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WASHINGTON (AP) – It will take time to overcome the recruiting difficulties that led the US military to not achieve its goal of enlistment this year, but plans to strengthen the recruitment and re – employment of the US Army. Other changes will allow the service to recruit the recruits it needs in 2019, top army leaders said Monday.
General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army, said the recruitment shortfall was "certainly an alarm signal", while the Pentagon's employs to bring the number of soldiers to 500,000 by 2024.
"We acknowledge and acknowledge that we have not achieved (the goal) for" 18, "Milley told reporters at an army conference. "We are making some changes to our recruitment strategy, our marketing strategy, and we are also increasing the number of recruiters."
For the first time since 2005, the Army has missed its recruitment target this year, nearly 6,500 soldiers, despite 200 million additional bonus dollars and approval of additional waivers for misbehavior or health problems.
The Army recruited approximately 70,000 new recruits on active duty during the fiscal year ended September 30, well below the required 76,500. The Army National Guard and the Army Reserve were also far from reaching their goals, with more than 12,000 and 5,000 respectively.
Army Secretary Mark Esper said the service was moving recruiters to an additional 20 cities and modernizing window shop stations to attract recruits.
"I think we can and we will do a lot better," he said. "It will take time to reposition ourselves."
According to the military, there are currently about 9,600 recruiters, and it is expected to bring that number to about 10,250 by the summer of next year.
Only about 30% of 17- to 24-year-olds meet the physical, mental, and moral requirements of the military, and only one in eight are interested in serving.
Milley said the army could have reached the recruiting goal this year but focus on hiring top-quality recruits, rather than recruiting inferior youth solely to make numbers. .
He presented an ambitious plan to recruit enough soldiers in the coming years to ensure that key operational units are effectively staffed by more than their numbers. In this way, he said, the military will always have the soldiers they need when some are injured or sick and can not deploy or are fired for several months.
He added that efforts to improve the army's ability to enter the war are slowly taking place, with the service recovering from 17 years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Efforts to modernize equipment, reorganize strength and focus spending on key new programs help make the military even more deadly, Milley said. For years, modernization programs and other programs have been sacrificed to provide the most critical troops and equipment on the battlefield.
"We stopped the bleeding and we are on a roll," said Milley. "We have, I think, turned the corner.We are not yet at the end of our troubles.We still have some way to go."
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