Posted on 04/08/2006 5:42:38 PM PDT by Racehorse
The Army expects to be short 2,500 captains and majors this year, with the number rising to 3,300 in 2007. These officers are the Army's seed corn, the people who 10 years from now should be leading battalions and brigades.
"We're ruining an Army that took us 30 years to build," Republican maverick Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told a group of reporters at a recent conference.
The Army blames its expansion from 33 to 42 brigades, growing its force by 30,000 soldiers to 512,000, as the reason for the dip.
But Hull and others point to the Army personnel drawdown that followed the end of the Cold War, conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rapid rate of deployments and aggressive corporate recruiters trying to lure the best and brightest officers into high-paying, private-sector jobs.
The Army denies the shortage is a crisis, but its top civilian, Francis J. Harvey, acknowledged concerns, telling the Washington Post: "We are worried."
Harvey later downplayed the problem . . . saying the attrition rate is slightly above the average of 8 percent and is being countered by the production of new young officers.
Those outside the Army who are familiar with the problem say it must be reversed if the service is to avoid going "hollow" as it did in the wake of Vietnam, reaching the point where it couldn't win wars.
[. . .]
last year's 8.6 percent attrition rate for lieutenants and captains was slightly above average but lower than the loss of junior officers in 1999 and 2000. The Army also saw a rise in the exit of lieutenants and captains in 2004, but the jump came after a "historically low" attrition year in 2003, he said, insisting the numbers show "that we do not have a serious problem."
(Excerpt) Read more at mysanantonio.com ...
How many suspect that this number is low because of the Clinton Presidency?
This is nothing compared to the draw down Viet Nam caused. Do what they did then-promote people sooner.
"Republican maverick Sen. Chuck Hagel"
Oh no, does "maverick" McStain know the MSM have a new hero?
Perhaps that was too long ago to matter.
That is the rank I would be right now--Major. I left in disgust in 1995.
So did a huge amount of my cohorts commissioned in '91/'92.
I well remember how Pres. Clinton bragged about 'reducing the size of government'. The reduction was overwhelmingly in numbers in the military.
The so-called "Peace Dividend" and downsizing process started by Bush Sr. and finished by Clinton, complete with hiring and promotion freezes, not only left a "generation gap" within the armed forces but in the military laboratories as well. I'm afraid that we are now reaping a harvest that our national leaders began sowing fifteen years ago, with the total complicity of Congress.
Affirmative action hires didn't count on war.
We need to hire the kind of men that have always enjoyed the military throughout history.
It seems like every institution is full of imcompetence in the middle ranks. American corporations aren't much better. The actual workers at the bottom know their stuff, and the top guys are brilliant, but there's a bit of a gap in the middle.
Yep...I remember too. 95% of those reductions were from the military.
I had graduated college in '96. I was planning to re-up in the reserve and attend OCS. I didn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to do it when everyone I knew that was in was bailing out.
More bailed out in the last 2 years under Clinton than during the stressful duty of war under Bush.
Exactly why Al Gore tried to stop Florida military ballots from being counted in 2000. That was - in fact - the very first legal action taken in the contested results by either side.
Hopefully, the Army can turn this around and retain our best officers without just waiting for the usual cure--a downturn in the civilian economy with the resulting increase in unemployment.
"We're ruining an Army that took us 30 years to build," Republican maverick Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told a group of reporters at a recent conference."
No Chuck.... Murtha and Clinton cut it in half back in 93'.
Time to draft Kerry he was in Viet Nam you know.
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