The Department of the Army announced today that it will achieve its recruiting goals for Fiscal Year 2019.
The regular Army signed more than 68,000 new active-duty Soldiers, exceeding its Fiscal Year 19 recruiting mission. Recruiting goals were met in large part because of an overhauled recruiting approach and an increase in recruiters.
“We are extremely proud of the Army’s recruiting efforts,” said acting Secretary of the Army, Ryan D. McCarthy. “We changed the way we do business and got results. We are ensuring the Army is ready now and investing in the future.”
“Meeting our recruiting goals allows the Army to achieve our modernization and readiness goals while maintaining high-quality recruits and Soldiers,” said Gen. James McConville, Chief of Staff of the Army. “The Army is a great place to work and it provides people multiple pathways to success while serving a purpose greater than themselves.”
Several Army initiatives contributed to recruiting success this year. U.S. Army Recruiting Command developed 44 virtual recruiting stations that focus on reaching eligible individuals using social media and texting, which is where they are typically most comfortable communicating. The command is already seeing a positive impact from the effort, with more than 3,000 enlistment contracts tied directly to the new virtual stations.
Two new outreach teams, the Army Esports Team and the Warrior Fitness Team, were established this year. The esports team has initiated some of the highest lead-generating events in the history of the all-volunteer force.
As of January 2019, the recruiting force was fully staffed with the addition of about 700 recruiters, improving the Army’s ability to directly reach more potential applicants across the nation.
The Army also increased its recruiting and outreach activities in 22 metropolitan areas, including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Miami, Kansas City, Atlanta, Orlando, Sacramento, Houston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Denver, San Francisco, Shreveport, Los Angles, Boston, and Phoenix. These cities averaged a 15 percent increase in enlistments over last year.
“Our recruiters across the United States, and overseas, worked tirelessly to enlist high-quality men and women into the Army,” said Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael A. Grinston. “I am extremely proud of their hard work and dedication to building a winning team.”
Joining the Army is the opportunity to be a part of something greater than yourself. For more information about opportunities to serve on a winning team
The U.S. Army awarded contracts worth $1.5 billion in the last two weeks of September to increase production capacity and inventory of 155-mm artillery munitions. Each artillery round is assembled from components manufactured across the country, including the projectile or case, bulk energetics, propellant, primer, and a fuze. The awards resourced each major component, material, or required production process to maintain momentum for the goal of 80,000 projectiles per month by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.
The awards procure 14.2 million pounds of bulk energetics (TNT and IMX-104), 270,000 primers, 678,000 fuses, 2.7 million Modular Artillery Charge System combustible cartridge cases, load assemble and pack of 1.6 million MACS propellant increments, and load assemble and pack of 451,000 M795/M1128 projectiles.
In addition to awards for production, the Army awarded Industrial base production capacity increases for M795 LAP, MACS Cs, and MACS propellant. Production capacity awards in the last two weeks of September include three multiyear procurement contracts for M1128 LAP and MACS LAP. In total for fiscal year 2023, the Army has awarded five MYP awards, with two previously awarded in August and early September for M1128 shell bodies and MACS metal containers.
The contracts were awarded by Army Contracting Centers in Rock Island, Illinois, and Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, to domestic companies in Tennessee (BAE Ordnance Systems Inc. and Security Signals Inc.), Pennsylvania (Action Manufacturing Co.), Arkansas (General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, and Day & Zimmerman), Iowa (American Ordnance LLC), and California (Armtec). Awards for work in international locations included Poland (NitroChem S.A.) India (Solar Industries India Limited) and Canada (IMT Defence).
On January 16, 2024, the U.S. Army awarded a contract action to RTX Corporation for $75 million for the production of 600 Coyote 2C Interceptors in direct support of the U.S. counter-unmanned aircraft systems mission.
The contract award was part of an Office of the Secretary of Defense rapid acquisition authority that was identified to Congress, with all actions completed in less than 30 days from the authorization approval and receipt of funding.
The contract supports a Coyote Interceptor demand increase and subsequent need to increase production capacity.
The Coyote is a key component of the counter-UAS system of systems. It is a ground-launched, radar-guided interceptor, with kinetic and non-kinetic variants, that integrates into fixed site-low, slow, small-unmanned aircraft system integrated defeat systems and mobile-slow, small-unmanned aircraft system integrated defeat systems.
This effort was led by the Army’s Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, in partnership with components across the DOD.