Military Recruitment Shortfall: How Covid May Have Crushed Military Recruitment

Word on the street is that military recruits are more and more difficult to come by. National Review’s Isaac Schorr and the New York Times have both valuably reported the recruiting shortfalls of late. They are an unfortunate but predictable outcome of a panoply of factors.

Perhaps not surprisingly, commentators have their pet reasons for why the Army might have secured only 40 percent of the 57,000 they hope to enlist by the end of the fiscal year and why even the Air Force — long considered the most desirable branch to join — is 4,000 short. The Left prefers to cite extremism in the enlisted ranks along with economic factors; the Right posits that woke-ism detrimental to the cause has proliferated under Biden’s administration while obesity has rendered many Americans physically unfit to serve. Naturally, there’s a tad more to the story; please allow me to apply Occam’s razor, even if it puts me in partisan-pundit territory.

About the Author

Luther Ray Abel

Luther Ray Abel is an Associate Editor for National Review. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Luther is a proud native of Sheboygan, Wis.

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Word on the street is that military recruits are more and more difficult to come by. National Review’s Isaac Schorr and the New York Times have both valuably reported the recruiting shortfalls of late. They are an unfortunate but predictable outcome of a panoply of factors.

Perhaps not surprisingly, commentators have their pet reasons for why the Army might have secured only 40 percent of the 57,000 they hope to enlist by the end of the fiscal year and why even the Air Force — long considered the most desirable branch to join — is 4,000 short. The Left prefers to cite extremism in the enlisted ranks along with economic factors; the Right posits that woke-ism detrimental to the cause has proliferated under Biden’s administration while obesity has rendered many Americans physically unfit to serve. Naturally, there’s a tad more to the story; please allow me to apply Occam’s razor, even if it puts me in partisan-pundit territory.