlist more legal aliens. Any alien who legally resides in the United States and serves honorably for at least three years in any U.S. military uniform is eligible for naturalization. Army recruiters, as a matter of policy, should selectively use that privilege to put larger numbers of fully qualified prospects on fast tracks to citizenship, according top priority to those who speak fluent English in addition to their native tongue and have the most to offer. Valuable benefits would accompany their rapid assimilation into U.S. society.

Recruiting concepts, methods and incentives that work reasonably well in peacetime and for short-duration, decisive conflicts currently are unsatisfactory, as President Kennedy predicted. Robbing Peter to pay Paul creates unwelcome effects that ripple throughout the entire Army. Many units, for example, experience debilitating discontinuities when several hundred platoon sergeants and squad leaders shift to recruiting duty on short notice. Noncoms bled from assorted staff assignments, such as those in TRADOC, similarly leave hard-to-fill blank spots. Underemployed drill sergeants reassigned from understocked basic training bases could not be replaced quickly with comparable talent if enlistments pick up later.

So what is my bottom line? Two unattractive options remain open if threat levels remain high and recruiters cannot furnish the wherewithal for an all-volunteer Army that matches ends with means reasonably well: restore conscription, however unpopular, or accept a weakened U.S. Army that would be poorly prepared to respond as required if war erupts with North Korea or Iran.

By Col. John M. Collins

U.S. Army retired

COL. JOHN M. COLLINS, USA Ret., has studied military matters for more than 60 years. He currently manages an e-mail net called the Warlord Loop, which investigates cogent national security issues from every angle. He has written 12 books about military matters.

Copyright Association of the United States Army Aug 2005
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