The U.S. Military Recruiting Crisis

Military recruitment and retention are at a critical crossroads. Almost 80% of young Americans ineligible for service without some sort of medical waiver, and new recruitment pools are beginning to shrink. This episode brings in two experts to examine the urgent need for policy reform, leadership stability, and military family support. Listen in to how they explore eligibility standards and comprehensive family support programs to assist in strengthening America’s armed forces.

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Links from the episode:
•  GNSI's "The Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons for Future Conflicts" Summit
•  Dr. Guido Rossi’s article about the military recruiting crisis 

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

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Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:12

hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of at the boundary podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. On today's show, we're going to be discussing military recruitment and retention. As retired officer who had the honor of serving in the Air Force for 30 years, it's disconcerting to realize that the organization I grew up in, the Department of Defense overall, is having difficulties finding people who want to experience what I was privileged to in serving our nation. Now, in a happy coincidence, this episode has connected me again with a former colleague, Dr Alicia Rossiter. My last Air Force assignment was as commander of the ROTC program here at the University of South Florida, we had several nursing students entering the Air Force through ROTC who went through Alicia's program, so we had shared interest in their success. She's one of our guests today. She'll be joined by our own GNSI Research Fellow, Dr Guido Rossi. His recent article regarding the military recruitment crisis caught the attention of Dr Rossiter, so it seemed unnatural to bring them on to discuss this unique threat to national security that gets a lot of attention in places like the Pentagon, but maybe not on Main Street America. I'm eager to hear what guy and Alicia have to say today, but a couple of quick notes. First, we're less than a month away from GNSI Tampa summit five, which tackles lessons the world can take away from the ongoing war in Ukraine, emerging technologies and innovative strategies such as drone employment, Information Operations, social media and Battlefield medical treatment have featured prominently and will impact how combatants around the world approach future conflict. How can we expect these lessons to be applied, and how should US national policy address these changes? There's no cost to attend, but registration is required and the seats are filling up. You can check out the full agenda and list the speakers on our website. We'll drop a link in the show notes as well. We also published two new genocide decision briefs last week. The first tackles questions involved with Congress designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. That's been a hotly debated topic in the first weeks of the Trump administration. The second decision brief is titled, keeping allies in the fight Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. We'll drop links to both of these decision briefs in the show notes. Okay, well, let's get going with our guest, Dr guy Rossi is a research fellow here at GNSI who recently wrote an article for real clear defense that made some revelations about the recruitment crisis currently plaguing all branches of the US military. One of the most surprising notes in guy's article is the fact that 77% of young Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 do not meet the minimum qualifications for military service without a waiver of some sort. Dr Alicia Rossiter is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who's now the Chief Officer of Military and Veteran Affairs College of Nursing at USF Health, she's done inspirational research on a related topic, how military recruitment and retention is impacted by community care for and resiliency of military families. And as I mentioned, she's a former colleague. I've enjoyed reconnecting with guys in the studio with us. Thanks for being

Dr. Guido Rossi: 3:41

here. Thank you for having me all right. And

Jim Cardoso: 3:45

Alicia, you're joining us virtually getting over the flu last week. Welcome to the program.

Dr. Alicia Rossiter: 3:50

Thank you so much for having me as well. Okay,

Jim Cardoso: 3:53

so we'll start in studio with you. Guy, your recent article in real clear defense was entitled restoring military leadership to address the recruiting crisis. I know this is your line of research, but what inspired you to publish this article?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 4:08

Well, I have to admit that it stems a little bit from personal experience, because I personally wanted to join the US military, the US Army, specifically, for many years, and I did try. As soon as I was out of high school, I called the US Consulate in Italy and inquired about that, and that's when I learned that you need a green card to join. And that sort of clashed against these ideas that I had, also from media and from just general knowledge about the US military as being open to anybody and everybody, all immigrants. Well, it turned out it wasn't true. You need a green card. Well, so how do you get a green card? Turns out it's not that easy. You have to go to the United States. And either, I mean, you can marry and, you know, get a green card that way, or through. A work sponsor, but to get a job in the United States, then you have to get a work visa. And to get a work visa, you have to have good qualifications, so namely, maybe US education. So that's partially why I wanted to pursue a US education in the first place. But flash forward to 10 years later, I'm still in search of that green card, which I haven't been able to attain yet, just yet. And now I'm turning 34 and so I'm almost not eligible for the US military anyway, but, but all these 10 years, I wondered why, why was why was I not eligible for the US military, being a reasonably healthy person willing to serve with with the you know, the good of the United States at heart. And it didn't make much sense to me, and it didn't make much sense to all the recruiters that I ever spoke to who always tried to find loopholes to get me in, but simply couldn't, because of US law and and these was particularly senseless, senseless in the light of, you know, the recruiting challenges that the US military has been experiencing for the past

Jim Cardoso: 6:16

few years. Yeah, no. I mean, that's a great story, and you're right. I mean, the way you tie it at the end you say, I mean, there's look, there's US law, and there's probably reasons for the US law, but at the same time, there's this ongoing recruiting crisis that's happening. So juxtaposed together, it seems that maybe it's again, the old, the old, something should be done. I'm not sure what it is, but something should be done. And your article then highlights some some other areas as well, and some solutions that could be could be done along those lines.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 6:44

Can I one thing real quickly? Also, as a trained historian, I also tended to look at the past and past conflicts for the United States and what it did during those conflicts, namely War Two, when it did enlist a huge number of non citizens, and it handsomely won that conflict, just like other conflicts. And so the present day limitations for non citizens to serve, they make even less sense in the light of us best history. Well,

Jim Cardoso: 7:18

I will say that the US Army's loss is GNSI gain. I'm it's, I'm glad to have you here as one of our research fellows. We look forward to, I mean, look for discussing research, but I also look forward to seeing other research that you're going to do. Thank you in the I'm glad to be here in the time at, yes, this is not a bad place to be so and you can, you can contribute in different ways. So look forward to seeing that you discussed some of the numbers pointing to a worsening recruiting crisis, including how you know the indications of an upturn in 2024 weren't exactly, not exactly accurate. Why did these figures from 2022 to 2024 concern you? And why should they concern the US?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 7:58

So some people even dispute the existence of a recruiting crisis, pointing at the fact that the goals were met and slightly surpassed in 2024 but these goals that were set for 2022 and 2023 so the two preceding fiscal years from 2024 were not met and actually by a Long Shot, despite having been even reduced from the original goals. And it's not just that fact, but the fact that the gains derived from specific maneuvers, some specific choices made by the services to try to get as many people in as possible by issuing waivers or by or through the preparatory courses. The preparatory courses so the Future Soldier, preparatory course was established by the army in 2022 and a future sailor preparatory course was established by the Navy the following year based upon the success, quote, unquote, of the Army's preparatory course. And these courses try to bring up the standards those applicants who can quite meet the enlistment requirements, either in terms of physical requirements or academic requirements. They basically, you know, bring them under their own wings and train them for a set number of weeks. I don't remember exactly where, how long, I'm sorry, and they bring them up to standards, and then they retest them and they are supposed to qualify. And then they bring them in. But of course, these costs money and facilities for Yemen, specifically, the the less space available forced some recruits from 2023 to be postponed to 2024 because they didn't have the space available to actually train them. Them. So this is a series of of short term solutions that, first of all, cost money, and second of all are I see them as short term solutions, because, in the face of declining standards, educational physical health worsen, criminal records, these solutions tend to rescue basically these applicants, right? But unless you expand the the tolerance level at one point, the decline will be so wide that it it won't be possible to rescue them and ask you anymore and so and on top of that, like I mentioned, it costs money and actually increasing, increasing expenditure for recruiting, recruiting programs. It's another issue, maybe even the biggest issue, because, for instance, recruiting. I have here quick data on the on the call increasing cost of recruiting in 2024 it was more than twice the amount of 2001 which was 278 point 8 million. And at this rate, the defense, if the defense budget remains unvaried by 2039 recruiting will consume all, the entirety of the defense budget. Jeez. Okay, so it's not, it's not a sustainable solution, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 11:31

just paying for it is not a sustainable solution, right? Yeah. I mean, you have to find, yeah. I'm not an expert, and you know, you've done the research, and I experienced it when I ran the ROTC program here at University of South Florida. That's the first time I met Alicia as well. And as we were bringing students on the one area that I saw that was an a source of frustration was in the medical and we we applied for so many medical waivers, and some were granted and some weren't. And one frustration was, of course, some that weren't granted for students I had that were just extraordinarily healthy. And one of them, I know, he wasn't granted a waiver. He went on to be a professional bodybuilder. I mean, he's a very healthy young man. I mean, the Air Force, and he was a good Cadet as well. But also, I was struck by the fact that we're doing so many waivers? Why? Why can't we re look at what the medical standards are to begin with? I'm not saying Open up, you know, Pandora's box, but let's look strategically and maybe some of these things. Maybe the fact that you had a rash as a child doesn't mean you have lifelong eczema and you can't serve your nation. That's some of the things we were we were encountering. So

Dr. Guido Rossi: 12:41

as a matter of fact, they have done that with the and that's good. Yeah, it's good with the shift from the Military Health System Genesis, which originally basically was a computerized, very universal, very comprehensive way to check the health records of all the all the applicants, instead of having them self report, because through self reporting, you know, applicants could, could gloss over certain issues that they had had, or they were also, could also be coached by the recruiters to to not address some issues. But these Military Health System Genesis had the opposite problem that it reported asthma that they might have had at seven years old. Yeah, that didn't affect them anymore and so and so. That created the need for a lot of waivers and a lot of backlog, and

Jim Cardoso: 13:35

that slowed things down tremendously. Yeah, the amount of work that they were doing to try to clear these waivers was just astronomical.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 13:41

Recently, they adopted a new system called medical accession record pilot that that acknowledges whether these conditions should be disqualified for service or not, and also how many, how much time has passed ever since they experienced some conditions could, that could be disqualifying. And also the list of conditions that are not considered, considered disqualifying for service has been reduced from, I think, from 54 to 31 so some like, I think childhood asthma has been has been taken off, yep. And also ADHD as well. Okay. And so some, you know, could be debatable. Maybe some, not

Jim Cardoso: 14:30

just the fact that they're, I mean, just the fact they opened it up, some, I mean, the overall point is that, you know, there's so many waivers, and you talk about, what is it? One in six or getting waivers? I think so maybe we need to look at the waiver process and do these things really require waivers? Maybe re look at what really is disqualifying, and some things don't need to be disqualifying, but potentially, and that would open up the pool and and smooth the road. It as well. So there's not the waiver process. It just it eats up a lot of time as well. Sure,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 15:06

the figure that you pointed at the one out of six, that was especially in 2022 when they were really trying to to win that recruiting challenge. But of course, the problem is, well, first of all is that these waivers are any way. They're on the rise because of declining health, yeah, and as long as these conditions are again, they shouldn't be disqualifying for service. I'm told in agreement that they should be overlooked, and these people should be accepted for service, but they're some sort of standard, some sort of limits to that should also be kept in mind. And we can't continue to expand the list, or rather reducing the list of disqualifying conditions and and, or maybe even for multiple conditions that shouldn't be disqualifying. How many conditions, disqualifying conditions can we tolerate in one single applicant, you know, yeah, yeah. I mean, if it's got asthma, okay, if you've got ADHD, Okay, what about

Jim Cardoso: 16:09

as multiple ADHD, yeah, you have to take into account, yeah, I agree with you there.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 16:13

And the and the problem is also that many of these waivers are not just for medical conditions, are also so called Moral waivers, so for criminal offenses, essentially, some of them drug use of drugs or other felonies, and I'm not sure if misdemeanors. I've never quite understood the difference between misdemeanors and felonies, but

Jim Cardoso: 16:35

still, pack a gum and you can't join the military. You know? Who knows? But let me, I'll tell you what you have one other aspect you explore. But let me, and that's with a certain you know, personnel and senior leadership moves that you see required in Department of Defense. But let me go and turn to Alicia for a little bit. Let me pull her in. You know, your research, Alicia focuses more on quality of life for military families and and I guess, the lack of understanding of the modern stressors they encounter and its impact, subsequently on recruiting and retention. Now you know, I'll say that military lifestyle has always had its unique stressors. I knew that you knew that from personal experience, what do you see as change in the current environment that's increased that thank you for having

Dr. Alicia Rossiter: 17:18

me today. Colonel Cardo said it's great to reconnect with you and to finally meet Dr Rossi. And as you had mentioned earlier in the segment, Dr Rossi's article really caught my interest because I am a family and pediatric nurse practitioner and live in the Tampa Bay area, which is right outside of MacDill Air Force Base, and had worked with military connected children in the civilian to my civilian job with the Hillsborough County School District, as well as caring for children out of McDill Air Force Base. And I read the 2010 the initial report called mission readiness, and it's what was the report done by 100 retired generals and admirals who were looking at recruitment issues. And the report was actually titled too fat to fight, and it really sounded the alarm on recruitment issues facing the Department of Defense, and leaked those issues potentially to a national security threat. And at that time, 75% of individuals between the ages of 17 and 24 were unable to join the military, primarily because of obesity, health comorbidity secondary to obesity, and like Dr Rossi mentioned, incarceration, drugs, alcohol and a couple other issues. Fast forward to 2023 that number is now increased to 77% of kids being unable to join the military for those same reasons, hence why we're having to issue a lot of waivers for these individuals to join the military. And as you mentioned, my work primarily now is with military families, specifically the impact of parental military service on military connected kids. And when I read his article, what really made me start thinking is historically, our military families have significantly helped in filling those recruitment gaps and helped me, yeah, helped and helped mitigate that recruitment crisis, and they've done this through a legacy of multi generational Military Family Service. When you look at new recruits today, enlisted recruits, 25% of new recruits have a parent or parent who is currently or has served in the military, and upwards to 80% have had a family member who was served, whether it be a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin. So there is a huge connection for our military. Us going into the military. And when we think about that, it becomes really important, because while the focus of military resilience research has been primarily on the service member, it's really critically important that we expand that focus to include the entire military family. We need to really focus on military family health and resilience and risk that these military family members are facing, because these are the key factors to not only today's mission readiness for that service member, but also recruitment for tomorrow's volunteer professional armed services. And like I said, as I mentioned, you know, we don't want to disenfranchise our military families, because this will lead to less and less going into the military. The number one predictor of a service member remaining on active duty is the satisfaction of the out at home spouse, and we know a large percentage of those at home, spouses are women. There are men. But you know, we have to take into account things like spousal employment or lack of spousal employment, which, with every move of a service member, that military spouse typically has to try and find a new job. That job may be for one to three years, depending on how long that relocation cycle is, and it often places them at a disadvantage for employment. So looking at, like I said, spousal employment, and when we think about a single income family because a military spouse is unable to be employed. We are also those military families are also facing housing and food insecurity, and this directly impacts not only the service member and the spouse, but their children. And once again, when that spouse thinks about the needs of her his or her family, they also incorporate the needs of their children. And we, you know, specifically looking at health care and academic academic continuity. Once again, you know, from birth to, you know, adolescents, we're looking at a need for continuity of care from health perspective, making sure that these you know, milestones are being made met, immunizations are received, basic primary health care, anticipatory guidance, all of that stuff. And if we are, you know, not having, you know, if there's a lack in that continuity of care, you know, this puts that child's health and welfare at risk. So, like I said, critically important that we, you know, focus not only on the service member and, you know, recruitment and retention, but how are we going to support the families so that they, you know, remain a healthy, vibrant part of that decision to stay in the military. And should a child down the road decide when they, you know, hit that 18 years of age that they want to join the military, that they've had a positive, healthy experience watching their their parents serve, and being part of that, that military family. So

Jim Cardoso: 23:25

from I know, from a healthcare perspective, the military tends to focus on the health of the member, the military member. So that way, you can have a healthy fighting force for the nation's conflicts you're but what you're saying is that it's just, it's just as important, at least highly important, to focus on the health care and the just the well being of the family, not because it's the right thing to do, which, of course, it is, but as a recruiting and retention tool as well, which can help solve A larger crisis. Do you make sure I'm characterizing that, that A and B? Do you see kind of a cognizance of this in the military, that this is, this is important in that way.

Dr. Alicia Rossiter: 24:11

I think in the military, we see that, I know, over the last several years, there's been some shifts in our military families now receiving care out in the civilian sector, the DHA has shifted some of the health care from the MTFs into the civilian sector. Same thing we're seeing. The same thing with our veteran population. Many of them are seeking care in the community setting. However, once again, my line of research and work has also been focused on educating healthcare providers to meet the unique healthcare needs of our service members, veterans and military family members who are seeking care in the civilian sector. We've opened up all these opportunities for the them to be seen out by civilian providers. However, what we're finding is most of them do not understand. And the unique healthcare needs of service members, veterans and families, they don't have the cultural competence to provide culturally competent care, and oftentimes, when these individuals are seeking care in the civilian sector, they often kind of go unnoticed. No one asked the question, have you ever served or do you have a spouse or a parent who is serving in the military, just simply asking those questions can really help a healthcare provider guide that military family members care and address those much larger military connected, health related issues. But do you

Jim Cardoso: 25:40

think a healthcare provider? I'm sorry, but I'm just, it just popped into my head. Do you think a healthcare provider, even knowing that members background and look, we live in in Tampa, MacDill Air Force Base is here, so there's a as a healthy military population. Do you think that healthcare provider, knowing that would be able to then do something about it, like modulate their care mode, you know, adjust their approach. I mean, what you know, can they do the things that would help them better relate to the continued building of resilience in our in our military families?

Dr. Alicia Rossiter: 26:14

I 100% agree that having that veteran centric healthcare, education and knowledge does really improve health outcomes in our not only our service member care, but also in the care that we're giving or providing for our military families. For example, when you think about someone who comes in for a knee injury, and we treat them very differently if they are, you know, potentially in the civilian sector, behind, sitting behind a desk all day, versus, let's consider the infantry soldier that has PT every morning at 5am has to carry a rucksack that's anywhere between, you know what, 50 and 70 or more pounds. And may you know and has to carry that, you know, that rucksack? It's a very different knowing that I would treat that patient very differently than I would someone in the civilian sector. When I would see my kids and the clinic, and they would come in and complain of things like, I can't sleep. I'm having anxiety sometimes, just asking that probing question, you know, what's going on with you? You know? And I always ask, you know, especially in my schools, where I knew I had a significant number of military families. By any chance, do you have a parent who's in the military? And they would say, yes, my dad or my mom's deployed. They've been in Afghanistan for six months. Well, I would, you know, once again, treat that child very differently than I would somebody who is coming in for other types of anxiety related disorders. And once and once again, how you chart things in a patient's chart when that child becomes, you know, 18 years of age and decides they want to go into the military, those records are pulled. So knowing how to navigate some of these healthcare issues and the context in which those healthcare issues present is extremely helpful in caring for our military families.

Jim Cardoso: 28:23

Is there a way of educating healthcare professionals so they so they can do that better? Look, I know when we were, when I was the RTC commander, and you know, we had these cadets that were looking at waivers. We We usually told them to get more than one opinion, especially when the first opinion didn't jive with what they were looking looking to do. And they could usually, and they'd usually talk to their peers who've had success, and their peer could say, well, you know, hey, I went to Dr Schmidt lab. And yeah, Dr Schmidt lab seems to understand the the process. And so they can diagnose, and they can, you know, look at the types of treatment necessary that'll make you more competitive for that waiver. So some would know and some wouldn't. How do we educate more of them so they at least understand what the needs of the service are and at least factor that into their care?

Dr. Alicia Rossiter: 29:16

I think if anything, 20 years of war has really opened up the eyes of the healthcare profession, looking at like from the medical side, oftentimes, our interns and residents, medical students, interns and residents, all do rotations through the VA once again, working with veterans, learning how to provide that culturally competent care to our service members and veterans. Many Colleges of Nursing around the country have started programs under the University of Colorado has a master's and a doctoral program focused on veteran health care. Our own College of Nursing here at USF, we have a course introduction. The military and veteran health that is open to not only our nursing students, but to all students across campus. And it's really focused on military cultural competence. We talk about what does it mean to be a service member? What does it mean to be a veteran? We talk about the different branches of the service and their unique missions and visions. And then we go into the military family. We talk about women veterans. We talk about physical wounds of war, psychological wounds of war and military sexual trauma. And every student, and I've had probably close to 1500 nursing students over the past 10 years that have taken this course, and each one of them has said it has really expanded, not only how they're going to sometimes they don't even know their patients or veterans because they never even thought to ask the question, but it also gives them a foundation on how to answer that question, how to comfortably answer that question, and if they don't know exactly how to provide that care, at least they know what resources are available within the military community, the VA community, and within the veteran service organizations you know, not only within The Tampa Bay area, but around the country, so more and more universities are offering courses. I just spoke to someone in the Dallas area that in his public court public health program, they now have a veteran health course specialty. So you know, we're seeing a lot of these programs and courses pop up across the country in the different healthcare disciplines. Well,

Jim Cardoso: 31:46

that's and that's good, you know. And so you'll probably see the impacts of that. And maybe that's one of those things that you started, you know, you're you, you work on the apples on the tree, you know, instead of the ones that fell to the ground. And as these nurse, these students graduate and go out into the healthcare, their healthcare professions that'll continue to spread that more and more. So there's a better sense of some of the unique needs of the military professional, the veteran and the military family as well. We spent a lot of time talking about the health side of it, and that's important a question about that before we were sort of starting to wrap up here. So before we do, I do want to turn to some of the the personnel side. And guy, a big part of your article was the the emphasis on the criticality of the under secretary Defense for Personnel and readiness. Which will you know, O, USD, PNR, I know it's a lot of letters there, but just, I don't want to say Under Secretary of readiness and person personnel, personnel and readiness. See, I can't even say it more than twice without screwing it up, but you talk about them as a key part of solving the recruiting crisis, this is a position most Americans, and I would say even a lot of people in the Department of Defense are not that familiar with what's so critical about USD, PNR, well,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 32:55

it's, it's, it's really hard to summarize it, but essentially they oversee the entire human aspect of the US military, all the branches, all the reserve components and their families, as well their health care. They set the, you know, personal policy recruiting, even the legislation that, or rather, they set the enlistment requirements, what's what's tolerated, what's accepted, what's not accepted, like I said, welfare, so all of that, basically. And so they are also responsible for coordinating the recruiting efforts, where to focus these recruiting efforts. And essentially they are also the ones that should be responsible for addressing the recruiting crisis. But one, one problem that I see, it's that ever since 2006 there hasn't really been a lengthy tenure of an actual under secretary, because ever since 20, 2016 there has been several under secretaries, but they have all, have all been acting so they are not there are civilian civil servants who are not responsible for the policy. They only enact whatever the Secretary the executive, the secret through the Secretary of Defense requires them to do. They don't really have a responsibility for if the recruiting effort in this case is going and so all the policies that have been either pursued or not pursued, they haven't really impacted on, on, on their job, and they haven't really been evaluated on their performance, and so they have either just critically applied whatever the executive have told them to do, and they have not revised other, and because they don't have the the authority to revise

Jim Cardoso: 34:56

other, nor the responsibility right, ultimately.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 35:00

Definitely, ultimately, yeah, so, so, for instance, they, they haven't taken a firm stance on some things that would really, I think, benefit the the recruiting effort, for instance, clarifying what is the social media policy for all the branches. And so the branches really are acting in a sort of unknown, and they're not sure what, what they can how they can use social media to to boost their recruiting effort. And so the army is doing it one way, but it's really and they don't really want to put too much emphasis on on that they want, you know, they want to err on the safe side rather than the risky side and the other branches are not doing the same thing. So because there, there's a there is a lack of one single directive that applies to all the branches in terms of social media, for instance, yeah. And then other legislation that has proven, I think, harmful for recruiting purposes, such as that relating to non citizens who are also non permanent residents but have skills that would be very, very useful, vital, I would say for the military that very restrictive policy has not been changed, Even though it's, it's, it's harmed the recruiting effort, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 36:23

so you're, I mean, so your recommendation would be, if you know President Trump were to call you today, your big recommendation be, hire a not enacting but get a, no kidding, Under Secretary Defense for Personnel and readiness, nominated, vetted, confirmed by the Senate and in place so that they have both the authority and the sense of responsibility to do some of that, and they can provide that broad umbrella guidance for the services to move out in a standard, somewhat standardized manner, yeah,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 36:54

and at least Yeah, taking control of the ship for some time for provide firm and clear leadership to the branches, at least in terms of recruiting effort. But since we're also talk talking to Dr Rossiter, why not talking also about how to improve welfare for the families, healthcare for the families as well. So yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 37:19

and not so much the ship, but, I mean, I guess the fleet. So, you know, the Army is going to be the Navy, and they're going to, they have to have a level of independence, but at the same time their name is, you know, an overall guidance and an understanding of where we're trying to go as a Department of Defense. So we'll see. We have a new administration. We have a new secretary defense. I guess we'll see if that that makes any difference in the days ahead. So whereas we're we're wrapping up kind of coming to the end of our time, I want to go ahead and give the mic to each of you one last time, just for any final thoughts. Guy, well, I mean, if you've said all, you've have to, you have to say, that's fine. But if you have anything that you want to, you want to discuss briefly before we we head out. Now's your time?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 38:04

Well, there's a I think there's lots to say. Maybe we'll need to do a future second part to this episode. But one thing is that I wouldn't if, if I were a person of authority in the DoD or in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense personnel and reddens, I wouldn't, you know, just a little myself in a sense of tranquility, based off of the results of the fiscal year 2024, which were, you know, they were okay. They were boasted as being exceptionally good. But the reality is, they were satisfactory, which is not excellent, and the 2025, goals are challenging. I would keep in mind that you know these trends that we have underlined, the declining education, the worsening criminal records, the declining health of young Americans are much like also just simply the shrinking pool of the demographic, because the US society is aging, and you know, this is only continuing to get worse. These are not easily reversible trends. They're not completely irreversible. But the you know, how do you improve the education of Americans? How do you improve their health? How do you, you know, prevent or reduce crime among young Americans. These are enormous questions, bigger issues, way bigger questions, right? And so and the aging of the US population, it's, I don't know if it's reversible at all. So all these little solutions that we've been toying with, prep courses, issuing waivers, trying to be more discerning about what is qualifying or disqualifying. They are short term solutions. Yeah, that that will only work for so long, and that meanwhile, they're costing money, which also, as we've seen, it's not a it's not very sustainable in the long term. So the only way to. Counteract all these it's either we reassess what the goals and worldwide commitments of the US military are, and we reduce them so that they require less manpower. And so we're we're not going to need as many people as we need. Or if we want to maintain those goals and those worldwide commitments, then we have to think about sustainable strategies, and that are not short term solutions, long, long term solutions. So how to expand the pool, the demographic pool, that we're recruiting from? And so

Jim Cardoso: 40:35

well? So there's no question. I mean, so we'll, we'll, we'll probably come back this, this, this topic in the future sounds good for now. We'll, we'll, we'll link your will definitely link your article in the show notes as well, so that way people can look at that and people get to know you as well. And I'm sure you'll be doing further research, which will get published in the future. Is one I look forward to seeing that. Alicia, over to you any final thoughts on on what we've been talking today as we get ready to exit the podcast.

Dr. Alicia Rossiter: 41:01

So sure, I think, you know, I know the overarching focus of this was recruitment, but I think when we think about recruitment, retention and recruitment are in are interconnected. The more we service members that we reach, we we retain, the less we have to recruit. And this is really important, going back to the earlier conversation about the Department of Defense budget, we spend anywhere from hundreds of$1,000 to millions of dollars educating and training our service members. That's really dependent on whatever their AFSC or MOS is, but we spend a lot of money. A lot of the Department of Defense budget is focused on training of our soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and guardians. And when you think about this, it's critically important, because, as I mentioned earlier, the number one predictor of someone staying in the military is the satisfaction of the at home spouse. So I think we need to really start to focus more on the military family, especially when you think that 50% of those who served and the active duty reserve and National Guard are married, and approximately 40% have children. We have got to take a more holistic, comprehensive view of the military family. We can no longer silo them and, you know, address each member of the family's needs separately. We really need to look at those wraparound services and supports to be able to address the needs of the entire military family. You know, as it pertains to supports during deployment and relocation cycles, spousal employment, you know, school accessibility for our military connected children and collectively, health care access and continuity for the entire military family.

Jim Cardoso: 42:45

Yeah, you know, I look forward to seeing if in the future, you know, you know, there's discussion about the recruiting crisis, and I like how you link recruiting and retention. I do look forward to see if we see any mind, you know, adjustments in how we some of the services and capability provide the military families, and see if that, see if some of the things you're talking about right now do you start to seep into the Department of Defense's policies to address, to then acknowledge and then address the recruiting crisis. We'll see. We'll see if they're listening, and we'll see if these, if these things start to come around, and recruiting starts to go up so but just want to say first in the studio, Dr Guido Rossi from GNSI Research Fellow, thanks for joining us today. It was a pleasure. Thank you and Alicia, thank you as well for joining us from the USF College of Nursing. Great to hear from you again. Great to link back up with you again. Look forward to talking more with you in the future. Thank you very much. I want to thank doctors, Guido Rossi and Alicia rostor for joining us on this episode of at the boundary their spotlight on military recruitment and retention and the threat it poses to national security is a stark warning to our civilian and military leaders. Been a pleasure having them both here today, next week on at the boundary, we'll have on the show retired Marine Corps Colonel Seth Folsom, his 28 year career in the Corps led him to Iraq and Afghanistan during some of the most tumultuous years in those countries. He's the author of a new book published this month by the US Naval Institute. Press called nothing here worth dying for, Task Force lion in Iraq, our Executive Director here at GNSI, retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, is a fan of the book and commented on it. His articulate and insightful book adds to the considerable literature about Marines and small unit actions. This is a book all Marines should read. Folsom will be our guest next week on at the boundary. Be sure to join us. Thanks for listening today. If you like the podcast, please share with your colleagues and network. You can follow GNSI on our LinkedIn X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI And check out our website as well@usf.edu, Slash GNSI, where you can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we've found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary.