WASHINGTON (AP) – The Army exceeded its recruiting goal in November, the sixth consecutive on-target month, but it has fallen off the pace for meeting its re-enlistment goal for the year, the Pentagon said Monday.

The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps also exceeded their recruiting goals in November, although their targets are much lower than the Army, which is aiming to sign up 80,000 new active-duty soldiers during the budget year that ends Sept. 30, 2006.

The recruiting results for November were mostly positive, although the Army set a substantially lower goal than in November a year ago. The active-duty Army signed up 5,856, compared to its goal of 5,600. In November 2004 it signed up 6,838 against a goal of 6,800.

For October and November combined – the first two months of this recruiting year – the Army signed up about 3,000 fewer soldiers than during the comparable period a year ago.

The Army National Guard got 4,960 recruits last month compared to a goal of 4,510, while the Army Reserve fell short with 2,131 compared to a goal of 2,212.

The Marine Corps signed up 2,127 recruits compared to its goal of 2,026; the Navy got 2,742 compared to a goal of 2,694, and the Air Force got 2,407 compared to its goal of 2,390.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman on Army personnel issues, said the monthly retention figures are not necessarily a reliable measure of progress toward meeting the Army’s full-year goal because re-enlistments can fluctuate a lot depending on soldiers’ deployment schedules. Because re-enlistment bonuses are tax-free if soldiers re-enlist in Iraq or Afghanistan, some put it off until they get there, he said.

Army officials have said they expect this to be an extremely difficult year for recruiting, in part because of the Iraq war. In the budget year that ended Sept. 30, the Army fell more than 6,600 recruits short, or about 8 percent below its target of 80,000, although it pointed to strong re-enlistment as a sign that young soldiers find their work rewarding amid speculation that war-time duty is putting too much stress on soldiers.

Re-enlistment has sagged somewhat since September, however. In October the active-duty Army met 91 percent of its retention goal and in November it got 94 percent, for a combined two-month shortfall of almost 1,000 soldiers.

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