Trump victory may reverse dwindling military enlistment, says senator
On Sunday, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) told ABC’s Jonathan Karl about reports of US service members deciding to re-enlist because of Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth.
“Pete is a very talented individual,” Hagerty said. “I talked with him earlier this week. He told me about how many people had written to him and said, look, I was thinking about getting out. You know we have a huge recruitment problem, a huge retention problem in the military. I was thinking about getting out, but now that you’ve come to lead us, Pete, I’m going to stay in.”
Hagerty was on ABC to discuss the sexual allegations made against Pete Hegseth, which he has emphatically denied.
“That’s the type of inspirational leader we need to see,” he continued. “Don’t let these allegations distract us. What we need is real, significant change. The Pentagon has been more focused on pronouns than they have lethality the past four years. We need to get back to business, and I think Pete is just the person to do it.”
A shrinking fighting force
As of early this year, the US Armed Forces was at its smallest since World War II with approximately 1.3 million active duty service members. The number dropped by 64,000 personnel since 2020, according to Pentagon figures. Last year, the Army, Navy, and Air Force all failed to meet their recruitment targets by a combined 41,000 recruits despite increased signing bonuses and aggressive campaigns.
Impact of vaccine mandate
Some officials have blamed this partly on the Biden-Harris administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which resulted in the discharge of 8,000 service members. As of January this year, only 43 of those service members re-enlisted. The mandate may also be why the number of service members and veterans who would recommend joining the military dropped significantly between 2019 and 2021.
Not only were unvaccinated soldiers discharged, they were forced to repay their signing bonuses. One service member had to sell 60 of his vacation days to repay most of his $7,000 signing bonus to the US Army after he was fired for refusing the COVID injections.
In June 2022, now-House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted the effect of the vaccine mandate on the US military, saying:
The Biden Administration is destroying the readiness of our Armed Forces by creating an unnecessary recruiting and retention shortfall, and trying to make up the difference by lowering other crucial education and fitness standards. All of this over an illness that is very, very, very, unlikely to have any significant effect on the young men and women of our military, and a vaccine that lacks long-term data on safety and efficacy for this cohort.
There is simply no other way around it: Until [the Secretary of Defense] withdraws, delays, or modifies the vax mandate, or begins rapidly granting more exemptions, our military will have to continue lowering recruitment standards—degrading the readiness and professionalism of our Armed Forces.
Impact of wokeness
Another likely cause of the personnel crisis in the US Armed Forces is the invasion of totalitarian woke ideologies.
A report this year revealed that US military academies have “eyes and ears programs” for training cadets to report their colleagues for criticizing DEI, even in private conversations. In the Air Force Academy, DEI enforcers wear special uniforms and report to a separate chain of command.
Last year, US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth announced the Army will be making the “war against climate change” a priority.
In 2022, all Army personnel were forced to undergo mandatory gender dysphoria training.
In 2021, the Army released recruitment videos emphasizing the importance of same-sex attraction while omitting any visuals of weaponry. One ad called “The Calling” featured a girl named “Emma” who said she was inspired to join the US Army by her homosexual mothers.
The US Military Academy at West Point has been known to teach courses on critical race theory, which maintains that white people are natural oppressors of black people.
In 2021, then-Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress he wanted “to understand white rage,” which he suggested was behind the January 6th rally.
