In December the Defense Department said that the military was experiencing serious recruiting shortfalls:
Ashish Vazirani said that during fiscal year 2023, the military services collectively missed recruiting goals by about 41,000 recruits.
“That number understates the challenge before us as the services lowered [their] end-strength goals in recent years, in part because of the difficult recruiting environment,” he said.
“The all-volunteer force faces one of its greatest challenges since inception,” he said. It was created in 1973 after the draft ended.
The causes of the recruiting challenges “are complex and multifaceted,” Vazirani said.
The causes listed ignored the elephants in the room, but Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt didn’t forget about them during his questioning of the Secretary of the Navy this week. Watch:
The Biden Administration’s obsession with DEI and firing thousands of well trained members of our military for not taking the COVID shot has hurt recruiting.
Unbelievably, Biden’s Secretary of the Navy has no regrets. pic.twitter.com/O00bS2iQbo
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) May 16, 2024
That guy actually sounds proud of the fact so few decided to return.
The Biden Administration has shown a shocking level of disrespect to our men and women in uniform. https://t.co/m63me7PiNQ
— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) May 16, 2024
US military has a serious recruitment problem.
Senator Schmitt asked the Secretary of the Navy about the 1,878 soldiers and 3,746 marines who were fired for not taking the COVID shot.
Secretary: They were fired because they disobeyed a law. I have no regrets.
🤦🏻♀️ https://t.co/MP6JaDQhve— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 16, 2024
“Smug” doesn’t even begin to describe these people. Also, there was a mandate, but exactly what “law” did they break?
It’s not about readiness and capability to this man. It’s about ideology.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 16, 2024
WOW, I had no idea so many people were fired
— Olivia P. Walker (@olivia_p_walker) May 16, 2024
The woke are too often undeterred—even when confronted with the abject failure of their own, demonstrably harmful policies. https://t.co/vjlJHbdz1c
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 16, 2024
What sane people consider failure, they consider success.
At long last, is there not one person in the Biden Regime that has any sense of moral decency? https://t.co/g3Z5X67r9O
— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) May 17, 2024
It’s their definition of “moral decency” that’s so frightening.
Every part of the Biden administration is insane https://t.co/UWBmhSYHcK
— Reallyfedup (@moyer_eileen) May 16, 2024
Fact check: TRUE.