The Trump Military Recruitment Boom

Just a few weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump already appears to have made major strides toward addressing the military’s years-long recruiting shortfall.

According to new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, December 2024 saw the best recruiting numbers for the Army in 12 years. January 2025 then topped that figure as the best recruiting month in 15 years. “BOTTOM LINE: America’s youth want to serve under the bold & strong ‘America First’ leadership of @realDonaldTrump,” Hegseth posted on X.

While other branches have not yet publicly disclosed their data for December 2024 or January 2025, early signs suggest that the enlistment boom is being felt throughout the military.

The influx of young recruits is a welcome change after years of declining enlistment numbers. According to NewsNation, “In 2022, the Army fell 15,000 short of its enlistment goal of 60,000. The following year, the service brought in more than 50,000 recruits, widely missing its publicly stated ‘stretch goal’ of 65,000.”

The Biden years were similarly dismal for the other branches of the military. In 2022, the worst year for recruiting under Biden, the Marine Corps was the only branch to meet all of its goals – but only after reducing its target numbers.

That same year, the Navy was forced to increase the number of recruits it accepted from the lowest aptitude percentile on the military’s qualification test, yet still missed target numbers for active duty and reserve officers. The Air Force also missed its goals for officers, and the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve fell thousands of troops short. The Coast Guard, meanwhile, saw its fourth straight year of missing its recruitment goals, a span where the branch fell an average of 20 percent short.

Things started to turn around in 2023 and 2024 – but only after the Biden administration’s military leadership began inching away from DEI and other far-left priorities they had infused in military recruitment materials. 

Perhaps the most infamous instance of DEI in military recruiting under Biden was a 2021 U.S. Army recruitment ad series called “The Calling.” This series of animated short films detailed the stories of five soldiers and why they joined up. This was a stark departure from the normal Army ads, which usually featured service members performing actual service and engaging in the gritty, tough work traditionally viewed as drawing young people, and young men especially, to the Army.

“The Calling” ads were instead relentlessly focused on promoting diversity among the ranks. The five soldiers profiled were a white woman, a black man, a black woman, a Hispanic man, and a Hispanic woman. One of the ads, titled Emma, featured the daughter of two lesbian women and aggressively highlighted her participation in a Black Lives Matter/social justice protest.

No white American men were featured, despite the fact that more than 45 percent of soldiers are white men.

The ads were predictably mocked and ridiculed. On YouTube, they received so many negative comments that moderators turned off the comments section.

Successful military recruitment ads typically focus on moments of unity and victory, like the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy or raised the flag atop Iwo Jima. In terms of diversity, they highlight heroic stories like those of the Tuskegee Airmen. But the focus has historically always been on service above self, rather than the self-centered identity politics of the modern left seen in “The Calling.”

Following the complete failure of the campaign, in March 2023 the Army brought back its famous “Be All You Can Be” recruitment slogan, which was first adopted in 1981, shortly after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. Over the last year, Army recruitment ads have abandoned the woke virtue signaling and instead featured dramatic videos of people of all races, including white men, climbing through jungles and parachuting out of airplanes.

The military’s slow retreat from woke messaging in the latter Biden years indeed may have helped end the worst of the recruiting crisis. But it is impossible to ignore the impact of Trump’s political comeback on revitalizing a national spirit of patriotism that is inspiring young people to sign up to serve their country.

Democrats and the left more generally have for years apologized for America and sought to make American youth ashamed of their country and their heritage. Trump, by contrast, articulated a hopeful vision for a new “American Golden Age” during his 2024 campaign. He has actively and intentionally worked to inspire pride in American history and reiterated the truth that “America is the greatest nation in the history of the world.”

In short, Trump, more than any other president this century, has made a strong case that America is worth defending. Such a powerful message from the Commander-in-Chief is the best recruiting tool the military could ask for.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.