Recruiting year off to a slow start

The Army started off the recruiting year with the lowest number of recruits signed up for Basic Training since the United States military became an all-volunteer force in 1973. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command, told Pentagon reporters on Wednesday that the diminished number of delayed enlistment recruits in the pike will make it extremely difficult to reach the goals for 2008.

For the last two years, the goal of 80,000 new recruits has barely been met. To meet the numbers, qualified OCS candidates were not informed of the option (even though the Army is experiencing a paucity of Lieutenants and Captains). Additionally, the Army has been forced to admit a staggering percentage of recruits on waivers. In FY 2006, fully 17% of all recruits were admitted under waivers for psychological, criminal and health problems. Nearly one in five who were actively recruited, would not have gotten five minutes of a recruiters time five years ago.

In a perfect world, the recruiting year starts with 20,000 recruits, or 25% of the yearly goal, in the pike and scheduled for Basic. The remaining 60,000/75% are to be recruited over the course of the fiscal year. Last summer, the Army toted the board and realized they were not going to meet their 2007 numbers unless drastic measures were taken. Over 1000 former recruiters who had fulfilled their recruiting duties were sent back to the sales floor. Additionally, the Army instituted recruitment bonuses. Recruits willing to leave for basic training by the end of September (to bolster 2007 numbers) were offered healthy $20,000 bonuses - a years salary in many cases.

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As a result of rushing recruits into uniform to meet the 2007 goals, the Army started this recruiting year with less than 7400 recruits, or a mere 9% of the 2008 goal, in the queue. “It’s going to be another tough recruiting year,” said General Wallace.

From Army Times:

The bonus program, which began July 25, was part of a last-minute push by the Army to meet its year-end recruiting goal, after having fallen short on recruiting numbers in May and June. It had the effect of getting many of the recruits who signed up after July 25 into basic training sooner than they would have otherwise, thus reducing the number with entry dates after Oct. 1.

“That is of concern for us because the delayed entry program gives us guaranteed enlistees to meter out across the year,” Wallace said. Without that cushion to begin the recruiting year, recruiters are going to have to sign up enough people to meet the existing goal as well as replenish the pool for next year.

Coupled with the recruiting problems are retention problems. The backbone of any military is the mid-level NCO's, and they are not reupping. Instead, worn out by repeated deployments and feeling a sense of futility about the misadventure in Iraq that has cost nearly 4000 American lives, they are opting to leave the service. These losses in leadership will undoubtedly haunt the military for the next two decades.

Without top-notch NCO’s the force suffers. They fill a unique role, because they manage both up and down the chain of command. They transmit orders to the troops they supervise, and they have great influence over the decisions made by the officers they serve.

NCO’s simultaneously prepare their units to complete their mission and know the personal pertinents of their personnel. They know whose kids are struggling to adjust, whose marriage is rocky, who is expecting a baby, whose mother is ill, who has an in-law “vacationing” on their couch and clueless about why they can’t come play. They have the standing to pull a green Lieutenant aside and tell him or her the real score.

These middle managers are especially important in wartime. Not the least of all among reasons: seasoned NCO’s keep Leiutenants alive long enough to become seasoned officers. There are more Sergeants leading Soldiers and Marines down dangerous alleys and on patrol than there are Lieutenants and Captains.

These are the enlisted personnel that an Army facing a three-decade rebuilding process after the folly of destabilizing and occupying Iraq needs to retain most, but they are not staying. Instead they are leaving in droves. And Sergeants who leave after 8, 12, 15 years in service are not G.I.'s who can be replaced at the local recruiting station.

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It's far worse than missed recruiting goals

Folks, the Army is in trouble. It is going to take at minimum two decades to rebuild our Army. Five years of rugged warfare conditions have taken a steep toll on man and materiel alike. It's broken all right, and George Bush is the vandal who broke it.

That the Army missed their recruiting goals for May by 9.27% is just the tip of the iceberg. The real fractures go much deeper. Young officers are leaving the service in higher numbers than at any time since Vietnam. It is unprecedented – but the Army has been hemorrhaging officers and senior NCO’s in leadership positions for at least the last two years. When I started getting up in arms about it was when I read an editorial by Lucian Truscott IV in the New York Times two years ago that confirmed what I had been witnessing.

This compromises the quality of the leadership of the officer corps. Army OCS has a 100% acceptance rate, and Republican members of Congress are having a hard time finding qualified candidates to even apply to West Point. (I know applications have been falling for at least two years, and I am looking for the supporting link for that claim)

Take this data point for instance: 97% of all eligible Captains are being promoted to Major. Traditionally that number has been between 70-80%. The promotion to Major has heretofore been the winnowing point for career officers. Now, if you have Captain’s bars and sufficient time in service, and you haven’t been court-martialed yet, you will get Oak Leaf Clusters.

Now consider that even though we are missing all those officers, qualified applicants are not being informed of the OCS option because their numbers are needed to bolster the enlisted ranks. This is counterproductive recruiting and short-term thinking.

This exodus of seasoned officers has resulted in what can only be classified as promotion by attrition. And that is no way to run an Army.

Now – let’s consider the recruits to the enlisted ranks. Fully 17% of the recruits into service in FY 2006 were admitted to service on waivers. Can anyone imagine a scenario in which that figure would improve when have already recruited everyone who is fit and willing? (Yeah, me neither.)

So lets recap: In our Army, we have a bunch of hinky troops – and not enough of ‘em, by the way – and no one to lead them. Also keep in mind that the Army uses accounting methods in the billet shell game that would make a Hollywood accountant blush. (h/t SPfY for that line).

This is a recipe for disaster and a broken military. It’s time we face the facts and deal with them. I do not believe our military has time to let Bush run out the clock on his failed presidency. Congress needs to get tough, and they need to do so now, while they are writing the Defense Authorization Bill for FY 2008. The way things stand right now, we have at least a 20 year rebuilding process ahead of us. And we can't pay for it with tax cuts. It's time for a gut-check.

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A Coming Crisis

I have long been beating the drum about the dearth of officers in our Army. But I overlooked the enlisted ranks. The Christian Science Monitor (one of the best examples of on-the-ground-reporting anywhere) reports that key enlisted personnel are exiting in alarming numbers, and if the trend continues, the Army faces a coming crisis. (I had an 'Oh, Fuck' moment when I read the article)

In 2005, the Army retained 96% of the mid-grade NCO’s whose enlistments were up. The first-quarter numbers for 2007 are in, and that retention number is down to 84%.

The reason for this decline is simple. I can give that answer in one word: Iraq.

Extended tours, repeated deployments, inadequate dwell time with family and friends between those deployments. It is wearing on the Army – which has born the brunt of fighting Bush’s vanity war.

Let’s just cut the crap – if you don’t have an adequate corps of seasoned Sergeants transmitting Officer’s orders and providing leadership – You don’t have a functioning Army. Lest anyone think otherwise, Sergeants run the Army.

So let’s put the state of the military in perspective:

First of all, readiness is suffering. Remember that during Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana National Guard was unable to mount and adequate response, in part because most of their deep-water vehicles were in Iraq. Desert warfare has taken over – Mountain and amphibious training is not being done. Should the United States have to respond to an imminent threat, the engagement would take more time, cost more lives and money and have a lower chance of success because response / readiness has been undermined by the drain of Iraq.

Secondly, we are suffering a dearth of leadership. The Army is losing command level officers and mid-level Sergeants at a rate that is being felt now and represents a potentially catastrophic crisis of leadership in the future.

In the wake of Vietnam, the military had to be rebuilt, and the Honor Code had to be stitched back together bit by tattered bit. The challenge met by my husband and all of the rest who went in between 1976 and 1985 (the decade after the fall of Saigon) was a cakewalk in comparison to the rebuilding that will by necessity have to take place in the wake of Bush and his Iraq adventure.

In order to make recruitment goals, more and more concessions are being made. People who would not have made it in the door of a recruiting station five years ago are being pursued passionately. They keep loosening the rules so more people can meet the minimum standards for acceptance into service. If you still can’t get in, and you really want to serve, well by golly – we probably have a waiver right here with your name on it! Moral, criminal, physical, we got waivers! (Waivers here! Get your waivers!)

Gotta tell ya – I’m not getting a case of the warm fuzzies over here when I stop to consider all those hinky troops – being led by weak officers and NCO’s…The very thought unleashes horrors in my mind.

They are in the kitchen whipping up a recipe for disaster.

Someone turn off the gas.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State]

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An End to Stop-Loss?

The Air Force Times reported today that Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has instructed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, the Secretaries of the respective branches and other top defense officials that he wants plans on his desk by 28 February to find their manpower elsewhere. Stop-loss authority allows the services to extend people on active-duty at will by delaying planned separations, retirements and demobilizations.

“Use of stop loss will be minimized for both active and Reserve component forces,” Gates wrote in a Jan. 19 memo. This will affect the Army more than any other branch of service. The Air Force has not employed the stop-loss policy since 2003. The Marines have all but abandoned the practice and the Navy has only employed the controversial tactic twice - in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, a total of 301 Navy were retained until December 2002. In the spring of 2003, 179 Corpsmen were retained in service beyond their scheduled dates of separation.

When American men and women enter into service, a bargain is struck. That bargain amounts to a sacred trust. Those who agree to serve are betrayed when they are held in service beyond their exit date against their wishes.

By stopping the reliance on stop-loss, Gates is doing the right thing.

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