ICYMI: Warren Leads Senate Hearing to Improve Military Recruitment
“The United States has the strongest and most capable military in the world because of the people who volunteer to serve in its ranks. To maintain that advantage, we must continue to attract the best and brightest America has to offer… make no mistake, there is strong bipartisan concern that the military services continue to struggle to meet their recruiting goals.”
Washington, D.C. – Chairing a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Personnel, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke about the need to address military recruiting challenges and questioned military recruiting leaders on their recruiting challenges.
This year, the Marine Corps and Space Force, the two services with the lowest recruitment goals, were the only services that met their recruiting targets, and appears to be part of a long-term trend that shows that for years the military has failed to connect with the young people it needs to keep the country safe.
In questioning, Senator Warren raised concerns about MHS Genesis, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) new electronic health record system, which has contributed to significant delays by flagging applicants with manageable or long-healed injuries and triggering the requirement for the recruit to obtain a medical waiver before they can join the military. In September, Senators Warren and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to DoD asking how the services are addressing these delays, which all of the witnesses agreed they would provide answers to by the end of the year.
Senator Warren reiterated her call for DoD to address its negligence in military housing issues. Major General Johnny K. Davis, the Commanding General of Army Recruiting Command, agreed “100 percent” that addressing quality of life deficiencies helps recruiting and retention.
Finally, Senator Warren called on the Air Force to seriously consider grounding the V-22 Osprey, after an Osprey crash in Japan killed eight servicemembers. Several hours after this request, the military announced it was grounding its entire Osprey fleet.
Transcript: To receive testimony on the status of Department of Defense recruiting efforts and plans for fiscal year 2024
U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Personnel
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Opening remarks below and video HERE:
Senator Elizabeth Warren: This hearing will come to order.
I’m pleased to welcome you all to today’s hearing to receive testimony on the military’s recruiting challenges. The United States has the strongest and most capable military in the world because of the people who volunteer to serve in its ranks. To maintain that advantage, we must continue to attract the best and brightest America has to offer.
This is the second hearing in 2023 alone that this committee has held on the military’s recruiting challenges. During our hearing last March, we heard from the undersecretaries of each of the military services. Today’s subcommittee hearing includes the directors of recruiting from each of the military services to learn more about the challenges they face to attract the people we need to keep America safe.
We are holding today’s hearing at Senator Scott’s request, but make no mistake, there is strong bipartisan concern that the military services continue to struggle to meet their recruiting goals.
This year the Marine Corps and the Space Force—the two services with the lowest recruitment goals—were the only services that met their recruiting targets. If we were assigning grades, those two services got an A, while the Air Force earned a B+, the Army got a B-, and the Navy received a C+, and I think that’s grade inflation. This track record would be worrisome on its own, but it is even more troubling because it appears to be part of a long-term trend that shows that for years now, the military has failed to connect with the young people we need to keep our country safe.
The military is in a war for talent in a period of low unemployment. If we want a strong, vibrant military—and if we want to attract the best and brightest—then we need to acknowledge the importance of making certain that all young people are welcome, and that those who serve in the military, all of those who serve in the military, will be treated with dignity and respect.
Diversity matters and protection for those who serve matters. In February, this committee heard testimony from Dr. Bonny Lin, who served as a senior adviser for the Department of Defense in both the Obama and Trump administrations. She explained that cutting programs that support our military, including violence prevention programs, “would definitely hurt us.” We also heard from all of the services that programs to address racism and sexual assault are not a barrier to recruitment and retention. In fact, it is when those programs fail that young people question whether the military will really have their backs.
Servicemembers and their families give up a lot to serve their country, including enduring constant moves and uncertainty. How we treat those who volunteer to serve has a direct impact on our ability to attract the next generation. In too many cases, servicemembers have felt ignored or taken advantage of when they’ve come forward to report problems.
All three of my brothers served in the military, so I know first-hand both the benefits and sacrifices of everyone who serves.
In today’s hearing I look forward to hearing our witnesses’ perspective on both recruiting and rebuilding public confidence in the military. First, I want to hear their perspective on red tape in the recruiting process.
And second, public polling continues to show public confidence in the military is on the decline, and I want to hear our witnesses’ perspective on how we can demonstrate to young people that the military is an institution worthy of their trust.
And then third, I want to hear more about military housing. Several years ago this committee held hearings on shortfalls in military housing, including families being forced to live with mold, collapsed roofs, or exposed electrical wires. We changed the laws, putting in place a number of reforms to address these shortfalls. But here we are, several years later, and these reforms are still not fully implemented. In fact, families continue to report they feel like they’re being silenced. Meanwhile, the GAO details military barracks also have problems with “sewage overflow, mold and mildew, and broken windows and locks.” I have run out of patience with military leaders who come before this committee and promise that they will prioritize living conditions for servicemembers but somehow never manage to deliver.
And one last note: I do not wish to make it a focus of this hearing, but I want to make clear: that it was a grave mistake for one Senator to hold our military promotion system hostage over his personal disagreement with a Department of Defense policy. We need our commanders in the Pacific to deter China, and our service vice-chiefs to lead the military. I am relieved he’s released most of his holds but he is weakening military readiness and undermining both recruiting and retention. The Senate should not go home for the holidays until we confirm the remaining nominees.
This year marks the 50th year of the All Volunteer Force, so I look forward to hearing from our witnesses how the military can continue to adapt and evolve to keep us all safe.
To our witnesses, welcome, thank you for appearing. As I mentioned earlier, we’re just going to have the one panel today, composed of the military service directors of recruiting: Brigadier General Christopher Amrein, the Commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service; Major General William J. Bowers, the Commanding General for Marine Corps Recruiting Command; Major General Johnny Davis, the Commanding General of U.S. Army Recruiting Command; Rear Admiral Alexis T. Walker, the Commander of Navy Recruiting Command.
Now I will turn to Ranking Member Scott for his comments to open this hearing.
Round 1 of Questions below and video HERE:
Senator Elizabeth Warren: So, I'll do the first round of questions here. I’ll get us started. When potential recruits apply to the military, they have to pass through several screens to actually enlist – including a medical screening to make sure that they are healthy enough to serve.
Last year, the Department of Defense launched a new electronic health record system named MHS Genesis that is now used in the screening process. The screen is supposed to identify conditions that disqualify people from serving completely. But the MHS Genesis system appears also to be flagging applicants with manageable or long-healed injuries, triggering the requirement for the recruit to obtain a medical waiver before they can actually join the military.
One otherwise healthy applicant had to wait an extra two months to enlist while she proved that a childhood wrist sprain wasn’t a disqualifying medical condition.
And this isn’t a one-off problem. Data from the military services shows that in fiscal year 2022, one out of every six recruits needed medical waivers, the highest proportion anytime in the last 10 years.
Obviously we want a screening process that catches disqualifying medical conditions. But do each of you agree that it’s a problem if our process is creating unnecessary barriers to enrollment? Can I just have a yes from everybody on that? Good. Thumbs up. I’ve got that from General Bowers. Everybody is good on this, okay. This is where I want to start this conversation because recruiters have told the press that this process is making their job a lot harder and the data seem to back that up.
The Navy saw the average time between an applicant’s final interview until their first recorded contact nearly double. Army Recruiting Command found wading through these waivers could add up to 70 days or longer to the application process. The Department of Defense Inspector General verified these delays.
Look, it’s a problem if it’s taking healthy applicants longer to get through a bureaucratic screening process, but it’s an even bigger problem if all that red tape is causing some healthy applicants to drop out of the recruitment process altogether.
The Department of Defense Inspector General also recommended that each of the services track medically disqualified applicants to ensure that they are notified of their options to pursue a medical waiver and to better understand reasons why they may choose not to request a waiver.
Each of your commands agreed with this recommendation, but it’s not in place for most of the systems. So my question is, when will that happen? How about, we’ll go backwards this time. General Davis, do you want to start?
Major General Johnny Davis, Commanding General , Army Recruiting Command: Thanks, ma’am. The current Army senior leaders are very aware of this and are currently working on it. I don't have the exact date, but they are absolutely working on it.
Senator Warren: That is not my question: are you working on it? My question is can you give us an estimate on when we can expect that this will be done? I hope you noticed the irony that I am asking for questions about delays and what I am getting back are delays in answers. Got anything for me, General Davis? Okay. Admiral Walker, how about you?
Rear Admiral Alexis T. Walker, Commander, Navy Recruiting Command: Ma’am, thank you for the question. I do not have a specific date on when this will be implemented. We continue to look at inefficiencies in our process to try to wring out those inefficiencies so that we can bring more people into the Navy.
Senator Warren: You don’t have to go out and find this inefficiency. This one is big and there are flashing lights all around it. I just want to know when you are going to get us the information, just the information, so we can start fixing it.
Admiral Walker: Yes, ma’am. I will take that back.
Senator Warren: General Bowers, I think you have a better answer.
Major General William J. Bowers, Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruiting Command: Yes, ma’am. We actively track our waiver process. All of our Marines are trained how to submit a waiver, how to inform an applicant to go through the waiver process. More broadly, to your question on MHS Genesis and the accompanying health information exchange, the Deputy Secretary of Defense has recently set up a task force to look at the challenges of implementation. We are all very encouraged by this. We look forward to this task force being completed in February 2024, and we look forward to the results because we need to see action in the field.
Senator Warren: Okay. So, you’ve shown us it can be done. You have gotten this part done, right? You’re telling me that Marines have?
General Bowers: Yes, ma’am. We aggressively track waivers. We have a waivers section in our operations –
Senator Warren: Okay, so you’re at least tracking them. And General Amrein?
Brigadier General Christopher Amrein, Commander, Air Force Recruiting Service: Thank you for the opportunity. As far as the process to inform everyone that is initially medically disqualified from MEPS, our recruiters inform them of the opportunity for a waiver so that there is a formalized process to get through and into our waivers division within the Air Force off of the DoD standard. The formal I.T. System from the IG report, we will have it in place by January of 2024 with specificity on why a member specifically disengaged from the recruiting process. Having said that, our Surgeon General, within recruiting service, has kept track of those that left the process during the medical sessions process writ large and from that, we were able to track the numbers of people that essentially walked away from the process. We don’t know exactly at what point they walked away, but we know they did not complete through disqualification process, which only the Surgeon General within the Air Force can authorize.
Senator Warren: I appreciate it takes time to set this up. But we can’t afford to lose people who have already demonstrated a willingness to serve. These are the people who say I want to do this. Especially if the only barrier is something that would be quickly dismissed by a medical review.
Senator Blumenthal and I sent a letter to DoD about these concerns and the impact on recruiting. We requested answers by October, but DoD claims they can’t get answers to our questions for months because they’re waiting on information from each of the four of you.
So, to each of our four witnesses, do you commit to working with DoD to get us these answers by the end of the year? General Amrein?
General Amrein: Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.
Senator Warren: Alright. I like that. General Bowers?
General Bowers: Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.
Senator Warren: Alright. Good. Admiral Walker?
Admiral Walker: Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.
Senator Warren: Alright, and General Davis?
General Davis: Yes, ma'am.
Senator Warren: Alright, we’re going to hold you to this. There’s a real disconnect between the perspective of recruiters on the ground seeing how this electronic health records system is undermining their efforts to meet our recruiting goals and DoD’s willingness to fix this problem. If we’re going to fix this problem, we need to make sure we’re all rowing in the same direction. That was a Navy allusion. Alright, thank you.
Round 2 of Questions below and video HERE:
Senator Warren: So, young people who are considering joining the military place a lot of weight on how those who are currently serving are treated. And it makes sense, joining the military is a big honor. But it is also a life-altering commitment that requires a lot of sacrifice.
Major General Davis, the Army has the greatest recruiting challenges of all the services. So let me direct this question to you. Do you think that quality of life is an important factor for potential recruits in whether or not they decide to enlist?
Major General Davis: Yes, senator quality life is important. I mean, I have children in uniform. I've, whenever I visited, I take a look at the barracks situation just like any parent would. So I think it's so very important it impacts retention and continued service. So yes, I 100% agree.
Senator Warren: Good, very important, 100%. You know, your predecessor said quality of life is, “fundamental to both recruiting and retention.” Now, it should be obvious, what a way to start a question. But the way that DoD drags their feet on some of the issues around quality of life, really makes me wonder if they get it.
I have found this particularly frustrating when it comes to privatized military housing. For years now, at Congress's insistence, the Department of Defense has promised to repair substandard housing. One of the reforms we passed into law was that the DoD would be required to create a public complaint database, which would allow tenants to be able to submit their concerns about their housing. It would also give us a way to ensure accountability for housing contractors, and give military families information about the quality of their housing.
Three years, three years after this law went into effect, DoD is only now in the initial stages of making this happen. Major General Davis, do you think that being responsive to these families' concerns, makes these families and their servicemember more or less likely to recommend military service to others in their community?
Major General Davis: Yes, ma'am. If we have families back they're more likely to recommend.
Senator Warren: Yeah. Well, you know, what really bothers me here is we still don't even understand the full scope of the problem of substandard military housing, because information is hidden from the public.
For example, it was only through a FOIA request by a journalist, that we learned that the Army was failing to properly inspect homes with lead-based paint and asbestos-containing materials, just to make sure that they were safe to live in. 41% of the military homes had no survey identifying asbestos-risk areas.
So Major General Davis, do you think it is reasonable for military families to expect the Army to do basic due diligence to make sure that servicemembers and their families aren't breathing in fibers that could give them cancer?
Major General Davis: Yes senator.
Senator Warren: I know the questions seem so obvious, but I don't know what else to do to get the DoD to respond here. You know, what frustrates me here is that we have these private contractors who run much of the military housing, and these companies refuse to provide these inspections, because they claim it costs too much. Even some of our military leaders have dismissed concerns about housing, or actually blame the soldiers and their families. In fact, the Army Commander at Fort Bliss said, and I “I don't have a mold problem, I've got a discipline problem”, and that the soldiers needed to be better at “adulting.”
Major General Davis, do you think that remarks like this tell soldiers or potential recruits that the Army has their back?
Major General Davis: Senator, I won't speak for those remarks. But I will say the Secretary, the Chief, and all of us have these families’ backs.
Senator Warren: Well, when we fail to fix obvious problems, we lose people's trust. Because DoD has been too little. too late in fixing housing problems. I've turned up the heat again. I secured a provision in this year's National Defense Authorization Act to create a Military Readiness Housing Council to hold DoD and the servicers accountable. I will not let this drop.
DoD’s negligence is shameful. Military families deserve decent housing and that means housing without mold, housing without rats, housing without sewer backups, decent basic housing. I am sick of DoD fighting us tooth and nail on addressing military families’ legitimate concerns, and then being shocked, shocked that they have recruiting problems.
It is long past time for DoD to implement the public complaint system and make those data available to families. If they want to claim to put people first, then DoD and our military leadership need to walk the walk.
Round 3 of Questions below and video HERE:
Senator Warren: Department of Defense’s survey data finds that the top reason people don’t want to join the military is because they fear being injured or dying. And it’s understandable – it’s also a part of the job. But while we all accept there are risks that come with fighting the enemy on the battlefield, I’m very concerned that too many servicemembers are receiving lasting injuries or losing their lives due to accidents. In fact, accidents have been one of the leading causes of death for active duty servicemembers.
Last week an Osprey based in Japan crashed during an Air Force Special Operations training accident, taking the life of Jake Galliher, a young father from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He leaves behind his wife Ivy and two little boys. His older son is two years old and his younger child is just six weeks old. The Air Force does not believe anyone on that flight will return home to their families.
General Amrein, does it hurt or help recruiting to show the Air Force is taking safety concerns seriously?
General Amrein: Senator, thank you for the question. If I could please, start by saying, our hearts go out to the eight members that were lost due to that tragic incident, and that they are in our thoughts and prayers at this time, their families and friends.
Regarding safety, safety is at the forefront of Air Force operations. Not only from the flying aspect, from almost everything, we do. Everything we do, ground safety, there is an element of safety built into it.
I think we take that extremely seriously. As well as when you marry that up with the robust training programs we have, that’s what allows us to do our jobs to the maximum effectiveness and to maintain the ability to say we’re the world’s greatest air and space force.
From a recruiting standpoint, ma’am, I think that is the point to reemphasize, that we have a safety culture, a safety mindset, and that have confidence that when you come in to our air and space force ,you will be trained, you will be trained very very well to executive missions. Ma’am, that’s how I’d answer that from a recruiting standpoint.
Senator Warren: And I appreciate that. In the wake of this tragedy, Jake’s family has asked the Air Force to ground these aircraft to prevent further loss of life. They are right to raise the question. The crash that killed Jake is only the latest in over a dozen accidents in the past three decades, including a crash in August that killed three Marines. As Jake’s father has asked, “How many more of our servicemembers need to die on those damn planes?”
General, I know the Air Force shares this family’s pain. And I appreciate your statement on that. But the family also wants to see action. The Air Force grounded the V-22 for safety issues last year. I think it’s time to seriously consider doing so again with the Osprey until we can be confident that we won’t lose more lives in what appears to be a preventable tragedy.
Closing remarks below and video HERE:
Senator Warren: I want to thank all of our witnesses for your testimony today. I also want to thank you for the work you do, everyday, and all the people who are working with you, to recruit the best and the brightest.
I also want to thank Jon Clark, Gary Leeling, Andy Scott, Sofia Kamali, Noah Sisk, Jenny Davis, Sean O’Keefe, Katie Magnus, and Brendan Gavin for their work putting together today’s hearing. It takes a lot of people for this to work well.
Our people remain our greatest strength as a nation. If we have programs in place to support servicemembers and their families, we can prove to the next generation that we value their service and their sacrifice. If we get this right, it won’t just be recruiters convincing people to join the military, it will be everyone in the force. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this committee and Ranking Member Scott to turn this recruiting crisis around.
This hearing is adjourned.
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