The Coast Guard needs to find more recruits and then give them better housing, health care, child care and support services, according to Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan.
Adm. Fagan has been the Coast Guard’s commandant since May; she is the first woman to lead a branch of the military in the United States. She testified recently before a House Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation subcommittee.
“My highest priority as commandant is to transform our talent management system, which has not significantly changed in 75 years, to better serve our people in the 21st century,” she said.
The Coast Guard is now 4,200 recruits short of meeting its goal this year, but she said the service has hired 15 new recruiters. The Coast Guard has not met its recruiting goals for the past four years.
There are now 41,700 active duty members of the Coast Guard, plus 7,800 part-time reservists. Across all the military services, recruiting has become a problem. Fewer young people want to serve, and fewer of those who do pass the physical and mental qualifying exams because of obesity and other problems.
In March, in his annual State of the Coast Guard address, Adm. Karl Schultz, the former commandant, said the service needed “to maximize opportunities for all.” He said it would review the mandatory scores on its qualifying tests, and start a new Officer Recruiting Team to reach out to under-represented population groups.
Now, the Coast Guard reports that the active duty force is largely made up of white men. Only 15 percent are women; 13.7 Hispanic; 6 percent Black, and 2 percent Asian.
In her testimony, Adm. Fagan said the main personnel problem was recruitment, not retention. The Coast Guard is starting a program offering two-year enlistments, as well as increasing tuition assistance, in an effort to attract more recruits.
The two-year enlistments still come with an eight-year commitment; two years on active duty, four years in the Drilling Reserves, and two years in the Individual Ready Reserve.
Tuition assistance had been capped at $2,250 a year; it now will go up to $3,750 a year. Read more:
