14 Winning Weeks at DOD: Border Security, Hitting Back at Houthis, Booming Recruiting

During the first 100 days of leadership under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth - about 14 weeks in all - the Defense Department has seen a wide range of successes.

"Tuesday marked President Trump's 100th day in office," said Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell during the Weekly Sitrep video, which highlights department activities each week. "At the Pentagon, our warfighters delivered historic victories for the American people in those first 100 days."

To begin with, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force - all the military services under the Defense Department - have been outdoing themselves when it comes to both recruitment and retention.

"Due to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth's leadership, the U.S. military has seen historic recruiting numbers in all branches of service, pretty amazing stuff," Parnell said.

In February 2025, all five DOD military services met their recruiting goals - which were higher than a year earlier. Additionally, four out of five of the services in February exceeded their goal to a greater extent than what they had done a year earlier in 2024.

"It's been decades since we've seen this kind of recruiting in the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force. The men and women of America want to join the United States military," he said. "We can barely absorb the volume and retention as well, men and women in the military who don't want to get out."

Hegseth had also committed to making the DOD more efficient. And with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency, Parnell said, that's been happening and will continue to happen as well.

"In collaboration with DOGE, we've found nearly $6 billion in potential savings for reinvestment within the Department of Defense," Parnell said.

The biggest DOGE find to date was addressed in April, when the secretary signed orders to cut $5.1 billion in wasteful DOD programs, including consulting contracts, information technology services and business process consulting.

Parnell said Trump promised to secure the southern border, and the DOD has been on the job there since January.

"We've ... deployed approximately 11,900 troops to protect our Southwest border from illegal alien invaders, and established a national defense area," he said. "As a result, border crossings are down 99.99% compared to the previous administration's first 100 days. Again, pretty great."

Nearly 9,000 miles away, U.S. Central Command forces have been striking back against Iran-backed Houthi targets across Yemen since mid-March. The effort is in response to ongoing Houthi attacks on U.S. military and commercial shipping vessels in the region.

"[Centcom] strikes have hit over 1,000 targets - killing Houthi fighters and leaders and degrading their capabilities. The mission has been hugely successful thus far," Parnell said.

Finally, at the direction of the president, the department has taken big steps to welcome back into uniform service members kicked out for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine, Parnell said.

While the Defense Department has seen a successful first 100 days, Parnell said, the successes will keep coming.

"We are laser-focused on results here at the Pentagon, and we are just getting started," he said.