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.
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