Bring Warriors Back to the U.S. Military
Recruitment campaigns should frame service as the ultimate test of strength, courage and leadership.
By Mike Gallagher
Feb. 24, 2025 1:38 pm ET
Speaking at the Pentagon on February 7, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invoked predecessor Donald Rumsfeld’s 2001 speech declaring war on bureaucracy and “shifting resources from the tail to the tooth.” Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Bloomberg News/Alexander Kubitza/Zuma Press
When it comes to military recruitment, President Biden left President Trump a flaming bag of you-know-what on the White House steps. Mr. Biden sapped the ranks of America’s military when he discharged more than 8,000 members for noncompliance with his Covid-19 vaccine mandate. These dismissals compounded the morale catastrophe of the Pentagon’s diversity, equity and inclusion push, best understood as a pseudoscientific attempt to favor loyalists at the expense of merit-based promotions and military readiness.
The Navy and Air Force missed their recruitment targets in fiscal 2023 for the first time this century. The Army missed its enlistment goals in 2022 and 2023, and the Marine Corps barely met its target in 2024. The most advanced weapons systems are useless without talented, motivated soldiers to operate them. Any military recruitment crisis emboldens America’s enemies. Resolving the Biden-created recruiting crisis is as important as securing our borders.
Thankfully, we are now seeing a “Trump bump” in recruitment. The 2024 Reagan National Defense Survey found that from November 2023 to November 2024, willingness to serve among adults under 30 increased from 10% to 16%. The Army announced its best December recruiting numbers in 12 years and its best January recruiting numbers in 15 years. As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tweeted, “America’s youth want to serve under the bold & strong ‘America First’ leadership of Donald Trump.”
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bring-warriors-back-to-the-u-s-military-recruitment-strategy-defense-soldiers-929303f1?st=QcsPYz
