You underestimate how big a role the "cool factor" plays in recruitment. Note how propaganda always focuses on jets and tanks and submarines and aircraft carrie

You underestimate how big a role the "cool factor" plays in recruitment. Note how propaganda always focuses on jets and tanks and submarines and aircraft carriers and futuristic gadgets, and when they do feature an soldier it's always a badass tier-one operator who gets to flaunt the uniform code. Seventeen-year-olds don't get so excited about the prospect of burning literal shit in a hole behind some godforsaken checkpoint in Afghanistan until one day an IED takes their leg off.