By Tommy Acosta
Sedona Az — The United States military is presently experiencing an unanticipated shortage of enlistees.
From 1980 till now there has been a 58 percent decline in enlistments into the three branches: Army, Navy and Airforce.
An alarm bell is ringing as it becomes ever more difficult to fill the ranks to maintain a combat ready force to meet the current world-military challenges America is now facing.
Some reports say that the Covid pandemic, a decline in the health of potential enlistees, and drug use in the youth contribute to the decline but the real reason is young people, Generation Z members, simply don’t believe in their government, or country.
According to Wikipedia, Generation Z is the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha.
Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years and the early 2010s as ending birth years, with the generation generally being defined as people born from 1997 to 2012.
Most members of Generation Z are the children of younger Baby Boomers or Generation X.
Gen Zs see government as a mere tool of the corporations that exploit the planet and they want no part of it.
Getting killed or having to kill for what they consider exploiters, is simply not in the cards for these young people.
They have no sense of patriotism. They are spoiled. The only warfare they experience is on their computer screens while playing video games.
They are out of shape. They are overweight and addicted to processed foods. They are weaker, less disciplined and motivated than their peers in countries like China and North Korea.
For Gen Zs it’s all about them. They have no allegiance to anyone or anything other than themselves.
Covid sliced into their education, leaving many without the intellectual foundation needed for critical thinking.
The thought of experiencing the supreme sacrifice protecting their country is repugnant.
Nor are there any leaders in the U.S. that could inspire a sense of patriotism or a desire to defend their country.
And then there are the Tunnel to Tower Foundation commercials showing dismembered servicemen needing special homes built for them.
The sight of these wounded warriors missing arms and legs being used to make money for the foundation has to turn off a young person from enlisting. Who needs to be catastrophically maimed for something they don’t believe in?
Not a good optic for the recruiters, for sure.
But once again, there is no sense of patriotism or duty to your country in the Gen Z population, our military-aged youth.
They don’t believe anything the media tells them and that includes the commercials put out by the military industrial system seeking to enlist them.
They see most politicians as crooks, manipulators and thieves preying on the population.
They live in the digital world, with a cell phone never more than two feet away from them. They are highly supportive of WOKE policies and gender identification and are experts at manipulating social media for their entertainment and to their advantage.
According to Wikipedia, Gen Z youth are more likely to be diagnosed with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric disorders than older generations.
This lowers their quality as soldiers, etc. and their ability to qualify for military service.
Also noted, members of Generation Z are spending more time on electronic devices and less time reading books than before, with implications for their attention spans, vocabulary, academic performance and future economic contributions.
In Asia, educators in the 2000s and 2010s typically sought out and nourished top students; in Western Europe and the United States, the emphasis was on poor performers.
East Asian and Singaporean students consistently earned the top spots in international standardized tests in the 2010s.
This means we are being outnumbered and outclassed in the quality of enlistees when compared to our potential enemies
Then the question arises – where will the U.S. military locate the recruits they need to fill the need for a strong military?
It can be argued that today’s modern military has all these new weapons and gizmos like drones, robots, etc. Soldiers can fight from their desks using computers hooked up to the latest killing machines halfway across the globe.
But still, the bottom line in warfare are boots on the ground after the bombing is over.
To make matters worse, birth rates in the U.S. are plummeting. What happens to our military 20 years from now when our population shrinks to half of where we are today?
There will be slim pickings for sure.
Needless to say, the military is in trouble. It must do something to stay competitive the global war market.
It will need to create a larger pool of potential inductees that qualify, are healthy enough and intelligent enough to effectively serve.
This leaves the government with but one choice: initiate a draft!
Sorry Gen Z and the parents of Gen Z members. An all-volunteer military will soon be a thing of the past. The more intelligent Gen Z youth will not be able to seek refuge in colleges. Military service will no longer be a choice.
It will soon become a legal duty, if America is to survive the coming conflicts that could one day reach our shores.
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16 Comments
It’s a culmination of numerous issues. The first and foremost is that volunteer soldiers and even draftees do not enjoy being lied to about the reasons to go to war as has been done since WWII. Secondly, GI’s cannot tolerate years upon years of back to back combat deployments. It is both physically and psychologically crippling which leads to war crimes, fratricidal accidents, drug use and abuse and even murder as has been the case in the Special Operations Community all too often.
The incentives to join are dismal at best but are too often the only best alternative for most who sign up.
Then there’s the VA which medically can sometimes be better than most civilian medical care depending upon the state it is located in. The VA’s Admin side is an absolute nightmare! Veterans can expect 10-30 year delays upon disability claims to just get reviewed and likely denied numerous times in an effort to demoralize claimants and get them to give up upon what is rightfully theirs. It’s entirely up to the veteran to present proof positive that their service resulted in the disabilities being claimed and in many instances, especially where a veteran is in a unit that is continuously deployed that is a near impossible task. GI’s are not taught how to navigate the VA system and it can take years to do so.
Doesn’t help that we have a former Commander and Chief who is a privileged draft Dodger who openly and frequently attacks our Honorably serving military leaders, POW’s, MIA, KIA, disabled and disfigured veterans as well as Gold Star Families. This definitely gives pause to lower class citizens who join and are expected to fight wars for oil or petty vendettas of former CIA leadership.
We were fortunate to have Gen Z kids step up to the plate following 9-11. Unfortunately they were lied too more than once about the purpose of their mission which was based upon lies and their children will not fall for the same bullshit. The PACT ACT seemed like an earnest attempt to right some wrongs but that too like the VA’s Gulf War Syndrome and Agent Orange studies has fallen flat. It only grants compensation to veterans based at select specific locations. Anyone who has ever served on Active Duty will tell you that they were contaminated by one form of toxin or another on nearly every single military base we have ever occupied.
I served on Active Duty for 15 years. It was definitely a job that required great sacrifice with little to nothing given in return other than the satisfaction of having done a difficult job to the best of one’s ability.
Do you blame these young people?
I would have thought after the mess in Vietnam we would have leaned something? Nope just repeat same stupid mistakes and throw money around, and blood and flesh!
So we had 2 wars total 40 years, spend trillions for what? We bombed Afghanistan, a country in the stone age, what to rubble? They had nothing before we marched in, and they had the same as we left.
We spent trillions, and for the first time in history, we didnt raise taxes. Why? The GOP cant raise taxes, but they sure as hell have no problem driving our debt up!
Lets talk about Iraq. It was to make little boy 43 impress his daddy 41? What a waste of every resource we had. Did we find those WMDs? We spent more trillions. Hope you were impressed by the Shock and Awe? And what happened after Saddam was captured and then executed? The vacuum was turned on just like all the experts said would happen. Made the middle east even worse than before we started!
Young people who have no opportunities, no money, or live in their own hell have a chance to get out, and maybe make something out of themselves? No guarantees, some cash to get a education, or become a lifer and get a pension after 20+ years.
I guess maybe thats the plan to eliminate the middle class, we will have lots of young meat looking for a shot to make it out of poverty?
Hard to imagine after Vietnam, we were just as stupid, and half the real so called Patriots cheered them on! For what????????????????????????????
“They don’t believe anything the media tells them and that includes the commercials put out by the military industrial system seeking to enlist them”
That’s Gen X and prior not Gen Z. The majority of Q Anon whackado’s are Gen Xer’s. Doesn’t make them un patriotic to not want to risk their lives for less than minimum wage. I’m certain that if America was directly threatened these young people would for the most part willingly defend their country but convincing them to do so after seeing those of other generations lied to and screwed over will take real leadership and a criminal draft dodging insurrectionist is not that leadership! I didn’t serve but I didn’t dodge the draft either, I was medically rejected by military induction center doctors for having been born with one leg shorter than the other. Glad I didn’t go as I’m pretty certain I would not have returned home. But I would have willingly gone if permitted just so I could be with my friends who had to go.
Suppose they gave a war; and nobody came?
That would be grand but sadly mankind loves its wars!
Your article is a great Chinese psy-op piece, Tommy – did a bot write this, are you using AI? How can we trust that YOU really wrote this?
noun
noun: propaganda; noun: Propaganda
1.
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
“he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda”
So now that you know what propaganda is by definition care to share where Tommy used propaganda?
It’s a well known FACT that the US Military has had dismal recruitment and retention for nearly a decade now. That is FACT you can find in numerous non Alt Right accredited news sources to include military.com
GI’s don’t willingly sign up for lies and years upon years of back to back combat deployments.
“From 1980 till now there has been a 58 percent decline in enlistments into the three branches: Army, Navy and Airforce”
There are 5 branches of our Armed Forces. You forgot the Coast Guard and Space Farce (which is really the Air Force Space Command). The Coast Guard has also suffered recruiting and retention issues. Space Farce has not.
Recruitment may have been down since 1980 but when I joined in the early 80’s there was nearly a year long wait for entry and in the early 90’s they let thousands of GI’s go following Desert Storm/Shield. Numbers may have been low but only within the past decade have they have become critically low.
As I previously stated, we were incredibly fortunate that our youth stepped up and answered the call following 9/11. Unfortunately, they were lied to, over deployed and wrongfully screwed over when they developed PTSD or substance abuse issues following years of honorable combat service only to end up getting dishonorably discharged rather than medical retirement or total and permanent disability benefits. People, especially the children of these veterans know the truth and won’t fall for the lies and bullshit ever again.
Tommy, I like that you have an alternative news site. But this ramble has me concerned. In particular your line “Needless to say, the military is in trouble. It must do something to stay competitive [in] the global war market.” Not quite sure what a “war market” is, but I think that today’s young people see little value in perpetual war for the simple purpose of selling more war machinery and making profits for the military industrial complex.
We need to do better by our young people. They deserve better wages, a way to afford a home, a future that may have them consider bringing children into. With the concentration of wealth in the USA, this makes it more difficult for the next generations to see a future with optimism. I certainly hope that the “War Market” is something we stay away from and stay away from all but necessary conflicts. Life is precious.
Hi Mark. Thanks for the comment. I’m in no way supportive of the War Market. War for profit is a tragedy and an affront to humanity but a reality, nonetheless. My aim is to expose. Not provoke. Glad you feel the way you do.
Biden fired thousands for not taking the shot. What the hell do you people expect? Putting your life on the line for this guy?
His energy policies almost doubling oil prices, and begging Iran to do a nuke deal and giving them BILLIONs – remember Trump left them BROKE.- big mistake – has caused TWO major wars and left 100s of thousands dead on the battlefield.
Who is going to sign up under him when he is sacrificing humans all over the planet. NADA. And Harris – that’s really funny.
“Biden fired thousands for not taking the shot. What the hell do you people expect? Putting your life on the line for this guy?“
Yeah GeniASS that’s called FORCE PROTECTION! Same thing W’s Daddy did to GI’s who refused 20 year expired Anthrax Vaccines prior to and during Desert Shield/Storm in order to prevent unnecessary battlefield casualties and fatalities.
Name a WAR started by a Democrat POTUS since WWII.
You’ve got a nothin burger and are incredibly ill informed and ignorant of reality.
“His energy policies almost doubling oil prices, and begging Iran to do a nuke deal and giving them BILLIONs – remember Trump left them BROKE.- big mistake – has caused TWO major wars and left 100s of thousands dead on the battlefield”
You’re all over the place on this one butt let’s dissect what you falsely claim here-
Big oil is purposely funding lobbyists and actions against green energy that has proven to work because wealthy M’erican’s (especially those in the fossil fuel industry) make big money off of contaminating the entire planet as they have since before Ford’s first automobile rolling off the contaminated assembly lines that continue to contaminate the earth to this day with PSAF’s and other deadly chemicals.
Which two wars are you wrongfully claiming Biden started? I’m guessing Ukraine which actually began in 2015 when Rusher invaded Crimea under ill Douchebags watch or the current war involving Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and most likely the Orange idiots Royal Saudi orb humping journalist killing, 9/11 backing pals? Could it be that moving the US embassy, winking and nodding to his fellow criminally convicted pal Netanyahu and blessing of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands by your Draft Dodging Treasonous Insurrectionist inflamed the region into the war footing it is currently on?
You really ought to stop parroting Rusher propaganda as it hurts M’erica’s credibility in the world which is the goal of the MAGGOT movement is it not?
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
Stephen Rapp, International Prosecutor
Stephen Rapp, a victim of a violent crime as a young man, became a prosecutor, first for the US Attorney’s Office, and from 2001 to 2006 at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Transcript
I put myself always in the shoes of the victim. I was a victim of a horrible crime when I was young, and went on after that to a career as a defense attorney, and understand that no matter what the crime is, there needs to be a just process. But when I put myself in these situations and I see a Nazi camp guard killing Jewish people in the morning before breakfast, in my mind’s eye. Or I see what happened in the Rwandan genocide, with the slamming of babies against the walls of churches, you know, of families seeing their own children killed in front of their eyes, and other loved ones. And I see the brutality and the animus in the eyes of the people doing those crimes. I say, those people should answer for those crimes.
Through what’s happening in the Yugoslavia tribunal and what we did in the Rwanda tribunal, and now the Sierra Leone and through the continuing work in the future of the International Criminal Court, I think we’re creating a perception in the minds of those people that are doing these things that, “Hey, one of these days they’ll be coming for me.”
A+++ Alex! Unfortunately people wish to re-write history and make the aggressors the victims and the victims the aggressors.
In the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), one of the indictments against Serbian President Slobodan Milošević was his use of the Serbian state-run mass media to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred in Yugoslavia’s Orthodox Serbs by spreading “exaggerated and false messages of ethnically based attacks by Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats against the Serb people…”.
During the Bosnian War, Serbian newspaper Večernje novosti published a war report supposedly from Bosnia illustrated with Uroš Predić’s 1888 painting (below) presented as an actual photograph (above) of a “Serbian boy whose whole family was killed by Bosnian Muslims”. The original title of Predić’s painting is “Siroče na majčinom grobu” (Orphan at mother’s grave).[7]
Happens all day every day somewhere in the world!