COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Stop-Loss
Army Works to Halt Loss of Officers
Atlanta Journal Constitution
November 15, 2006
Washington
- So many midlevel officers are leaving the Army under the strain of
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Pentagon is worried it might
not have enough generals 10 to 15 years from now.
Using aggressive incentives, the Army has slowed its loss of junior
officers. Over the past year, 7.9 percent left. That's down from 8.5
percent in 2005 and below the 10-year average of 8.4 percent, said Col.
Mark Patterson, Army deputy chief of staff for personnel.
The Army, though, is expanding. It's on track to add 30,000 troops over
the next several years. The officer attrition rate will have to fall to
5 percent, said Patterson, for the Army to meet the growing demand for
officers those increases will require.
"The question is are you keeping the future General Grants, the future
General MacArthurs, the future General Eisenhowers, or are these people
leaving? I don't know the answer to that," said Andrew Krepinevich, a
West Point graduate who retired from the Army in 1993 after 21 years as
an officer and now heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, a Washington defense policy research institute. "I suspect
the Pentagon doesn't know either."
Options being added
The current number of lieutenants and captains --- what the Army calls
company grade officers --- stands at 40,300. That needs to increase by
3,000 officers in the coming years to meet the goal of expanding the
Army.
That's a particularly tall order given the pressures that multiple
combat deployments are placing on young officers and their families.
"We know it's a strain on the force," Patterson said of the continuing
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's a challenge that we're meeting
head on. We're not waiting until we have a retention problem. We're
working it hard right now."
The Army has expanded, for instance, the number of officers it sends to graduate school.
Traditionally, the Army has provided graduate school funding for about
400 mid-career officers each year. In exchange, they agree to extend
their active service by three years for each year they spend in school.
Last year, the Army added 200 scholarships to the program, with a goal
of expanding it to 1,000 per year over the next few years.
The Army also has begun providing incentive options to cadets coming
from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, as well as officers
commissioned through any of the 274 colleges and universities that
offer ROTC programs.
Under the incentive arrangement, new officers can select either the
Army specialty they go into --- infantry, for example, or military
intelligence --- or the base where they will be posted, in exchange for
a three-year extension of their active service obligation.
The officer attrition rate has been building for the past few years.
After losing 5.7 percent of its lieutenants and captains in 2003, the
year President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq, the Army saw its
officer attrition rate jump the next year to 8.1 percent.
In 2005, the rate hit 8.5 percent, prompting concern at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
One key to retaining officers is keeping them in the service for at
least 10 years. Beyond that point it becomes harder financially to
justify leaving the Army, which permits Soldiers to retire after 20
years of service and receive half their pay for life.
Deployment strain
The future of the Army rests largely on the shoulders of junior
officers --- lieutenants and captains who will be leading battalions
and brigades over the next decade or so and will be running the Army in
20 years.
"You stay a captain for quite a few years, so they could be deployed
two times, possibly even three times overseas, at a time when many of
them have young families, they're just starting out," said Christine
Wormuth, military analyst with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, another Washington think tank. "This is putting
a tremendous strain on them."
That issue drove Capt. Robert Cole to retire in 2003, six years after
graduating from West Point. After deployments in Bosnia and Qatar, and
domestic postings at Fort Gordon, Ga., and Fort Hood, Texas, Cole
decided he couldn't continue in the Army and still do right by his
growing family.
"You could just tell that it was just going to be more and more
deployments, " said Cole, now a Ryland Homes manager in Mansfield,
Texas.
"They were getting me ready to take company command and then go back
over [to Iraq] within a three-month period. We just decided it would be
best for us just to get out for a more stable family life."
His wife, former Army Capt. Janelle Cole, also a 1996 West Point
graduate, left the army in 2001 so the couple could start a family.
"You have a lot of family members who are saying, 'My gosh, I'm not
sure we signed on for this,' " said Ret. Air Force Col. Steve
Strobridge, director of government relations for the Military Officers
Association of America.
The group, based in Alexandria, Va., represents 365,000 active duty,
reserve and retired officers from all branches of the military.
"The troops have been running on patriotism and adrenaline for a long
time, but after a while they need some real relief," said Strobridge.
"There is a loyalty to the organization, there is a loyalty to the
mission, there is a loyalty to your friends. The issue is, how long can
we keep counting on that?"
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