Army secretary outlines new plan to attract soldiers amid recruiting struggles

Amna Nawaz:

The Army is unveiling new plans for recruiting soldiers. The service has struggled to meet its recruiting goals, thanks to COVID, a tight job market and some highly publicized cases of sexual assault in the military.

Nick Schifrin has more on the challenges and proposed solutions.

Nick Schifrin:

The United States Army has not met its recruitment goals since 2014. For the fiscal year that just ended, the Army fell short of its 65,000 goal by 15,000.

For months, Army leadership has been studying the problem of how to staff an all-volunteer Army and, this week, unveiled their new plan.

To discuss that, we turn to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

Thank you very much. Welcome to the "NewsHour."

One of your big initiatives is to recruit college students and graduates for the enlisted ranks, rather than for officers. By 2028, you want one-third of new recruits to have more than a high school education, up from one-fifth. Why?

Christine Wormuth, Secretary of the U.S. Army: Well, frankly, it's, that's where the labor market is, Nick.

And I wouldn't say we're so much focusing on college graduates. We're looking at folks with some college. We're looking at folks who maybe have graduated from community college. There may well be college graduates who also want to join the Army, but what we have recognized through this work we have done is that only 15 to 20 percent of the labor market are just high school graduates, so we need to fish in a bigger pond.

Nick Schifrin:

Do you compete against yourself, though, when you do that, given that at least college graduates would, I assume, normally end up in the officer track, rather than the enlisted track?

Christine Wormuth:

I don't think we're really competing against ourselves.

I mean, there are folks who join the enlisted ranks with a college degree. But, again, I think, for the enlisted folks, we'd be looking at more some college, community college.

Nick Schifrin:

But do you also acknowledge you're dealing, especially with Generation Z, in a declining trust in institutions and in the military?

According to Gallup, trust in the military is at the lowest point in a half-century?

Christine Wormuth:

Yes, trust is declining. And we call it propensity. Are people wanting to join?

Nick Schifrin:

Propensity to serve for — they want to serve, right.

Christine Wormuth:

Exactly.

And, like eligibility, propensity to serve has been declining for years now, but certainly part of it, I think, is Generation Z's distrust in institutions, sort of skepticism about authority.

Nick Schifrin:

And the military itself? I mean, there's argument, especially in conservative circles, that the military is somehow acting out some kind of woke agenda.

Christine Wormuth:

Yes, well, happily, trust in the military is still very, very strong. Next to small businesses, the United States military is the most trusted institution in the country.

But that has declined. We used to be up in the 80s, and I think now we're in the sort of mid-60s. So there's work to be done there too.

Nick Schifrin:

You're also creating full-time recruiters, rather than using soldiers who take on temporary assignment as recruiters.

I know that the Marines, at the very least, have been doing this for a while. Why hasn't the Army been doing that, and what difference does that make?

Christine Wormuth:

I think the reason we weren't doing it is because, for quite a while, we were doing fine with recruiting.

And — but what we have come to recognize now is, in the last 20 years, the labor market has changed a lot. And when we looked at Fortune 500 companies, almost all of them have a permanent recruiter work force. And we have recognized, when the market is changing as much as it is, we need to have a strong specialized recruiting force that can help us be nimble and agile and able to compete against private sector companies.

Nick Schifrin:

Which, of course, is part of the challenge, competing against a shrinking job market.

Christine Wormuth:

That's right. And it's a very competitive job market.

Nick Schifrin:

I want to talk about another challenge to recruiting that recruiters themselves have been speaking to us about.

And that is recruits' perception of sexual harassment and sexual assault inside the military, especially high-profile cases, including, of course, Vanessa Guillen, who was found beaten to death by another soldier outside of Fort Hood after Guillen reported two sexual assault incidents.

Take a listen to a former Marine Corps recruiter, Joanna Sweatt, who I talked to earlier today.

Joanna Sweatt, Former Marine Corps Recruiter:

There's definitely an impact on whether women want to join the service with news that has come out in recent years related to cases like Vanessa Guillen.

The instances that are happening specifically in the United States military become so egregious, because there's all these cover-ups happening, and nobody looks like they are protecting the victim or has the victim's interest. Vanessa Guillen's family is who had to fight for her, not the United States military. The Army didn't go to bat for her.

And so this is greatly going to affect whether women are going to join the service and is affecting them, because who wants to join a job knowing that there is a high percentage for you to be physically violated?

Nick Schifrin:

What's your response to that?

Christine Wormuth:

I have heard that too, frankly. I have heard it from our female recruiters in some cases, and I have heard those concerns expressed by young Americans.

And what I would say is this. First of all, sexual harassment and sexual assault is a national problem. It is not exclusively a military problem. It's not exclusively an Army problem. So I think we need to focus on it as a society.

But, that said, a bright spotlight shines on the United States Army. And, particularly since the terrible murder of Vanessa Guillen, we have really worked hard in two areas, first of all, to do a better job of preventing those kinds of assaults in the first place.

And starting at basic training, we are talking to our new soldiers about what right looks like, about how to respect each other, to try and really make sure that we stamp out that kind of behavior. We have also tried to improve how we respond to those situations, both to make sure that we're taking care of the victim, but also to make sure that we're holding perpetrators accountable.

And one of the things we have done is, we have taken those cases outside of the chain of command, and we now have a Special Trial Counsel that handles those kinds of cases.

Nick Schifrin:

So you have certainly taken those steps, but the problem remains.

Take a look at this statistic that we have got. The Army's own survey data reveals that 64 percent of 16-to-28-year-old female prospects believe they would be sexually harassed, and 61 percent believe they will be sexually assaulted in the military. That is from a March 2023 U.S. Army recruiting command PowerPoint briefing by the Defense Advisory Committee on Women's Service, better known as DACOWITS.

The problem remains.

Christine Wormuth:

It does.

And I think we have to stepped — step up to it and talk about it. I think we have to let people know what we're doing to try to get after this problem. I think we have to highlight that our retention is historically high, which says that women who are coming into the Army, in the main, want to stay in the Army.

And I think we just have to keep getting after that.

Nick Schifrin:

And Joanna Sweatt and others advocate that these things have to happen.

You have to stick — kick predators out of the military. You have to strip them of their retirement benefits. You have to put predators in jail. Until then, the military will continue to struggle to recruit women.

Does this recruiting strategy have any attempt to counter that perception, counter that narrative?

Christine Wormuth:

I think, again, what we need to do is to arm our recruiters with the information about what we're doing to both improve our prevention of these kinds of harmful behaviors and then respond effectively to them.

Nick Schifrin:

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, thank you very much.

Christine Wormuth:

Thank you.