re: Are the marines struggling with recruitment?

Lefty, you are correct.

The Marine Corps has had three significant recruiting inflection points. First was migration to the All Volunteer Force in 1973. All services were ill-prepared for this transition, especially the Corps. Secretary McNamara’s project 100K made it worse. Commandant Wilson (from Biloxi) and Barrow (St. Francisville) made significant changes and saved our Corps.
The second was post cold-war recognition that a single service member could be thrust into a circumstance that went from tactical to strategic implication in seconds. Commandant Krulak called it the “strategic corporal” who had a deeper character and sense of operational setting. This is the period you (Lefty) were referring to and did indeed feature increases in recruit quality.
The third inflection point is now, one of AI, machine learning, adaptive computing, robotics, and of course space and cyber ops, among other characteristics of information warfare.