Army's Top General Vows Not to Lower Recruiting Standards Despite Trouble Finding New D.C., March 26, 2020. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando)
28 Jul 2022
Military.com | By Steve Beynon
The Army's top general is vowing not to lower the service's standards despite a recruiting crisis reaching a head with a shrinking pool of young Amercans eligible to serve and difficulty enticing new soldiers.
"What I don't want to do, and we've done this historically, is lower standards and convince ourselves that's the right thing to do," Gen. James McConville, the Army's chief of staff, told reporters Thursday. "We're not going to achieve squat."
The Army's trouble recruiting is expected to result in a drop in the size of the force by about 14,000 soldiers by the end of 2023. Recruiting struggles are an amalgamation of issues, most notably the military largely being out of the minds of young Americans as a job opportunity with no widespread call to arms like the one seen after 9/11.
That sharp reduction in troop numbers has prompted the Army to examine how it structures the force. While McConville said no major formations are on the chopping block, fewer soldiers could lead to some reorganization.
"We are taking a look at every single position in [the Army]," McConville said. "We've done the analysis, and we've found out where there's positions that we don't necessarily require, but our intent is not to reduce any brigade combat teams at the same time."
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/07/28/armys-top-general-vows-not-lower-recruiting-standards-despite-trouble-finding-new-soldiers.html
