Fire Watch Episode 6: The Proof of Service that Sailors Just Can't Get on Time

Episode Introduction

On the way out of the military, troops get a single document that has the power to get them a job and healthcare. It is constantly used by the Department of Veterans Affairs as reference for disability or benefits ratings. If a veteran wants to go to school, a university is going to ask for it. So why are some sailors being forced to wait and wait, facing extensive delays, for such a crucial proof of their service?

In this episode of Fire Watch, we’re going to examine the Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty – also known as the DD-214 – and why, in the last few months, sailors haven’t been getting theirs, causing hardships while trying to move, go to school, find a job, and get healthcare. These veterans are stuck in limbo, unable to move on with their lives while confronting a Navy backlog with no easy workaround.

Guest interview edited for time and clarity. Some sound effects from Zapsplat.com.

Main Topics

• Drew F. Lawrence and Navy reporter Konstantin Toropin discuss the difficulties that many sailors are having getting their discharge paperwork.
• Guest, Rear Adm. Stuart Satterwhite, commander of MyNavy Career Center, discusses ongoing fixes to the DD-214 backlog.
• Hosts Drew F. Lawrence and Rebecca Kheel talk with Army reporter Steve Beynon about other important military stories for September 30th.

Additional Resources

• ‘I Apologize’: The Navy’s Pay Boss Says Discharge Paperwork Delays Being Fixed
• Sailors Face Down Abortion and Job Loss as Discharge Paperwork Delays Force Impossible Life Decisions

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Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Petty Officer 3rd Class James Donald, Steve Beynon, Drew Lawrence, Corpsman Chris Atkins, Military Presenter, Konstantin Toropin, Rear Adm. Stuart Satterwhite, Rebecca Kheel

Drew Lawrence

Alright, Konstantin, I have really been racking my brain about this episode ever since we got tasked it because I am honestly unsure how to make a piece of paper interesting in audio format. But this piece of paper that we're about to talk about is one that is incredibly important for service members and can change their lives. But it is indeed a boring government document. And that's discharge paperwork, that's what we're talking about today, right?

Konstantin Toropin

Yeah, kind of. Actually, what we're talking about is how some sailors are getting screwed over by the Navy and not getting that discharge paperwork in time to qualify for things like health care, schools, jobs -- that sort of thing. And rightfully, they're very concerned about it. But but hit me, what have you been brainstorming to get us into this?

Drew Lawrence

You know, I thought about my own discharge paperwork, shuffling it around opening and closing drawers in frustration looking for it. I think that this is a universal experience for every veteran, something that we've all done, right?

Konstantin Toropin

Is it? I've got 10 copies, like in a filing cabinet right over here.

Drew Lawrence

Okay. Well some of us don't, Konstantin. But I also thought about pulling up some of those military briefings, you know, the ones that you and I sat through as we were leaving the military that told us about this discharge paperwork and how to manage it.

Military Presenter

Okay, so this, this first slide just talks about our responsibilities here. So our primary customers are IMA reservists. We also create DD-214 for all members of the Army reserve that are going to be retiring within...

Konstantin Toropin

Yeah, takes me back now. Total snooze fest. What else you got?

Drew Lawrence

So I started running out of ideas, and I got frustrated. So I thought about taking my own DD2-14 into the backyard and lighting it on fire just to I guess, blow off some steam.

Konstantin Toropin

Yeah, I mean...how about how about this, I've got a better solution.

Corpsman Chris Atkins

Like the VA saying we cannot validate you and give you any kind of like services...

Rear Adm. Stuart Satterwhite

I can't change what's happened in the past. I can't go back. If somebody didn't get their DD-214, you know, on time. I apologize if you didn't receive it on time.

Petty Officer 3rd Class James Donald

Oh, we just found this out because you told us. You're telling me an important piece of the document paperwork like this and you guys can even communicate properly?

Corpsman Chris Atkins

I'm honestly lucky that my wife has a career and everything like that. But there's a lot of other people that are impacted. You can't set up your medical benefits like I was getting like mail letters...

Drew Lawrence

The DD-214. It's a coveted document, technically a series of documents that is meant to show a brief overview of a service member's military history. Newly minted veterans even purchase T shirts, candles and blankets with a blank version of the document on it, wrapping themselves in a sense of freedom and accomplishment after they leave the military. But if done right, that piece of paper can jumpstart a service member's transition into veteran status, setting the foundation for a successful post military life in some of the most important facets of the civilian world. Employers and schools will ask for it. Medical insurance might also ask for it. A lot hangs on this paperwork. So why aren't some service members getting it? Or at least getting it on time? My colleague, Konstantin Toropin spoke to over a dozen sailors and family members whose paperwork, or lack thereof, has hampered their transition out of the military. A period that the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs knows is a fragile time for many making the difficult leap from service to civilian life. This is the story of that piece of paper and how its absence can force service members to face lack of care, empty wallets, and impossible life decisions. For Military.com, my name is Drew Lawrence, it is September 30. And this is Fire Watch. Konstantin Toropin. Thank you so much for being here on Fire Watch. You focus on the Navy and the Marine Corps. And over the last couple months you've been hearing from sailors and their family members about this piece of paper this DD-214. And honestly, I'm glad that you're here to explain it because it's it's kind of complicated.

Konstantin Toropin

Right, so the document itself, the DD-214, despite how veterans often talk about it in sort of reverential tones, is in itself a single piece of paper that is kind of banal. It basically says what you did in the military, how long you're in and the manner of your discharge, that type of thing. But more importantly, it also represents the culmination of an administrative process, right, this change of a service member status within all of the DoD systems and databases from active duty to veteran and in the process, unlocking the various benefits that a service member would have earned over their time in service. Those benefits are what's really a question here, you know, the ability to prove that you're a veteran to a future employer, or the ability to draw on your GI bill for university or school. That's what we're talking about. So, without a DD-214, all these background processes that unlock these benefits just don't occur. And so that's, that's what makes this this piece of paper so important.

Drew Lawrence

So take us back when you first learned that sailors weren't getting this piece of paper on time. What happened? And how do you hear about this problem?

Konstantin Toropin

Yeah, so the sailor that tipped me off to this problem was actually a navy medic, a corpsman, the Navy would call them and he was stationed in Bethesda, Maryland. And he reached out to me at the end of June because he was about to get out and he was experiencing these paperwork delays. And it was costing him time and money and patience.

Yeah, not having a DD-214. That means you cannot prove that you honorably served, you don't have any -- none of your benefits. You did all of that work with no benefits coming out.

Drew Lawrence

Konstantin caught up with this corpsman over the phone and you might hear his kid in the background.

I'm literally like, super frustrated with the thing. I feel overwhelmed now because I'm not prepared for anything. I'm just focusing on my two daughters. I'm lucky that my wife has a career and gets paid well, because I'm just making sure I just do everything I can for them. Like I haven't applied to my to be a respiratory therapist for this state yet. Yeah, I'm not I'm not settled by anything. I'm managing is what I'm doing.

Konstantin Toropin

So that was Chris Atkins. And he was the first of over a dozen people that I ended up speaking to about this issue.

Drew Lawrence

So a dozen people, that's a pretty significant amount for people to come to the media with this problem. Can you give me an idea of of the scope of this issue overall? I mean, how many people have been affected by this and what is not getting this document actually mean to service members.

Konstantin Toropin

So it's hard to say how many people at any given moment are still, you know, waiting for this document. But we do know that the Navy roughly goes through about 30,000 folks a year who are separated or discharged or retire. And one Admiral I spoke to who we;ll hear from later said that in the month of August, for example, the backlog was around 700 folkd. You know, what we've largely heard is anecdotal evidence from folks like Chris. And what Chris, for example, told me was that not having this paperwork meant that he and his wife weren't able to get out of the lease that they had. They weren't able to apply for that, that final move that the military promises you when you finish your service. And he said that not having it was a barrier to him starting his civilian career as well.

Yeah, $10,000, I could have saved and now the Navy owes me at least $3,000 for the lease that I was stuck in. And I'm just lucky enough to have the repercussions for the Navy's like, big mess up.

Konstantin Toropin

And while Chris's experience was common among the sailors that spoke to us, there were other outliers that indicated to us that there were more serious consequences that came from this delay and backlog as well. For example, one sailor that I spoke to told me that while she was frustrated and trying to get a hold of this form, she also discovered that she was pregnant, and looking down the barrel of a discharge and possibly one without her benefits. And without health care she was forced to consider what that would mean for her the future, the future of her baby. And she told me that she was thinking about not even going through with the pregnancy because of the uncertainty.

Drew Lawrence

We've mentioned it before. But you've talked to several sailors who've gone on the record with you I want to take a step back. Because when it comes to military stories, that's kind of rare, and indicates to me that they're very frustrated by this problem.

Konstantin Toropin

Yeah, absolutely. Typically sailors don't dial up or email a reporter because there is a pervasive understanding that you don't talk to reporters, you handle things within the lifelines people often say. So when sailors do come to me, there's often something very serious that makes them overcome those fears. So for example, we talked to Petty Officer First Class, James Donald, who said that he was essentially trapped in Hawaii while waiting for his paperwork.

don

I refuse to leave this island without this piece of paperwork in my hand. I'm from Chicago, I knew I was going back to Chicago because my wife wants to be close to family. Knowing the cost of private health insurance, I've never considered that option. But I mean, I shouldn't. I said, me personally, I shouldn't have to consider that option. After serving my country for 22 years and knowing the different benefits that are available to them. But I mean, everybody has their own situation. I said, buy a house, you know, you know searching for a house, getting ready for school and which I am still gonna start school in January. But it's like, the Navy wants to cover it up. And when people read these stories, they want to make it look like the sailor's fault the paperwork, man a ton of stuff...so.

Konstantin Toropin

The DD-214 is essentially a ticket out of the military, quite literally, in some ways. It means you can get reimbursed for moving expenses, it means you can put in for disability pay, it means you can draw from your GI Bill. And for James, the cost of leaving without the promise of these benefits would have set him up for a rocky start to his civilian career, especially considering he told me his wife had struggled with cancer in the past. And he was very concerned about having health care in case that she needed more care in the future. And that's something that normally would have been a non issue with a DD-214 in hand.

Drew Lawrence

So I want to take a step back a little bit and talk about this transition period, because it's often glossed over admittedly by the media. And I'd posit, by the military itself, especially, you know, with recruiting and retention numbers being as low as they are right now. And I expect the military doesn't actually want to lose troops. Is that, you know, a fair assessment for me to make and what can you tell us a little bit about this time period that makes it such a fragile point in a service members lifecycle?

Konstantin Toropin

Yeah. So, you know, given the Navy's history with this issue, and it is worth sort of taking a step back and acknowledging that the problem with the DD-214 is didn't just crop up out of out of a vacuum -- there is a larger context here. And that makes hard for me to sort of think that this is just a way for them to sort of encourage people to re-enlist as opposed to get out. But you do make a point in that this issue hits people at an already vulnerable time. Experts from all sorts of professions have regularly told us in covering a variety of stories that this transition from military to civilian life is fragile and is a particularly challenging time in a person's life. And it's something that the military has struggled with, not just the Navy has struggled with for years. The VA, for example, says the veteran suicide is most likely within the first three months of leaving the military and this paperwork issue, which should be an easy task, considering the military has been handing out some kind of discharge paperwork for hundreds of years now, right? Only adds fuel to an already existing problem.

Drew Lawrence

So I know you've talked to some Navy officials about this, and we go on record with one guest later. So I'm not going to take away from that. But what are they saying overall about this problem?

Konstantin Toropin

So broadly, the position the the Navy says that the problem stems from its efforts to modernize how it does all of its HR type stuff, you know, fixing pay tracking, leave managing reenlistment and retirements, cutting new orders, all the stuff that normally a civilian HR department would tackle, right. And officials have regularly pointed to the fact that they're trying to overhaul decades old IT systems, people that have really just gotten retrenched in doing things a certain way. And so there are a lot of these challenges to overcome as they try to build what they say is a personnel management system of the future.

Drew Lawrence

So it sounds like the Navy is admitting here that there is indeed a problem. Are they trying to actually fix it?

Konstantin Toropin

Absolutely. I think in my conversation with the Navy's pay boss, the admiral that oversees this whole process, he was pretty unequivocal in saying that things aren't where they should be, and that he is trying to make changes and fix some of these backlogs and other issues that have come come out of this modernization effort. And not to give too much credit to the Navy given some of the consequences of this problem. But they are telling me that they're trying to make this process easy in the long run. Unfortunately, given these revamps, some sailors have felt the negative effects rather than the positive ones

Drew Lawrence

And for these sailors, what does the road ahead look like? And I guess for lack of a better term, how are they protecting themselves during this transition period?

Konstantin Toropin

Many sailors have told me that they as they got their paperwork ready for discharge while still on active service. They were aware that this was an issue and they tried to sort of work ahead, make sure their paperwork was as polished as it could be. Others said they proactively reached out to congressional representatives in order to make sure that the Navy was feeling additional pressure to get that paperwork to them on time.

I talked to like Senator Toomey's office he said that they can't -- you can't file, we can't help you with this, you just need to file a claim against the Department of Navy.

Drew Lawrence

And is there any risk that these sailors are going to run into permanent issues down the line? Because they aren't getting this paperwork in time or at all?

Konstantin Toropin

That's a good question. I think the biggest consequence of all this is -- and several sailors have have spoken to me about this -- is not so much that they'll never have the paperwork, they eventually will. The problem is that it at a very critical juncture in their lives when they're trying to leave the military and become a civilian. That process in and of itself comes with a myriad of tasks and demands and what have you. And on top of all, that they're also dealing with this incredibly critical problem that's forcing them to, I think James mentioned that he was on the phone daily, with somebody, you know, taking copious notes, fighting with Navy representatives, and that's, you know, that's time they can't get back. That's time that could have been better spent applying for college or studying for a certification exam, or figuring out, you know, the best way to write your resume, and instead, they're fighting with this bureaucracy to try and get what is rightfully owed to them.

Drew Lawrence

Konstantin Toropin, thank you so much for joining us on Fire Watch

Konstantin Toropin

Anytime, thanks, Drew.

Drew Lawrence

Rear Admiral Stuart Satterwhite oversees the My Navy Career Center which is the command that is responsible for helping sailors with a variety of human resources type tasks, from getting the right pay, to processing orders, to taking care of retirements and separations. His office is responsible for this DD-214 issue as well. Admiral Satterwhite has been in the job since the summer of 2021 as the Navy is consolidating several satellite hubs that deal with discharge paperwork into one, hoping to wrangle the problem into one place. Konstantin interviewed him this week; I want to note that the original recording was about 45 minutes. So we cut it for clarity and time. Take a listen.

Konstantin Toropin

And if I'm remembering correctly, you know, the consolidation efforts began around 2016. Am I right?

Rear Adm. Stuart Satterwhite

I think Navy actually started changing PSDs in 2006, maybe even 2002? Or a little bit in that time period. Okay. That's when that actually started.

Gotcha. And can you speak a little bit about what the, what the mindset was, you know, when that change began to take effect, what, you know, what was what was the intended effect, maybe you were hoping to see out of this consolidation?

Rear Adm. Stuart Satterwhite

In the 2000, early 2000s, there was a decision saying, 'Hey, we can we can find a better way to deliver these services to sailors.' So the more effective that would be able to deliver a better product, okay, in a more timely fashion. You know, how do we modernize 40 to 50 year old IT? Okay, and how do we take processes that have been going on, some of them 70 years old, and their processes have started, more work requirements have been increased. And our systems have not made things easier for the sailor or for the command. So when we stood up My Navy Career Center in September of last year, the objective was to take three different organizations and to combine them into one streamlined organization as each one one has, you know, so now we have a single focal point. We are working through backlogs that have been building up over time and working through an IT system that in the past transactions were deleted, and people started over again. And we've come out with the standard saying you can't delete transactions, we're gonna follow through to the finish and identify where it's at and actually stay on top of it. And we're seeing the...we're starting to see the benefits happening out here already, you know, where where do I want to take this, I want to take this beyond that and say, "Let's get your get you your DD-214 when you are going on terminally." Okay, so that's making it...this is how we improve service to sailors, okay, this is not trying to blame sailors for anything. It's my job to go out here and make this better. And so that's what we're after. How do I build trust with sailors? It's demonstrated performance of when you actually get paid. Okay? And that's, you know, I can tell you all day long but until you see it happening, that's reality. And so I understand that as far as long ways to go to make sure to gain that trust back of sailors. The past, I can't change what's happened in the past. I can't go back if somebody didn't get their DD-214, you know, on time. I apologize if you did not receive it on time. Okay, and I will endeavor to do better.

Konstantin Toropin

You know, am I right in understanding that, you know, some of these were delays already present in the system when you started making improvements and changes. And then other issues were caused by, you know, as you as you, I think, said, you've been, you started making procedure changes, and the experience base in the people handling some of these transactions was just not there yet.

You know, I did the assessment of the organization and where we were and what got us to this point. Were these delays are present? They were, but they were scattered about to many locations. And so, in each location, it didn't seem like it was that much. But once you consolidate it, you're like, "wow, there's a different picture here." As we look at our DD-214s right now, I'm tracking this on a spreadsheet, because our IT system doesn't tell me the information I need to. Okay, and so that's a slow tedious process. When we have our IT system fully working, the beauty of the TSEs and how we've constructed them now, is that if there's a sudden increase in transactions, or you know, I need something else to happen, I can leverage any place in the organization now, to do that.

You mentioned that you guys are starting to see benefits from your perspective, I mean, can you talk in some specifics as to some of the benefits that you guys are seeing?

So again, so what I'm saying is re-enlistments and extensions, I'm seeing those transactions happen way inside the requirement. Okay, so they're in less than five days, or if they happen the next day, that's good. When I look at my gains overseas, I'm seeing them starting to come down, they're way inside that 30 day requirement. They're probably down about six days, maybe seven days and they're heading down to my requirement of four days. Okay, when I'm looking at stateside gains, they're taking less than 20 days. So I've got a little bit larger piece there to drive my standard down. But again, we're inside the DoD standard, but it's not quite to the MCC standard at this point in time.

If you had the benefit of hindsight, you know, are there are there pitfalls, you you would have avoided? Are there lessons learned that you can sort of speak to, you know, here's where we could have, you know, done something differently, or going forward, you know, we're going to tell the Navy to not make, you know, whatever pitfall we made.

I think that, you know, we can always look back with hindsight and say, 'If I could have would have should have done something like that.' If we'd had, you know, a giant organization where you could have, you know, had a fully blown or fully delivered IT solution where I could have that My Navy Portal already built today, that would be an ideal. If you - I think when you look to the commercial sector, or the private sector, I should say, they have a little bit different resourcing model out there. Or in in dollars, I would have loved to have said, you know, hey, I had an unlimited budget, unlimited personnel, and unlimited IT, I could have, I would have rolled this out differently. Like, knowing that, the world we live in, I don't really have that, you know, just like I think, you know, you've got a limited number of words you can put into an article. So we're all limited by you know, so I'm not trying to throw stones at folks, you know, it's my, it's my challenge to live with now. It's mine job to say, let's make it right. And let's, let's provide a service to sailors that we -- that they deserve and how we should be delivering to them.

Drew Lawrence

Hey, thanks for listening so far, we have a bit more for us to stick around, but I wanted to take a second and thank you for hanging out with us. If you'd like to show, leave us a comment or rating wherever you get your podcasts and head over to Military.com if you want to check out our other work. Thanks.

Rebecca Kheel

Welcome back to our reporter roundtable. I'm Rebecca Kheel, your congressional reporter for Military.com. Joining me as always is Drew Lawrence and joining us today is Military.com's Army reporter, Steve Beynon. Hi guys, how you doing today?

Drew Lawrence

Good. Thanks for having us, Rebecca. Uh, yeah.

Steve Beynon

Excellent. Excellent. Thanks for doing this.

Drew Lawrence

Rebecca, I want to just kind of jump right in here because over the last two weeks, champions of something that you've been covering -- the Afghan Adjustment Act have been protesting outside of the White House and the Capitol. And it seems like their efforts to give Afghans who've, you know, help the United States during the Afghan War, earn a little bit more permanency here in the United States, is -- it's getting stifled from several angles. Can you explain a little bit what this bill is? And what's holding it up in Congress?

Rebecca Kheel

Yeah, so just to take a step back a bit, you'll recall that they the US military evacuated 10s of 1000s of Afghans last summer, and most of them came to the United States under a temporary status known as humanitarian parole, and that at most gives them two years to be in the United States. So what this bill called, the Afghan Adjustment Act would do is it would give them a pathway to get green cards so they can be permanent residents of the United States. But as you mentioned, it hasn't made much progress. It was introduced on a bipartisan basis. But there are Republicans who have raised concern that we did not sufficiently vet all the Afghans that we brought over. And so they are opposing this bill. However, supporters of the bill point out that there are provisions in the bill to do more vetting for before they get a green card. So there have been veterans and Afghan refugees camping outside of the Capitol for about two weeks now. They say they're not going to let up pressure until Congress does this. And we saw that veterans successfully use this tactic before for the PACT acts. So they're hoping to emulate that success.

Drew Lawrence

And you know, that wasn't really the only pushback they got from from inside Congress. I'd seen reports that the veterans -- and like you'd mentioned, it's a lot of veterans that are there outside protesting outside of the Capitol -- were getting heckled at their own protests. What was that about and who was kind of interrupting their protest?

Rebecca Kheel

Yeah, so this happened both actually at the packstack protests that I mentioned, and the Afghan Adjustment Act protests. There's this group called the 1776 Restoration Movement that have been outside the Capitol protesting the treatment of veterans who have been arrested for participating in the January 6 insurrection.

Drew Lawrence

You know, it's it's interesting that you mentioned this group, because myself and Patricia Kime our colleague had also reported on this group last week, because they had called in to protest what they said was unfair treatment of these January 6 defendants who are currently incarcerated in DC, some are awaiting trial by calling into the Veterans Crisis Hotline. And we actually had talked to some of them. And initially, they had denied it to us saying that they hadn't done it. But you know, what is common with a lot of these groups is they had live streame it and was pretty clear that, you know, some of the members had had held it up to their live stream, which, you know, now has 1000s of views on YouTube and told them to call in to essentially protest what they felt was unfair treatment happening to people who participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Steve Beynon

So what what is this group get out of doing a protest that basically clogs up this line with the VA, that seems like a very -- a pretty brazen protest that's just probably hurting veterans and their spouses?

Drew Lawrence

I'll be honest with you, I didn't really understand the logic behind using that as a protest means. And, you know, again, they had kind of backtracked after they had done it said that they, you know, weren't trying to hurt veterans. And we had seen some anecdotal evidence of veterans not getting through -- the VA had said that, you know, all veterans were taken care of, but what was really in question was whether the veterans specific line of the new crisis line was being utilized by veterans or they're being passed over to the national crisis line, which may not have the capability to deal with veteran specific suicide problems that might have to do with post traumatic stress or some of the common things that we see when veterans might be in crisis.

How does it stack with maybe some other protests that the these far right groups have done whether they've been tied to January 6 or not?

Drew Lawrence

So that's good question. I mean, it's hard to stack these groups because as you know, having covered extremism with military and veteran connections, they kind of pop up like whack a mole, like every few months, and they rise and fall in popularity, so it's difficult to pinpoint really, how the protests stackup. A lot of it is, you know, vying for attention. But the at the end of the day, it's, you know, the veteran crisis line specific protests really ruffled a lot of feathers within the veteran community. But Steve, I want to pivot to the Army specifically here for a second, because there has been some, you know, real shakeups, at least in the last couple of weeks that you've been reporting on in terms of recruiting, retention, and where soldiers actually want to be posted. And so I want to ask, where is the Army in terms of recruiting and retention? And how does that play into the reporting you had done? On where troops want to be stationed when they enter the Army?

Yeah, so there's a lot of good news and bad news with Army recruiting and retention. It's mostly bad news. You know, for the DoD's largest service. The the active duty -- the good news first -- active duty has been beyond its retention goals since 2017. And then they look at 2017 missing that by a little bit as just hey, the goals change mid year, and that kind of screwed them up. So generally, they've had no issue keeping on as many soldiers that were originally contract...set to get out of the Army. They look to keep between 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers in the Army every year. This year, they wanted to keep 58,000. I mean, they hit that goal in in June. So it seems that once people join the Army, on paper at least -- we can talk about plenty of issues in the Army and why people get out -- but on paper, it seems that people want to stay, it's mostly about getting soldiers past that first contract. First contracts are usually about four years, once the soldiers at that point, they're a specialist may be about to become an NCO. At that point, if they re-enlist, hey, they they're close to 10 years, it's halfway to retirement. And then after that, hey, you're you're bought into the Army. So the closer they can get you that retirement date, the easier time the Army is going to have -- get that soldier locked in to service.

Drew Lawrence

And so you had mentioned some bad news. What's that about?

Bad news is recruiting is a is frankly, a disaster for the Army. They're going to be short, both the active duty and the Army National Guard are going to be short, about 15,000 soldiers each this year, and that is due to a lot of different issues. A lot of people are blaming how soldiers are evaluated before they come into the service, medical records are easier to access. Previously, you would just not tell your recruiter or your recruiter would pretend they didn't hear about the time you stubbed your toe in middle school, or something like that. But now it's much much easier to find those issues. It's harder for soldiers to hide those problems from MEPs, which are the people that basically go through your paperwork and approve you to join. And then there's advertising -- advertising is completely outdated in the Army -- they're still putting money into Facebook, they're putting money into...they're putting some money into TV commercials. 17 year olds aren't watching TV, they're not on Facebook, and the DoD generally can't advertise on Tik Tok. There's, there's kind of a ban on it for basically being a data mining tool for the Chinese government. But that is where 17 year olds are. They're on Tik Tok, but the Army can't really use that, generally speaking. And then there's also the issue where, you know, most young Americans are too overweight to serve, or, you know, they have some minor criminal infraction. So roughly 23% of Americans are even eligible to serve in the first place. So the Army has to find that 23% and then they have to find the fraction of those people between 17 and 24 that want to join the Army and then that are even eligible for service.

Drew Lawrence

And you had dug out some really interesting data from the Army that kind of ties into this. And it has to do with where -- when soldiers eventually get into the military -- where they want to go and where they're going to be stationed.

Yeah, so in February, the Army started this program to allow new enlistees to effectively pick where they want to get stationed. It started with just a handful of options which included Alaska, so Alaska is the is by far the most popular choice for new recruits but it was also there as an option since February. They've since added effectively every major base in the Army, they you know, including like places like Fort Bragg and stuff which only you know so far eight soldiers have volunteered for but it's only been an option for a couple of months. There's obviously limitations to that, you know, it's MOS or job dependet so you're not promised, you know, if you want to be an infantryman, you're probably not gonna get stationed at Fort Belvoir where there's no infantry units.

Drew Lawrence

Rebecca, there was something really interesting that you've been covering for the last two weeks and you I noticed that it, you know, it picked up a lot of coverage when it initially came out. But you've had a couple stories on this and I wanted to get your view on it. The VA made a major announcement about abortions. And it had, you know, it was positive for a lot of people it had shocked a lot of people and it was...had ruffled some feathers. What can you tell us a little bit about this decision by the VA?

Rebecca Kheel

Yeah, so the VA a few weeks ago announced that it would start offering abortions for the first time ever. They are limiting the abortions to cases where the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest or where the life or health of the pregnant person is at risk by the carrying the pregnancy. But it was a major change resulting from the Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned nationwide abortion rights and several states followed that ruling by banning abortion some outright some, you know, still allowing for some small exceptions, but still severely restricting abortion. And now, VA Secretary McDonough has said, as of last week, the department has actually performed its first abortion under these new rules. As you can imagine, Republicans are not at all happy about this. They have been threatening what they termed sanctions against the VA, which it's unclear what they meant by that. But it seems like it would be something where if they got control of Congress, they would go after the VA as budget. The Republican Attorney General in Alabama has threatened to prosecute VA doctors that perform abortions that run counter to Alabama's law. The VA has said that the Justice Department is backing them in their new policy and will defend VA doctors. There are real questions about you know, about how this is all going to play out going forward.

Steve Beynon

You know, if Republicans actually go after the VA in a serious way, especially their money, is there any indication that that's frankly, just a layup for Democrats? I can't think of a more juicy thing to hop on than a dish serve that says we're attacking veterans on health care.

Rebecca Kheel

Yeah, Republicans have been so vague in their plans. So far, you know, it could just be that they're going to add a line to the appropriations bill that says VA may not use funding to perform abortions as opposed to just being like, we're gonna you know, we're gonna slash your medical budget or something like that. Well, I think we've covered a lot of good topics today. Thank you guys, both for joining me again, I think we had a good conversation and thank you to our listeners for tuning in. As always, be sure to tune back in next time.

Drew Lawrence

Hey, everybody, thank you so much for listening to Episode 6 of Fire Watch. I want to thank our executive producers, Zachary Fryer-Biggs and Amy Bushatz, as well as my co-host, Rebecca Kheel and our wonderful guests. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.