U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll highlighted how the army has reached its 2026 recruitment goals roughly “eight and a half months” into the year.
During an interview with Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit Wednesday, Driscoll spoke about how the United States Army has reached its recruitment numbers because of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump’s “push on lethality and their push on excellence.”
“Sixty-one thousand, five hundred new recruits are joining the United States Army. We hit that about eight and a half months into our year,” Driscoll said. “This is specifically and directly because of Secretary of War Hegseth’s and the President’s push on lethality and their push on excellence.”
“What we find when we go talk to these young soldiers in basic training–they want to join the United States Army because of the challenge, they want to join the United States Army because of our 251 history of excellence,” Driscoll continued. “And they want to join the United States Army to serve their nation, and President Trump has unlocked their ability to do that.”
When asked by Marlow how to get the “numbers up” and what the appeal is, Driscoll explained that along with using a “customer relationship management tool” to engage with recruits, the U.S. Army has tried to do “a better job of telling the story of the Army.”
“On the boring side, we’ve mechanistically improved some of our recruiting things. We’ve onboarded Salesforce, a customer relationship management tool that helps us track and do a better job of engaging with recruits,” Driscoll explained. “But that’s not what does it. What does it is, what we have tried to do, is do a better job of telling the story of the Army, do a better job of telling all of the different ways that you can serve your nation. Whether you want to be a cyber warrior, who is the most lethal and badass computer programmer in the entire world, or you want to be an Army Ranger, the United States Army has roles for everyone.”
Driscoll also noted that the United States Army has “not cut back on standards.”
In a press release from May, the army shared that it had “met its fiscal year 2026 recruiting goals for active duty, signing contracts with more than 61,500 future Soldiers.”
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