Stop being ‘foolish’: To improve recruitment, Marine Corps takes aim at outdated rules
By Justin Katz on March 06, 2023 at 11:32 AM
WASHINGTON — After spending a year revamping the Marine Corps’ recruitment and retention policies, the service’s second-most senior officer says one of the key changes has been the ability to get rid of some old, rigid rules.
“I think the removal of policies that are outdated or no longer make sense is incredibly important,” said Gen. Eric Smith, the Marine Corps’ assistant commandant. “I won’t say it’s thing one — [it is] incredibly important. I think what’s the most important is the commandant, Gen. [David] Berger, gave us the latitude to do it.”
Smith, and other senior brass charged with shaping the service’s recruitment policies, spoke to reporters on Friday ahead of the release of the Marine Corps’ update to “Talent Management 2030.” That document [PDF] is one element of Berger’s Force Design 2030 initiative, which seeks to overhaul a variety of aspects about the Marine Corps to prepare it for the future fight.
The new document outlines a handful of changes the service has made throughout the past year, such as tweaking the contract lengths for different military occupational specialties and giving Marines more latitude to temporarily pause their service — without penalty — for the sake of pursuing higher education.
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/stop-being-foolish-to-improve-recruitment-marine-corps-takes-aim-at-outdated-rules/?amp=1
