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| Army reservists choosing to be citizens, not soldiers |
December 30, 2003 |
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Longer deployments blamed for declining retention rate
Eileen Kelley Special to The Denver Post
Amid ongoing conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere, the U.S. Army Reserve is starting to have trouble hanging on to citizen soldiers.
Though the military`s active-duty branches aren`t having problems attracting new soldiers and keeping the ones they have, the Army Reserve missed its national retention goal by 6.7 percent last fiscal year, which ended in September, said Steven Stromvall, a Reserve spokesman.
 `Unless the burdens are reduced we may find ourselves in the midst of a recruiting and retention crisis in the Reserve components. We need to send a clear message in the coming budget to members of the Guard and Reserve that help is on the way,` said a letter to President Bush written in late November by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M.
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`We are at war and people are going to get called up and it is going to be difficult,` he said.
Reserve soldiers are playing an important role in the conflict in Iraq. Roughly 20 percent of the troops there are members of the National Guard or reserves. Next year, the reserves` percentage is expected to double, to 40 percent of all forces, as units from full-time active-duty forces pull out in the spring, said Lt. Col. Bob Stone of the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.
Though most reservists say they knew there was a chance of activation when they signed up, the hardships for many former weekend warriors - longer-than-expected service and dangerous duty - have been well-chronicled. And they`re starting to take a toll.
`This year we have lost 49 soldiers, and that is bad news,` said Master Sgt. Pat Valdez, a spokesman for the 2nd Brigade of the 91st Division of the Army Reserve, which comprises some 800 soldiers from Western Plains states. `They are getting out because of personal reasons, promotions at work and stress on family.`
It`s a decision that reservists who have no choice but to stay in understand. Staff Sgt. Steve Shoemaker spent four years on active duty and 14 years in the National Guard.
`I`ve got two years left. That is what has kept me here. Once you have that much time under your belt, it is a no-brainer,` the 47- year-old Montana National Guardsman said.
But his pending deployment is a first for him as a guardsman. Back home, he left his wife, a job, and three daughters, ages 17, 18 and 20. The eldest was in the midst of planning her wedding when her father`s unit was activated recently and sent to Fort Carson for training.
`I feel like I am stepping out of life,` Shoemaker said.
Pfc. Philip Anderson tried for a full year to get accepted into the National Guard. The lanky Montanan is one inch taller than the maximum height guideline of 6 feet, 8 inches. But the Guard eventually let him in, and for one weekend a month he has served as a mechanic.
In the meantime, he worked hard and got the full-time job of his dreams, as a snowboarding instructor on Big Mountain in Montana. The free lift tickets, and making the first run of the day and the last run at night, were a dream come true for the 24-year-
old.
`It was priceless,` he said. `This deployment is just gonna mess it all up. It took me a year to get in (the Guard) and I guess this is payback for trying so hard.`
The active branches of the U.S. military - the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines - are meeting or exceeding their goals for recruitment and retention. The Army Reserve, too, exceeded its goal for recruiting new troops last fiscal year.
And even the Army Reserve`s missed retention goal wasn`t a first. Since 1996, the Army Reserve has failed to meet such goals three times. But the recent shortfall was the most significant, officials say.
In Colorado, too, where residents are keenly familiar with the sacrifices of Fort Carson soldiers, retention and recruiting have been a struggle.
An 85 percent retention rate is considered good. The Colorado Army National Guard had a 71 percent retention rate in the fiscal year ended September 2002 and 76 percent in the year ended last September.
A `stop loss` movement, under which the government effectively stopped members of some units from retiring due to deployments, may have forced some Guard members to stay after the invasion of Iraq earlier this year.
Recruitment also has been tough. The Colorado Army National Guard needs a membership roster of 3,200 men and women. It came up 70 new recruits short in the year ended Sept. 30.
`If it would have been a normal year, we would have gotten those bodies,` said Clifton Dykes, one of two sergeant majors in charge of recruiting and retention with the Colorado Army National Guard.
Dykes says many in the recruiting business now are actively asking if the war in Iraq is the reason for the problems recruiting and retaining part-time soldiers.
Decades ago the chances of a foreign deployment were nearly nonexistent for National Guard and Reserve members. Today, in contrast, it is more likely for units to be called up, officials say.
The situation has gotten the attention of Congress. Many members fear that unless the active-duty military`s ranks are increased, the trickle of soldiers out of the reserves will become an exodus.
`Unless the burdens are reduced we may find ourselves in the midst of a recruiting and retention crisis in the Reserve components. We need to send a clear message in the coming budget to members of the Guard and Reserve that help is on the way,` said a letter to President Bush written in late November by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M.
The letter, circulated briefly in Congress and given to the president earlier this month, was signed by 75 Republicans, including Colorado`s Joel Hefley, Bob Beauprez and Tom Tancredo. Colorado`s Mark Udall, a Democrat, and 51 other Democrats also signed the letter.
Rep. Scott McInnis did not sign. A spokesman for his office said the matter of increasing the military should be left to experts, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and not Congress.
But others in Congress argue that beefing up active-duty forces is necessary given the ongoing war on terror and that the nation`s active combat force has been cut in half since Vietnam.
Several Democrats introduced on Dec. 8 a bill that calls for an additional 83,700 members of the Army, Marines and Air Force over the next five years.
`We need to have much more flexibility in the end-strength numbers of our active-duty military so that we are not overusing our National Guard and Reserve, which are fundamental to our ability to protect our homeland,` said Rep. Ellen Taucher, D-Calif, author of the bill.
`I think a lot of (reservists) are eyeing the exit door,` she said. `They are getting tremendous pressure from the families, and quite frankly, I don`t blame them.`
To date, no Republicans have joined Taucher in sponsoring the bill. But Taucher, a seven-year member of the House Armed Service Committee, said last week that she anticipates they will join her in 2004.
The bill, like the letter to Bush, would be intended to help part- time soldiers currently deployed and those preparing for deployment, as well as to stymie the feared exodus from part-time soldiers.
Taucher proposes to increase the active-duty military by 8 percent over five years.
Any resulting increase in active forces, however, may come too late to stave off further departures from the reserves.
Sgt. Kathleen Lynch of Kalispell, Mont., has spent 11 years in the military, both full and part time. The 47-year-old elementary guidance counselor was hoping to get out of the Montana National Guard before her unit was activated recently. But the stop-loss movement prevented her from leaving in January.
Now she is at Fort Carson training for war. When she left the full-time military and joined the Guard in 1997, she said, she knew there was a chance of deployment - but not for the length of time she now faces.
``There was always that possibility, but for six months, not the 18 months that it is now," she said. ``Now, you might as well be active duty." |
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