(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In an attempt to address its ongoing recruiting crisis, the United States Army has opened up its ranks to retired soldiers up to the age of 70 to fill staffing roles, the Daily Caller reported.
The proposal comes as the Army and several other branches of the military experience a critical shortage of recruits, which has largely been attributed to Biden administration policies including vaccine mandates, the embrace of transgenderism and woke indoctrination into controversial topics like critical race theory.
The Democrat president’s callous disregard for troops following the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and the neglect of military facilities such as barracks, while sending vast amounts of top-line equipment to support Ukraine’s war with Russia, might also have been contributing factors in troop attrition.
A recently-published “All Armies Activities” document from the Directorate of Military Personnel Management described how retired servicemembers could rejoin the military in order to fill unfilled positions.
According to the document, the “retiree recall program” was enacted in order to fill “authorized personnel vacancies” by helping retirees get back into the service.
Perhaps more disturbingly, however, is the age up to which the military seems willing to recall.
“There is no age limitation, although personnel older than 70 are not normally recalled,” the document stated.
Addressing rumors that it was meant specifically to address the enrollment crisis, Lt. Col. Ruth Castro said the the updated policy only “amplifies existing U.S. Army policy and provides information on improved procedures.”
The Pentagon’s recruiting crisis has endured for approximately three years now, culminating in a shortage of 41,000 recruits in 2023 across all armed services.
According to Ashish Vazirani, the acting undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, the crisis has been exacerbated by the falling standards of physical preparedness in the various branches of the military, meaning the current recruits that the military is able to entice into service may be less combat-ready than in the past.
Last year’s shortfall “understates the challenge before us as the services lowered [their] end-strength goals in recent years, in part because of the difficult recruiting environment,” Vazirani said, calling it one of the “greatest challenges” the military services have faced.
Some critics have suggested that white, rural Americans—traditionally the largest class of those who serve in the military—had become disenchanted with the establishment due to its overseas wars that aim to spread woke ideology at home and abroad.
But military officials, along with the New York Times, have thus far ignored or downplayed that possible explanation, instead suggesting that economic success during the Biden administration has led to more domestic job opportunities.
