An Air Force Reserve recruiter has joined the service’s hall of fame for helping a staggering number of civilians decide they wanted to wake up early every day, wear the same clothes all the time, and do other genuinely important things, like selflessly serve their country.
Tech. Sgt. Abdoulie Bah, a recruiter with the Air Force’s 350th Recruiting Squadron, got more than 100 new airmen to join the service in fiscal year 2025, officials said in a release.
Bah will join the Air Force’s “Century Club” — which is reserved for the service’s best recruiters. In August, Master Sgt. Todd Parkison, an Air Force recruiter, was recognized when he brought in his 700th airman.
Bah, originally from Gambia in West Africa, came to the U.S. in 2014 and joined the Air Force in 2016 and became an Air Force recruiter in 2023. Getting 100 accessions — the military jargon for getting folks to enlist — was not an easy task and neither was his assignment in the first place. Bah was the only recruiter on his flight for three months while he covered recruiting efforts for five offices. He also became a lead recruiter and mentored four Air Force rookies.
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After two years, Bah’s work helped his team shoot up to one of the top three recruiting posts in the 350th recruiting command after being at the bottom, according to the release. The 350th Recruiting Squadron has 66 recruiting offices that cover parts of New England, the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.
Bah’s success comes as the military services have begun to see a turnaround in the recruiting slump that lasted several years due to a number of factors, like the shrinking pool of candidates and challenges appealing to Gen Z.
In 2023, the Air Force fell short by 27,000 recruits — the first time that the service missed its goal since 1999. But in June, officials announced that the Air Force hit its 30,000 recruitment goal three months ahead of schedule — sending nearly 25,000 to basic training, with the rest scheduled to begin training by Sept. 30.
