The Air National Guard will likely fall up to 4,000 recruits short of its requirements for the current fiscal year, Lt. Gen. Michael Loh, the commanding general, said Tuesday, Stars and Stripes reported. It’s a challenge across the military, but Loh said it’s a problem that’s been growing for decades.

“Recruiting has been hard since 1974,” he said at a Center for a New American Security event. “That’s when the all-volunteer force came out, so it’s been hard.”

But the pandemic made it worse, because recruiters weren’t able to go into communities to “influence the influencers,” he said.

Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Sarah M. McClanahan