Posted on 04/10/2006 8:20:44 AM PDT by 68skylark
WASHINGTON, April 9 — Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.
It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.
Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning.
To entice more to stay, the Army is offering new incentives this year, including a promise of graduate school on Army time and at government expense to newly commissioned officers who agree to stay in uniform for three extra years. Other enticements include the choice of an Army job or a pick of a desirable location for a home post.
The incentives resulted in additional three-year commitments from about one-third of all new officers entering active duty in 2006, a number so large that it surprised even the senior officers in charge of the program. But the service's difficulty in retaining current captains has generals worriedly discussing among themselves whether the Army will have the widest choice possible for its next generation of leaders.
The program was begun this year to counter pressures on junior officers to leave active duty, including the draw of high-paying jobs in the private sector; the desires of a spouse for a calmer civilian quality of life...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There's a need for both kids of officers. I think we have often given short shrift to the importance of both Mustangs and Rotcees in our reliance on the kids from the trade school. (As a VMI man I look at this from a slightly oblique angle - we're technically ROTC and not trade school, but we've been through a system more like what the trade school was before WWII -- and in the Army the VMI, Citadel and Norwich men - and sometimes Texas Aggies -- were seen as a different breed). My own view is that for every mustang and trade school type we need 2-3 Rotcees from the better state universities and the elite universities. We can use the sheer horsepower they often have, and we need the leavening from the upper middle and upper classes. Mustangs are invaluable for their enlisted experience and perspective, but are sometimes -- especially as they move into field grade -- limited by it.
No one should wear gold or silver on his shoulders, EVER, if he won't and doesn't stand up for his men. There has to be a distance, of sorts, so that an officer can make the hard choices that sometimes have to be made to send people into harms way to accomplish a mission when he knows they are likely not to make it, but an officer who doesn't do everything possible for his troops deserves to be cashiered.
Yeah, their chart (posted at comment #2, I think) shows the same thing -- fewer officers are leaving now than before 9/11.
I've always wondered what it is about man, that makes it ok for some to send others to their death? You certainly wouldn't find this sort of behavior in the animal kingdom.
We'll we're both more and less than the animals -- which is something of a flip answer. I don't really know the answer to your question. War is a funny thing, but not something we can wish away.
Unfortunately not...and they say that animals don't have souls!!
Twenty eight years?
Quitter!
Thanks for your service.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.