Each of the U.S. military’s service branches met its active-duty recruitment and retention goals for the first quarter of fiscal 2011, the Department of Defense said.
“We are very proud that our all-volunteer force can still be successful in a wartime environment,” Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army’s Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky., said Thursday.
Through December the Army surpassed its first quarter goal of 14,100 by 433 recruits, with the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force all meeting their recruiting goals or exceeding them. The Marine Corps Reserve surpassed its goal by the largest percentage with 116 percent, pulling in 2,637 recruits, 71 more than its goal.
Smith said the Army is proud of its recruiters’ ability to convey war stories effectively enough to aid recruitment.
When asked if he thought the economy was a factor, Smith said it had “a small amount to do with it ... but not a major impact.”
The four active-service branches met or exceeded their fiscal year-to-date retention goals, while the National Guard and reserve components were within “acceptable limits,” according to a DOD news release. The only branch to not meet its first quarter goal was the Air National Guard, which missed its goal of 1,564 by eight recruits.
The Army’s active-duty recruiting goal in 2010 was 74,500; that number dropped more than 7,000 in 2011. The Navy’s recruiting total increased by more than 700 in 2011 to 37,300. The Air Force active-duty recruiting goal for 2011 is 27,816, slightly less than its 2010 goal of 28,363, and the Marines goal for 2011 is 31,500, an increase of 3,500 from 2010, according to the recruiting commands for each service.
