Breaking It Down: Military Steps up Recruitment

Breaking It Down: Military Steps up Recruitment

This article focuses mainly on the problems that the military is having today on recruiting young men and women. For the last few months, both the Army and the Marines have been down in their numbers. The military now is trying everything they can do in order to get people to join the service. The armed forces alone have spent over $4 billion dollars in advertisements to get young people to join. They do this by talking at schools, handing out free merchandise, and even give out free video games that simulate actual training. The military now is faced with such a crisis that the draft may be the only option if numbers keep staying down, but the Pentagon says there won't be one.

I chose this article because I can especially relate to it. After I am done college, I will be signing up for the military, but not sure what branch yet. When you go to the recruiter's office, they are like businessmen saying anything that you want to hear, because their job is on the line if you don't end up joining. They are everywhere, high schools, colleges, and even around town. They give out free t-shirts, pens, and video games all to lure you in to joining. Recruitment is even harder today than ever before. The military use to be the place you learned a trade, nowadays men and women are heading to college where they can get the education they need. The military is no longer stressed as an after high school alternative, but rather college now is the way to go. Also it doesn't help recruitment when the country is in a war that does not see an end in the nearby future. Moral of the country has gone down and the United States military is hurting badly because their troops now are being overworked since there are such low sign-ups.

The military now, more than ever, has a problem now with finding recruits to serve, mainly because we are at war. When other wars came about, hundreds of thousands rushed to sign up. In the American Revolution, militias were formed to fight off the oppressive British and because the colonists had wanted their independence. The Civil War was an all volunteer army; people fought because they believed in their cause, whatever it may have been. The Spanish-American War, people signed up to change their daily life on the farm to something more adventurous. They were tired of the same boring routine that they were