US U.S. Military Has Started Recalling Retirees Due to Recruiting Crisis - The U.S. Army recently announced that it is cutting thousands of positions. Authorized troop levels will now be an estimated 470,000 by fiscal year 2029, down 24,000 from its 494,000 soldiers.

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The U.S. Army Publishing Directorate released the ALARACT 017/2024, titled, “Utilization of the Army Retiree Recall Program.”

The document cites Executive Order 13223 from the Bush administration in 2001.

A retiree recall is a “retired Soldier who is ordered to active duty (AD) from the Retired Reserve or the retired list under 10 USC 688/688a, 12301(a), or 12301(d). Per AR 601-10, Recalled retiree Soldiers must be aligned to a valid vacant AC requirement that matches the grade and skill of the retiree before he or she may be recalled to AD,” according to the document. “The retiree population will be utilized as a last resort to fill Active Component vacant requirements.”

The ALARACT 017/2024 comes as the U.S. military is experiencing a recruitment crisis.

The U.S. Army recently announced that it is cutting thousands of positions. Authorized troop levels will now be an estimated 470,000 by fiscal year 2029, down 24,000 from its 494,000 soldiers.

“While making these investments and adding formations, the Army must also reduce force structure to protect readiness in light of decreased end strength. The Army is currently significantly over-structured, meaning there are not enough soldiers to fill out existing units and organizations. Army leaders seek to have at least 470,000 soldiers in the Active Component by FY29, which is nearly 20,000 above the current end strength but a reduction of about 24,000 authorizations compared to currently planned force structure,” the report states.

It added that the Army is “undertaking a similarly important transformation of its recruiting enterprise so that it can man units sufficiently, continue to bring the right types and amounts of new talent into the Army, and rebuild its overall end strength.” Noting the ongoing recruitment failure within the U.S. military, the document noted, “The Army must solve its recruiting challenges to successfully transform for the future.”

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@JosephStalin @Jet Fuel Johnny you guys get your letters yet?
Not yet, but am willing to go. Could go right back to the last military job held. Not an Army officer, though. And the Army likely will recall very few, if any senior officers. They want junior enlisted and junior noncommissioned officers to place in combat arms units.
 
Not yet, but am willing to go. Could go right back to the last military job held. Not an Army officer, though. And the Army likely will recall very few, if any senior officers. They want junior enlisted and junior noncommissioned officers to place in combat arms units.
Well. Shit. Here I was about to make a joke about not seeing you around lately and wondering if you were out there behind enemy lines.

Dunno why you'd want to go back. I heard they make officers dress like the Village People now. And twerking has replaced saluting.
 
>get called up from retirement
>refuse the vax
>get shit right back out again
>go back to your life.
Doesn't work when they stopped mandating the clot shot
Here's a better idea: draft all the chickenhawks rah-rahing for intervention in Ukraine.
You know damn well those ratfucks and their kin would be officers as far from the front line as possible.
 
I know this is a wild concept for the military, but have they considered keeping up retention?

Don't need to recruit fresh meat if you don't make it so miserable that JOs and junior enlisted want to get the fuck out of dodge as soon as possible.
The upper ranks where all the real decisions are made, are made up political appointees on the civilian and uniformed side. You'd have to have these people as well as Congress, actually make sound decisions; you would also need it to trickle down into the enlisted leadership which isn't going to fucking happen.

I've said it in other threads, but at least with my experience in the Marine Corps; the Staff NCO ranks need to be cleaned out. You get a bunch of retards and assholes who make E-6, and then clog up the fucking ranks because as long as they can run a PFT and not fail every part; then short of being caught with a pack of underage dead hookers in their trunk, they can't be forced out. So they sit on their ass till at least their 20 year mark to get a pension, and spend that time making everyone under them fucking miserable and practically hand picking their successors. Meanwhile, if you don't make E-6 by year 12, you get forced out, no ifs ands or buts about it; and yes, you're chosen as a successor, because going from Corporal to Sergeant to Staff-Sergeant gets you off the point system and it's a board system; and you know who writes up whether you're a good enough boy or not and even if you get put on the board, people whisper behind your back, you know who does that, the asshole over you. So you secretly go to the career planner for a lateral move, only to get caught and flagged "mission critical" which means you're a competent worker, but they don't want you to go anywhere, and you stagnate, and learn to fucking hate everything.

If you think you can fix that, by all means, but the Marine Corps has a high turn-over rate, and it's not just because we're the best of the best, tip of the spear, life takers and baby makers oorah kill and all that shit. It's a high turn-over because we get stuck in dead-end fucking positions, led by people who fucking hate us, and a number of other fucking problems that will never be addressed. All while being yelled at by dudes who are fatter and dumber than you, yelling at you about what leadership means, and tell you to fuck off when you ask for guidance; and screaming that you're a shit bag because you don't understand the principal of Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful, by a dude who sneaks his girlfriend into his office and fucks her behind his wife's back. Fucking imagine wanting be a leader of Marines without slamming your head into the pavement a couple dozen times to give a reason for your retardation.

Don't get me wrong, there are good ones out there, they're just few and far between, it'd be easier to just incinerate and salt every swinging dick.
 
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Meanwhile, if you don't make E-6 by year 12, you get forced out, no ifs ands or buts about it; and yes, you're chosen as a successor, because going from Corporal to Sergeant to Staff-Sergeant gets you off the point system and it's a board system; and you know who writes up whether you're a good enough boy or not and even if you get put on the board, people whisper behind your back, you know who does that, the asshole over you. So you secretly go to the career planner for a lateral move, only to get caught and flagged "mission critical" which means you're a competent worker, but they don't want you to go anywhere, and you stagnate, and learn to fucking hate everything.
And if you are good at the actual work- the part where you fix the fucking machines as opposed to draw up schedules for the people who fix the fucking machines- well, you don't get to have a career, because they want dick-sucking apple-polishing office politics strivers as opposed to people who do the work and go home at the end of the day. It's the only organization I've ever worked for where the Peter principle was a requirement.
 
I know this is a wild concept for the military, but have they considered keeping up retention?

Don't need to recruit fresh meat if you don't make it so miserable that JOs and junior enlisted want to get the fuck out of dodge as soon as possible.
Slightly TMI, but I left the Army in the mid 2010s. Actually got out a few months earlier from my contract due to a program for people who had employment offers after discharge. (Absolute pain in the ass process that took several months longer than it should have, but that's another story).

The crux of the matter is the military fucked up Contractor-Enlisted dynamics and they've realized it too late.

Contractor Scenario:
- 40 hours per week. No more, no less
- Flexibility to take PTO, sick days, etc.
- 2x compensation minimum
- No 3 AM Green Corvettes
- No CQ or random duty on weekends
- Not being in the field for 2-3 weeks, or ever
- No hands across America looking for lost equipment or picking up trash
- No 630 AM PT

Enlisted Scenario
- Typically waiting for 30 minutes to be released at the end of the day.
- Always on call
- PTO is essentially restricted to Summer Leave and Christmas Leave
- No "sick days". If you're legitimately sick, gotta have a form filled at at 530 and sick call at 0600.
- Pay is shit
- Insurance is covered
- Housing is covered, but you're heavily incentived to get married for BAH. (Barracks are generally not great, single soldiers are the ones that get shafted with random duties, random room inspections, etc.)
- Free food. Mostly sucks, but breakfast is the saving grace.
- PT, PT good for you, good for me
- Promotions are organized by MOS. It's likely a lot less limited now, but my MOS was capped at the top the entire time, LOL.
- Promotions had 0% to do with my job and overprioritizes PT scores.

My point being, why would anyone remotely competent in a technical field choose to reenlist when the only long-term benefit is a pension that requires 20 years while they keep fucking with it?
 
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