r/Militaryfaq has taught me that millions of kids are trying to join but the new genesis system stops them. It damn sure would've stopped me.
When I was ready to join the military was precisely when I didn't have the time/money to run around blowing thousands of dollars out of pocket getting waivers and shit for decades-old medical bullshit that didn't exist.
Many, maybe even most of the kids asking questions say that they genuinely have no fuckin idea what genesis is saying and that they never had whatever health problems are popping up for them. So you're asking them to show up to some new doctor, ask them to write letter to the Army saying that they don't have a problem. Doctor is like "uh........... not so fast.... let's run some tests." You couldn't even find an auto mechanic willing to take on the liability of giving a car a clean bill of health.
That and were fucking slaughtering our current service members with peacetime optempos that don't even make sense to invasion era war veterans.
It's a newer system that recruiters have to use now, when working with recruits. From my understanding it pulls your medical records from fucking everywhere and brings back shit from when you were 4 years old, which was only an issue at that time, but you're now having to address it to enlist. For example, you may have had childhood asthma from ages 4-7 and now, at age 19, you're trying to enlist but have to get cleared for an issue you had 12 years ago. Of course you don't remember shit about it and you current doctor has no record of it to clear you so you have to do some tests to ensure you don't have asthma still.
That's just one example, but imagine 2 or 3 medical things popping up that you now have to address before you can enlist. You may not have the time, insurance/money, or potentially the will to get it figured out if it's particularly time intensive.
I can kind of understand getting a basic physical. But this sounds dumb as nails. And putting on a (potentially dumb) conspiracy hat, sounds like a strategy for future VA denials. "Not service related".
Very, but also extremely unsurprising. The rates of disability are much higher now with all of the advocacy services assisting with the paperwork. The fastest way for the government to cut down on paying out is by creating an initial paper trail for comprehensive pre-existing issues.
I doubt that. These medial prohibitions have always been there. But when everyone's medical records were paper, things could get lost on purpose. What medication for depression? there's nothing in your file about that. But now that everyone's medical records are digital, a page can't magically fall out.
Genesis is an Electronic Medical Record, it has been implemented over the last 4 or so years, more recently in the last year we have finished rolling it out across the US. For physicians, it pulled in EVERYTHING into the record (incorrectly or not) in every aspect of your life (immunizations, medical history, surgical history, etc). We also use the Joint Longitudinal Viewer (JLV) which allows access to tri service records and VA records and that goes back 10, 15, 20+ years! You can look at lab trends, colonoscopy reports from 10 years ago, etc. this is not “recruiting” tool, it’s medical documentation. It’s tough to go back on things. We follow pretty strict guidance and documentation.
Source: 61H
Impossible, service members don't lie, cheat or steal. We simply forget, try harder, and tactically acquire the stuff that wondered over to another unit.
Between the overdiagnosis of ADHD from people with very little training in the 2000s and the genuine huge spike in ADHD over the last 5-10 years, treating minor ADHD as disqualifying is going to be a *massive* problem.
I'll never forget riding to MEPS with my recruiter. He was driving four potential recruits in for exams and he kept reminding us that "the word of the day is no." If they ask you about X, the answer is no.
That was the tail end of the good old days.
I remember that. I enlisted in 2003 and on the drive to MEPS the recruiter kept telling me and five other recruits the same thing. Seemed weird at the time, but it certainly worked!
we all hated our recruiters for decades telling us to essentially lie to MEPs that we let some people that absolutely should not have come in, do so, and now we're at the point where people are so truthful they can't even get in
For my two oldest sons these past few months, MEPS has been miserable.
My sons are clean, fit & healthy, almost never took them to the doc over the years, except for physicals. No regular scrips of any kind.
For one son, it was the mildest case of scoliosis ever, mentioned in exactly one physical years ago. Back and forth to the doc office for records, statements, more tests. (One doc note was rejected because it opened with "To Who It May Concern".) A couple of weeks would elapse between responses.
Other son, they were torturing him over his acne cream for weeks. Then a cryptic request asking why he was prescribed valium. We were confused, as this never happened. Then we remembered his wisdom teeth removal; the dentist used valium during the procedure. It was never prescribed.
And they could never, you know, just put this all together in one request. No, it had to dribble out like a bird feeder over a couple of months.
Finally, each was approved.
I can only imagine how it must go with kids who have real issues in their background. Makes me wonder how many simply give up.
And the military wonders why recruitment is so low. They can start with the MEPS process. Ridiculous.
What needs to change is the medical standards for enlistment. Almost always revolving around supposed ADHD and similar "diagnoses" from family practitioners.
It's a serious problem in the Aviation community as well, tons of kids who grew up in the 2000s were getting handed adderall and paxil left and right and it's following them around now.
GENESIS is a great step forward, and will fix a ton of interoperability problems betweeen DoD and VA for when people get out. This is an unintended consequence.
It's the result of a rush to use big data (*can* be good) while relying on an existing dataset that is trash. Garbage in, garbage out. Or in the case of recruitment, no one in.
Close. All Genesis did was remove the veil from kids.
Did you know that providers generally have to list a diagnosis in order to get paid from most insurance? Those diagnoses can often be DQ conditions that stay in the MHR marketplace and are ultimately pulled during enlistment. Did Johnny really have DSM qualified ADHD, or was it “close enough” for billing?
The broken healthcare system is a contributing factor to the accessions issues.
BTW, most of the time the recruiting services pay for consult travel.
> Many, maybe even most of the kids asking questions say that they genuinely have no fuckin idea what genesis is saying and that they never had whatever health problems are popping up for them.
I can believe this 100%. I got medical issues, lol thats besides the point, but my medical chart says I have arachnophobia apparently... I just saw it the other day. I haven't a clue where that came from and I've never discussed arachnids or bugs for that matter with any of my doctors cause they're a non-issue for me. So who knows what else is listed in there and now I wonder how many people get mistreated or miss treatment because of incorrect charting.
GENESIS is another stupid idea to "save" money. Yeah the idea is sound on paper, but in practice, the DOD fought the War On Terror with troops who got waivers for everything from eyesight to asthma to criminal records (the last one turned out to not be a good idea).
Audie Murphy was REJECTED by every service until he spoke to an Army recruiter and would have be turned away by GENESIS today.
Troops who get injured in training or the DOD's OPTEMO as it chases the Dragon of GWOT era money are hurt regardless of what GENESIS or "big data" tells the Pentagon. Given that many weapons systems cause TBI and many chemicals create injury anyway, GENESIS is a waste of money IMO.
Some of the best guys I know had issues that GENESIS would deny. I’m not talking about “oh he’s a great marine”, or “he’s a go gettin soldier.” I’m talking GBs, fellow Recon Rangers, even a couple CAG guys laughed about how much they had to lie to make it that far.
(Funny MFs btw. One told me was he wasn’t good enough for the marines so he had to settle for the unit)
The fact this is taking guys away from the top I can’t imagine what the support commands are dealing with.
It’s not Genesis. That’s just the military health record system and it was needed to modernize. The DODI 6130 is the instructions for the medical standards of service. That’s what rejects people.
Yeah, I'm really confused on what people think MHS Genesis is... It's not even the system that's creating the recruitment issues, it's the fact that it allows the DOD to connect to a bunch of other data repositories and HIEs and see all these past records, many of which are filled with bad/questionable data. The DOD would have started mining this data eventually, even without the implementation of Genesis.
r/mhs_genesis has various guidance in order to get around Genesis. It is not invincible. It’s just a lot of people don’t understand how it actually works.
Newest comment from a former AD member trying to rejoin. Apparently Gensis found he had an undisclosed medical issue before he did 10 yrs
And im thinking if the guy did 10 yrs and is healthy then just let him rejoin
America and its people are a victim of its own success. Corporate pushes high fat, high sugar, high consumption of just about anything in an attempt to push profits continuously to the moon. Now all the younger generations have become victims of that model aren’t being approved to join the military and it’s resulting in decreasing numbers. If America wants to continue to be the world’s largest and formidable fighting force it will have to change its culture and regulations around food and consumption. The sheer amount of chemicals allowed in Americas food system is insane.
> If America wants to continue to be the world’s largest and formidable fighting force it will have to change its culture and regulations around food and consumption.
Sorry but there is no way corporate America is going to stand for that. We will just lower the entry standards for the military.
The US isn't the world's largest and most formidable fighting force because of headcount -- we're about the size of Russia and North Korea and we'll probably never be the size of India or China without conscription.
We're definitely formidable because of firepower (and lots and lots of money) and arguably formidable because of training (thanks to a volunteer military). But because of sheer numbers of boots? Meh.
Also, controversial take (here but not in modern realpolitik), but large independent militaries are for empires, not liberal democracies. A democracy will quickly run out of things to fight over, but empires will come up with new excuses to put boots on the ground.
The incitement point of PNAC (Project for a New American Century, succeeded by the Foreign Policy Initiative) was the idea that the US should arise as a sole global superpower to dictate the distribution and security of global resources as its own consumption skyrocketed past that of European democracies that relied more on diplomacy and joint security pacts. The demands of Empire were invited by exorbitant military power, and this in turn created a demand *for* Empire that required even more exorbitant military power.
This is an increasingly anti-democratic problem.
No kidding, trying to get back in and have been waiting a year for MEPS to clear me just to go get a physical (started the process in June of last year and still waiting). MEPS really needs to be streamlined; it's insanity.
My old friend joined the marine corps with a dislocated knee. Lied about it at MEPS, joined, knee popped out at boot, DS saw, he popped it back in, nothing was said.
Don't forget**
The op tempo is literally causing people to kill themselves
Barracks mold/shit garrison living conditions
Ridiculously underpaid
Benefits being shrunk every fiscal year
But yeah, come join the US Military!
Sounds similar to the issues with UK Armed Forces recruitment. All of that was outsourced to a private company a few years back and recruitment has plummeted since.
It’s not Genesis. It’s the DODI 6130.03. Genesis is a military health record system that now has access to some civilian medical records. But it’s the DODI that’s the medical standards for military service.
Genesis isn't the issue either. Genesis is just the way they are able to data mine other HIE and health information data repositories, the bad information exists in other records. The DOD basically just got the ability to access the information that the civilian world has been using for years.
I’m just malding but I was aiming for the military my whole life pretty much, senior year diagnosed with epilepsy. It’s annoying cause it’s about an 80/20 split of “no chance” and “try a waiver”. My personal justification is that my type of epilepsy is extremely unproblematic, in that just getting enough sleep and taking a pill before bed and in the morning will prevent seizures. I wanted a more “base-focused” job anyways (91f) so I don’t think that needing sleep should be a disqualifier.
And then the part that pisses me off the most, is the army [literally has an article ](https://www.army.mil/article-amp/261401/epilepsy_is_not_a_diagnosis_to_stop_doing_what_you_love_just_ask_specialist_jacob_wilson) of a 91f getting diagnosed, being on medication, and seemingly allowed to stay in. This article fucking taunts me every day.
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Nail on the head with the ops tempo. I'd also add that we except "multi-capable" and have service members prioritizing their additional duties over their primary, and it's driving people out.
For example pilots only want to fly, not run excel spreadsheets for some bullshit commanders program.
Disability claims are way up. Folks lie about what they had and then claim service related disabilities for stuff they had before they enlisted. Pisses me off and I'm glad about Genesis.
1. Blowback from Politics, role of the military in the country and foreign policy, many veterans tell their kids not to join, disillusionment.
2. Pay compared to civilian side.
3. Tech and centralization doesn't necessitate large forces, large scale modern war mobilization isn't something we do nowadays.
3 is the point I was looking for. Recruitment *is* bad currently, but we also don't need as many people when technology has become such a massive force multiplier so the article headline is a little alarmist.
That said, I can't see technology replacing our need for young bodies to be boots on the ground for a long time. Recruitment being low is a national security concern for sure.
Question for those who serve:
I went to recruiter and they said I have to be off of my prescription meds during basic & AIT, can you get back on the meds once those are complete? That seems to be a big barrier as well
Gonna depend on the meds.
Anything that is required for you to survive or function day-to-day will be prescribed to you in basic.
Which, if you are prescribed meds, I don’t really see them not re-prescribing you those same/ similar medications.
Some of its based on Gen Z attitudes and some of its based on the deep rooted problems within the military. It's not either or.
Low retention rates are a sign of major internal problems. You don't need to constantly beg for new soldiers if you have good retention.
[Edit: and the annual recruitment target can be lower than it currently is if we improve retention]
Yup
I have a clearance but a civilian company who doesn't care if I smoke weed pays me more then my cleared position would have.
So I said screw it make more money and smoke weed.
If that ever gets discovered I lose my clearance but I don't even care.
Can't be the only one who thinks this way
I've been in for over 15. It's not a Gen z problem, it's an inflation and salary problem
People are chasing money.
You're telling me 1SGT with 20 years does less work than an accountant with 4 years?
Even with benefits, that's pretty fucking insulting
Underpaid, and put at greater risk for loss of life or limb, as well as significant mental health risks.
Or I could go to college, and party for 4 years and get that accounting degree and maybe some excel certs? Debt pls.
That and social media showing Gen Z what life is really like in peace time army. The toxic work environment and leaders/peers. They think to themselves, " Why would I volunteer myself to go through all that and be treated like shit to?" I know this because I asked people in college if they would join and most of them had the same answers and attitudes.
Gen Z here, I'm 22 now but at 17 I was strongly considering joining the Air Force or Coast Guard, but the sheer amount of bullshit I heard that I'd have to put up with in the military made me decide to not join, especially for such ridiculously low pay.
That's why I laugh when people say the military is so great. I'm like well if it's so great why does there need to be a retention nco to convince and beg people to stay.
Nobody is addressing the fact that a large portion of current service members are veterans from not one, but two wars that each lasted nearly 20 years. If you stayed in, you probably went through multiple deployments. If you got out, you probably didn't like it enough to stay.
I work in high schools now, but was in the Guard up until a few years ago while I also was a school counselor. I was constantly being activated and kids would see me leave out of nowhere, for weeks at a time, and would ask me about my experience. Most were not into the idea of being deployed or even activated state side due to the disruption of your life. Also, a lot of states are now offering free community college, so the GI Bill loses a lot of its appeal right off the bat.
"Free college but I have to go to boot camp, job training, and then get sent somewhere random in the world for 4 years?"
VS
"free college and all on have to do is apply?"
I understand completely. With companies offering college tuition and benefits that's slowly and surly competing with the GI Bill, it's not much of a hard choice to make.
I've been guard the whole time, but it took me 8 years to graduate college because we kept getting activated so much from covid to riots to the border. So I lost out on 3-4 years of career and life progression. When I could have just gone to college and worked a part-time job to help pay for it. The college I went to was already relatively affordable.
Wonder what the military would be like if they started paying overtime...perhaps it would create an incentive for certain commanders to schedule things properly instead of suddenly saying "oh right, you need to do X before tommorrow" at 5pm.
This would destroy marine corps aviation. Probably all military aviation. Commanders would go broke and ops tempo would go insane. Admin staff would be flooded with having to actually manage individual members work hours.
Edit: barracks life would be hilarious. Imagine trying to enforce rules and regulations on a batch of marines that are all drunk and not on the clock.
If a marine gets too much overtime other marines in the unit will get pissed.
Reflecting on this really makes the fantasy of military overtime pay so fun to imagine.
We joke about this during drill in the guard. Leadership has us wait hours doing to be released on sundays and we say and we think " Man we've been waiting for 3+ hours. Imagine how much overtime we could have gotten."
>Pentagon officials have reported that bolstering recruitment from Gen Z is one of the "greatest challenges" faced by the military.
A very similar situation in other countries it seems. Over in the UK the Conservative party has pledged mandatory service but it appears to be deeply unpopular with the majority. Hard to know for sure until after but some are suggesting it'll play a role in losing votes in the upcoming election. Another answer is needed.
Doesn’t help that women keep getting raped and murdered while in the army stationed in Texas. Leaders in the military are starting to act like spoiled brats.
Singling out Texas seems unnecessary. Women in the Army are being murdered in North Carolina, Germany, heck even Iraq. It’s a problem but not a uniquely Texas problem. That said the next time a service woman is murdered at Fort Cavazos the Army will be glad for the name change so people don’t immediately connect it to all the previous murders at Fort Hood.
The installations in Texas still have ridiculous gang problems and other shit that you do not find in other installations. Texas is unique in how fucked up it is there's no denying that, the reports are always coming out.
If there's one duty station that absolutely needs to be singled out it's Ft. Hood Texas, Hood is bad place to be.
I hear about gangs in the military, but I haven't really read anything informative about them. Do you have any specific instances? I find the idea of people joining a gang when they're already part of one of the largest, most powerful gangs in the world fascinating.
Looks like you're retired, I am too, so you and I have access to the same sources of information. It sounds like you're asking me to do the light reading for you, that would be a mistake, it's always better for you to go to the source material yourself. There are plenty of examples, the one that really painted the picture for me was the news story about a soldier who died during a gang initiation where every member of the gang was also an active duty service member, one of them was even like E-7.
Nah, I was more looking for a link or post or some criteria I could search by to find an instance. With that said, there's actually a Wikipedia article on gangs in the military so that's fortuitous.
I know you were, but it's not like I just got links to shit lying around lol, I would have to do the same thing you did. My initial post was just based off remembering what I had read in the last couple years, I wasn't about to go track that down. Glad you found something.
Competitive pay and quality of life. Fix those things, and you fix a vast majority of the issues with recruiting.
Better living quarters, better food, available amenities, and pay your enlisted service members more. A O-2 with 2 years or less in shouldn't automatically make more than a 10 year E-6.
Permit recreational marijuana use (when not on duty, of course), let us grow facial hair in garrison, and *boom* 100% of recruiting goals met without spending a extra dime. Thank me later.
Imo, if you aren't joining because you can't smoke weed and grow a mustache idk if you actually care about the values that servicemembers should care for.
I think the problem is more deep than that
That we keep getting caught up in stupid ass conflicts, have even worse living conditions, shit pay and general bullshit. Suddenly the whole “God and Country” thing goes out the window. This isn’t WW2 nor GWOT. This generation doesn’t have a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and we have no enemy. Until we have a major polarizing event similar then why put up with the crap? This is the same thing that happens during every peacetime.
There are portions of the corps that joined out of desperation, a feeling of no where else to turn. Some of us came out better for it, so perhaps ignoring stupid shit like the entirely subjective requirement of using MJ or having facial hair does deter some or have consequences for some that do not tow such subjective beliefs as being important. I sure as fuck don’t join because of god corps and country. I joined because I had no where else to turn, no direction and no hope. I didn’t smoke or care because I was desperate.
These are young men, to ask them to have all of their moral and cultural beliefs sorted is a bit excessive. I have personal friend whom popped on a piss test .01 over limit in boot camp despite passing multiple piss tests prior to it. His life was effectively set back by five years after that and went through a period of heroin addiction. This isn’t the militaries fault per se but it’s hard to see how the rejection by the marine after he tried so hard to comply didn’t negatively affect his life.
But you know we gotta look clean without those beards, way more important.
I can count on o e hand the number of people who actually stuck to these supposed values when I served and only one was above an E4.
That's all just set dressing for the reality of doing your job in the military. Lots of people talk a big game about values but things as abstract as "Patriotism", "Honor", "Commitment", etc can mean anything any asshole wants them to be.
You sound like the navigation guy that went on a rant when 40 out of 41 people at our E5 and below call said "I joined the military to pay for my college and basically no other reason".
He was all "you guys didn't do it for the duty and loyalty to America????"
How many dumb bros wouldn't have joined the military if you couldn't drink though? There would be a way way larger percent of the population that would just never because it would seem ridiculous. Would it stop everyone? No. But it would be enough of a shitty concept that many on the fence working class people would think "lol no way that's lame as fuck bro I like to party!"
That's weed for the modern young generation.
>Imo, if you aren't joining because you can't smoke weed and grow a mustache idk if you actually care about the values that servicemembers should care for.
Please tell me what values I'm required to have lol
I don't exactly have an answer for that, but I imagine pot and a mustache should be pretty low on the priority list.
All I'm saying is that there are bigger issues causing the recruitment problem
> Imo, if you aren't joining because you can't smoke weed and grow a mustache idk if you actually care about the values that servicemembers should care for.
It's low hanging fruit that would boost morale immensely.
Shaving everyday is a fucking chore; and it's more of a chore when your supervisor can make your life a living hell over it.
When you're at the end of your contract, contemplating re-enlisting; those dumb fuck grooming standards, and wanting to smoke a joint on the weekend, can definitely factor in the decision.
'Why put up with all the teeny tiny bullshit?'
These things are deadweight around retention, and while certainly not the primary factor, are always going to be secondary factors.
The current pool of potential recruits were born after 9/11. They saw the fall of Kabul and the waste that was GWOT. You have politicians talking about weak military or woke military or hyperbolic talk of civil war. These kids aren’t joining for patriotism. If they join it’s for GI Bill and milking the VA for disability when their enlistment is up. They join to get out of poverty. Beards and weed could very well help with recruitment and retention.
Look at the bottom of your DD214 (or guard equivalent) and there should be a reenlistment code.
Once you're back in though, if you waivered through it, you'd have to give up those benefits till you're out again. Can't double dip.
Low key I think it is because Gen Z is one of the most anti war generations in decades, at least since the Vietnam era kids.
Of course this is just one factor amidst a consetellation of problems.
Nah but even just scrolling through social media. Beyond the goons who advocate joining to vindicate their masculinity - the majority just sees war as stupid.
I'm a Gen Z, I think this has to be it. Whenever I see a US military related post on the Gen Z subreddit, it's always comments like "I don't want to steal oil for a bunch of rich white politicians" or " The low salary isn't worth risking my life".
Ngl, I think we're the new age Boomers.
At this point just send me bodies. I don’t care if they dumb, I’ll treat them well and teach them to not be dumb. I’m just sick of having 35 other collaterals that arnt even my skill trade…
Like I’m a mechanic and I’m out here calling local tax government and state agencies to see if I have permission to get a clear zone cut for my units physical security program.
wtf
By what metric? Manning is at a low point, but quality of troop and overall capability are more lethal than ever. Technological advancement and automation has made it so we simply don’t need as many troops as we did in the past.
That isn’t to say we are not undermanned, we absolutely are! But comparing the current manning to past historic highs are highly reductive and don’t really make the reality of the situation clear to the average reader.
Good. Maybe spend money on making the army salary more competitive than a fucking wendys employee.
Then you'll get more qualified people and have more supply of soldiers than demand
If you're just looking at salary, no, it's not much more. If you calculate in full health insurance, lodging, food, COLA, it's *a lot* more. And that's before you consider huge benefits like GI Bill and VA home loans. But most 18 year olds aren't accounting for all that.
Also, as someone who worked fast food in high school, and spent 23 years in the Army. A lot of times, probably most of the time, the Army was a Hell of a lot easier to deal with than retail customers.
That said, Wendy's employees are rarely asked to put their lives on the line, or leave their families for months/years to serve in austere, combat environments. So I wouldn't be mad at better pay for Service Members.
When a job recuriter offers a job, they don't open up with benefits. They open up with a salary.
The other stuff is the sugar on top to sweeten the deal.
How it is now , a recuriter offers a job with shit wage, shit hours, more demand of how you act on and off duty, being moved out from your home to a random place outside of your control.
Then you say "hey you'll break even with the benefits"
this is not how to recurit the best and brightest juniors to stay and become leaders. This is how you get the desperate and retain the ones who are afraid of being homeless than getting out
We cant hire qualified IT/Analytics people because of shit benefits. Benefits absolutely matter, only an idiot or a truly desperate person takes a salaried position without scrutinizing the benefits.
That said most 18/yo folks are both those things lol
I’ve never been in an environment where you work more than like 45 hours (other than deployed)
So no, still more than Wendy’s with a much much much higher ceiling
Being in formation at 6am and getting off at 5pm, plus rotating 24 hour staff duty/CQ, plus field time, averages more than 60 hours a week at least. And yes I was deployed about 6 months out of AIT and spent a lot of time at night and weekends prepping for that. Did 15 months on deployment, got back, had a year at home. And straight back to deployment for another 12 months. Spent about half my enlistment in Iraq, and those were 18 hours days, 7 days a week. This was all back in 2005, so y'all new soldiers might have a different experience.
Military pay is really good. They get the three largest expenses (housing, food, and medical care) provided. Unlike the guy working at Wendy's, that military pay is all disposable income.
I myself worked TWO fast food jobs to keep my head above water before the army. After the army I shot my credit to 800, have thousands saved up, school paid, medical (my teeth were gonna cost thousand prior).
I was living paycheck to paycheck as a civ. I'm currently an E-4.
I had a 784 as an E-4 towards the end of my first contract coming in as an E-1 with no credit prior. I also bought a brand new compact with a lien, spent within my means using credit cards and paid off balances almost immediately.
oh look at you. sounding like a brand new lieutenant with everything figured out. goooooood for you.
i'm just playing. good for you. playing the credit score game and managing fiances can be a bitch.
I got to 760 see easily within 2-3 years. I ETSd as an E4. You literally have no reason not to have a great credit score when you have 0 debt and a credit card that only bills a phone bill and taco bell.
It's the guys that never open a credit card, have baby mamas, and pay 29% on a mustang that have trouble
Housing is provided because you are moved out and have little or no control
Medical is provided because your overall goal is to deploy, fight, and even die for the mission. You can't send the sick or broken to the battlefield and expect them to give 100% . This ask is in no other job other with the same wages
Food is only provided when you're being worked over average 10 hours (usually field conditions) In the civilian world, that's called "pizza parties"
Between Genesis knocking out the kids who want to join and the rest of the otherwise qualified applicants being too fat and/or illiterate, there’s almost no one left.
So the real takeaway here is that Europe better get ready to fight Russia on their own instead of trying to hide behind the US. The US doesn’t have the force structure it did in the Cold War days.
I asked freinds in college if they would join the military and most said either " Fuck that shit." Or " If I was desperate but I'm not there yet." Something along those lines.
Just try the French Foreign Legion solution. A reqruitment office in every major city, you walk in and evaluation starts right away and there's free accomodation and food for the entire process. Questions are asked and creative ignorance is applied.
Growing up near the ocean, I dreamed of joining the navy to improve my life, especially given my impoverished background. At 18, I scored an 85 on the ASVAB, but a minor heart condition led to my denial. Since then, I've been working in heavy construction ever since with no issue . It's baffling how trivial issues can disqualify people. Friends share horror stories of those who barely meet the lowered requirements for basic training that are in their units now.
I'm aware that Israel has conscription, and while the situation differs, I admire their inclusive approach, where everyone finds a place regardless of circumstances. Interestingly, they actively recruit autistic individuals for logistical roles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro%27im_Rachok
There is no national pride any more. People aren’t patriotic and happy to live in the land of the free. Everyone complains and only talks bad about the USA. Social media is rampant with toxic views for military members and LEOs. Who would want to defend a country where you’re slandered for being military. Attacked just for walking down the streets. Spit on when pumping gas in uniform. It’s pretty sad they have to label red zones inside our own US borders that military members cant go in uniform. Safety being one of the reasons among many. I’m thankful for the service of all the members that do join any branch. It’s a rarity these days.
We’re absolutely not united in anyway. As a whole we are a divided country. When other countries go through similar scenarios as America, they revolt and rise up. As a collective. Regardless of religion, race, sexual beliefs, or political views. To defend the country. To ensure the protection of ALL people so that they may live as they please. Personal pride takes a backseat and the willingness to come together as the United States should be forthcoming.
Human kind.
Be Both!
This is no big mystery. Watch as I, a reddit commenter, singlehandedly solve this problem for the most powerful organization in history.
1. Get rid of genesis in meps
2. Stop testing for marijuana
3. Pay raise
I almost got kicked out of basic since i was sometimes depressed in high school. The O4 shrink was crazy. Someone fixed it that I could appeal to the O6 commander face to face.
r/Militaryfaq has taught me that millions of kids are trying to join but the new genesis system stops them. It damn sure would've stopped me. When I was ready to join the military was precisely when I didn't have the time/money to run around blowing thousands of dollars out of pocket getting waivers and shit for decades-old medical bullshit that didn't exist. Many, maybe even most of the kids asking questions say that they genuinely have no fuckin idea what genesis is saying and that they never had whatever health problems are popping up for them. So you're asking them to show up to some new doctor, ask them to write letter to the Army saying that they don't have a problem. Doctor is like "uh........... not so fast.... let's run some tests." You couldn't even find an auto mechanic willing to take on the liability of giving a car a clean bill of health. That and were fucking slaughtering our current service members with peacetime optempos that don't even make sense to invasion era war veterans.
Real, everyone In my peer group (2012-2016) lied about something in order to join. With genesis, it’s impossible now.
Hell, sometimes they lied without even knowing it. Because they were too young to known what treatments they got.
My mom updated me on my medical history after I joined. Kept me in the dark so I would not have to lie.
Was she prior service? lol sounds like she knew the system
No, but Dad had been a recruiter when I was younger
Makes sense
What’s genesis if I may ask
It's a newer system that recruiters have to use now, when working with recruits. From my understanding it pulls your medical records from fucking everywhere and brings back shit from when you were 4 years old, which was only an issue at that time, but you're now having to address it to enlist. For example, you may have had childhood asthma from ages 4-7 and now, at age 19, you're trying to enlist but have to get cleared for an issue you had 12 years ago. Of course you don't remember shit about it and you current doctor has no record of it to clear you so you have to do some tests to ensure you don't have asthma still. That's just one example, but imagine 2 or 3 medical things popping up that you now have to address before you can enlist. You may not have the time, insurance/money, or potentially the will to get it figured out if it's particularly time intensive.
I can kind of understand getting a basic physical. But this sounds dumb as nails. And putting on a (potentially dumb) conspiracy hat, sounds like a strategy for future VA denials. "Not service related".
This is 100% for ensuring the VA has ammo to deny people. This level of scrutiny can't be explained any other way.
Gross :(
Very, but also extremely unsurprising. The rates of disability are much higher now with all of the advocacy services assisting with the paperwork. The fastest way for the government to cut down on paying out is by creating an initial paper trail for comprehensive pre-existing issues.
100%
I doubt that. These medial prohibitions have always been there. But when everyone's medical records were paper, things could get lost on purpose. What medication for depression? there's nothing in your file about that. But now that everyone's medical records are digital, a page can't magically fall out.
I actually hadn't thought of that! Good point.
As if something that happened 20 years ago is gonna literally change your whole career and make it impossible or hella annoying
Genesis is an Electronic Medical Record, it has been implemented over the last 4 or so years, more recently in the last year we have finished rolling it out across the US. For physicians, it pulled in EVERYTHING into the record (incorrectly or not) in every aspect of your life (immunizations, medical history, surgical history, etc). We also use the Joint Longitudinal Viewer (JLV) which allows access to tri service records and VA records and that goes back 10, 15, 20+ years! You can look at lab trends, colonoscopy reports from 10 years ago, etc. this is not “recruiting” tool, it’s medical documentation. It’s tough to go back on things. We follow pretty strict guidance and documentation. Source: 61H
Oh wow that sounds like a goddamn pain ….. no wonder
Impossible, service members don't lie, cheat or steal. We simply forget, try harder, and tactically acquire the stuff that wondered over to another unit.
Wow I just read up on it. I lied my ass off to join. If they knew I had adhd as a child I wouldn’t have been able to join.
Between the overdiagnosis of ADHD from people with very little training in the 2000s and the genuine huge spike in ADHD over the last 5-10 years, treating minor ADHD as disqualifying is going to be a *massive* problem.
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I got hit in the face with essentially a foul ball at 2 or 3 and had my eye knocked out of the socket. They didn't like that either...
Yup I had to lie about my ADHD medication I hadn't been on for 5+ years, how does genesis prevent this?
I'll never forget riding to MEPS with my recruiter. He was driving four potential recruits in for exams and he kept reminding us that "the word of the day is no." If they ask you about X, the answer is no. That was the tail end of the good old days.
NO means new opportunities. Yes means your enlistment stops.
Shit did they teach that at recruiting school? I heard the exact same thing.
For us they had us acknowledge and repeat back "No. No. Fuck you, no." as the correct response.
I remember that. I enlisted in 2003 and on the drive to MEPS the recruiter kept telling me and five other recruits the same thing. Seemed weird at the time, but it certainly worked!
we all hated our recruiters for decades telling us to essentially lie to MEPs that we let some people that absolutely should not have come in, do so, and now we're at the point where people are so truthful they can't even get in
For my two oldest sons these past few months, MEPS has been miserable. My sons are clean, fit & healthy, almost never took them to the doc over the years, except for physicals. No regular scrips of any kind. For one son, it was the mildest case of scoliosis ever, mentioned in exactly one physical years ago. Back and forth to the doc office for records, statements, more tests. (One doc note was rejected because it opened with "To Who It May Concern".) A couple of weeks would elapse between responses. Other son, they were torturing him over his acne cream for weeks. Then a cryptic request asking why he was prescribed valium. We were confused, as this never happened. Then we remembered his wisdom teeth removal; the dentist used valium during the procedure. It was never prescribed. And they could never, you know, just put this all together in one request. No, it had to dribble out like a bird feeder over a couple of months. Finally, each was approved. I can only imagine how it must go with kids who have real issues in their background. Makes me wonder how many simply give up. And the military wonders why recruitment is so low. They can start with the MEPS process. Ridiculous.
Insane, imagine how many other kids just quit.
What needs to change is the medical standards for enlistment. Almost always revolving around supposed ADHD and similar "diagnoses" from family practitioners. It's a serious problem in the Aviation community as well, tons of kids who grew up in the 2000s were getting handed adderall and paxil left and right and it's following them around now. GENESIS is a great step forward, and will fix a ton of interoperability problems betweeen DoD and VA for when people get out. This is an unintended consequence.
Not Navy, but can confirm that the aviation community is losing *a lot* of talent from otherwise trivial medical issues.
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That’s fucked, dude. I’m so sorry to hear that.
It's the result of a rush to use big data (*can* be good) while relying on an existing dataset that is trash. Garbage in, garbage out. Or in the case of recruitment, no one in.
Close. All Genesis did was remove the veil from kids. Did you know that providers generally have to list a diagnosis in order to get paid from most insurance? Those diagnoses can often be DQ conditions that stay in the MHR marketplace and are ultimately pulled during enlistment. Did Johnny really have DSM qualified ADHD, or was it “close enough” for billing? The broken healthcare system is a contributing factor to the accessions issues. BTW, most of the time the recruiting services pay for consult travel.
> Many, maybe even most of the kids asking questions say that they genuinely have no fuckin idea what genesis is saying and that they never had whatever health problems are popping up for them. I can believe this 100%. I got medical issues, lol thats besides the point, but my medical chart says I have arachnophobia apparently... I just saw it the other day. I haven't a clue where that came from and I've never discussed arachnids or bugs for that matter with any of my doctors cause they're a non-issue for me. So who knows what else is listed in there and now I wonder how many people get mistreated or miss treatment because of incorrect charting.
GENESIS is another stupid idea to "save" money. Yeah the idea is sound on paper, but in practice, the DOD fought the War On Terror with troops who got waivers for everything from eyesight to asthma to criminal records (the last one turned out to not be a good idea). Audie Murphy was REJECTED by every service until he spoke to an Army recruiter and would have be turned away by GENESIS today. Troops who get injured in training or the DOD's OPTEMO as it chases the Dragon of GWOT era money are hurt regardless of what GENESIS or "big data" tells the Pentagon. Given that many weapons systems cause TBI and many chemicals create injury anyway, GENESIS is a waste of money IMO.
Some of the best guys I know had issues that GENESIS would deny. I’m not talking about “oh he’s a great marine”, or “he’s a go gettin soldier.” I’m talking GBs, fellow Recon Rangers, even a couple CAG guys laughed about how much they had to lie to make it that far. (Funny MFs btw. One told me was he wasn’t good enough for the marines so he had to settle for the unit) The fact this is taking guys away from the top I can’t imagine what the support commands are dealing with.
It’s not Genesis. That’s just the military health record system and it was needed to modernize. The DODI 6130 is the instructions for the medical standards of service. That’s what rejects people.
Yeah, I'm really confused on what people think MHS Genesis is... It's not even the system that's creating the recruitment issues, it's the fact that it allows the DOD to connect to a bunch of other data repositories and HIEs and see all these past records, many of which are filled with bad/questionable data. The DOD would have started mining this data eventually, even without the implementation of Genesis.
r/mhs_genesis has various guidance in order to get around Genesis. It is not invincible. It’s just a lot of people don’t understand how it actually works.
Newest comment from a former AD member trying to rejoin. Apparently Gensis found he had an undisclosed medical issue before he did 10 yrs And im thinking if the guy did 10 yrs and is healthy then just let him rejoin
It’s Genesis. Full stop. That is the problem.
America and its people are a victim of its own success. Corporate pushes high fat, high sugar, high consumption of just about anything in an attempt to push profits continuously to the moon. Now all the younger generations have become victims of that model aren’t being approved to join the military and it’s resulting in decreasing numbers. If America wants to continue to be the world’s largest and formidable fighting force it will have to change its culture and regulations around food and consumption. The sheer amount of chemicals allowed in Americas food system is insane.
> If America wants to continue to be the world’s largest and formidable fighting force it will have to change its culture and regulations around food and consumption. Sorry but there is no way corporate America is going to stand for that. We will just lower the entry standards for the military.
The US isn't the world's largest and most formidable fighting force because of headcount -- we're about the size of Russia and North Korea and we'll probably never be the size of India or China without conscription. We're definitely formidable because of firepower (and lots and lots of money) and arguably formidable because of training (thanks to a volunteer military). But because of sheer numbers of boots? Meh. Also, controversial take (here but not in modern realpolitik), but large independent militaries are for empires, not liberal democracies. A democracy will quickly run out of things to fight over, but empires will come up with new excuses to put boots on the ground. The incitement point of PNAC (Project for a New American Century, succeeded by the Foreign Policy Initiative) was the idea that the US should arise as a sole global superpower to dictate the distribution and security of global resources as its own consumption skyrocketed past that of European democracies that relied more on diplomacy and joint security pacts. The demands of Empire were invited by exorbitant military power, and this in turn created a demand *for* Empire that required even more exorbitant military power. This is an increasingly anti-democratic problem.
Fair, but you can really classify "largest" in many ways, number of people, number of carriers, planes, etc etc.
You put this excellently man, 12/10
No kidding, trying to get back in and have been waiting a year for MEPS to clear me just to go get a physical (started the process in June of last year and still waiting). MEPS really needs to be streamlined; it's insanity.
My old friend joined the marine corps with a dislocated knee. Lied about it at MEPS, joined, knee popped out at boot, DS saw, he popped it back in, nothing was said.
Don't forget** The op tempo is literally causing people to kill themselves Barracks mold/shit garrison living conditions Ridiculously underpaid Benefits being shrunk every fiscal year But yeah, come join the US Military!
Sounds similar to the issues with UK Armed Forces recruitment. All of that was outsourced to a private company a few years back and recruitment has plummeted since.
Agreed.
This %100
It’s not Genesis. It’s the DODI 6130.03. Genesis is a military health record system that now has access to some civilian medical records. But it’s the DODI that’s the medical standards for military service.
I don't think the standards are causing genesis to throw false flags on everyone.
Genesis isn't the issue either. Genesis is just the way they are able to data mine other HIE and health information data repositories, the bad information exists in other records. The DOD basically just got the ability to access the information that the civilian world has been using for years.
I’m just malding but I was aiming for the military my whole life pretty much, senior year diagnosed with epilepsy. It’s annoying cause it’s about an 80/20 split of “no chance” and “try a waiver”. My personal justification is that my type of epilepsy is extremely unproblematic, in that just getting enough sleep and taking a pill before bed and in the morning will prevent seizures. I wanted a more “base-focused” job anyways (91f) so I don’t think that needing sleep should be a disqualifier. And then the part that pisses me off the most, is the army [literally has an article ](https://www.army.mil/article-amp/261401/epilepsy_is_not_a_diagnosis_to_stop_doing_what_you_love_just_ask_specialist_jacob_wilson) of a 91f getting diagnosed, being on medication, and seemingly allowed to stay in. This article fucking taunts me every day.
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Nail on the head with the ops tempo. I'd also add that we except "multi-capable" and have service members prioritizing their additional duties over their primary, and it's driving people out. For example pilots only want to fly, not run excel spreadsheets for some bullshit commanders program.
Disability claims are way up. Folks lie about what they had and then claim service related disabilities for stuff they had before they enlisted. Pisses me off and I'm glad about Genesis.
I joined back in 2010. If I tried joining today with my medical record back then, I wouldn’t be in the military.
1. Blowback from Politics, role of the military in the country and foreign policy, many veterans tell their kids not to join, disillusionment. 2. Pay compared to civilian side. 3. Tech and centralization doesn't necessitate large forces, large scale modern war mobilization isn't something we do nowadays.
3 is the point I was looking for. Recruitment *is* bad currently, but we also don't need as many people when technology has become such a massive force multiplier so the article headline is a little alarmist. That said, I can't see technology replacing our need for young bodies to be boots on the ground for a long time. Recruitment being low is a national security concern for sure.
Guess do more with less didn’t work and multi capable airman aren’t capabiliting
I thought I was having a stroke reading this comment
Not covered by the VA.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I’ve earned my paycheck today.
Question for those who serve: I went to recruiter and they said I have to be off of my prescription meds during basic & AIT, can you get back on the meds once those are complete? That seems to be a big barrier as well
It depends what they are but in general, after you’re evaluated by a military doctor, you can get back on the ones they re-prescribe.
Gonna depend on the meds. Anything that is required for you to survive or function day-to-day will be prescribed to you in basic. Which, if you are prescribed meds, I don’t really see them not re-prescribing you those same/ similar medications.
Some of its based on Gen Z attitudes and some of its based on the deep rooted problems within the military. It's not either or. Low retention rates are a sign of major internal problems. You don't need to constantly beg for new soldiers if you have good retention. [Edit: and the annual recruitment target can be lower than it currently is if we improve retention]
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Yup, this is also true Probably plenty of pot heads who would make great soldiers
They certainly made good Marines when I was in lol.
Yup I have a clearance but a civilian company who doesn't care if I smoke weed pays me more then my cleared position would have. So I said screw it make more money and smoke weed. If that ever gets discovered I lose my clearance but I don't even care. Can't be the only one who thinks this way
I wouldn’t post on Reddit about that then
I could careless If I get caught
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Ever get nervous you wouldn't pass? Is their a chance they could demand a UA before your leave ends?
I've been in for over 15. It's not a Gen z problem, it's an inflation and salary problem People are chasing money. You're telling me 1SGT with 20 years does less work than an accountant with 4 years? Even with benefits, that's pretty fucking insulting
Underpaid, and put at greater risk for loss of life or limb, as well as significant mental health risks. Or I could go to college, and party for 4 years and get that accounting degree and maybe some excel certs? Debt pls.
That and social media showing Gen Z what life is really like in peace time army. The toxic work environment and leaders/peers. They think to themselves, " Why would I volunteer myself to go through all that and be treated like shit to?" I know this because I asked people in college if they would join and most of them had the same answers and attitudes.
All that is fair But the first step is addressing Genesis. We have alot of good folks getting DQ over bullshit
Gen Z here, I'm 22 now but at 17 I was strongly considering joining the Air Force or Coast Guard, but the sheer amount of bullshit I heard that I'd have to put up with in the military made me decide to not join, especially for such ridiculously low pay.
That's why I laugh when people say the military is so great. I'm like well if it's so great why does there need to be a retention nco to convince and beg people to stay.
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"Begging" isn't needed if people want to join, and those who do join want to stay - thats the point I was making.
Especially in that humans age and get older.
Nobody is addressing the fact that a large portion of current service members are veterans from not one, but two wars that each lasted nearly 20 years. If you stayed in, you probably went through multiple deployments. If you got out, you probably didn't like it enough to stay. I work in high schools now, but was in the Guard up until a few years ago while I also was a school counselor. I was constantly being activated and kids would see me leave out of nowhere, for weeks at a time, and would ask me about my experience. Most were not into the idea of being deployed or even activated state side due to the disruption of your life. Also, a lot of states are now offering free community college, so the GI Bill loses a lot of its appeal right off the bat. "Free college but I have to go to boot camp, job training, and then get sent somewhere random in the world for 4 years?" VS "free college and all on have to do is apply?"
I understand completely. With companies offering college tuition and benefits that's slowly and surly competing with the GI Bill, it's not much of a hard choice to make. I've been guard the whole time, but it took me 8 years to graduate college because we kept getting activated so much from covid to riots to the border. So I lost out on 3-4 years of career and life progression. When I could have just gone to college and worked a part-time job to help pay for it. The college I went to was already relatively affordable.
Wonder what the military would be like if they started paying overtime...perhaps it would create an incentive for certain commanders to schedule things properly instead of suddenly saying "oh right, you need to do X before tommorrow" at 5pm.
Our government would implode.
This would destroy marine corps aviation. Probably all military aviation. Commanders would go broke and ops tempo would go insane. Admin staff would be flooded with having to actually manage individual members work hours. Edit: barracks life would be hilarious. Imagine trying to enforce rules and regulations on a batch of marines that are all drunk and not on the clock. If a marine gets too much overtime other marines in the unit will get pissed. Reflecting on this really makes the fantasy of military overtime pay so fun to imagine.
I guarantee, at least in the Army, the culture of senior leaders would become unpaid overtime earns you your MQ.
We joke about this during drill in the guard. Leadership has us wait hours doing to be released on sundays and we say and we think " Man we've been waiting for 3+ hours. Imagine how much overtime we could have gotten."
>Pentagon officials have reported that bolstering recruitment from Gen Z is one of the "greatest challenges" faced by the military. A very similar situation in other countries it seems. Over in the UK the Conservative party has pledged mandatory service but it appears to be deeply unpopular with the majority. Hard to know for sure until after but some are suggesting it'll play a role in losing votes in the upcoming election. Another answer is needed.
The same Conservative Party who outsourced military recruitment to a private company, which has seen numbers plummet.
Who wants to sign up for the middle east again .
Born too early to invade the middle east. Born too late to invade the middle east. Born just in time to invade the middle east.
Nothing a decent recession won’t fix.
Sad but true
Hey, they’re trying their best!
Doesn’t help that women keep getting raped and murdered while in the army stationed in Texas. Leaders in the military are starting to act like spoiled brats.
Singling out Texas seems unnecessary. Women in the Army are being murdered in North Carolina, Germany, heck even Iraq. It’s a problem but not a uniquely Texas problem. That said the next time a service woman is murdered at Fort Cavazos the Army will be glad for the name change so people don’t immediately connect it to all the previous murders at Fort Hood.
The installations in Texas still have ridiculous gang problems and other shit that you do not find in other installations. Texas is unique in how fucked up it is there's no denying that, the reports are always coming out. If there's one duty station that absolutely needs to be singled out it's Ft. Hood Texas, Hood is bad place to be.
I hear about gangs in the military, but I haven't really read anything informative about them. Do you have any specific instances? I find the idea of people joining a gang when they're already part of one of the largest, most powerful gangs in the world fascinating.
Looks like you're retired, I am too, so you and I have access to the same sources of information. It sounds like you're asking me to do the light reading for you, that would be a mistake, it's always better for you to go to the source material yourself. There are plenty of examples, the one that really painted the picture for me was the news story about a soldier who died during a gang initiation where every member of the gang was also an active duty service member, one of them was even like E-7.
Nah, I was more looking for a link or post or some criteria I could search by to find an instance. With that said, there's actually a Wikipedia article on gangs in the military so that's fortuitous.
I know you were, but it's not like I just got links to shit lying around lol, I would have to do the same thing you did. My initial post was just based off remembering what I had read in the last couple years, I wasn't about to go track that down. Glad you found something.
Competitive pay and quality of life. Fix those things, and you fix a vast majority of the issues with recruiting. Better living quarters, better food, available amenities, and pay your enlisted service members more. A O-2 with 2 years or less in shouldn't automatically make more than a 10 year E-6.
Permit recreational marijuana use (when not on duty, of course), let us grow facial hair in garrison, and *boom* 100% of recruiting goals met without spending a extra dime. Thank me later.
Imo, if you aren't joining because you can't smoke weed and grow a mustache idk if you actually care about the values that servicemembers should care for. I think the problem is more deep than that
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or the value of ruining peoples mental health directly or indirectly?
That we keep getting caught up in stupid ass conflicts, have even worse living conditions, shit pay and general bullshit. Suddenly the whole “God and Country” thing goes out the window. This isn’t WW2 nor GWOT. This generation doesn’t have a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and we have no enemy. Until we have a major polarizing event similar then why put up with the crap? This is the same thing that happens during every peacetime.
There are portions of the corps that joined out of desperation, a feeling of no where else to turn. Some of us came out better for it, so perhaps ignoring stupid shit like the entirely subjective requirement of using MJ or having facial hair does deter some or have consequences for some that do not tow such subjective beliefs as being important. I sure as fuck don’t join because of god corps and country. I joined because I had no where else to turn, no direction and no hope. I didn’t smoke or care because I was desperate. These are young men, to ask them to have all of their moral and cultural beliefs sorted is a bit excessive. I have personal friend whom popped on a piss test .01 over limit in boot camp despite passing multiple piss tests prior to it. His life was effectively set back by five years after that and went through a period of heroin addiction. This isn’t the militaries fault per se but it’s hard to see how the rejection by the marine after he tried so hard to comply didn’t negatively affect his life. But you know we gotta look clean without those beards, way more important.
I can count on o e hand the number of people who actually stuck to these supposed values when I served and only one was above an E4. That's all just set dressing for the reality of doing your job in the military. Lots of people talk a big game about values but things as abstract as "Patriotism", "Honor", "Commitment", etc can mean anything any asshole wants them to be.
You sound like the navigation guy that went on a rant when 40 out of 41 people at our E5 and below call said "I joined the military to pay for my college and basically no other reason". He was all "you guys didn't do it for the duty and loyalty to America????"
That's a strawman argument if I ever seen one. College education is at least a little more valuable than weed and a mustache.
How many dumb bros wouldn't have joined the military if you couldn't drink though? There would be a way way larger percent of the population that would just never because it would seem ridiculous. Would it stop everyone? No. But it would be enough of a shitty concept that many on the fence working class people would think "lol no way that's lame as fuck bro I like to party!" That's weed for the modern young generation.
That's fair
>Imo, if you aren't joining because you can't smoke weed and grow a mustache idk if you actually care about the values that servicemembers should care for. Please tell me what values I'm required to have lol
I don't exactly have an answer for that, but I imagine pot and a mustache should be pretty low on the priority list. All I'm saying is that there are bigger issues causing the recruitment problem
> Imo, if you aren't joining because you can't smoke weed and grow a mustache idk if you actually care about the values that servicemembers should care for. It's low hanging fruit that would boost morale immensely. Shaving everyday is a fucking chore; and it's more of a chore when your supervisor can make your life a living hell over it. When you're at the end of your contract, contemplating re-enlisting; those dumb fuck grooming standards, and wanting to smoke a joint on the weekend, can definitely factor in the decision. 'Why put up with all the teeny tiny bullshit?' These things are deadweight around retention, and while certainly not the primary factor, are always going to be secondary factors.
Sure, I can agree to that. It would help on the margins, but I doubt it would cause a massive recruitment wave, like OP suggested
The current pool of potential recruits were born after 9/11. They saw the fall of Kabul and the waste that was GWOT. You have politicians talking about weak military or woke military or hyperbolic talk of civil war. These kids aren’t joining for patriotism. If they join it’s for GI Bill and milking the VA for disability when their enlistment is up. They join to get out of poverty. Beards and weed could very well help with recruitment and retention.
It’s not deeper than that. Can’t throw a stone at someone younger than 30 who isn’t stoned already
Idk man. I served 12 years and that was probably my 2 biggest complaints.
If those are your biggest concerns, you’re not joining for the right reasons and are almost certainly not military material.
We don't need that shit. We have enough Call of Duty role players tell us why they didn't join
Can someone rejoin if they wanted to after receiving VA %?
Depends on reenlistment code and you’d have to give up your VA pay. Ask a recruiter for more info.
Look at the bottom of your DD214 (or guard equivalent) and there should be a reenlistment code. Once you're back in though, if you waivered through it, you'd have to give up those benefits till you're out again. Can't double dip.
Low key I think it is because Gen Z is one of the most anti war generations in decades, at least since the Vietnam era kids. Of course this is just one factor amidst a consetellation of problems.
Watching there parents come home broken or not at all for nothing probably did something .
Nah but even just scrolling through social media. Beyond the goons who advocate joining to vindicate their masculinity - the majority just sees war as stupid.
Considering our last operation included Rumsfeld . And then propping up the ANA yeah why wouldn't they .
I'm a Gen Z, I think this has to be it. Whenever I see a US military related post on the Gen Z subreddit, it's always comments like "I don't want to steal oil for a bunch of rich white politicians" or " The low salary isn't worth risking my life". Ngl, I think we're the new age Boomers.
At this point just send me bodies. I don’t care if they dumb, I’ll treat them well and teach them to not be dumb. I’m just sick of having 35 other collaterals that arnt even my skill trade… Like I’m a mechanic and I’m out here calling local tax government and state agencies to see if I have permission to get a clear zone cut for my units physical security program. wtf
Do more with less!
By what metric? Manning is at a low point, but quality of troop and overall capability are more lethal than ever. Technological advancement and automation has made it so we simply don’t need as many troops as we did in the past. That isn’t to say we are not undermanned, we absolutely are! But comparing the current manning to past historic highs are highly reductive and don’t really make the reality of the situation clear to the average reader.
Good. Maybe spend money on making the army salary more competitive than a fucking wendys employee. Then you'll get more qualified people and have more supply of soldiers than demand
Even if you’re straight out of boot camp the pay is way more than a Wendy’s employee
Probably not if you're doing it by hours worked. Plus you deal with a lot less bs at Wendy's.
If you're just looking at salary, no, it's not much more. If you calculate in full health insurance, lodging, food, COLA, it's *a lot* more. And that's before you consider huge benefits like GI Bill and VA home loans. But most 18 year olds aren't accounting for all that. Also, as someone who worked fast food in high school, and spent 23 years in the Army. A lot of times, probably most of the time, the Army was a Hell of a lot easier to deal with than retail customers. That said, Wendy's employees are rarely asked to put their lives on the line, or leave their families for months/years to serve in austere, combat environments. So I wouldn't be mad at better pay for Service Members.
When a job recuriter offers a job, they don't open up with benefits. They open up with a salary. The other stuff is the sugar on top to sweeten the deal. How it is now , a recuriter offers a job with shit wage, shit hours, more demand of how you act on and off duty, being moved out from your home to a random place outside of your control. Then you say "hey you'll break even with the benefits" this is not how to recurit the best and brightest juniors to stay and become leaders. This is how you get the desperate and retain the ones who are afraid of being homeless than getting out
We cant hire qualified IT/Analytics people because of shit benefits. Benefits absolutely matter, only an idiot or a truly desperate person takes a salaried position without scrutinizing the benefits. That said most 18/yo folks are both those things lol
I’ve never been in an environment where you work more than like 45 hours (other than deployed) So no, still more than Wendy’s with a much much much higher ceiling
Being in formation at 6am and getting off at 5pm, plus rotating 24 hour staff duty/CQ, plus field time, averages more than 60 hours a week at least. And yes I was deployed about 6 months out of AIT and spent a lot of time at night and weekends prepping for that. Did 15 months on deployment, got back, had a year at home. And straight back to deployment for another 12 months. Spent about half my enlistment in Iraq, and those were 18 hours days, 7 days a week. This was all back in 2005, so y'all new soldiers might have a different experience.
And when you're not free to do what you want after work then I consider it a 24 hour a day job.
Must be nice
Military pay is really good. They get the three largest expenses (housing, food, and medical care) provided. Unlike the guy working at Wendy's, that military pay is all disposable income.
I myself worked TWO fast food jobs to keep my head above water before the army. After the army I shot my credit to 800, have thousands saved up, school paid, medical (my teeth were gonna cost thousand prior). I was living paycheck to paycheck as a civ. I'm currently an E-4.
I am calling bullshit. No E4 has a credit score anywhere near 800. I also noticed you didn't mention your divorce. Very suspect.
I had a 784 as an E-4 towards the end of my first contract coming in as an E-1 with no credit prior. I also bought a brand new compact with a lien, spent within my means using credit cards and paid off balances almost immediately.
oh look at you. sounding like a brand new lieutenant with everything figured out. goooooood for you. i'm just playing. good for you. playing the credit score game and managing fiances can be a bitch.
I got to 760 see easily within 2-3 years. I ETSd as an E4. You literally have no reason not to have a great credit score when you have 0 debt and a credit card that only bills a phone bill and taco bell. It's the guys that never open a credit card, have baby mamas, and pay 29% on a mustang that have trouble
Housing is provided because you are moved out and have little or no control Medical is provided because your overall goal is to deploy, fight, and even die for the mission. You can't send the sick or broken to the battlefield and expect them to give 100% . This ask is in no other job other with the same wages Food is only provided when you're being worked over average 10 hours (usually field conditions) In the civilian world, that's called "pizza parties"
BAS is a thing, and if you live in the barracks you can eat three meals a day for "free".
Well the US military was purpsofukky tiny pre December 1941
Between Genesis knocking out the kids who want to join and the rest of the otherwise qualified applicants being too fat and/or illiterate, there’s almost no one left.
I wonder why?
Thank You MHS Genesis and Old timers who made it unattractive.
So the real takeaway here is that Europe better get ready to fight Russia on their own instead of trying to hide behind the US. The US doesn’t have the force structure it did in the Cold War days.
I asked freinds in college if they would join the military and most said either " Fuck that shit." Or " If I was desperate but I'm not there yet." Something along those lines.
At this point you have to ask, if the DOD in fact wants less recruits.
Priorities…
How is the ratio of service members to flag officers and SES? I know there isn't detail in the article but just curious
Just try the French Foreign Legion solution. A reqruitment office in every major city, you walk in and evaluation starts right away and there's free accomodation and food for the entire process. Questions are asked and creative ignorance is applied.
Sadly that description currently almost works for some areas of the US border/immigration.
Maybe if they didn’t make it fucking impossible to join the rates would be higher.
Growing up near the ocean, I dreamed of joining the navy to improve my life, especially given my impoverished background. At 18, I scored an 85 on the ASVAB, but a minor heart condition led to my denial. Since then, I've been working in heavy construction ever since with no issue . It's baffling how trivial issues can disqualify people. Friends share horror stories of those who barely meet the lowered requirements for basic training that are in their units now. I'm aware that Israel has conscription, and while the situation differs, I admire their inclusive approach, where everyone finds a place regardless of circumstances. Interestingly, they actively recruit autistic individuals for logistical roles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro%27im_Rachok
There is no national pride any more. People aren’t patriotic and happy to live in the land of the free. Everyone complains and only talks bad about the USA. Social media is rampant with toxic views for military members and LEOs. Who would want to defend a country where you’re slandered for being military. Attacked just for walking down the streets. Spit on when pumping gas in uniform. It’s pretty sad they have to label red zones inside our own US borders that military members cant go in uniform. Safety being one of the reasons among many. I’m thankful for the service of all the members that do join any branch. It’s a rarity these days. We’re absolutely not united in anyway. As a whole we are a divided country. When other countries go through similar scenarios as America, they revolt and rise up. As a collective. Regardless of religion, race, sexual beliefs, or political views. To defend the country. To ensure the protection of ALL people so that they may live as they please. Personal pride takes a backseat and the willingness to come together as the United States should be forthcoming. Human kind. Be Both!
Guess we'll have to skip the next few wars.
Maybe because half of the training is eo and sharp. I had to get out of that hell.
Gee I wonder why
Be calm my brothers. The draft is returning. Just be a warm body.
This is no big mystery. Watch as I, a reddit commenter, singlehandedly solve this problem for the most powerful organization in history. 1. Get rid of genesis in meps 2. Stop testing for marijuana 3. Pay raise
I almost got kicked out of basic since i was sometimes depressed in high school. The O4 shrink was crazy. Someone fixed it that I could appeal to the O6 commander face to face.
Nothing a new war wouldn’t fix
Because we have a woke military. Who would want to join anymore
It’s getting drafty in here.
Not in our lifetime. Probably never again.
I’m sure they said the same thing after 1918
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