August 5, 2025:
American soldiers have always been well educated. During World War II the majority of recruits were well educated and physically fit. After the war standards were higher because there were more volunteers than were needed.
Conscription ended in the 1970s and the quality of recruits declined for a while, but they rose to new heights after 1980. The army had pay that was equal or better than similar civilian jobs
There were always more volunteers than the military needed and standards remained high even after September 11, 2001. Years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan led to some lowering of standards, but that turned around after the 2008 recession. A recession fueled boom in enlistments after 2009 allowed the army to raise its recruiting standards again. Before 2008 recruiting standards had been lowered and screening methods improved.
Before the 2004-7 fighting in Iraq got bloody, less than ten percent of army recruits were high school dropouts. Then that grew to 24 percent, with no significant decline in the quality of troops because of the better screening. It was the same with those receiving moral waivers because of a police record. That went from 4.6 percent in 2004 to 6.2 percent in 2007. After 2008 all those standards went back to the pre-2003 levels.
Other trends at work: the last few decades has seen a growing divide in the United States when it comes to how many recruits different regions provide. A disproportionate number of recruits come from the southern and Rocky Mountain states. The northeast, upper Midwest, and west coast are much more difficult to recruit from and the recruits are not as good because of less education, overweight, and bad attitudes.
Recruiters have the hardest time in urban areas. Back in 2005, the Department of Defense concluded that urban high schools were the source of most problems. Not because leftist teachers in schools tried to keep recruiters out, but because so many potential recruits had to be turned down because of the poor education they had received in those schools.
While only a fifth of Americans live outside cities and suburbs, nearly half of the qualified recruits come from these rural areas. What's strange about all this is that the rural areas spend much less, per pupil, on education but get much better results than urban schools. Part of this can be attributed to differences in cost of living, but a lot of it has to do with simply getting more done with less. Per capita, young people in rural areas are over 20 percent more likely to join the army than those of the same age in urban areas.
The rural recruits are also a lot easier to train and generally make better soldiers. The urban recruits often have a bad attitude, as well as a difficult time getting along with others and following instructions. The urban schools deserve some of the blame for this, while rural schools tend to be far more orderly and put more emphasis on civic responsibility. Parental attitudes also differ sharply between urban and rural areas.
Seventeen years ago, U.S. defense officials and politicians opposed the passage of a new G.I. Bill that would increase educational benefits to a level approaching what veterans got right after World War II. That first G.I. Bill played a large role in expanding the ranks of college educated Americans and fueling a decades-long economic boom. Critics of the new bill fear the new benefits would encourage experienced troops to quit the military and go to college. Proponents of the bill insisted that there was no evidence of that. More generous educational benefits had long been high on the list of things veterans wanted, and believe they have earned
One of the major reasons for joining the military for a four year enlistment was the G.I. Bill educational benefits. Under this law, active duty veterans got $1,034 a month if they were attending school full time. Reservists got $297 a month, and reservists who had been activated received as much as $827 a month. The G.I. Bill was first introduced right after World War II and proved an unexpected success. It created over two million college graduates and over five million men and women with other training. The G.I. Bill greatly accelerated the rate of college attendance. At the time, high school was a relatively new educational concept, with less than half of all Americans graduating. College was seen much the same way graduate school is now.
The G.I. Bill created an educated generation that kicked off the post-World War II economic boom that has continued into the 21st Century to this day. The World War II G.I. Bill ended in 1956, but was revived a decade later, during the Vietnam war. It continued as the draft was dropped in 1972 and continues to be a basic veteran’s benefit. The educational benefits are one reason why so many middle class adolescents still join. With so many college students graduating with lots of tuition loans, those with the G.I. Bill came out with little or no debt. Moreover, going to college in your early 20s, after military service, tends to be a more productive approach. A little maturity does wonders for your study habits.
By 2018 the number of Americans physically, morally and educationally qualified to join the military continued to shrink. The problem had been developing since the 1990s and there appears to be no end in sight. At the same time, the army learned from recent and past combat experience that physical fitness was a matter of life or death in combat. So some policies did not change no matter how few recruits there were.
An example of this occurred in 2012 when the U.S. Army tightened its physical requirements for new recruits. That meant that male recruits could not have a body fat percentage higher than 24 percent, it used to be 26 and for females it was 30 percent, it used to be 32. But once they are in, they must reduce that to 18 percent for males and 26 percent for females. The army tightened the body fat rules in 2012 because it was reducing its personnel strength and more soldiers wanted to stay in. Thus the army needed fewer new recruits each year. Because of the high unemployment rate since 2008, more people are trying to join. To do that they had to be thinner, or at least not obese. Body fat percentages greater than the new army standards are considered fat by the medical community. Moreover, most men with 24 percent, and women with 30 percent, body fat appeared chubby.
Most soldiers, especially those in jobs requiring a lot of physical activity, had closer to 15 percent body fat. New male recruits with 24 percent body fat had six months to get it down to 18 percent and keep it there.
This emphasis on low body fat was because Americans have, since the 1990s, become very fat and out-of-shape. At the time there were 34 million Americans of prime military age 17-24. But because of bad lifestyle choices, only 28 percent of them, 9.5 million, were physically eligible for service.
Each year the military had to obtain 150,000 new recruits. The military was allowed to waive some physical or mental standards, and this meant that only about 20 percent of those 32 million potential recruits qualified. Each year recruiters had to convince about two percent of those eligible that they should join up. It's a tough job, made worse by a generation that eats too much, exercises too little, doesn't pay enough attention in school and engages in illegal activity. You not only have to be physically fit enough to join, but you also have to be smart enough with no criminal record.
The enormous growth in computer entertainment and subsequent massive reduction in the amount of exercise teenage boys get is the major reason for the body fat percentage crisis. As a result, one of the biggest problems American military recruiters have is unfit young Americans trying to enlist. About 60 percent of potential recruits are not eligible because they do well enough on the aptitude test the military uses to see if people have enough education and mental skills to handle military life. Many of those who score too low do so because they did not do well at school. A lot of these men had high IQs but low motivation. Most of the remainder were not eligible for physical reasons. The most common physical disqualifier was being overweight. Over a third of the people of military age were considered obese. Many of these large people are eager to join and are told how much weight they have to lose before they can enlist. Few return light enough to sign up. Motivation and self-discipline are important in the