Army Guard, reserves confront long-term personnel problems.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: UPFRONT

Despite a strengthened recruitment effort, Army Guard and Reserve officials said many of their personnel shortages are unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future.

Of particular concern is the development of new leaders. Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, Army Reserve chief, recently estimated shortages of 5,000 captains and 7,000 other officers.

"It takes four years to produce a commissioned officer, a leader in the Army, of strength and competence and character," Helmly told a congressional hearing. "It will take us in the Army Reserve four to six years at least, at a minimum to reverse this past inattention."

To boost junior officer and noncommissioned officer retention, the Army is working on a plan to give all soldiers--active duty, reservists and guardsmen--more predictability in their deployment schedules. Under a plan submitted to Congress in February, active-duty soldiers could expect to spend two years at their home base after a yearlong deployment. Reservists could have five years and guardsmen four to five years between mobilizations. This plan probably would go into effect in 2007 or later.

Currently, the Army Guard and Reserves are facing "a very challenging year," said Thomas F. Hall, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs. "On retention, we are doing very well. But we're not recruiting as many as expected," he told reporters.

A major factor in this year's shortage is that active-duty personnel in all of the services--who provide many of the recruits for both the Guard and Reserves--are staying in the service in larger numbers than in the past, said the Army Guard chief, Lt. Gen. Roger C. Schultz. For the active-dug, components, he said, "that's a good thing. But what that means for the Guard and Reserve is that prior service members are not available to join our units.

"And for us, that's 5,000, 6,000, maybe 7,000 members a year at a minimum," Schultz said. "We've had years as high as 10,000 soldiers come directly off active duty into our units, and today that's not happening."

Additionally, it is becoming more difficult to attract recruits without previous military experience when they face not just one weekend a month and two weeks of active duty at a nearby facility, but a full year's deployment to combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, Hall said.

About 40 percent of U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are guardsmen or reservists. Not only are they worried about the risks of combat but many also encounter...