Additionally, there has also been growth in the participation of women in military service. In part, the increase in female soldiers, from 2.1 percent of the force in 1972 to 11 percent in 1992, reflected a national trend that has seen a major growth in workforce participation by women. Today, with more military occupational specialties open to women, more than 20 percent of all Army accessions are female. The difficulties faced by the Recruiting Command in the late 1970s and the steps needed to overcome them serves as lessons for a future in which the means to succeed must be preserved despite conditions of undoubtedly greater austerity for the Army. In some ways, all-volunteer recruiting has kept the Army from growing insular and separate from other institutions of society.
Army recruiters live and work in all the communities of the nation.
In order to do their job, they must gain community support by making a case for Army service with educators, business people, and community leaders. They also must learn to deal with the news media. Through this activity, the public is better informed about the Army, but also, soldiers returning to their military specialties after a tour in recruiting cannot fail to have a better understanding of the troops they will lead and the role of the Army in American society. Recruiting in the modern era, because it depends on the individual voluntary actions of the thousands who choose to serve, is best viewed not as a routine governmental function but as a continuing experiment in democracy. Today there are more than 7,000 active Army and Army Reserve recruiters, and they live in virtually every community in this nation, working from more than 1,550 recruiting stations.