Army Reserve Chief Fears Retention Crisis

revprez · Post by **revprez** » 2004-01-21 01:27am

Washington Post wrote:Army Reserve Chief Fears Retention Crisis
Helmly Faults Open-Ended Deployments, Shortages of Equipment in Iraq War
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 21, 2004; Page A04

The head of the Army Reserve said yesterday that the 205,000-soldier force must guard against a potential crisis in its ability to retain troops, saying serious problems are being "masked" temporarily because reservists are barred from leaving the military while their units are mobilized in Iraq.

Here we go...

Rev Prez

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-21 01:46am

Ok so the US military is being streched to the limits. That means they may not invade anyone this year.

revprez · Post by **revprez** » 2004-01-21 02:03am

evilcat4000 wrote:Ok so the US military is being streched to the limits. That means they may not invade anyone this year.

Don't count on it. The United States Army has been overstretched for going on ten years, the other services less so. The op tempo has spiked but the deployments aren't absurdly over what we saw two or three years ago. It means we need to draw out at least one heavy division by summer. The good news is we really don't need the Army's big guns for any of the other major contingencies.

If the Korean Peninsula goes to shit, we've got 30,000 US Army in USFK's theater of operations and enough supporting air and sea power within 24 to 96 hours response time to support Phase I and II of the oplan. We also have two more MEFs we can deploy inside of 60 days for Phase III. That's on top of nearly 700,000 ROK troops in 4 corps + 2, their air forces and a decent sized surface and submarine navy.

Taiwan's almost completely a Navy show with support from AF at Guam.

The Guard and Reserve problem is long range and we've got time to deal with it. If we have to choose, what we really need to do now is expand special forces and the intelligence community.

Rev Prez

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-01-21 03:42am

I'd suspect delaying the end of their deployments is making it even worse- if you can't rely on when your commander's say you're going home, you'll be even less inclined to re-enlist.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-21 03:44am

Well forcing troops to stay longer than usual will have a negative effect moral.

revprez · Post by **revprez** » 2004-01-21 04:17am

The question is how many soldiers can we retain and for how long. Open source studies in this area are sadly lacking and are outdated by 4 years or more. Either way, it's still a long range problem; General Helmy's got plenty of time to make his case and implement a course of action. I imagine this year the numbers will break.

Fortunately, we don't have any other pressing commitments for the Army.

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Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-01-21 05:49am

Its getting harder to keep people simply because we don't through as much cash at new recruits as we used to

Sign up Bonuses which used to be between $1,000-$5,000 on avarage have droped to $500-$2,000 nevermind there are times of the year were the services offer reduce bonuses or even none(Like the HS gradutation period between May 1st to July 1st)

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-21 08:45am

How much do US soldiers earn ? Is it a good alternative to employment in civilian fields ?

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-01-21 10:51am

evilcat4000 wrote:How much do US soldiers earn ? Is it a good alternative to employment in civilian fields ?

AAAHAHAHAHAHAAH no.

.pdf file military payscale

A private new in the army makes ~1,100.00 a month. Fucking pathetic.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-01-21 11:09am

Chardok wrote:
evilcat4000 wrote:How much do US soldiers earn ? Is it a good alternative to employment in civilian fields ?
AAAHAHAHAHAHAAH no.

.pdf file military payscale

A private new in the army makes ~1,100.00 a month. Fucking pathetic.

Aw, but you're supposed to factor in the room and board you get plus the free medical and dental. You have it made in the military. That is until they start sending your ass on major deployments all the time.

Compared to how things used to be the reserves are royally getting screwed these days. The reserves are supposed to be there for national emergencies or to fill a specific need that out of some fluke the active duty staff can't cover. They should not be activated every few years for some agressive foreign policy or for somebody's financial benefit, and they sure as hell shouldn't be pulling two deployments a few months apart like what's happening to CDR Wilkens.

revprez · Post by **revprez** » 2004-01-21 01:46pm

Tsyroc wrote:Compared to how things used to be the reserves are royally getting screwed these days. The reserves are supposed to be there for national emergencies or to fill a specific need that out of some fluke the active duty staff can't cover.

It hasn't been that way for almost thirty years now. After Vietnam, the DoD decided that reservists and NG need to deploy far more than usual. It reached its peak in the late 1990s when we had moved as many support jobs in the active duty force to the reserves and Guard as possible. We didn't just start using and abusing these guys, we've been doing it for decades.

They should not be activated every few years for some agressive foreign policy or for somebody's financial benefit, and they sure as hell shouldn't be pulling two deployments a few months apart like what's happening to CDR Wilkens.

Then talk to Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton. They started it.

Rev Prez

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-01-21 04:12pm

From what I've seen, so far retention and recruitment shortfalls haven't been any worse then they where in the good old Clinton years. But the real indicator is indeed going to be after the Iraq rotation is done and the current incarnation of Stop Loss is dropped.

revprez · Post by **revprez** » 2004-01-21 04:16pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:From what I've seen, so far retention and recruitment shortfalls haven't been any worse then they where in the good old Clinton years. But the real indicator is indeed going to be after the Iraq rotation is done and the current incarnation of Stop Loss is dropped.

I agree, that's when the real problem starts. That's why they need to get started on it now. Fortunately, finishing up in Iraq will mean that we don't have anymore contingency plans that call for heavy use of the Guard and Reserve.

Rev Prez

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-01-21 04:35pm

revprez wrote: I agree, that's when the real problem starts. That's why they need to get started on it now. Fortunately, finishing up in Iraq will mean that we don't have anymore contingency plans that call for heavy use of the Guard and Reserve.

Rev Prez

The Guard is near useless anyway, almost none of the units are useabul without six months training, and then you've got to tack another one or two onto that while we ship them to wherever where going to fight. The only major conflicts where going to be fighting after eight months are ones we start.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-01-21 04:45pm

Chardok wrote:
evilcat4000 wrote:How much do US soldiers earn ? Is it a good alternative to employment in civilian fields ?
AAAHAHAHAHAHAAH no.

[url=http://%20%20www.dfas.mil/money/milpay/pay/2004paytable.pdf].pdf file military payscale[/url]

A private new in the army makes ~1,100.00 a month. Fucking pathetic.

Well, I'm not going to say that they get paid enough but how many Private's did you know that stayed a private for long periods of time?

Usually shitbirds.

revprez · Post by **revprez** » 2004-01-21 04:50pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:The Guard is near useless anyway, almost none of the units are useabul without six months training, and then you've got to tack another one or two onto that while we ship them to wherever where going to fight. The only major conflicts where going to be fighting after eight months are ones we start.

Unfortunately, we've farmed out a lot of support roles to the Guard and Reserves. They may need to work up over longer periods of time, but we can't really deploy a lot of armoed division equivalents without them.

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Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2004-01-21 06:13pm

evilcat4000 wrote:Well forcing troops to stay longer than usual will have a negative effect moral.

Letting the troops go have real negative effects on the troops who do stay.

EmperorChrostas the Cruel · Post by **EmperorChrostas the Cruel** » 2004-01-21 08:16pm

Let me get this straight.

Now that the Army is fighting and dying on a regular basis, it is harder to get reenlistments, and new recruits? I thought that lowering the reenlistment bonus', and enlistment bonus' took care of that!
Fighting and dying, what the fuck, the Army is there for college money, or job training, right?

(NOT ANY MORE!)
The gung ho glory guys join the Marines in peacetime, hoping for a little "police action"!

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2004-01-21 10:55pm

I agree with SeaSkimmer that a lot of the Guard is useless with the exception of the Air National Guard.

Constant deployements for Reservists are troublesome because while in the duty of the Army they dont get full benefits and you cant make career strides if you are going to be let go.

Same thing when it comes to the civilian side, if you are gone for a year in your paticular career its hard to pick it up again. You cant make much headway if you are activated again a year later.

Im not sure what they can do aside from expand the regular forces or start reducing overseas comitmits.