By Jayvee Vallejera
Thanks to a community with a high propensity to serve in the U.S. military, the Guam Army National Guard is “doing pretty well” in recruiting new soldiers, according to its commander, Lt. Col. John A. Guerrero. This contrasts with the larger U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, which missed their recruitment targets in fiscal year 2023.
The Government Accountability Office’s audit of the U.S. military’s digital marketing efforts from March 2023 to October 2024 showed that the Army, Navy and Air Force missed their recruitment goals by thousands in fiscal year 2023. Only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their goals.
The GAO's report said the Army had aimed to hire 65,500 new soldiers in fiscal 2023, but fell short by about 15,000. That same fiscal year, the Navy fell short by about 7,000 sailors—the first time that has happened in at least five years.
The same report states that the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve have failed to meet their recruitment goals over the past five years, and that the Army National Guard, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve have also faced recruitment challenges. The U.S. military primarily targets Gen Z—those born between 1997 and 2012.
Guerrero paints a far rosier picture of the Guam Army National Guard. He said Guam's current recruitment situation is great.
“I can only speak for the Guam Army National Guard. Like anything else, we could always do better, but we’re doing pretty well right now,” he said in an email interview.
He attributes this to several factors, including what he calls “the propensity to serve.” Guam has one of the nation’s highest enlistment rates per capita. This makes the U.S. military brand already familiar to the greater Guam community.
“Many of our recruits come from families in which there is at least one family member serving. This familiarity with military service raises that tendency to serve for other members of the family,” Guerrero said.
That could also mean the U.S. armed forces brand already has a respected image within the Guam community, and pursuing a career in the armed services is often a viable option.
Plus, the U.S. government adds more incentives to convince more young people to join the armed services. Recently, the U.S. Navy shortened its basic military training program by reducing the training schedule from 10 weeks to just nine weeks effective January 2025.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a 14.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted servicemembers and a 4.5 percent pay raise for all other servicemembers. The $883.7 billion National Defense Authorization Act includes provisions improving healthcare, housing, child care, military spousal support, and civilian workforce benefits. The bill was expected to get the Senate's nod as well.
When asked how many recruits they get per year, Guerrero declined to reveal specifics for operational reasons, but assured, “We’re meeting our recruiting mission.”
To help meet their goals, recruiters embark on marketing activities through television and radio commercials, billboards or signs, movie ads and direct mail. They have also tapped digital platforms, such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and YouTube.
Guerrero said changing how they reach out to potential recruits is also a part of how the GUNG finds recruits. He defined this as meeting “the target market where they’re at.”
“We have seen some shifts in how the public consumes media content. There’s obviously been a significant shift from analog to digital forms of media. As recruiters, we meet the target market where they’re at,” he said. “But we do have a great marketing team that’s effective in brand awareness, which supports lead generation, ultimately leading to an accession (a person joining).”
As to how they usually get new recruits, Guerrero said this varies, ranging from cold outreach to word-of-mouth referrals. They also get potential recruits coming in through their doors wanting to serve. “This, plus brand awareness from the marketing effort, has been favorable for us over the last two years,” he added.
The same positive impressions about military service appear to also be working in favor of GUNG recruits from the neighboring Northern Marianas.
An article published on the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command website quotes Saipan recruiter Sgt. Juan Camacho as saying that Guam Guard recruits from the Northern Marianas have increased 2,400 percent from just three in 2022 to 75 in 2024.
The article by Mark Scott, published in May this year, quoted Camacho as saying: “It all comes down to relationships, honesty, and pride. I was born and raised in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands, and being involved with the community has definitely paved the way.”
Camacho, a local star athlete and community organizer for youth sports events, is the sole recruiter for the National Guard in the Northern Marianas. The report says he has already exceeded his recruiting mission just a few months into fiscal 2024. “The mission was just the warm-up,” Camacho said. “I’m looking to set the bar and maintain the pace to become the recruiter of the year. The grind doesn’t stop there.”
But joining the U.S. military is not exactly a walk in the park for recruits from Guam, the CNMI, and other Pacific islands. A USO article on the enlistment process for military recruits living in the Pacific says the logistics of enlistment can be a challenge. After hurdling the initial tests, recruits from the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, or the CNMI have to fly to the nearest Military Entrance Processing Stations, or MEPS. The nearest one in the Pacific region is in Hawaii.
Most applicants in the U.S. mainland can take a car, train or bus to get to their nearest MEPS. If you’re from the Pacific, you’ll have to fly to the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu, which serves applicants from a 14 million square mile area, far surpassing the geographic footprint of any other MEPS site in the U.S. or Puerto Rico.
The site processes applicants from Hawai’i, Guam, the Marshall Islands, the FSM, Palau, the CNMI and America Samoa. Once an applicant arrives at the Honolulu MEPS, the recruit begins a lengthy process of physical, aptitude and background testing, which can take several days. There’s also a lot of waiting in between.
Military recruiters in the U.S. mainland have their unique challenges and appear to be fighting stronger headwinds, especially among Gen Z.
According to the GAO report, favorable views about the military are declining among Gen Z. “These favorable views have fallen from 46 percent in 2016 to 35 percent in 2021, according to a 2023 survey commissioned by the Department of Defense. In December 2023, senior DoD leaders testified before Congress that the department faces a challenging recruiting environment due, in part, to young people’s general mistrust in institutions and their limited knowledge of military service,” the GAO said.
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