It's amazing, what a difference a president makes. Under President Trump, the puffy Department of Defense has been leaned down, relabeled as the more aggressive Department of War, and has been put in the charge of a young former Army officer with two overseas tours and very definite ideas about the warrior ethos.
Now, the U.S. Army's recruiting and retention numbers are showing the results. Recruiting is off the charts, with the Army meeting its annual goals months ahead of time.
Just a few years ago, the Army was struggling to meet its recruiting goals. After hitting a low in fiscal year 2022, recruiting has climbed every year since, rising nearly 38% overall, with the biggest jump coming in fiscal year 2025. This fiscal year, the Army has already met its active-duty recruiting goal with more than 61,500 future soldiers signing on for service.
It's not just recruiting, either. It's also retention, or the number of soldiers signing up for another hitch, or for a career.
The recruiting surge has been accompanied by another encouraging trend for Army leaders: retention goals are also being exceeded, with more soldiers choosing to continue their military careers.
In our ever-more high tech army, that's a good thing. A few hundred years ago, you could train up a soldier in a matter of weeks; days, if you weren't too concerned about their survival. It takes longer to make a soldier who is technically and tactically competent now. But fortunately, the changes the current administration has made are bringing in and retaining some motivated troops.
Troops like Guadalupe Campos.
Among them is infantryman Guadalupe Campos, who joined the Army when he was 18 years old and recently extended his service nearly six years later.
"I wanted to do my due diligence and service to my country," Campos told Fox News.
For Campos, serving in uniform has reinforced both his patriotism and the bonds formed alongside fellow soldiers.
"I love my country, I love America. This is our home, and we have, I mean, this is everything that we all have in common is this American flag that we fly on our right shoulder," he said.
Our military is rebounding. It's no longer a jobs program for anyone with the paranoia du jour, or losers seeking free healthcare. Things are returning to what they should have been all along: A cadre of warriors.
Not everyone can be a soldier. Not everyone should be a soldier. A soldier must be committed, more than almost any civilian worker. A soldier, when he puts on the uniform, should be always aware that he serves a cause that is greater than he, greater than all his friends, greater than his whole unit: Protecting the liberty and property of the people of the United States of America, even if that means killing, even if it means dying.
Of course, as General Patton said, the object of the thing is to "make the other poor dumb SOB die for his country."
This rise in recruiting and retention, this rise in patriotism, it's heartening. These young soldiers sure look to be presenting a renewed commitment, a renewed sense of pride. They will look back on these years as some of the best years of their lives, as I do; one of the things in my life that I'm proudest of is that I was a soldier, and these young people will one day feel the same way.
I'm fond of a quote from ancient Greece, from Heraclitus of Ephesus, who in the 5th century B.C. said of soldiers:
Out of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior and he will bring the others back.
That's what we need. We will always need fighters, and more, we will always need warriors. We need our soldiers to be patriots, and to have the commitment to their country that comes with that. It's great to see signs that we're getting back to that understanding.
Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.
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