Oh recruitment in peacetime usually goes up. The big problem the last couple years wasn’t the strategy or some wave of sudden weakness in our youth. It was a new digital medical system that meant you couldn’t lie at the intake station anymore. Turns out quite a few people got to intake, took a look at the questions and just decided they’d never had a doctor appointment in their life. For the Army’s part, as long as they could duck walk and didn’t have an oxygen tank following them around they didn’t care. So the big problem was just the introduction of the standards that were supposed to have been there already.

The recent uptick in recruiting was due to the Army introducing a fast waiver system for minor things that needed a months long waiver process before. People understandably didn’t want to wait months for a thankless job that arguably pays less than minimum wage.

Usually in peacetime the siren call of free college and free technical training fills the recruiting line. If you slot into the right specialty you’re looking at six figures when you get out. And the Army gives you a lot of control over where you end up job wise. They’ll let you write the technical training into your contract as long as it’s in the same job field.