More than 180,000 new enlistees joined the Army, the Air
Force, the Navy and Marines in FY 1996 the Department of Defense
announced today. In making the announcement, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Force Management Policy Fred Pang said,
To support today's high-tech, volunteer force, we must recruit
the best, most capable young men and women possible. We are
proud to say our track record shows success! For the past five
years, the Armed Forces have successfully recruited the right
quantity and quality of new recruits to meet personnel
requirements, with strong social diversity. He singled out
Service recruiters for special praise. The Services established
tough recruiting goals and our recruiters came through, Pang
said.
In FY 1996, the Services recruited a total of 180,192 first-
time enlistees while exceeding recruit quality benchmarks. In
addition, 5,795 individuals with previous service were recruited
for a total of 185,987. Quality benchmarks require that 90
percent of recruits graduate from high school and that 60 percent
have above average scores on the enlistment test. FY 1996
recruits exceeded both marks. Department-wide, 96 percent of FY
1996 recruits without prior military service were high school
diploma graduates, and 69 percent scored above average on the
Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT).
New recruit demographics reflect diverse representation.
The proportion of Black recruits remained at 19 percent
Department-wide, as compared to last year. In addition,
representation of Hispanic recruits remained at nine percent.
The percentage of women recruits in FY 1996 dropped one
percentage point, from 18 to 17 percent. The shift is
attributable to a reduced proportion of women entering the Navy,
which has stopped gender-neutral recruiting, in recognition of
a constraint in berthing capacity aboard ships.
Pang further indicated that he was particularly pleased with
the continued success of recruiting. Recruiting has been
challenging over the past several years. With the Defense
drawdown, there was a corresponding drop in recruiting resources
-- money for advertising, educational benefits, and enlistment
bonuses; the number of recruiters also declined. As a result,
youth interest in the military dropped as the perception grew
that we were no longer hiring. Young people also worried that
military service involved personal risk given recent deployments
to Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti. Fortunately, Congress provided
the necessary resources for increased advertising, and we were
able to counter those negative perceptions and improve youth
awareness about the opportunities and benefits of military
service.
Pang concluded, The Department will continue to emphasize
recruiting top quality men and women into the force, keeping them
ready by making sure DoD allocates the resources needed to
provide rigorous, realistic training, and rewarding them - - by
making sure that the benefits of service are commensurate with
the enormous sacrifices that our military personnel must make.
