In a Tuesday press conference, Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., announced their joint amendment’s introduction, calling it pertinent to military readiness and the well-being of American troops.

“That is almost 300 future airmen and women who would not be finishing their training at their expected date,” Cisneros, a former under secretary of defense for personnel readiness, said in the briefing. “This has completely set back the Air Force’s expected recruitment class from entering the future squadrons on time.”

This move comes after a flu outbreak sickened hundreds of trainees at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and killed one. Castro, whose district houses Lackland, confirmed that 284 trainees contracted the flu, four have been hospitalized and one has died.

Over a week ago, the Air Force announced that the training wing at Lackland suffered a localized outbreak over the three weeks prior but did not mention how many trainees contracted the flu.

Keon McDaniel, a basic military trainee from the 737th Training Support Squadron at Lackland, died on June 16 at Brooke Army Medical Center due to a medical emergency. Lackland officials said an investigation into the cause of his death is currently underway. Air Force officials declined at the time to comment on if his passing was related to the flu outbreak.

But Castro, who requested an investigation into McDaniel’s death in relation to the flu, revealed Tuesday that the Air Force confirmed that the trainee did die from the outbreak on base, according to a release.

“This is a tragedy that could have been prevented were it not for the reckless actions of Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth,” Castro said in the statement.

The outbreak caused lawmakers to express concern over the current optional flu vaccine policy for service members and Pentagon civilian personnel that went into effect in April, two months before the outbreak.

Hegseth announced that service members would no longer be required to get the annual flu vaccine, citing the prior policy as “overly broad and not rational.”

Last week, the Pentagon granted exceptions to policy requests, or ETPs, to military services and some federal agencies, allowing for the slight reversal to be included into Hegseth’s guidance.

The services with ETPs granted by Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata include the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy and Department of the Air Force.

Given that the Marine Corps and Space Force are under the Department of the Navy and Department of the Air Force, respectively, the services are also included in the exceptions.

The Pentagon declined to comment on if all trainees would be required to get the flu vaccine or when the exceptions were requested and granted. The Associated Press reported that all trainees for basic military training would now be required to receive the vaccine, citing a Pentagon official.

Castro confirmed in the Tuesday briefing that the Air Force’s exception to vaccinate all trainees was not approved until after the outbreak occurred even though it was requested about a month prior.

Houlahan said that there has been no indication of flu outbreaks at bases other than Lackland, but it is considered an “ongoing concern.”

“Now, nothing’s ever perfect. You could get the vaccine, and you still may get the flu or any other disease that may come forth, but it does make a difference,” Cisneros, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in the press conference.

The representatives that brought forth the amendment last week criticized their Republican counterparts for previously rejecting the measure’s inclusion in the final NDAA rules package, prompting another push to revert the policy to again require all service members to receive a flu vaccine.

The NDAA is currently moving through both chambers of Congress, with the House and Senate versions awaiting full consideration on their respective floors.

The Army signed contracts with 62,050 recruits, or 101.72% of its goal, while the Navy brought in 44,096 recruits, exceeding its target by more than 8%. The Air Force recruited 30,166 airmen; the Space Force brought in 819 Guardians; and the Marine Corps met its goal of 26,600 recruits.

Collectively, the five services achieved 103% of their active-duty recruiting mission, according to Pentagon officials.

After several years of recruiting shortfalls, military leaders have highlighted recruiting gains in congressional testimony, public remarks and service announcements.

For new recruits and the units waiting to receive them, however, signing a contract is only the first step. Recruits must still complete initial training, occupational schooling, technical certifications and, in many cases, security clearance requirements before joining the operational force.

As recruiting numbers improve, questions remain about how long it takes recruits to become mission qualified and contribute to military readiness.

How quickly recruits move from accession to operational qualification can affect force generation, unit staffing and long-term readiness planning.

Military leaders routinely report recruiting totals and accession goals, but the time required to transform recruits into fully qualified service members can vary significantly by specialty, training requirements and follow-on certifications. Those timelines help illustrate how quickly recruiting gains translate into trained personnel available to operational units.

Little public info on path to readiness

There is no single timeline for becoming fully mission capable. Training requirements vary significantly by specialty, with some support and administrative fields producing qualified service members in a matter of months, while highly technical and special operations pipelines can take more than a year and, in some cases, several years.

To determine what information is publicly available about how recruits become operationally ready, Military Times reviewed readiness documents, service training materials, congressional reporting requirements and Government Accountability Office reports.

The services routinely publish recruiting totals, accession targets and shipping figures. Army, Navy and Air Force leaders regularly testify before Congress about recruiting performance and often release updates throughout the year.

As of publication, Military Times was unable to identify a publicly available, department-wide metric measuring how long it takes recruits to become fully mission capable.

The absence of publicly available reports does not indicate whether the department tracks those timelines internally. Among the systems DoD uses to assess readiness are the Defense Readiness Reporting System and the Chairman’s Readiness System. Those systems primarily focus on unit personnel, equipment, supplies, training and mission capability.

GAO reviews of military readiness describe DoD readiness assessments that include personnel, maintenance, training and mission-capability measures. In a 2023 review, GAO reported that resource readiness ratings measure the status of personnel, equipment, supplies and training, while mission capability ratings assess whether units can accomplish their designed missions.

Military Times asked the Department of Defense whether it maintains a department-wide metric measuring the average amount of time required to move recruits from accession to operational qualification and, if so, whether that information is reported to Congress or made publicly available. In response, Pentagon Press Operations referred Military Times to the military services for information on accession-to-readiness timelines.

Requests for additional information were also sent to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force regarding whether they track the amount of time required for recruits to become fully mission qualified and whether those data are reported outside the services.

Federal law requires the Defense Department to maintain a comprehensive readiness reporting system.

Under 10 U.S.C. § 117, the secretary of defense must ensure the system objectively measures the capability of the armed forces to carry out national defense missions and includes assessments of unit readiness, training establishments and defense infrastructure. The statute also requires readiness policies to be applied uniformly across the department through a single authoritative reporting system.

The law does not explicitly require reporting on the amount of time needed to move individual recruits from accession to full mission qualification. Military Times was unable to identify publicly available documentation showing that accession-to-readiness timelines are included as a standardized department-wide measure.

Timing differs by service and specialty

Military officials do not generally define readiness solely by branch. Training pipelines are largely determined by occupational specialty.

Training timelines vary widely. Some support specialties may require only a few months of initial training, while combat arms, technical and specialized career fields often require substantially longer pipelines. Highly technical career fields, including cyber, intelligence and nuclear specialties, can require 12 months or more of schooling and follow-on qualifications, depending on specialty and qualification requirements. Special operations pipelines frequently extend well beyond a year.

Army recruits complete Basic Combat Training, followed by Advanced Individual Training in most specialties, while some combat arms occupations use One Station Unit Training, which combines both phases.

Depending on military occupational specialty, follow-on schooling can last from four weeks to more than a year. Infantry recruits complete One Station Unit Training, which typically lasts about 22 weeks.

Marine recruits spend approximately 13 weeks at boot camp before moving to Marine Combat Training or the Infantry Training Battalion, and then occupational specialty schools. Depending on specialty, Marine training pipelines can extend for several additional months.

Navy recruits complete approximately nine weeks at Recruit Training Command before reporting to “A” schools. Job training ranges from several weeks to more than a year, particularly in highly technical communities such as nuclear propulsion.

Air Force recruits complete 52 days, or roughly seven and a half weeks, of Basic Military Training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland before entering technical training. Depending on specialty, technical training can last from several weeks to many months, particularly in cyber and special warfare career fields.

Space Force Guardians attend Air Force Basic Military Training before entering specialized technical pipelines focused on cyber, intelligence and space operations.

Completing occupational training does not necessarily mean a service member is immediately considered fully mission capable. Newly assigned personnel often complete additional local certifications, field exercises and collective training requirements after arriving at operational units.

Navy officials said readiness is generally measured through demonstrated proficiency rather than time spent in training. Capt. Candice Tresch, public affairs director for the Chief of Naval Personnel, said sailors first complete initial training, and then continue qualifying at their commands through warfare qualifications, emergency drills and unit-level training.

“There’s really no specific [timeline], in six months you go from the street to proficient sailor,” Tresch told Military Times. “It’s a continuous progression.”

Tresch said qualification timelines vary by specialty, command and operational requirements. Operational demands can also accelerate or extend training schedules.

“It’s not really time-based. [It’s] can you do the mission?” she said.

Constraints to military training, readiness

Government Accountability Office reports, congressional testimony and publicly available military documents describe factors affecting military readiness and training, including schoolhouse capacity, instructor availability, maintenance requirements, security clearance processing and equipment availability.

Recent GAO reviews identified training limitations, personnel shortages, maintenance delays, sustainment challenges and infrastructure constraints affecting readiness across the force.

One GAO review examining sailor-led ship maintenance found that the Navy did not track and report certain personnel data, including the number of sailors assigned to ships but unavailable for duty. GAO recommended that the Navy collect and report additional personnel information to improve oversight and the quality of information provided to Congress.

The services already report numerous readiness measures, including personnel levels, training status and mission-capability rates. Military Times did not identify publicly available documentation showing that those readiness measures include standardized timelines for moving recruits from accession to full mission qualification.

Congress receives regular updates on recruiting performance and unit readiness. Military Times did not identify publicly available documentation showing whether Congress receives standardized, department-wide data on how long recruits take to become fully mission capable.

The services routinely publish detailed recruiting data, including accession totals, shipping figures and boot camp graduations. Whether DoD also maintains or publicly reports a standardized measure tracking how long recruits take to become fully mission capable remains unclear.

Navy officials told Military Times that readiness is generally measured through demonstrated proficiency rather than a fixed timeline and said qualification timelines vary by specialty, command and operational requirements.

At publication, the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force had not responded to Military Times’ requests for comment.

Staff Sgt. Johnny “Joey” Jones, a Fox News contributor, reenlisted in the Corps on Wednesday in a ceremony held by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon Hall of Heroes, according to the Department of Defense.

“A lot of work went into saying, ‘Hey, this is the kind of American we want back in uniform,’” Hegseth said in the ceremony. “Not just because of what he did and what he’s done in uniform but because of how he represents the fighting men and women of our country.”

Jones enlisted in 2005 as a radio technician before deploying to Iraq in 2007 as a machine gunner, per a Pentagon release. He then requested to change his MOS to Explosive Ordnance Disposal and later deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, according to the Sentinels of Freedom, a veterans scholarship and support program that Jones joined in 2012.

During his time in Afghanistan, Jones disabled over 85 improvised explosive devices. In August 2010, however, Jones stepped on an IED, resulting in the loss of both legs above the knee.

Starting in 2019, Jones became a Fox contributor “wingman” for Hegseth and spoke on military analysis and veterans’ services.

“How Joey talks about [service] on television [is] so that the American people understand it and connect to it in a visceral way,” Hegseth said at the ceremony. “You could talk about it academically, you could talk about it from a detached perspective or you can talk about having lived it the way he has.”

In his remarks at the ceremony, Hegseth highlighted last year’s Marine Corps record recruiting numbers, saying he hopes Jones’ reenlistment motivates younger Americans to join the military.

Jones said during the ceremony that he had more to give after medically retiring 14 years ago. He called it a “debt,” highlighting that he was able to be on TV while other service members continued to give to the country, “shy of their life and maybe a couple legs,” he said.

“The last job I had in uniform, my job was to get better. It was to heal. It’s a very selfish thing,” Jones said. “The Marine Corps paid me to get better, and then I retired, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it was unfinished business.”

Jones said he strives to change the perspective that society has of the men and women who got injured in combat and saw the worst of war. He said there’s more to give — if not through reenlisting, then by serving the community.

He remembers former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos telling him, “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” not knowing that he would “cash that check” almost 20 years later.

“If there’s an opportunity for me to serve, there’s no reason why a no-legged 40-year-old staff sergeant [should not] be able to put the uniform on, other than these men believed it,” Jones said. “The goal here is to open that door for anyone else that has something left to give.”

In an interview in February, Col. Michael Hays, assistant chief of staff for the G-3 directorate of Marine Corps recruiting, called the move a “massive structural realignment” in response to the most challenging recruiting environment the all-volunteer force has ever faced.

“We continue to pull as many levers as we can to ensure the success of Marine Corps recruiting,” Hays said.

Beginning around October 2023, according to Hays, the Marines began the process of closing recruiting headquarters deemed unlikely to perform as desired. To date, officials said, they have closed the Corps’ recruiting station headquarters in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Des Moines, Iowa.

The Marine Corps is now in the process of opening two recruiting centers in trendy urban areas: Austin, Texas, and Orlando, Florida, officials said. A third recruiting center also will open at a location to be determined to complete the changes.

This lever-pull was informed by a “qualified enlisted population,” or QEP, metric developed by the Corps in coordination with CNA, a nonprofit research and analysis organization, recruiting command officials said. This analysis crunches multiple population attributes within geographic areas to predict where recruiters are most likely to succeed.

Qualified enlisted population “helps to inform leadership when determining recruiting boundaries to provide individual recruiters, and thus (Marine Corps recruiting command) an increased likelihood of success,” recruiting command officials told Marine Corps Times in a statement. “We have realized more consistent recruiting success in areas closely aligned to” the qualified enlisted population.

Recruiting Station Cleveland, which fell under the 4th Marine Corps District and oversaw 16,800 square miles’ worth of recruiting offices in northeastern Ohio and the Detroit metro area, held a dissolution ceremony in February ― merging with the Columbus recruiting station to create an Ohio hub, according to published photographs on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service website.

The Pittsburgh recruiting station, which had at one point been staffed by 60 recruiters, closed its doors May 1.

The Des Moines, Iowa, recruiting station has not publicly announced closure plans, though officials say it has closed. Its website and phone line were down when checked on Monday.

Officer selection stations also are undergoing realignment.

The Corps is in the process of closing stations in Fargo, North Dakota; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Champaign, Illinois, Marine Corps Recruiting Command said.

In turn, new officer selection stations are set to open in the urban regions of Pasadena, California; Tampa, Florida; and San Antonio.

Hays said the CNA-supported data analysis was relatively new, dating back to fiscal year 2022.

While he didn’t go into detail about all the factors the qualified enlisted population analysis pulled in, he said it gave the Marine Corps a good idea of where the most recruits likely to meet baseline standards for service were likely to live.

“Ultimately, what it shows is the population density of those individuals who are qualified for enlistment,” he said.

The southeastern U.S. continues to have the best military recruiting prospects, as has historically been the case, shows CNA data from fiscal year 2019, the most recent year available.

The mid-Atlantic and New England states, including Pennsylvania, and those in the upper Midwest, including Iowa, have the lowest representation of military recruits by population, per the recent data. CNA data shows population trends getting more pronounced over time: Fewer recruits are coming from the Northeast and North Central regions of the U.S., and more from the South, than was the case five years ago.

Officials emphasized that the Marine Corps would continue to have recruiters “responsible for every zip code” in the U.S. during and after the realignment. The recruiting command will continue to evaluate mission attainment and population trends to assess the need for any future changes, they said.

And while offices are closing, officials said the realignment is zero-sum ― meaning the size of the recruiting population will stay the same.

The Marines’ current recruiting station shift, which is set to be complete by October 2025, appears to reveal an emphasis on more urban areas, seeming to echo a strategy the Army has embraced amid its own recruiting struggles.

The population of Des Moines, Iowa, for example, was a bit more than 211,000 people, according to the 2022 census, compared with Austin, at nearly 975,000 people.

And while Cleveland and Orlando, Florida, are comparable by population at more than 300,000 residents each ― Orlando does represent the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the southern U.S. It also has been named the fittest city in Florida, according to a survey released in May.

For its part, the Army announced a strategy shift in 2018, targeting 22 U.S. cities that had previously been overlooked or under-resourced in an effort to overcome a recruiting deficit that has gone on to cause multiple years of target shortfalls.

The Marine Corps has continued to meet recruiting goals while the other services have struggled. But it too has experienced the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that halted in-person recruiting in schools for years, and the difficulties of finding qualified and interested recruits.

Hays said the Corps’ strategy moving forward would redouble emphasis on presence in high schools and direct engagement with students.

Referencing the widely cited statistic that only about 9% of young Americans are interested in military service, Hays said the Corps saw that as an opportunity, not a hindrance.

Maj. Gen. William Bowers, commander of Marine Corps Recruiting Command, “would kind of flip that on its head,” Hays said. “‘Well, there’s 91% out there that just need to be inspired to serve by our presence and the example that we set.’”

Having been medically rejected three times before ultimately receiving a medical waiver to join the Air National Guard in 2018, I know firsthand how illogical and infuriating this process can be. But, it was through my efforts advising over 400 similarly rejected applicants that I realized that larger-scale change is needed. By my calculations, over 15,000 applicants are medically rejected each year without applying for a waiver, with even more denied at the recruiter’s door or self-selecting out from applying at all. At a time when the military is facing a recruiting crisis, shouldn’t it be doing everything it can to bring in applicants who are ready and willing but currently unable to serve?

More than 15,000 applicants per year rejected without a waiver appeal

How many potential recruits is the military missing out on? According to a 2022 Accession Medical Standards Analysis and Research Activity report, 1.35 million applicants received a physical at MEPS from 2016-2020. Of that population, 13-16% were medically disqualified, yet only 47-66% of disqualified applicants applied for a medical waiver. By my calculations, from 2016-2020, as many as 85,000 applicants were rejected and did not apply for a medical waiver.

Why would an applicant not request a waiver? The answer comes down to incentives — and who actually does the paperwork. For most applicants, recruiters determine whether or not to submit for a waiver review. However, recruiters are evaluated by the total number of recruits they bring in, often based on monthly or yearly quotas. This disincentivizes them from prioritizing applicants who require waivers, which require more work, take more time, and may ultimately result in rejection. Additionally, recruiters are neither medical professionals nor empowered to evaluate an applicant holistically, which, in fact, is the intent of the waiver process. So, recruiters are unfortunately being put in the position of effectively making waiver decisions when they decide not to submit an applicant at all.

Let’s take 2020 as a case study, when the military services saw the following numbers of applicants, disqualifications, and waivers based on AMSARA’s 2022 Annual Report:

• Army: 120,500 applicants, 14% disqualified (16,750), 8,500 did not apply for waiver.
• Navy: 46,300 applicants, 16% disqualified (7,400), 3,100 did not apply for waiver.
• Air Force: 39,500 applicants, 16% disqualified (6,200), 2,500 did not apply for waiver.
• Marine Corps: 42,500 applicants, 14% disqualified (5,700), 1,800 did not apply for waiver.

So, in 2020 alone, 36,000 potential service members were rejected and 16,000 did not apply for a waiver. When you consider the previous four years as well, 192,000 applicants were medically rejected and 85,000 did not apply for a waiver.

It is important to note that these numbers are an underestimation of total applicants, since recruiters often exercise a “pocket veto” that prevents applicants from processing at MEPS or appealing for a waiver. Additionally, these disqualification statistics do not include the increased rate of disqualifications under MHS Genesis, an electronic health records system launched in 2023, which automatically flags civilian medical and prescription records. This forced disclosure of any and all potentially relevant medical records — which may be outdated, inaccurate, and irrelevant to an applicant’s ability to serve — will now cause only more hurdles.

The question remains: how many of these rejected applicants might be able to serve if given the opportunity to apply for a waiver?

Automatically push all applicants for a waiver

In the near term, a simple fix to this problem would be to automatically push all disqualified applicants for a waiver review. This would immediately double the number of applicants receiving waiver reviews and consequently increase the number of waivers approved. It would end the pocket veto of recruiters, who can slow roll or prevent applicants from applying for waivers. And it would give all applicants a chance to be evaluated holistically as to whether the potential risks they pose are outweighed by the value they bring to the military despite their medical conditions.

Waiver approval rates are currently 60-70%. How many of the 85,000 applicants currently rejected without a waiver might receive one if given the opportunity? There is no way to know for sure. But if we assume, for example, that 25% might be waived, the military could have received 21,000 additional recruits in the past five years. While this would not solve the entire military recruitment crisis, this improvement would result in a significant step towards improving the military recruitment crisis and is wholly within the military’s control.

Tailor medical requirements to job requirements

Requiring all applicants to apply for waivers is only a band-aid solution. Given current qualification standards prevent 77% of American youth from being eligible to serve, changing these standards would increase the supply of potential applicants to much more than just 23% of American youth. The long term solution, therefore, is to tailor military medical standards to military roles (i.e. MOS/AFSC). The military already exercises more waiver flexibility for jobs which are not physically demanding, such as chaplains, lawyers, and doctors, and has increased medical requirements for physically demanding jobs, such as fighter pilots and special forces. Why not expand this practice to all career fields?

Today, many military roles such as intelligence, logistics, or cyber, while critically important, are no more physically taxing than their civilian equivalents. Shouldn’t these roles have lower medical barriers to entry? Each Service could grade each MOS/AFSC as high, medium, or low risk from a physical and medical perspective and update standards and waiver recommendations accordingly. Just like applicants are currently waived for a specific branch, in the future they could be waived for specific jobs. If they wanted to switch, their medical status would need to be taken into consideration.

The needs of the military

Some will argue that tailoring medical standards and waiver guidelines is tantamount to “lowering standards.” I agree that not all conditions should be eligible for a waiver and that neither fitness standards nor job requirements be lowered. Deployability should be considered as well, yet deployability for support functions often means working on an established base or even deployment in place. Overall, the point is that medical standards should match the job, not be needlessly strict and standardized.

At the end of the day, the needs of the military come before any individual applicant. But what, exactly, are the needs of the military? Right now, the military needs to recruit thousands more qualified, competent, and fit individuals per year. The military can make simple changes to eligibility right now to open the floodgates of applicants who are already ready and willing to serve. The question remains whether the Department of Defense will choose to do so.

Joe Schuman is an Air National Guard officer and has published multiple articles on military recruitment issues as well as advised over 400 applicants on navigating the military medical waiver process. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense. He can be reached at joeschuman1234@gmail.com.

But efforts to spruce up lackluster recruiting across the armed forces have yielded mixed results so far.

The Air Force has so far managed to reverse its misfortunes, exceeding its goal of 6,249 new active duty airmen by 130 people as of the end of December 2023, according to recently released Pentagon statistics.

That’s due in part to a slew of policy tweaks aimed at growing the pool of eligible prospects, a growing staff focused on battling a backlog of medical paperwork, and a fourth-quarter push to get as large of a head start on fiscal 2024 recruitment as possible.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Colorado, Air Force recruiting boss Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein said he is “cautiously optimistic” about staying on track for the rest of the year.

“Instead of booking weeks in advance, we’re booking multiple months in advance,” he said of shipping newcomers to boot camp. “We’re not seeing this edge of the cliff.”

America’s two largest armed forces, however, are still struggling to woo prospective troops. The Army brought in almost 6,100 new soldiers between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023, falling short at 74% of its first-quarter goal, according to DOD. The Navy fared worse at about 5,400 new sailors, or 65% of its own target.

Still, Army recruiters are outpacing their performance from the same time last year, when they had reached just 68% of their active duty goal. The Navy’s intake rate mirrors where it stood at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2023.

The Space Force and Marine Corps, the Pentagon’s smallest branches and the only two services that reached their active duty accession goals last year, have continued that success in 2024. About 2,200 new Marines had signed up as of the end of December, exceeding the Corps’ first-quarter goal, and the Space Force gained 110 guardians to meet its own objective, DOD statistics show.

The Air Force, Space Force and Marine Corps were the only services to meet or exceed the Pentagon’s quality benchmarks for active duty recruits. For instance, the military wants at least 90% of recruits to have a high school diploma, and at least 60% of recruits must score above average on the Armed Forces Qualification Test.

Five of the military’s six reserve components also missed their recruiting goals for the first three months of fiscal 2024. The Marine Corps Reserve was the lone success: It signed up more than 1,800 new troops, around 700 more than the service had sought.

“The recruiting market remains challenging,” the Pentagon said in its undated press release. “The department continues to work collaboratively with the services to develop new strategies to address recruiting challenges.”

The U.S. military fell more than 41,000 people short of its fiscal 2023 enlisted recruiting goal as it faced a complex web of challenges ranging from dwindling interest in military service among America’s youth and the country’s obesity epidemic, to the introduction of an electronic health records system that has slowed in-processing to a crawl.

The services have addressed the problem through policy changes that have gradually broadened the pool of eligible applicants, expanding the recruiting corps and adding staffers to tackle the backlog of medical paperwork spurred by the new Genesis electronic health records system.

While Genesis aims to paint a more holistic picture of a person’s health history by pulling together medical records dating back to childhood, it can also flag old prescriptions and incidents that wouldn’t hinder a recruit’s ability to do their job. But weeding out the truly problematic cases takes time.

Nearly 9,000 prospective Air Force and Space Force recruits dropped out of consideration because of the time it took to process their medical records, Amrhein said. He added that about 70% of recruits who seek waivers for disqualifying medical conditions — like diabetes, endometriosis or depression — receive them.

“If you do the math … you’re somewhere in the ballpark of 5,600 folks that we could have likely brought in if we had a little bit more accelerated medical processing,” he said.

A total of about 400 new recruits have qualified for service under less-stringent rules around THC and tattoos, Amrhein said. Around 225 more have qualified for a college loan repayment program implemented last summer; the service estimates 500 people may be eligible for the initiative each year. And almost 200 have enlisted through a new family-and-friends referral program.

More than 2,000 additional airmen have enlisted after the service tweaked its body composition requirements last year to allow recruits with a higher percentage of body fat.

“With each of these policy changes, we have changed the lives of individuals who would have otherwise been prevented from service in the Air Force or Space Force,” Amrhein said, adding, “The caliber of our recruits remains uncompromised.”

He added that the Department of the Air Force has changed its policy on recruiting non-citizens to allow lawful permanent residents with two-year conditional Green Cards or visas to apply for service.

“This change now allows more lawful permanent residents to join our ranks and become eligible for accelerated naturalization by the virtue of their military service,” Amrhein said. “We urge our recruiters to apprise all of the legal permanent residents of this pathway to U.S. citizenship through military enlistment, and to furnish them with the necessary information.”

The Air Force argues that filling its ranks with new recruits and returning retirees, whom it invited back to staff a select list of jobs earlier this month, is crucial to maintaining military readiness as it looks to outpace China’s military ambitions.

But all of its progress is undermined by Congress’s failure to approve a new budget for fiscal 2024, Amrhein said.

“The threats of our near competitors are no longer in the faint distance,” he said. “They’re here now. … We need every resource available to ensure we’re reaching those willing to join.”

In late September, the service published a sources-sought solicitation for a “branding refresh” that would apply to the more than 700 Marine Corps recruiting stations, officer selection stations and recruiting sub-stations.

The document states that the Marine Corps is “anticipating a requirement” to incorporate relatively recent brand updates into office interior design and external window dressing and display. The last such effort to standardize the look of recruiting offices began in 2006, it adds.

“Each facility is, essentially, the office and ‘storefront’ for Marine Recruiters to conduct their day-to-day business, meet recruits and their parents, and project a professional and consistent brand appearance to the communities in which they’re stationed,” the solicitation explains. “As office spaces are not uniform in their size, square footage, floorplan, etc., the branded retail experience served as a guide on how each facility could incorporate the core principles of the design to effectively achieve a consistent look and operational workflow.”

The proposed update, according to documents, not only will incorporate brand updates, but also optimize the use of interior space “in accordance with best industry practices.”

Marine Corps recruiting stations ― often found in high-traffic commercial areas such as strip malls ― typically feature a glass storefront featuring the iconic eagle, globe and anchor insignia on a dark background and the slogan “Marines: The Few, The Proud.”

Office interiors typically are color-blocked, with adjoining walls painted in Navy blue, tan and crimson: the colors featured on the Marine Corps dress uniform. Furniture is dark and spare and common spaces feature ceiling overhead lights. While uncluttered, the look seems dated and the combined effect can be harsh.

Brand management company Landor Associates described designing this scheme in a 2018 blog post that outlined the challenges and goal of standardizing what had been until then a disjointed aesthetic. In particular, the post said, Marine Corps recruiting substations, which are part of larger multiservice recruiting centers, were “undifferentiated” from the other branches. Following a prototype rebrand, “locations experienced a significant improvement in recruiting traffic and staff response was overwhelmingly positive,” the post stated. “Its success led to the approval of a nationwide implementation of the program over several years.”

While many decisions have yet to be made, Marine Corps Recruiting Command has already begun introducing more “red-dominant” color schemes into recruiting centers, command spokeswoman Master Sgt. Rebekka Heite told Marine Corps Times in emailed responses to queries.

“Similarly to how the ‘Dress Blue’ uniform is instantly recognizable, we feel that the bold red look will help drive increased recognition of the Marine Corps brand and help differentiate us from the other services,” she said.

Heite said that no decision has been made on the timing of a new reband effort, or whether it will definitely take place.

The solicitation, she said, was intended to get a better understanding of the market for such work and what it would cost to execute. If a decision to rebrand is made, she said, offices would likely be remodeled during natural maintenance cycles or during already-planned relocations rather than according to a hard rollout schedule.

The prospective rebrand, she said, is a minor update that would allow centers to align “with the evolutionary changes that have happened in our presentation since offices were initially built out over 15 years ago. … How we present existing elements will be the brand refresh.”

As with the previous rebrand, though, appealing to prospective recruits and differentiating the service will be a top goal. Any effort the service rolls out on, Heite said, “will help prospective recruits be able to tell at a glance that they are in a Marine Corps Recruiting Office as our branch is the only one that utilizes red in the primary colors.”

The Atlanta-based Wunderman Thompson, formerly J. Walter Thompson, has been the Marine Corps’ marketing and advertising agency for more than 75 years.

It’s behind the service’s most iconic recruiting efforts, including the 1990s-era TV ad featuring a Marine fighting a lava monster and the even more legendary “We Don’t Promise You a Rose Garden” recruiting poster. The agency, according to the solicitation, would work with contractors on any rebranding efforts.

As all the military services face historic difficulties in meeting recruiting goals, the Marine Corps so has far fared the best.

It made its annual recruiting goal with fewer than two dozen recruits to spare. Leaders have emphasized the service’s strong identity as a major selling point, with now-Commandant Gen. Eric Smith offering a take on the rose garden slogan in February when discussing enlistment bonuses and other enticements.

“You get to call yourself a Marine,” he said. “That’s your bonus.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., sent Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin a letter Wednesday seeking answers about whether Military Health System Genesis — a medical records platform that the military first used for screening recruits last year — has slowed the recruitment process by forcing qualified applicants to secure medical waivers.

“While some of these flags merit review, the system is also delaying enlistees with manageable or long-healed injuries,” the letter states. “This may delay recruits’ enlistment processes if medical conditions require applicants to obtain medical waivers, which can take weeks or even months to be completed.”

The letter cites a Military Times report this spring in which recruiters from across the services alleged Genesis was making it harder to fill the ranks as the military struggles to meet its recruiting targets.

These shortfalls are expected to leave the Army, Navy and Air Force well short of their recruiting goals when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

“It is essential that recruits are healthy enough to enlist in the military,” the Senate Armed Services Committee members wrote. “However, DoD needs to examine the steps it is taking to ensure that the process of enlisting and obtaining waivers does not impede the recruitment process.”

Genesis has complicated recruiting because, when applicants try to join, the system pulls all their health records, often unearthing medical conditions that require them to seek waivers or that disqualify them entirely, recruiters said.

Some of these conditions may have healed long ago and have no bearing on applicants’ potential to serve, according to recruiters.

As the enlistment process stretches out, some young people lose interest in serving, recruiters said.

“It comes to the point where they’re like, ‘This is too much work, I’m just gonna go apply at Starbucks,’” a Navy recruiter told Military Times earlier this year.

A Pentagon watchdog report from May confirmed that medical waiver processing times had grown across the services.

Warren and Blumenthal’s letter cites the chief of naval personnel, Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, reporting that the time between first interview and contract for Navy applicants rose from 33.8 days to 63.4 days after Genesis was put in place.

Even after making some fixes, the processing time for prospective sailors was still at 59.9 days, according to the letter. The Navy is working with the Center for Naval Analyses “to better understand the root cause of these delays,” according to the senators’ letter.

“We urge the other services to also evaluate these delays and implement policy changes as soon as possible to address these inefficiencies,” the senators wrote.

Maj. Gen. Edward Thomas, the head of Air Force Recruiting Service, said in February that the congressionally mandated Genesis system “wasn’t ready for deployment in recruiting.”

Warren and Blumenthal’s letter also cites Military Times reporting showing that the number of applicants seeking waivers has soared, though the Pentagon’s data was inconsistent with that of the services and the Army refused to provide data. Army Times reporting revealed the branch mobilized Reserve doctors to get through a medical waiver backlog.

The senators requested data on processing delays and waivers, and asked what steps the military is taking to evaluate changes to what disqualifies applicants from service.

Defense Department officials said this spring that Genesis does not reduce the population of qualified applicants — it just confirms their physical and mental readiness to serve. Officials did not answer questions regarding whether they believed Genesis had played a role in the current recruiting crisis.

In Wednesday’s letter, the senators also sought answers regarding how DoD protects the private patient records in Genesis.

The Genesis system is based on a product by Cerner, which Oracle acquired in June 2022. In its role as a broker of online data, Oracle has come under scrutiny for alleged violations of people’s privacy, the senators wrote.

Warren and Blumenthal also raised concerns that service members and their families may need to provide a credit card number to log on to the system, potentially creating a barrier to access.

Recruiters previously told Military Times that one way Genesis hampered recruiting is by making it harder for applicants to downplay medical conditions. It used to be that applicants could get into the military by fudging aspects of their self-reported medical histories, recruiters said.

“Now that Genesis exists, we can no longer hide things,” one Marine recruiter told Military Times.

The letter from Warren and Blumenthal didn’t address that aspect of Genesis’ reported effect on recruiting.

The senators requested answers from Austin’s office by Oct. 11.

The Office of the Secretary for Defense didn’t immediately respond to Military Times’ request for comment on the letter.

Marine officials say 18-year-old Pvt. Marshall Hartman died Monday during a “non-training incident” at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina.

The Prescott, Michigan, native had spent less than a week on the base before his death, the Corps said in a news release.

When asked if the Marine had died on base or had been transported to a hospital, the Corps declined to elaborate.

“The incident is currently under investigation, and it would be premature to speculate on the details of the investigation,” Maj. Philip Kulczewski told Marine Corps Times in a Friday email.

In April, Pfc. Noah Evans, 21, died during a physical fitness test at the training facility, Marine Corps Times previously reported. His death also was under investigation.

In June 2021, Pfc. Dalton Beals, 19, died during the cumulative boot camp event dubbed “the Crucible.” Prosecutors later charged his drill instructor with negligent homicide and three other offenses in connection with his death.

Hartman was assigned to Delta Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion.

The private was one of roughly 20,000 recruits who pass through the South Carolina base annually, according to its website. Recruits undergo 13 weeks of often grueling physical training at the depot.

Marine Corps Times Editor Andrea Scott contributed to this report.

The Defense Department Inspector General assessment, released Friday, found that the branches all review and approve medical waivers in the same way.

However, “the Services’ processes did not include tracking whether active-duty enlisted applicants who were permanently disqualified requested a waiver, or were encouraged to pursue one,” the report states. “Nor did the Services track the reason a waiver was not requested.

“By tracking the reasons for not processing a medical waiver, the Services could better understand barriers to entering military service, inform change to recruiting processes, and improve outcome for active-duty enlisted applicants,” the IG states.

Recent data suggests that recruits requiring waivers have become a significant part of the future force.

At least 1 in every 6 military recruits were given waivers to enter service in fiscal 2022, the highest percentage in at least 10 years, according to a Military Times investigation earlier this year.

Leaders of the Army, Navy and Air Force told lawmakers last month that they expect their services to fall short of recruiting goals this fiscal year.

The Army is expected to be short about 10,000 active-duty soldiers, while the Navy will miss its active duty enlisted goal by 6,000 sailors, and the Air Force will fall short of its active duty enlisted recruiting goal by about 3,400 airmen.

The Marine Corps is expected to meet its recruiting goals for fiscal 2023.

The IG looked at all active duty enlisted applicants that were permanently disqualified from service in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps due to a medical condition in fiscal 2021 and 2022.

All told, the services processed 54,206 medical waiver requests in that time frame and approved 77 percent of them from active duty enlisted applicants, according to the report.

Their survey did not include the Space Force, National Guard, reserve components or officer applicants.

When officials at 65 U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command locations nationwide medically disqualify an applicant, the applicant can request a waiver through the branch they are trying to join.

But the services “could not readily provide all of the requested data for active-duty enlisted applicants” that were disqualified by the processing command.

The services are not required to track if an applicant waiver was recommended or requested, the report noted, but added that the services should track and analyze the barriers applicants face when it comes to the medical waiver process “to maximize opportunities for enlistment across the Services.”

The IG also found that recruiting commands faced “delays in medical waiver processing” due to the Military Health System Genesis, which was brought online in March 2022 at Military Entrance Processing Stations, where applicants are medically examined before they can sign up.

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

Some recruiters told Military Times earlier this year that Genesis makes it harder for applicants to omit portions of their medical history, a development some believed was contributing to the current recruiting crisis.

As a result, many more applicants are getting flagged, and the time to process applications and waivers is getting longer. Applicants don’t formally sign up until they’re cleared, and that longer process gives them more time to back out.

The IG report recommended that the services stand up tracking to better capture data on whether rejected applicants are offered a medical waiver request, while documenting the reasons such a waiver might not be requested.

The services all concurred with the recommendation but varied in plans to implement such reforms.

U.S. Army Recruiting Command aims to provide a “corrective action plan” by November and also requested a Defense Department-level review of the entire medical waiver process because the command’s own analysis of the complete medical waiver processing time found that it could take 70 days or longer for a waiver determination to be made.

Navy Recruiting Command officials told the IG they would determine by later this year whether the existing applicant tracking system could start capturing such data.

The Air Force Recruiting Service will work to create a field in the recruiting information system that would document if a disqualified applicant chooses not to proceed with a waiver and the reason why they did not, a process that will take four to six months.

Marine Corps Recruiting Command leadership told the IG that “establishing a tracking mechanism for applicants cannot be implemented in the current recruiting information system,” but said such functions could be a part of future systems.

“The Marine Corps Recruiting Command will continue to encourage the DoD medical standard working groups to evaluate medical disqualification standards and remove barriers so that more applicants are medically eligible for military service,” the report states.