The Officer Critical Skills Retention Bonus
I received the following memo by Colonel J. B. Burton (USA), Commanding Officer of Dagger Brigade Combat Team in Iraq, via “Warlord Loop” e-mail. An abbreviated version appeared in the Washington Post – see Tom Rick’s Inbox dated 8 July 2007. COL Burton has been kind enough to permit the SWJ to post it in full. Where a military acronym is used I have inserted an explanation.
US Army Officer Retention
The main message from our junior officers is that their service is not about financial gain. These officers want the Army to invest in the human capital that they represent for the future via educational opportunities and duty assignments that reflect their real world experience and contributions to their Nation’s security.
They want recognition for their performance and want a competitive OPMS (Officer Personnel Management System) that rewards top performers. They want challenging duty assignments and educational opportunities that allow them to invest in themselves while providing the time and stability to invest in their families. Educational opportunities are more important than bonus money as it invests in our military’s human capital, while also giving officers a break to have a somewhat normal life.
Most of our single junior officers lack the opportunity to invest the time and effort in developing the relationships that eventually lead to marriage and the development of a family life, for the most part due to the Army’s current OPTEMPO (Operational Tempo). The same is essentially true for married officers who want the chance to raise a family and be there as a parent for their children.
The Army should focus on educational opportunities and duty assignments that promise at least 2-3 year breaks from the deployment cycle. Officers will accept any bonus if offered, but only after they have already made the decision to stay with the Army. If we are convinced that money is the answer to retaining those that have decided to depart the ranks, then we should up the ante to the $50k(+) level to gain their attention.
Discussion Points and Quotes from Captains
For officers that were already planning to stay in the Army, they support this new bonus of “free money.” In effect, “it’s $20k for doing what they were going to do anyway.” At this time, we should keep at least the $20k bonus in effect now that it has been announced, or we may unintentionally discourage those who were already staying in the Army.
$20k though is not enough in itself to sway the others to remain in uniform as they feel they have served their country and fulfilled the commitment in their initial contract. They have nothing to be ashamed of after serving 2-3 combat tours for their nation, and they want to get on with their lives. “They have seen the realities of war while commanding a platoon in combat. Most are not phased by the offer of $20k, which to them is a small sum of money. It computes to only half the cost of a cool car or 4 months’ base pay.”
Having been deployed, these young men and women have been able to save thousands of dollars unlike their civilian peers. They indicate that something in the realm of $50k would likely be more enticing; especially to those few married officers with children. Of note, these officers see troopers re-enlisting all the time for $19-23k (a full year’s base pay for an E-3), with duty station of choice. These officers aren’t offered similar incentives, and they take note.
The population that is targeted has seen at least two deployments (usually in the same unit), no CCC (Captains Career course) and they feel they are no longer competitive due to the Army’s maintenance of an outdated 20-year career model.
These officers do not look forward to the prospect of “another 10 years of back-to-back deployments with little-to-no time to build families or pursue self-development.”
The lack of anything coming from HRC (Human Resources Command) with regard to assignment of choice, graduate school, etc. discourages the targeted populations as this reeks of empty promises. “How could HRC announce an incentive program but leave out all the pertinent details for implementation?”
When HRC decided to make filling MiTTs (Military Transition Teams) a priority, they jeopardized the conventional Army and its officers. “To volunteer for a MiTT assignment, HRC guaranteed the officers their next follow-on assignment after deployment and / or post graduate opportunities. Thus, this preferential treatment has taken the lucrative duty assignments (ex. ROTC, Fort Meade, Fort Carson, etc.) away from those officers who were stop-lossed in a MTOE (Modification of Table of Organization and Equipment) unit and could not volunteer for a MiTT even though they may already possess the experience and capabilities to qualify for these assignments.”
These officers want something that provides them with a break from the deployment cycle. A common response is “Send me to a place where I don’t have to deploy again,” “I would like a two year break prior to deploying again,” and “If I go to the CCC, I’ll only get sent to a MiTT.”
Some of these officers view graduate school as a pre-requisite to a successful career given the recent push to use graduate school as an incentive for retention. “Why would the Army offer it as an incentive if it weren’t important for advancement?”
However, instead of promoting graduate school as an incentive for officer competency, it was tagged with a 6-year ADSO (Active Duty Service Obligation) and therefore became a retention program.
Previously, Army funded degrees did not accompany these lofty ADSOs. Additionally, despite the advertisement of graduate school, many officers soon realize that their deployment timeline does not align with the start of these programs in the early fall of every year.
Bottom line is that the ADSO of 6 years is preventing junior officers from accepting these opportunities, feeling as if they are signing too much of their life and future over with no perceived benefit beyond completion of graduate school.
Potential Solutions
1. Mandatory Assignment Cycles. Institute A and B billet assignments similar to that of the USMC: For every 3 year operational assignment (A Billet), you are FORCED into a 2 – 3 year non-operational (B Billet) assignment (call it a mandatory warrior re-blue program) – Basic Training, Ranger Training Brigade, ROTC, USMA, BOLC (Basic Officer Leader Course), IOBC (Infantry Officer Basic Course), etc. This structure would do a few things:
i. Swells the ranks of the institutional army with combat proven veterans who can effectively educate the future combat leaders based on their personal experiences.
ii. Reduces the same people always fighting the same wars, ultimately increasing the number of combat proven veterans available to our Army and the Joint Force.
iii. Kills the fast-track operational junkies versus the slow-track TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command) sloggers – everyone has to do institutional time and everyone has to do operational time – no shame in the institutional assignment, just another step along the career path that ‘gives back’ to both the Army and the Soldier.
iv. Gives exhausted veteran combat officers, and more importantly their families, a much-needed and deserved break to become close again and reconnect with children who don’t know their parents.
v. Gives single officers a chance to explore for that significant other and start a family that just might produce a future generation of Soldiers and leaders because of the satisfying lifestyle that military service delivered.
vi. Gives those who did not qualify for a fellowship or scholarship for graduate school the opportunity to pursue education during their non-operational assignment.
vii. Open up billets to younger Officers; for instance, IOBC or BOLC’s basic formation mentor is a CPT, but have combat proven lieutenants and former platoon leaders as squad mentors for every 6 officers.
Just an example: The Department of the Navy does this well – shore and sea duty; younger officers are exposed to a variety of billets at younger ages; makes the Marines and Navy very effective in DC for Title 10 responsibilities because most have worked around the beltway — not that I ever want to be around that bullshit, but there are a lot of junior officers who are interested in being a place to best influence the decision-makers of our country, and they have the tactical, ground experience that may be able to aide in our country’s strategic decisions.
2. Fellowships / Scholarships for our more junior ranks. Open scholarship opportunities for company grade officers returning from extended combat tours – Yale, Harvard, state schools, etc. Open these opportunities to any school for which they qualify instead of financial constraints, which dictate the schools they can attend. It is important to not forget about programs such as PGIP (Postgraduate Intelligence Program), JOCCP (Junior Officer Cryptological Career Program), and other specialized military training that offer education benefits. In today’s Army, a number of professional development schools require arbitrary mandatory assignments and duty positions to have been completed prior to attendance. A large number of junior officers who have not completed command already meet the overall requirement of experience to attend these courses due to the OPTEMPO that they’ve been caught up in. We should not deny a junior officer the opportunity to attend specialized training, to include post graduate opportunities, simply because the officer has not completed company command or attended an ICCC (Infantry Captains Career Course). Reward performance and potential vs. sticking to traditional gate strategies for OPMS.
The Army should focus on a graduate school model that brings a 1-for-1 return. Namely, for each year of graduate school that the Army pays for, the junior officer will receive a 1 year addition to their ADSO.
In addition to this method the Army should strive to assign junior officers to billets that allow them to utilize their new found education and professional development. This type method will likely result in voluntary extensions in the long run, making 6 year ADSO’s for attendance to graduate school irrelevant.
Most desire a commitment to graduate education with a utilizing, follow-on assignment to capitalize on that education, while not placing their opportunities to command at higher ranks at undue risk (which is the current 20-year model).
3. Graduate school opportunities in conjunction with CCC attendance. An alternative to sending junior officers to civilian graduate school programs for extended periods of time would be to have each CCC establish agreements with civilian graduate school programs that offer CCC graduates the opportunity to receive graduate degree’s at a reduced timeline due to course work completed during the CCC along with other previously completed Army professional schools. Allow junior officers to extend their time at the CCC to complete these programs IOT receive master’s degrees.
4. Guaranteed company commands. Regardless of ICCC scheduling and attendance, plug these warriors in for commands. Most of them really want to command Soldiers now; if it is not possible in the units where they were raised, then PCS (Permanent Change of Station) the officer to another unit with a vacancy – and advertise the vacancies on a website through AKO (Army Knowledge Online) or some well-known median. Otherwise, command is continually given based on YG (Year Group) instead of overall ability. Our talented officers leave the formation for civilian jobs where they believe merit supersedes longevity. This plan would utilize the OER (Officer Evaluation Report) system to the benefit of Soldiers and allow commanders to put their best Officers in critical positions.
5. Rotate operational units differently. Most officers and Soldiers would rather rotate to Iraq, then do a second rotation to Afghanistan, then a third tour back to Iraq – this shakes up the scenery, allows us to fight a different enemy in different terrain, and think through different problem sets. It also puts a new set of eyes on the trends and problems for each conflict – might skin the cat a different way!
6. Writing incentive bonus. Grant additional pay (on top of their monthly pay) for professional articles and publications into Infantry Journal or Armor Magazine which contribute to the greater body of tactical knowledge in the force; these Officers would write volumes. Chain of command reviews and fills out some form prior to sending to the publication. The publication has the final “say so” after an editor puts his/her eyes on it. After accepted, grant a little additional pay for the contributed piece. It encourages these officers to write about their lessons learned and experiences for the greater good of the Army and for historians.
7. Reward your top officers. Every year, officers receive OERs. In the last several years, we have watered down the importance of changing our format. Ultimately, the Army must recognize our top performers and award them with assignments that continue to provide personal satisfaction and career progression.
“The HRC system has become numb to individual performance and begun to see every officer as equal. However, time and again, our senior leaders can clearly recognize the emerging leaders from the average performer. A personalized system identifies those who must be rewarded and motivates others.”
Failure to recognize our Army’s top performers completely negates any merit system. The current OER system fails to motivate junior officers to work hard and excel. “As the memo already points out, HRC has ceased to look at us as individuals.” “As long as I don’t get a DUI or fornicate on the boss’ desk, I will be promoted with my peers.”
“Anyone who has any more time in grade than me will always outrank me regardless of performance, until the general officer level.”
8. Commander’s discretionary incentives. In order to positively effect the retention of superior junior officers within his formation, a brigade commander must be given the flexibility to pinpoint “incentive packages” to those who are most deserving and would benefit the Army greatest. A Brigade Commander with an allotment of incentives that include money, duty station of choice, specific jobs for non-combat arms officers (military intelligence, signal, etc), graduate school, language school. He can allocate these incentives how he sees fit in order to retain high quality officers. Each battalion commander would create an OML (Order of Merit List) from within his unit which allows the brigade commander to pinpoint and reward his top performers. Giving the brigade commander flexibility to tailor these incentives to the needs of his junior officers will reap greater rewards that a blanket nominal amount will fail to do.
9. Branch / career field / duty station of choice. Anything that provides these warriors some predictability in their lives should be entertained as options for retaining our Army’s future leaders.
Summary
This is a very tough crowd of warriors. They have been ridden hard. Some have been involuntarily extended on their first duty assignment to their fourth year on active duty and are now serving on their 2nd or 3rd combat deployment. They see no end in sight, so our offerings should acknowledge this group specifically that has been caught up fully in the deployment cycle.
They joined willingly when the vast majority of their civilian peers did not. They are our Nation’s modern “300” but they are also young men and women with personal goals, aspirations and desires. They see themselves destined to be at war for the rest of their careers, while their civilian peers are moving on with their lives.
They see that they represent a small portion of the Army’s Officer Corps that has actually deployed to fight this war, and they are frustrated by the knowledge that the majority of their peers may not have deployed thus far. They have spent the past 4 years in a continuous cycle of fighting, training, deploying, fighting, etc. and they see no end in sight.
They have seen their closest friends killed and maimed leaving young spouses and children as widows and single parent kids.
They want time for themselves and time to raise families for awhile. When they look forward to a 15th month deployment, with 12 months in-between, they see their ‘home station’ time as being compressed, intensified training which means more time away from families and personal pursuits.
It’s not about the money, at least not $20k. Increasing the incentive to $50k or more might get their attention. What these warriors really want is for their Army to invest in them personally by giving them time back to invest in themselves and their families.
COL JB BURTON
Commanding Officer
Dagger Brigade Combat Team
1st Infantry Division
Multi-National Division Baghdad
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