In their bright orange junior ROTC shirts, Air Academy High School students pushed each other to do as many situps as possible on a breezy fall day in October.

It was a workout that followed a good-natured game of kickball and one that helps prepare students who are interested for their military fitness tests, should they choose to enlist or commission.

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While not formal recruiting programs, JROTC and the high schools that host them are important pools of potential troops for the military. When the pandemic shuttered schools, recruiters blamed limited access to students in part for the branches’ inability to meet their recruiting goals.

However, it’s a source of recruits that has started to shrink nationally, with the number of young people turning 18 each year in the United States expected to fall through 2041.…