The Army is more than halfway to meeting this year’s recruiting mission and faces the possibility of exceeding its funded end strength projections, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus said.

“We’ve seen momentum unlike we have seen in probably a decade,” Mingus said March 12 in testimony before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on readiness and management support. He explained that the Army is 50% ahead of where it was last year, having recruited 44,358 of its goal of 61,000 new soldiers.

The Army recruited 55,300 new soldiers in fiscal year 2024, exceeding its goal of 55,000, and placed 11,000 more into the delayed entry program.

In the fiscal 2025 budget, the Army requested money to fund an end strength of 442,000 soldiers, but with the strong recruiting environment, Mingus said he expects the fiscal year end strength to be higher.

“What I believe will happen, if the trajectories remain consistent with where we’re at today, we’re going to end this year somewhere between 449,000 and 452,000, so almost 10,000 over what we believe will be appropriated from a military pay and allowances standpoint,” Mingus said.

He suggested that if that happens, “there will be a deficit there that we will have to come back and ask for help.”

Mingus testified alongside his counterparts from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force, and Diana Maurer, director of the Government Accountability Office’s defense capabilities and management team, about the readiness of the joint force.

He told members of the subcommittee that the turnaround in the recruiting slump that marked the past three years is the result of initiatives that overhauled how the Army recruits. These initiatives include professionalizing the recruiting force and expanding the recruiting demographic to colleges and private industry in addition to the traditional high school recruiting.

The recruiting enterprise updated its training programs; added two new recruiter MOSs, including a new warrant officer recruiting specialty; expanded the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, which helps recruits meet the service’s academic or physical requirements; developed the GoRecruit mobile application; restructured Army Recruiting Command by incorporating the Army Enterprise Marketing Office; and stood up two regional recruiting commands that oversee the five recruiting brigades responsible for enlisting new recruits.

“All those things that we’ve been working on for the last 18 to 24 months, we believe are coming to fruition this year,” Mingus said.