Washington ? The Marine Corps fell slightly short of its recruiting goal in January, the first time that has happened in nearly a decade, amid parents’ concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the Marines remain on target to meet their full-year goal, officials said Thursday the wars had made the parents of potential recruits much harder sells.

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“It’s a natural reaction in a time of war that a mother and father are going to have concerns, and so they are putting on the brakes,” said Maj. Dave Griesmer, spokesman for Marine Corps Recruiting Command.

The 17-year-olds in high school who are a prime target of Marine recruiters cannot sign up without parental approval. Griesmer said more parents were making their sons and daughters wait until they were 18, but that had not stopped recruiters from putting in extra effort.

“What we’re doing is working with the parents more,” he said. “Whereas before it may have taken one visit and they would accept, now it may take a recruiter two, three, four” visits.

The Army is having its own challenges on the recruiting front, although Gen. Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff, told Congress on Wednesday that the Army would meet its full-year goal of signing up 80,000 recruits. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve, on the other hand, have fallen behind in recent months. The Guard missed its full-year goal in 2004 for the first time since 1994.