Retention and Recruitment Crisis

Devildoc said:
These military jobs have the highest turnover
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From the article:
At a quarterly meeting of the Defense Department-chartered Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services last month, representatives of each of the military services revealed which jobs had the lowest retention rates for each of the genders and discussed what they were doing to promote equity and retain military talent.
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^those two things are diametrically opposed. If you "promote equity" the way we have been doing, by showing favoritism for certain races, ethnicities, sexual preferences, and genders, it will, of necessity, continue to drive down retention.
 
Marauder06 said:
The world is careening towards large scale global conflict, and the people who are supposed to fight with us... can't. :(

Australia
Canada
Germany
UK
...
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We can't send a ship to the Red Sea because our Prime Minister squats to piss, and we don't really have a boat that can handle a drone attack. Afore mentioned squat pisser does skite that we'll be tripling our manning in the region, from 4 warm bodies to 12... Quick, add our flag to the coalition of the willing!

Weasel lipped squat pisser, who the Chinese call a "handsome boy" also binned 2 Battalions worth of new tracked IFVs. I guess we're back to making those 65 year old M113s last a little longer. Or going light. Or not going at all. 5RAR and 7RAR are linking back up again to become 5/7RAR. 4RAR was on the books to come back from the grave that 2 Commando put them in, to become the second amphibious PLF for the second Canberra Class LHD. That's not happening either.
 
0311’s leaving. Yes, because there’s nobody to fucking shoot at. No glory raking pine needles.
 
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Gunz said:
0311’s leaving. Why? There’s nothing to fucking shoot at.
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And that remains one of the most sought after MOSs

I drilled into this a little bit because I thought that odd. The issue is mainly with the first term and to a slightly lesser degree second enlistment Marines. If they choose to stay in at that point they tend to be lifers.

Marine infantry officers do not have that problem, it remains the most competitive and most sought after MOS.

It doesn't necessarily appear to be money issue but more of a culture and lifestyle issue, not sure if it's bodies getting broken, too much time in the field, too many deployments, or where their units are located.
 
Devildoc said:
And that remains one of the most sought after MOSs

I drilled into this a little bit because I thought that odd. The issue is mainly with the first term and to a slightly lesser degree second enlistment Marines. If they choose to stay in at that point they tend to be lifers.

Marine infantry officers do not have that problem, it remains the most competitive and most sought after MOS.

It doesn't necessarily appear to be money issue but more of a culture and lifestyle issue, not sure if it's bodies getting broken, too much time in the field, too many deployments, or where their units are located.
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Marauder06 said:
I don't think the majority of people who enlist 0311 do it with a career in mind. "Everyone wants to be a Marine, no one wants to stay a Marine."
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I’ve said this before because I’ve experienced it; war’s over, peacetime garrison duty, too much downtime…and chronic boredom. Not enough range time, not enough challenging training, plus you’re 18-25…and nowadays promotions are slow. Yep, lemme out.
 
"Recruiting problem? What recruiting problem."

Military Recruiting Is Now So Bad, They Reduced The End Strength​


There can't be a recruiting problem if we just drop the end strength.

Think About It GIF by Identity


h/
 
"...and most Americans are simply too fat, too dumb, or too criminal to join up..."

Yes, sir. I also think there's a large proportion of military age citizens in this country who are fit enough, smart enough and lawful enough to sign up if they wanted to...but who have an aversion to military service because they believe A) it's beneath them; B) or that it's only for suckers who can't make it on the "outside"; C) or they've never given any thought to serving their country in any way for countless selfish reasons. And they're quite willing to let others take all the risks.

And speaking of risks, there's a perception out there that everybody in uniform is cannon fodder. I tried to explain to people during our last wars that only 10-15% of our service people are actually engaged in combat...and absolutely nobody believed me.
 
Gunz said:
"...and most Americans are simply too fat, too dumb, or too criminal to join up..."

Yes, sir. I also think there's a large proportion of military age citizens in this country who are fit enough, smart enough and lawful enough to sign up if they wanted to...but who have an aversion to military service because they believe A) it's beneath them; B) or that it's only for suckers who can't make it on the "outside"; C) or they've never given any thought to serving their country in any way for countless selfish reasons. And they're quite willing to let others take all the risks.
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Totally. I experienced that so much when I was in grad school. "Wait... you're in the ARMY, and you got in HERE?"

Gunz said:
And speaking of risks, there's a perception out there that everybody in uniform is cannon fodder. I tried to explain to people during our last wars that only 10-15% of our service people are actually engaged in combat...and absolutely nobody believed me.
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Yep. Lots of people also say that it's the poor, and minorities, who die the most on our side during wars.

Nope; it's middle class white guys.
 
Marauder06 said:
I don't think the majority of people who enlist 0311 do it with a career in mind. "Everyone wants to be a Marine, no one wants to stay a Marine."
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I think a 'try before you buy' thing is fine. A one-enlistment wonder. But lateral MOS transfers I think would help and as I understand most of the branches seem to be doing this now for retention, to some success.

Gunz said:
I’ve said this before because I’ve experienced it; war’s over, peacetime garrison duty, too much downtime…and chronic boredom. Not enough range time, not enough challenging training, plus you’re 18-25…and nowadays promotions are slow. Yep, lemme out.
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I can see that, especially if you are in during peacetime and conflict (I was reverse, I was in pre-GWOT and during the wars). Now, though, no one knows conflict so I am not sure that factors into it. I think the 2nd MARDIV may be slower than the Pacific, but it seems the Pacific Marines are training their butts off now with the MLRs and forward-based Marines in Australia.
 
Devildoc said:
I think a 'try before you buy' thing is fine. A one-enlistment wonder. But lateral MOS transfers I think would help and as I understand most of the branches seem to be doing this now for retention, to some success.



I can see that, especially if you are in during peacetime and conflict (I was reverse, I was in pre-GWOT and during the wars). Now, though, no one knows conflict so I am not sure that factors into it. I think the 2nd MARDIV may be slower than the Pacific, but it seems the Pacific Marines are training their butts off now with the MLRs and forward-based Marines in Australia.
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We were trigger-pullers coming down from fairly recent adrenal experiences—not to mention wound recovery and PTSD—now shining boots and raking pine needles at Lejeune. I guess our most recent wars have been over long enough where the absence of combat action doesn’t factor in.
 
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Gunz said:
You’re probably right, Doc. We were trigger-pullers coming down from fairly recent adrenal experiences—not to mention wound recovery and PTSD—now shining boots and raking pine needles at Lejeune. I guess our most recent wars have been over long enough where the absence of combat action doesn’t factor in.
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I am not sure which is worse, going from a combat environment then into peacetime or peacetime then into combat. I think the abrupt switch from one to the other is very challenging, going from one world instead of rules into another. I do think if you join during peacetime and then go into war the bets are hedged for you and not against you. So would that in mind, I think would be much harder to go from wartime to peace time. That has to be very difficult.
 
Gunz said:
You’re probably right, Doc. We were trigger-pullers coming down from fairly recent adrenal experiences—not to mention wound recovery and PTSD—now shining boots and raking pine needles at Lejeune. I guess our most recent wars have been over long enough where the absence of combat action doesn’t factor in.
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There is also the whole continuous field problem after field problem that we're doing right now and then deploying Soldiers at a rate greater than the surge. The only difference is they can't stop loss you or have extended Army deployments for whatever circle jerk deployment they're doing. Oh and don't worry, it's not a combat deployment so no extra dinero.

ETA:
52,000 Temporary promotions under the COVID policy still in place.

Army Has Temporarily Promoted 52,000 Soldiers, But Over 10,000 Still Haven't Completed Required Schooling.

US Army promoted over 10,000 soldiers without required military education, training: report

PME man, how do we continuously fail at this? By the way, most of the normal states restrictions were done before Christmas 2021. So that's over two years ago. So the reason we're failing NCO's is what? OPTEMPO? The Army needs to pull it's head out and tell Congress it is at peace and it needs to take care of its people while also training for the next fight. Everyone talked about how we've transitioned training to fight near-pear. But we're grinding the current force into the ground at a greater rate than when we stop-lossed thousands per year.
 
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So if the Navy cant help them - how can they be the Marine "Corps" ???
The whole reason the Department of the Navy has a Marine "Corps" is to do that Naval Infantry thing.

Fuck tradition - you men need to get rid of the "Corps" and just be the United States Marines.
The Navy has enough departments already - they don't need the Men's Department any more.


Not like it matters - the Army cant count on the Air Force to drop paratroopers any more either.
 
Box said:
So if the Navy cant help them - how can they be the Marine "Corps" ???
The whole reason the Department of the Navy has a Marine "Corps" is to do that Naval Infantry thing.

Fuck tradition - you men need to get rid of the "Corps" and just be the United States Marines.
The Navy has enough departments already - they don't need the Men's Department any more.


Not like it matters - the Army cant count on the Air Force to drop paratroopers any more either.
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Well shit I was going to suggest converting an RCT into a Marine Parachute Regiment . . .

ETA on 2/2/24

Army to create new armor-aligned Bradley crew member job field

Because Infantry no smaht?
 
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AWP said:
The Air Force admits there's a problem, but it also has a solution.

Retired officers, enlisted members can rejoin active duty to offset personnel shortfalls
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BAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH.

It’s the definition of an abusive relationship.

“Hey, whole cohort of people that recently left (some we shamed and kicked out due to their unwillingness to take a non-approved medical procedure, others we just told were the biggest threat to national security and demoralized them to the point that they left) wanna come back in to deal with more DEI, feckless leadership, and pay that isn’t anywhere close to keeping up with cost of living nationwide?

As a bonus we will throw in a VA system that can’t buy pens while we send $60B to Ukraine every quarter.”

Uh, no, bestie. That does not slay.
 

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