COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: General
Army's Rising Promotion Rate Called Ominous
Mark Mazzetti, Los Angeles Times
January 30, 2006
WASHINGTON
— Struggling to retain enough officers to lead its forces, the
Army has begun to dramatically increase the number of soldiers it
promotes, raising fears within the service that wartime strains are
diluting the quality of the officer corps.
Last year, the Army promoted 97% of all eligible captains to the rank
of major, Pentagon data show. That was up from a historical average of
70% to 80%.
Traditionally, the Army has used the step to major as a winnowing point to push lower-performing soldiers out of the military.
The service also promoted 86% of eligible majors to the rank of
lieutenant colonel in 2005, up from the historical average of 65% to
75%.
The higher rates of promotion are part of efforts to fill new slots
created by an Army reorganization and to compensate for officers who
are resigning from the service, many after multiple rotations to Iraq.
The promotion rates "are much higher than they have been in the past
because we need more officers than we did before," said Lt. Col. Bryan
Hilferty, an Army spokesman.
The Army has long taken pride in the competitiveness of its promotions,
and insists that only officers that meet rigorous standards are
elevated through its ranks.
But the recent trends in promotions have stirred concerns that the Army
is being forced to lower its standards to provide leaders for combat
units that will be deployed overseas.
"The problem here is that you're not knocking off the bottom 20%," said
a high-ranking Army officer at the Pentagon. "Basically, if you haven't
been court-martialed, you're going to be promoted to major."
The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
Army officials say the primary cause of the jump in promotions is the
service's ongoing effort to create more combat units without an overall
expansion.
The Army hopes to increase the number of active-duty combat brigades
from 33 to 42 over the next several years by cutting headquarters staff
and transferring soldiers from support jobs into frontline combat
positions.
The push to fill the new units means that more officers are being
promoted, officials say. In addition, they say the military's
deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have improved the overall quality
of the Army's officer corps.
"These are people who have spent a year in combat," Hilferty said. "We think that we are promoting well-trained people."
Yet the increase in promotions is partly due to the large number of
Army officers choosing to leave the service. Army officers are getting
out of the military at the highest rate since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, shrinking the pool of officers eligible for
promotion.
According to Army data, the portion of junior officers (lieutenants and
captains) choosing to depart for civilian life rose last year to 8.6%,
up from 6.3% in 2004. The attrition rate for majors rose to 7% last
year, up from 6.4% in 2005. And the rate for lieutenant colonels was
13.7%, the highest in more than a decade.
"The most precious thing in the military is our talent and not our
technology," said retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who traveled to
Iraq and Afghanistan last year to assess the state of the U.S. military
missions in the countries. "What we don't want to do is come out of
[these wars] and lose what we lost after Vietnam."
The departure of Army officers in those years created what many military historians have called a "hollow force."
Last year, the Army exceeded by 8% its overall goal for retaining
active-duty enlisted troops, a figure President Bush cited last week as
a sign of the service's health.
Also last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed recent
reports — including one commissioned by the Pentagon — that
the Army was facing a looming personnel crisis, and said the
"battle-hardened" military was as strong as ever.
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