"Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate"
Via Stand-To! is this New York Times piece on declining reenlistment rates for Army Captains:
Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.
It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.
The Army is responding with incentives. The reason for the declining numbers is clear according to the reporter:
The program was begun this year to counter pressures on junior officers to leave active duty, including the draw of high-paying jobs in the private sector; the desires of a spouse for a calmer civilian quality of life at a time when the officers can be expected to be starting their families; and, for the past two years, the concerns over repeated tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Army has had a far more difficult time in its recruiting than the other services because the ground forces are carrying the heaviest burden of deployments — and injuries and deaths — in the war.
Certainly, the war has had an effect. Causing loss rates to decline in the aftermath of 9/11 and as the fighting drags on, causing them to increase. I have no doubt that the war is an important component of both trends.
And I do not wish to minimize the importance of retaining these officers. We need them to stay in the service. I would, however, like to point out that the article speaks of retention since 9/11 but the helpful chart goes back to 1997. The loss rates for 1997 to 2000 were all higher than today's post-9/11 "high rate" (sadly for the article's premise, the trend ticks down for the first quarter of 2006). Indeed, in 1999 the loss rate was about a quarter higher than the 2005 year's rate.
So apparently, serving while at war is considerably less onerous than serving during peacetime in the late 1990s.
Just a little perspective, is all I'm saying.
