Despite a strengthened recruitment effort, Army Guard and Reserve
officials said many of their personnel shortages are unlikely to
be resolved in the foreseeable future.
Of particular concern is the development of new leaders. Lt. Gen.
James R. Helmly, Army Reserve chief, recently estimated shortages
of 5,000 captains and 7,000 other officers.
“It takes four years to produce a commissioned officer, a
leader in the Army, of strength and competence and character,”
Helmly told a congressional hearing. “It will take us in the
Army Reserve four to six years at least, at a minimum to reverse
this past inattention.”
To boost junior officer and noncommissioned officer retention,
the Army is working on a plan to give all soldiers—active
duty, reservists and guardsmen—more predictability in their
deployment schedules. Under a plan submitted to Congress in February,
active-duty soldiers could expect to spend two years at their home
base after a yearlong deployment. Reservists could have five years
and guardsmen four to five years between mobilizations. This plan
probably would go into effect in 2007 or later.
Currently, the Army Guard and Reserves are facing “a very
challenging year,” said Thomas F. Hall, assistant secretary
of defense for reserve affairs. “On retention, we are doing
very well. But we’re not recruiting as many as expected,”
he told reporters.
A major factor in this year’s shortage is that active-duty
personnel in all of the services—who provide many of the recruits
for both the Guard and Reserves—are staying in the service
in larger numbers than in the past, said the Army Guard chief, Lt.
Gen. Roger C. Schultz. For the active-duty components, he said,
“that’s a good thing. But what that means for the Guard
and Reserve is that prior service members are not available to join
our units.
“And for us, that’s 5,000, 6,000, maybe 7,000 members
a year at a minimum,” Schultz said. “We’ve had
years as high as 10,000 soldiers come directly off active duty into
our units, and today that’s not happening.”
Additionally, it is becoming more difficult to attract recruits
without previous military experience when they face not just one
weekend a month and two weeks of active duty at a nearby facility,
but a full year’s deployment to combat in Iraq or Afghanistan,
Hall said.
About 40 percent of U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan
are guardsmen or reservists. Not only are they worried about the
risks of combat but many also encounter economic hardship, Hall
said. About one third of guardsmen lose money while deployed, because
they earned more money per month in their civilian jobs, compared
to their active-duty military pay.
Some employers supplement their workers’ military pay while
they are on active duty to help relieve the financial stress, Hall
pointed out. He supports those supplements, but not for all deployed
reservists and guardsmen.
Paying supplements to the two thirds of deployed reservists and
guardsmen who are not suffering economically could create some unnecessary
tension in the ranks, Hall said. “The guy in the same foxhole
as you might earn more money than you do,” he said. “I
don’t think that the U.S. taxpayer should contribute to that
kind of discrepancy.”
The Army increased enlistment bonuses from $8,000 to $10,000 for
enlisted personnel, and in some cases, to $15,000 for people with
prior enlisted service who possess skills that are in higher demand.
Becoming an officer in the Army Guard and Reserves can earn a recruit
as much as $30,000 in bonuses. Heath care professionals may be eligible
for up to $50,000 in loan repayments.
Officers and warrant officers who leave active duty and join the
Army Guard or Reserves can receive a new affiliation bonus of $6,000.
To beat the bushes for new members, the Guard and Reserves have
added 2,200 recruiters. Many of them are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan,
who are being asked to spend up to 14 days of temporary duty at
a recruiting station near their hometowns.
Members of the Army Guard and Reserves can receive bonuses of up
to $15,000 tax-free if they reenlist for six years while serving
in Iraq, Kuwait or Afghanistan in the year before they are to leave
the service. The size of the bonus is based upon a soldier’s
pay grade and time in service. First-termers who have served between
17 months and six years will be given a bonus worth 1.5 times their
monthly base pay multiplied by the number of years they reenlist.
Soldiers who have served between six and 10 years will receive
a sum equal to their base pay multiplied by the number of years
of their reenlistment.
Members of the U.S. Special Operations Command—which includes
reservists from the Army, Navy and Air Force—are eligible
for a new retention incentive package. It provides special-duty
assignment pay of $375 a month for enlisted personnel. A retention
bonus offered to senior enlisted service members and warrant officers
ranges from $8,000 for a one-year commitment to $150,000 for a six-year
commitment.
Incentive pay of $750 a month is available for enlisted members
and warrant officers with more than 25 years of service who agree
to remain on active duty for at least 12 more months.
Other efforts include attempts to help them resolve family problems
associated with overseas deployments. One of these is finding affordable
childcare while one of the parents is overseas.
The Defense Department has contracted with the National Association
of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies to help the families
of deployed soldiers who do not live near military installations.
This program—dubbed Operation Military Child Care—calls
for the NACCRRA to assist those guardsmen and reservists in finding
space in child-care facilities at reduced cost.