source GAIA package: Sx_MilitaryTimes_M6200810812070323_5675.zip Origin key: Sx_MilitaryTimes_M6200810812070323 imported at Fri Jan 8 18:18:02 2016
The backbreaking pace of wartime operations has long worn thin. And for some, perhaps many, life in a civilian suit looks mighty tempting.
But the heavy pace of the Iraq war should ease in the near future, given security gains and President-elect Barack Obama's desire to dramatically scale back U.S. troop strength there. At the same time, the jobless rate on the outside is climbing north of 6.5 percent.
Money for re-enlistment bonuses and potential for promotion are strong, service officials say. But the lousy civilian job market and a potential easing of deployment tempo are two incentives for staying in, as well. If more people stay in, the services won't have to pay as much in bonuses, and promotions get tougher because there's more competition.
That means the robust bonus and promotion picture may not last long. Which means that now — right now — is probably a great time to stay Marine.
Best of all: Once the service says yes to re-enlistment, a layoff is unlikely. Here's a rundown of six good reasons to stay in now.
1 & 2: Bonuses and promotions
Retention generally has been good in recent years, says John Warner of Clemson University, who conducts recruiting and retention research for the Pentagon. But, he said, "it's because we're paying a lot of money for people to stay."
The services spent about $1.6 billion on re-up bonuses in fiscal 2008 alone — and that doesn't include the huge "critical skills retention bonuses" paid to people in high-demand jobs like health care and special operations.
The military, particularly the Army, has relied heavily on bonuses to keep force numbers high in particularly critical skills, a force-shaping tool that has a "significant positive effect on re-enlistments," said James Hosek, a military manpower analyst for the Rand Corp.
Pentagon officials have said they expect to spend roughly the same this fiscal year on retention as well as recruiting bonuses as in the year just ended.
These "golden years," however, could fade due to a combination of strong retention and a weak job market. Money for bonuses, already allocated for the rest of this fiscal year, may not be so plentiful come next fall.
"They're going to be scaled back, probably," said Warner.
The Army, he said, "is going to be under significant pressure, as the Iraq war scales down and people are brought out of it. … Congress is, in fact, asking DoD now where it can cut back on that outlay. There's going to be a food fight for dollars. And some of those dollars are going to come from special and incentive pays."
Except for the Air Force, whose recent slip in retention was due in part to a deliberate effort to shed end strength, retention has been strong among the services.
The Marine Corps, two years ahead of schedule for growing its end strength to 202,000, also plans to do so largely with new recruits this fiscal year. The Corps wants to retain just 14,798 Marines — down 2,833 from last fiscal year — even though it only made 95 percent of its overall retention goal last year.
The strong growth means enlisted Marines in certain key jobs can score record bonuses of of as high as $90,000, but bonuses in other fields are expected to decline in coming years.
In addition, preset limits on numbers of noncommissioned officers in each career field mean that after caps are met, only those deemed "exceptional" can re-enlist. Some 24 career fields were closed to re-enlistment in just the first six weeks of the new fiscal year — 10 of which had offered re-enlistment bonuses.
The Navy, which dramatically improved its first-term retention rates over the past decade, ended fiscal 2008 by exceeding its retention goal and retaining 26,510 sailors. It wants to duplicate that feat this year.
Navy officials say high retention likely will tighten competition for existing bonuses and advancement slots, although that impact has not yet been felt.
"We'll be watching advancement very closely in 2009 and beyond," said Rear Adm. Daniel Holloway, who directs Navy manpower, personnel and training programs.
"If we continue to see increased retention, especially in the senior paygrades, upcoming advancement cycles could see a decrease in opportunity, especially at the E-7 to E-9 levels," he said.
Retherford is optimistic about overall retention. "I think next year will be successful," he said, but acknowledged that he has some concern about retention goals going up next year for some of the services, "which will push the bar higher."
3: The wars
All indications are that the Iraq war is set to begin seriously winding down over the next few years.
And while Afghanistan is heating up, with some 20,000 additional troops likely en route between now and next summer, no one expects U.S. troop strength there to approach Iraq levels, still around 150,000.
That will help ease the optempo storm that has strained the ground forces and support troops from other services.
The Army's 15-month deployments are gradually becoming a bad memory; units deployed after Aug. 1, 2008, are limited to 12-month tours. Only six Army units continue to serve out 15-month deployments, and a few others will come home at the 13-month mark.
And with the growth of the force — now two years ahead of schedule to increase by 74,000, including reservists — dwell time should rise to 18 months by the end of next year, Army Secretary Pete Geren recently said. The Army also hopes to begin eliminating its use of stop-loss as manpower demand in Iraq decreases.
For the moment, however, the Army still struggles to balance its operational commitments with giving its battle-worn troops a break. Units are currently spending 12 months back home only "at best," Geren said.
The Marine Corps is growing to 202,000 and now is just 3,000 shy of that mark. Marine units also continue to operate on a 1:1 deployment ratio, with seven months away followed by seven months back home — with some of that time spent training for the next deployment.
The goal for both the Army and Marine Corps, if conditions allow, is to get to a 1:2 deployment-to-dwell time ratio; the reserve-component goal is 1:4.
The strains of the wars and multiple deployments have already prompted many to vote with their feet. The Army, for example, has a 6 percent officer shortfall and figures to be short 3,000 captains and majors until at least 2013.
Marines appear to be less affected by deployment pace, possibly due to their shorter deployments. For instance, 91 percent of Marine captains are staying beyond their initial term — a better rate than in 2001, according to the Corps.
Even if troop commitments to the twin wars diminish, however, overseas deployment rates for all services are "likely to remain relatively high, and well above pre-2001 levels, for many years to come," said Steven Kosiak, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
But if Obama can deliver on his promise to pursue a conditions-based withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months, time at home could increase rapidly, easing strains all around and providing a major incentive to remain in uniform.
4: Pay and benefits
Equitable basic pay, which has grown steadily and significantly across the board since 1999, is a major incentive to remain in the service, according to Kosiak's 2008 study of military manpower.
"That's an enormous driver of re-enlistment," Warner said.
In 1999, Hosek noted, retention was poor in certain high-tech fields and recruiting was down in the ground forces. Military pay was bumped up significantly beginning in October of that year, and annual raises that outpaced wage growth in the private sector were mandated through 2006.
Those raises were critical to maintaining force strength at the outset of the war on terrorism, Hosek said. Given the increases of the past nine years, he said, "military pay is in a relatively good position right now with respect to civilian pay. If we can just hold it at that level for some time, that will be beneficial."
The era of military pay raises that outpace private-sector wage growth, however, may be at an end; Obama has talked of future military pay raises that maintain "parity" with the private sector.
But beyond pay, there are other aspects of the military benefits package that are tough to give up, particularly in tough economic times — and none more than health care.
Health care costs have been soaring in the private sector for years. But troops get their care for free, and family members have Tricare, which has not seen an increase in beneficiary premiums and deductibles since it was created in the mid-1990s. Tricare is now one of the lowest-cost health plans in the nation.
5: The Post-9/11 GI Bill
The sweeping new education benefits program set to take effect Aug. 1 may be the most significant near-term benefits issue. But its effect on retention is unknown. On one hand, troops may bail out early to get a full four-year college ride on the new GI Bill. On the other, the promise of being able to transfer some benefits to family members in return for serving a certain number of years may convince some people to stick around.
"It remains to be seen how the new GI Bill affects first-term re-enlistments," Hosek said.
But in a September analysis of education benefits and military service, researchers from Clemson University and Rand estimated that usage of the new GI Bill in the Army, which they said relies most heavily on education benefits as a recruiting tool, will rise about 20 percentage points from the current level of 50 percent.
As a result, the researchers concluded, first-term retention in the Army could decline by as much as 8 to 12 percentage points. If that happens, they said, the Army would have to offset the declines "with the use of higher re-enlistment bonuses and other force management tools it has at its disposal."
Researchers made no similar forecasts for the other services.
Such effects may be offset to some degree by the new benefit's transferability feature. While precise rules are not yet issued, the law will let troops transfer GI Bill benefits to a spouse after six years of service if they agree to serve four more. After 10 years, members can transfer benefits to their children.
"Since a very high percentage of military personnel with 10 or more years of service are married and have children, this transferability provision is potentially very valuable to them and could serve to minimize overall adverse separation effects," the researchers said.
According to an internal Pentagon survey, about 65 percent of respondents said they would stay in longer in order to gain the right to transfer benefits, Retherford said, but added: "We probably won't know anything until we have the GI Bill for a couple of years."
6: What about that economy?
From inside the military, the job market on the outside looks lousy, with unemployment rising in the past 1½ years to 6.5 percent from 4.5 percent. "And many economists are expecting a worsening … up to 7 percent or even 8 percent," Hosek said.
When unemployment rises, it's good for recruiting and retention, according to Hosek. It's hardly the only factor, but preliminary findings on a current study indicate the unemployment rate "does appear to have a positive impact on first- and second-term retention.
"Most of the impact will probably be at the first term," said Warner. "After that, I think retention decisions are … a lot less sensitive to the state of the economy."
That lessens the impact of the economy on the overall retention picture, he said.
And even among those who leave, a rocky job market leads many to return to the fold. The Army has seen the return of nearly 500 Army officers who left the service during the past year, said Col. Paul Aswell, chief of the Army's officer personnel division.
Aswell couldn't say for sure what motivated them, but he noted that not all were eligible for retention incentives, so career security and military benefits may have been factors.
Still, there are those who say that even in a depressed job market, service members might have an edge because employers like what they have to offer.
Many of the roughly 16,000 service members who leave the service each month already have college degrees and security clearances and come with valuable leadership skills, a reputation for reliability and a strong work ethic, according to VetJobs.com, an Internet job board that seeks to connect separating service members with civilian employers.
That's especially true for more experienced veterans who have served more than one enlistment, said Ted Daywalt, VetJobs.com's president.
"Those people are in high demand," he said.
From a broad view, however, defense officials believe the rising unemployment rate and softening job market will be a boon to military personnel managers.
"My intuition is that the economy will benefit retention," said the Pentagon's Retherford.
———
Staff writers Jim Tice, Mark Faram, Dan Lamothe and Erik Holmes contributed to this report.
Related reading:
Job, health care concerns key in enlistment choices
Before deciding future, check all the angles
