by me, Kerry Burgess, 08/17/2026 11:28 AM
"Woke". The favorite racist pejorative of scumbags like Pete Hegseth and Donald J. Trump, crybaby-in-chief.
What a couple of losers.
Just like my blog here and my blog-posts, a good article you don't have to spend extra money to read:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/recruits-joining-military-big-numbers-090704394.html
Yahoo! News
Good Morning America
New recruits are joining the military in big numbers, but not for reason Hegseth says
STEVEN BEYNON
Mon, August 17, 2026 at 2:07 AM PDT 17 min read
Beyond career opportunities, recruiters said they tend to hear the same questions from prospective recruits. For some, the prospect of war carries an undeniable appeal -- not because of the violence itself, but because combat has long been viewed as a proving ground and a source of bona fides that can shape a career in the military and after for decades.
Others are just as deliberate about avoiding the front lines, gravitating toward technical or support specialties where the likelihood of direct combat is lower, but translating those skills to a civilian job may be smoother. For most of those who spoke with ABC News, joining the military is a series of career decisions rather than approval or disapproval about the administration in power.
by me, Kerry Burgess, posted by me: 3:39 PM (my time) Jan 6, 2021
Somewhere, in those days after the VA, when I became a blogger, I wrote somewhere in one of my journals about a personal memory of mine from the year 1985, when I was permanently, until 1986 since 1984, stationed aboard USS Taylor FFG-50, US Navy
We were on station in the Gulf of Mexico
One co-worker told me he heard we would soon visit a port in Mexico same time as that Soviet battlegroup we were shepherding
We'll kick their asses, I volunteered.
"No!", the other guy said, as I remember it, he just wanted us to party with their enlisted sailors.
https://time.com/archive/6954909/the-warnings-from-korean-history/
Time
by DON KIRK
Jul 2, 2000 9:00 PM PT
The Warnings from Korean History
An anniversary provides a stark reminder of what keeps North and South apart
The 50th anniversary of the North Korean invasion of the South arrives like Act II of the most dramatic fortnight in recent Korean history. First we were treated to the astonishing sight of the leaders of the two Koreas clasping hands at the historic summit in Pyongyang. Then, from the more distant past, came a sobering reminder: these two halves of a divided peninsula fought one of the bloodiest wars in Asian history–and they still haven’t signed a peace treaty. Moreover, their armies remain locked in a face-off, nearly where they were when an overwhelming North Korean force roared across the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950, en route to the capture of Seoul four days later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Action_Ribbon
Combat Action Ribbon
From Wikipedia
The Combat Action Medal (Medal) is a United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States Marine Corps military decoration awarded to United States sea service members "who have actively participated in ground or surface combat." Coast guardsmen, Navy sailors, and Marines active in clandestine, stealth or special operations are deemed eligible for consideration of the award. The ribbon is awarded to members of the Navy and Marine Corps with a rank no higher than captain and colonel, respectively.
The U.S. Navy first authorized the Combat Action Ribbon on 17 February 1969. The Navy ribbon was originally retroactive to March 1961; in 1999 it was made retroactive to 7 December 1941.
The Combat Action Ribbon is a ribbon-only decoration in contrast to military branches that award a badge or medal.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/05/24/navy-gave-combat-action-ribbon-7-ships-more-details-of-red-sea-combat-emerge.html
Military .com
Navy Gave Combat Action Ribbon to 7 Ships as More Details of Red Sea Combat Emerge
The Carney, which returned home earlier this week, was the only ship the Navy publicly acknowledged had been awarded the Combat Action Ribbon for the Red Sea operations.
Six U.S. warships, in addition to the USS Carney, that deployed to the Middle East to fend off attacks by Houthi rebels were given prestigious military awards for actions "under enemy fire," Military.com has learned.
The Carney, which returned home earlier this week, was the only ship the Navy publicly acknowledged had been awarded the Combat Action Ribbon for the Red Sea operations. But the award was also given to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier; the USS Philippine Sea cruiser; and the destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, Gravely, Laboon and Mason, according to a citation released by the Navy to Military.com.
Individual sailors aboard the Carney were also awarded for actions under fire, including a Bronze Star for the ship's commanding officer.
With the Carney's return to Mayport, Florida, Navy officials have become more willing to offer details about the ships' operations in the Red Sea, shedding light on how military leaders are viewing and recognizing the numerous encounters with drones and missiles fired by Houthis intent on interrupting international shipping.
The seven Navy ships encountered more than 20 instances of combat between October 2023 and April 2024, according to the dates of eligibility in the citation, likely making the strike group one of the most battle-tested groups of ships in the modern era.
Some of the instances are well known and documented -- such as the very first instance of incoming drones and missiles encountered by the Carney on Oct. 19. Others faded into the background as the number of Houthi attacks climbed into the double and then triple digits.
In personal awards released to Military.com, Navy leaders praised the commander and crew for their quick thinking in defending the ship "just hours after completing a transit through the Suez Canal," according to a Bronze Star citation issued to Cmdr. Jeremy Robertson, the Carney's skipper.
The ship detected "over 32 hostile air threats traversing the Red Sea," which the ship proceeded to engage with a combination of Standard Missiles and the ship's 5-inch gun over a three-hour period, according to the Bronze Star citation.
"There was some nervousness and some anxiety ... at first because it was, 'Wow, this is really happening,'" Robertson told reporters in an interview Monday.
"The team was there -- they were in the moment and it was amazing to see how quickly they transitioned into a battle mindset," Robertson said. "Their responsibility and actions and follow-up became very instinctual."
The ship downed four cruise missiles and 15 drones that day alone.
In addition to Robertson, personal awards were also given to two Navy lieutenant commanders, four lieutenants, an operations specialist senior chief, five chief petty officers, and six fire controlman petty officers of varying ranks for their actions that day.
According to Navy leaders, the ship would go on to take part in dozens of engagements, downing Houthi land attack cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, and drones during her deployment.
Robertson told reporters that many of those engagements -- especially those against the anti-ship missiles -- were lightning fast.
"From start to finish, it's anywhere from nine to 20 seconds," he said.
The ship conducted two defensive strikes against Houthis in Yemen, destroying 20 targets. The crew also managed to successfully destroy one Iranian-launched, medium-range ballistic missile.
Among the ship's achievements was the fact that it was able to destroy six targets -- five drones and one land attack cruise missile -- with its 5-inch deck gun rather than missiles.
Pictures uploaded to social media showed that the crew proudly decorated the barrel of the gun with six bands -- five black and one red -- to commemorate the achievement.
The Carney seems to be the first ship ever to down a land attack cruise missile with a 5-inch gun.
In April, the Carney also became one of the first ships to launch the newer SM-3 missile in combat, and it appears to have scored the first kill from space with it by downing an Iranian medium-range ballistic missile bound for Israel.
The long list of firsts that the Carney achieved is partly due to the fact that Navy ships have not found themselves in true combat situations for decades.
The last time the service awarded a ship the Combat Action Ribbon was in 2016 when four Navy ships, also in the Red Sea, were forced to defend themselves from Houthi missiles off the coast of Yemen. However, before that, sailors had not received the award for operations in international waters since the 1991 Gulf War.
excerpt
https://www.yahoo.com/news/one-warship-thwarting-houthi-attack-120100532.html
Yahoo! News
Navy Times
How one warship thwarting a Houthi attack a year ago changed the Navy
Geoff Ziezulewicz
Sat, October 19, 2024 at 5:01 AM PDT
A year in, the Navy is getting more judicious about how it fights Houthi attacks, according to Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and analyst at the Hudson Institute think tank.
Navy ships threw the “kitchen sink” at incoming drones and missiles after the Carney’s first intercept a year ago, but the fleet is becoming more adept at using electronic warfare, guns and less-expensive interceptors to counter such Houthi attacks, Clark said.
Questions of sustainability of effort are now arising, he said, noting that the Navy has in some instances used carrier-based fighter jets to shoot down Houthi drones and missiles, an expensive and inefficient approach.
From 11/18/1978 ( the Jamestown incident ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 16406 days
16406 = 8203 + 8203
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 4/18/1988 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Petty Officer Second Class Fire Controlman (FC2), from my official enlisted US Navy records: during USA Armed Forces Expeditionary Operation Earnest Will with my personal participation and commendation - CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex (expert technician for all maintenance operations, UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance) - aboard the USS Wainwright CG-28 US Navy the United States Operation Praying Mantis ) is 8203 days
From 11/18/1978 ( first flight of the McDonnell Douglas and US Navy F-18 Hornet jet-fighter/attack aircraft ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 16406 days
16406 = 8203 + 8203
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 4/18/1988 ( see above ) is 8203 days
From 1/18/1991 ( premiere USA film "Flight of the Intruder" ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 11962 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 8/3/1998 ( "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy ) is 11962 days
From 1/24/1973 ( premiere USA TV series episode "The Paul Lynde Show"::"The Congressman's Son" ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 18530 days
18530 = 9265 + 9265
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/16/1991 ( for me after 05/10/2006: my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate and possibly - or something - the date of the top-secret, doctorate-degree credential from Princeton University, I can theorize only ) is 9265 days
From 3/19/2008 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Root of All Evil"::"Donald Trump vs. Viagra" ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 5692 days
5692 = 2846 + 2846
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 8/18/1973 ( The Killian Document ) is 2846 days
From 1/31/1933 ( Herbert Hoover, 31st president of USA federal government 1929-1933: Executive Order 6009 - Transferring to Control and Jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Navy Certain Lands off the Southern Coast of California for Naval Uses ) To 1/17/1991 ( date of record of my US Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 officially the United States Apache attack helicopter pilot ) is 21170 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 21170 days
From 9/24/1945 ( biographical - from Wikipedia: Johannes Wilhelm "Hans" Geiger dead ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 28514 days
28514 = 14257 + 14257
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 11/14/2004 ( the mainstream-media frenzy hoax - "Tic Tac" incident with USS Nimitz and USS Princeton ) is 14257 days
From 6/2/1996 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Space: Above And Beyond"::series finale "...Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best" ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 10000 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/20/1993 ( premiere USA TV series episode "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"::"Princeton, February 1916" ) is 10000 days
From 12/8/2003 ( premiere USA TV miniseries "Battlestar Galactica" ) To 10/19/2023 ( ) is 7255 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 9/13/1985 ( from Houston Chronicle newspaper archives: Soviet warships to pay visit to Mexico port for first time ) is 7255 days
https://abcnews.go.com/International/security-incident-involving-us-navy-destroyer-red-sea/story?id=104147141
ABC News
US Navy destroyer in Red Sea shoots down cruise missiles potentially headed toward Israel: Pentagon
The missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, the DOD said.
By Luis Martinez
October 20, 2023, 12:35 PM
The USS Carney, a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer in the northern Red Sea, on Thursday shot down multiple missiles and drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen that the Pentagon said were potentially headed toward targets in Israel.
It is the first time in recent memory that a U.S. Navy ship in the Middle East has engaged missiles and drones that were not directly aimed at the vessel.
Space: Above And Beyond
"...Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best"
TV-series Episode 23 Season 1, 06/02/1996
US Navy Vice Admiral Stenner: Imagine, if on the morning of June 6, 1944, we give the Nazis a call advising them that the Allies would be landing on Omaha Beach! You people are supposed to be the best there is. What the hell were you thinking?
Space: Above And Beyond
"...Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best"
TV-series Episode 23 Season 1, 06/02/1996
US Navy Vice Admiral Stenner: I don't care what you thought. There's no excuse for what you've done.
US Navy Commodore Ross: Admiral, this is undoubtedly a... colossal M.C.S. However, it does flush out a motive for the enemy's sudden peace initiative.
US Marine Corps Lieutenant General Alcott: It indicates they know we'd kick their ass if we landed. We should strike now and put them away.
Space: Above And Beyond
"...Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best"
TV-series Episode 23 Season 1, 06/02/1996
US Marine Corps Lieutenant General Alcott: Either scenario, we go in now, achieve peace our way.
US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel T.C. McQueen: Sir, to atone, may I volunteer the 58th to monitor troop movement?
US Navy Vice Admiral Stenner: You people don't know the enemy when you see it. No. Request denied. You are out of this war.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/why-rude-hegseth-scolds-nbc-133456087.html
Yahoo! News
Mediaite
‘Why Are You So Rude?’ Hegseth Scolds NBC Reporter Who Cut Him Off as He Called on Someone Else
Charlie Nash Wed, April 8, 2026 at 6:34 AM PDT 2 min read
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth scolded an NBC News correspondent on Wednesday after she tried to ask him a question about Iranian missiles while Hegseth was calling on another reporter.
During a press briefing at the Pentagon, which saw Hegseth field questions about the Trump administration’s ceasefire with Iran, the secretary of defense called on Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese to ask the next question.
After Senior NBC News Correspondent Courtney Kube interrupted Reese, shouting out her own question about Iran launching missiles, Hegseth snapped, “Excuse me, why are you so rude? Just wait. I’m calling on people.”
He added: “So nasty.”
by me, Kerry Burgess, 12/19/2025 1:42 PM
Because *she* is a real bitch to weak, little guys like you!
You contribute only misogyny to the tradition.
Washington Post
FRI 09/13/1985 HOUSTON CHRONICLE
WASHINGTON - Two Soviet warships are expected to pay a port visit to Mexico for the first time next month, U.S. officials said Thursday. The State Department expressed "concern" about the visit in a message to the Mexican government.
The planned visit is "significant," one official said, because until now Soviet naval deployments to the Caribbean Sea have included port calls only in Cuba.
"Obviously, we're concerned about the Soviet ability to move their ships in and out of the Caribbean," a State Department official said. "Mexico is an independent country and they can do what they want, but we have made our concerns known."
A Kashin guided missile destroyer and a Krivak guided missile frigate are expected to visit the eastern Mexican port of Veracruz Oct. 4, U.S. officials said. The vessels are now in the North Atlantic Ocean heading toward the Caribbean.
Soviet warships being watched in Gulf
Houston Chronicle News Services
TUE 11/05/1985 HOUSTON CHRONICLE
A U.S. Navy vessel is closely monitoring the movements of two Soviet warships that entered the Gulf of Mexico and came within 40 miles of the Texas coast, the U.S. Navy said.
The USS Taylor, American guidedmissile frigate, has been tracking the Soviet ships - a guided-missile destroyer and a guided-missile frigate - since they left Havana Thursday, said Lt. Cmdr. Craig Quigley, a Navy spokesman in Norfolk, Va.
The Taylor is always "within visual range" of the Soviet vessels that were last reported about 100 miles southwest of Tampa, Fla., and moving in a southeasterly direction, possibly toward Cuba, said Quigley.
However, there was no way to determine whether the Soviet warships were preparing to leave the Gulf and return to Havana. "They can always change rudder at a moment's notice," he said.
From 12/19/1984 ( from my official enlisted US Navy documents: as Kerry Wayne Burgess the undesignated E-3 Seaman US Navy I reported for permanent duty aboard USS Taylor FFG-50, US Navy, departing 02/11/1986 as FC3 Kerry Wayne Burgess, US Navy ) To 3/25/1986 ( ) is 461 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 2/6/1967 ( referenced here below: ) is 461 days
From 4/2/1968 ( premiere USA film "2001: A Space Odyssey" ) To 3/25/1986 ( ) is 6566 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/25/1983 ( debut of Microsoft Word word-processor computer software ) is 6566 days
From 11/21/1964 ( premiere USA TV series episode "The Outer Limits"::"The Inheritors - Part 1" ) To 3/25/1986 ( ) is 7794 days
7794 = 3897 + 3897
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 7/4/1976 ( at extreme personal risk to himself my biological brother Thomas Reagan the civilian and privately financed astronaut in his privately financed atom-pulse propulsion spaceship successfully intercepts comet nicknamed "Lucifer" - threatening extinction by death and destruction of all life on this planet Earth - in the outer solar system beyond planet Saturn and diverts it away from this planet Earth ) is 3897 days
From 5/21/1969 ( described publicly only by me, the Princeton University doctor of medicine degree graduation of my biological brother Dr Thomas Reagan MD and the 1973 law-doctorate graduate of University of Oxford, England ) To 3/25/1986 ( ) is 6152 days
6152 = 3076 + 3076
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 4/5/1974 ( premiere USA TV series episode "The Six Million Dollar Man"::"The Last of the Fourth of Julys" ) is 3076 days
From 6/3/1983 ( premiere USA film "WarGames" ) To 3/25/1986 ( ) is 1026 days
1026 = 513 + 513
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/30/1967 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Star Trek"::"The Alternative Factor" ) is 513 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 1/13/1976 ( Gerald Ford, 38th president of USA federal government 1974-1977: Executive Order 11897—Amending Executive Order No. 11157 as It Relates to Special Pay While on Sea Duty or Duty at Certain Places ) is 3724 days
From 01/13/1976 ( Gerald Ford, 38th president of USA federal government 1974-1977: Executive Order 11897—Amending Executive Order No. 11157 as It Relates to Special Pay While on Sea Duty or Duty at Certain Places ) to 03/25/1986 ( ) is 3724 days
https://papersofprinceton.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/?a=d&d=Princetonian19860325-01.1.1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------
Princeton University
Daily Princetonian, Volume 110, Number 33, 25 March 1986
Construction on the John Yon Neumann Center for Scientific Computing, home of the new supercomputer, is scheduled for completion in June.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1967
February 1967
From Wikipedia
February 6, 1967
WBC world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali defeated the WBA's heavyweight champ, Ernie Terrell, at the Houston Astrodome. In the publicity leading up to the unification bout, Terrell had repeatedly used Ali's former name, Cassius Clay. Starting in the 8th round, Ali repeatedly shouted at Terrell, "What's my name? What's my name?" as he threw punches. The bout went the full 15 rounds, and Ali won in a unanimous decision.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Quotes
HAL-9000: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Quotes
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL-9000: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL-9000: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-67_Standard
RIM-67 Standard
From Wikipedia
The RIM-67 Standard ER (SM-1ER/SM-2ER) is an extended range surface-to-air missile (SAM) with a secondary anti-ship capability, originally developed for the United States Navy (USN). The RIM-67 was developed as a replacement for the RIM-8 Talos, a 1950s system deployed on a variety of USN ships, and eventually replaced the RIM-2 Terrier as well, since it was of a similar size and fitted existing Terrier launchers and magazines.
The second generation of Standard missile, the Standard Missile 2, was developed for the Aegis Combat System, and the New Threat Upgrade (NTU) program that was planned for existing Terrier and Tartar ships. The destroyer USS Mahan served as the test platform for the development of the CG/SM-2 (ER) missile program project. The principal change over the Standard missile 1 is the introduction of inertial guidance for each phase of the missile's flight except the terminal phase where semi-active homing was retained. This design change was made so that missiles could time share illumination radars and enable equipped ships to defend against saturation missile attacks.
Terrier ships reequipped as part of the New Threat Upgrade were refit to operate the RIM-67B (SM-2ER Block II) missile.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/recruits-joining-military-big-numbers-090704394.html
Yahoo! News
Good Morning America
New recruits are joining the military in big numbers, but not for reason Hegseth says
STEVEN BEYNON
Mon, August 17, 2026 at 2:07 AM PDT 17 min read
By lunchtime at a northern Virginia high school, the hallway outside the cafeteria buzzed with students finishing homework, joking with friends and playing video games.
Off to the side, Tech Sgt. Omar Herrera, an Air Force recruiter, had arranged his table with the standard fare of glossy brochures, foam model fighter jets and Air and Space Force-branded water bottles students could earn with a round of pushups.
The scene was strikingly low-key, almost at odds with the life-altering decision many of the teenagers wandering past his table were weighing. When they stopped, Herrera answered questions and explained the Air Force's job opportunities with an encyclopedic knowledge of making a career out of the military, which he was passionate about and eager to share.
By the time Herrera met with dozens of prospective recruits, much of the Air Force's annual recruitment quota was already complete. The recruiting business is good after years of shortfalls.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran, has repeatedly elevated military recruiting successes into the marquee achievement of his tenure and folded recruiting, long treated as an apolitical function of the military, into a broader culture-war proxy.
In remarks to roughly two dozen of the military's top recruiters at the Pentagon in December, Hegseth framed improved enlistment numbers as a reflection of confidence in the administration.
"You can talk about polls, you can talk about money, but men and women willing to serve and put on the uniform is a reflection of the belief they have in civilian leadership and military leadership," he told them.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, in a statement to ABC News, shared that same sentiment, adding that, "Americans everywhere are prouder than ever to serve in our unmatched military that prioritizes lethality, merit, and protecting our nation from those who seek to harm it."
Yet the military has been selling effectively the same proposition since the U.S. abandoned the draft and fully transitioned to an all-volunteer force in 1973: job stability and benefits, with a sense of adventure to sweeten the deal. What has changed, however, is the politics surrounding that bargain.
The military's recruiting rebound is real, but the reasons behind it are far less political than Hegseth's framing suggests. ABC News interviewed nearly 40 recruits and prospective recruits at different stages of enlistment, along with two dozen recruiters across the military and current and former defense officials, and found young Americans are still largely making the same calculation that has driven enlistment for decades: steady pay, education benefits, job training and a direct path to the middle class.
The Pentagon's own data backs that up too, with financial compensation and benefits ranking as a top reason for joining the military.
Hegseth rails against 'woke,' lays out standards in speech to top generals, admirals
The recruitment turnaround also began before President Donald Trump returned to office and has been aided by changes under former President Joe Biden to how the Pentagon finds and qualifies recruits. Yet Hegseth has increasingly cast those gains as a referendum on his leadership and conservative overhaul of the military, even as the force depends more heavily on women, minorities and recruits from Democratic-leaning cities -- populations some defense officials worry the Trump administration's culture war could alienate.
To Herrera, the Air Force is a phenomenal product that speaks for itself, and every recruit is an opportunity to make the force even better.
"I don't do sales, I hate sales. I was that kid who couldn't sell a candy bar," Herrera said. "I'm approaching this as more of a mentor."
The students' ambitions varied, but even in this affluent suburb outside of Washington D.C., with access to one of the country's strongest job markets, the conversations kept circling back to careers and economic security.
One potential recruit was preparing to graduate and was interested in becoming a diesel mechanic in the military. Another asked what it takes to be a military lawyer.
One young woman saw military service as a way to pay for college while continuing a family tradition following her father's career in the Army. According to Pentagon data, some 80% of recruits each year have a family member who served in the military, which is why defense officials have long half jokingly referred to the armed services as "a family business."
Beyond career opportunities, recruiters said they tend to hear the same questions from prospective recruits. For some, the prospect of war carries an undeniable appeal -- not because of the violence itself, but because combat has long been viewed as a proving ground and a source of bona fides that can shape a career in the military and after for decades.
Others are just as deliberate about avoiding the front lines, gravitating toward technical or support specialties where the likelihood of direct combat is lower, but translating those skills to a civilian job may be smoother. For most of those who spoke with ABC News, joining the military is a series of career decisions rather than approval or disapproval about the administration in power.
Among the recruits and prospective recruits interviewed, only two said they knew what a secretary of defense is, and neither could identify who currently holds the position. One recruit who had recently graduated basic training only vaguely recalled Hegseth's name. For many junior service members, the Pentagon's senior leadership has historically been largely removed from their day-to-day concerns.
Air Force and Space Force meet recruiting goals months before target date
Despite the ongoing war with Iran, recruiters interviewed said the conflict has rarely surfaced in conversations with applicants. Some cautioned that a prolonged war, especially one marred by a steady stream of American casualties and little visible progress, could eventually weigh on recruiting at the margins.
Women considering enlistment are generally more likely to ask practical questions about pregnancy policies, hygiene and whether barracks were coed, recruiters and women currently serving explained.
One Army recruiter recalled the only applicant who mentioned current events wanted to know whether recently released UFO videos were real.
Recruiting woes
During a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in July, Hegseth told reporters that a recruiting turnaround began "on Election Day 2024," tying a rebound from COVID-19-era lows directly to Trump's return to power.
Yet the military's recruiting recovery was already underway. The services met their active-duty fiscal 2024 recruiting goals by Sept. 30 -- more than a month before Election Day. Recruiting was so successful that year, the Army grew its capacity for how many recruits it is able to send to basic training to get a surge of enlistments into the force following its post-pandemic recovery.
The Army, the military's largest branch and by far its biggest recruiting challenge, hit its fiscal 2026 goal, signing 61,500 active-duty soldiers before a Sept. 30 deadline this year. The Navy also met its target with 45,000 sailors, while the Air Force recruited nearly 33,000 airmen.
The Marine Corps is also on track to meet its recruiting goal this year, according to officials, having largely sidestepped the deeper struggles facing the other services. Its smaller size means it needs far fewer new recruits each year, typically bringing in about 30,000 Marines annually. Space Force, a branch still in its infancy, brought in 730 new recruits this year.
This year's recruiting numbers mark the third straight year every active duty military service has met its recruiting goal, a remarkable turnaround from the recruiting bumps that started to manifest in the late 2010s and fully materialized during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Army brought in just under 45,000 new recruits when it needed 60,000, while the other branches also endured some of their worst recruiting years in decades.
It's the economy
Military service still offers one of the country's most robust benefits packages with college tuition, generous home loans, retirement savings and a pension for 20 years of service. For many, it marks one of the most direct paths to the middle class. Pentagon data consistently shows pay, education benefits and career opportunities are the primary reasons young Americans enlist.
Khaleed Ajadn, 24, a potential recruit and Nigerian green card holder, studied medicine in the Caribbean and now works as a medical assistant at a civilian clinic in the U.S.
"The end goal for me is to be a doctor in the Air Force," he said. "I just want to be in the military. I want to take care of people."
Others join as a response to a shifting economy. The propensity to serve, per the Pentagon's own survey data, broadly aligns with federal data tracking the youth unemployment rate.
"I was really hoping to be an artist, but then AI came along and I needed to find something more practical," Layla Gerstman, 18, said as she prepared to take the military's SAT-style aptitude test, which determines eligibility for enlistment and qualifies recruits for specific jobs.
Historically, the strongest predictor of a recruiting boom has been a weak economy. The 2008 financial crisis, the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, saw the Army enlist about 80,500 active-duty recruits. It marked the best recruiting year since the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack and after years of struggling to fill the ranks as the Iraq War became increasingly unpopular and bloody. Just a few years earlier, in 2005, the service had missed essentially the same recruiting target by 6,600 soldiers.
Why recruiting became political
The Pentagon is emerging from the yearslong recruiting slump that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, easing one of the military's most persistent political headaches that drew bipartisan anxiety on Capitol Hill.
Hegseth's rhetoric has also fueled concerns about the Pentagon's ability to recruit and retain an increasingly diverse force.
Current and former defense officials interviewed pointed to comments they say echo Christian nationalism, including rhetoric that at times casts the military's role in the world through the lens of divine intervention.
They also pointed to Hegseth's long-standing skepticism of women serving in some military roles, particularly combat units. In his 2024 book, "The War on Warriors," Hegseth drew a distinction between the roles of mothers and fathers, writing that fathers encourage children to take risks while mothers are more protective.
"We need moms," Hegseth wrote. "But not in the military, especially in combat units."
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has rolled back shaving exemptions for troops with pseudofolliculitis barbae, or razor bumps, a condition that disproportionately affects Black men and that the military has accommodated for decades. Those accommodations trace back in part to Vietnam War-era recommendations aimed at removing barriers for Black service members. The move is part of a greater effort, which have been framed by the Pentagon as a means to restore discipline.
The Pentagon has also pulled recruiting resources from events aimed at specific demographics. Last year, the services abandoned recruiting efforts at a prestigious Black engineering event in Baltimore, where recruiters had historically sought candidates with high-demand technical skills. The Army also ended its partnership with Ashley Hall, an all-girls preparatory school in Charleston, South Carolina, for its annual "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day," Military.com reported. Both efforts targeted science and engineering talent, fields where the military has long struggled to fill critical jobs because of steep academic requirements.
Taken together, current and former officials interviewed say, those positions could narrow the military's recruiting pool while pushing some troops already in uniform to reconsider staying.
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Alex Wagner, who served as assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs during the Biden administration, argued recruiting has remained remarkably insulated from those political battles.
"It's curious to me that, so far, it seems the moral rot from Hegseth's office hasn't metastasized to the recruiting side," he said. "The people in charge of recruiting are really focused every day on, 'How do we bring in the most talented force to protect the American people?' That's an honorable goal, and when that's your mission, politics doesn't figure into it."
The recruiting pool itself has also changed. In recent years, the Army shifted more of its recruiting effort into large Democratic-leaning cities after traditional recruiting strongholds in the South, rural America and the suburbs could no longer produce enough qualified volunteers.
The South in particular faces higher rates of obesity and other health challenges that have further reduced the pool of eligible recruits and contributed to higher injury rates during basic training, according to service data.
In recent years, the force has become more diverse, with women and racial minorities making up a growing share of recruits.
Since 2013, male enlistments in the Army have fallen by roughly 35%, dropping from about 58,000 recruits to 37,700 in 2023, according to Army data. Female enlistments, by contrast, have remained relatively steady at around 10,000 recruits a year.
The racial makeup of recruits has changed as well.
The number of white recruits in the Army fell by nearly 40% between 2018 and 2023, according to Army data. No other major demographic group experienced a comparable sustained decline. More than a quarter of recruits across the services are Black or Hispanic.
The armed services have also become more secular.
Christianity, long embedded in military life through the chaplain corps and its role in supporting morale, has played a less prominent role as the services have invested heavily in traditional mental health resources such as therapists, marriage counselors and suicide prevention efforts -- arenas that historically have largely fallen under the umbrella of the military's clergy.
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All of those slow-moving cultural shifts came to a head in 2021, when in the Army's effort to broaden its appeal, it released an ad featuring a female soldier in the service and raised by two mothers in San Francisco, which immediately drew the ire of conservative pundits and lawmakers who argued the military had become politicized and "woke."
Hegseth had embraced the argument that the military had drifted too far to the political left well before he was tapped to lead the Pentagon. Last year, he summoned hundreds of the military's most senior officials to an unprecedented gathering in Quantico, Virginia, where he bluntly laid out his new cultural mandate, falsely suggesting women have been erroneously promoted to fit nonexistent gender quotas.
"For too long, we've promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts," Hegseth said. "No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions."
The services did not have any quotas associated with gender and promotions or makeup of the force.
Eligibility crisis
Defense officials have long warned that America's obesity epidemic is a national security problem, shrinking the pool of young people eligible to serve -- which has translated to reductions in recruitment.
The services have different body weight requirements based on age and gender. The Pentagon estimates roughly 75% of Americans ages 17 to 24 are ineligible to serve, and has been that way for a long time, with obesity and failure to meet academic standards among the leading reasons.
The Army's most significant response has been the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, launched in 2022 and since expanded into a full-fledged pre-basic training program centered at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for recruits who narrowly miss academic or body-fat standards. Instead of being turned away, recruits are given several weeks to lose weight or improve their scores on the military entrance exam through tutoring, nutrition instruction and physical training before moving on to basic training.
More than 90% of recruits who enter the program ultimately qualify for the Army, and roughly a quarter of new enlistees now pass through it. The program has effectively replaced much of the manpower lost during the service's recent recruiting slump while underscoring that the Pentagon's key recruiting challenge is less about persuading young Americans to serve than finding enough who qualify. The Navy has since adopted a similar model.
"This was a group of young Americans who had already decided they wanted to join the military. They just needed some extra help meeting the standards," said Christine Wormuth, who served as Army secretary during the Biden administration and oversaw the program's creation. "The hardest thing is finding people who have the propensity to serve. We had this entire pool of people who wanted to do it."
Wormuth said Army leaders were adamant that the initiative not become a backdoor way of lowering enlistment standards. The military has tried that before, from World War II literacy programs to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's controversial Project 100,000 during the Vietnam War, which admitted recruits who failed academic entrance standards and ultimately suffered disproportionately high casualty rates.
"We felt strongly that lowering standards was not the way to go," Wormuth said.
Another major hurdle has been medical screening. The 2017 rollout of Military Health System Genesis, the Pentagon's electronic health records system, gave screeners legal, unprecedented access to applicants' medical histories often flagging minor injuries, childhood diagnoses or old prescriptions without their full context and triggering lengthy additional reviews.
One particularly stubborn bottleneck automatically sent recruits who wore glasses for screening for rare disqualifying eye conditions, a requirement officials eventually scrapped. The Pentagon has since sought to speed up the process through streamlined reviews and a surge of medical personnel, including Army Reservists sent to help staff screening clinics.
Who is born to serve?
Hegseth has aggressively moved to reshape the military's senior ranks, removing or sidelining more than two dozen senior officers, without explanation, including a number of women and minorities. While those moves appear to have had little impact on young Americans walking into recruiting stations, they have rattled the upper ranks, with multiple senior officers describing needing to keep a low profile.
"Women look at the firings and the statements from the secretary and decide there is not a good career path ahead of them," said Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, longtime military diversity advocate and former assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs for public and intergovernmental affairs.
"The same thing with Black men and women," she added. "They're looking at the chain of command, which has become much more male and much whiter over the past few months, and thinking there's no place for them here."
Military service has long been cast as the highest form of public service. But from the nation's earliest days, the military has also been a battleground over a more fundamental question: who gets to serve, and who gets the privilege of risking their life for the country.
Those fights stretch back to the nation's founding, when property and social standing helped determine who could become an officer in the Continental Army and Indigenous troops were afforded limited roles. In the generations since, similar battles have played out over the service of Black Americans, women and LGBTQ+ Americans.
A growing question among defense experts and across the military's recruiting enterprise is whether Hegseth's partisan rhetoric built upon cultural grievances is shrinking the military's appeal.
"Here in Washington D.C., we're consumed by these things," Wagner, formerly of the Air Force, said. "But if it doesn't directly impact your life, it doesn't come up."
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 12:00 PM Pacific-timezone USA Monday 08/17/2026
