On May 5, 2022, Secretary of Army Christine Womuth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill, Washington. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin, Archives)
WASHINGTON -- The Army plans to increase its investment in marketing and is expected to expand a new plan for struggling recruits, but leaders on Monday provided little new details on how they will fill the ranks after they were far from meeting their recruitment targets this year.
Army Secretary Christine Womus told reporters that a new recruitment task force is coming up with some ideas. However, any new plan must be formulated quickly to reverse the significantly low recruitment numbers over the past year.
In the fiscal year ended September 30, the Army recruited only 75% of its target, reducing 15,000 soldiers, not reaching the target of 60,000 soldiers. It is the only service that hasn't met its recruitment goals, but all others have to dig deep into applicants for delayed admissions, which will leave them behind as they begin their next recruitment year on Saturday.
When asked if the Army could achieve its goals this year, Womus said it was too early to guess.
Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff General James McConville said a new program aimed at helping underperforming recruits meet academic and health standards showed promise. But they said there is still no decision to expand it to three other locations in the country. Womus said it will depend on the results for the next month or two.
McConville added: "We want to make sure there are enough recruits to do this...the initial result we are seeing is that this could fundamentally change the way we recruit."
In August, when visiting the program at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, McConville had said the program could be set up at three other Army training bases. Commanders suggested that they could recruit 10,000 potential recruits through these courses.
The program provides up to 90 days of academic or fitness guidance to help recruits improve to the extent that they can meet military standards.
Wolmuth and McConville spoke to reporters on the first day of the American Army Association's annual meeting.
On other issues, Wormuth said that so far she is happy with the amount of ammunition and weapon systems that the United States has taken from the Pentagon inventory and sent to Ukraine. There have always been questions about how much materials the United States can deliver without affecting the US military's combat readiness or training capabilities.
The United States has been sending hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition to Ukraine to help it strike Russia and provides thousands of weapons, from javelins and howitzers to long-range systems such as high-mobility artillery-rocket systems (HIMARS), for example, a recent set of assistance includes 75,000 rounds of bullets for howitzers. "Obviously, our supply of these systems is limited, which is why we place so much emphasis on working with industry partners in an effort to increase production lines for such systems," said
Wormuth.
