Solves recruiting

Here are several actions the military services — and the nation as a whole — should be undertaking now to help reverse these trends.

Improving Eligibility

Expand Programs like the Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course

One of the most successful efforts to expand recruit eligibility has been an Army program called the Future Soldier Preparatory Course. This clever initiative provides academic and fitness coaching to prospective recruits who fall short in one or both of these areas but are otherwise eligible to serve. Last year, more than 92 percent of the participants — almost 3,000 soldiers — successfully graduated into basic training, leading the Army to expand this program considerably in 2023. And preliminary evidence indicates that the graduates of this course are being selected for leadership positions during basic training at a slightly higher rate than regular recruits, though it is too early to tell whether that will be a significant trend over time.

The clear success of this innovative approach suggests that similar programs should be adopted by the other services to help address their recruiting shortfalls. Doing so in the near term could help overcome some of the lower academic and fitness scores caused by the pandemic. Over time, they could also provide a unique opportunity to include a wider range of prospective service members who hail from vastly disparate and often uneven educational backgrounds. But these programs will also have an immediate benefit for military recruiters, who currently invest a great deal of time and energy helping potential recruits meet the fitness standards. Centralizing such efforts is not only far more efficient, but it also frees recruiters to focus on their core mission: finding and establishing relationships with more young people and encouraging them to consider military service.

Eliminate the Rule Against Permitting Recruits with Dependents

The U.S. military currently prevents any unmarried young man or woman who has a legal dependent — usually, though not always, a child — from serving on active duty. Perversely, this prohibition ends when initial entry training is complete, usually a few months later. Anyone who gains a dependent after that time may continue serving — and, according to the latest data, almost 4 percent of active-duty service members are single parents. Disqualifying single parents entirely from joining the military (or incentivizing costly legal acrobatics to qualify) makes no sense in the world in which we live today — and doesn’t reflect the sensible and supportive rules for single troops with dependents already in uniform. In fact, cadets at the service academies are now allowed to continue their studies if they become parents, as long as they grant temporary guardianship to someone else. The same rule applies to all single military parents and dual-military parents, who must have an approved family care plan that identifies a temporary caregiver when they deploy on operations or face unexpected absences. It is long past time to extend similar policies to anyone who seeks to join the military, for either the officer or enlisted ranks.

Allow People with Treatable Mental Health Conditions to Serve

Mental health issues among young people have been increasing for a long time, and that trend escalated greatly during the pandemic. However, many people who suffer from depression, anxiety, and other disorders can be effectively treated with commonly prescribed medications. According to the American Psychiatric Association, for example, 55–65 percent of diagnosed children and adolescents respond well to initial treatment with antidepressant medication. The U.S. military has long allowed those in uniform to continue serving while taking such medications — but it inexplicably continues to bar people on those medications from joining the force. The U.S. military should not reject otherwise qualified applicants from serving based on outdated stereotypes of mental health treatments. And, frankly, it can no longer afford to do so when such treatments are increasingly common across every segment of the U.S. population.

Instead of being automatically rejected, potential recruits should be allowed to serve if they can produce a verifiable letter from their doctor that answers the following three questions. These are slightly revised versions of the three questions — which are the only three questions — that a security clearance investigator may ask a treating physician:

Does the applicant have a condition or treatment that could impair his or her ability to serve effectively in the U.S. military?

If so, please describe the nature of the condition and the extent and duration of the treatment.

What is the prognosis?

If the answer to the first question is “no,” and the prognosis is assessed as good or better, the applicant should be automatically allowed to enlist. If the answer to the first question is “yes,” but the second question identifies the issue as one which has a limited extent or duration, the applicant should be allowed to enter the system as a delayed applicant and to enter training once they have a letter where the answer to the first question is “no.”

Eliminate the Blanket Prohibition Against the Past Use of Marijuana While Continuing Drug Testing During the Recruiting Process and Beyond

Societal attitudes toward marijuana use have changed rapidly over the past decade. Today, recreational marijuana has been legalized in 21 states, Washington D.C., and Guam — which together account for more than 47 percent of Americans aged 15 to 24. This means that almost half of the target recruiting population lives in places where the drug is legal under state law, and many young people may not understand — or care — that it remains illegal under federal law. The U.S. military has long prided itself on being a relatively drug-free force, and it should remain so — but it makes little sense to automatically exclude otherwise eligible recruits because they have used marijuana in the past. Indeed, research has shown that Army recruits who received waivers for low levels of marijuana use in the past performed just as well as other soldiers. It makes far more sense to disregard low levels of past use and instead focus on continuing rigorous drug-testing regimes during the recruit application process, throughout training, and regularly across the force. Maintaining a drug-free force should begin during the recruiting process, not in adolescence.