The Army is already nearly halfway to meeting its ambitious goal of recruiting 61,000 active-duty soldiers during this fiscal year, according to internal data reviewed by Military.com.
The service has 30,000 new enlistments this year -- an increase of 6,000 compared to the same period last year, the data shows.
The milestone comes as the service continues to grapple with a historic recruitment crisis, the worst since the Vietnam War, underscoring the uphill battle to convince young Americans to don the uniform.
The promising year in recruiting also gives the incoming Trump administration enormous momentum as recruiting woes have been among the top issues at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, has pledged to make recruitment a top priority, often citing cultural and political grievances as the root of the military's recent difficulties, but with no evidence to support those claims.
Instead, the Army's struggles have mostly been attributed to young Americans not qualifying for service, either failing to meet body fat or academic standards. In 2022, the Army stood up the Future Soldier Preparatory Courses, training camps for applicants to get up to snuff with those standards.
Nearly one-quarter of the 55,000 soldiers recruited last year went through one of those courses and would have otherwise not been able to serve. That allowed the Army to meet its recruiting goals in 2024 after missing its enlistment goals since 2022.
Early data suggests those courses have become a silver bullet for the recruiting crisis, and they have been lauded by service planners. The idea is to meet young Americans where they are, getting them into shape or providing them critical tutoring for the SAT-style entrance exam as test scores in schools have been falling for years, particularly for boys.
The early recruiting milestone this month, first reported by Military.com, is largely attributed to the service's delayed-entry program, which consists of 11,000 recruits, about double the numbers from recent years.
That pool consists of young Americans who volunteered to serve last year but were delayed being shipped to basic training until this year, which is when they're formally counted in the recruiting numbers.
One reason the delayed-entry pool is so large is that the service has effectively run out of space to conduct basic training, giving up some of that real estate to the Future Soldier Preparatory Courses.
The service has faced persistent delays in medically processing recruits, prompting officials to bring in additional staff and adopt a more lenient approach to minor medical histories unlikely to affect military performance.
Recruiters have long complained about enlistment delays -- sometimes lasting months -- for minor injuries or conditions that applicants have already recovered from. As those delays continue, potential recruits are more and more likely to walk away.
The Army has also embraced new strategies to entice recruits, including allowing them to choose their initial duty station. Popular picks include Fort Cavazos in Texas, Fort Carson in Colorado, and Fort Campbell in Kentucky, which have drawn roughly 800 recruits each this year.
Those bases offer more job opportunities and proximity to recruits' hometowns, making them attractive choices. Fort Campbell, for example, is a prominent base for recruits from the Midwest, while Texas remains a recruitment powerhouse for the Army.
Related: Surge of Female Enlistments Helped Drive Army Success in Reaching 2024 Recruiting Goal
