Assessment and selection for special operations soldiers has lagged the past two years as the Army struggled to meet its recruiting numbers, said Gen. Bryan Fenton, commanding general of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Still, he expressed optimism that the Army’s effort to overcome the national military recruiting challenge bodes well for special operations.

“We might have to run a bow wave for a year or two before we settle out because the services actually settle out,” Fenton said, explaining that the number of service members that are able to come into special operations as new recruits “off the street” is limited.

After failing to meet its recruiting goals for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, market competition and a shrinking pool of people willing or able to serve, the Army managed to turn the challenge around and exceed its fiscal 2024 goal of 55,000 new recruits by 300 people. It also placed 11,000 more recruits into the delayed entry program.

Army special operations units recruit soldiers from within the ranks of the Army, so the service’s slowdown also halted the stream of soldiers that U.S. Army Special Operations Command and its sister special operations commands could assess and select for its units, Fenton said.

At Special Operations Command, “we are the beneficiaries of the great talent that comes first in from our nation, the young men and women that join our military,” Fenton said Nov. 18 during an event at the Economic Club of New York.

New talent arrives at special operations “through the service lenses, so there’s a bit of a waypoint before we get them, and when that waypoint is dry, it hits us in that same way.”

People are “at the very heart” of the special operations enterprise and will always remain a strategic priority, Fenton said, adding that “the challenge that the services have had the last couple of years is starting to turn for the better.”

Special Operations Command, which is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, is a joint combatant command that includes 70,000 service members in ground, maritime and aviation units that perform myriad specialty missions across the world.

“On the whole, we’re really dependent on the services to loan us their really great talent that they have in their service,” Fenton said.