thedrifter
08-08-06, 10:59 AM
August 14, 2006
Is recruit pool too shallow?
Reserve chiefs say situation may threaten security
By Rod Hafemeister
Staff writer
SAN ANTONIO — Fewer than three in 10 Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are qualified for military service — and every employer is trying to get them, the chiefs of the reserve components said July 19.
Vice Adm. John Cotton, chief of the Navy Reserve, told the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserve that studies have shown 72 percent of those in the prime recruiting pool are ineligible for military service because of education, health issues, drug use or criminal backgrounds.
The remaining 28 percent are being recruited by both the active-duty and reserve components and other government agencies, private industry and colleges, he said.
“We’re all competing for the same folks,” he said.
Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve, agreed.
“Only three out of 10 of them are qualified for service — and half of them are in college,” Stultz said.
The lack of qualified recruits is a national problem that threatens national security, said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Douglas Gilmer.
“Regardless of whichever service we are in, we need to become stakeholders in today’s youth,” he said.
In order to get and retain good troops, the reserves need to offer a variety of incentives, including bonuses, education assistance and some kinds of dependent medical care, both the chiefs and the enlisted members said.
“We recruit members and retain families,” said Lt. Gen. Craig R. McKinley, director of the Air National Guard.
The enlisted members who spoke at the hearing said the single biggest issue for reserve troops is predictability — if they know when they will deploy and for how long, families and civilian employers can cope much better.
Senior leaders and selected enlisted members of the reserve components testified in San Antonio, the commission’s first hearing outside the Washington area.
The congressionally chartered commission has a year to recommend changes in law and policy to make the Guard and reserve better able to meet national security needs.
The component chiefs generally agreed that despite the changes since Sept. 11, 2001, and the expanded use of Guard and reserve forces, Pentagon leaders are not giving reserve components the funding and support needed to fully integrate them into the total force.
The notable exceptions were Lt. Gen. John Bradley, chief of the Air Force Reserve, and the Air Guard’s McKinley.
“We are able to do the job we’re asked to do by our Air Force,” Bradley said. “We are at the table when the decisions are made.”
The Air Guard and Air Force Reserve are facing challenges similar to those seen by the active-duty component, which is cutting costs to pay for new aircraft and other equipment.
But the two chiefs said they are working to minimize personnel cuts.
“We’re taking risks in other things — flying hours, depot maintenance — to try and minimize personnel cuts,” McKinley said.
The Air Reserve is mandated to cut 7,744 positions but is trying to avoid cutting 7,744 actual people, Bradley said. Instead, it’s doing things such as converting some Individual Mobilization Augmentee positions off its accounting and changing who pays for them.
The Air Reserve is also making more use of associate units, Reserve units that co-locate with an active-duty wing and share the aircraft and equipment.
Navy, Coast Guard
Other chiefs said they face obstacles to fully integrating their forces with their active-duty counterparts.
“Five years after 9/11, I think we should be farther down the road than we are,” said Rear Adm. John Acton, deputy commander for mobilization and reserve affairs for the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area.
“I think we’re moving too slowly,” the Navy’s Cotton said. “I think we still have a conscript mentality.”
Under the “continuum of service” model Pentagon leaders envision, he said, it’s no longer appropriate to think of recruiting someone at 18 and keeping him for 20 years.
Reducing the number of people in uniform also means you need to keep the ones you have longer — and it should be possible for someone to transfer from reserve to active-duty status and back again seamlessly at several points in a career.
But that is difficult because of different pay and personnel systems, as well as insufficient “on- and off-ramps” — options for moving between active and reserve, he said.
Army, Marine
Stultz, the Army Reserve chief, said some units have trained to deploy on obsolete equipment and had to learn new gear in theater. He needs funding for new equipment, as well as recruiting and retention incentives such as tuition assistance, which is underfunded by $30 million, he said.
Overall, the Army Reserve is still funded as if it were a Cold War strategic reserve, not intended to join the fight for six months, a year or longer, officials said.
Where the reserve used to alert, then train, then deploy, today it must be already trained when the deployment alert comes, he said.
The new model should plan for a unit to spend one year deployed and four years at home, with the two years before deployment spent doing increased training to be ready to deploy.
The model of one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer is not enough, Stultz said. At a minimum in the two years prior to deployment, annual training should be 21 to 29 days long, he said.
Stultz and Lt. Gen. Jack Bergman, commander of Marine Forces Reserve, both said the existing policy exempting reservists from drilling for 90 days after demobilization is a mistake.
Stultz said the policy prevents commanders from monitoring returning troops for signs of trouble as they shift back to civilian life.
“The 90-day no-drill policy needs to be done away with,” Bergman said. “We need to be able to watch for things like [post-traumatic stress disorder]. During demobilization, we need to provide overwatch for the troops and families.”
Master Sgt. Alphonzo Allen, with the Alaska Air Guard, said his unit scheduled each returning airman to meet with a counselor about two weeks after coming home from deployment.
“They didn’t let us get too far away before they checked up on us,” he said.
Sgt. Christopher McWilliams, with the New Hampshire National Guard, said his unit had mandatory sessions with mental health professionals for troops returning from deployment to Iraq, which removed the stigma of asking for help.
“It’s not that first month or two after a soldier gets back that he has issues — it’s six months, nine months later,” he said. “The first sergeant and commander said, ‘Everyone has to go.’”
Sgt. Allison Kitzerow, an Army reservist from Wisconsin, said her experience was the opposite when she returned from military police duty in Iraq.
“In my unit, there was such a stigma on people who sought out mental health help,” she said. “We were told that if you did have issues, you’d have to stay at the demobilization site longer. We just wanted to go home.”
No more costly
The reserve chiefs disagreed with studies claiming it costs as much to have a guardsman or reservist as it does for an active-duty member.
“It’s a false argument to say that we are anywhere near as expensive as the active component,” Bradley said.
Such studies fail to consider the total cost of an active-duty member, including such things as family housing, full-time medical care and other infrastructure costs.
Cotton said only a portion of any component can be deployed at any given time, while others have to rest, recover and prepare for future deployments.
“Resting them in reserve status is far less expensive [than keeping them on active duty],” he said. “Instead of looking at one-year budget cycles, we should be looking at total life-cycle costs.”
Stultz said when a reserve service member is deployed, he should cost as much as his active-duty counterpart, since he’s doing the same job. But when he returns, the expenses drop.
“I would say the Guard and reserve is a huge bargain for this country,” Stultz said.
Rod Hafemeister covers the Air Force.
Ellie
Is recruit pool too shallow?
Reserve chiefs say situation may threaten security
By Rod Hafemeister
Staff writer
SAN ANTONIO — Fewer than three in 10 Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are qualified for military service — and every employer is trying to get them, the chiefs of the reserve components said July 19.
Vice Adm. John Cotton, chief of the Navy Reserve, told the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserve that studies have shown 72 percent of those in the prime recruiting pool are ineligible for military service because of education, health issues, drug use or criminal backgrounds.
The remaining 28 percent are being recruited by both the active-duty and reserve components and other government agencies, private industry and colleges, he said.
“We’re all competing for the same folks,” he said.
Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve, agreed.
“Only three out of 10 of them are qualified for service — and half of them are in college,” Stultz said.
The lack of qualified recruits is a national problem that threatens national security, said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Douglas Gilmer.
“Regardless of whichever service we are in, we need to become stakeholders in today’s youth,” he said.
In order to get and retain good troops, the reserves need to offer a variety of incentives, including bonuses, education assistance and some kinds of dependent medical care, both the chiefs and the enlisted members said.
“We recruit members and retain families,” said Lt. Gen. Craig R. McKinley, director of the Air National Guard.
The enlisted members who spoke at the hearing said the single biggest issue for reserve troops is predictability — if they know when they will deploy and for how long, families and civilian employers can cope much better.
Senior leaders and selected enlisted members of the reserve components testified in San Antonio, the commission’s first hearing outside the Washington area.
The congressionally chartered commission has a year to recommend changes in law and policy to make the Guard and reserve better able to meet national security needs.
The component chiefs generally agreed that despite the changes since Sept. 11, 2001, and the expanded use of Guard and reserve forces, Pentagon leaders are not giving reserve components the funding and support needed to fully integrate them into the total force.
The notable exceptions were Lt. Gen. John Bradley, chief of the Air Force Reserve, and the Air Guard’s McKinley.
“We are able to do the job we’re asked to do by our Air Force,” Bradley said. “We are at the table when the decisions are made.”
The Air Guard and Air Force Reserve are facing challenges similar to those seen by the active-duty component, which is cutting costs to pay for new aircraft and other equipment.
But the two chiefs said they are working to minimize personnel cuts.
“We’re taking risks in other things — flying hours, depot maintenance — to try and minimize personnel cuts,” McKinley said.
The Air Reserve is mandated to cut 7,744 positions but is trying to avoid cutting 7,744 actual people, Bradley said. Instead, it’s doing things such as converting some Individual Mobilization Augmentee positions off its accounting and changing who pays for them.
The Air Reserve is also making more use of associate units, Reserve units that co-locate with an active-duty wing and share the aircraft and equipment.
Navy, Coast Guard
Other chiefs said they face obstacles to fully integrating their forces with their active-duty counterparts.
“Five years after 9/11, I think we should be farther down the road than we are,” said Rear Adm. John Acton, deputy commander for mobilization and reserve affairs for the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area.
“I think we’re moving too slowly,” the Navy’s Cotton said. “I think we still have a conscript mentality.”
Under the “continuum of service” model Pentagon leaders envision, he said, it’s no longer appropriate to think of recruiting someone at 18 and keeping him for 20 years.
Reducing the number of people in uniform also means you need to keep the ones you have longer — and it should be possible for someone to transfer from reserve to active-duty status and back again seamlessly at several points in a career.
But that is difficult because of different pay and personnel systems, as well as insufficient “on- and off-ramps” — options for moving between active and reserve, he said.
Army, Marine
Stultz, the Army Reserve chief, said some units have trained to deploy on obsolete equipment and had to learn new gear in theater. He needs funding for new equipment, as well as recruiting and retention incentives such as tuition assistance, which is underfunded by $30 million, he said.
Overall, the Army Reserve is still funded as if it were a Cold War strategic reserve, not intended to join the fight for six months, a year or longer, officials said.
Where the reserve used to alert, then train, then deploy, today it must be already trained when the deployment alert comes, he said.
The new model should plan for a unit to spend one year deployed and four years at home, with the two years before deployment spent doing increased training to be ready to deploy.
The model of one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer is not enough, Stultz said. At a minimum in the two years prior to deployment, annual training should be 21 to 29 days long, he said.
Stultz and Lt. Gen. Jack Bergman, commander of Marine Forces Reserve, both said the existing policy exempting reservists from drilling for 90 days after demobilization is a mistake.
Stultz said the policy prevents commanders from monitoring returning troops for signs of trouble as they shift back to civilian life.
“The 90-day no-drill policy needs to be done away with,” Bergman said. “We need to be able to watch for things like [post-traumatic stress disorder]. During demobilization, we need to provide overwatch for the troops and families.”
Master Sgt. Alphonzo Allen, with the Alaska Air Guard, said his unit scheduled each returning airman to meet with a counselor about two weeks after coming home from deployment.
“They didn’t let us get too far away before they checked up on us,” he said.
Sgt. Christopher McWilliams, with the New Hampshire National Guard, said his unit had mandatory sessions with mental health professionals for troops returning from deployment to Iraq, which removed the stigma of asking for help.
“It’s not that first month or two after a soldier gets back that he has issues — it’s six months, nine months later,” he said. “The first sergeant and commander said, ‘Everyone has to go.’”
Sgt. Allison Kitzerow, an Army reservist from Wisconsin, said her experience was the opposite when she returned from military police duty in Iraq.
“In my unit, there was such a stigma on people who sought out mental health help,” she said. “We were told that if you did have issues, you’d have to stay at the demobilization site longer. We just wanted to go home.”
No more costly
The reserve chiefs disagreed with studies claiming it costs as much to have a guardsman or reservist as it does for an active-duty member.
“It’s a false argument to say that we are anywhere near as expensive as the active component,” Bradley said.
Such studies fail to consider the total cost of an active-duty member, including such things as family housing, full-time medical care and other infrastructure costs.
Cotton said only a portion of any component can be deployed at any given time, while others have to rest, recover and prepare for future deployments.
“Resting them in reserve status is far less expensive [than keeping them on active duty],” he said. “Instead of looking at one-year budget cycles, we should be looking at total life-cycle costs.”
Stultz said when a reserve service member is deployed, he should cost as much as his active-duty counterpart, since he’s doing the same job. But when he returns, the expenses drop.
“I would say the Guard and reserve is a huge bargain for this country,” Stultz said.
Rod Hafemeister covers the Air Force.
Ellie