Seven out of 10 young people, aged between 17 and 24, are not fit enough to join the army, according to the U.S. Army, which identifies health problems, low education levels and criminal histories as the major reasons behind the alarming reduction of prospective soldiers.
In a more disturbing revelation, officials expect the number of young Americans eligible to join the Army to shrink down to two in 10 by 2020, Major General Allen Batschelet, commanding general for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky., told The Florida Times-Union on Monday.
"There's a reliance on an ever-smaller group of people to serve and defend the country," said Batschelet. "What do we do about that and how do we address that concern? That's the big national security question that I'm struggling with today."
"We're seeing an increasing trend with schools shutting us out from access or making access pretty restricted," Batschelet continued. "Then the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test) test itself, schools are either choosing to not administer the ASVAB or withholding results from recruiters."
"There are unintended consequences there, because we think that is indirectly sending the signal that service to country in the military is not an honorable profession or something to which you should aspire."
In order to deal with and improve the current shrinking pool of quality soldiers, the Army is planning to redefine the 21st century soldier "in a more precise way," according to Batschelet. For example, every recruit enlisting for the Army is currently required to pass the same physical requirements. This may change in the future, Newsweek reported.
For "cyber warriors," Batschelet said, being able to do "100 pushups, 100 sit-ups and run the 2-mile inside of 10 minutes" isn't as important as being able to "crack a data system of an enemy."
As long as "you're physically fit, you're a healthy person and maintain your professional appearance," Batschelet told the Times-Union, "we [won't] make you have the same physical standards as someone who's in the Ranger Battalion," a group of elite soldiers within the U.S. Army.
In addition, the decreasing number of potential Army recruits have also been exacerbated by the Army's increasing reliance on soldiers with specialized backgrounds and skills.
"We're looking for those men and women who excel in science, technology, engineering and math," Lieutenant Colonel Sharlene Pigg, head of the Jacksonville, Florida-based 2nd Recruiting Brigade, told the Times-Union.
The past 30 years have also seen obesity, a main concern for the Army, quadruple among adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Meanwhile, a surge during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had led to over 561,000 soldiers in the active-duty Army in 2011.
"Today, the Army is at about 500,000 troops," Batschelet said. "Given the current guidance that we're getting from Congress, the chief of staff of the Army's plan is that he has to take the Army down to about 450,000."
"We know that about 79 percent of our recruits report that they had a family member who served or was currently serving," Batschelet said. "That's a little troubling to us because we want to broaden those opportunities and get other young Americans to join."
Whichever way the Army decides to move forward, the focal problem remains that the service is facing a shortage of eligible soldiers unlike what it has faced since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973.
"Societally, the bottom line is that the Army had a demand-based model under the all-volunteer force for the last 40 years," Batschelet said. "We didn't have to worry too much about it because supply was adequate to demand."
"It just doesn't look like that is going to be the case going forward," he concluded.
