‘Not Fishing In a Big Enough Pound’: Tom Cotton Claims ‘Too Strict’ Standards Hurt Military Recruitment

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) talked about standards for military recruitment.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. And Senator Cotton, you're next.

00:04Mr. Tata, you mentioned that the recruiting and retention crisis has improved somewhat over the first 100 days of the Trump administration,

00:11and that's a great credit to the president, to the secretary of defense.

00:14It's still not quite where we need it to get, though, after years of decline under President Biden.

00:21One thing that I think has been a challenge is that we're not fishing in a big enough pond.

00:26And the military often cites the standards that exclude many, maybe most, young Americans from service,

00:35like academic standards, health conditions, and other requirements.

00:38Obviously, some of those are serious.

00:40We can't have people with serious psychiatric illnesses or academic deficiencies in the military.

00:47But I do think we've gotten a little bit too strict on these things,

00:50especially in certain anecdotes I've come across or members of this committee have as well.

00:54You know, a young man who was prescribed antidepressants when he was in his early teens

00:59because his parents were going through a divorce and hasn't been on them for six or seven years,

01:02or someone who maybe injured a hip or a knee playing junior high sports

01:07and six years later is disqualified from the military because of that,

01:11after which they continue to play sports at the high school level as well.

01:16Do you agree that we should try to find ways to expand the eligibility pool

01:19so our recruiters can be fishing in a bigger pond?

01:23Senator, I do.

01:23Yeah, thank you for that.

01:27One challenge here is the Genesis program,

01:29which I know has done a lot to help our military get a better picture

01:33and catch all of the records that recruits have.

01:40But also, I do think by exposing some of these things that are fairly trivial or very old

01:47and haven't led young men and women from leading a full and complete life that take them to service,

01:51is that it makes it harder for them to get in and the waiver process is very complicated.

01:57Do you think we need to take a look at pushing that waiver authority down,

02:01pushing it down into the chain of command and recruiting battalions to make it easier for people

02:05with these conditions that clearly don't impair their military service to get promptly onboarded into the recruiting process

02:17and then ultimately into basic training so they're not sitting on the sidelines for 60, 90, 120 days

02:23and finding other jobs elsewhere?

02:26Senator, I do.

02:27Anything we can do to speed up that process is good.

02:29And then finally, some of my old friends who have served in recruiting battalion headquarters

02:36speak of the doctors at the MEPS around the country as seemingly being paid on commission

02:42by how many recruits they can disqualify from serving.

02:46Do you think we should take a look at the incentives that the doctors have at our MEPS stations

02:50and also whether we have the right number of providers at all those stations to move all those recruits along

02:58so when a young man or woman expresses interest in serving,

03:01we're getting them promptly through the process and hopefully getting them to their shift date?

03:06Senator, I agree with you.

03:09Ms. Sutton, 30 years ago at the dawn of the internet,

03:13there was lots of rosy, optimistic thinking about how it was going to revolutionize the way human beings live

03:21and we're going to connect the world and there were going to be no borders or boundaries

03:24and it was going to help us bridge our differences.

03:27And 30 years later, it certainly has done a lot to improve the way we live.

03:30It's kept families connected across long distances and helped people reconnect with classmates

03:35and get telehealth that otherwise might not have been able to receive.

03:43But there's also a lot of things like sexual exploitation and money laundering and fraud on the internet as well.

03:49So is it safe to say 30 years on that human nature is the same wherever we find it

03:55and the greatness and the frailties in the real world, human virtue and vice in the real world,

04:00we see reflected in the cyber world as well?

04:02Senator, I think that's a fair characterization.

04:06I think so too.

04:07So isn't it probably fair to say that strategic concepts like deterrence and escalation

04:13that operate on the real world battlefield also play out the same way in the cyber world?

04:19I couldn't agree with you more.

04:21And do you think we've done enough over the last four years to deter our adversaries

04:25like China and Russia and Iran and North Korea

04:29by being essentially in a defensive crouch in the cyber world

04:33and not developing offensive plans and capabilities that can hold at risk the things that they hold most dear?

04:40Senator, when I led a red team at Sandia, we had a common phrase that said,

04:45the defender has to be wrong every time.

04:47The adversary only has to be right once.

04:50I think that goes to show that while we need strong defenses,

04:54we are not going to deter the adversary with defenses only

04:57and that if confirmed, I will work to strengthen our offensive cyber capabilities

05:02to ensure the president has the options he needs to respond to this growing threat.

05:07I appreciate that.

05:08I couldn't agree more.

05:09And I think it's so vital that the world knows

05:13that whatever any country can do to us in the cyber world,

05:16we can do as much and more to them as well.

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