Numerous editorials have been published recently regarding our country’s armed forces current low enlistment recruitment situation. Like the one from February 3, 2025, by Reporter-at-Large, Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker, “The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis.”
Here’s an excerpt from one of his paragraphs: “President Trump insists that the decline in recruitment has a single cause: the Biden Administration’s efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs chased away potential recruits.” “His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, a former member of the National Guard, has made similar accusations, and in his book “The War on Warriors,” a protracted rant against what he describes as a progressive campaign to neuter the armed forces, he writes: “We are led by small generals and feeble officers without the courage to realize that, in the name of woke buzzwords, they are destroying our military.”
I worked as a ‘Lot-Boy’ at a Chevrolet dealership in Fredericksburg, Virginia after High School graduation, and because the Vietnam War was ongoing during that summer of 1972, a number of us fellow HS alumni were amongst others who were 18-19 years old being bused to Richmond, Virginia for our Selective Service draft registration scrutinization.
After a full day of prodding, poking, and undergoing the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), there were numerous guys who enlisted when one of the military garbed said: “You might as well sign up now ‘cause you’ll be mine soon, anyway!” And, although something inside me said to “get up, wussy-boy!” because none of my table of cohorts moved… I can only now stare into my rearview mirror and wish that I had been one of the guys who stood up in bravery!
In closing, I realize that my suggestion on how to boost our military isn’t an ideology most would opt for implementing but since it’s difficult to entice enlistees nowadays, it’s my opinion that America should reintroduce a modernized Selective Service System, a ‘Draft’ based on inclusiveness of both men and women aged 18 — 25 for a compulsory duration of 12 months consecutively, and then an additional 12 months in fulfilling a 24 month mandatory military conscription with their choice of continuing active duty, transferring to an inactive state-level military branch, or repositioning to some type of volunteerism.
Rick Knight
Henrico, Virginia
