Multiple military and defense officials told NBC News that every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to meet its recruiting goals for the fiscal year 2022. Numbers obtained by the media outlet show both a record low percentage of young Americans eligible to serve in the military and an even tinier fraction willing to consider it.
The officials said that the top leaders of the Pentagon are now looking for ways to find recruits to fill out the ranks of the military. They added that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks consider the shortfall a serious issue, with both top officials meeting on it frequently with other leaders.
Ret. Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, said this is the start of a long drought for military recruiting. He said the U.S. military had not had such a hard time signing recruits since 1973, when the United States left Vietnam, and the draft officially ended.
What is causing the recruitment problems?
The pool of those eligible to join the U.S. military continues to dwindle, with more young men and women disqualified for drug use, criminal records, or obesity. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville testified before Congress last month, saying that only 23 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 are qualified to serve without a waiver to join, which is down from 29 percent in recent years, according to the American Legion.
An internal Defense Department survey found that only 9 percent of those young Americans eligible to serve in the U.S. military had any inclination to do so, the lowest percentage since 2007.
The survey sheds light on how the growing civilian-military divide and Americans' view of the military may also be factors in the slumping recruitment and how public attitudes towards the American military could cause recruiting struggles for years to come.
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Majority of young Americans fear emotional problems if they join the military
More than half of the young Americans who answered the Defense Department survey (about 57 percent) think they would have psychological or emotional problems after serving in the U.S. military. Nearly half of those surveyed believe they would have physical problems if they joined the military.
One senior U.S. military official familiar with the recruiting issues said they think they will be physically or emotionally broken after serving. He believes a lack of familiarity with military service contributes to that perception among young Americans.
Among Americans surveyed by the Pentagon who were in the target age range for recruitment, only 13 percent had parents who had served in the U.S. military, down from approximately 40 percent in 1995. According to The Hill, recruiting is not helped when 52 percent of parents do not recommend military service to their own offspring. The numbers are based on recent Department of Defense survey data.
