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Army’s basic training prep course to become permanent part of recruiting strategy
Stars & Stripes ^ | 1/8/2023 | DOUG G. WARE

Posted on 09/04/2023 11:59:37 AM PDT by CodeToad

WASHINGTON – A remedial course designed to prepare potential Army recruits for basic training will become a permanent part of the service’s strategy in overcoming its sagging enlistment numbers, officials said.

The Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course was launched at Fort Jackson, S.C., in August 2022 as an experiment to help young Americans qualify physically and academically for military service. With higher obesity rates in America and fewer young people qualified to meet the Army’s entry standards, the service hoped the course would give those who don’t qualify much-needed time and training to get in shape. Service leaders said the yearlong test has worked.

The Army said it has had a 95% graduation rate from the prep course since the program started, a figure that service leaders called “an overwhelming level of success.” The results led the service to open the course at a second base — Fort Moore, Ga. — earlier this year. Officials said further expansion is possible.

...

The success of the course comes at a time when the Army has faced substantial obstacles in recruiting. The service is aiming to sign 65,000 new recruits in fiscal 2023, which ends Sept. 30, but officials have already said they will come up a few thousand soldiers short. All branches of the military have encountered recruiting challenges, largely because fewer than 25% of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 can meet the requirements to join the military, according to Pentagon data.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said recently that the service will bring in more soldiers in 2023 than it did in 2022, when it enlisted about 45,000 new recruits against a goal of 60,000. Wormuth said the total for 2023 will be between 50,000 and 55,000 recruits.

(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: basictraining; military; recruitment; usarmy
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In other words, as low as the bar is to get through Army basic training, there is still a large number of recruits that can't make it. They cannot read, write, understand simple logic, or even follow explicit instructions. Most are fat, out of shape, and have significant immaturity issues.
1 posted on 09/04/2023 11:59:37 AM PDT by CodeToad
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To: CodeToad

That was THE point of public schools. To train students in body and mind to be ready to be in the workforce or military and now they don’t even serve THAT basic of a function.


2 posted on 09/04/2023 12:01:10 PM PDT by Skywise
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To: CodeToad

3 posted on 09/04/2023 12:01:30 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: CodeToad

Kindergarten for Basic Training. Is there a ribbon for that?


4 posted on 09/04/2023 12:01:45 PM PDT by Delta 21 (Sufferings are the guardrails on the road to Heaven.)
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To: CodeToad

Wow, colleges offer “remedial” courses to get people prepared for college.
Now, the Army has to offer “remedial” courses to get people prepared for basic training.

How pathetic is our nation?


5 posted on 09/04/2023 12:02:32 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Occupy your mind with good thoughts or your enemy will fill them with bad ones.” ~ Thomas More)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

We are still racing to the bottom but we haven’t hit it yet.


6 posted on 09/04/2023 12:05:26 PM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: gibsonguy

Is there a bottom? There certainly doesn’t seem to be one. At least until the Chinese begin their assaults on our western beaches.


7 posted on 09/04/2023 12:06:34 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Occupy your mind with good thoughts or your enemy will fill them with bad ones.” ~ Thomas More)
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To: CodeToad

What’s the point of an army with democrats in charge? Oh yeah, to assist the invasion of the border by third world illegal aliens.


8 posted on 09/04/2023 12:12:24 PM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: CodeToad

When I went through the process of obtaining a security clearance a decade ago ( DOS foreign Army advisor) , the FBI agent revealed 60-70 percent of our younger population could not get a recommendation.

Drug use, criminal history, financial problems ( presumably debt), and other factors barred them. That said, the security clearance background check by the FBI is only a “ recommendation “, if the skill set was really needed, the person could be employed by the agency or contracting agency….( standards dropped).

And so it went, the bulk of our “ advisors “ were mostly over the age of 50- we even had Lenny who was 70.


9 posted on 09/04/2023 12:15:04 PM PDT by delta7
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To: Delta 21

Pre-basic training.


10 posted on 09/04/2023 12:22:45 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: CodeToad

Prep? I came out of basic in worse shape than when I went in.


11 posted on 09/04/2023 12:23:00 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: CodeToad

This is all theater as the DC globalists and their neocon stooges position themselves to bring back the draft. They don’t want the pervos and women of color they recruit for. They need our young, healthy, normal sons to bleed and die in their globalist adventures. According to Selective Service a simple majority vote brings back the draft after, “A national emergency, exceeding the Department of Defense’s capability to recruit and retain its total force strength, requires Congress to amend the Military Selective Service Act to authorize the President to induct personnel into the Armed Forces.“.


12 posted on 09/04/2023 12:25:55 PM PDT by hardspunned (Former DC GOP globalist stooge)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

“How pathetic is our nation?”

So pathetic that any young man or woman who would enlist under the Biden regime is by definition mentally unfit to wear the uniform. You have to ask yourself if you are willing to die for “global warming” ideology. That’s all the Union government is now..nothing more, nothing less.

A proud veteran here.


13 posted on 09/04/2023 12:32:39 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: CodeToad

What about all those trannies, gays and lesbians the military has been so determined to attract/appease? Doesn’t seem like they’re joining the Austin-Milley brigades in large numbers like the democRATs claimed they would.


14 posted on 09/04/2023 12:32:45 PM PDT by DaBroasta ("An armed society is a polite society" Heinlein)
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To: CodeToad

Gen Z Army Fat Camp

https://youtu.be/LTO91t4ZV1E?si=AmREVwC1_TjwyrsU


15 posted on 09/04/2023 12:33:04 PM PDT by silverleaf (Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out” —David Horowitz)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Something tells me we might see them coming from thousands of miles away.

No one is invading the North American Continent any time soon. The Chinese couldn’t successfully invade Taiwan.


16 posted on 09/04/2023 12:33:21 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: hardspunned

It ends when some fathers decide to execute the guys sent to press their kids.


17 posted on 09/04/2023 12:34:07 PM PDT by DarkSavant
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To: CodeToad
I am retired from the U.S. Army. I’m not sure why anyone would join todays military. I would not recommend it to anyone. Only poor kids sign up. Most with no other options. You can expect to fight and die for a government that is only using you as a pawn in some larger affair. A government that won’t even secure our own countries borders. Wealthy families don’t risk their kids by letting them join. But they sure enjoy the freedoms of this country.

While I am proud of my service, I look at the time I spent in the Middle East and wonder, for what. What was gained and how many young lives were lost. All for oil ? All for the industrial military complex to profit greatly off goods that support wars ? Now the Army’s leadership is just some woke, transgender loving joke.

18 posted on 09/04/2023 12:39:23 PM PDT by Newbomb Turk (zkij)
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To: Vermont Lt

OK, so maybe not Chinese invasion. We will die from our own internal rot and corruption first. But, once we reach some horrendous depths of depravity, corruption, and totalitarianism, just how will we die? Do we become the USSA and have to wait 50 to 100 years to throw off the yoke like the old USSR did? That sure seems to be the path we are on.


19 posted on 09/04/2023 12:39:34 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Occupy your mind with good thoughts or your enemy will fill them with bad ones.” ~ Thomas More)
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To: CodeToad
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth

There's the problem right there, she's an academic and civil servant, never served in the Army.

When I graduated High School and enlisted in the Army in 1969, I was already in great shape, had no problem with the rigors of Basic Training.

20 posted on 09/04/2023 12:50:12 PM PDT by PROCON (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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