How To Increase Military Enlistments

The U.S. military is in trouble.

Even after lowering enlistment standards, relaxing physical requirements for women, allowing homosexuals to serve openly, raising the age limit to join, expanding maternity and paternity leave, increasing childcare hours on base, updating the military promotion system, permitting women to be in combat positions, and opening up the military to transgender individuals, the military is having a recruitment problem.

Speaking recently at the City College of New York, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter lamented that military recruiting is shrinking and “more and more military personnel are coming from fewer and fewer states.”

Turns out that 40 percent of new recruits are coming from just six states, people from rural areas are twice as likely to serve as those from urban areas, most officers come from northern states while most enlisted men come from southern states, and less than 1 percent of Americans have served in the military.

“We would be missing an opportunity if we kept fishing only in the same geographic ponds we always have,” said Carter. “Instead, we need to seize that opportunity by fishing in more ponds, new ponds and ponds we haven’t been to in a long time.”

In a new effort to bring “talented people into the military,” Carter announced a series of new initiatives.

The Department of Defense will create a new “DoD Speaker’s Bureau,” comprised of senior leaders and experts from across the military, to “educate key audiences” like teachers, principals, parents, coaches, career counselors, civic groups, cultural groups, youth groups, and companies “on the value and benefits of military public service in support of our mission of national defense.”

The military will update its advertising to “reach audiences in all media, including online,” and to focus more on the value of military life and public service.

The military will update benchmarks that recruits need to meet before they can enlist—such as policies on tattoos—to better reflect modern times.

The military will make more scholarships available to students in their second and third year of college who want to join ROTC. There will also be offered more graduate school scholarships, “particularly for law school and medical school.”

Will these new initiatives help to bring more talented people into the military? Possibly. But I know a better way to increase military recruitment: use the military for defense instead of offense. To that end, here is my series of initiatives, some negative and some positive.

1. The military will stop serving as the president’s personal attack force.
2. The military will stop being a global force for evil.
3. The military will stop fighting foreign wars.
4. The military will stop making widows and orphans.
5. The military will stop drone strikes.
6. The military will stop invading other countries.
7. The military will stop providing disaster relief in other countries.
8. The military will stop occupying other countries.
9. The military will stop supplying humanitarian aid in other countries.
10. The military will stop being the world’s policeman, fireman, and social worker.
11. The military will stop intervening in other countries.
12. The military will stop fighting unjust wars.
13. The military will stop garrisoning the planet with troops.
14. The military will stop launching preemptive strikes.
15. The military will stop bombing other countries.
16. The military will stop spreading democracy at the point of a gun.
17. The military will stop fighting unnecessary wars.
18. The military will stop dismissing the killing of civilians as collateral damage.
19. The military will stop maiming and killing foreigners.
20. The military will stop fighting senseless wars.
21. The military will stop undertaking regime changes.
22. The military will stop fighting undeclared wars.
23. The military will stop unleashing sectarian violence in other countries.
24. The military will stop going where it has no business going.
25. The military will stop taking sides in civil wars.
26. The military will stop carrying out an aggressive and reckless U.S. foreign policy.
27. The military will stop maintaining a global empire.
28. The military will close all of its overseas bases.
29. The military will bring all troops home.
30. The military will defend only the United States.
31. The military will secure only U.S. borders.
32. The military will protect only U.S. soil.
33. The military will guard only U.S. shores.
34. The military will patrol only U.S. coasts.
35. The military will enforce no-fly zones only over U.S. skies.

Not only will my series of initiatives bring more talented people into the military, there are some added benefits that we can expect should these initiatives be put into practice.

Americans will be safer. Americans will be less hated. Fewer terrorists and insurgents will be created because of U.S. military interventions.

U.S. soldiers will actually be preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution. They will no longer risk dying in vain, for a lie, for a mistake, or to get their name on a wall. They will have much less of a chance of suffering a traumatic brain injury or getting PTSD. They will actually be defending our freedoms. Americans will really be able to thank them for their service.

The military budget can be drastically cut. Billions of gallons of fuel will no longer be wasted. The Department of Homeland Security can be eliminated since the Department of Defense will actually be securing the homeland.

So, which will it be: Carter’s initiatives or mine? A Department of Offense or a Department of Defense? Which option will be better for Americans and America? Which option will make America great again? I think it is obvious. Please note, however, that I am not interested in being Trump’s Secretary of Defense.

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