The Coast Guard Is Playing Gaines.

* Amid a 2,000-person shortfall in its junior enlisted ranks, the U.S. Coast Guard is getting creative with its recruiting strategy: turning to online gaming platforms.

Adm. Lisa Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, said the gap has only grown since she assumed command last June, and the demographic she's hoping to hire isn't watching the evening news anymore--they're on Twitch.

"I didn't know what Twitch was a month ago," she said at a Brookings Institution event. An interactive livestreaming service focused on video games, Twitch is now one of the service's prime advertising platforms, and where it is "looking to find people that might be interested."

Fagan said recruiters need to go where the workforce is "in very targeted and different ways" from what they've...