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Those unstable dragon slayers have done it again and left a lot of people scratching their heads; the United States Marine Corps was the only service to meet, and even exceed their recruiting goals. (Aside from the Space Force, but they don’t count yet.) The same service with the smallest budget, the hardest training, and the harshest fights managed to bring in 21 more new recruits than their mandate. 2023 isn’t unique either, as previous years point to a similar trend.
Challenges for the Marines are similar to those of other services. Concerns over how their veteran parents were treated, increased division over American involvement in foreign conflicts, the exposure by social media of command challenges with treatment of personnel and the unbalanced application of discipline and justice are among the reasons potential recruits list as deterrents. The question then becomes, how are the Marines so successful?
There are a lot of educated theories, but one stands out among the group: branding. Of the different armed services, the Marine Corps has always had one clear, unambiguous objective. Marines kill bad guys. Since their inception in 1775, the Marines have stood as the embodiment of the raging fury of American will and looked good doing it. Want your movie or book character to be tough? Put Marine in their backstory. Need to hire someone you can count on or who will show leadership? Hire a Marine. Some of this publicity is of course manufactured by the DoD, but a lot of it also comes from the actions of Marines in and out of uniform. Not to mention the guy fighting the fire monster commercials were sick. The Marine Corps, with the hard work or subterfuge of its recruiters, are raking in numbers in a system that almost sells itself. How far does that street cred take you, though?
Apparently to another top slot, coveted in an era where integration has been made a priority. The Marine Corps managed to not only boast a female Marine retention rate of 30% in 2022 (higher than the male rate of 27%) but increased those numbers in 2023 to 33% and 28% respectively. One of the country’s oldest boys’ clubs seems to be an excellent girls’ club too. Excellence is excellence, no matter the form it takes, and the Marine Corps is forging ahead to maintain that reputation.
This may seem like another DoD sponsored post, but I assure you they did not pay me for this article. But in a time where the numbers aren’t there, budgets are hit or miss, and the seas have been a little rough lately, it eases the mind to remember that the tip of America’s spear is sharp and ready.
