Army says wokeness “relatively minor” on list of reasons why people don’t enlist
The Army now has data to show why people are not signing up to serve our country. It might not be because of the reasons politicians have been discussing. This new survey comes as the military struggles to recruit enough service members.
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Rhetoric referring to the “woke military” has taken over political campaigns and some congressional hearings.
“When I talk to people and say ‘well, why aren’t you looking to join the military,’ a lot of them say ‘well, the military has been over politicized,’ ‘well, the military has gone woke,’” Rep. Cory Mills (R) Florida said.
The Army also asked this question as part of a survey.
“We don’t take sides, but what we do do is follow the data,” Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, Chief of Army Enterprise Marketing told us.
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Leaders are analyzing the responses as the branch fell about 15,000 soldiers short of its recruiting goal, which lawmakers say impacts our national security. Fink said very few people cited “wokeness” as a reason they did not enlist.
“It garnered about 5% of the total market share,” he explained.
Traditionally, safety concerns are the main barriers to service. This time around, the Army wanted to know what else was causing an issue.
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“The number one barrier the ‘I’d be putting my life on hold,’ that the Army is going to constrain me,” Fink relayed. “A second one was quite frankly, fear of discrimination or that I wouldn’t have the same opportunities as others… and then the third one was really their trust in military leadership.”
Fink’s team uses that data to create their marketing. The Army just released a new trailer encouraging people to serve.
“We are not a limiter in your career,” Fink said. “In fact, we are a de-limiter. We will accelerate your career.”
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We asked if a marketing campaign can make the difference the Army is trying to make when it comes to meeting recruitment goals.
“We know that there are a variety of challenges that we have that have quite frankly put us in the pickle that we’re in,” Fink said. “An ad is not going to fix that. This is going to take some time to help address this and it’s an ongoing all of Army exercise.”
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