A former Navy vice chief of naval operations faces up to 30 years in prison after he was arrested Friday along with two business executives on criminal charges involving a U.S. government contract bribery scheme while in uniform, according to the Justice Department.

An indictment unsealed Friday alleges that retired Adm. Robert Burke, 62, took part in the scheme from 2020 to 2022, while serving as commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa from 2020 until his retirement in 2022.

The alleged crimes also involve Yongchul “Charlie” Kim and Meghan Messenger, both of New York, who are the CEOs of a company referred to only as “Company A” in the Justice Department’s indictment announcement.

Burke’s civilian defense attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told Navy Times that Burke “vigorously contests these charges,” and that there was “no quid pro quo.”

“The timeline in the indictment is inaccurate,” Parlatore said. “We look forward to going to trial and expect that he will be found not guilty.”

Burke turned himself in to local authorities earlier on Friday, he added.

Attorneys for Kim and Messenger could not immediately be reached for comment.

Burke, Kim and Messenger are each charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, while Burke faces additional charges of performing acts of a personal financial interest and concealing material facts from the United States.

According to the Justice Department, the alleged crimes started when Company A provided a training pilot program to “a small component” of the Navy from August 2018 to July 2019.

The Navy terminated a contract with that company in late 2019 “and directed Company A not to contact Burke,” according to the Justice Department.

Burke served as the vice chief of naval operations, the second-highest officer in the Navy, from June 2019 to June 2020, according to his official biography.

But Kim and Messenger allegedly went on to meet with Burke in Washington, D.C., in July 2021, part an alleged effort to reestablish the company’s ties to the Navy.

“At the meeting, the charged defendants allegedly agreed that Burke would use his position as a Navy Admiral to steer a sole-source contract to Company A in exchange for future employment at the company,” the Justice Department said. “They allegedly further agreed that Burke would use his official position to influence other Navy officers to award another contract to Company A to train a large portion of the Navy.”

Kim allegedly estimated that that contract would be worth “triple digit millions,” according to the Justice Department.

Burke allegedly ordered his staff in December 2021 to award a $355,000 contract to the company to train personnel under his command in Spain and Italy, according to the Justice Department, and Company A carried out the training in January 2022.

Burke allegedly tried to convince a fellow “senior Navy Admiral” to award another contract to the company. That senior admiral is not identified in the Justice Department’s indictment announcement.

“To conceal the scheme, Burke allegedly made several false and misleading statements to the Navy, including by creating the false appearance that Burke played no role in issuing the contract and falsely implying that Company A’s employment discussions with Burke only began months after the contract was awarded,” the Justice Department said.

Burke retired after handing over command of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa in the summer of 2022, according to the Navy.

A few months later, in October 2022, Burke went to work for Company A “at a yearly starting salary of $500,000 and a grant of 100,000 stock options,” according to the Justice Department.

Before leading the Navy in Europe and Africa, Burke was the vice chief of operations from June 2019 to June 2020, and also served as the chief of naval personnel.

In a statement Friday, the Navy said “has fully cooperated with this investigation from the onset.

“We take this matter very seriously and will continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice,” the Navy said.

Naval Sea Systems Command has contracted a variety of vessels to help with the job supporting the Coast Guard’s unified recovery effort.

The Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving will use the barges to surface and remove portions of the bridge.

Sections will first be disassembled before they are lifted onto the barges and transported away, the Navy said.

The Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving will also oversee the mobilization of 12 assorted tugs, survey, crew and dive boats that will arrive to Baltimore in the coming days.

Barges being dispatched to the scene include the Chesapeake, a 1,000-ton lift capacity derrick barge, the Ferrell, a 200-ton lift capacity revolving crane barge and the Oyster Bay, a 150-ton lift capacity crane barge, according to the sea service.

Those vessels have already arrived at the harbor, and another is slated to arrive early next week, according to the Navy.

Four workers who were on the bridge at the time of the early morning collision Tuesday remain missing and are presumed dead, The Associated Press reported Friday.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called the bridge’s collapse following the freighter collision an “economic catastrophe” and described challenges of recovering the workers and clearing tons of debris to reopen the Port of Baltimore.

“What we’re talking about today is not just about Maryland’s economy; this is about nation’s economy,” Moore said at a news conference. “The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in this country.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

But after he retired, Rep. Ronny Lynn Jackson, R-Texas, was bumped down to the rank of captain, or O-6, nearly two years ago, according to service records and a defense official.

Jackson retired from the Navy in December 2019 and was elected to represent Texas’ 13th Congressional District in 2020.

The Navy said in a statement Thursday that the service “took administrative action in July 2022″ following substantiated allegations in a Defense Department Inspector General investigation that delved into Jackson’s conduct while leading the White House Medical Unit.

That administrative action involved Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro changing Jackson’s “retirement grade determination” and reducing his rank to O-6, a defense official granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters told Navy Times Thursday.

Jackson’s official service record now lists him as a retired captain.

The Washington Post first reported discrepancies in Jackson’s official retirement rank and the rank which he claims to hold.

Officials with Jackson’s office did not immediately provide comment, but as of Thursday afternoon, the retired captain’s official site still touted him being a retired flag officer.

“As a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service I understand the commitment and sacrifices made by servicemen and servicewomen to serve our country,” the two-term lawmaker’s congressional website states.

The move to change Jackson’s retirement rank in 2022 followed the findings of a Pentagon IG report that was released to the public in 2021.

The report, spurred by a dozen IG hotline complaints in spring 2018 after President Donald Trump nominated him to be Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, found that Jackson, who had also served in the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations, presided over a toxic command climate at the White House Medical Unit and drank alcohol while on duty during official, international travel, but not that he ever damaged government property in doing so.

Jackson declined to respond to the IG’s findings before it finalized its report. Its recommendations called for the Navy secretary to take “appropriate action” against Jackson.

“We concluded that [Rear Adm.] Jackson’s overall course of conduct toward subordinates disparaged, belittled, bullied, and humiliated them, and fostered a negative work environment by failing to treat subordinates with dignity and respect,” according to a Pentagon IG statement at the time of the report’s release. “We also concluded that [Rear Adm.] Jackson failed to conduct himself in an exemplary manner in his treatment of subordinates throughout his tenure at WHMU. His treatment of subordinates created a negative work environment that witnesses said made an unfavorable impact on the overall command climate.”

That included Jackson knocking on a female subordinate’s hotel room door in the middle of the night and drunkenly declaring, “I need you,” according to the report.

Jackson has in the past pushed back on such allegations, accusing Democrats of resurrecting old Obama-era rumors “because I have refused to turn my back on President Trump.”

When the IG report was released in 2021, Jackson’s office provided Military Times with a “fact sheet,” pointing out that then-President Barack Obama promoted him to rear admiral in 2016 following the alleged alcohol incidents, calling those who reported him in 2018 “disgruntled subordinates.”

The IG interviewed 60 White House employees, 56 of whom said they were the target of or were aware of Jackson “yelling, screaming, cursing or belittling subordinates.”

“I’m proud of the work environment I fostered under three different presidents of both parties; I take my professional responsibility with respect to prescription drug practices seriously; and I flat out reject any allegation that I consumed alcohol while on duty,” Jackson said in a statement. “I also categorically deny any implication that I was in any way sexually inappropriate at work, outside of work, or anywhere with any member of my staff or anyone else. That is not me and what is alleged did not happen.”

Chief Fire Controlman (Aegis) Bryce Steven Pedicini faces eight espionage charge specifications for alleged crimes that occurred between November 2022 and May, according to a copy of his charge sheet obtained by Navy Times.

Pedicini is the first sailor to be charged with espionage in at least the past five years, according to the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General

Currently assigned to the Japan-based destroyer Higgins, Pedicini has been held in pre-trial confinement since May, according to Navy records.

He could not be reached for comment, and the Navy’s defense attorney office did not respond to a Navy Times request for comment from his appointed attorney.

Pedicini is accused of delivering a classified national defense document to “a citizen and employee of a foreign government” on Nov. 22, 2022, in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and that the chief had “reason to believe that it would be used to the injury of the United States and the advantage of a foreign nation,” his charge sheet states.

The charge sheet does not state which foreign nation Pedicini allegedly worked with.

But the chief is also accused of delivering similar classified information to a foreign contact seven other times, with the most recent alleged occurrence taking place on May 17 in Yokosuka, Japan.

Two days later, on May 19, Pedicini was placed in pre-trial confinement, according to his charge sheet.

Pedicini is also accused of wrongly transporting information he believed to be classified, and for processing material he believed to be classified “on a system that was not approved for classified material” in May in Yokosuka, his charge sheet states.

Prosecutors also allege he failed to report a foreign contact in Yokosuka in April, and that he failed “to report solicitation of classified information by an unauthorized person.”

Pedicini is also accused of taking a personal electronic device into a secure room aboard Barge APL-67 in Yokosuka in May, according to his charge sheet.

He also faces multiple charge specifications for communicating defense information to foreign contacts from December 2022 to May in Hampton Roads.

Naval Surface Forces declined further comment on the ongoing case.

Pedicini had a motions hearing scheduled for Wednesday of this week, and officials have not said when his trial is scheduled to begin.

Charges were brought against the chief in January, and the head of Naval Surface Forces, Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, is the convening authority in the case.

A Tennessee native, Pedicini enlisted in 2008 and advanced to chief in 2022, according to his service record.

He reported to Higgins in April and was also assigned to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center in Norfolk, Virginia, during the time of his alleged crimes.

Pedicini also served aboard the destroyers Curtis Wilbur and McFaul earlier his career.

And while the services go without confirmed leaders, more than 300 other military members and their families have been impacted by Tuberville’s move, as normally routine Senate confirmations have been blocked as well.

Are you one of the impacted officers or family members suffering through this? Are your job responsibilities or career plans impacted by the delays? If so, we want to hear from you for a future article. Email geoffz@militarytimes.com to share your thoughts.

How is this impacting your lives and your plans? Was a promotion or moving to a new duty station put on hold? Has it changed how you feel about the military or lawmakers, and what are you doing to mitigate this disruption? How are your kids handling the uncertainty?

Anonymity can be granted upon request, and, if so, we will ensure that nothing about your experience that is published can inadvertently identify you.

Thanks for your help and for your service.

Although the Navy announced May 19 that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service had agreed to a three-month pause in recouping the overpayments, those retirees’ latest pay statements, issued last week, indicated they would begin seeing the overpayments, plus interest, deducted from their monthly paychecks starting July 1.

On Wednesday, DFAS officials confirmed that is not the case, and the a three-month delay in repayments is still in effect.

In a nutshell, DFAS lagged in updating the pay statements. Agency spokesman Steve Burghardt called the latest complications “a timing issue” in an email to Navy Times.

“Those individuals who received statements indicating offsets had been initiated should see a new statement showing no collections have been made,” he said Wednesday.

The incorrect statements showing that debt collection would begin with retirees’ July 1 paychecks were generated in advance of pay processing and DFAS agreeing to a Navy request to pause debt collection, Burghardt said.

“Once the agreement was reached, DFAS had to update each record of those impacted by the overpayments,” Burghardt said. “This was a laborious task to make the changes and verify the results.”

Navy Times began asking questions about the statements a week ago. Burghardt did not say whether DFAS was tracking these incorrect statements before Navy Times brought them to agency’s attention.

“Obviously, it misled people,” he said of the bureaucratic lag. “I can see how that is going to cause some confusion.”

Retirees were informed this spring that they had been overpaid, with those impacted owing repayments rannging from $35 to more than $70,000 to the government.

All told, roughly $7 million in overpayments were made to the Navy retirees, and the median overpayment amount is $2,700, according to Burghardt.

Navy officials said on May 19 that retirees would have three months to appeal the debt or submit a waiver before DFAS began clawing back the overpayment in monthly deductions.

The Navy’s errors in calculating time in service has largely affected people who had a mix of active duty and reserve time.

Officials said it was due to an issue with the Navy’s Standard Integrated Personnel System, or NSIPS, which botched some retiree pay calculations from 2019 to February.

DFAS’s delay in ensuring that retiree statements available online via the MyPay portal were accurate has caused further stress and consternation among some impacted retirees in the past week.

Some were particularly bothered by interest charges on the now-obsolete pay statements.

Multiple impacted retirees said they called DFAS for an explanation and were told that the “debts” line was interest on the money they owed back, or that their account wasn’t showing up in any collections databases.

Retired Chief Hospital Corpsman Sheila Hetherington-Smith said last week that she owes nearly $15,000 to the government because of this Navy error and was shocked to see her retiree statement showing that DFAS plans to begin taking back the overpayment on July 1.

“I’m kind of disgusted,” she told Navy Times.

Hetherington-Smith said she has no problem paying back what she owes because “a debt is a debt.”

But like other retirees who have reached out to Navy Times, the retired chief said she is “really pissed off” about how DFAS and the Navy have handled the whole thing.

“They pretty much just incurred me a $15,000 debt that they’re going to charge 1% (interest) on,” Hetherington-Smith said. “It’s total garbage.”

The cut troubled Murdock, but perhaps not as much as the lack of explanation from the Navy or the Defense Finance Accounting Service, which processes military and retiree pay based on information provided by the services.

“That’s not okay,” she told Navy Times. “You don’t get to lower my pay and eventually tell me why.”

Murdock, who retired in July 2022, nosed around DFAS’s self-help sections to try and figure it out early last month.

Eventually, she found her answer: The Navy had incorrectly calculated her service time and sent the wrong information to DFAS, resulting in the abrupt pay cut she now faces.

Murdock isn’t alone. Navy officials confirmed that “a software issue” resulted in incorrect service time calculations for 1,283 Navy retirees, errors that span from August 2019 to this past February.

Navy Personnel Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Rick Chernitzer attributed the retiree pay error to “a software issue” that has since been fixed.

“There have been no more reported issues with the data since that time,” he said.

Officials said the issue popped up on the Navy’s radar in November, when a retiree reported an overpayment.

“The Navy provided preliminary notification of an error and (DFAS) is also contacting those affected retirees and members of the Fleet Reserve, notifying them of the overpayment and corrective measures underway to correct their retirement or retainer pay,” Chernitzer said in an email to Navy Times.

As of Monday, a month after her initial shock at the decrease, Murdock said she had not been contacted by DFAS.

Officials said affected retirees can learn more about debt waiver options by going to this link.

At this point, after receiving two Navy letters but zero information as to what happened, how much she might owe or how she can dispute an error that is not her fault, Murdock said she has lost trust in the Navy.

The software issue at blame fell within the Navy’s Standard Integrated Personnel Systems, or NSIPS.

NSIPS is also to blame for the Navy prematurely awarding four years of service credit to 160 Navy doctors and dentists, a mistake that allowed 95 of those members to retire after just 16 years of service instead of the required 20 years.

That issue stemmed from NSIPS incorrectly tabulating the four years of military-provided medical school in those officers’ time in service.

As a result of that “data migration error,” the other 65 medical officers saw their retirements pushed back several years because the four years of medical school does not count toward the 20 years required for retirement, even though those officers will be credited with 24 years in service when they get out, according to Chernitzer.

While both errors are attributed to NSIPS, Chernitzer said the retiree pay issue being suffered by Murdock, and the issue that led to the Navy medical officers seeing their service time incorrectly tabulated, are not connected.

NBC first reported the medical officer issue last week.

Officials did not answer questions by deadline Monday regarding why NSIPS is causing such disruptions.

But Chernitzer said last week that the NSIPS issues do not fall under the Navy’s so-called “HR Transformation” program, a sprawling, years-long, $1.6 billion effort to modernize Navy pay and administrative records that have disrupted pay and entitlements for thousands of sailors in recent years.

Either way, the NSIPS missteps suggest further struggles as the sea service works to modernize pay and personnel systems.

News of the retiree pay snafu follows reports last week that Army Human Resources Command errors led to at least 190 active duty pilots voluntarily resigning years ahead of schedule because of missteps in how the command tracked and applied their commitments.

A matter of trust

The retiree pay cut is just the latest Navy-related pay and personnel issue to afflict Murdock.

Like thousands of other sailors, she faced long delays getting her DD-214 discharge paperwork last summer, a problem exacerbated by HR Transformation.

“I just don’t believe that the Navy isn’t going to keep doing this,” she said of the litany of problems inflicted on her and others from above. “They haven’t shown me they can be trusted with my career record, my pay or my retirement.”

Murdock also said the retiree pay adjustment has upended her carefully calibrated retirement plans.

Moreover, such problems leave retirees like Murdock in the lurch and unclear of what their options are going forward.

A former Navy public affairs officer, Murdock said she tried calling DFAS early last month and was told, “We’re getting a lot of calls from (Navy retirees) and we don’t know why.”

She acknowledges that she had an unorthodox career path to calculate, which involved four years in the Marine Corps, then time as a Navy Reservist and then full-time active duty status.

But Murdock said she worked hard to make sure her record was squared away and described the pay problem as “typical military.”

She doesn’t think she should have to pay for the Navy’s mistake, but she expects to be told she will have to pay back the overpayment, potentially with interest.

“It’s ridiculous that they could be so inept and then so callous on top of that,” Murdock said. “Like, you should pay for our mistake.”

Murdock said she worries about more junior personnel having to deal with such indebtedness as well and “is resigned to the fact that I’ll probably be fighting the Navy for the next six months, minimum, to unscrew these issues.”

She wants a deep audit of how her active duty and reserve service is calculated but doesn’t trust the Navy to get it right.

In fact, she doesn’t even know where to start on that front, she said.

“I don’t believe (Navy Personnel Command) has anybody who can actually do this correctly, and I will never trust that this isn’t going to happen again,” she said.

House Armed Services Committee members grilled Pentagon leaders Tuesday on why the U.S. military continues to lag behind China in developing hypersonic missiles and defenses that can counter the next-generation ordnance.

One of the leaked Pentagon intelligence documents, obtained by Navy Times, shows that Beijing tested a hypersonic missile this year that could hit targets beyond Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam, where U.S. forces are based, and carry a “high probability” of besting American ballistic missile defenses.

It’s the latest reminder that despite billions of dollars spent, and a defense budget that keeps growing, the U.S. still trails China’s progress developing key cutting-edge weaponry, raising uncomfortable questions about how America would fare in a shooting war in the Pacific.

Beijing’s February test saw the DF-27 cover 2,100 kilometers, or 1,300 miles, in just 12 minutes, according to the leaked records. Past Defense Department assessments have warned of even longer DF-27 ranges.

“Their progress is undeniable,” Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., said at the hearing. “By contrast, our progress has been slow and has lacked urgency.”

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leader Adm. John Aquilino admitted the Pentagon is behind Beijing on hypersonic weapons and the systems to defend against them, agreeing that progress “needs to go faster.” The man charged with potentially leading a war against the ascendant power called the velocity of China’s nuclear breakout “concerning,” but said direct conflict is not inevitable.

While the Defense Department has declined to confirm the authenticity of the leaked records, such systems could negate a U.S. aircraft carrier’s ability to even get into a Pacific fight for fear of getting sunk, raising questions about whether carriers could help defend against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The leak is not the first warning about China’s burgeoning hypersonic power, but it’s the latest indication that the United States has fallen behind on this technology. The Air Force reported in March that a recent U.S. hypersonic weapon test “was not a success.”

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the committee’s ranking member, noted that hypersonic funding has lagged through administrations on both sides of the aisle, even as money is now being poured into the effort.

The defense officials declined to comment when Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., asked whether China has surpassed the United States in the hypersonic race, saying they could only talk about that in a classified briefing.

“Well, it’s been sort of unclassified without our consent,” Gates said, holding up a printed page that appeared to be from the leaked Pentagon intelligence records showing a Chinese hypersonic traveling 2,100 kilometers in 12 minutes.

Gaetz noted that Aquilino testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last year that the U.S. was falling behind.

“We need a capability in the near term that we do not have,” Gaetz said. “What this leak shows is that China has it, and we don’t.”

While condemning the leaks, for which the FBI arrested Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira last week, the Florida Republican asked whether more people should be held accountable for the sorry state of American hypersonics.

“Who’s going to be punished more, the knucklehead who leaked this information, or the generals and admirals and so-called experts who have sat before this committee and the Senate for decades saying that these capabilities that we were funding with gajillions of dollars were going to sufficiently deter China?” Gaetz said. He also questioned the wisdom of building U.S. aircraft carriers for the last 30 years that may never enter battle because they are unable to defend against the Chinese hypersonic threat.

The one-page memo, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and obtained by Military Times, is addressed to senior Pentagon leadership, combatant command heads and “defense agency and DoD field activity directors.”

Pentagon press officials confirmed the memo’s authenticity, and multiple servicemembers told Military Times they had received it in their inboxes this week.

“Do not access or download documents with classified markings from unclassified websites —either from home or work,” the memo states. “As the data may be classified, it may be associated with hostile foreign elements, or it may contain malicious code or embedded capabilities that could introduce cyber threats into our information systems.

“If you have already accessed or downloaded such documents on an unclassified network or device, please consult with your supervisor and contact your organization’s IT/cybersecurity service provider immediately for guidance,” the memo continues.

The memo further directs troops to contact the Defense Department if the media or congressional members contact them.

Hicks’ memo notes the “recent reporting on the unauthorized disclosure” of purported Pentagon and intelligence community documents and reminds DoD personnel that unauthorized disclosure of classified information, whether intentional or unintentional, “is a reportable security incident.”

The memo also urges personnel not to speculate about such unauthorized disclosures and reminds them not to discuss classified information with unauthorized people.

“Personnel with access to classified information are trusted stewards of that information and the responsibility to safeguard classified information is a lifetime requirement for each individual granted a security clearance,” Hicks’ memo states.

The FBI arrested Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, “without incident” Thursday afternoon in connection with the intel leak, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters. He described Teixeira as a Massachusetts Air National Guard employee.

“He will have an initial appearance at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts,” Garland added, though he did not give a date or time.

The New York Times first reported on Thursday that Teixeira is assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing.

Teixeira is a cyber transport systems journeyman, a sort of information technology specialist, at Otis Air National Guard Base, an installation located within Joint Base Cape Cod, according to service details released by the Air Force Thursday,

He has served in the Air Guard since September 2019 and earned the Air Force Achievement Medal.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Teixeira was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at the time of the leaks, which occurred earlier this year but were first acknowledged by the Pentagon on April 7.

Military Times reporter Meghann Myers contributed to this report.

Consider President John F. Kennedy. As a young man, he suffered a host of painful, disqualifying physical ailments, such as back pain and ulcers, but leaned on his father’s connections to get around the required Navy medical exams.

Lt. Kennedy went on to command a patrol torpedo boat that a Japanese warship sheared in half during World War II, and he later received a Purple Heart and Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

In recent decades, the lies told to enlist haven’t approached those extremes.

Nonetheless, fudging medical histories has been a key step on many troops’ path from applicant to recruit, according to a group of active-duty military recruiters who spoke with Military Times for this story.

“What it takes to get in the Army is, quite frankly, a lot of fraud and perjury,” one recruiter said.

But this tacit tradition — technically a crime — largely stopped in 2022, the same year the military’s recruiting numbers fell precipitously and today’s recruiting crisis came to the fore.

That year, the Defense Department brought a new medical records platform, known as Military Health System Genesis, online at Military Entrance Processing Stations, where applicants are medically examined before they can sign up.

Now, a year after Genesis was first used by MEPS, some military leaders acknowledge the new system has hindered recruiting.

Multiple recruiters on the ground, from different services and locations, are more blunt in their assessments. They say Genesis has ended an applicant’s ability to gloss over or knowingly ignore minor medical issues, such as past use of ADHD meds or inhalers, before signing up.

In the process, those recruiters say, it has turned the military’s stream of applicants into a trickle and made a recruiter’s already-difficult job even harder.

“Nobody says it out loud in the wrong company, but the whole DoD knows that before Genesis we were able to put people through with a lot of different things, within reason, because whatever that applicant decides to disclose is whatever that applicant decides to disclose,” Joe Brown, a Marine Corps recruiter and staff noncommissioned officer in the South, told Military Times. “Now that Genesis exists, we can no longer hide things.”

Five recruiters who spoke with Military Times were given pseudonyms in this report and granted anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Broad concern

The recruiting crisis has evoked concern among leadership and on Capitol Hill. The Army missed its fiscal 2022 goal by 15,000 soldiers, and the other branches, except for the smaller Space Force, barely made quota or had to pull extensively from their pools of delayed-entry applicants.

Officials told lawmakers this month that they expect the shortfalls to worsen this fiscal year.

Political leaders and partisan pundits blame today’s recruiting crisis on everything from so-called “woke” diversity training to kids these days being too fat and lazy to cut it.

Military brass have blamed an under-educated public, a roaring civilian jobs market and bad perceptions of service fueled by negative headlines.

But multiple recruiters who spoke with Military Times blame Genesis above all else.

“When Genesis hit the scene, it was a night-and-day difference,” Navy recruiter Peter Harris, a petty officer, noted.

Once an applicant signs their consent, Genesis vacuums up the entirety of their medical history, flagging past and present health issues.

That makes it harder, some recruiters say, to squeeze applicants through despite past maladies they did not disclose — such as ADHD, depression or a years-old broken bone. Recruiting numbers suffer as a result. Previously, such applicants could enlist if they concealed, or genuinely had forgotten about, these issues.

Genesis is, broadly, a medical records system for service members, families and veterans that aims to make it easier for doctors to share medical information. It came about as part of a congressional mandate that the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments digitize health records. The contract for Genesis, awarded to Leidos, is worth $5.5 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In the context of recruiting, the system allows processing stations to look at applicants’ civilian medical records, including hospital visits and prescriptions.

Genesis came to the military’s 67 MEPS locations in March 2022, when the head of U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command heralded it as “a leap in medical modernization.”

“The new electronic health record will follow applicants from the moment they walk through ‘Freedom’s Front Door’ into active duty, and eventually into the VA system,” Col. Megan Stallings, the command’s leader, said in a release at the time.

While multiple recruiters told Military Times that the system is flagging more applicants, Pentagon spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence said in an email that Genesis “does not reduce the population of qualified applicants.”

“Prior to screening at (MEPS), an individual has, or does not have, disqualifying medical conditions,” she said. Genesis “merely confirms the physical and mental readiness of applicants by enabling authoritative review of their health history.”

Lawrence said Genesis “is not the root cause behind the Services failing to meet their recruiting mission,” but she did not respond by Military Times’ deadline to emailed follow-up questions directly asking if the Pentagon believes Genesis was playing a role in the recruiting crisis.

Lawrence blamed, in part, low willingness of young people to serve, as well as “the residual effects” of the COVID pandemic that prevented recruiters “from meeting with youth and their influencers in our high schools.”

But data provided by the Pentagon shows each service exceeded its recruiting goals in fiscal 2020 and 2021, when pandemic-related lockdowns and disruptions to everyday life were far more prevalent.

In a nod to the current recruiting reality, the Pentagon in November began a pilot program that updated regulations for 38 medical conditions that would allow some recruits to join as long as they met certain timelines for previous treatment and diagnosis. The pilot will be in effect through June, Lawrence said, and then the DoD will analyze whether it would make sense to extend the program.

To ease the ongoing recruiting crisis, senators have urged the DoD to allow applicants who had sought treatment for some mental health issues.

“We disqualify young men and women if they’ve seen a psychiatrist or if they’ve been on medicine for mental health, and yet we want them to try to improve themselves,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March.

“There are still people who are eager to join — it’s just really, really hard to actually get them in,” said Harris, the Navy recruiter. “Because, you know, they can see their medical history. I think that would be the biggest issue as to why recruiting numbers are so terrible.”

New hurdles

Smith, a soldier who has spent the last few years recruiting, admitted he helped applicants massage their medical history to get them in before Genesis — up to a point. He wouldn’t, for example, allow someone with asthma to get through.

But of the 30 applicants he recruited, he said, “only one was clean as a whistle.” In some cases, the problem wasn’t medical; a history of marijuana use was also something he would “grease wheels for.”

The recruiter also lied about his own medical history to enlist.

As Smith went through the applicant pipeline, officials requested medical paperwork for a procedure he underwent years ago, but he had no way to get those records.

“My recruiter, for me to get in, just made up medical paperwork, made up a doctor and submitted it,” Smith said. “And that’s how I joined. That’s what it takes, or else I would never be in.”

He’s not the first Army recruiter to speak out about Genesis’ impact on the mission. Three other Army recruiters voiced similar concerns to Task and Purpose in September.

Some young people whom Genesis flags acquire waivers and go on to enlist.

At least one in six military recruits received waivers to enter service in fiscal year 2022, the highest proportion in at least 10 years, according to service data.

But some, dispirited by delays caused by Genesis, back out entirely, while others end up unable to join, recruiters say.

Meanwhile, recruiters say they still face the pre-Genesis pressures to make their quotas, despite the new hurdles.

“I’ll walk around Walmart at 11 o’clock at night just begging someone to sit down in my chair so I can go home,” said Jon Johnson, a Marine recruiter. “I’ve got a wife and two kids. This sh-t’s not it.”

Yes means ‘your enlistment stops’

Recruiters have a tongue-in-cheek saying about how an applicant’s answers to yes-or-no questions on the military’s medical history questionnaire decides their fate.

The form requires yes or no answers. Hay fever? A change of menstrual pattern? Broken bones?

“Yes” stands for “your enlistment stops.” “No” stands for “numerous opportunities.”

“You never had asthma. You never had ADHD,” the Navy recruiter said. “You broke your leg when you were six? “Don’t talk about it.”

In the Air Force, Genesis’ arrival is disqualifying more applicants during the medical process, while making medical screenings longer, Maj. Gen. Edward Thomas, head of Air Force Recruiting Service, told Military Times in February.

Applicants don’t formally sign up until they’re cleared, and that longer process gives them more time to back out.

“Genesis is the right thing to do — it’s mandated by Congress,” Thomas said. “But it wasn’t ready for deployment in recruiting.”

“If MHS Genesis had not been implemented in recruiting at the same time that the recruiting market had a sharp downturn, it would have been far more manageable,” he added.

The Army did not directly answer questions about whether Genesis is driving recruitment challenges, but Army Recruiting Command spokesman Maj. Tom Piernicky acknowledged that sorting through the medical records Genesis flags “is time consuming and labor intensive, and has added an element of complexity to the accessions process for initial entry applicants.”

“The Army is committed to maintaining high enlistment standards, and MHS Genesis has helped the Army to better determine an applicant’s suitability for Service from a health and safety standpoint,” Piernicky said. “With regard to current challenges, the Army, along with the other services, continue to face unprecedented recruiting conditions due to a combination of factors.”

Navy Recruiting Command spokesman Cmdr. Dave Benham said the access to additional information that Genesis provides increases “average processing time,” but that the system allows the Navy to make more informed decisions regarding an applicant’s medical history.

“It also means fewer cases of Sailors entering the Navy that later go through medical review boards for pre-existing conditions that were not disclosed at accession,” he said. “Our recruiters are working hard to consider the entire person and to reduce barriers to enlistment where possible, while still ensuring we deliver on that mission.”

Marine Corps spokesman Jim Edwards blamed the same societal factors as the Pentagon and other services, as well as “media inflation,” for the struggle.

Genesis, Edwards said in an email, “has extended the contracting timeline for some applicants, but it is not the sole or main factor driving recruitment difficulties.”

“Our hard-working Marine recruiters continue to accomplish the assigned recruiting mission and we remain on track to accomplish the FY23 accession mission,” he said.

Delayed gratification

Recruiters said common holdups for applicants include ADHD medication, antidepressants and counseling. Mental health was also a common reason that applicants sought medical waivers in FY22, according to data provided by DoD.

Diagnoses of mental health conditions are higher for Gen-Z than for older generations. The American Psychological Association reported in 2019 that Gen-Z and millennials are more likely to report their mental health as fair or poor, and more report receiving treatment or therapy, compared to Gen-Xers or baby boomers.

Recruiters were quick to add that Genesis creates hurdles even for applicants who do what’s legally required of them: honestly report what they remember of past medical conditions. Some applicants have forgotten about issues that left no long-term effects but require additional documentation once they pop up in Genesis.

Don Wilson, a Marine staff NCO recruiter, said he thinks a screening system like Genesis has benefits in ensuring that only applicants ready for the rigors of the military can join.

But he wishes applicants didn’t get flagged for having attended counseling after a difficult life event or being prescribed an EpiPen years ago.

Recruiters say the increased disqualification of applicants caused by Genesis makes it that much harder for them to hit their monthly quotas, exacerbating the long hours and grueling sales pitches that have long defined military recruiting.

Such applicants can still make it into the military if they provide additional medical documentation or secure waivers for certain conditions, but recruiters say that is often easier said than done.

Marine recruiter Johnson and others said Genesis increases the time between a potential enlistee walking into his office and shipping to boot camp, even if they are fully qualified.

And when dealing with impatient teenagers, time isn’t a resource recruiters can afford to waste.

Johnson recalled a 17-year-old girl who came into his office and who was clearly in outstanding shape and healthy enough to ship off to Marine basic training.

Yet health records pulled by Genesis showed that she had sprained her wrist as a child, an injury that hadn’t required surgery, stitches or painkillers, Johnson said.

He had to chase down documentation proving she was good to go, and it took two months to get her processed, Johnson said.

Recruiters for other services echoed the Marine’s take: that Genesis makes processing too long, allowing kids to back out or change their mind before they have signed their contract.

“I had to battle the disinterest” of the teen, Johnson said. “For most people, they’re looking for instant gratification. That’s also a common trend we’ve seen out here: If I can’t get them something now, they generally leave.”

“It comes to the point where they’re like, ‘This is too much work, I’m just gonna go apply at Starbucks,’” Navy recruiter Harris said.

Adapting and overcoming

Factors besides Genesis make it challenging to recruit.

In addition to poor fitness and low desire to serve in the military among teenagers, recruiters said many schools do not welcome them onto their grounds, a challenge exacerbated by the pandemic. Some parents don’t want their babies to take on the military’s risks.

But these problems existed long before today’s recruiting crisis, the Marine recruiter Brown noted.

“Since the Marine Corps existed, there’s been obese people,” he said. “There [have] been low test scores. That’s something we’ve always dealt with.”

What’s new is Genesis.

Before 2022, Brown said, he had never missed a monthly target during his four years as a recruiter.

Then came Genesis. He started missing his goals, and it took him a few months to get back on track.

Meanwhile, the services are working to adjust to the longer recruiting timelines associated with Genesis.

The Army last year activated some of its Reserve doctors to deal with a backlog in waivers.

In addition, the Army and Air Force have instituted a Genesis “prescreen” so that applicants and recruiters can better understand what parts of a medical history will be relevant and require documentation at MEPS before they arrive at the processing station, according to service officials.

Navy and Marine Corps officials said that, as was the case before Genesis, recruiters review an applicant’s medical history with them to determine if they have any medical conditions that will need to be addressed at MEPS.

Still, several recruiters told Military Times that their leaders’ response to recent shortfalls has been to tell them to work harder. Make more calls. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

Brown said he used to work about nine hours a day as a recruiter. Now it’s up to 12, plus weekends. He said that’s less than most of his peers.

These days, Harris, who has been a Navy recruiter since before Genesis, said many recruiters he knows are on antidepressants — one of the very things for which Genesis screens applicants.

Military Times reporters Rachel Cohen, Davis Winkie and Meghann Myers contributed to this report.