The U.S. military is having a hard time filling up its ranks, thanks to recruitment shortages. To make things worse, most potential service members are disqualified from enlisting due to a myriad of reasons.
Brazilian international affairs researcher Uriel Araujo elaborated on the problem and cited a July 3 article published in the Atlantic magazine. The piece by Jason Dempsey of the Center for a New American Security and Gil Barndollar of the Defense Priorities Foundation disclosed that since 2020, merely “23 percent of young Americans aged 17 to 24 are 'eligible for military service without a waiver.' Most ineligible youth are disqualified 'for multiple reasons' such as [being] overweight, poor medical health and drug abuse.”