TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The show you're about to hear isn't the one we'd planned for today. So let me take a moment to explain. We intended to broadcast the interview I recorded yesterday about the recruiting crisis in the military and how Trump blamed it on the military's DEI programs, which is the subject of Dexter Filkins' latest article in the New Yorker. In that interview with Filkins, we also talked about how the Middle East was being reshaped by the Israel-Hamas war and the overthrow of Syria's dictator, Bashar al-Assad. But last night, at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Trump proposed a shocking way he'd like to reshape the region. His idea is for all the Palestinians to leave Gaza, get Jordan and Egypt to take them in, while the U.S. takes ownership of Gaza and rebuilds it. He didn't rule out sending U.S. troops into Gaza.
We brought back Filkins this morning to talk about Trump's proposal. In the second half of today's show, we'll hear the interview we recorded yesterday morning about the shortage of recruits in the U.S. military and how that's leaving us vulnerable. Filkins is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He's been reporting on Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East for decades and is the author of the bestseller "The Forever War." Let's start with a clip from last night's press conference when CNN's Kaitlan Collins posed this question to Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Please.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Just to follow up on what you were saying about the Gazans leaving Gaza, going to other countries. One, where exactly are you suggesting that they should go? And two, are you saying they should return after it's rebuilt? And if not, who do you envision living there?
TRUMP: I envision a world, people living there, the world's people. I think you'll make that into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable. And I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world will be there, and they'll...
COLLINS: But not Palestinians (ph)?
TRUMP: And they'll live there. Palestinians also. Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there. But they've tried the other, and they've tried it for decades and decades and decades. It's not going to work. It didn't work. It will never work. And you have to learn from history. History has - you know, you just can't let it keep repeating itself. We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal.
And I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so - this could be so magnificent. But more importantly than that is the people that have been absolutely destroyed that live there now can live in peace in a much better situation, because they're living in hell. And those people will now be able to live in peace. We'll make sure that it's done world class. It'll be wonderful for the people - Palestinians. Palestinians, mostly, we're talking about. And I have a feeling that despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the king in Jordan and that the general president - but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done. And people can live in harmony and in peace.
GROSS: Dexter Filkins, welcome to FRESH AIR. What was your reaction last night when you heard the press conference?
DEXTER FILKINS: Well, you know, it's, like, Trump throwing a hand grenade once again. But nah, look, he's right about certain things, right? We've tried it again and again and again. It hasn't worked. And so, you know, he's throwing the bomb. But no, it's not serious. It's a cool headline. But no, it's - it was dead before it, you know, left the building.
GROSS: How do you know that?
FILKINS: (Laughter).
GROSS: Just because the world is against him. Trump can be very stubborn, and, you know, look at what he's doing to the American government. So how can you be sure that he wouldn't try it? Maybe it wouldn't work, but how can you be sure he wouldn't try to push it forward?
FILKINS: Well, I mean, it's like, try. Try what? So we're basically talking about ethnically cleansing Gaza of its people. OK, that's one thing. You know, they tried that in Bosnia. But the other thing is, like, just look at the practicalities of it. He's like, well, the Egyptians, you know, they'll take in the Gazans. The Egyptians don't want the Gazans. We tried to do that when the war started in October 2023. They don't want them. They closed the doors. Nobody wants them.
You know, I think that President Trump got this idea from Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, who kind of expanded on it, you know, some time ago and said, you know, it's a great stretch of beachfront property there. We'll ship the Palestinians out into the Negev, you know, which is the desert. And so, like, did anybody ask the Palestinians? No. It's just - it's not serious. Who's going to do it? Who's going to pay for it? And in fact, as soon as he was done talking, the Saudis, who would ultimately end up financing, you know, any kind of reconstruction that there is, they just dismissed it out of hand. They said, you know, we reaffirm our support for a Palestinian state. You know, again, kind of cool to talk about, but I don't think it's a - it's not serious. You know, Bibi loved it, but it's not serious.
GROSS: Do you think Trump and Jared see this as a kind of ultra form of gentrification?
FILKINS: (Laughter) You know, everybody loves the Mediterranean. But look, I mean, give Jared and give Trump credit the last time around. Jared came in, I think, not knowing very much about the Middle East. But he pulled off the Abraham Accords, which is, you know, the biggest peace deal in the Middle East since Camp David. You know, it's fresh thinking. It's, like, thinking outside the box. But there's thinking outside the box, and there's - and then there's, like, living in fantasy land. And I think this is the latter.
GROSS: So with the Abraham Accords, that would have created peace between - peace and recognition. So the Saudis would officially recognize Israel. You know, there'd be an official, you know, like, peace between them. But...
FILKINS: Well, it did. I mean...
GROSS: Yes.
FILKINS: Not with the Saudis, but a number of other Middle Eastern countries, you know, stepped forward.
GROSS: Smaller ones.
FILKINS: Yeah, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah.
FILKINS: Yeah. And the Saudis are kind of on deck, and that sort of - you know, there's a kind of idea of a big grand Middle Eastern peace deal, and that would involve something like a Palestinian state, the Abraham Accords, including Saudi Arabia. You know, look, there's a lot of destruction there right now, but it's also - it's an opportunity because there's so much destruction, because these really evil actors like Hamas and Hezbollah are dead in the water, and Assad in Syria - they're gone. So maybe it's an opportunity to kind of reshape the Middle East. And I think it probably is, but it's like, again, I think there's plausible. There's bold. And then there's ridiculous. And I think what we heard yesterday was, you know, the latter, choice C.
GROSS: When al-Qaida attacked the U.S. on 9/11, the leadership said this was because of American military presence in the Middle East. So even if Trump does not follow through on his plan, do you think that this will arouse terrorist groups, or what's left of them, to try to get back at the U.S? And on a related note, if Trump did take steps forward in trying to implement this, what would it mean in terms of possible terrorist attacks on U.S. troops or on, you know, just American land?
FILKINS: Yeah, I mean, if, like - if, you know, Jared Kushner and family are building hotels (laughter) on the Riviera of the Middle East, yeah, that's going to arouse resentment. Of course it would arouse hatred. There's a lot of hatred already. There's tons of hatred. You know, he did that press conference yesterday with Bibi Netanyahu, who the United States has armed completely. You can agree with what the Israelis did in Gaza, that it had to be done, or you can conclude that Netanyahu is a war criminal. But the fact is we armed him, and everybody knows that. And I think earlier this week, the United States just agreed - just announced the Trump administration - they're sending a billion dollars' worth of arms to Israel. So it's like, that's no mystery. Like, everybody already knows that. And so whatever resentment there is, and I think there's quite a lot, all the Palestinians know Resentment there is, and I think there's quite a lot. All the Palestinians know where those guns came from. They - and they came from us.
GROSS: So in terms of a Palestinian state, like, Mike Huckabee, who is the new ambassador to Israel, doesn't even call the West Bank the West Bank. He refers to it as Judea and Samaria, which are the biblical names for that land. And he's one of the people who believes that Israel has biblical claim to the land that we call the West Bank. So with him being the ambassador to Israel, what do you think that means for the future of Israel and the Palestinians?
FILKINS: Well, it's really, really difficult. And, look, this is what we're talking about right now. It's the world's most intractable problem, and Trump's right. You know, we tried and tried and tried, and we've failed - or the world, you know? So what is the future portend? I think what's been happening, I think, kind of out of view is that as the Israelis have been prosecuting the war in Gaza, you know, after being attacked by Hamas, they've kind of pushed forward very rapidly with new settlements in the West Bank. And some of those settler groups have been attacking Palestinians and Palestinian residents and civilians, and been proceeding very rapidly. And so the - and because the people around Bibi who basically keep him in power - it's a coalition government - that's what they want. And that's their price for keeping him in power, which is basically unfettered authority to do what they want to do in the West Bank. And that's been happening very rapidly.
So it's a fair question - in 2025, is a Palestinian state even viable anymore? Or is it just kind of a pipe dream that, like, everybody just kind of, you know, pays homage to, but it's - but is it essentially a pipe dream? Like, it's not going to happen anymore, if only in their - and that is what has been happening on the West Bank, which is they're trying to make it impossible and - by flooding the West Bank with more settlers. And so it just makes a settlement every day more difficult. It makes the formation of a Palestinian state, which, you know, has been or had been American policy for many, many years, which is to support a homeland for the Palestinians and that ultimately, that is the best - that gives the best chance to have a lasting peace in the region, is to give them a homeland. So every day, that becomes less and less possible under the current government of Netanyahu.
GROSS: There seems to be some controversy over whether Trump was musing or whether this was, like, planned in advance.
FILKINS: Well, exactly. Exactly. And we don't know. Like - right? - we don't know. Maybe this is all, like, a big distraction, you know, as Elon Musk dismantles the government or as, you know, Bibi prepares some big surprise for Iran. Like, we don't (laughter) - we - maybe we'll find out. But my own sense, because we know - we all know Trump. I mean, he - you know, he did this throughout his entire first term. Somebody asks him a question, and then he gives an outrageous answer. And then, you know, the press corp dutifully loses its mind and (laughter) kind of, you know, writes about it and writes about it and talks about it and talks about it, and then it goes away. And, like, we've seen this before.
GROSS: And on a related note...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: ...The CIA. This is part of Elon Musk's plan to save money and change government. Buyouts have been offered to, I think, everybody in the CIA. And we need the CIA more than ever now, don't we?
FILKINS: Yeah, let's see what happens over there. I, you know - but CIA is a giant place. They have an enormous budget. Let's see what happens. And, like, are there areas of the CIA that could probably, you know, be run more efficiently? Probably, but...
GROSS: But that's not the plan right now.
FILKINS: (Laughter) It's...
GROSS: The plan is, like, you can all leave if you want.
FILKINS: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, let's see. Yeah. It's a radical proposal. Let's see how many people take it. But I think - yeah, I mean, when you get a press conference like we did yesterday, it is a great distraction from the other stuff that's going on of, you know, kind of Elon, you know, taking USAID, putting it in the wood chipper. Yeah. It's a great way to change the subject while this other stuff is going on that we ought to be talking about.
GROSS: My guest is Dexter Filkins, a staff writer for The New Yorker. His latest article is titled "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JULIAN LAGE GROUP & JULIAN LAGE'S "IOWA TAKEN")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded this morning with Dexter Filkins, a staff writer at The New Yorker, about the idea Trump proposed last night at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. The idea is to get all the Palestinians to leave Gaza, get Jordan and Egypt to take them in, while the U.S. takes ownership of Gaza and rebuilds it into a Middle East riviera. So yesterday, in a part of our interview which we'll - we'll hear that interview a little later. We spent some time talking about how the Middle East has been reshaped because of the Israel-Hamas War and because of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad having been overthrown. And everything that we said yesterday is a little out of date now, as of last night.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: So can we take that one again? How do you think the Middle East is being remade right now?
FILKINS: I think we're kind of still in the same place, which is the Iranian project - this grand Iranian project, the Shiite Crescent, which consisted of, even though Hamas is Sunni Muslim - but it consisted of Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad in Syria. It's gone. It's been destroyed. It - and again, that was a grand, multibillion-dollar, incredibly ambitious project to basically take over these states in the Middle East with Iranian allies. It's dead. So it's an incredible opportunity not just for the individual states, like, whether that's Lebanon or Syria or Gaza. It's - but it's an opportunity to kind of stand back and say, like, is there a possibility here of a kind of grander, bigger, you know, all-in-one peace deal?
And I think that's what - you know, there's been a lot of conversation about that. These - you know, it's the Middle East. It's really hard to pull anything off there. But it's like when you talk about bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, and then - yeah, and then whatever idea ultimately comes in place in Gaza. And, like, you know, there's a lot of discussion on Gaza. Like, what is to be done with what is now, you know, a vast stretch of ruin and misery? What can be done? And so there's a lot - there's a lot of - I mean, Trump's plan is one of many, or Trump's idea is one of many. But it's got to be rebuilt. The people are going to need a place to live. There's no government in Gaza. The people that were running Gaza are dead, for the most part. And so, yeah, like, that's, like, all got to be reenvisioned or reimagined and then kind of implemented, and it's going to take a really long time. But it's an opportunity because the most malevolent actor in the Middle East for the past 30 years has been Iran. And Iran has - Iran, they're still standing there in Tehran, but they're on really weak legs.
GROSS: What's left of the terrorist groups, the offshoots of al-Qaida, ISIS? What's left of those, and are they still a threat to Israel or to the U.S?
FILKINS: Yes. They're still out there. There's a lot of bad guys out there. One of the first things that Trump did as president - he just did it last week - was order airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. There's tons of ISIS still out there. And everybody's been watching him really closely because there's effectively no government in Syria right now.
I mean, literally, like, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader, the sort of leader of - the new leader of Syria, like, he gave an interview to The Economist, like, a week or so ago, and it was remarkable. He was - they found him, you know, or they went to meet him sitting in Assad's old palace, which is, you know, six or seven times the size of the White House. And there was basically no one there. I mean, it was, like, him and five other guys. And then there was, like, a room where they went to pray. And it's like, there's nothing there, and, like, the lights aren't on. (Laughter) So there's a lot of space there for bad guys to run around.
I think the concern - ISIS has been kind of bottled up in the desert for a long time, you know, ever since Obama and then Trump, you know, I think very effectively, you know, destroyed them - or not destroyed 'cause they're still out there. But they've been infiltrating back into, you know, Damascus and other places. And so I think there's a lot of concern that, like, they're going to start to move, and they're going to take advantage of the kind of big open space and the lack of government authority in Syria. And so, you know, that's a real concern.
And then there's, like, you know, the group that took over Syria was just part of a coalition of a bunch of other armed groups. Those armed groups are still around. They don't necessarily - I mean, some have been quite clear about it. They don't buy into the - kind of the idea that al-Sharaa is the leader, and they're like, well, what about us?
GROSS: Quick question to this. So Trump wants to impose maximum pressure on Iran through sanctions.
FILKINS: Yeah, this is important. Yeah.
GROSS: What does he want to do?
FILKINS: Well, he wants to reimpose the really strict sanctions on Iran that were in place during his first term. And what - the really important piece of that is, you know, it's all aimed at Iran's oil. And so a lot of that was lifted when Biden came back in. You know, and the Biden administration had this idea that, OK, like, we'll try being nice. Let's see if that gets us anywhere. It didn't. The Iranian regime has been enriching uranium as fast as they possibly can. And there - I think Trump said this yesterday - how close are they to a nuclear bomb? And he said, well, they're too close. They're very close. It's basically turnkey at this point.
A maximum pressure campaign is going to be reimposed. And I - it's going to be hard because I think they were very effective - Trump's sanctions - in the first term. It's squeezing the Iranians. Like, all their clients out in the Middle East, like Hezbollah, they, like, weren't getting paid. It really, really hurt them. And so when the Biden administration took those off, they got kind of a shot of life. So now they're going to try to reimpose these. I think the really hard part of this is going to be, like, Iran is selling a lot of oil, and they're selling a lot of oil to China, and China's happy to buy it. You know, they have an inexhaustible appetite for oil. Like, can we, like, call the Chinese up and go, hey, do you think you can just stop buying all that Iranian oil every day? That's going to be hard. That's going to be really hard.
GROSS: Dexter Filkins, thank you so much. And so next up, we're going to hear the interview we recorded yesterday based on your New Yorker article - your new New Yorker article about the shortage of recruits in the military that is leaving us kind of vulnerable. And be interesting to listen to that now in the light of Trump suggesting that we send troops to Gaza after we own it (laughter) and rebuild it and expel the Palestinians. So thank you very much.
FILKINS: Thanks so much, Terry.
GROSS: Dexter Filkins is a staff writer for The New Yorker. After we take a short break, we'll hear the interview I recorded yesterday with him about the recruitment crisis in the U.S. military, which Trump has blamed on the military's DEI programs. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUY MINTUS TRIO'S "OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I am Terry Gross. Now we're going to hear the interview I recorded with Dexter Filkins yesterday morning. It's about a disturbing question that the U.S. military leaders are asking - can our country defend itself if not enough people are willing or able to fight? They're confronting that question because the military has been unable to meet its recruitment quotas. President Donald Trump blames this on the military's DEI programs. The new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has declared an end to the era of DEI in the Defense Department. Filkins has been investigating the real reasons why the Armed Forces are becoming depleted, and how the military has responded by loosening some admissions standards.
Filkins' new article, titled "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis," is published in The New Yorker, where he's a staff writer. He's reported on the Middle East for years, covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was embedded with the Marines during one of the Iraq War's most brutal battles - the Battle of Fallujah. He's the author of the bestseller "The Forever War," which won a National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.
So Trump and Hegseth have made eliminating DEI in the military a priority for the Defense Department. What exactly do they want to eliminate? What has the military been doing to increase diversity in the military?
FILKINS: Well, they've been doing a fair amount. I - so when Biden came in in 2021, he appoints Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense - former general - and essentially signs an order saying, set up DEI - you know, diversity, equity, inclusion - across the Pentagon. And, you know, the U.S. military is - we're talking three million people, civilian and uniform. And so they set up this bureaucracy that kind of - you know, there's, like, required classes and stuff. They sort of don't amount to all that much. But they also do a bunch of things - you know, this stuff is so sensitive, and it's so controversial.
And so, for instance, the Navy did a recruiting ad by a transsexual. And I think the Navy also did an ad - maybe it was the Army, but they also did an ad, a kind of animated ad showing a female couple in the military kind of, you know, getting along fine and thriving in the military. And so they did stuff like that that was kind of - you know, substantively, it might not have been all that much, but it was very visible, and I think it got a lot of people's attention.
GROSS: You sometimes don't know how to read what people mean when they talk about DEI and what Trump means when he, you know, bans DEI. So one possible way of interpreting banning DEI in the military is, you know, there's too many people of color, too many women in the military. They're not really competent, so let's cut down on those people.
FILKINS: That wasn't my sense of the motivation. I talked to a lot of people - a lot of veterans, particularly - who are really opposed to DEI in the military. And what they typically would say is, everybody's for diversity in the military. It's that DEI essentially, in practice, amounts to reverse discrimination and amounts to quotas, even if that's not what it says in practice.
And so - but I think, and this is important - I think whether or not the DEI in practice was what they said it was, that is a very widespread perception. And it's a - you know, it's a lot of people. And if a lot of people believe that, and a lot of people are talking about it, and a lot of people are online about it, I think there's a pretty good case to be made that that hurt recruiting in the military. Because - it's just because this stuff is so hot button, it's so sensitive that, you know, immediately, you lose half of America, right? And so it just - it's like - we live in a polarized country. And so when you mention something like DEI, a lot of backs go up, and I think that was happening here. And so I think in this case, it kind of matters less what the Pentagon was actually doing than what the perception was.
GROSS: Give us a sense of how bad the recruiting crisis is in the military now.
FILKINS: It's really bad. I think the worst place, the toughest place, is the Navy, where, you know, (laughter) you got to go out to sea for months at a time. But, for instance, some huge number of ships and submarines in the Navy - in the U.S. Navy - can't go out to sea for lack of maintenance. It's a - you know, it's just an amazing number. Like, you know, I think it was, like, 40% of the attack submarines are, like, in port because they're waiting for maintenance.
And what somebody explained to me - former naval officer who's - works in a think tank, studies this stuff in Washington, said that typically, what's happening is the Navy is so undermanned that they're sending ships out to sea without enough sailors on them. And what that means is the priority is to put sailors on deck, so everybody on deck to your job. And what that means is that they're not below deck maintaining the engines, maintaining the ship, maintaining the computers. And so the maintenance is slipping on these - on the ships and on the subs because they don't have enough people. So I think for the Navy, the Navy is just - their problems are gigantic. I mean, I think they've really had to lower some standards to get people to come in.
GROSS: But they don't have enough ships, either, right?
FILKINS: Well, they don't have enough ships to do everything that they want to do. And that's really the big question, right? So since 1945, the United States has basically taken upon itself world leadership. And that means, among other things, kind of policing the sea lanes, the international sea lanes which basically keep, you know, international commerce kind of flowing.
The Navy, for instance, has a goal of having 75 service ships at sea all the time. They can't meet that number, and they can't meet it for any number of reasons. I mean, we have about 300 ships in the Navy. Used to be close to 700 ships in the Navy at the end of the Cold War. So they don't have enough ships to do the things that they want to do. And so it raises this really large question, which is, if we don't have the armed forces to support the global commitments that we've made, do we make the military bigger (laughter) or do we scale back the commitments? And, you know, that's the really big question, the hardest one to answer.
GROSS: And the really big question is, are we more vulnerable as a result of this?
FILKINS: I think the moment we're in right now, 2025, if you kind of look at the history of the 20th century, to me, looks you know, more and more like 1938 every day. There's, you know, all these authoritarian powers - China, Russia, North Korea, Iran - who increasingly are working together. You know, they're North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine. They're all cooperating with one another. And they are, in the kind of classic sense, revisionist powers. They do not support the status quo. They don't support international law as we know it, which is, you know, basically the edifice of kind of world order for the past 75 years. They're pushing against that. They ignore these things all the time. You see the Chinese ships that are suspected of cutting the undersea cables. They're pushing everywhere.
The most obvious places are Ukraine, where - you know, Russia has been at war there for three years, and Taiwan, where the - you know, the Chinese refuse to recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan, which is an American ally, a vibrant democracy and one of the world's most important economies. And so it's a really big question - you know, what do we need to kind of hold all that together? And is it just up to us? But I think the international order as we know it - you know, such as it is - is under more stress than it's been at any time, I think, in the last 75 years.
GROSS: Well, I think I have to reintroduce you here. My guest is Dexter Filkins. His new article in The New Yorker is called "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins.
GROSS: His new article is titled "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis." Trump and his new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have blamed DEI on the shortage of recruits. Filkins investigates what the real causes are of the shortfall and what the consequences might be.
So you found that the military actually is lowering its standards, and that's not because of DEI. That's because so many would-be recruits are very overweight, or they can't pass the aptitude test. You visited the Future Soldiers training course at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. And your piece starts with a - you know, a bunch of overweight people who can't do five push-ups but really want to enlist. So can you just talk a little bit about the problem that the military is having when a fair amount of would-be recruits just can't pass the test - don't fit the requirements?
FILKINS: The Navy has definitely had to lower the requirements. I think the - what the Future Soldier training course represents is kind of a - it's like a pre-boot camp (laughter) preparation course. So there's all - yeah, there's all these young people, 19, 20 years old, and they want to enlist. But then I went down to Fort Jackson, and you kind of see it. And I - you know, I started reporting the story thinking it was going to be mostly about the military. But it's - for me, it ended up being mostly about America. You know, America has, like, what? Like, a 40% obesity rate? Well, you can see it there at Fort Jackson. And America's got a lot of failing schools. You can see that at Fort Jackson. And so Fort Jackson is sort of the place where the U.S. military comes face-to-face with America's youth, such as it is in 2025.
For instance, yeah, they're overweight. And so the military's got pretty strict weight standards. They're not really onerous. You know, they're - you don't have to be super ripped to be in the military. It helps. But they're strict about making them. So if you come in and you're - I think it's if you're less than 10% overweight, you can get into this course and they will - they'll try to take the weight off of you (laughter). And so you have three months to basically lose the weight to get under the Army standard.
And the same goes with the aptitude test. So, like, you go to these classes, and they're basically - you know, I hate to say it, but they're basically teaching the test. So, you know, you do your math problems and your reading comprehension over and over and over, and then you take the aptitude test. And if you pass, you can get in, but they're trying to hold the standards where they are. I think what's remarkable is that there are so many people out there that can't meet these minimum standards.
GROSS: You described one woman who was told, first, you have to lose a hundred pounds. Then come back and see if you qualify for this training program. Can you talk about her?
FILKINS: Yeah. She was remarkable. Her name was Savannah Thorne. I think she's 20 years old. And she's from a little town in Georgia, and I met her in the weight loss camp. And she was great. She was smart. She was curious. She was super energetic, and she kind of told me her story. And I think she said she came from this pretty broken family. I think her father was in prison. Her mom had had a bunch of drug problems. She'd been raised by her grandparents. She went to a recruiting station at, you know, age 19, weighing 305 pounds. And she said at one point, you know, I spent most of my childhood watching or playing "Call Of Duty" and, like, eating fast food. And the recruiter looked at her and said - you know, thinking he'd never see her again - lose a hundred pounds, and I'll talk to you.
So she went out and lost a hundred pounds. And so she came back to the recruiting station a year later, weighing 200 pounds. And they took her into the course at Fort Jackson to get down to - I think she had to get down to, like, 165 or something. Like, 165 pounds or something like that. So they took the last 35 pounds off of her. And so when I saw her, she was like - she said, I have three more days and I got one more pound to lose. And if I don't lose that one more pound, I'm out. You know, they're going to send me home. But I'm going to make it. And she did. She made it, and she's in boot camp right now.
GROSS: What kind of track record does this program have in terms of weight loss? Do they track the people afterwards to see if they put the weight back on or if they stay at the qualifying standard?
FILKINS: So far, I think the program's - fair to say the program's working. It's definitely working in terms of numbers. Twenty-five percent of the Army's recruits go through either the weight loss clinic or the aptitude course. This year - you know, the year we're in right now - they're projecting it's going to be 30% of their recruits. Do they keep the weight off? I think they have to. You know, unless the standards get relaxed, they have to pass a physical test and a weight test twice a year. Now that, like, the Navy - again, the Navy's really suffering. The Navy's kind of - they've kind of played around with that standard, as well. You know, they've kind of - like, recently, they wiped the slate clean and said, anybody who failed to make weight clean and said, anybody who failed to make weight, you know, we're going to forget about that. And so if you - typically, if you fail to make weight two times in a row, you're out. And so at least on paper, so far, it's working. Like, the kids who have lost the weight and passed the tests, the aptitude tests, they're - you know, they're hanging in there.
GROSS: So you said the Navy has lowered its standards. What other ways has it lowered the standard?
FILKINS: Well, the big way is - so you take this test. It's called, like, the armed forces, you know, aptitude test or something like that - qualifications test. And it's basically, like, you know, a kind of miniature, you know, SAT or whatever. And you take that test, and then they score you. You get a score, and then they rank you. And then they rank you in one of five categories, depending on how well you did. And so, you know, from one being the top to five where you can't get in. You know, like, you're out. You know, these are people who scored really low. The category four is, like, the lowest category that you can score in and still get in.
And so what the - there used to be a rule at the Pentagon that said no service can take more than 4% of its recruits in category four - no more. Well, they just - they had to relax that rule in 2022 because they weren't getting enough recruits. And so I think last year, 20% of the Navy's recruits were category four. So they dropped - and that means essentially that you are - you're basically below average in your score. And it's not really an intelligence test. I mean, I think they kind of claim that it is, but it's more of, like, an achievement test. But you're basically under 50th percentile. So the Navy has definitely had to drop its standards to keep people coming in.
GROSS: The military has loosened other standards, including if you have a history of asthma, you can qualify as long as you've abstained from medications for at least a year. And then there's the tattoo (laughter)...
FILKINS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
GROSS: ...That tattoo issue.
FILKINS: It's important, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah. Explain that tattoo issue and how that's changed.
FILKINS: Well, they used to be really strict about it. You know, you couldn't have any kind of visible tattoo on your body. But also, as it was explained to me, there's a whole range of prohibited tattoos. So you can't have a gang tattoo. You can't have, like, a - you know, like, a white supremacist tattoo. You can't have - you know, you have these, you're gone, you know? And so they've had to modify those, not as regards gang tattoos or white supremacist tattoos. But you can have - and, you know, just 'cause so many people have tattoos now. But, like, you can have a - I think you're allowed to have, like, a small tattoo on your neck, like, behind your ear. You can have one on your hand that's kind of visible.
So to me, what was interesting about the tattoo question is that now Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a couple of tattoos, which I think he might have been - it was very hard to track this down, but he - you know, he was in the Army and the Army Reserves and the National Guard for a long time. So it's not exactly clear when he got his tattoos, but he's got two tattoos that I think if you tried to get in now with those tattoos, they wouldn't let you in.
GROSS: Because...
FILKINS: Or if you got them when you're in, they'd throw you out because they're associated with white supremacist groups. And so for instance, when I think Hegseth was going to - he was going to be present - his unit was going to, you know, help kind of keep order at President Biden's inauguration. One of his fellow soldiers complained about those tattoos, and Hegseth was ordered to stay home. So he's right - he's, like, right on the edge on those, you know, our own secretary of defense.
GROSS: What are the tattoos, and what do they signify?
FILKINS: One is the Jerusalem cross, and the other is this kind of saying, deus vult, which the latter, I think, was popular in - the saying was popular in the Crusades. But they're associated - they're - they've been associated with kind of Christian nationalist and/or white supremacist groups.
GROSS: So has Pete Hegseth said anything about those tattoos?
FILKINS: Yeah, I think he said they're just Christian symbols. You know, they're harmless.
GROSS: You know, and talking about the difficulty of recruiting, Trump and Hegseth seem to want to bar women from serving in combat. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. But isn't that counterproductive if you want to increase the ranks of people in combat? And, like, flying planes, that counts as combat, doesn't it - like, if you're flying a warplane?
FILKINS: Yeah, yeah. Well, I - let's see how far Hegseth gets down that road. I think he'll probably fail. But, yeah, like, I talked in the story - she's quoted in the story. I talked to this female F/A-18 pilot. And, you know, boy, she was impressive. You know, an F/A-18 is - they're based on an aircraft carrier. And, like, she was - you know, she was, like, a top gun and really impressive. You definitely want her with you if you're flying into battle.
But I think the - look, I think the military wants everybody they can get. I think there's a debate about - you know, and there's - and this is kind of - this is normal and natural, but it's like, you know, we'll take women if we don't have to relax our physical standards to do it. Like, if you can do the pushups, and you can do the pullups, and you're female, we don't care. You can come into the combat unit. But if you can't, you can't. Most women can't. But I think, yeah, Hegseth has basically said, yeah, I want them all out. My guess is he's going to fly right into a storm if he tries to do that.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is Dexter Filkins. His new article in The New Yorker is titled "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis." We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins. His new article is titled "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis." Trump and his new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have blamed DEI on the shortage of recruits. Filkins investigates what the real causes are of the shortfall and what the consequences might be.
One of the things the military is doing now to get more recruits is offering pretty impressive incentives. What are some of the incentives being offered now, both financial and other kind of incentives?
FILKINS: There's (laughter) a lot on offer. It's - you know, they'll - in most cases, or in many cases, they'll pay your student loans off if you join. They will send you to college if you want to go. They'll send you to med school. They'll send you to dental school. 20 years in the military, and then you can retire. So imagine that. If you're 39 years old or 38 years old, you can retire at half salary. There's - you can get - you can qualify for subsidized mortgages. You can qualify for subsidized child care. It's a good system. I mean, it really is. I mean, you got to - you know, you got to give up a lot of your freedom to join the military, but if you're willing to do that, they will definitely take care of you.
GROSS: Personnel pay and benefits are now about 40% of the defense budget. Do you think that that will be cut?
FILKINS: I don't think they can. I mean (laughter), I don't think they can because I - so they're - you know, they're paying - they pay a lot more than they used to. And they - they're paying really big bonuses. I mean, I think - I talked to - and this is how hard it is for the military. So I had a long conversation with a submarine commander, a nuclear submarine commander. He runs a nuclear reactor that's onboard the submarine. And I can't remember if the missiles that were on that submarine were also nuclear, but he's running a nuclear reactor. He can go out in the private sector and make way more than he's making in the military. And I interviewed him. He was interesting because he decided to stay in. They gave him - the Navy, to keep him to reenlist for, you know, five or six years, they gave him, I think, a $200,000 or $250,000 signing bonus, like, spread out over - it was, like, $50,000 a year for five years extra, like, on top of his pay.
So it's like - it sounds like - you know, it sounds like the NFL, but it's (laughter) - if - you get a signing bonus. So - and they're paying - you know, you can be 18 years old or 17 years old, sign up for the military and you get $50,000, you know, cash in hand. You know, and if you're 17 years old, that's a lot of money. So they're - you know, they're laying out the money to get people to join. And that's why personnel costs are so expensive, 'cause there's no draft. And so the military is, like, in the private sector, competing for - you know, they're competing for talent.
And so when you're - you know, the military is getting more complicated every day. I mentioned the example of nuclear reactors that you have to be able to run. And then there's - you know, there's cyberwarfare. There's cyberdefense. There's radar systems. Stuff is super complicated. And those are smart people, and they have to be really smart. And so the military literally goes to places like MIT to recruit people, and so they're competing with - you know, they're competing with companies who can pay a ton of money. And so they try to offer, you know, like, various - you know, we'll give you a bonus. Well, you know, you can retire in 20 years, and all that. But I think it's fair to say the thing that they - the one thing they can offer that no one else can offer is adventure.
And so, you know, like, I was talking to the F-18 pilot and she was saying, yeah, I love my job. You know, I'm a carrier pilot (laughter). And so - and I fly an F-18 and I can fly, you know, 1,500 miles an hour and - can't get that anywhere else. You know, or the submarine commander I talked to. He said, look, I'm working with some of the smartest people in the world that are running this submarine force. And he's like, I'm not a cubicle guy. You know, I want to be out there. And that's what, like, the Army and the Navy and the Air Force can do for him.
GROSS: Well, Dexter Filkins, thank you so much for talking with us and for coming back to the show. I really appreciate it.
FILKINS: Terry, thank you so much.
GROSS: Dexter Filkins' new article, titled "The U.S. Military's Recruitment Crisis," is published in The New Yorker, where he's a staff writer. The magazine is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year.
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GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be writer and dominatrix Brittany Newell. Her new novel, "Soft Core," explores the underworld of San Francisco's dive bars, strip clubs and BDSM dungeons, where tech bros, executives and outcasts live out their fantasies. I hope you'll join us. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
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