The Air Force’s Active Duty component, the Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve met their fiscal-year-to-date recruiting accession goals through March, the halfway point for Fiscal 2012, according to the Pentagon’s latest recruiting statistics, issued on April 23. In fact, after getting off to a slow start this fiscal year, the Air Guard is tracking slightly ahead at the midway point, having accepted 4,206 accessions, 14 more than its goal of 4,192, according to the Defense Department’s numbers. USAF’s Active Duty component attracted 14,353 recruits through March, exactly matching its goal. Similarly, the Reserve brought in 4,255 accessions, meeting its target. Among the other services, each Active Duty component at least met, if not slightly exceeded, its accession goals through March. Across their reserve components, only the Army National Guard fell short of its goal. (See also our coverage of February’s recruiting numbers.)
Amid a high-profile recruiting crisis, Air Force leaders and experts have increasingly noted the challenging long-term trends the service will face in enticing young Americans to sign up—decreasing eligibility to serve, less propensity to do so, and less familiarity with the military. But while those same leaders say there’s no “silver…