Retention and Recruitment Crisis

I don't think it's poor people, I think the target is the middle class. But I definitely knew poor people, as in guys from rural West Virginia who only had power when their parents could afford the light bill.
 
Topkick said:
I didn't have the same experience. There certainly were poor kids in my platoons, but there were also rich kids. It probably balanced itself out. Many had one thing in common though, they were troubled and trying to find some direction or purpose.
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Fair point, I also had a member of MENSA in one of my platoons. The moment he was a year out from ETS he became very high maintenance. He wanted to only work 2 days a week so he could do a resident master's program 3 days a week at UofL.

Marauder06 said:
It has been a while since I looked at the stats, but I think most people in the military, at least in the Army, actually come from the middle class. This is partially because it’s kind of hard to join the military, and if you are so impoverished that you don’t have access to decent nutrition and decent education, for example, you probably won’t make the minimums to join. It might be the lower middle class, but still the middle class.

I would hypothesize that the top economic decile will probably be about the same as the lowest in terms of joining up. Some people from extremely wealthy families still join the military, if for nothing other to boost their political careers. They don't stay long, and they don't do much while they're in, but they're there. Many people from the poorest deciles will never meet the recruiting gates to join in the first place.

I'll see if I can find the data. I could be wrong.

Edited to add:

Council on Foreign Relations:
"Most members of the military come from middle-class neighborhoods. The middle three quintiles for household income were overrepresented among enlisted recruits, and the top and bottom quintiles were underrepresented."

[snip]
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That's good data. I would say most of the people I commissioned with and then went ABOLC with didn't have my experience growing up. Most were solidly middle class and had walking around money. My experience growing up led me to spend very little, max out my roth TSP, start a Roth IRA, and go on one true vacation while I was in. I didn't go anywhere on leave but to my parents house on the block leave periods I had. Now I do kinda wish I'd been a little less frugal throughout my time. But I'm still a stinge lol. Still max out my Roth IRA and save.
 
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I haven’t even read all the official ‘why’ …cause it’s likely all bullshit. But I can think of 2 young men who would come from a family over the $87k mark and would have made outstanding officers (one Marines or Army and one Air Force). I did everything I could to steer them away.

Actually makes me really sad…for many reasons.

Fuck fuck games are part of the Military, but getting fucked by your military … for many reasons, is not something I’d want either one of them to have to put up with; especially when there would be literally nothing they could do to change it.
 
I'm done. They wonder why there's a recruiting and attrition crises. As long as this bullshit is pushed, especially by a professor at the Royal Military College; I will do everything I can to dissuade my children from joining the CAF.

“With this special issue we provide readers with insights and recommendations for meaningful military culture change,” reads an introduction.



The issue lacks the journal sections typically devoted to strategy or military history. Instead, it’s a series of 13 essays all devoted to what an introduction describes as a “feminist intersectional trauma-informed approach to reimagine and transform CAF culture.”
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Alan Okros, a professor at Royal Military College, writes that the military will never escape its harmful practices unless it can move beyond an identity that prioritizes “violence and aggression, institutional unity and hierarchy.” On the whole, the issue’s contributors are very open about the fact that they are adherents of “critical race theory” — a term that appears in the text five times.
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FIRST READING: The Canadian military’s all-in embrace of far-left 'anti-oppression' dogma
 
Sadly, it's not just in Canada. Check out this headline: (link: MSN)

US military academies focus on oaths and loyalty to Constitution as political divisions intensify​


"political divisions," but this entire article is a long antri-Trump screed

Also, as I mentioned before, West Point has a Diversity minor, but squashed a Strategic Studies one. So that's a good insight into where the focus is.
 
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RackMaster said:
So many here just want us to fight fires, sling sand bags and care for elderly...

I think Canada needs a civil defense service of some sort, again. Focusing on disaster relief. Keep the warfighting to warfighters.
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We get tagged to do a lot of the same kinds of things. When the chips are down, the military is always the easiest, and probably most effective, option.

Our troops have done hurricane relief, helped care for COVID victims, and even deployed to Africa to fight Ebola. We did earthquake relief in Pakistan, helped with flood mitigation, and helped fight fires.

I'm OK with all of that; it helps us practice our logistics, intel, comms, and C2. It also helps us be good citizens. But you're absolutely right, people need to remember what our military is for, and keep that front and center. It's not to implement the far left's political agenda, although that is absolutely what is happening.
 
Marauder06 said:
We get tagged to do a lot of the same kinds of things. When the chips are down, the military is always the easiest, and probably most effective, option.

Our troops have done hurricane relief, helped care for COVID victims, and even deployed to Africa to fight Ebola. We did earthquake relief in Pakistan, helped with flood mitigation, and helped fight fires.

I'm OK with all of that; it helps us practice our logistics, intel, comms, and C2. It also helps us be good citizens. But you're absolutely right, people need to remember what our military is for, and keep that front and center. It's not to implement the far left's political agenda, although that is absolutely what is happening.
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I'm good with it, I've personally deployed for multiple domestic ops for fires, floods, ice storms and my favorite was a snow storm in Toronto.
We have a quick reaction force specifically for it, DART. But the forces as a whole are increasingly called upon to handle situations that should fall under the municipal and provincial government mandates. They are reducing capacity and funding more and more.

Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) - Canada.ca
 
RackMaster said:
I'm done. They wonder why there's a recruiting and attrition crises. As long as this bullshit is pushed, especially by a professor at the Royal Military College; I will do everything I can to dissuade my children from joining the CAF.
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Your micro aggression is causing me to seek a safe space--like at a drag show on an American aircraft carrier.
 
Royal Australian Navy also having recruiting issues.

https://archive.is/eyumh
Defence is looking at mothballing up to two more of the navy’s frontline Anzac-class frigates as crippling crew shortages undermine the nation’s military capabilities. Senior leadership has ordered navy fleet command to provide advice on the impact of pulling a further one or two Anzac frigates out of the water indefinitely.

The move follows Defence’s decision in November, revealed by The Australian, to put first-of-class frigate HMAS Anzac on hard stands at Western Australia’s Henderson shipyard. It’s understood shortages of navy-qualified marine and electrical engineers are acute, with the vessels unable to go to sea without sufficient personnel in the key roles.

The nation’s most potent warships – the Hobart-class air warfare destroyers – are also suffering crewing issues due to a shortage of combat system operators.
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ThunderHorse said:
Royal Australian Navy also having recruiting issues.

https://archive.is/eyumh
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Australia's armed forces have had these issues for years though. A decade, decade+ ago, they began recruiting foreigners with technical skills. 2021 I worked with an RAAF Major-equiv who came over from South Africa; she'd been in the RAAF for like 8-10 years at that point.

That said, it sounds like things are much, much worse.
 
AWP said:
Australia's armed forces have had these issues for years though. A decade, decade+ ago, they began recruiting foreigners with technical skills. 2021 I worked with an RAAF Major-equiv who came over from South Africa; she'd been in the RAAF for like 8-10 years at that point.

That said, it sounds like things are much, much worse.
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That's partly what led to our Navy, manning shortage. I know of a few senior leaders that moved to Australia. I believe we were losing pilots to them as well.
 
Devildoc said:
Jobs with the highest turnover. Some of these surprised me, some did not.

These military jobs have the highest turnover
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The money shot in that article is one simple sentence...

For the Army, it’s not fully clear why certain jobs struggle to retain soldiers.
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Why is it so hard for the Army to understand?
The lowest lowest retention rate among women is the job of "carpentry and masonry specialist"
The job that a 12W does is plain and simple - heavy construction.
Flame away - but I'm going to say it...
...that is a mans job.

That's why they can only retain 23% of the women that enlist to do that job.
Those women realize - "WTF was I thinking - I am smarter than this."
...and they leave - they move on and find a better life than "female bricklayer"

Question: Can women do heavy construction?
Answer: Of course they can. (but why in the fuck would women want to do that job when tere are so many jobs that are better suited and also PAY better)

Oddly, a specially trained and selected team of researchers are having one hell of a time figuring out why women are enlisting as a 12W, and then getting the fuck out.
...because the ones that CAN do a great job as a 12W also realize that they can get paid MORE by being a 12W for a civilian construction firm than they will make mugging along as an E1-E2-E3-E4-E5

Then there is this next little nugget of side splitting retention mystery:
Why so many maintenance specialties can’t hang on to troops is less clear.
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Here's an idea - maybe because once they learn a technical skill that pays WAY more in the private sector - they finish their enlistment and go to work for companies with names like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Dell, Microsoft...

Well, the fucking navy gets it...
“Nuclear-trained personnel, we are paying them at the statutory congressional limit of what we can pay,” Wheeler said. “The sailors are very highly talented and have a lot of opportunities on the outside."
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The military fully acknowledges that there is a legal limit to what they can pay enlisted Soldiers, Sailors, marines, and Airmen...
...Air Persons

An E4 makes E4 pay.
The clerk that lost your leave form.
The medic that lost your shot record.
The truck driver.
The nuclear trained tech specialist...
...and even that female 12W that we talked about earlier.
...unless you believe that decades oldf lie about gender pay gaps that uses misleading statistics to try and convince you that a female E4 only makes 72% of what a male E4 makes.


Stop the planet - I want to get off now.
 
Devildoc said:
Jobs with the highest turnover. Some of these surprised me, some did not.

These military jobs have the highest turnover
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LOL, Flight Engineer has a low retention rate.
C-130J, no Flight Engineer,
KC-46A, no Flight Engineer
E-3, being retired, eventual replacement (E-7) has no Flight Engineer.
C-17, no Flight Engineer.
E-8 retired.
They are leaving, or have a new AFSC.
 
Box said:
Here's an idea - maybe because once they learn a technical skill that pays WAY more in the private sector - they finish their enlistment and go to work for companies with names like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Dell, Microsoft...
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This Mary Poppins fan boy gets it.

17 years of contracting with the Air Force and I watched this destroy some AFCS. (MOS or Rate to you "other" people)

When you put maintainers on the flight line or control tower or base infrastructure for 10, 12, 16 hours a day? Don't be surprised when they bolt for a contractor gig. The Mil can fix this with a LARGE checkbook and about a decade.

I know how this story ends.
 

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