What Am I Missing?

Okay, all you guys with prior military service (or for that matter, those who are still in) need to check me on this, because I am utterly confused.

The Times has a major article on the front page about a supposed crisis the Army is facing in retaining junior officers at their first opportunity to leave the service -- the five year mark. Fair enough, but reading into the article, you hit this paragraph:

In 2001, but before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 9.3 percent of the Army's young officers left active duty at their first opportunity. By 2002, the number of those junior officers leaving at their first opportunity dropped to 7.1 percent, and in 2003, only 6.3 percent opted out. But the number grew to 8.3 percent in 2004 and 8.6 percent in 2005.

Now, as I read that it says that what's really happening is that the percentage who leave at the five year mark is increasing -- but it's still less than it was before 9/11!

Yet later in the article you read this:

The retention rate at the five-year mark for the West Point class of 1999 was 71.9 percent in 2004, down from 78.1 percent for the previous year's class. And for the class of 2000, the retention rate fell to 65.8 percent, meaning that last year the Army lost more than a third — 34. 2 percent — of that group of officers as they reached the end of their initial five-year commitment.

That is the highest rate of loss over the past 16 years among West Point officers reaching the five-year mark.

And it seems to me they can't both be true.

If someone can explain this apparent discrepancy, or tell me what I'm missing, I would very much appreciate it.

Update: Now this is what I call timing: USA Today (today): two out of every three elible soldiers are currently re-enlisting, putting the Army -- wait for it -- 15% ahead of its goals.

No, that isn't junior officer specific, but you'd think the Times might have gotten around to mentioning that little detail while they were on the topic of retention, just as a way of giving some, I don't know, context or something.

Note also, while we all love Charlie Moskos, only he could manage to find a possible dark underside to this news.

Comments

[ed in texas]

Interesting first comment.
West Pointers (ring-knockers, grads of Hudson High, yada yada) are actually in the minority among junior officers. There ARE ROTC programs, OCS, green-to gold, and virtually any college grad who decides to join will be instantly sent to OCS. Once you get to field-grade officers, the non-lifer types tend to leave, ending with top grades thick with Pointers, but the basic fact is, as far as the major services are concerned (i.e. Army and Navy), the academies don't graduate enough people to fill the necessary slots in a given year.

[Subsunk]

Cori,

I was the Pacific Submarine Force Retention Officer from 1985-1987.

These statistics are used by the military to point to problems which might be addressed with the young officers today BEFORE they reach their initial decision point to stay or leave the Army. Typically, military personnel policy makers would like to be able to provide programs to influence young officers before they get to decide whether to leave at the 5, 6 or 7 year point, depending on the actual commitment they have incurred. The ones the press quotes are neither alarming nor surprising.

(For instance, an aviator's first decision point is usually around yr 7 of service since they spent at least a full yr in flight training.)

The statistics shown mirror what I saw in the Submarine Force of 1982-1987. When there are too many jobs to do, not enough time to do them, and too few resources to meet the workload, then officers would opt out of continued service and return to civilian life, especially if the economy is good. Approximately one third (anywhere from 20-40% depending on how good morale is) of all officers will leave no matter what and the military is built to handle that. Otherwise there would be no chance of promotion to Major for most Captains.

The programs the Army is planning sound very much like programs the Navy instituted long ago, except for throwing more money at officers near their decision point. The Submarine Force instituted bonus programs for 3, 4, and 5 yr agreements to remain on active duty, much like enlisted personnel sign another contract of enlistment for 4-6 yrs. (Officers have no contract. Their commission is indefinite and they serve until forced out by personnel regulations for failure to select to the next rank, or they resign their commission, or other losses [medical, relief for cause, etc...]. The losses in the article are usually resignations.)

The fact that former inmates at Sing-Sing on the Hudson, as my Army West Point buddies used to call it, are leaving in greater numbers lately is not surprising either. Their commitment and exposure to the Army and its recent missions has been more intense than many ROTC or OCS officer inputs, and they may have had their fill since they are granted harder jobs whenever they want them at the expense of ROTC officers' billet [Navy calls jobs billets] requests. Those harder jobs today involve lots of combat.

But the bottom line why officers leave the service in larger numbers is usually that they are gone much longer than they would prefer, they miss their families (never underestimate the power Mama has on the young Father), they are asked to do more and more with less and less, and they get burned out more frequently by intense service in hostile areas, such as Iraq, and Afghanistan. The strains of combat lead to mistakes that these officers make or think they have made and they may choose, like any rational person, to take themselves out of the career after they perceive they have made a career ending mistake (a position I believe they should not subscribe to for other than very personal reasons. My philosophy of military advancement is to make the military tell you No. Don't make that decision for them, because you never know how badly they need you, and neither do they until something like this comes along).

So the stats shown are nowhere near a broken force. I was part of a broken force [ close to 40% of officers at their first decision point left the Navy. If you could walk and chew gum, you stayed and were granted command later on] when I joined until more people and parts started showing up in 1982 and 1983. Today's force ain't broke. But it could be better manned to handle the harder jobs it is asked to do today.

Unfortunately, there is no way the American public will support such a force. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars (more than Iraq will cost us to rebuild) to increase the size of the Army to handle these manpower shortfalls (like another 200,000-300,000 personnel in the Army and reserves). And that is why DoD today has to do a better job at this without spending more money on bodies to throw at the problem. This is the primary reason we rely on technology to pull our fat out of the fire.

I am sure there are many ways to skin this cat. Many will require more bodies. Many will require more money. Many will require other intangible qualities to appeal to young college graduates and officers in the military. None are perfect. All have been tried sometime in our history before to varying degrees of success.

The important thing is that if you had infinite resources, you would do them all. This, not being a perfect world for us, is not possible, so you do what you can. Why the press must make this harder for our government by printing stories which discourage the military men in our lives (this story is not one of those -- it is pretty factual and pretty good as it goes) is a question they should ask themselves. If you print all Abu Ghraib all the time, don't be surprised when your coverage causes young people to rethink their commitment to their country because it is "the Great Satan".

And where does that coverage lead us?

Subsunk

[don surber]

Seems to me a first commitment is a good time to shake out who wants in and who wants out. I was shocked that so few leave. Seems to me after five or six years in, a young officer might decide the military's nice but 20 years is too long a commitment

[Jason]

What Subsunk said.

The article, as you quoted it, shows two sets of officers, the total number of young officers in their first 5 years or so, and the subset of that who are from West Point. I suppose this is showing that more officers from West Point are not being retained than others drawn from ROTC programs and commissioned elsewhere. So both statements can be correct.

[ed in texas]

BTW, the school that generally contributes the 2nd largest pool of officers to the Army (after West Point) is Texas A&M (corps of cadets).

[Marlin]

TigerHawk has a nice post debunking this article.

Spinning the Army's retention rate

[Richard Aubrey]

When I was in, a third of a century ago, an officer came up for promotion every so often. If passed over twice, he was out, or reduced to his permanent rank, which for non West Pointers, was an enlisted rank. I saw a major turn into a staff sergeant once. Not pretty.
The Army, being a hierarchy, has fewer slots the higher you go. So there are always more guys coming up for promotion than there are slots for. So somebody will be passed over, and out.
When captains look at their chances for major, and aren't optimistic, they may choose to get out before they are, in effect, thrown out. Come to think of it, do the numbers in the article include those invited to leave?
You would have to really love the job if you knew that no matter how hard you worked and so forth, in a year or two, or six months, you would be out, anyway.
Might as well hit civvy street and get started on a new life.

Somewhat OT but worth remembering. Almost without exception, many civilian ex-officers who are commentating as experts were passed over by guys they may not consider to have been better, or anticipated being passed over, or just got tired. Keep that in mind when listening.
Exceptions would be top-ranked generals and medical retirements and certain other reasons.

[Mark Lewis]

Self promotion - this might help explain the phenomenon in general, although I wrote it several years ago.

http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/63

[Marlin]

McQ at Q+O (a former military officer) provides additional context to why the numbers for retaining additional officers may be dropping at this point in time.

---------------

Losing Junior Officers: NYT spin

[Subsunk]

Ed,

Thanks for pointing out the prowess of my alma mater. Ags love to pick up the slack. There is probably no other place on Earth where you can yell out "Beat the Hell outta Iran" and be greeted with deafening "wildcatting" (cheering, for the non-regs among you).

Guess only boat school (US Naval Academy) and the Point (US Military Academy) are as conservative and patriotic as TAMU? Nah, probably not. But you'd be hard pressed to find a school that loves their country more than Texas A&M. Gig 'em.

Subsunk

[Marty]

Teh discrepancy is simple. The NYTimes first numbers are retention rates among all captains. then the use the West Point grads rates separately to paint an even more dire picture. (Not all Captains are West Point Grads.)

The comedy is how hard the had to narrow down the retention rates to write a negative headline. (Of course the graph shows that those retention rates improved last quarter.)

I'm embarrassed for them!

[I R A Darth Aggie]

But you'd be hard pressed to find a school that loves their country more than Texas A&M. Gig 'em.

Whoop! Thanks, Subsunk!

[davod]

Has anyone looked at the economy as part of the mix here. I recall past studies that show a direct correlation between an improving economy and slower recruitment and lack of retention at all ranks of the services.

[dauber]

thanks all, for the great help, as usual

[Jon]

Has anyone thought to see how long most young college gradss last at their first jobs? Because I have a feeling that the rate of JO's leaving the military after their first 5 year hitch is miniscule in comparasion to the percentage of new college grads who leave their first job at or before 5 years.

[Howard Jaeckel]

The passages in the Times article you cite also left me shaking my head, but I shrugged it off, figuring that figures lie and liars figure.

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