Enlistment is up.
60,000 will not be impossible to achieve.
Recruiting met the goals for the year, and it took them till mid-September, two weeks before the end of the fiscal year, to do it. But increasing the size of the Army by 13% will mean increasing the recruiting goals by a larger percentage than that while trying it increase retention. It'll be interesting to see how they accomplish that.
It would help matters substantially if they went back to 3/3 and 4/6 total services obligations. Eight years possible obligation on a first time enlistment in todays conditions are highly unrealistic and is just more temptation for Congress, Sec of Defense and POTUS not to fix what needed fixing years ago. Increasing permenant active duty manpower levels should have been top on the list for Bush in 2001. Eight year obligations are fine for lifers who know what to expect. But eight year obligations should be allowed first time only for Special Forces. The exception being cases where initial training alone will take nearly two years such as the Navy Nuke Operators and Special Forces.
It was an ill conceived idea to go to 8 year service obligation much like using NG and reservist as extensively as they are now and have been since 1991 rather than seriously addressing the manpower issue on a long term basis. Second thing would help bring back the original GI Bill at least for the Gulf War Vets.