Received an e-mail on Friday - ARNG and USAR Captains are now getting retention bonuses if they have the right Branch.
$20K for three years in the USAR, $30K for three years in the ARNG. Chaplain and JAG's can be Majors and still get the bonus.
Can post more specifics Monday when I have access to the work e-mail.
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
Latest Oped
Washington Post "Outlook" Sunday
"Love It. But I Have To Leave It." by John Rogers
Nothing much new stated here, but well written. I sympathize and can't blame many for the choice. I was actually working with a headhunter in 2006, planning to leave after my last Iraq tour. I had a last minute change of heart (and plum assignment) that kept me in. It wasn't that I disliked the Army, I just couldn't keep doing it to my family.I'm a captain in the U.S. Army, an institution I love and respect, and one that has made me a better man ...
All these lessons will, I'm convinced, make me a better friend, a better husband and, one day, a better father.
But after four years, I've decided to resign my commission and leave the Army.
And I'm not alone. Many other captains I know are making the same decision, or considering it. Let me be clear: I'm not a spokesman for some mythical "United Bureau of Captains Leaving the Army." But as I've talked with other captains, attended conferences with superiors on this issue and listened to my peers' reactions to what I've written here, I've heard a collective echo arising from the ranks of captains who are leaving. My reasons for this decision strike a chord with many of them.
Those reasons are threefold: First, I'm about to get married, and I want a family. Second, I can earn as much or more in the civilian world as I do in the Army. And finally, my experience with war has left me feeling angry, frustrated and mismanaged.
As the five year anniversary of Iraq approaches, there is no sight of slowing down unless a Democrat gets elected, and even then I am sure reality will temper their desires to get out. The twenty nine months I spent in Iraq, 4 of 6 years between 2001-2007 spent away from home really takes a toll, and we all know it isn't slowing down in the near future. Some can call it whining, but that's what's driving many of the best I know away.
One of my criteria for voting for John McCain would be if he will do what the Bush administration has refused to do - make this a national effort and sacrifice. The military and certain civilian agencies have bourne all the hard suffering for Iraq, and civilians have only sacrificed their "peace of mind" and asked to go shopping. If Iraq is as important as its advocates make it, it requires a national approach.
I'm not optimistic though.
Last edited by Cavguy; 03-17-2008 at 02:54 PM.
Is it an existential struggle or not? If not (and I agree that it is not), then you will not get the public to buy into the cause.
Add in the "E" of DIME - 1% of the population serves in uniform, with let's say another
.5% as civilians supporting the military whether through contract or through DAC-like functions. Still leaves 98.5% of the populace out of the loop. As the economy gets worse, fuel prices rise, unemployment rises, and the dollar weakens, do you think the people will stand for $700B defense budgets? My guess is no. Example - look at the Bonus Army and the use of the Army to squelch that concern.
We have paid for this war with borrowed money. We will pay it back one day. Raising taxes helps but takes time.
The #5 investment house, Bear Stearns, had their stock close last Thursday at $57 a share. It was sold today, the entire company, for $2 a share. If the #5 investment house is having this problem, I guarantee you the other investment houses are in the same boat. Citibank is in dire trouble as well.
Economics run everything. Don't get the economy back on track, and the American people will vote for individuals who will get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unless, of course, a President emerges who can convince the people that the war is really worth fighting for...good luck.
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
Don't take this as SPAM please... But, one of the stories on my BLOG has gotten hit a bunch of times (5K?) and big percentage are from .mil/.gov . It has to do with economic collapse. I'm writing a follow up (a slow torturous process). I'm NOT an economist though I'd buy one lunch who I could bounce some systems theory off of.
The big issues for officers in the future will be enlightened self interest. Is the realized/perceived stability/reward worth the hassle of being an officer? The fact is that what they see might not be what they get, and in general the rewards may be fleeting if not absent for leaving the military.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Seems to me the key is how much one likes what one is doing...
Had three friends, Two Captains and a 1LT who got out at the height of Viet Nam for all the reasons in the Rogers OpEd. Lost track of one but the other two regret their decision. The one on his third wife is particularly bitter at himself -- and the condo share in Naples (FL), the house on Fripp Island and the big house in Kentucky he lives in during the summer don't seem to compensate...
There's not going to be any national effort on Afghanistan or Iraq -- no politician's going to bite on that. Nor, IMO, should they. It's not existential, just pest removal, always tedious and ugly so there's no justification for a national effort.
The regular or professional Armed Forces just have to suck it up as a territorial imperative as they have had to do many times in our past. I can sympathize a bit with the RC who have been confronted with a sweeping change to historical precedent but, at the end of the day, everyone in the AC and the RC has the choice of leaving or staying (well, sort of...) and they have a right to make that choice.
That said, it's not whining on the part of those who determine to leave. People have totally legitimate and understandable complaints about the current status; many want to put their family at least in the picture if not in paramount position and the Armed forces make that extremely difficult. Always have. That's unlikely to change, I think it's the nature of the beast.
Those that want more stability, family time or coins and less hassle will leave -- as they should. I think we should all wish them well. The masochists will stay and do their best and life will go on, the system will adapt and survive. We should also all wish those that stay well.
I wish both batches well. The job is, after all, not for everyone. Nor should it be.
Well stated Ken. It is up to the Army and the people who form the Army to adapt accordingly.
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
Only problem is that there are quickly becoming not enough willing to do it in order to meet the national security strategy .... then what? Gets us back to the "if it's really important, then treat it as such" argument.Originally Posted by Ski
That's one way to look at it and it is not at all
illogical. The essential problem with that tack is that word "important." to whom and how much so become the determinants. It is difficult for many in the west to understand the ME and in the view of most westerners, reason dictates that what is normal to the ME is just not good thinking. I submit the thinking there is different. It is not necessarily bad, just very different. Thus most in the west cannot understand that in the ME a light probing attack is the standard method of warfare and that such attacks are designed to find the weak spots.
Witness the foolishness immediately after 9/11. Why don't they love us? We need to address the poverty and the autocratic governnace in the ME...
Totally missed the point.
In any event, I strongly doubt that any national consensus can be developed to or for a 'national commitment.' I do not think that is needed but I do think that leaving the ME precipitously would send a very bad message and we would live with the consequences for years. As my kid said when he got back form OIF 2, we can leave but if we do we'll go back in 10 or 15 years. Subsequent tours have not changed his mind. Thus the Army and Marines have to cope with it and are not likely to get much help.
As to the departure, I hear you and it is worrisome, Believe me I'm not making light of it nor am I being flip when I say I've seen it before; same thing happened during Korea and even more so during Viet Nam. So, to me it's understandable, acceptable -- but it is not going to be the end of the free world as we know it. Last time I checked, I think about 15% of the Army were Commissioned -- whereas a long held working norm for Officer strength as a percentage of total in a functional Armed Force has been between eight and ten. So I suggest there's some slack in there. I'd also suggest that many want the rather comfortable peacetime norms to be continued -- to include the Per folks -- but that probably isn't sustainable so the Army, near as I can tell, has not itself adapted fully to being at war -- though in fairness, I see signs that it is starting to do so.
A lot of the angst mirrors this:more than it does the real effect which may not be quite so dire." "We're ruining an Army that took us 30 years to build," Republican maverick Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told a group of reporters at a recent conference."
Not to mention that the Army he's trying to protect is now gone, period. never to return -- and IMO, that is a good thing. It wasn't really as great as it likes to think it was. Good but not great. It may be tired and stretched now but it's better than it was eight years ago. A lot better...
And you guys did it.
Our available resources are going to have to determine the national strategy and not the other way around.
Personally, I think we're better off with an Army that is shorthanded but populated by motivated, high quality individuals than an Army that fills all of the slots on its org chart by watering down its most important officer and NCO slots.
If I remember correctly, my grandfather (who was enlisted Army) served for a time in Vietnam as an officer. If the shortage of captains is that critical, we're probably better off promoting smart NCOs whether permanently or on a temporary basis than we are trying to keep the bottom 10% of the school trained officers.
You're assuming those getting out are the bottom 10%. I'd say there's an even distribution across - some of the best LT's (now CPTs) in my BN bailed out, a few of the ok, and some of the bad.
Categorizing all those who leave as the bottom 10% seriously misreads the situation. Our bigger worry is only the bottom 10% stay . Promoting from the ranks is an option.
Also to Ken's earlier - we're having heavy attrition in the E-5/E-6 arena as well, but we're throwing massive re-up money at them, which is holding them in. Shoot, we pay $40k now to first term enlistees.
Last edited by Cavguy; 03-18-2008 at 05:34 AM.
I know. If you think I'm remotely
jealous of them and that, you're quite wrong. I was, at the time quite happy with my $360.00 reenlistment bonuses for each burst of six years. Did I mention that I was really quite happy. Did I mention they were 360 lousy dollars? That's 360, no string of obscene zeros , just 3.6..0 pathetic little dollars. No sirree, not at all envious. Nope.
On a serious note, more power to 'em and I'm happy for 'em on the Re-up bonus side; less thrilled with the initial entry bonus but hopefully that won't do too much damage or last too long. My son's last tour was as a 1SG and he had a good retention rate even before the bonuses went as high as they are today -- his big concern was the impact on families. That was a ball buster during Viet Nam for Officers and NCOs. Divorces and debts went through the roof and I'm sure it's equally bad today...
Veet Nam screwed up the Army big time. Lot of guys got out earlier than they'd planned, I figure the Army was fairly good until they lost their way over there and I'd stick around until it got back on its feet, did that, never regretted staying.
There were a few times in the early 70s when I questioned my sanity, though...
I think it's very much an individual preference and tolerance thing and the preference and tolerance of the wife in question if there is one have a big impact.
I do not question the turmoil and trauma caused -- and I don't like it any more than anyone else -- I'm merely saying that, no platitude, no jibe -- this too will pass. We've been there before; that doesn't make it one bit easier to take right now and I know that but I do believe that those that want to go deserve all the thanks in the world and good wishes; those that decide to stay get the good wishes -- and a tougher job.
What's that old saw; "They told me to cheer up, things could be worse." "So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse..."
Illegitimi non carborundum...
Except that this has never been the case...
During the Indian Wars there were periods where the Army as a whole was not paid for almost a year because Congress failed to pass the proper military appropriations. No supplemental spending bills in those days. Even when pay was flowing, it often didn't arrive for four-five months. The whole Army at that time was the size of a large division (say 20k tops...including officers and EM), and it was tasked with securing the entire Western US. They had some bonuses for EM back then....an extra dollar a month if they reenlisted (which made base pay a whole $14 per month...less charges for clothing, the laundress, and any sutler's bills). But on the whole it was a damned good army...good enough to serve as the bedrock for the force that was sent to the Philippines and later World War I.
We've never done a good job with matching strategies with resources. But we always seem to discover that those resources go a lot further than we thought they would.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
This is a re-tread statement from what I think I said earlier in the thread, but this is exactly why someone needs to expend more energy to figure out why people stay...not necessarily why people leave.Those that want more stability, family time or coins and less hassle will leave -- as they should. I think we should all wish them well. The masochists will stay and do their best and life will go on, the system will adapt and survive. We should also all wish those that stay well.
CG, that is by far one of the sharpest points I think anyone has made on this board. So simple, yet it's been right in front of our faces for far too long. I know of tons of sharp young men who would, following the exact same MOS and follow-on career training that all infantry officers receive, make a damn fine platoon commander and company commander down the road. Controlling close air support is about as difficult a task out there across the specturm of small-unit tatical combat operations, and if hard-charging enlisted men can be trained as ETACs/JTACs, then the capability to promote from the "other ranks" is there...we just apply the resources to develop that capability.Categorizing all those who leave as the bottom 10% seriously misreads the situation. Our bigger worry is only the bottom 10% stay . Promoting from the ranks is an option.
Also to Ken's earlier - we're having heavy attrition in the E-5/E-6 arena as well, but we're throwing massive re-up money at them, which is holding them in. Shoot, we pay $40k now to first term enlistees.
When you get an enlisted guy, who has some time in service under his belt that pushes him over the 10+ yr mark by the time he is a captain, I think you'd be more likely to find a guy who desires to stay until he hits at least the twenty mark. I could be in left field on that, but that's my hunch.
This business of retention and initial accessions is an odd one. On the one hand (in my former capacity as a site admin at MarineOCS.com) I would see quite a few young people with interest in the various officer commissioning programs that the Corps has to offer. I don't understand why the Marine Corps is currently offering loan repayment as some sort of incentive to get these college-age kids on board. Maybe the actual numbers of interested folk aren't high enough, but that doesn't square with rumblings that lieutenants are going to start being billeted 12 to a suite at O'Bannon Hall (new construction, extra student companies, etc. ?) for the near future, and that throughput out of The Basic School is somewhat backed up, with commisioned officers hanging on the timeline for when they can actually get to TBS and start training.
I will say this one last thing and then get off of my box. It applies to enlisted retention and bears some relationship to what Ken said about wishing them well.
As a company commander, I had my head up my ass about enlisted career retention until I had the unit career retention specialist sit down with me and give me a class on bonuses, lateral moves, the whole nine yards. I became smarter, but I still wasn't efficient until I took off the "well look what staying in the Marine Corps can do for you" cape and started to just talk with each Marine, on more of a man-to-man basis. I also did more listening in the process, and let them addres their reasons and thought process as they saw it.
I'd get a lot of the "well, my uncle is a manager at this plant, and he says I can get a job there while I start school." At that point I could have tuned out the rest of what he was saying, considering I could have simply assumed he had a job already locked in. Instead I would probe and ask some fairly pointed questions, like whether they had submitted an application for the upcoming school year at the local community college, or if they knew how to start using their MGIB benefits. Even with a mandatory separations/transition class, I was routinely shocked b just how many of these Marines really had no idea how to get onto civvy street and not just survive, but thrive.
I'd offer resume-proofing assistance, mock job interview assistance, etc. as we continued the discussion, because I wanted them to succeed regardless of their long-term career choice. It was disappointing that many of them told me they were interested in doing some extra work on their stuff, but the motivation eventually faded away.
The point to all this is that enlisted and officer accessions (and retention to some degree) are like renewable energy in a way, but we have to pay close attention to how we are replenishing the resource. If Joe Marine leaves the Corps, gets married and starts a family within a year of separating, we either have the potential to reap what we sow in 18-20 years, or that veteran Marine will not serve as the foundation for his children to take an interest in military service (it doesn't have to be the Marine Corps). Even with the bad apples, their children won't necessarily be bad apples, so I think there needs to be some outreach in that realm as well. One of the most rewarding phone calls I've ever received came from one of my 10% "####birds" that I had to kcik out of the Corps for drugs and other violations. He had been a good Marine during the invasion, had worked hard during his first 3 years, then sort of took a nose-dive. He had called just to tell me that he thought my taking the time to talk to him on the eve of his departure straightened him out a bit, and he realized the opportunity lost but didn't blame the Marines for his problems. If I could capture that sentiment and bottle it, it would make for a great "get your life straight" elixir.
Last edited by jcustis; 03-19-2008 at 02:34 AM.
To follow on J Custis excellent post...
True. As he said earlier, we know and understand why they leave and we sort of understand why some stay (for various reasons depending on how well we know the individual or his or her situation). What we don't have a handle on is the broad 'why.'"This is a re-tread statement from what I think I said earlier in the thread, but this is exactly why someone needs to expend more energy to figure out why people stay...not necessarily why people leave."
I think that applies as a matter of need to both Officers and to Peons...
Speaking of Peons and harking to their elevation to commissioned status, here are some random thoughts:
Why do Platoon leaders need to be commissioned -- I understand the training (of them) aspect but that isn't the vital thing many imagine, there have been many who skipped that step for one reason or another. Seems to me to be somewhat of a waste of an expensively trained officer.
Why do over man most Staffs other than to meet the archaic requirements of the bureaucratic staffing guides.
Why can't we pay a guy or gal extra money for doing a good job instead of having to promote them in rank?
Do we have too many ranks? Both Officer and enlisted. Shouldn't the number of ranks in both categories be based on level required by echelons of employment. For NCOs, Individual troop / Team / Squad / Platoon /Company / Higher -- that's five or six ranks, not nine. For Officers, Company / Battalion / Brigade-Regt / Higher; that's four to six, not ten or eleven.
How smart is up or out?
A look at all those items quickly tells us that a personnel system designed to easily 'manage' large numbers of people and provide 'incentives' to enter and stay may not be what we really need...
Goes back to J Custis; Why do they stay?
Custis - good story will follow up with one of mine own I think may be valuable.
Had three E4's in my tank platoon in the California Guard in the mid-90's. All three had been in the AC, all three were still in their twenties and wanted to stay in the Guard. We had an opportunity to get some people into the State OCS program and these were the three guys I thought had the capability to become officers. One had come out of
2ID, one had come out of 3rd ACR, and the last had been a 1CD Desert Storm vet.
I sat all three of them down at the same time, told them that they had the opportunity to go to OCS if they wanted. I told them they were the three best enlisted soldiers in the platoon, and they showed me and the Company Commander enough promise that OCS was an option. I told them that either way, I think you will all be superb NCO's if you don't want to get involved in the OCS program.
One guy went into the program, he's now a Company Commander. The two other guys left the company within 18 months to transfer into MOS's they wanted to work in - one went Aviation and the other went to a MP Company. All three of them, however, told me that I was the first officer who ever gave a crap about their career, and tried to make them better. I think if you sit down with people, regardless of rank, and show interest in their lives and careers, you can get a lot out of them. It sounds simple but I don't think it happens as much as I would like.
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
Didn't we have this discussion way back when like during the strategic corporal thread, or maybe the platoon discussion? I'm not sure if it was via pm or a post but somebody mentioned or linked to something that said the officer at the platoon level is relatively new. Sorry I'm being vague but search returned to much to look through.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Good lord, I feel old, posting this, but here goes:
When I commanded a battalion, I took an hour each to counsel my lieutenants and captains each time I rated them. This is what I had been taught to do, and I felt this was the minimum effort I could put forth. My first go 'round, I was stunned to learn that probably 75% of them had never been counseled, and most of the rest had had pro forma sessions at best. Even the ones I raked over the coals were pathetically grateful to get some kind of feedback.
My own experience as a Lieutenant Colonel was disillusioning. In four years, two of which I spent as a battalion commander, I received maybe thirty minutes of counseling from my senior raters. I don't mean just formal counseling, I mean total one-on-one feedback. One senior rater saw me for the first and only time when I came in to sign my efficiency report. My two-star senior rater, having just effectively spiked my career, spent almost three minutes telling me what a great command team my wife and I had been before hustling me out of the office.
Now, I'm not just venting my spleen. My point is that when deployments are long, pay and benefits are so-so, and the work is back-breakingly hard, what is it that keeps people in? I would say two things: a sense that the mission is overwhelmingly important, and the ties of camraderie. I personally lost that a few years back and got out five years before I had to.
As a senior officer with no chance for promotion and no opportunity to go back to troops, I foresaw two or three tours on staffs in my future. Not the Army I signed up to serve in. My senior leaders appreared disinterested in me, so how could what I was doing be important? I therefore resolved to do one last tour in Afghanistan and get out.
The young captains I led were in the same predicament. They were told they were the backbone of the officer corps, but their leaders never invested a great deal of time in developing them; even those who didn't particularly need it felt the lack. They were constantly told they were trusted, but they couldn't run a range without an overweight civilian watching every move. They were told to develop soldiers with initiative, but had to personally sign off on risk assessments every time a soldier took a three-day pass. As a result of all this they discounted what leadership told them about their future prospects and never really felt that they were - as they are - the vital future of the Army.
Developments over the last twenty years have also led to a loss of that sense of mission that keeps people in despite all the hardships. We have created so many programs - for alcohol dependency, abuse, finances, etc - that leaders no longer solve soldier's problems, they just refer them somewhere. We have created a sense of entitlement among soldiers that didn't exist in the past, and this erodes any sense that what I am doing, what my unit is doing, is more important than any personal problems I may have. I suspect that Iraq and Afghanistan and the War on Terror have renewed that sense of mission in a certain slice of the Armed Forces, and may be keeping as many in as they are driving out.
What can we do? I don't know what we can do in the officer corps, but I do have two suggestions for the NCO corps, where I think the problems are similar. First, I would eliminate all Sergeant Major positions above brigade level. Why we take our finest NCOs and turn them into glorified personnel clerks is beyond me; keep these guys with soldiers where they can motivate and inspire and teach, which is what they do best. Give them merit pay and raises for seniority by all means, but get them back where they can actually contribute. Secondly, imitate the British Army's Late Entry Commission program, where senior NCOs - maybe a little long in the tooth for humping rucksacks or changing track - are made captains and majors and assigned to training, recruiting, and other slots where we are hurting for captains and majors. This would alleviate the shortage of officers while giving these guys a chance to make a greater contribution than they do as the G-5 Staff Sergeant Major.
Norfolk,
We haven't interacted on these boards, but I read what you post with interest and appreciate your analysis and understanding of history. That said, what is the substantive basis for your statement quoted above? Most every officer I know has anecdoteal stories about good guys who left the service for various reasons, but I don't know of any quantitative analysis (if it were even possible to do one) that shows the majority leaving the Army are the better leaders. Is this based off an analysis of the level of combat experience held by these officers vice their peers? Leadership positions held? A comparrison of ACOM OERs to COM OERs? If it's an assumption, what are the facts upon which it is based? That only the duds with no options will stick around? (True in my case, but let's not sell the rest of the US officer corps short!)
"Law cannot limit what physics makes possible." Humanitarian Apsects of Airpower (papers of Frederick L. Anderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
Hello CR6,
First off, I intended no offence to anyone, and I apologize for causing any.
Admittedly I don't have a formal study sitting in front of me stating that X-number/percentage of such-and such rated officers have taken their leave of the Army. But I have seen the official figures posted on these boards of junior officer classes who have taken their releases - the latest and most startling being that of the class of 2002 in which 57% of the Army's officers who entered that year have taken their releases. Undoubtedy that will include a good many of the best. It will be itnersting to see what the retention and release figures for the class of 2003 will be.
I have also listened to the statements made by other serving officers here on these boards, from Cavguy to Rob Thornton to 120 mm, et al. about not only how so many of the good one's they've seen go, but also how they've struggled with the decision to leave or stay while seeing their peers or subordinates go. That, and having witnessed what happened to the Canadian Army under many of the same stresses back in the 1990's, and I think a fairly decent picture of what is happening to the junior and future senior leadership of the U.S. Army is starting to take form. We are unlikely to get a formal report from the U.S. Army explicitly stating that it has lost either a significant proportion or even the bulk of its best young officers. But something much more substantial than just a bunch of horror stories about officer retention is going on.
Last edited by Norfolk; 03-19-2008 at 04:33 PM. Reason: Add apology.
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