Democracy in America
Selling America: The Army’s fight to find recruits in an angry, divided nation

Recruiters are contending with a confounding array of political, social and economic crises that have made it harder than ever to find citizens willing to serve

By Greg Jaffe and Missy Ryan
August 30, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

TOMS RIVER, N.J. — Sgt. 1st Class Dane Beaston had endured the stress, frustration and disappointment of one of the worst recruiting slumps in the half-century history of the U.S. military’s all-volunteer force. ... Now he was trying to do his part to end it. It was early June and his central New Jersey recruiting station was on the hook to find seven recruits who were willing to join the Army — the station’s highest monthly quota of the year. Beaston scanned a color-coded list of about 30 prospects on the station’s radar.

“That’s not nearly enough,” the 31-year-old sergeant told his recruiters as the month began. ... If Beaston and his team didn’t deliver, he knew his Army career was in jeopardy. “You can do all the work 100 percent of the time,” he said. “But if you don’t find the right person, you’re out of luck.”

The unrelenting pressure Beaston and his six-person team were feeling reflected the high stakes for the military and the country. Each of the services — except for the Marine Corps — missed its 2023 recruiting goal. The Army, which had come up short two years in a row, was aiming to bring in 55,000 recruits in 2024 — about 10,000 fewer than last year’s missed goal. The new target wasn’t determined by the threats facing the country, the amount of money that Congress was willing to spend or the number of tanks and helicopters the Pentagon could field.

Rather it was a reflection of how many people senior Army officials believed the service could find. Beaston and his team had put nearly 40 people in the Army since the beginning of the fiscal year in October — a solid start. But he knew how hard it was to find qualified and willing candidates in today’s America. ... Across the country, recruiters were struggling to find soldiers among a shrinking pool of qualified young people. Only about 23 percent of all Americans between the ages of 17-24 meet the Army’s physical, moral and educational standards.

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Beaston waits for the next visitor after giving a tour of a Humvee to a woman and child at the Ocean County Fair in Bayville. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

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By Greg Jaffe
Greg Jaffe is a national reporter with The Washington Post; he has spent more than a decade covering the military. He’s the co-author of “The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army.” Twitter

By Missy Ryan
Missy Ryan writes about national security and defense for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2014 and has written about the Pentagon and the State Department. She has reported from Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.