Military sabbaticals
I’m just going to leave this here for discussion. From the Associated Press;
Navy Cmdr. Valerie Overstreet wanted to start a family. But her job as a Navy pilot and the fact that she and her husband, also a naval officer, were stationed in different parts of the country made it complicated.
So she decided to take advantage of a fledgling Navy program that allowed her to take a year off and return to duty without risking her career or future commands.
Now, three years later, she’s got a 2-year-old daughter and a 9-month old son, she’s back at work at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and her promotion to captain has been confirmed.
For Overstreet, the year off gave her precious time to have her daughter and get started on her master’s degree. The Navy retains an officer it considers promising without requiring her to sacrifice her family life.
Across the military services, leaders are experimenting with programs that will give valued officers and enlisted troops, men and women, the incentive to stay. Also, as the Pentagon moves to bring women into more jobs closer to the combat zone, military officials believe it is crucial to keep midcareer female officers in the services so they can mentor those on the front lines.
Yeah, the best way to maintain a trained and ready force is to give them years off from their jobs.
Category: Military issues
ANCCPT: the mobilization argument doesn’t work regarding a program targeting active component personnel – they’re already serving full-time and subject to deployment. I’m also reasonably certain the Navy program mentioned in the base article is targeted at Navy active duty personnel.
And as you’ve pointed out: someone in one of the reserve components has an option if the pace of mobilizations/unit duty becomes too much. They can opt to go into the IRR for a period of time. Although that doesn’t remove the possibility of recall, it does generally reduce it drastically – along with any unit responsibilities. Yes, it has career impact (though if you’re a quick study, it needn’t result in any “bad years” – 105 hrs of correspondence courses aren’t that hard to knock out in a year). But it’s preferable to burnout.
I just don’t see something like this (a year or two to “take a knee”) as being viable if made widely available due to its impact on readiness and unit cohesion. And if it’s a limited program with only 20/20 (or even 20/100) slots divided officer/enlisted, well, I just don’t see it as worth the trouble from the perspective of “needs of the service”.
“You pays your money and
@50 ANCCPT, No it is still Gold, those cute little Butter Bars are a great source of amusement, they bring more laughter than pain, but I also take a Bulldozer to War so my view is from a different plain. Do you know what it is like to have a fully Armored D8 or D9 under your sweaty little ass only to have someone tell you that “No you cannot destroy the whole neighborhood” That is what will turn your heart black.
martinjmpr: the two concepts (grad school and sabbatical) aren’t directly comparable. Grad school is intended to develop skills needed by the service in question, which will then be used during a follow-on assignment. The services running these programs have determined the need for both the advanced skill and the utilization assignment. They’ve also determined that sending someone to school (and paying them while doing so) is a better option than trying to recruit individuals with advanced degrees, then running them through a “shake and bake” commissioning program and putting them into positions requiring their degree. (Field experience is worth something, if nothing else than to develop a “BS-filter” based on the real world.)
The comparison between “cushy staff jobs” or FAOs and a sabbatical is IMO similarly inexact. Even if they’re an “easy” job, it’s one the service/HQ involved has determined needs to be performed by a qualified person. Someone thus has to fill the billet.
In contrast, by definition someone on sabbatical is doing activities completely unrelated to their normal job. They have no assigned duties. Indeed, they’ve literally been “excused from duty” to do whatever they like for a period of time.
A paid (or partially paid) sabbatical is a great gig if you can manage to get one. I’m just not sure that Uncle Sam should be funding that for persons serving in uniform.
I’m fully and completely for military sabbaticals, but with a twist.
Give high rankers a year off. If the outfit manages to get by without them for that year, retire or fire them.
Mid level management too, now that I think on it a bit.
The Marine Corps rotates people out of operational billets in their MOS every 2-4 years already (someone’s got to run the schools, recruiting stations, embassy guards, 8th and I, etc.). Infantrymen don’t get a bit better at their jobs while working as body snatchers out of Recruiting Station Bumblescum, but we send them to Bumblescum anyway.
If there is an application process that screens for people who are expensive to train and hard to retain this program probably saves considerably more than it spends. Infantry Cpl/Sgt reenlistment bonuses were running north of $40,000 when I was a platoon commander. Far cheaper to give a guy a year off at 1/15th pay and lock him up for two years on the back end than to give him $40,000 and lock him up for four years, knowing that at least three of those years will almost certainly be spent doing something outside his MOS. I had one Corporal in my company reenlist in Iraq for $40,000 tax free, then get sent to Embassy guard duty once that deployment was over. Last I heard from him he was in his second year as an embassy guard in Rome.
This program is cheaper than a bonus and doesn’t harm unit cohesion or individual readiness any more than the regular b-billet/shore duty/whatever-the-army-calls-it rotation cycle.
Actually, Three Tours – it does. It harms readiness because it will be done in addition to the normal rotations to fill training/garrison/other non-combat-unit billets. This will just cause even more “churn” by adding an additional number of rotation slots to be filled. The bodies will come out of those same line units in addition to those going to embassies, 8th&I, training commands, garrison duty, etc . . . .
In the other jobs, you’re paying people to do less-demanding but still essential jobs. In this program, you’re paying people a reduced rate to sit at home and do whatever. But in both cases, they’re still out of line units.
The training/garrison/ceremonial/embassy jobs have been deemed essential and will be filled. These proposed sabbatical slots are hardly essential, but will still represent additional bodies pulled out of line units.
No. I say again, no. You have options, ladies & gentlemen.
1- don’t get pregnant.
2- don’t use the military as a welfare program.
3- to the men; don’t get the female soldiers pregnant.
4- ladies, just because you’re of the age of consent, you don’t have to consent.
5- the military owes you nothing it gives you what you earn. Earn what you take
I don’t think I want to write what I really think about this. That should tell you what it is.
No, no, no!!! GD it!! Serve your country as the service (of your choice) demands; not when you thinks it’s convenient!
It’s galling.
To think she has been able to take a one year plus hiatus and still remain competitive for promotion.
How can the Navy’s promotion system ever be considered as “merit based”?
Her first assignment back needs to be at sea or (better) to the ‘Stan as an IA and earn the respect of Sailors (Marines & Soldiers) she is charged with leading.
Teaching at the Academy is play time for kids.
As a 29 yr., Navy Captain I’m appalled the program exists.
It’s the nation’s welfare system run-amok.
Gross.