From the 17th to the early 19th century the British Navy routinely pressed men into service in the royal navy to fill up the crews that could not be managed by volunteers or those recruited at the courts who were given the choice of their prison sentence or service in the navy. This was considered a necessity particularly during wartime and England’s power and might were entirely dependent on their navy and their control of the seas.
There was a brief time during this period where Royal Navy pay was actually competitive enough to draw men but inflation combined with the harsh and cruel service made such temporary advantages disappear over time.
The urgency to fill these slots was critical both to the Captain and his junior officers. A Captain and his officers who could not crew his ship adequately might find themselves as inactive officers on half pay. So their very lively hoods depended on having adequate manpower on their ships.
And that brings us the US Army and Navy and their current situations.
You would think a tough economy might be fertile recruiting ground for the armed services these days.
You’d be wrong and it’s brought things to a rather desperate state
The Defense Department has for the first time allowed 700 recruits who had been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder to join the military without a waiver under revamped rules that could be a pathway for those who have confronted mental-health or other developmental conditions.
In June, the military, which has been facing major recruiting challenges, said that those who had suffered from 38 different medical conditions could serve as long as they hadn’t demonstrated symptoms nor required medication for treatment for three, five and seven years, depending on the condition.
Yup nothing says a strong military like recruiting people with mental illnesses. Just the type of folks you want arm and teach to kill.
But between the vaccine requirements and the new woke stuff the Military has become less and less attractive to those who would normally be most likely to join as Beege Wellborn notes a woke officer looking to please those above them can make things hell:
The primary difference being, as every veteran knows, that on a college campus or at a job, when you tell the hired DEI Nazi they are free to blow their suggestions how you should frame your language out a selected orifice, the absolute worst that happens is unemployment or disenrollment.
It’s very different in the military – they own you, once you freely raise that right hand. The same negative response to the new regime Biden and the wokester brass are cementing in place can be – literally – a life-destroying experience, especially if you have that craven, vindictive brand of SNCO or senior officer who loves his next rank and the desk he’s in right now more than anything else in the world. They will put your infidel butt out on the street in a flame of glory purely as a box ticky for their career.
But the real story here is this tidbit:
Listening to friends, other vets, and fellow Marines, that has to be happening more often than not. When I pose that question, “Would you tell a kid today to go in/enlist?” the first exclamation out of their mouths rhymes with “duck” and is followed by an emphatic “NO!”
It is so toxic.
A family with a military tradition is usually the perfect recruiting ground for quality people. Once you reach a point where people with Military experience steer their folks away from the services then things like this take place:
That’s why the Navy’s announcement that it is lowering minimum scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test and lifting its recruiting age limit from 35 year old to 41 is worrisome. If not accompanied by additional safeguards, these changes signal bad faith toward the nation and the recruit.
It’s no secret why the Navy is lowering standards: its recruitment program is in heavy seas. The service failed to meet its 2020 recruiting goals. As a result, it has fewer people in training to serve in the fleet — and that fleet has a key role to play if the U.S. is stay ahead of the fast-rising China threat.
All of this is in fact self inflicted and while Mr. Welborn doesn’t see how this shakes out I do.
Sooner or later there will not be the manpower to justify the various woke officers who have done all they can to impress the leftists in charge at DoD and when that happens those folks will need bodies and as impressment isn’t a thing here you will eventually see the return of the draft because even when this lot is finally out of office those military families will not have enough trust in the bureaucrats to recommend their kids to join up.
The draft is coming and I can’t wait to see the woke kids howl when it does.
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