Army re-enlistment ahead of schedule, was: Re: [extropy-chat] give a small window into the military mind

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> 
> There may be other factors at work: $$ benefits for
> listing/re-enlisting, having no fallback plan for de-listing, and
> so on.
> 
> I think a real comparison should be done not with the Army goals of
> re-enlisting, but with previously rates of re-enlisting soldiers in
> war and peace times, e.g. how many re-enlisting soldiers per 100,000.

No, the proper comparison is the retention ratio to enlistment. In this
case, the recruitment goal is 90,000 and the re-enlistment goal is
64,000, which is about 70% of the recruitment goal, a very high
retention rate from my experience.

The 2004 retention goal was 56,000, which the Army beat by 800. It's
new recruitment goal in that year of 77,000 was met by an excess of 47
enlistees. Given that the 2005 goals were 8,000 higher for
re-enlistment and 13,000 higher for new recruits, it appears that my
impression was accurate. 

Regarding your claim that other concerns, such as employment options,
played the bigger role, do not seem accurate, as unemployment in the
civilian workforce is lower this year than it was last year, but
unemployment rates should hit both enlistees and reenlistees more
equally, or else favor reenlistees, because they enter the civilian job
market with more skills than a high school graduate. Re-enlistment
bonuses have been increased, primarily by making them tax-free if the
service member re-enlists while deployed to a combat zone, however
enlistment bonuses have also gone up as well by larger margins, with
three year active duty enlistment bonuses more than doubled to $20k and
job-specific bonuses doubled to $14,000. They also offer an $8k bonus
to those going to OCS. The Blue To Green program (getting USAF
personnel to reenlist over to the Army) earns a $5k-$10k bonus,
depending on skills.

In addition, last year:

"In other end-of-the year benchmarks: 
    •The Marine Corps, whose amphibious units have fought in
Afghanistan and patrol the notorious Anbar Province in Iraq, says it is
on track to meet a goal of 36,773 recruits this fiscal year. 
    •The Air Force three months ago exceeded a goal of retaining 55
percent of first-termers, garnering 68 percent. In fact, the branch is
20,000 over its budget-authorized personnel strength and is
transferring some airmen to the Army. 
    Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens attributed the sign-up rate
to patriotism, the civilian job market and job satisfaction. 
    "These are all trends we are seeing," she said. 
    Edgar Castillo, spokesman for Air Force Recruit Services at
Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, said the branch actually is
slashing accessions from 34,080 this year to 24,000 next year. 
    "There are people right now that want to join that we can't
accommodate," Mr. Castillo said. 
    •The Navy will meet its marker of 39,700 enlisted recruits, as it
has for every year in recent memory, except 1998. The branch might miss
the goal for 11,000 new naval reservists, partly because active duty
retention rates are so high the pool of available recruits is shrinking
for certain skills. "

As indicated by the Navy reserve, goals for reserve and guard units are
not being met, but this is partly because so many active duty personnel
are re-enlisting and are therefore not available for reserve or guard recruitment.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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