The Army’s Recruiting Solutions

Interesting stuff on how the Army has solved a substantial portion of its recruiting shortfall:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has credited the military’s strong recruiting numbers this year to a nationwide surge in patriotism and a love for President Trump. “What changed is a commander in chief that America’s young people believe in,” Mr. Hegseth told lawmakers this summer. “You can feel it in the ranks.”

Mr. Trump echoed the sentiment: “We’re getting the best people that you’ve ever seen.”

Mr. Trump’s election win and a higher unemployment rate among people ages 16 to 24 could have played a small role in improving recruiting, Army officials said. The Army’s recent success, though, would not have been possible without the program at Fort Jackson. About 22 percent of the Army’s more than 61,000 new recruits this year came in through the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a senior Army official said.

Read the rest (it’s a gift link). I do get the sense that progressives have begun shedding Vietnam stereotypes about recruiting and are coming to a better understanding of the demographic foundations of the US military. The primary problem in Army recruiting has been shortfalls in education and physical fitness. The prep course is a way of ameliorating the problem. People still join the military for lots of different reasons (the anecdotes in the article run the gamut), and the Prep course is a way of maintaining standards while also getting the numbers the Army needs. It’s relevant because Trump and Hegseth are all in on using “woke is dead” as an explanation for the recruiting bump, and this is a pernicious lie just like all the other pernicious lies associated with the administration.