{"id":85379,"date":"2022-09-06T15:24:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T20:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=85379"},"modified":"2022-09-06T15:24:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T20:24:01","slug":"85379","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=85379","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Army\u2019s Personnel Crisis.<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the last few weeks, I\u2019ve attempted to identify the multiple sources of the Army\u2019s personnel crisis, dive into the anticipated impacts of what will happen if nothing changes, and understand the short and long-term effects on the organization. This will be the last column, for now, on the Army\u2019s personnel crisis, and it will focus on some ways to change narratives, structures, incentives\/rewards, and develop new ways to appeal to the youth of America so they look at service in the Army as a good option for their future.<\/p>\n

One aspect that always gets overlooked is most people who join the Army only stay for their initial enlistment<\/strong>. Because of this fact, there has to be an acceptance from the start that there are very few people who look at service within the Army as a career, rather, it\u2019s an opportunity for personal betterment.<\/strong> Many people join the Army because it\u2019s a way out of their hometown, it allows them to travel, or there is a wanderlust\/adventure itch that needs to be scratched. So when it comes to narratives, and the marketing that supports those narratives, there has been a grandiose failure of imagination over the last 20 years from the Army and the advertising\/marketing companies who have been awarded immense sums of money to attract people to the Army. The citizenry of the nation has had to suffer from such duds as \u201cThe Army of One\u201d marketing campaign, with its narrative of individuality within a team focus. This was attacked immediately and pulled off the shelves after a short period of time. Recently, there have been a series of ads that try and appeal to the youth via their upbringing and non-traditional childhoods. It\u2019s novel, it\u2019s even daring, but it\u2019s a flop. I\u2019m not going to link to those videos, they are easily found on YouTube. The last video I saw, just a few weeks ago, may have been the worst. It showed a bunch of soldiers, junior enlisted personnel, standing around a pool table, talking a very lame version of smack between one another. The message seemed to be, \u201cThe Army is just like home when you are with your friends shooting the breeze and hanging out, just don\u2019t look too closely at our uniforms.\u201d And that\u2019s a real problem because making the Army seem more like home is exactly what the Army does not need now, or at any time.<\/p>\n

The dislocation a soldier feels when they go through Basic Training is deliberate and purposeful. Trying to craft a narrative that being a soldier is just like being a civilian is not helpful to the individual or the service. There are lots of reasons why Basic Training is designed to transform a civilian into a soldier, and yet the latest ad campaign is completely contradictory to that end.<\/p>\n

When it comes to crafting appealing narratives about the nature of Army service and life in late 2022, there needs to be some really innovative and novel thought put into the cauldron. In an early column, I highlighted the fact that the GEN Z\/Millennial generational cohorts are not motivated by money, can get college benefits elsewhere for less personal dislocation and discomfort, and want to stay close to family and friends. That\u2019s a good starting point to start looking at changing the entire recruiting enterprise.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Changing structures associated with recruiting is probably the easiest aspect of this challenge. First and foremost, the Army leadership has to scrap MHS Genesis as a mechanism for diving into adolescent and youth medical and pharmacy records. One reader pointed out that this is necessary because the DoD will save money in the long term by just disqualifying them immediately. Well, that\u2019s true, but it is also irrelevant, as the old saw goes. I cannot say this strongly enough: THERE IS NO MASSIVE INEXHAUSTABLE POOL OF WILLING PERSONNEL LINING TO JOIN THE US MILITARY RIGHT NOW OR FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. Ok, I feel better now that\u2019s off the medulla oblongata. Tied to the MHS Genesis debacle is the gigantic list of medical conditions and medications that will preclude an individual from joining the Army or any military service. A real reformation is needed here, because that tired line of \u201cOnly 23\/25\/27\/30 % of American youth are eligible to join\u201d is largely due to a slew of medical conditions that were either temporary during youth, or have been treated successfully and not returned. All of this is a self-inflicted wound, and it\u2019s all driven by the rampant credentialism and desire to lower personnel costs. Two easy fixes are to build a lot more leeway into medical entry standards around childhood asthma, mental health, and AD\/HD conditions experienced during adolescence or teenage years. The fact is that doctors in this country tend to go for the prescription pad early when dealing with mental health and AD\/HD conditions. There\u2019s nothing the Army can do about that, it\u2019s not like the Chief of Staff can go onto the Today Show and ask the nation\u2019s doctors to stop prescribing medications. Since that\u2019s off the table, adding a great deal more leeway into these conditions, and a lot of others should be examined, reviewed, reformed, and enacted with some real pace. Finally, the COVID-19 vaccination refusals should be seriously re-examined, and some sort of compromise needs to occur between the refusniks and the DoD. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve cannot simply lose up to 60,000 personnel over this issue, it is not just a threat to those organizations, it is a real threat to the depth, stability, and safety of the nation.<\/p>\n

\n
\n