By Paul Crespo – American Action News May 28, 2022

ANALYSIS – Despite the mounting global threats to the United States, and the increasing potential for significant conflict between great powers, the Biden Pentagon can’t understand why it is facing its worst recruiting environment in decades.

It is time they look inward and see how their own leftist policies at the Department of Defense (DoD) are mainly to blame.

While obsessing over woke leftist causes and ‘diverse’ recruits not normally interested in military service, the Pentagon is alienating the vastly greater number of patriotic conservatives who normally fill our military ranks.

At the May 5 Army posture hearing with the Senate Committee on Armed Services, top military leaders sounded the alarm about recruitment. The Christina Post reports:

According to top DoD leadership, this is the most challenging recruiting year since the beginning of the all-volunteer force almost five decades ago. The Army announced that even after being forced to cut 12,000 soldiers, it still cannot fill its ranks. In addition to this, the percentage of young Americans qualified to join the Army is now at the lowest point ever at 23%.

While an increasingly obese, unfit, and mentally unhealthy society is partly to blame for fewer young Americans qualifying physically or mentally for service, the Pentagon itself is a big part of the recruitment problem.

Much of this crisis is caused by a growing lack of trust and confidence in the U.S. military. And much of this among its core recruiting pool – conservative patriotic young Americans.

Note: 65% come from Red States – no surprise here

Currently, only 11% of all those aged 16-21 answered “definitely or probably” in their likelihood to “serve in the military.”

According to a Reagan Institute survey, the percentage of Republican respondents saying, “they had a great deal of confidence in the military,” dropped dramatically from 87% in 2018 to “53% in 2021.”

And look no farther than the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, for a prime example of why this is happening.

And its not just the Army – all the services have been corrupted at the top and at the Service Academies.

The loss of trust by many conservatives comes primarily from a perceived liberal bias at the top of DoD. Many conservative media sources have decried what appears to be DoD following “political” priorities of the Biden Administration, including perceived targeting of conservatives in uniform. The bias became so obvious that even traditionally liberal news sources have opined about the problem.

Note: There is no “perceived” liberal bias but a real socialist bias as evidenced by Biden SOD Austin immediately ordering a 60 day stand down for commanders to root out “extremists in the military which is code for Trump supporters.

The Atlantic, a known liberal source, published the following: “Where (Milley) deserves greater criticism is his congressional testimony from a few weeks ago … he went on to connect racism to the attack on the Capitol: ‘I want to understand white rage … What is it that made thousands of people assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?’”

The “white rage” statement by General Milley infuriated conservatives, as it was perceived both as an endorsement of critical race theory and of partisan political narratives.

Note: Again this is no perception but the TRUTH – CRT instruction has been mandatory in the military of the O’Biden regime.

The bias perception was compounded by Bob Woodward’s and Robert Costa’s book Peril quoting senior military and civilian DoD leaders with statements undermining Trump and showing partiality to Democrats.

If the Pentagon doesn’t quickly step back from its far left, woke policies and rampant Democrat-linked politicization, conservative Americans’ trust and confidence in the military will only continue to plummet.

Note: Loss of respect and confidence continues and the problem is not the enlisted and junior officers in the trenches; the problem stems from the WOKE top levels among the General Officers and Admirals.

And with it, the recruitment numbers for our nation’s fighting forces.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AmericanActionNews.com

They sure as hell represent the views of most veterans who honorably served and the majority of those in the trenches serving today. I personally do not and will not recommend any young persons join our military or seek a commission by any means as long as the Marxist Obama 3/O’Biden Administration is in power. 

Author Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Defense News. A defense and national security expert, he served as a Marine Corps officer and as a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at US embassies worldwide. Paul holds degrees from Georgetown, London, and Cambridge Universities. He is also CEO of SPECTRE