Cracks and fissures: Pentagon says 6 percent of force is highly stressed

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - 7:22 PM Share

This Pentagon study is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in military personnel issues, but especially for those looking at PTSD. The bottom line is that at least 6 percent of the active-duty force appears to be highly stressed, having served more than 25 months in combat zones since 9/11, while 74 percent have served less than 12 months in such zones.

Personnel policy wonks will want to dive deeper, but there are three easy points to take away here: 1) A small group is carrying a disproportionate part of the load, and 2) the majority isn't carrying its share, so 3) the Army needs to do a better job of spreading the burden.

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IRR SOLDIER...

9:32 PM ET

January 27, 2009

A Flawed Study that Greatly Understates the Problem ...

Tom,

Thanks for sharing. This "study" should see the light of day because it is methodologically flawed and greatly understates the problem. People need to see this for what it is - a whitewash. Where to begin?

1. For starters, the study aggregates the services and tries to lump together the USAF and Navy with the Army/USMC to arrive at the 6% "stressed" number. But that's just the start of the study's problems.

2. The study does not include thse who ENTERED or DEPARTED service in the 88 months between 2001 and 2008. WTF? That means that the 2002 USMA class that left in record numbers and the trooper in the 101st who enlisted for 4 years in 2003 and served 3 combat tours (his third on stop loss), are not counted in the sample. This is a major flaw. We all know folks who have done 3 tours and either entered service after 9/11/01 or have left service. Amazingly, they are not included in this study. Again, WTF? By only factoring in CPTs who were in service in 2001, you get a very skewed picture of the problem. The problem is totally understated. Let's face it, the "stress" on the force is borne heavily by the enlisted and officers who have less than 7.5 years of service, yet this population is excluded from the analysis. How can you omit the sacrifices and burdens borne by every basic training class since 2002 and call this a legitimate, cross-sectional study?

I could go on for hours. This study is crap and has no validity to extrapolate its findings across the total force.

BHILFERTY

5:33 PM ET

January 28, 2009

West Point retention

IRR Soldier,

I have no specific comment on your argument, but the 2002 USMA class did not leave in record numbers.

That is a falsehood spread by repeated media mentions--fueled, I believe, by a desire by many in the media for that to be true because that "fact" fits into their frame of reference about war in general and Iraq in particular.

Here are the facts for the past 10 West Point classes that are past their 5-year ADSO (Active Duty Service Obligation). Numbers are % retained.

YG \ % 5 Yrs 6 Yrs 10 Yrs 15 Yrs
1993 70 51 33 29
1994 68 48 33
1995 67 50 36
1996 72 54 36
1997 73 58 36
1998 80 58 35
1999 72 59
2000 70 51
2001 66 50
2002 68 51
2003 80

We want the 6 year retention to be higher than the current 50-51%, but that % is not unprecedented--was lower for the class of 1994. And the class of 2001's 5 year retention of 66% is higher than the class of 1987's 60%.

West Point doesn’t exist in a vacuum. American society has changed since the 50s, 60s and 70s, and West Point graduate retention did decrease in the 1980s. It has remained about at those levels ever since.

According to the Dept. of Labor, in the 21st Century the median time workers stay in one job is only 4 years. But, by definition, our graduates serve in the active Army for at least five years and most serve beyond that.

The Department of Labor also found that older workers tend to have much longer tenure, while West Point graduates are, by definition in their early to mid-twenties upon graduation.

Bottom Line: West Point grads are not fleeing the Army, they are not leaving the fight, they are serving honorably as they always have. So if someone needs ammunition to prove one point or another, they need to look elsewhere.

Bryan Hilferty
Colonel, Infantry
West Point Director of Communications

IRR SOLDIER...

6:06 PM ET

January 28, 2009

You Cannot Gloss over the Impact of Stop-Loss ...

COL Hilferty,

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your thoughtful response and sharing this information/perspective with this influential audience.

I would be remiss however if I failed to point out that the 5-year and, in some cases, 6 year retention numbers for USMA and ROTC graduates were heavily impacted by the DA Stop-Loss Policy. Upon completion of their mandatory, 5-year ASDSO, a rough back-of-the-envelope estimate would show that anywhere from 25-35% of USMA graduates fall under stop loss and can't leave the Army even if they wish to. In some cases, stop loss has kept USMA graduates in service for up to eighteen months beyond their ADSO. While the USMA Class of 2002's 5 year retention numbers may not look like an aberration historically, when you factor in that 1/4 to 1/3 of the Class could not even opt to leave the Army if they wanted to, the numbers are astonishing. Basically 75% of the class exited the Army in numbers historically seen only when 100% of the Class was given that option.

Given the drawdown of the early to mid 90's, the classes of 1987 and 1994 may have had other factors (e.g. generous seperation incentives, limited promotion opportunities and no-question "early outs") influence their decisions. These options were certainly not available to the Class of 2002, so a side-by-side comparison is inappropriate.

While we certainly can take into consideration career change information gleaned from the Department of Labor, I don't think that it can fully explain the Army's officer retention crisis. For starters, much of this "career mobility" in the civilian sector can be attributed to a decrease in private sector benefits (e.g. defined benefit pensions and non-contributory healthcare) as well as a perceived decrease in upward wage and and position mobility. The Army is impacted by none of these post-industrial market forces. It still has a 20-and-out, 50% pension, exceptional healthcare benefits and for today's officers a nearly 100% promotion rate to Major and an over 90% promotion rate to LTC. Simply put, Army CPTs have fringe benefits their civilian peers can only dream of and wide-open promotion potential to O-5 - things unheard of during the AVF - and yet they still leave.

When compared to its sister academies, my understanding is that USMA has the lowest graduate retention rate on active duty. While some of this can be attributed to the onerous ADSOs that encumber Naval and USAF aviators, I think there's more to it. If I recall, this trend was in place before OEF/OIF.

Finally, USMA's career retention rate does not seem to stand out when compared alomgside ROTC and OCS. It seems roughly the same.

WALKING WOUNDED

5:23 PM ET

January 28, 2009

Statistics, TBI, and damn lies

I have to agree with IRR Soldier, that dilution thru averaging is one of the most common statistical dodges. Half truth is all lie, if the intent is to misdirect.

Any measure of combat manpower levels and stress attenuation that mentions PTSD, but fails to mention TBI, is also misdirection. The medical estimate on traumatic blast injury attrition, which is known to have delayed sequalae and accumulative component, has not been opened to public view.

The medical generals proudly directed the primary military mission, which was to return men to the firing line ASAP, in a time of manpower shortage. Hooah. Now they need to answer to the second part; what is the TBI force level/effectiveness picture?

Measuring force level/combat effectives and attrition is one of the most basic requirements of military calculus. No less for TBI in 2009 than for marching fitness in 1918.

Whatever the experience level, manning an automatice weapon with neurologically impaired executive function, or a trainer with impaired memory, puts the COIN mission at risk.

IRR SOLDIER...

5:37 PM ET

January 28, 2009

To elaborate on this point ...

Walking Wounded is spot on, but I would like to press his case further. This "study", by design, omits anyone that ENTERED or DEPARTED service since 9/11. Most of those CPTs, LTs, SSGs and SGTs we know and hear about serving multiple, repetitive combat tours are not included in this study? Why? Because they weren't in uniform in 2001/02. This study design flaw is absolutely fatal as it purposefully omits from analyisis the very population that we acknoweldge are bearing the greatest burden of current OPTEMPO - Company Grade officers and mid-grade NCOs.

Look at the briefing slides. The only Army Captains included are Year Groups 1999, 2000 and 2001 and those commissiond via OCS from within the Army after September 2001. This omits the overwhelming majority of Captains from the study who entered active duty after 2001 - Year Groups 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.

The Lieutenant data is even more inadequate as it only includes those OCS graduates who were in service as enlisted soldiers in September 2001. This even excludes many enlisted who ultimately went to OCS, but didn't join the Army until 2002 or later. Basically, they are looking at maybe 8-10% of the Army's total LT population and passing it off as a cross-cutting finding. It's not since no ROTC, USMA, OCS-College Op or OCS-In-service who enlisted after late 2001 are included.

MACLEOD185

6:22 PM ET

January 28, 2009

agreed, but more needs to be done

I think your three points are good start but the military needs to make mental health a priority. The way in which this country treats its veterans is abhorrent. Young men and Women who have given up their best years to the service of this country are virtually left without a support structer when they come home. They are left with the horrific memories of what they have seen in the combat theatre only to be left to their own devices afterwards. Combat is a hard, terrible thing and being a soldier is a very tough job, as it should be. Our soldiers need the care, incentive, and pay to match what they have givin up for this country. It is apparant that the army needs to spread the burden out more, but they are not going to be able to do this if they can't get enlistment nubers up. to do that they need a comprehensive overhaul of the post combat care system, education benefits, and monetary incentives. If I can sit in an office and type all day making 50% more than the average soldiers salary then there is something very wrong with the system.

Patrick from www.yournewswire.com

UNICORN

2:00 AM ET

January 29, 2009

IRR Soldier: You wrote: "The

IRR Soldier: You wrote: "The study does not include those who ENTERED or DEPARTED service in the 88 months between 2001 and 2008. WTF?"
IN FACT It excludes "entered AND departed" during the 88 months, because their payroll data can not be accessed, not as some way to manipulate the data. The study freezes the Services' personnel at December 31, 2008. That population was then checked, person to person for total months combat pay received over the 88 months, then reported by rank as of that date (whether they had been in service for part or all of that 88 months)
The goal was not to gloss over anything in the aggregation, the individual services' data is broken out in the later slides.
The "stress" here is not PTSD or any other measure, the data only records TIME.
The numbers on the right side of the graphs include time in places where there is not a great deal of combat is occurring, say UAE and the Philippines, so the number of guys actually on the true point of the bayonet is smaller.
It also can not differentiate time in Dubai from time in Baghdad it only sees months of combat pay, not places where it was earned.
Also someone with 12 months in 2002 and 12 months in 2008 is reported just like someone with 2 12 month tours 10 months apart, and the stress on those two guys is far different, all other things being equal. .
The most important data is on the left sides of the chart. Given that the Army plans to add 60,000 more personnel of which less than 20,000 of that 60K are to go to combat MOSs, the question is will that solve the problem? With so very much of the entire Army population never drawing combat pay, most of which is in the institutional Army, should so much of the uniformed army never draw combat pay while a small part of that Army draw so much? In my day that institutional Army allowed the combat forces in to it for cool off tours, in the peacetime army combat unit that rarely deployed, the relaxed op tempo enabled an internal cooling off cycle, now in a continuous war, those combat folks can never get out of that division or brigade to cool down.
Unicorn

UNICORN

2:04 PM ET

January 29, 2009

J Thomas: "...... something

J Thomas: "...... something needs to be done." I agree, contrary to the politicians we are not a nation at war, and contrary to the Generals we are not an Army at war. As always its a small band of brothers on whose back this burden falls. Unicorn

UNICORN

1:04 AM ET

February 4, 2009

J Thomas: Good points, all of

J Thomas: Good points, all of which require data from a great amount of time and effort which is why the Board called for a follow on study. Actually, my intuition is that the numbers of departees with high number of rotations are smaller than you think, and the senior folks with high numbers of months are more the result of "visits" than actual tours, but only the data will tell for sure. Remember there were huge number of Guard combat folks that were in the mix throughout(as I remember it, sometimes there were more Guard combat elements than active duty in Theater). The additional work will clarify the data for the institutional force and the deployed forces only then can the policy be put straight. Unicorn