No. of Recommendations: 4
Military enlistment is at an all time high. Hardly. I added up the totals at this link, and got 163731. That is less than the graph I linked to shows for most of the 1990s.
FY25 Sees Best Recruiting Numbers in 15 Years war.gov - Sees best recruiting numbers in yearsI asked the net sifter for a specific number for 1995, for instance. It gave me "168,010 first-time enlistees"
In FY 2005, when our guys were being actively shot at in Bush's wars, enlistment dropped. The net sifter reports: "U.S. military enlisted over 150,000 non-prior service (NPS) recruits across all components" You remember what the Army was doing in those days. Extending tours in combat, shortening home rotations, lowering recruiting standards, to keep the pipeline full of cannon fodder.
And, in those days, a lot of enlistees were legal resident aliens, because it put them on a fast track to citizenship. The services don't do that anymore, because they're foreigners.
Steve
