Military recruiting is just the gift that keeps on giving. No matter how many incentives you throw at it, when young people watch our generals, admirals and politicians throw away American lives, fail to win wars, cut benefits and create a system that is hostile to a large chunk of the population, they tend to vote with their feet and not join. This comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody with an IQ over 60, and apparently that doesn’t include any of the aforementioned people.
Since I should be more joint in my criticism of recruiting, let’s talk about joints…
How did I miss this one??? It was likely buried under all the other bad news on recruiting. You can read the whole article, but essentially the Air Force will let you retest in 90 days if you pop positive for THC. The smart people on the internet tell me THC leaves your system after about 30 days, so if you don’t smoke for 3 months, its pretty likely you’ll pass the test.
I’m not surprised, and I predict that by the end of the year, we’ll have either an outright waiver on THC, OR the military services will be begging Congress to move marijuana off the controlled substance list. Plenty of fellow military members told me “fat chance of that happening,” which, speaking of fat…
So the Air Force won’t win any more body image awards, but maybe they’ll take the cake, so to speak, in body positivity…
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this post, why not donate to DaTechGuy or purchase one of the author’s books?
It now looks like our very secret plans concerning Ukrainian movements and some of our weapons capabilities have been leaked online. Here’s a link from the Japan Times (it does NOT contain any photos of the documents, which I won’t share):
The scale of the leak — analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained — along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, U.S. officials said. A senior intelligence official called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.
First, ANY leak of classified data causes a nightmare for our allies. Many of them share very sensitive data with us, which requires them to trust the U.S. to treat their data seriously. When you break that trust, those allies hesitate to share data in the future. This makes it really hard to build comprehensive war plans with them, or to cooperate in general.
Now, leaks happen, both in the U.S. and by our allies, so the response to these leaks is the important part. Given that the leaks involved information stamped “Top Secret,” its not going to take the government too long to figure out who leaked it. Here’s the kicker though…what is going to happen because of it?
When I wrote a while back about the Hillary Clinton leaks and everyone treating it as “no big deal,” I was most concerned that not punishing her would essentially excuse other people to leak classified data in the future. If you’re some mediocre bureaucrat that gets to handle classified material, and you see your boss get away with leaking it, then why not leak your material to further your own agenda?
My bet is that the DoD will either find the person, who will be some mid-range bureaucrat in the intelligence community that will, at best, be removed from his or her position, or they won’t find anyone at all, which will likely mean the person that leaked it is too connected to punish. Our allies will hesitate for a while on sharing, and China and Russia will use this as an excuse to say its proof we’re really “at war” and to excuse further transgressions on their part.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Don’t forget to donate to DaTechGuy or purchase one of the author’s books!
Jones said the Air Force likely would fall short of its enlisted active duty recruiting goals by more than 10% in 2023, and the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard are projected to miss their goals as well, but that the Space Force is expected to meet its quotas for the year.
But don’t worry, she later said that with the extra 150 million dollars allocated for recruiting, the Air Force had a 90% increase in web traffic!
Web traffic? Seriously? She has to understand this is nonsense. Web traffic means nothing. I can have an army of bots searching for my book on Amazon, which would make it seem to be popular, but unless someone actually purchases a book, it’s meaningless. Same goes for recruiting. Sure, lots of people say they’ll join the military, and even look at the website, but that doesn’t translate to recruitment numbers. Plus, let’s be honest, how many people that wanted to join the Air Force said “You know, I just can’t find what I want on the Air Force website. Guess I’ll leave and fly drones for Walmart instead!”
The Army and Navy testified as well about the issues each service has recruiting. The sad part is not one service addressed any issue of substance. Did anyone apologize for the terrible treatment of vaccine refusers? How about telling people that they aren’t inherently racist due to their skin color? How about making our housing allowance cover 100% of, you know, housing?
Nahhh….I bet that’s not an issue. In other news, China is looking ahead on how it will man three aircraft carriers, and is already recruiting 14-16 year olds. Sounds weird at first, but this makes sense, since it’ll be a few years before those carriers are commissioned. Why not build your pilots early so that they have better skills to join by the time they hit 18 years old? Smart move. Meanwhile, the US Navy keeps wishing for more ships, even though it can’t fully man the ships it has now.
Another week, more excuses, and no change in the trend of recruiting numbers.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this post, why not donate to DaTechGuy or buy the authors book?
The military changed its rules on the COVID-19 vaccine because the science showed it didn’t actually work Congress passed a law requiring them to do so. Now that this has changed, the military wants the members that it kicked out to come on back…or at least, some people do. Others still cling to the “You disobeyed orders and should be punished!“
With the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine order lifted, troops can refuse to take the shot without risking ending their careers. But those who refused it in the past could still be booted for “disobeying a lawful order,” Defense Department officials warned lawmakers Tuesday. “It’s very important that our service members follow orders when they are lawful, and there are thousands that did not,” Gilbert Cisneros Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel, told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “The services are going through a process to review those cases to make a determination what needs to be done.”
So, in other words
Remember, we aren’t talking small numbers either:
Defense Department leaders said about 16,000 individuals refused that order without making any requests for exemption or accommodation. About 8,400 were separated from the services as a result.
I’m sure they will be coming back in droves. Remember this?
And this?
I give the Navy credit, at least all the individuals kicked out received honorable discharges. The Army was not so nice. A general discharge can impact the benefits you receive from the VA. It’s a choice by the service, and as the majority got a General Discharge, it defnitely means the discharging authority was angry over the refusal to obey orders, despite the fact the science was questionable at best on the vaccine.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again, this was NOT a good hill to die on for the military. Encouraging vaccines is one thing, but until there was a few years of data, you were just going to piss people off with mandates. Add a few young people dying after the shot, whether it was vaccine related or not, and you have a massive PR crisis on your hands.
Lawmakers are hoping many of those discharged will come back:
They did note that the vaccine refusals make up a small fraction of the total force, and said they hope that most service members continue to get the COVID-19 vaccines even without the mandate. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers on the panel said they hope to reinstate all dismissed individuals to the armed forces with full benefits and back pay. Cisneros said officials are not looking into any such move at the present.
Fat chance. The emphasis on “small fraction” misses a key point: every single member kicked out is going to tell all their friends to not join. The military just created 16,000 influencers, a portion of whom will take to social media and create a recruiting nightmare for the military. Worse still, this doesn’t count the many members that chose to retire early or voluntarily separate rather than continue service. Remember that “unprecedented” rise in military retirements and separations noted in the Health of the Force survey? That’s not random. You can only beat down on people for so long before they start to vote with their feet. Even among people who took the COVID vaccine, there is a fairly large number that didn’t think the mandate was a good idea. I make plenty of choices that I think are smart, but I wouldn’t mandate them on others, and I’m not alone in this thinking.
The military created this mess, and its spilling over into recruitment and retention. Expect it to get worse, despite anything that Congress will do.
The post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you enjoyed this post, consider donating to DaTechGuy or purchasing one of the authors books.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 