Military Personnel. Longer Time Between Moves Related to Higher Satisfaction andRetention

摘要

Your Subcommittee asked us to provide information related to the experience ofmilitary personnel regarding permanent change of station moves. We briefed your staff on our findings on May 20, 2001. As agreed, this report addresses: PCS tours (including the average duration of PCS tours and the subgroups that experience shorter times between PCS moves, the relationship between shorter duration tours and satisfaction and retention, and the most frequently experienced PCS problems and the subgroups they affect) and unaccompanied PCS tours (including the extent to which they occur and the subgroups that experience them, the reasons for unaccompanied tours, and the relationship between unaccompanied tours and satisfaction and retention). The information in this report was derived from DOD's 1999 Survey of Active Duty Personnel. We worked with the Department to design this survey. It was mailed in the fall of 1999 to a stratified, random sample of over 66,000 uniformed personnel. DOD provided the final survey data to us in late 2000. The survey included several questions dealing with PCS moves.