How the Marine Corps is retaining a lot of its first-term Marines

The Marine Corps retained more first-term Marines in a single year than it has in more than a decade, marking another step towards the service’s overhaul of how it keeps Marines in uniform.

The Corps hit 114% of its stated first-term Marine retention goal this fiscal year, according to Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

That percentage translated to 7,947 Marines staying in the Corps after their first term of enlistment in Fiscal Year 2024, which ends on Sept. 30. The goal was 6,950, officials said.

That’s the highest number of retained first-term Marines since fiscal 2010. But it isn’t a total outlier.

“Retention directly enhances our service’s lethality,” Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, deputy commandant for manpower, said in a release. “This year’s historic success in retaining the most highly qualified Marines is a ‘spike the football’ moment and is a testament to our engaged, people-focused leaders across the Marine Corps.”

The Corps has long used a “recruit and replace” model for first-term enlistees and historically has retained the fewest first-term members compared to the other military services.

Those healthy FY24 retention numbers represent a steady annual increase in retention since fiscal 2020, according to Marine data. Marine officials credited multi-year retention efforts, which allows Marines to reenlist earlier than the end of their current contract, as a large part of their success.

The Marines are the only military service to consistently meet their recruiting goals in recent years. Retaining more Marines eases the strain to recruit more new individuals, allowing for the Corps to better meet its total end strength needs.

The Marines fiscal 2024 end strength approved by Congress is 172,300 Marines. T

The service is also on track to meet its recruiting goal of approximately 28,000 new Marines this fiscal year, but those final numbers have not been released yet. The Marines met their fiscal 2023 goal of 33,302.

The Corps also retained 64%, or 5,700, of the eligible subsequent-term Marines, or Marines in enlistment periods beyond their first term, officials said. The subsequent-term Marine population eligible for retention is at its highest since fiscal 2017.

The total Marine Corps retention mission for all enlistment terms for this fiscal year was 12,912 but fiscal 2025 is higher, sitting at 13,970.

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The Corps is already halfway to reaching its fiscal 2025 total retention goal, officials said.

“Although this is a huge accomplishment, we have more work to do and cannot rest on our past successes,” Borgschulte said. “We must maintain the momentum into Fiscal Year 2025 and continue to prioritize our Marine Corps’ most valuable and lethal asset—its people.”

In recent years, the Corps conducted an overhaul of its talent management mechanisms, looking at ways to improve Marine quality of life and doing more to reach out to Marines earlier in their contracts to encourage re-enlistment or a move to the Reserve from active duty.

On that front, the Corps also exceeded its goals with the Direct Affiliation Program, or DAP, which allows active-duty Marines to directly transfer to the Reserve component.

The average number of Marines transferring directly between fiscal year 2019 and 2023 was 495, officials said.

This year, the Corps doubled that number.

Another program eases the path to return to service by specifically targeting prior service Marines who’ve left the military but want to rejoin.

In fiscal 2023 the Prior Service Enlistment Program netted 121 Marines. For fiscal 2024 the number was 335, Marine officials said.