Troop Retention Issues Addressed
These Army jobs have the highest turnover
By Hope Hodge Seck
When it comes to military job retention rates, not all specialties are created equal. A Marine in an administrative or logistics role, for example, may see a lot less turnover in their specialty than a rifleman or aircraft maintainer.
New data from all the military services reveals the lowest-retention jobs for each of the services, highlighting a variety of challenges the services face, from competitive pay to effective career progression.
And while retention remains strong across the services even as recruiting falters, personnel officials say they’re working hard to prevent future skill gaps that could affect military readiness.
The article is Army-centric but this touches all the branches. At face value the analysis is just good business, although I’d postulate the specialties hardest to keep are the most employable in the civilian world. Just me.
Proving there is no process however reasonable that can’t be instantly discredited, there’s this:
At a quarterly meeting of the Defense Department-chartered Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services last month, representatives of each of the military services revealed which jobs had the lowest retention rates for each of the genders and discussed what they were doing to promote equity and retain military talent.
How many exactly are “each” and to promote equity one erases merit. I think I can see part of the problem.
Category: Big Pentagon, DEI, The Stupid is Strong
It’s simple, there’s that “up or out” mindset, where a low-density MOS requiring higher promotion points requires an E-4 to exit at eight years. Lower density MOS’ generally include more specialized or technical jobs, so why devote anything past your initial enlistment when you know that you’ve got to bust your ass to get E-5, then make E-6 before 12 or 14 years (Marines/Army, respectively)?
If I’m a fully trained Aviation maintainer, and watch my peers get promoted over me because reasons, I’m not going to be motivated to stay in, especially if I can go work at the hometown airport making 2-3x more money. When the DEI stuff is brought up, it makes the decision to exit even easier. I often bring up Firsts, because they are evidence of the whole DEI scheme. We have the First female Sniper. Good on her, but I don’t care about her gender. A close follow-up to the push for Firsts is the eventual call for diversity, equity, and inclusion across the military.
Call it affirmative action for the masses. I’m a White male E-4, with above average performance. My Aviation MOS needs to promote 50 E-5s, 25 E-6s, and 10 E-7s this year. So, by my math, we’ll ideally have 75 E-5 slots and 35 E-6 slots open. My MOS has 500 E-4s being looked at. Five are transgender, 120 are female, 175 are minorities, and the remaining 200 are White males like me.
-Continued…
So, of the 50-75 E-5 slots, what are my chances of being promoted ahead of the five transgender people, even if my performance is better? How about the 295 females and minorities? We need a diverse and inclusive Army, so what sets me apart from them besides just being a better Soldier and more capable in my job duties?
Now, a few years later, and SGT Mulvaney (She/Her) is looking at making E-6, as am I. We both appear before the board, but Mulvaney has more impact awards than me due to “her” becoming the First transwoman to become the road march champion at Air Assault School and earning her Expert Soldier Badge after lodging a complaint against Cadre. “She” also PCS’ed twice in two years due to alleged harassment, using SHARP guidelines. Each PCS resulted in an ARCOM. I’ve been with the unit for seven years and have little to show for it, while “she’s” got a fancy badge and multiple awards. My 1SG knows my work ethic, but the battalion CSM was the First transman to make E-9. Who “wins” the board? Likely not me. Mulvaney embraced the use of pronouns in “her” bio, while I kept mine simple and to the point.
Before I go too deep into the rabbit hole, I’ll say that if we just ran the military like it’s the military, and not some grand social experiment, we’d probably keep some of the better troops. Instead, it’s almost like a welfare program, where certain groups get promoted quicker, any perceived discrimination results in complaints and often the punishment of leadership, and all you have to do is carry that victim card on you at all times. It’s like the fat Black female E-7 that filed a congressional complaint when she got a bad NCOER after failing the APFT at Drill Sergeant School (in front of the SMA, nonetheless). She was a woman of color, and her 1SG was obviously only rating her poorly due to that. The CSM was in on it too, because both were racist White men.
^THIS^!
It is going to be up to the individual American to defend his/her blade of grass.
Prepare
Amen
Interesting. I expected Infantry, or other combat arms to be at the top of the list. Curioys that the Marines did have Rifleman at the top of theirs, and the Army did not.
I recently found out that I work with two former 0311s now. Funnily enough, when one moved from Lead to GSM, the other got hired on for his former position.
I never served in the Marine Corps but know there’s a lot of pride that goes with earning that EGA. I also know there’s a lot of former Marines serving in the Army, especially as 11Bs. Both of my coworkers got OTH discharges for some reason or another. Neither are bags of poo, so I wonder why they didn’t rate at least a General Under Honorable. None of my business, really, but in the Army, you have to work for anything less than an Honorable. Something tells me that some Marine leadership is a bit more protective of their branch. Fail a PFT, or simply piss off the SgtMaj because you’re not reenlisting? No idea.
One thing about each of them is that they were Terminal Lances. Army Infantry virtually guarantees you’ll make SGT in a few years, and SSG shortly after that. Of course, with two years, you’re automatically promoted to SPC, unless you are that proverbial bag of poo. As I found out, centralized boards (E-7 to E-9) are a bit more hit or miss.
So, just speculating here, but I think that the quality-of-life and career progression for Army Infantry might be a little better than that of the average Marine Rifleman. Also, I guess there’s the whole school/badge thing. You can just about move from E-1 to E-6 without spending more than a couple of years in a line unit, if you can manage to cram in Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, Ranger, Sapper, Rappel Master, Jump Master, and EIB, not to mention BLC and ALC, with maybe even Master Gunner and Battle Staff somewhere in there. I always found it funny how some of the most impressive-looking NCOs had the least leadership experience.
“I always found it funny how some of the most impressive-looking NCOs had the least leadership experience.”
Yup. That’s a lesson PFC D learned early in his career. Had 2 NCO’s that smoked the Audie Murphy boards, SGT Morales boards, Soldier of the whatever boards, 300+ PT, high SQT scores, a CSM’s wet dream. Couldn’t lead a turd down the bowl or even understand the simplest aspects of MOS 31Q. Pretty sumbitches though.
True, I bring him up quite often, because he truly was both a great guy personally and one of the crappiest NCOs I knew professionally, but my former PSG comes to mind. Marine, 75th Ranger, 7th Group…
Dual-tabbed, Combat Diver, Airborne, CIB, EIB (allegedly, he couldn’t produce his certificate when he was Cadre). The previous PSG was a fun-loving SSG who’d led the platoon in Afghanistan. By “fun-loving”, I mean he had a history, usually involving alcohol, and supposedly one of the times he’d been busted down was due to him trying to infiltrate an officer’s club wearing 1LT rank as a PFC. But the guy took care of his Soldiers and was a true leader.
When the SF/Ranger took over, the platoon started griping about no longer going to the gym mid-day, like the previous PSG did. SF/Ranger SFC confided in the Squad Leaders one day that he didn’t feel comfortable guiding them through effective workouts, as even when he was an E-7 in Group, he had his Team Sergeant showing him how to work out and use the equipment.
This is how the (alleged) E4 Mafia takes over. I admit nothing. Call my lawer.
Remember a highly Be-Ribboned ossifer that decided to give himself a sho’ nuff PCS rather than go to Greece? The “Mouse” and 2LT Lowell remember.
I remember the spit shined princesses, criticizing soldiers late in the day for dirty boots, uniforms. Of course they weren’t the ones in motor pool turning wrenches, cleaning gear, draining bilges.
JUST LIKE SOME Shaft (*OOPS!*, Staff!) Ossifer visiting a Unit that had been out in the field for at least a week or two sans hot chow or showers, then nits and picks about the individual Troops’ cleanliness and bearing while wearing a CLEAN, STARCHED Uniform that he left BN or BDE HQ in that morning.
Holy shit that meeting must still be going on if they had to cover each of the genders. There’s like 4,395,234 of them.
Is “furry” a gender yet? Asking for a friend.
Ahem…
Excuses.
The DoD has gotten pretty good at that lately.
Another byproduct of their collective asshatery.