Chief Of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti: Navy Has a Lot to Offer Young People

C. Todd Lopez at the DOD News offer a piece on the recruitment of Navy sailors. 

Recruiters across the U.S. military are challenged every day to bring young people into service. But the chief of naval operations said she thinks the Navy has what young people are looking for — if only they knew more about it. 

"All the services are facing some challenges in recruiting, and it's really broader than that," said Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti who spoke yesterday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It's probably challenges in just propensity to serve, in general." 

One challenge the Navy has in recruiting, Franchetti said, is that so many young people are simply unaware of what it does. 

"If you don't live near a coast or you don't live near a base, you may not really know what your Navy does every day," she said. "So, talking a little bit about ... operations in the Red Sea, keeping commerce flowing [and] having your Amazon box get to your doorstep, there's a lot of stuff that people don't even recognize every day that your Navy is out there doing." 

Young people, part of Generation Z, are now of age to consider military service, and Franchetti said the Navy must consider what that generation values if they're going to be convinced to enlist in military service. 

"Thinking about what they value, what they're looking for ... in terms of wanting to understand why, wanting to understand the values of the organization, I think we have a really good story to tell, because we're all about honor, courage, commitment, democracy ... and the pursuit of all who threaten it," she said. "But also, it's about helping them become the best version of themselves ... we offer a lot of opportunity, we have 150 different career specialties that they can go into." 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Franchetti: Navy Has a Lot to Offer Young People > U.S. Department of Defense > Defense Department News

Note: I enlisted in the U.S. Navy when I was 17 in 1970. I served on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War, and later on a Navy harbor tugboat at the nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland.

I traveled halfway around the world during my four years, from Southeast Asia to Europe, and I met people and experienced things that have made me the man I am today.

You can take the boy out of the Navy, but you can’t take the Navy out of the boy.