Bill Galvin, counseling director at the Center on Conscience and War, has spent much of the last month answering a steady stream of calls. The center helps operate the 24-hour GI Rights Hotline, which informs service members about options for discharge. “It’s been very, very busy,” he says.
Most callers want to know how to apply for conscientious objector status — a demanding and rarely used process — but many also call anonymously to express broader concerns. In March the center took on more than 80 new clients, nearly twice its usual yearly intake; its busiest day drew 12 new clients, and one caller said four platoonmates were also exploring options. While those numbers are small compared with more than 1.3 million enlisted personnel, counselors and former officials say they point to an unsettling level of disquiet within the ranks.
NPR interviews with career counselors, retention officials and advocacy groups describe a rise in requests for ways to leave the service: early retirement, declining to reenlist, medical separations, and even breaking contracts despite the consequences. Experts warn such departures could erode institutional knowledge and undermine readiness over time. “Retention is the only thing holding the Army up, from a metrics standpoint. And it is crumbling fast,” an Army career counselor told NPR on background, blaming shifts in climate and culture under the current administration.
Recruiting has improved since 2024: the Pentagon reported all five services met recruitment targets for fiscal year 2025. But analysts note that recruitment gains don’t immediately offset retention problems; many who decide to separate today may not appear in official data for months or years. The Rand Corporation, which documented recruitment shortfalls in 2023, says improvements beginning during the Biden administration helped rebuild numbers, but retention remains a separate challenge.
Multiple factors feed the unrest. Conservative analyst Kori Schake and others say efforts to drag the military into culture wars have undermined meritocratic norms and discouraged women and people of color. Critics point to deployments of the National Guard to Democratic-led cities, strikes on Venezuelan vessels, efforts to dismantle diversity and inclusion programs, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s restructuring of the Pentagon, which included firing senior officers and intervening in promotions. One anonymous official labeled Hegseth the “Secretary of Culture Wars,” warning the moves accelerate a “brain drain.”
For many callers, however, the immediate trigger was the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran on the first day of the war, an attack that killed at least 165 civilians, many of them children. A preliminary U.S. assessment — described to NPR by an official not authorized to speak publicly — determined the U.S. was at fault; earlier reporting indicated the school may have been listed on outdated target sets as a military building. “It comes up almost always. It’s like, ‘I can’t be a part of something that’s doing that,'” Galvin said.
The Pentagon pushed back on assertions of a retention crisis. “There are zero retention concerns for Fiscal Year 2026. Every service is meeting its targets, and any suggestion otherwise is completely false,” press secretary Kingsley Wilson told NPR. A White House spokesperson pointed to restored readiness and strong recruitment numbers.
Counselors on the ground describe a different picture: more service members seeking separation counseling and assistance. The Army counselor who spoke to NPR said 2025 brought a surge of retirees seeking help, nearly double 2024 in their experience. First-term troops are increasingly asking how to move into the Individual Ready Reserve to leave active duty early. Transition Assistance Program slots — part of a mandatory set of services for separating members that was recently expanded — have been harder to book, coordinators say.
One particularly time-consuming route out is applying for conscientious objector (CO) status. In 1970 the Supreme Court ruled religious belief is not required to claim CO status, opening the path to broader moral objections. Mike Prysner, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War and an Army veteran, says many recent clients cite Israel’s war in Gaza and U.S. military support for Israel as turning points that led them to question war more broadly.
Since the start of the Trump administration’s second term the center has seen spikes in CO interest tied to political events, but the Iran war produced a sharp shift: calls went from a handful a week to three or four a day asking about CO status, Prysner said. Callers now range across ranks and specialties, from Special Forces and Top Gun pilots to surgeons; the highest-ranking applicant the center has assisted recently was a major.
A CO application requires a written statement, psychological evaluation, interviews with a chaplain and an investigating officer, and often months or years of review. Yet submitting an application typically removes a service member from duties they object to, which can be a way to avoid imminent deployment. Counselors report helping people file brief statements just to get an objection on the record when a deployment was days or even hours away.
Quaker House, another organization that supports the hotline, says call volume more than doubled after the Iran war began, with most calls focused on CO procedures. Counselor Steve Woolford says many callers do not identify as pacifists; they say they are willing to defend the country but are deeply unsettled by how the military is being used and fear being asked to carry out illegal orders or be complicit in war crimes. Where appropriate, counselors also discuss alternatives like medical separation or reassignment.
The human impact of this unrest is visible in personal accounts. A full-time Ohio Air National Guard member called the hotline the day after the Iran war began, after months of unease with the military’s direction. When three airmen from his base among six service members were killed in a refueling accident in Iraq on March 12, his anger peaked. With more than two years left on his contract, he has begun applying for civilian jobs and expects leaving the service will be “a weight off my back.” He asked to remain unnamed to avoid complicating his separation.
Karl, a former military physician who was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector in March after applying in 2025, called the process “an enormous undertaking” and “terrifying” but necessary. He urged others to remember that questioning service is legal and, for many, an essential step toward conscience and clarity.
Whether these trends will produce measurable retention declines remains uncertain; many who decide to separate will not show up in statistics for months. But counselors and some service members say the moral questions and leadership decisions driving the unrest are real and widespread. For those who decide to explore separation, even the difficult process can bring relief and a clearer sense of where they stand.