Trainees at Basic Combat Training, also known as “boot camp,” at Fort Jackson, S.C. With 22,000 recruits waiting to ship out, the Army now has predictability in sending soldiers to boot camp and the cushion to build on the changes it made to recruiting over the past four years to modernize how it fills its ranks (Robin Hicks/U.S. Army)
WASHINGTON — The Army not only beat its recruiting goal last fiscal year by 1,000 enlistees, but it entered this year with double the number of recruits on its delayed entry roster than the year before.
With 22,000 recruits waiting to ship out, the Army now has predictability in sending soldiers to boot camp and the cushion to build on the changes it made to recruiting over the past four years to modernize how it fills its ranks, said Brig. Gen. Sara Dudley, commander of Army Recruiting Division at Fort Knox, Ky.
The Army’s goal for fiscal 2026, which began Oct. 1, is to recruit 60,000 soldiers. Last year it aimed for 61,000 new soldiers and signed on 62,050.
Division staff members are revisiting where the Army assigns recruiters, how and where to point them to find prospective soldiers, and restructuring the headquarters personnel to better serve the mission, Dudley said during an interview Tuesday alongside Command Sgt. Maj. Danny Basham, the senior noncommissioned officer in the division.
“That has just not been able to happen because we’ve just been in a firefight trying to get people into the Army,” Dudley said. “We have a lot of transformation that’s still left to happen because we want to be good stewards with the amount of NCOs that we’re asking to bring to us from the Army.”
The Army, like the Navy and Air Force, struggled to find enough people willing to fill its ranks coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.
The service missed its goal in 2022 and 2023 but has since rebounded, in part due to the measures it took to overhaul how it recruits.
The Army also launched the Future Soldier Prep Course to help people interested in enlisting but unable to qualify because they don’t meet academic or fitness standards.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said Monday in his opening remarks to the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference that 2025 was the Army’s best recruiting year in 13 years.
“The future of the Army is lining up. Americans are courageously stepping forward to serve, and our Army should reflect the greatness of that choice,” he said.
Now, the Army is scheduling recruits out through March to attend boot camp, which has allowed it to modify the number of people it sends to the prep course, Dudley said. In the past, prospects could attend for both fitness and education. Now they can only need improvement in one area, Dudley said.
The Army also tightened the standards people must meet to qualify for the prep course. The amount of body fat the potential recruit needs to lose dropped from 8% to 6% and test scores must be closer to passing, she said.
Recruiting Division will also put a strong emphasis toward meeting its goal for the Army Reserve. Last year it only enlisted 75% of the recruits needed for the part-time service, Dudley said. It can be challenging because Reserve units can require specialized skills of people residing within a certain geographic radius of the unit’s home station.
It’s a great opportunity for people who are happy in their civilian job but still feel compelled to serve, Basham said.
“It gives them the opportunity to serve still, maintain their family life and all that where they’re at,” he said. “I think it’s maybe it’s under-advertised because everybody thinks Army and they’re like let’s go 100% all of the time.”
