Restore the Military

In 2023, the Army missed its recruiting goal by 10,000 soldiers. Two years later, every branch beat its goal months early. So what changed?

In Episode 12, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau dig into the Army’s own data, as reported by Military.com. White recruits fell from 44,042 in 2018 to 25,070 in 2023, and the Army tiptoed around the decline instead of fixing it. Army officials name the cause themselves: parents, coaches, and pastors stopped recommending military service.

Then Doug and Will look at the comeback. Once leadership put warfighting first, recruits returned. A recovery built on messaging can be lost just as fast, though, which is why the reasons recruits came back belong in law.

“Peace through strength” gets quoted constantly and rarely explained. So what does it actually mean, and how did a country that spent twenty years at war end up blaming strength for the cost?

In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau trace the idea from the Roman maxim “si vis pacem, para bellum” (if you want peace, prepare for war) to Reagan, who proved it worked. Then they lay out the America First posture in the administration’s National Security Strategy: prioritization, not retreat. That means naming America’s real interests, putting the homeland and the Western Hemisphere first, shifting the burden to allies who can carry it, and sizing the force to the threats that matter.

Then they draw the line between strength and adventurism. The forever wars spent America’s strength, and then strength got the blame for the empty account. Doug and Will close on the case that deterrence abroad starts with seriousness at home, from recruiting and standards to the industrial base.

The Pentagon just ordered every military chaplain in America to take the rank off his chest. So what is a chaplain supposed to be, and why did the military spend thirty years turning him into a counselor with a cross?

In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau walk through Secretary Hegseth’s reforms to the chaplaincy. The faith codes go from more than 200 to 31, and religious insignia replace rank on the uniform. Behind it all is the Secretary’s view that a warfighter needs more than a coping mechanism.

Then they take on the serious objections. Retired Air Force leaders worry that losing rank means losing influence. The Naval Institute argues that the symbol changed while the promotion system did not. Doug and Will make the case that this reform is the start of the job, not the end.

Every service academy graduate costs taxpayers roughly half a million dollars. So what is that investment supposed to buy, and why did the answer stop being warfighters?

In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau lay out a blueprint to refocus the academies on merit and warfighting. They also take on the draft Pentagon memo that would abolish civilian tenure and review every course against combat readiness, along with the serious objections coming from the war college community.

Then they turn to the question nobody asks: where were the Boards of Visitors? These boards were supposed to catch the drift and did nothing. Doug and Will also break down the new scorecard that will grade every one of them.

Every administration publishes a National Security Strategy. Critics tear it apart, cheerleaders celebrate it, and almost nobody stops to ask what peace through strength actually means as a defense posture.

In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau trace the idea from si vis pacem, para bellum through Reagan's proof of concept, then define the strategy's America First posture: name real interests, put the homeland first, shift the burden to allies, and size the force to the threats that matter.

Then they get into where strength ends and adventurism begins — why the forever wars spent America's strength and then blamed strength for the empty account, and why deterrence abroad is downstream of seriousness at home, from recruiting and standards to the industrial base.

Congress passes exactly one bill every year without fail. The NDAA has cleared for more than six decades straight, and that streak hides one of the most dysfunctional processes in Washington.

In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau open the hood on how it actually works: a calendar that jams the year's most important defense decisions into a lame-duck window, an authorization that grants permission without money attached, and a must-pass status that turns warfighting priorities into trading stock.

Then they get into what that dysfunction costs — how a provision that clears the Senate can vanish before it ever reaches the President's desk, why the Senate's merit and standards reforms are at risk this fall, and what a member's office can still do about it while the conference is open.

Can the United States actually fight one war right now — let alone two? Hosts Doug Truax and Will Thibeau dig into the Strategic Equipment Reserve, the state of the American defense industrial base, and why the numbers behind U.S. munitions stockpiles should worry every voter.

In this episode:

Dismantling the Pentagon Bureaucracy: Joint Staff Reform & the First Goldwater-Nichols Overhaul in 39 Years

The Joint Staff was created in 1986 as a lean planning body to fix the command failures behind Desert One and Grenada. Today it's a 4,000-plus person bureaucracy that competes with the very Services it was built to coordinate — and it's never been comprehensively reformed. Until now.

In this episode of Restore the Military, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the FY 2027 NDAA provision that would cap Joint Staff personnel at 1,500, eliminate mandatory joint duty as a promotion requirement, return general and flag officer selection to the Service Secretaries, and stand up a bipartisan commission to conduct the first full review of Goldwater-Nichols in nearly four decades.

They dig into:

Goldwater-Nichols was the right answer in 1986. It's not the right answer in 2026 — and the institution has never reformed itself voluntarily. Congress has to do it.

West Point was built to produce warriors. So was Annapolis. So was the Air Force Academy. At some point, the mission changed — and nobody voted for it.

In this episode, Doug Truax (West Point graduate) and Will Thibeau break down exactly what has happened to the officer formation pipeline: critical race theory in academy curricula, ROTC programs held hostage by campus DEI mandates, and a military commissioning officers through institutions that openly hold it in contempt.

Then they lay out the fix — including a proposed 12-week tactical commissioning pilot designed to compete the academies into reform without waiting for Congress to force it.

The colonels and generals of 2045 are the second lieutenants of 2025. The pipeline either produces people who can win wars — or people who can't. This episode is about making sure it produces the former.

Topics covered:

Is the military paying its warriors what they're worth?

A Pentagon staff officer behind a desk and an infantry platoon leader who took fire yesterday earn the same base pay. In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the Elite Warrior Incentive Program — a proposed structural overhaul of how the military compensates its combat arms personnel — and why the current pay table sends the wrong message to the people pulling the hardest assignments.

In this episode:

The pay table tells soldiers what the institution values. Right now, it says combat and bureaucracy are the same thing.