Key US Army ranks begin to thin

The reenlistment rate for mid-grade enlisted soldiers dropped from 96 percent in 2005 to 84 percent in the first quarter of this year.

from the May 2, 2007 edition

Page 3 of 3

Page 1 | Page 2 | 3

"The Army has got a tough job," says Mr. Korb, a personnel chief at the Pentagon in the 1980s. "They didn't start this war and they probably didn't want to have it, but now they have to deal with the consequences of it."

Korb worries that various pay-to-stay programs that the Army is employing may have a long-term effect by retaining soldiers who might otherwise have gotten out. "You want the people who love the Army and want to stay in," he says. While the money keeps them in for now, Korb adds, they won't stay when the reenlistment cash disappears.

Army officials counter that the average bonus paid to reenlist a soldier – about $11,000 – is not enough to fundamentally change the nature of the Army's soldier population and is only helping get the service through this rough period.

Others are not sounding the alarm, at least not yet. One who does not see a crisis is Bernard Rostker, who left as head of the Pentagon's personnel department in 2000. "There is going to be burnout, and this war is burnout No. 1," says Mr. Rostker, a senior fellow at the RAND Corp. "The miracle is that the force is still with us, not that we're down from 96 to 84 percent. To me, that's a good news story."

Army officials have found one interesting trend among soldiers who've been polled informally on what is driving them away: While many joined the service to go to combat in a war zone, it's the lack of time at home, or "dwell time," that hurts, Sergeant Major Kuhar says.

Under a new policy, units will not deploy with less than 12 months of time at home. But the larger goal is to give them two years between deployments – a goal the military won't reach anytime soon.

"The No. 1 thing was dwell time," Kuhar says. "It came back loud and clear to us that they just want more time with their families or with their friends before they deploy."

1 | 2 | Page 3