More from the article ...

... 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. ...

More from the article...

... 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. ...

More from the article ...

... 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. ...

So the Army seems to be changing its recruitment policies, and that resulted in more recruits?

@#28 ... Look what they did in Afghanistan. ...

What did "they" do in Afghanistan?

At the time, fmr Pres Trump had already signed off on the plan to abandon Afghanistan, a plan that also agreed to the release of the Taliban prisoners held.

@#35 ... If he hadn't rescinded almost all of Trump's executive actions ...

What do executive actions have to do with the agreement that then Pres Trump signed?

Specifically, which executive action put into place by the incoming Biden admin negated the agreement then Pres Trump agreed to?

@#36 ... How Biden went his own way on Afghanistan withdrawal ...

Yeah, that was just Pres Biden trying to comply with the agreement then fmr-Pres Trump left him with.

So, your current alias seems to implicitly agree that the agreement then fmr-Pres Trump committed the US to was not a good one.

And now seems to be trying to blame Pres Biden for then fmr-Pres Trump's agreement?

From @33 ...

... The Trump administration in February 2020 negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government, freed 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers and set a date certain of May 1, 2021, for the final withdrawal. ...

@#42 ... Biden Repealing 5 Trump Executive Orders Marks New Day of Hope for Feds ...

Yeah, which of those executive orders counters the Trump agreement for withdrawal in Afghanistan?

@#43 ... "Why Is @BarackObama constantly issuing executive orders that are major power grabs of authority?" ..

Thanks for raising that.

I found ...

@#45 .. The terrible execution of the withdrawal is 100% on the Biden admin. ...

That, what your current alias calls, terrible execution, what confined by the agreement that then fmr-Pres Trump agreed to.

Releasing Taliban prisoners?

That's a weak position that then Pres Trump agreed to.

That release did not help, in any shape manner or form, the withdrawal. indeed, that release may have helped to make any withdrawal more difficult.

Did then fmr-Pres Trump intentionally try to make the Afghan withdrawal more difficult for Pres Biden?