Acknowledging again that the Army is unlikely to meet its fiscal year 2023 recruitment goals, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said yesterday that the Army is looking at positions to cut.

“We did sort of what I would call a people night court, where we basically went and looked at all the different types of soldiers in units and said, ‘Do we need to have 60 cooks, or can we use 40 cooks?’” Wormuth told the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee. “We have looked at what we call ‘unit priority,’ and we’ve looked over the years at the units that we have used very heavily, as opposed to those that we may have used much less frequently, and those are areas where we can probably do some thinning out.”

Wormuth said it would not significantly impact “major” installations for now, Breaking Defense reported.

“If we don’t turn our recruiting situation around, I can’t guarantee you that the Army won’t have to make some more substantial potential force structure reductions,” Wormuth said.

Army photo by Linda Lambiotte