As Chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) is quite concerned with the subpar recruiting numbers that the U.S. Army faces today.
An Army officer and Green Beret, Rep. Waltz called the recruitment crisis “historic.”
Rep. Waltz alongside the Chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth to share their anxieties as well as request a public release of data surrounding recruiting numbers.
“Unfortunately, we continue to receive analysis of cherry-picked data that is not giving us the full picture of why the U.S. Army is seeing historically low recruitment and retention rates. That is why Rep. Banks and I are calling for transparency and the public release of the Army’s entire data set concerning military recruitment,” stated Waltz.
He would go on to mention that the time for bipartisan collaboration has never been clearer.
“Right now, it should be the shared goal of Congress, our military leaders, and the Biden Administration to get to the bottom of this crisis so we can ensure our military is ready for any threat our nation faces,” said Waltz.
Rep. Banks brought up the notion that the armed services have become too political and that wokeness has “undermined the apolitical career of the military.”
“Wokeness at the DoD has harmed recruitment, retention and morale, wasted service members’ time and taxpayer’s dollars, and undermined the apolitical character of the military which is a major threat to democracy and the American way of life,” said Banks. “I’ll ensure the Military Personnel Subcommittee prioritizes rooting out wokeness.”
According to their letter, the Army was 25% short of its recruiting goals in the 2022 fiscal year and fears it will be even worse in the next fiscal year.
