COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: General
Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate
THOM SHANKER, The New York Times
April 10, 2006
WASHINGTON,
April 9 — Young Army officers, including growing numbers of
captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled,
are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed
senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class
of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after
completing their five-year obligation.
It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers,
apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which
junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high
rates. Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve
officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving
the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows
their commissioning.To entice more to stay, the Army is offering new
incentives this year, including a promise of graduate school on Army
time and at government expense to newly commissioned officers who agree
to stay in uniform for three extra years. Other enticements include the
choice of an Army job or a pick of a desirable location for a home
post.The incentives resulted in additional three-year commitments from
about one-third of all new officers entering active duty in 2006, a
number so large that it surprised even the senior officers in charge of
the program. But the service's difficulty in retaining current captains
has generals worriedly discussing among themselves whether the Army
will have the widest choice possible for its next generation of
leaders.The program was begun this year to counter pressures on junior
officers to leave active duty, including the draw of high-paying jobs
in the private sector; the desires of a spouse for a calmer civilian
quality of life at a time when the officers can be expected to be
starting their families; and, for the past two years, the concerns over
repeated tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. Since the invasion of Iraq in
2003, the Army has had a far more difficult time in its recruiting than
the other services because the ground forces are carrying the heaviest
burden of deployments — and injuries and deaths — in the
war.One member of the West Point class of 2000 who left active duty
last year is Stephen Kuo, who took a job with a medical equipment
company in Florida. Mr. Kuo said his decision was based on "quality of
life." He is now recruiting classmates for his company.
"With the rotation of one year overseas, then another year or so back
at home, then another overseas rotation — it does take a toll on
you," said Mr. Kuo, who served a year in combat in northern Iraq.
"Plus, I was not enjoying the staff jobs — desk jobs — I
was looking at for the next 8 to 10 years. Furthermore, the private
sector had many lucrative offers."
But the chance at a free master's degree persuaded Brandon J.
Archuleta, a West Point senior, to sign up for an extra three years in
uniform.
"Education is extremely important to me, and I know I want a master's
degree at the very least," Cadet Archuleta said. "The Army has a
wonderful relationship with some of the top-tier graduate schools,
especially in the Ivy League. I want to attend a school of that
caliber."
In 2001, but before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 9.3 percent of the
Army's young officers left active duty at their first opportunity. By
2002, the number of those junior officers leaving at their first
opportunity dropped to 7.1 percent, and in 2003, only 6.3 percent opted
out. But the number grew to 8.3 percent in 2004 and 8.6 percent in
2005.The statistics are even more striking among West Point graduates,
who receive an Ivy League-quality education at taxpayer expense —
and, in the view of many senior officers and West Point alumni, owe the
nation and the Army a debt of loyalty beyond the initial five years of
active duty.The retention rate at the five-year mark for the West Point
class of 1999 was 71.9 percent in 2004, down from 78.1 percent for the
previous year's class. And for the class of 2000, the retention rate
fell to 65.8 percent, meaning that last year the Army lost more than a
third — 34. 2 percent — of that group of officers as they
reached the end of their initial five-year commitment.That is the
highest rate of loss over the past 16 years among West Point officers
reaching the five-year mark. For young officers receiving their
commissions in 2006, the Army will guarantee slots in the most
sought-after branches of the service — aviation, armor or
intelligence, for example — in exchange for an extra three years
in uniform.
Similarly, if a young officer wants an initial posting to a desired
location or an opportunity to earn a master's degree, the Army will
guarantee either choice in exchange for three more years of active
duty.The West Point graduating class of 2006 responded at levels even
higher than anticipated by senior officers at the military academy,
with 352 of the 875 seniors — 40.2 percent — signing on to
the program as they approached the date in late May when they would be
commissioned as second lieutenants.
"It is an amazing response," said Lt. Gen. William J. Lennox Jr., the
West Point superintendent. "It has exceeded how I thought the class
would respond."
Across the entire Army this spring, 3,420 newly commissioned junior
officers are expected to enter active duty, according to the Army's
personnel office. Of those, 1,124 — about one-third — have
agreed to serve an extra three years in uniform under the new program.
According to Army statistics, 718 signed up to choose their career
track, 289 contracted for the graduate school opportunity — 257
of them from West Point — and 117 wanted to pick the location
where they, and their families, would be based.
The graduate school program was carefully structured to keep officers in uniform even beyond the extra three-year commitment.
After completing a master's degree program, an officer also has to
repay the Army with three months of service for every month back in the
classroom. This could push some officers beyond an automatic 8 years of
service, toward 12 years — at which point, goes the thinking of
the senior officers who devised the program, they may decide to stay in
for a full 20.
"Today's officers make a career decision to come or go at the three- or
four-year mark, while a decade ago they made it closer to the seven- or
eight-year mark," said Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army's
senior personnel officer.
"One of the salient issues in this information age is that if they are
going to be competitive when they leave the Army — whether at the
4-year mark, the 10-year mark or after 20 — they have to maintain
critical skills," General Hagenbeck said. "They want to have graduate
schooling."
The cost of the program will depend on how many young officers enter
graduate school in a given year, but Army personnel managers say that
whatever the individual annual tuition fees, they are far less than the
cost of training and preparing a new officer. The Army will cap
individual tuition at $13,000 per year, although the service has
already negotiated with a number of schools to waive the difference in
fees.
At the five-year mark in their career, Army captains usually are in
command of a company, a junior leadership position putting them at the
center of the day-to-day fight. The Army needs even more company-level
officers today, as it expands the number of its deployable brigade
combat teams.
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