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washingtonscene Enthusiasm is slipping among those


who are healthy enough to make the cut. Internal military research shows today’s young people are less likely to want to serve in the military compared to past generations. Overall interest in the military, known


as “propensity to serve,” is measured con- stantly by the Pentagon’s personnel office. Propensity to serve hit a historic low in 2007, at the height of the nation’s pessi- mism about Iraq and Afghanistan. Those propensity indicators have


ticked up in recent years, but the long- term trend is worrying some officials. “Part of the challenge is … the number of individuals [eligible to serve] is drop- ping a little bit, but more importantly, the propensity of those individuals is going down,” said Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Mark Brilakis, commander of Ma- rine Corps Recruiting Command. Brilakis told lawmakers that among the 30 million young Americans between the ages of 17 and 24, fewer than 1 mil- lion are healthy enough to serve and eager to talk to a recruiter about a mili- tary career. As a result, Marine Corps recruiters are spending some of their time selling young people on the idea of military service, targeting those who are more difficult to recruit, Brilakis said. “The biggest levers that we rely on


to bolster recruiting in general are re- cruiting marketing, enlistment bonuses, and recruiter manning,” Penrod said. “The department must continue to pro- vide sufficient funding to sustain a level of awareness and production to meet its mission.” Growing recruiting challenges are a


reminder to lawmakers that the all-volun- teer force should not be taken for granted just because there hasn’t been a recruit- ment issue in recent years.


Military-Civilian


Benefit Divide Comparisons are off the mark.


T


hough the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (BBA) was trum- peted as a bipartisan, two-year,


sequestration-alleviating budget deal, in reality, it was a backroom, eleventh-hour pact that was rushed through both the House and Senate before the holidays, bypassing the committees of jurisdiction and highlighting a growing military- civilian divide that fails to recognize the necessary sacrifice that comes with two decades of service. Even though the budget deal will help ease the harmful effects of sequestration for two years for the Pentagon, MOAA thinks doing so on the backs of service- members who serve our nation for more than 20 years is disgraceful. Fortunately, several members of Con-


gress — now that they have seen the harm- ful effect of the change — have introduced more than 15 bills to repeal some or all of the COLA provision. But there are still critics, including


many members of the press, who are sup- porting the COLA cut, calling it exceed- ingly modest to “a military pension plan that is already far more generous than private-sector equivalents.”


What has caused these critics to believe the military pension is out of line? It started when our own uniformed and civilian leaders within the Pentagon cre- ated the perfect storm, providing political top cover to slash pay and benefits with their repeated, alarming, and false claims about “exploding” personnel cost growth. The Pentagon’s current rhetoric on


exploding personnel growth has em- boldened some in Congress to consider


MARCH 2014 MILITARY OFFICER 35


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