Military Personnel: Evaluation Methods Linked to Anticipated Outcomes Needed to Inform Decisions on Army Recruitment Incentives; Congressional rept

摘要

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has launched several military operations that have dramatically increased the operations tempo of the military services and required the large-scale mobilization of reservists. These factors have particularly affected the active Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, which have shouldered the bulk of the personnel burden associated with ongoing operations in Iraq. A 2007 Congressional Research Service report notes that many observers have expressed concern that these factors might lead to lower recruiting and retention rates, thereby jeopardizing the vitality of today s all-volunteer military.1 Additionally, in 2004 the Army began its modular force transformation to restructure itself from a division-based force to a more agile and responsive modular brigade-based force an undertaking it considers to be the most extensive reorganization of its force since World War II. Both ongoing military operations and transformation have prompted the Army to increase its recruitment efforts. To encourage military service, Congress, through Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006,2 temporarily authorized the Army to provide not more than four new recruitment incentives and directed the Secretary of the Army to submit to Congress a plan for each recruitment incentive it develops under the authority provided.