AURORA, Colorado -- More young Americans have been signing up for the Air Force's delayed-entry program in recent months, a promising trend in recruiting following a yearslong effort by the service to amend policy and turn around a pandemic-era slump.
Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service -- which also oversees the Space Force -- told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Warfare Symposium in Colorado on Tuesday that the organization has been adding record numbers of recruits to its delayed-entry program, or DEP, a waiting area where recruits prepare to ship out to boot camp.
That means that the services will always be able to meet their weekly goals for shipping airmen and Guardians to basic training. Also, the delayed pool has been refilling faster than the services are using it up, especially during the winter months when they often have to dip more into that group.
"In December, January and February, we have added to our delayed-entry program or DEP at a rate not seen in over 15 years," Amrhein said. "Another encouraging sign of success is that our DEP is at a 10-year high, with more than 13,800 future airmen and Guardians awaiting shipment to basic military training."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quickly implied the historic trends were due to the new administration.
"Americans are excited to serve their country again!" Hegseth posted Tuesday on Elon Musk's social media platform X. "The next generation of the American warfighter will be joining the greatest fighting force the world has ever known!"
Hegseth made a similar claim about recent upticks in Army recruiting. But a military recruiting expert told Military.com that the high recruiting numbers now seen by the services follow years of effort.
The Air Force, which in fiscal 2023 missed its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999, turned the tide last year by tweaking policies, such as adjusting body fat composition standards and allowing certain tattoos.
"The incoming administration is claiming all of these upticks are a result of the election swing and people now thinking they want to go into the military after the policy changes," Taren Sylvester, a researcher at the nonprofit Center for a New American Security, told Military.com on Monday.
"Whether or not that holds out, we won't see for another six, 12, 18 months," Sylvester added. "The shifts that we're seeing now are reflective of the work that's been done over the past two to five years."
The Air Force ended up recruiting 27,139 enlisted, active-duty airmen at the end of fiscal 2024. It also had 11,000 recruits in the DEP, a significant uptick from the roughly 8,000 the service had the year prior.
This year, to date, there are currently more than 13,800 airmen waiting in the DEP. Amrhein wouldn't say whether he believed the new records were tied to a change in political administration, but said he does think the numbers will grow.
"I won't speak to that aspect of it, but I will tell you that there is a deliberate presence and I would not be surprised if the trend continues," Amrhein said. "We do a weekly production update every single week, and we had 3,000 appointments last week alone. We normally have 1,600, so this continuing trend is evolving."
He added that internal Air Force data shows the propensity to serve has grown from 8% in 2023 to 10%.
After hitting its fiscal 2024 goals, the Air Force upped the ante for 2025, aiming to bring in 33,100 active-duty airmen, according to a list of goals provided by the Air Force Accessions Center.
As Hegseth and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin continue to underscore messaging about readiness, warfighting and standards, it's unclear whether any of the policy tweaks that led the service solid footing last year will remain.
Notably, the 2023 change that allows applicants to have a greater percentage of body fat, in accordance with the Department of Defense standard, had the greatest effect -- bringing in 5,196 across the Air Force, Space Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.
Amrhein said he's not aware of any upcoming policy changes to body fat composition.
"I have not seen policy changes to come down on that," Amrhein said. "If policy changes come down, we'll execute them."
Related: Air Force Hits Recruiting Goals with Help from Tweaks to Body Fat Standards, Tattoo Policy
