Here’s the arithmetic: one in three potential recruits are disqualified from service because they’re overweight, one in four cannot meet minimal educational standards (a high school diploma or GED equivalent), and one in 10 have a criminal history. In plain terms, about 71 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds (the military’s target pool of potential recruits) are disqualified from the minute they enter a recruiting station: that’s 24 million out of 34 million Americans.
Then too, of the pool of remaining potential recruits, only one in eight actually want to join the military, and of that number, fully 30 percent of those who have the requisite high school diploma or GED equivalent fail to pass the Armed Forces Qualification Test (the AFQT), which is used to determine math and reading skills.
Let's be clear: young, smart, fit, law-abiding people are likely to choose careers other than the military. So who walks into recruiting stations are mostly people who don't have one or more of those characteristics and therefore have far fewer career alternatives. The article doesn't mention that a history of drug use is disqualifying, but it is.
In times past, the military experimented with a pre-basic "fat farm" camp to get fat recruits slender enough to survive basic training. I don't know how those panned out, probably not well enough.
Seems like good high school athletes who aren't talented enough or large enough to get college scholarships might be a fertile field from which to recruit. They probably are already targeted.
The military could experiment with hiring civilian employees to do a number of tasks now done by uniformed service personnel. Those who fly armed drones into battle zones half way around the world while sitting in portables in Nevada could as well be civilians. Those doing cyber warfare needn't have good eyesight or trim waists to sit at a screen all day hacking. Both of these are basically office jobs.
And finally, we might consider a Foreign Legion of "young, smart, fit, law-abiding people" from third world countries who have at home far fewer opportunities. They might well find enlisting in our military a good career choice leading, at retirement, to a pension and, if desired, U.S. citizenship. The Roman Empire found this useful in staffing its legions.
