Officer Attrition: Impact of Combat Deployments and Compensation on Retention
Abstract
At this moment our Army is at a crossroads. The steadily increasing operations tempo experienced by nine of our ten active divisions rotating through either Iraq or Afghanistan by the summer of 2004 serves as a dual edged sword. While much of the Army has risen to the call served superbly and gained invaluable experience from sustained combat operations the reality is continuous operations may eventually have a detrimental effect on officer retention. In his arrival message in August 2003 as the 35th Chief of Staff Army (OSA) General Peter J. Schoomaker stated the American Soldier remains indispensable. Our Soldiers are paramount and will remain the centerpiece of our thinking our systems and our combat formations. The inference was clear: soldiers are the Army. How they are trained equipped and cared for will remain a priority. Subsequently at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) 2003 annual meeting in October 2003 GEN Schoomaker went on to alert the Army that as a member of the joint team in the global war on terror (GWOT) the Army %should expect that sustained operations will be the norm and not the exception. Indeed since the events of September 11 2001(9111) and the on-set of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq the Army has gained prominence as the Service of choice. As much of the Army has deployed to conduct combat nation building and peace enforcement operations around the globe soldiers have increasingly been separated from their families for extended periods time and again. While the All-Volunteer Force that began in 1973 has served the Nation well one might ask what the Army is doing to retain America's sons and daughters in the military in light of these repetitive and dangerous deployments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 03, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA423361
Entities
People
- Kevin M. Badger
Organizations
- United States Army War College