At the same time we are winding down our military we are building up a huge military force here in the ‘homeland’. DHS is now busting people in flea markets, no less than 48 federal agencies have paramilitary forces and war machines are on our streets.
Of course, Obama promised us all this. It’s called ‘hiding in plain view’:
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
Doesn’t seem like we’re too far away from the time when this federal build up of arms will find use on citizens.
Wake Up America!
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced in February of this year that the Obama administration would work to shrink the US Army to its smallest size since before World War II. Citing the federal government’s budgetary concerns and the winding down of the wars in the Middle East, Hagel deemed it necessary to reduce the military personnel and lingering, expensive equipment costs.
He said in a speech that cutting the current level of 522,000 soldiers to 490,000 soldiers by autumn of 2015 was necessary “to protect critical capabilities like Special Operations Forces and cyber resources.”
And cutting the size of the military means recruiting fewer people. The Army’s recruiting goal dropped from 69,000 new enlistments for the 2013 fiscal year to 57,000 for 2014, the US Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) reported. The Navy’s goal dropped from 40,112 in 2013 to 33,800 in 2014, according to its recruiting command.
Fewer spaces means tough choices for recruiters. “We’re turning down twice as many as before,” Army Sgt. 1st Class Terrence Hoard, who supervises the Army recruiting station in Grandview, Mo., told the Kansas City Star. Potential recruits who might have been granted waivers before are now rejected.
“It’s not that we have a zero defect mentality, because we don’t,” Nathan Christensen, a Navy officer in public affairs for the Defense Department, told the Star. “But it is true that the quality of military recruits right now is the highest it’s been in 40 years.”
Most young Americans are ineligible to join the military, either because they’re drug users, obese, medically unfit, failed to graduate high school, or have criminal records. The Pentagon estimates that only 25 percent are qualified.
“There are 30-some million 17- to 24-year-olds out there, but by the time you get all the way down to those that are qualified, you’re down to less than a million young Americans,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Brilakis, the commander of Marine Corps Recruiting Command, told Federal News Radio.
“Five years ago, if a kid had gotten caught with a (marijuana) joint in his car, that person would be pretty much a shoo-in” to enlist under a waiver, Hoard said to the Star. “Now you’re not authorized.”
When it comes to education, the Department of Defense considers its crop of new recruits to be ‘high quality’ if 90 percent have a high school diploma, Federal News Radio reported. Last year’s newcomers crushed that goal, with 99.6 percent having graduated.
The economy has been favorable for military enlistments since the Great Recession began in December 2007. As the economy improves, youth unemployment drops. And when fewer young people can’t find a job in the civilian sector, the military is less of a draw.
In 2013, data from the Pentagon’s Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies program found that only 40 percent of the DoD’s target market thought the military offered “an attractive lifestyle,” down from 63 percent in 2004. The youth unemployment rate fell to 12.8 percent in April, according to the the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The youth unemployment rate in the United States averaged 12.32 percent from 1955 until 2014, reaching an all-time high of 19.6 percent in April 2010.
“A weak economy in recent years, coupled with the talented and adequately resourced recruiting force produced the highest quality recruits in Air Force history,” Brig. Gen. Gina Grosso, the director of force management policy for the Air Force, told the House Armed Services Committee in January. “However, we recognize this trend will be unsustainable as the economy continues to improve and competition to draw recruits from the small, qualified talent pool, who are alarmingly less inclined to choose military service as a career, increases dramatically.”
Now the military is competing with the civilian sector for quality candidates, and they are forced to use the recruiting budgets they never needed to before – right as Congress seeks to cut those budgets.
“All this belt-tightening has caused the Department of Defense to chase after the same successful, highly motivated high school graduates that everyone else is chasing,” Mike Byrd, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and an instructor for a Junior ROTC program in Independence, Mo. told the Star.
“It’s very expensive to recruit,” he added. “We don’t have the flexibility we once had to get it wrong with one kid and hope the next one works out.”
Military recruiters are hoping Congress will continue to allot money into funding recruitment efforts and paying for expensive advertising and marketing campaigns.
“As private sector career opportunities increase, use of incentives such as enlistment bonuses will help attract recruits with the characteristics necessary for Navy service as a means of getting the right sailor with the right skills to the right place at the right time,” Rear Adm. Annie Andrews, the commander of Navy Recruiting Command, told Federal News Radio.
Sad isn’t it.
…and now some of these rejects are looking for other paramilitary organizations to join. Try Russia, they’re enlisting Americans I’ve heard in exchange for citizenship.