Military Personnel: Strategic Plan Needed to Address Army's	 
Emerging Officer Accession and Retention Challenges (19-JAN-07,  
GAO-07-224).							 
                                                                 
Accessing and retaining high-quality officers in the current	 
environment of increasing deployments and armed conflict may be  
two of the all volunteer force's greatest challenges. The	 
military services use three programs to access officer		 
candidates: (1) military academies, (2) the Reserve Officers'	 
Training Corps (ROTC), and (3) Officer Candidate Schools (OCS).  
In addition to accessing new officers, the services must retain  
enough experienced officers to meet current operational needs and
the services' transformation initiatives. GAO was asked to assess
the extent to which the services are accessing and retaining the 
officers required to meet their needs. GAO also identified steps 
that the Department of Defense (DOD) and the services have taken 
and the impediments they face in increasing officers' foreign	 
language proficiency. For this report, GAO examined actual	 
accession and retention rates for officers in fiscal years (FYs) 
2001, 2003, and 2005 as well as projections for later years.	 
Also, GAO reviewed documents on foreign language training and	 
plans.								 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-224 					        
    ACCNO:   A65091						        
  TITLE:     Military Personnel: Strategic Plan Needed to Address     
Army's Emerging Officer Accession and Retention Challenges	 
     DATE:   01/19/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Army personnel					 
	     Colleges and universities				 
	     Federal service academies				 
	     Foreign languages					 
	     Military forces					 
	     Military officers					 
	     Military personnel 				 
	     Military recruiting				 
	     Military training					 
	     Scholarship programs				 
	     Strategic planning 				 

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GAO-07-224

   

     * [1]Results in Brief
     * [2]Background
     * [3]Services Generally Met Most Accession Needs for Newly Commis

          * [4]Services Generally Met Most Overall Accession Needs for Newl
          * [5]All Services Had Problems Accessing Officers for Medical Occ
          * [6]All Services Had Problems Accessing Newly Commissioned Offic
          * [7]Army Faces Some Unique Future Officer Accession Problems

     * [8]All Services Except Army Generally Met Past Officer Retentio

          * [9]Army Faces Multiple Retention Challenges, but Other Services

               * [10]Army Faces Challenges to Retain Officers at Junior and
                 Mid-l
               * [11]Other Services Generally Met Their Past Retention Needs
                 but

          * [12]While All Services Had High Continuation Rates among African

     * [13]Steps Are Being Taken to Improve the Foreign Language Profic

          * [14]DOD and the Services Are Taking Steps to Improve Junior Offi
          * [15]Impediments Could Both Slow the Services' Efforts to Improve

     * [16]Conclusions
     * [17]Recommendation for Executive Action
     * [18]Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
     * [19]Scope
     * [20]Methodology
     * [21]GAO Contact
     * [22]Acknowledgments
     * [23]GAO's Mission
     * [24]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [25]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [26]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [27]Congressional Relations
     * [28]Public Affairs

Report to the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

January 2007

MILITARY PERSONNEL

Strategic Plan Needed to Address Army's Emerging Officer Accession and
Retention Challenges

GAO-07-224

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 6
Background 9
Services Generally Met Most Accession Needs for Newly Commissioned
Officers Despite Some Challenges, but Army Faces Unique Problems with
Future Accessions 10
All Services Except Army Generally Met Past Officer Retention Needs, but
All Face Challenges Retaining Certain Officer Groups 24
Steps Are Being Taken to Improve the Foreign Language Proficiency of
Junior Officers, but Many Impediments Could Slow Progress 38
Conclusions 42
Recommendation for Executive Action 43
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 43
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 46
Appendix II Comments from the Department of Defense 51
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 55
Related GAO Products 56

Tables

Table 1: Army Commissioned Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005,
by Commissioning Program 12
Table 2: Marine Corps Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, by
Commissioning Program 13
Table 3: Navy Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, by
Commissioning Program 14
Table 4: Air Force Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, by
Commissioning Program 15
Table 5: Physician Accession Goals and Actual Accessions for Selected
Years, by Service 16
Table 6: Physician Scholarships Awarded Compared to Service Goals for
Selected Years, by Service 16
Table 7: Dentist Accession Goals and Actual Accessions for Selected Years,
by Service 17
Table 8: Nurse Accession Goals and Actual Accessions for Selected Years,
by Service 17
Table 9: Percent of Officer Accessions by Race and Ethnicity for Each
Military Service 19
Table 10: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Army Commissioned
Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years and Key
Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers 26
Table 11: Army's Projected Percentages of Overfilled and Underfilled
Positions for Majors in Specified Specialty Areas in FY 2007 28
Table 12: Service-Specific Continuation Pays and Incentives Awarded to
Officers in FY 2005 29
Table 13: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Marine Corps
Commissioned Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years
and Key Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers 31
Table 14: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Navy Commissioned
Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years and Key
Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers 33
Table 15: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Air Force Commissioned
Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years and Key
Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers 34
Table 16: Service-Specific Continuation Rates in Percent for
African-American and White Officers for Selected Fiscal Years 35
Table 17: Service-Specific Continuation Rates in Percent for Hispanic and
Non-Hispanic Officers for Selected Fiscal Years 36
Table 18: Service-Specific Continuation Rates in Percent by Gender for
Selected Fiscal Years 37
Table 19: Installations and Offices Where GAO Obtained Documentary
Evidence and Officials' Views Pertaining to Officer Accessions 48
Table 20: Installations and Offices Where GAO Obtained Documentary
Evidence and Officials' Views Pertaining to Officer Retention 50

Abbreviations

DOD Department of Defense
DOPMA Defense Officer Personnel Management Act
FY fiscal year
GPRA Government Performance and Results Act
OCS Officer Candidate School
OTS Officer Training School
OUSD (P&R) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel & Readiness
ROTC Reserve Officers' Training Corps
USAFA U.S. Air Force Academy
USMA U.S. Military Academy
USNA U.S. Naval Academy

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United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

January 19, 2007

The Honorable Ike Skelton
Chairman
The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Armed Services
House of Representatives

Ensuring the availability of sufficient numbers of trained, high-quality
personnel in an environment of increasing deployments and armed conflict
may prove to be one of the greatest personnel challenges faced by the U.S.
military since the inception of the all volunteer force in 1973. Unlike
the civilian sector, the military recruits, accesses, and trains all of
its own leaders. Therefore, today's policy decisions and efforts on
officer recruiting influence the future availability of officers. In
addition, all of the services must retain sufficient numbers of
experienced, skilled, and qualified officers to meet their current and
future needs.

Before officers can be commissioned at the most junior level, candidates
must complete training programs, some of which take up to 4 years. The
military services use three types of programs that award commissions to
officer candidates after they graduate from a program: (1) military
academies, (2) Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), and (3) Officer
Candidate School (OCS) for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps or Officer
Training School (OTS) for the Air Force.

           o Military academies: The U.S. Military Academy (USMA), U.S. Naval
           Academy (USNA),^1 and U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) each run
           4-year programs that provide successful candidates with bachelor's
           degrees and commissions as military officers. In addition to
           completing their academic courses, the approximately 12,000
           officer candidates who attend the academies each year participate
           in rigorous military training activities and mandatory athletic
           activities. In return for their free education, the graduates must
           serve on active duty for 5 years after graduation.
           o ROTC: The services' ROTC units are located at civilian colleges
           and universities throughout the country, with some academic
           institutions offering ROTC from more than one service. Currently,
           Army ROTC is located at 273 academic institutions, Navy ROTC at
           71, and Air Force ROTC at 144. Officer candidates enrolled in ROTC
           programs must meet all graduation requirements of their academic
           institutions and complete required military training to receive
           commissions as officers, usually after 4 years. All officers who
           received Army or Navy ROTC scholarships and all Air Force officers
           who graduated from ROTC must typically commit to 4 years of active
           duty military service after graduation, while Army and Navy
           officers who did not receive ROTC scholarships must serve 3 years
           on active duty.

           o OCS/OTS: These officer commissioning programs are designed to
           augment the services' other commissioning programs. Because these
           programs focus only on military training, they are short, ranging
           from 6 weeks (Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program) to
           14 weeks (Army OCS). Many, but not all, graduates have prior
           undergraduate degrees and are obligated to serve a minimum of 2
           years on active duty as officers. Compared to the other services,
           the Marine Corps makes more extensive use of its OCS commissioning
           program.

^1USNA provides both Navy and Marine Corps officers.

The general approach that the services use to meet their accession needs
has been to first depend on the service academy and ROTC program. When
these programs are unable to meet a service's needs for newly commissioned
officers, the service turns to its OCS/OTS program to bridge the gap.
Conversely, during periods of drawdown, all of the commissioning sources
may cut back on their numbers of officer candidates, but the OCS/OTS
program provides the most immediate means for achieving the downsizing.
Unlike the academy and ROTC programs that take up to 4 years to produce an
officer, the OCS/OTS program can quickly expand or retract. In addition,
under Title 10, each service directly commissions officers with particular
professional skills, like physicians, dentists, nurses, lawyers, and
chaplains who do not need to attend the major commissioning programs.

Since its enactment in 1980, the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act
(DOPMA)^2 as codified in Title 10 of the U.S. Code has provided the basis
for the services' officer career management systems. The original
objectives for DOPMA were to "maintain a high-quality, numerically
sufficient officer corps, [that] provided career opportunities that would
attract and retain the numbers of high-caliber officers needed, [and]
provide reasonably consistent career opportunity among the services."^3
While DOPMA and other provisions of Title 10 outline requirements for
managing the officer corps, the services' manpower and reserve affairs
offices use additional types of data--including historical continuation
rates^4 and projected changes in the services' size and missions--to
identify officer accession and retention needs. In addition, the services
attempt to attract an officer corps that reflects the racial and ethnic
composition of the United States. Finally, a new emphasis for officer
training is the focus on foreign language and cultural skills. As outlined
in the February 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report and other
Department of Defense (DOD) guidance, the department aims to develop a
broader linguistic capability and cultural understanding, which it
identified as critical in prevailing in the Global War on Terrorism and
meeting 21^st century challenges.

^2Pub. L. No. 96-513 (1980), codified as amended in various sections of
Title 10 of the U.S. Code.

Within the last decade, DOD has experienced both downsizing and increases
in the size of the forces, including officers. During the 1990s, each
service decreased its number of officers as the Cold War came to a close.
However, post-September 11, 2001, operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and
assignments to other homeland and global commitments have placed strains
on the all volunteer force. In recognition of the demands placed on the
Army and Marine Corps, which have provided the majority of forces for
recent operations, Congress increased the authorized end strength of the
Army by 30,000 since 2004 and the Marine Corps by more than 7,000 since
2002. While these services' OCS programs offer a means for increasing the
numbers of newly commissioned officers in a relatively short period to
address a change in end strength, it takes years to grow experienced
leaders, which presents a different officer career management
challenge--officer retention.

We have issued a number of reports that provide policymakers with
information for making informed decisions about the all volunteer force.
For example, in September 2005, we reported on the demographics of
servicemembers in the active and reserve components; and in November 2005,
we reported on challenges DOD faces in recruiting and retaining sufficient
numbers of enlisted personnel.^5 In response to your request, this report
assesses the extent to which the services are (1) accessing the numbers
and types of commissioned officers required to meet their needs, and (2)
retaining the numbers and types of officers they need. We also identified
steps that DOD and the services have taken and the impediments that they
face as they attempt to increase foreign language proficiency among junior
officers.

^3H. R. No. 96-1462, at 6345 (1980).

^4Continuation rates represent the number of officers who remained in the
military for an entire fiscal year divided by the number of officers who
were also present at the beginning of the year.

We limited the scope of our work to the four active duty DOD services:
Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Also, we examined actual
accession and continuation rates for fiscal years (FY) 2001, 2003, and
2005 as well as projections for FY 2006, the year when we began our work,
and later years. FY 2001 data represented the situations present
immediately before the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, and FY 2005
data represented the most recent fiscal year for which the services had
complete data. FY 2003 data provided information on interim conditions and
allowed us to examine the data for trends and other patterns. To
accomplish our work, we reviewed reports, laws, and DOD-wide and
service-specific officer management guidance--including DOPMA and other
provision of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, defense authorization acts, the
2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, and policies and directives--to gain a
comprehensive understanding of officer recruitment, commissioning,
training, and retention. We obtained documents and met with officials from
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness
(OUSD [P&R]), the services' headquarters, personnel and manpower commands,
service academies, ROTC commands, and OCS/OTS commands to obtain an
integrated understanding of the three officer-related issues that we were
asked to evaluate. We obtained and analyzed accessions and continuation
data from DOD's Defense Manpower Data Center, but our assessment of the
data's reliability identified incorrect information that was severe enough
to prevent those data from being used for this report.^6 As a result, we
subsequently obtained accession and continuation information from the
services. While we did not conduct independent analyses using the
services' databases, our assessment of their data's reliability, including
a review of relevant documentation, and a comparison of service-provided
information to similar information from other sources and for other time
periods. We determined that the service-provided data was sufficiently
reliable for the purposes of this report. For our assessment of officer
accessions, we examined information showing the numbers of officers
commissioned from the services' officer programs during FYs 2001, 2003,
and 2005 for trends and other patterns and compared the numbers of
officers produced to the staffing needs of the services' occupational
specialty areas. We found that the services determined their accession
needs for each general category of specialty but did not develop a
servicewide total accession goal for each year. Also, we reviewed internal
service documents to identify potential causes and effects of staffing
gaps. In our examination of officer retention, we performed similar
analyses of quantitative continuation information and reviews of documents
to identify patterns, gaps, and potential causes and effects. Our
continuation analyses focused on four key points in officers'
careers--years 3, 4, 5, and 10--that service-retention experts helped us
to identify as when retention decisions are most likely to occur.
Additionally, we met with a number of DOD officials, including
representatives at the officer commissioning programs, and received a wide
variety of reports and other documents to obtain an understanding of
efforts to improve foreign language training. We then used the information
to identify challenges the services face in providing additional training
in their officer commissioning programs. We assessed the reliability of
the data we used and determined that it was sufficiently reliable for the
purposes of our report. We conducted our review from September 2005
through November 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. Appendix I contains more detail on our scope and
methodology.

^5GAO, Military Personnel: Reporting Additional Servicemember Demographics
Could Enhance Congressional Oversight, GAO-05-952 (Washington, D.C.: Sept.
22, 2005); and GAO, Military Personnel: DOD Needs Action Plan to Address
Enlisted Personnel Recruitment and Retention Challenges, GAO-06-134
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 17, 2005).

^6Our assessment of the numbers of officers accessed from the various
officer commissioning programs revealed major data reliability concerns
for the information that we obtained from the Defense Manpower Data
Center. The services subsequently supplied us with information that showed
under- and overcounts for the numbers of officers commissioned into each
service. At the extreme, the Center's results showed that the Marine Corps
commissioned 17 officers in FY 2005; whereas the service indicated that it
had actually commissioned 160. We, therefore, used only service-provided
data in this report. We are developing a report that further documents
these data problems and recommends corrective action.

Results in Brief

The services generally met most of their overall accession needs for newly
commissioned officers, but the Army faces challenges accessing enough
officers to meet its future needs. Each service must commission enough
junior officers from its major commissioning programs (academies, ROTC,
and OCS/OTS) each year to meet the requirements of current and future
operations while striving to maintain an officer corps that reflects the
racial and ethnic composition of the nation's population. The Army did not
meet its need for newly commissioned officer in FY 2001 and 2003 because
it did not commission enough officers in its basic branches, or specialty
areas, such as infantry and signal officers. However, the Army did meet
its needs in FY 2005. In contrast, the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force
met their overall FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005 officer accession needs, but
each experienced challenges accessing specific officer groups, for
example, flight officers. The services have also struggled to access
enough physicians, dentists, and nurses. In addition, the services have
been challenged to access officers of racial and ethnic minorities,
particularly African Americans and Hispanics. Moreover, the Army expects
to struggle with future accessions. The Army's current approach is to
first focus on its ROTC program and academy to meet its officer accession
needs, and then compensate for accession shortfalls in these programs by
increasing OCS accessions. However, the Army has not been accessing enough
officers from ROTC and USMA. Army officials stated that to meet their
current ROTC goal they need at least 31,000 participants in the program,
but in FY 2006 they had 25,100 participants in the program. Fewer Army
ROTC participants may reflect the decrease in Army-awarded scholarships to
officer candidates in recent years, an outcome that Army officials
attribute to budget constraints. Additionally, USMA's class of 2005
commissioned 912 graduates, short of the Army's goal of 950, while the
class of 2006 commissioned 846 graduates, missing its goal of 900
graduates. Commissioning shortfalls at USMA and in the Army ROTC program,
as well as the Army's need to expand its new officer corps, have required
OCS to rapidly increase the number of officers it commissions. However,
OCS is expected to reach its capacity in FY 2007, and resource limitations
(such as housing, classroom space, and base infrastructure) may prevent
its further expansion, limiting the viability of the Army's traditional
approach of using OCS to compensate for shortfalls in the other officer
accession programs. In addition, officer accession programs are
decentralized and do not formally coordinate with one another, preventing
the Army from effectively compensating for the shortfalls in some officer
accession programs. For example, while Army personnel officials attempt to
ensure that any commissioning shortfalls (program outputs) are covered
through alternative commissioning sources such as OCS, the Army does not
coordinate its recruiting efforts (the input to these programs) to ensure
that officer accession programs meet Army needs. The Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993^7 and the Standards for Internal
Control in the Federal Government^8 provide federal agencies with a
results-oriented framework that includes developing a strategic plan that
incorporates overall goals, risk analysis, and resource utilization. A
strategic plan would give the Army greater visibility over its
decentralized accession programs and improve its ability to address
officer shortfalls. However, the Army has not developed a strategic plan
to manage its shrinking accessions pipeline at a time when the force is
expanding and its needs for commissioned officers are increasing. Without
such a plan, the Army's ability to meet future mission requirements and
achieve its transformation initiatives is uncertain.

All of the services except the Army generally met their past overall
officer retention needs, but each service encountered retention challenges
for certain specialties and ranks. The Army, which continues to be heavily
involved in ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, faces multiple
retention challenges, particularly among junior officers who graduated
from its academy or received ROTC scholarships. For example, USMA's
continuation rate in FY 2005 was 62 percent, which was 20 to 30 percentage
points lower than the other service academies' continuation rates for the
same fiscal year. Since officers who received ROTC scholarships are
eligible to leave after 4 years of service and that group represents the
largest number of officers commissioned into the Army, that career point
had the lowest or next to the lowest continuation rate for Army officers
in all 3 of the fiscal years that we examined. Furthermore, the Army is
experiencing a shortfall of mid-level officers because it commissioned
fewer officers 10 years ago due to a post-Cold War force reduction. While
Army officials told us that the current levels of retention among junior
officers are consistent with historical trends, the Army projections show
that it will have a shortage of 3,000 or more officers annually through FY
2013 because of actions such as recent measures to expand the size of the
Army. These shortages suggest that the Army might have to retain officers
at higher than historical levels to address this shortfall. Moreover, the
Army projects that it will have 83 percent of the majors that it needs in
FY 2007, and likewise, projects that the positions for majors in 14 Army
general specialty areas (termed branches by the Army) will be filled at 85
percent or less--a level that the Army terms a critical shortfall. While
the Army has identified steps to improve officer retention, these will
have no immediate effect on retention. For example, the Army has offered
new officers their choice of specialty area in exchange for longer service
commitments, but this incentive does not affect officers who are able to
separate. The Army has not formulated a strategic plan to address
retention issues. However, based on its analysis of a survey of junior
officers, which identified factors that might improve retention, the Army
is considering a menu of incentives to increase retention of junior
captains. Despite those analyses, the Army has not made a final decision
on these incentives and, therefore, has not approved the approaches or
strategies needed to meet its long-term objectives, an essential element
in a strategic plan. While the Army is challenged in retaining officers,
the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force generally met their retention needs
in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005; and they often had higher continuation rates
from the academies and ROTC programs. Although the Navy and Air Force
currently have additional flexibilities in filling positions due to their
current downsizing efforts, all services faced retention challenges within
certain officer branches or communities and ranks. Finally, while the
services had high retention rates for African American and Hispanic
officers, they did not do as well retaining women. For example, overall,
the services had lower continuation rates among female officers when
compared with male officers for the fiscal years and years of service
studied.

^7Pub. L. No. 103-62 (1993).

^8GAO, Internal Control: Standards for Internal Control in the Federal
Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999).

DOD and the services are taking steps to enhance the foreign language
proficiency of junior officers, but many impediments must be overcome to
achieve the language objectives that DOD has laid out for junior officers.
During the last 2 years, DOD has issued overall guidance to achieve
greater linguistic capabilities and cultural understanding among officers
in documents such as the 2005 Defense Language Transformation Roadmap. Two
of DOD's broad objectives include developing a recruiting plan for
attracting university students with foreign language skills and requiring
that junior officers complete added language training by 2013. To address
DOD's objectives, the Marine Corps developed a foreign language training
plan, while the other services are still drafting their plans. In
addition, the service academies, among other things, have requested
additional funding and teaching positions to improve foreign language
training. However, there are a number of impediments that could affect
progress, including an already demanding academic workload for academy and
ROTC officer candidates and the ROTC's inability to control curricula at
the colleges and universities that host ROTC units. For example, each
service academy requires its officer candidates to complete at least 137
semester credit hours over 4 years, in contrast to the approximately 120
credit hours required to graduate from many other colleges. Also, ROTC
programs do not control the languages offered at the colleges where their
officer candidates attend classes and thus cannot ensure that candidates
are offered languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and Persian Farsi that DOD
has deemed critical for national security. Service officials recognize
these impediments and are in the process of developing their foreign
language training plans.

We are recommending that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of
the Army to develop and implement a strategic plan to address current and
projected Army officer accession and retention challenges. In its review
of a draft of our report, DOD partially concurred with our
recommendations. DOD's comments and our evaluation of them are discussed
at the end of the letter.

Background

For over 30 years, the United States has relied on an all volunteer force
to defend the nation at home and abroad. Before that, the nation relied on
the draft to ensure that it had enough soldiers, sailors, Marines, and
airmen in wartime. Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the
United States, DOD has launched three major operations requiring
significant numbers of military servicemembers: Operation Noble Eagle,
which covers military operations related to homeland security; Operation
Enduring Freedom, which includes ongoing military operations in
Afghanistan and certain other countries; and Operation Iraqi Freedom,
which includes ongoing military operations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf
area. These operations have greatly increased overseas deployments.
Moreover, they are the first long-term major overseas combat missions
since the advent of the all volunteer force in 1973.

To ensure that sufficient forces are available for the services to
accomplish their missions, Congress authorizes an annual year-end
authorized personnel level for each service component. To function
effectively, the services must, among other things, access and retain
officers at appropriate ranks and in the occupational specialties needed
to enable its units to contribute to the services' missions. The services
rely on monetary and nonmonetary incentives, where needed, to meet their
accession and retention needs.

The careers of military officers are governed primarily by Title 10, which
has incorporated the DOPMA legislation, giving the services the primary
authority to recruit, train, and retain officers. Title 10 specifies the
active duty and reserve service obligations for officers who join the
military:

           o graduates of the service academies must serve a minimum of 5
           years on active duty; and up to an additional 3 years on active
           duty or in the reserves;

           o ROTC scholarship recipients must serve a minimum of 4 years on
           active duty and an additional 4 years on active duty or in the
           reserves; and

           o other types of officers have varying service obligations (for
           example, pilots must serve 6 to 8 years on active duty, depending
           on the type of aircraft, and navigators and flight officers must
           serve 6 years on active duty).

Similarly, Title 10 authorizes the services to directly commission medical
specialists and other professionals to meet their needs.

Services Generally Met Most Accession Needs for Newly Commissioned Officers
Despite Some Challenges, but Army Faces Unique Problems with Future Accessions

The services generally met most their past needs for newly commissioned
officers; but the Army faces some unique problems accessing enough
officers to meet its needs and has not developed a strategic plan to
address these challenges. The Marine Corps, Navy, and the Air Force
generally met their needs for accessing newly commissioned officers in FYs
2001, 2003, and 2005. However, all services experienced problems
recruiting enough medical professionals in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005; and
most had problems accessing racial and ethnic minorities to diversify
their officer corps.

Services Generally Met Most Overall Accession Needs for Newly Commissioned
Officers But Some Shortfalls Found for Each Service

Our analysis of documentary evidence confirmed^9 the services' reports
that their accession programs generally met their officer needs in
selected recent years, but each experienced some shortfalls in certain
ranks and specialties. The services do not develop overall yearly goals
for the total number of commissioned officers needed. Instead, they adjust
the enrollment in OCS/OTS throughout the year to meet higher or lower than
expected demands for newly commissioned officers by the various
occupational specialty groups of importance to the service. The Army and
the Marine Corps are increasing their numbers of newly commissioned
officers because of their growing end strengths, whereas the Navy and the
Air Force are accessing fewer officers because they are reducing their end
strengths.

The Army did not meet its overall accession needs for newly commissioned
officers in FYs 2001 and 2003, though it met its needs in 2005. The Army
has two distinct types of commissioned officers. Most officers are
commissioned in its basic branches or specialty areas, such as infantry or
signal, and are commissioned through major accession programs. The second
type of officers are and those who are directly commissioned, such as
medical professionals. In FY 2001, the Army needed 4,100 of these officers
in its basic branches and instead it commissioned 3,791, in FY 2003 it
needed 4,500 and instead commissioned 4,433. In FY 2005, it exceed it goal
of commissioning 4,600 of and instead accessed 4,654 in it basic branches.

During those years it was increasing the number of commissioned officers
entering the service (see table 1). Specifically, the Army commissioned
5,540 officers in FY 2001, 5,929 in FY 2003, and 6,045 in FY 2005. In each
of the examined fiscal years, the Army's ROTC program accounted for around
half of all newly commissioned officers, with nearly 1,000 of those
officers being accessed annually into the Army despite not being awarded a
scholarship. The Army increased total accessions from FY 2001 to FY 2005
by nearly doubling the number of officers commissioned through OCS.

^9Our confirmations of the services' overall ability to meet their newly
commissioned officer needs were based on our analyses of the data and
other documents that the services provided to substantiate how well they
had filled the positions designated for junior officers in the various
occupational groups.

Table 1: Army Commissioned Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005,
by Commissioning Program

Fiscal                                                                     
year                     ROTC^a                                            
accessed Academy^b  Scholarship Nonscholarship    OCS Direct/other^c Total 
2001           930        2,017            938    752            903 5,540 
2003           878        2,132            935  1,060            924 5,929 
2005           954        2,069            998  1,352            672 6,045 

Source: United States Army.

^aWhile Army ROTC provides officers to both the active and reserve
components, the information listed here reflects only the officers
commissioned into the active duty Army from ROTC.

^bThis category includes graduates from other service academies, such as
the Merchant Marine and Coast Guard academies, who are commissioned into
the Army.

^cThis category includes direct commissioned officers such as medical
professionals, chaplains, and lawyers, as well as interservice transfers,
returns to active duty, and officers whose accession sources are unknown.

Our independent review and analysis of data and other materials from the
commissioning sources found that the Army does not recruit officers to
fill a specific specialty, and instead, officers are placed in general
specialty areas based on the needs of the Army. Some general specialty
areas are more popular than others, and the Army attempts to match an
officer candidate's preference to the needs of the Army. However, the
service's needs prevail, and some officers may be placed in specialty
areas outside of their preferences if shortfalls are present.

In contrast, the Marine Corps met its overall accession needs for newly
commissioned officers for the examined fiscal years, while increasing the
number of officers it commissioned in FY 2005 (see table 2). Increasing
accessions by 241 from FY 2003 to FY 2005 represents about an 18 percent
increase in the number of newly commissioned officers. Relative to the
other services, the Marine Corps commissioned a larger percentage of its
officers through programs other than the academy or ROTC program. For
example, in FY 2005, 76 percent of the Marine Corps's newly commissioned
officers came from OCS or other sources. However, the Marine Corps has
also been increasing the number of officers commissioned from USNA. The
Marine Corps does not have a separate ROTC program and instead,
commissions officers through the Navy ROTC program.

Table 2: Marine Corps Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, by
Commissioning Program

Fiscal year                 ROTC                            
accessed        Academy  Scholarship    OCS^a Other^b Total Nonscholarship 
2001                168          166 21           499   495          1,349 
2003                178          187 10           240   705          1,320 
2005                213          148 12           460   728          1,561 

Source: United States Marine Corps.

^aOCS includes Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program and Officer
Candidate Course.

^bThis category does not include direct commissioned officers in the
Marine Corps, though it does include officers commissioned through the
Marine Corps's Platoon Leader's Class, interservice transfers, returns to
active duty, and officers whose accession sources are unknown. The Marine
Corps does not directly commission officers; instead, it relies on the
Navy to provide it with the types of professionals--such as chaplains,
physicians, dentists, and nurses--who receive direct commissions.

Our independent review and analysis of data and other materials from the
commissioning sources and Marine Corps headquarters identified some areas
where the Marine Corps was challenged to access newly commissioned
officers for some occupational specialties. While the Marine Corps
officials stated that they were challenged in accessing enough naval
flight officers because officer candidates were not familiar with the
position (which involves assisting pilots with aircraft and weapons
systems), the service still recruited the number it needed based upon our
examination of the data.

The Navy also reported meeting its overall needs for commissioned officers
during FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005. Since FY 2001, the total number of newly
commissioned officers decreased from 4,784 to 3,506, a decline of nearly
27 percent (see table 3). A large portion of that decrease was
accomplished by reducing the number of officers being commissioned through
OCS, the program that can most easily and quickly be altered to reflect
changing demands for producing commissioned officers.

Table 3: Navy Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, by
Commissioning Program

Fiscal year               ROTC                              
accessed       Academy Scholarship OCS Direct/other^a Total Nonscholarship 
2001               760         670 217          1,281 1,856          4,784 
2003               812         841  73          1,018 1,295          4,039 
2005               749         756  69            586 1,346          3,506 

Source: United States Navy.

^aThis category includes direct commissioned officers such as medical
professionals, interservice transfers, returns to active duty, and
officers whose accession sources are unknown.

Despite generally meeting its overall accession needs for newly
commissioned officers, the Navy experienced accession challenges in some
specialty areas. Our independent review and analysis of data and other
materials from the commissioning sources, Navy headquarters, and accession
programs identified some areas where there were gaps between the numbers
of newly commissioned officers needed and the numbers supplied to
specialties by some of the commissioning programs. For example, USNA did
not meet its quota for submarine officers in FY 2005, but other
commissioning programs were able to compensate for the shortfall. Like the
Marine Corps, the Navy faced a challenge in accessing enough naval flight
officers, but the Navy met its overall need for newly commissioned
officers by shifting the number of officers sent to that specialty by some
commissioning sources. For example, Navy ROTC met its goal for naval
flight officers in FY 2005 but not FY 2001 and FY 2003. The Navy's OCS
made up the difference in those years. According to Navy officials, some
officers who may previously have gone into this specialty because of poor
eyesight have their vision surgically corrected and instead become pilots.

Like the Marine Corps and the Navy, the Air Force generally met its
overall officer accession needs for FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005. As with the
Navy, the Air Force decreased the number of newly commissioned officers in
FY 2005 (see table 4). Specifically, the Air Force commissioned over 1,000
fewer officers in FY 2005 than it did in FY 2003, and it is working toward
a plan to have about 9,000 fewer officers servicewide by FY 2011. The
recent decrease in the number of newly commissioned Air Force officers was
largely accomplished by commissioning fewer officers from OTS. Overall,
the Air Force relied on its ROTC scholarship program for most of its
officers and provided scholarships for the vast majority of the ROTC
officer candidates.

Table 4: Air Force Officer Accessions in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, by
Commissioning Program

Fiscal year               ROTC                              
accessed       Academy Scholarship OTS Direct/other^a Total Nonscholarship 
2001               890          ^b 281          1,628 2,473          5,922 
2003               996       2,211 159          1,593 1,150          6,109 
2005               918       2,330  61            790   891          4,990 

Source: United States Air Force.

^aThis category includes direct commissioned officers such as medical
professionals, interservice transfers, returns to active duty, and
officers whose accession sources are unknown.

^bAir Force officials stated that the original data provided to GAO for
this year did not reflect the actual commission rates for ROTC and have
asked that we not use this data.

Despite meeting its overall needs for newly commissioned officers, the Air
Force encountered challenges in some specialties. Our analyses and
discussions with Air Force accessions officials identified air battle
manager as an area where the Air Force has been challenged. USAFA expected
to provide the Air Force with 10 air battle managers in FY 2005, but
instead, three USAFA graduates became air battle managers. The other seven
positions were filled by Air Force ROTC.

All Services Had Problems Accessing Officers for Medical Occupations

All of the services have experienced problems accessing enough medical
professionals, including physicians, medical students, dentists, and
nurses. The Army, Navy (which supplies the Marine Corps), and Air Force
provide direct commissions to medical professionals entering the service.

Physicians. All of the services had difficulties meeting their accession
needs for physicians (see table 5) in at least 2 of the 3 fiscal years
that we examined.  The Army and the Navy achieved 91 or more percent of
their goals in each year studied, while the Air Force achieved 47 to 65
percent of its goal during the same 3 years. For each year, the Air Force
had a higher goal than the other two services but accessed fewer
physicians.

Table 5: Physician Accession Goals and Actual Accessions for Selected
Years, by Service

Fiscal           Army                 Navy^a              Air Force
year                   Percent               Percent               Percent
accessed Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal
2001         391   376      96     391   395     101     547   313    57
2003         389   355      91     354   338      96     663   313    47
2005         419   416      99     317   295      93     429   280    65

Source: GAO analysis of data from services' medical personnel offices.

^aThe Navy provides medical personnel for both the Navy and Marine Corps.

Our review of the numbers of medical students participating in the
services' Health Professions Scholarship Program showed that additional
physician-accession problems may appear in future years (see table 6). The
services set their goals for awarding the scholarships based on their
needs for fully trained medical professionals in the future. A medical
student who accepts a scholarship will be commissioned into a military
service upon completion of graduate school. While each service awarded
scholarships to a sufficient number of the medical students who began
their 4-year training in FY 2003 and will be ready for an officer
commission upon graduation in FY 2007, the Army and Navy did not achieve
their goals for awarding scholarships in FY 2005, and they may not access
enough physicians in FY 2009.

Table 6: Physician Scholarships Awarded Compared to Service Goals for
Selected Years, by Service

Fiscal                                                    
year             Army                 Navy^a              Air Force
training               Percent               Percent               Percent
began    Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal
2001         270   271     100     300   300     100     226   247   109 
2003         284   319     112     290   289     100     201   225   112 
2005         307   237      77     291   162      56     191   224   117 

Source: GAO analysis of data from services' medical personnel offices.

^aThe Navy provides medical personnel for both the Navy and Marine Corps.

Dentists. Similar to the situation with physicians, the services have been
challenged to access enough dentists in recent years (see table 7). No
service met its goals for recruiting dentists in FYs 2001, 2003, or 2005.
Both the Army and the Air Force, however, accessed more dentists in FY
2005 than they had 2 years before, and the Air Force showed improvement in
FY 2005 over their FY 2003 accessions.

Table 7: Dentist Accession Goals and Actual Accessions for Selected Years,
by Service

Fiscal           Army                 Navy^a              Air Force
year                   Percent               Percent               Percent
accessed Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal
2001         120   101      84     147   120      82     188    97    52
2003         107    98      92     145   103      71     184   123    67
2005         125   105      84      90    81      90     204   142    70

Source: GAO analysis of data from services' medical personnel offices.

^aThe Navy provides medical personnel for both the Navy and Marine Corps.

Nurses. All of the services have struggled to access enough nurses (see
table 8). Although the Navy exceeded its goal for accessing nurses in
2001, no service achieved its goal for any other period. In FY 2005, the
services accessed a total of 738 of the 975 nurses (about 76 percent) that
they needed.

Table 8: Nurse Accession Goals and Actual Accessions for Selected Years,
by Service

Fiscal           Army                 Navy^a              Air Force
year                   Percent               Percent               Percent
Accessed Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal Goal Accessed of goal
2001         333   288      86     256   274     107     349   228    65
2003         373   323      87     235   218      93     366   265    72
2005         375   312      83     243   223      92     357   203    57

Source: GAO analysis of data from services' medical personnel offices.

^aThe Navy provides medical personnel for both the Navy and Marine Corps.

While some service officials have stated that medical professional
recruiting is challenging because of concerns over overseas deployments,
other service officials told us that it is also affected by the lack of
income parity compared to the civilian sector. As part of the John Warner
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, Congress approved
an increase in the recruiting bonus for fully trained physicians and
dentists, allowed the services to detail commissioned officers to attend
medical school, extended the authority for undergraduate student loan
repayment for medical professionals, increased the financial benefits
student may receive as part of the Health Professions Scholarship Program,
and required the services to report to Congress on this program and their
success in meeting the scholarship program's goals.^10 Another step that
DOD has taken to reduce the medical professional shortfalls is to convert
uniformed medical positions to positions occupied by civilian medical
professionals.^11 In addition, DOD is considering asking for legislative
authority to shorten the service commitment for medical professionals from
the required 8 years of service on active or reserve duty, to encourage
more medical professionals to join the military. However, these efforts
have not yet been funded and their effect on medical recruiting is
uncertain.

^10Pub. L. No.  109-364, SS 536, 538, 612, and 617 (2006).

All Services Had Problems Accessing Newly Commissioned Officers from Some Racial
and Ethnic Groups

All services had problems accessing newly commissioned minority officers
to meet DOD's goal of maintaining a racially and ethnically diverse
officer corps.^12 For every service, African Americans were a smaller
percentage--by either 1 or 2 percentage points--of the accessed officers
in FY 2005 than they were in FY 2003, but the representation of
Asians/Pacific Islanders increased between the same two periods for every
service except the Navy (see table 9). As points of comparison, we noted
in a September 2005 report^13 that the representation of African Americans
in the officer corps DOD-wide was about 9 percent, as was the
representation of African Americans in the college-educated workforce.
Therefore, the percentages shown in the table indicate that only the Army
met or exceeded the African-American DOD-wide and
college-educated-workforce representation levels.

^11GAO, Military Personnel: Military Departments Need to Ensure That Full
Cost of Converting Military Health Care Positions to Civilian Positions
Are Reported to Congress, GAO-06-642 (Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006).

^12Although women constitute around one-half of the U.S. population, they
constitute a smaller part of the services' officer accessions. For
example, in FY 2005, women constituted 20 percent of the officer
accessions for the Army and Navy, 6 percent for the Marine Corps, and 25
percent for the Air Force. The National Defense Authorization Acts for
Fiscal Years 1992, 1993, and 1994 authorized DOD to permanently assign
women to combat aircraft and combatant ships. Since 1994, DOD policy has
allowed women to be assigned to any unit except those below brigade whose
primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground. A listing of
the occupational specialties that exclude women is available in app. IV in
GAO-05-952.

^13GAO-05-952.

Table 9: Percent of Officer Accessions by Race and Ethnicity for Each
Military Service

                                    Race                           Ethnicity
                                                American                       
Services, by        African Asian/Pacific Indian/Alaskan                       
FY           White American      Islander         Native Other^a Hispanic Non-Hispanic
Army   2001     76     13           4                          7        5   95 
       2003     74       13             5                    8          6           94
       2005     74       11             6              1     9          6           94
Navy   2001     81      9           5                      1   5        6   94 
       2003     81        9             4                    6          6           94
       2005     80        8             4              1     7          6           94
Marine 2001     80      6           5                      1   1        7   93 
Corps  2003     85        5             3              1     1          6           94
       2005     82        4             4              1     1          7           93
Air    2001     78      8           3                          8        2   98 
Force  2003     78        6             3                   13          4         81^b
       2005     70        6             5                   20         ^C            C

Source: GAO analysis of Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force data.

^aFor the Army and the Marine Corps, "other" consists of those who
declined to respond or were recorded as undefined.

^b15 percent of Air Force officers did not identify themselves as either
Hispanic or non-Hispanic.

^cIn FY 2005, the Air Force reported that 41 percent of Air Force officers
did not identify themselves as either Hispanic or non-Hispanic. We did not
report FY 2005 Air Force ethnic data because data which includes a 41
percent unknown figure is not sufficiently reliable for the purposes of
this report.

Similarly, recruiting Hispanic officers has presented challenges to the
services. In FY 2005, the Marine Corps accessed a higher percentage of
Hispanic officers than the other services. While the Air Force accessed a
lower percentage than the other services in each of the 2 fiscal years
reported, it doubled its percentage of newly commissioned Hispanic
officers from FY 2001 to FY 2003. However, this percentage of Hispanic
officers accessed is smaller than the percentage of Hispanics in the
United States at the time of the 2000 census (about 13 percent) and the
percentage of Hispanics in the U.S. college population (about 9 percent).

Some ambiguity is present in interpreting the findings for racial and
ethnic groups because of the data. For example, the Air Force findings
show large numbers of officers for whom some data were not available.
Despite these data limitations, service officials explained that many of
their challenges relate to the need for the services to recruit minority
officers from the military-eligible segment of the college population.
Navy and Air Force officials stated that their officer commissioning
programs have more stringent entrance requirements than the other services
and emphasize mathematics and science skills needed for the
high-technology occupations found in their services. Officials from the
commissioning programs in each service further noted that only a small
segment of the African-American college population meets these entrance
requirements. Each service operates a preparatory school in association
with its academy to increase the pool of qualified applicants to enter its
academy, giving primary consideration to enrolling enlisted personnel,
minorities, women, and recruited athletes.^14 Moreover, all officer
commissioning programs, particularly the service academies, must compete
with colleges and universities that do not require a postgraduation
service commitment. In addition, USMA officials stated that citizenship
status represented a barrier to improving the percentage of Hispanic
officers. As of the 2000 census, 65 percent of Hispanics were U.S.
citizens.^15

Army Faces Some Unique Future Officer Accession Problems

While all of the services experienced some specialty- and
diversity-related challenges in FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, based on our
review the Army faces some future officer accession problems not shared by
the other services and has not developed and implemented a strategic plan
to overcome these projected shortfalls. Our review, analyses, and
discussions with Army officials indicated that the Army may struggle to
meet its future accession needs. While all the services are contributing
forces to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is providing most
of the forces for these operations. Other unique stressors on the Army's
commissioning programs include the expansion of the Army's officer corps
as part of the congressionally authorized 30,000-soldier increase to the
Army end strength and the Army's need for higher numbers of officers as
part of its ongoing transformation effort to create more modular quickly
deployable units.^16

14GAO, Military Education: DOD Needs to Align Academy Preparatory Schools'
Mission Statements with Overall Guidance and Establish Performance Goals,
GAO-03-1017 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 10, 2003).

^15Hispanic employment in the civilian federal workforce is similarly
affected by the educational levels and citizenship status of this group.
See GAO, The Federal Work Force: Additional Insights Could Enhance Agency
Efforts Related to Hispanic Representation, GAO-06-832 (Washington, D.C.:
Aug. 17, 2006).

Notwithstanding these needs for more officers, some of the Army's
commissioning programs are not commissioning as many officers as they had
in past years and are commissioning less than the Army had expected. The
Army's current approach is to first focus on its ROTC program and academy
to meet its officer accession needs, and then compensate for accession
shortfalls in these programs by increasing OCS accessions. While Army OCS
is currently meeting the Army's needs, Army ROTC and USMA are not. Army
ROTC, for example, experienced a decline in its number of participants. In
FY 2006, the Army calculated that 25,089 students would participate in
ROTC. In contrast, 31,765 students were involved in Army ROTC in FY 2003.
Army officials stated that to meet their current mission they need at
least 31,000 participants in the program. Moreover, the Army uses its ROTC
program for commissioning both active and reserve officers. Although the
goal is 4,500 newly commissioned officers (2,750 active and 1,750 reserve)
from Army ROTC in both FYs 2006 and 2007, Army officials project that the
program will fall short of the goal by 12 percent in FY 2006 and 16
percent in FY 2007.

Furthermore, fewer officers may be commissioned from the Army's ROTC
program in the future because fewer scholarships have been awarded
recently, which Army officials attribute to budget constraints. For
example, in FY 2003, the Army ROTC program had 7,583 officer candidates
with 4-year scholarships; in FY 2004, 7,234; in FY 2005, 6,004. Army ROTC
officials stated that fewer 4-year scholarship recipients means fewer
newly commissioned officers in the future, since scholarship recipients
are more likely to complete the program and receive their commission. Army
ROTC officials believe that while negative attitudes toward Army ROTC are
increasing on college campuses because of opposition to operations in
Iraq, concerns about financing their education may make ROTC scholarships
more attractive to officer candidates.

In addition to challenges with its ROTC program, the Army has recently
experienced difficulties commissioning officers through USMA, and
projections for newly commissioned officers from USMA show that these
difficulties may continue in the future. In FY 2005, USMA commissioned 912
officers, fewer than its mission of 950 officers. Similarly, USMA's class
that graduated in FY 2006 commissioned 846 graduates, short of the Army's
goal of 900. While the number of officer candidates who successfully
complete the 4-year program at USMA varies, according to USMA data 71
percent who began the program in 2002 completed it in 2006 and received
their commission. In contrast, in both FY 2001 and in FY 2003, 76 percent
of those who began their course of study 4 years earlier completed the
program and commissioned into the Army; and in FY 2005, 77 percent.^17
USMA officials told us that the smaller graduating class in FY 2006 may be
the result of ongoing operations in Iraq. The class, which will graduate
in 2010, should have an additional 100 officer candidates to help address
recent shortfalls; however, USMA officials indicated that facilities and
staff limit additional increases.

^16GAO, Force Structure: Army Needs to Provide DOD and Congress More
Visibility Regarding Modular Force Capabilities and Implementation Plans,
GAO-06-745 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 6, 2006).

Commissioning shortfalls at USMA and in the Army ROTC program, as well as
the Army's need to expand its new officer corps, have required OCS to
rapidly increase the number of officers it commissions; however, its
ability to annually produce more officers is uncertain. In FY 2006, OCS
was required to produce 1,420 officers, and in FY 2007, the Army's goal
for OCS is to commission 1,650 officers, more than double the number it
produced in FY 2001. OCS program officials stated that without increases
in resources and support such as additional housing and classroom space,
OCS cannot produce more officers than 1,650 officers, its FY 2007 goal,
limiting the viability of this approach.

Additionally, the Army's officer accession programs are decentralized^18
and lack any sort of formal coordination, which prevents the Army from
effectively balancing the results of failure in some officer accession
programs. USMA does not directly report to the same higher-level command
as ROTC or OCS. While ROTC and OCS both report to the same overall
authority, they do not formally coordinate with one another or with USMA.
For example, the Army does not coordinate recruiting and accession efforts
to ensure that accession programs meet Army accessions goals, nor does it
use risk analysis to manage resource allocations among the programs. USMA
relies on its own full-time recruiters and Military Academy Liaison
Officers--reservists, retirees, and alumni who meet with possible academy
recruits and hold meetings to provide information to students. Officials
from Army Cadet Command,^19 which does not coordinate recruiting efforts
with USMA, stated that Army ROTC has a limited advertising budget that
focuses on print media, brochures, and local print media. In addition, as
we previously discussed, Army ROTC has experienced a decrease in its
scholarship funding while the Army's needs for its graduates has
increased, but the Army has not conducted a risk-based analysis of
resource allocations to Army officer accession programs.

^17The service academies may graduate more students than they commission
into the armed services of the United States because they include foreign
students who return home to their own military services.

^18While the Army, Navy, and Air Force do not have a single command and
control structure for their officer commissioning programs, Headquarters
Air Force created a USAFA and Commissioning Programs Division in 2004 to
consolidate all USAFA issues and officer commissioning functions under one
headquarters division. This division serves as a single point of contact
for policy issues, provides a standardized direction across officer
accession sources, and provides USAFA support and oversight.

Shortfalls in Army officer accessions have been compounded by the
decentralized management structure for the officer accessions programs,
and the Army does not have a strategic plan to overcome these challenges.
Army personnel officials set a goal for each commissioning program. While
those officials attempt to ensure that any commissioning shortfalls
(program outputs) are covered by other commissioning programs such as OCS,
the Army does not coordinate the recruiting efforts of its various
commissioning programs (the input to these programs) to ensure that
officer accession programs meet overall Army needs. While the Army's has
identified a number of options to increase officer accessions, it does not
have a strategic plan for managing its shrinking accessions pipeline at a
time when the force is expanding and its needs for commissioned officers
are increasing. The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993
(GPRA)^20 and Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government^21 
provide federal agencies with a results-oriented framework that includes
developing a strategic plan.^22 According to GPRA, a strategic plan should
include outcome-related goals and objectives. Moreover, the Standards
emphasize the need for identifying and analyzing potential risks that
could slow progress in achieving goals. This risk assessment can form the
basis for determining procedures for mitigating risks. The Army recognizes
that offering more scholarships could improve its ROTC program accessions
and has proposed increasing available scholarships. However, this is not
part of a broader strategic plan that would realign resources to better
meet the Army's officer accession needs and minimize risk. Without such an
alternative, given the decentralized management of the officer accession
programs, and without a strategic plan that identifies goals, risks, and
resources to mitigate officer shortfalls, the Army's ability to meet
future mission requirements is uncertain.

^19Army Cadet Command manages the Army ROTC program.

^20Pub. L. No. 103-62 (1993).

^21GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.

^22GAO, Results-Oriented Government: GPRA Has Established a Solid
Foundation for Achieving Greater Results, GAO-04-38 (Washington, D.C.:
Mar. 10, 2004).

All Services Except Army Generally Met Past Officer Retention Needs, but All
Face Challenges Retaining Certain Officer Groups

While most of the services generally met their past officer retention
needs, the Army faces multiple retention challenges. The Army has
experienced decreased retention among officers early in their careers,
particularly among junior officers who graduated from USMA or received
ROTC scholarships. Moreover, the Army is experiencing a shortfall of
mid-level officers because it commissioned fewer officers 10 years ago due
to a post-Cold War reduction in both force size and officer accessions.
Despite these emerging problems, the Army has not performed an analysis
that would identify and analyze risks of near term retention problems to
determine resource priorities. Although the other services generally met
their past retention needs, each faces challenges retaining officers in
certain ranks or specialties.^23 Furthermore, each of the services had
high continuation rates among African American and Hispanic officers, but
each faces challenges retaining female officers.

Army Faces Multiple Retention Challenges, but Other Services Are Generally
Retaining Enough Officers to Meet Their Needs

The Army has encountered retention challenges in the last few years, but
the other services are generally retaining sufficient numbers of officers
in the fiscal years that we examined.

^23The services use different terms when discussing specialties. For
example, the Army uses branch to refer to general specialty areas, and
these areas include infantry, armor, and transportation. In contrast, the
Navy uses the term community to refer to its general specialty areas,
which include surface warfare, submarine, and aviation.

  Army Faces Challenges to Retain Officers at Junior and Mid-level Ranks and
  Certain Specialties

Overall, the Army has experienced decreased retention among officers early
in their careers, particularly junior officers who graduated from USMA or
received ROTC scholarships.^24 Additionally, the Army is currently
experiencing a shortfall of mid-level officers and has shortages within
certain specialty areas. It is examining a number of initiatives to
improve the retention of its officers, but these initiatives are not
currently funded or will not affect officer retention until at least FY
2009. Moreover, the Army does not have a strategic plan to address these
retention challenges.

The Army has experienced multiple retention problems in recent years for
officers commissioned through USMA and the ROTC scholarship program and
for some occupational specialties despite retaining lieutenants and
captains in FY 2006 at or above its 10-year Army-wide average. Our
comparisons of the Army continuation rates shown in table 10 to those
presented later for each of the other services revealed that the USMA
continuation rates of 68 percent for FY 2001 and 62 percent for FY 2005
were 20 to 30 percentage points lower than the other academies'
continuation rates for the same fiscal year. Caution is needed, however,
when interpreting cross-service findings because USNA and USAFA produce a
large number of pilots who incur additional obligations that may not allow
many of those officers to leave until 8 or more years of service have been
completed. Second, a comparison of the Army's FY 2001 and FY 2005
continuation rates for ROTC scholarship officers showed that rates
decreased by 3 percentage points at years 4 and 5.

^24Our confirmation of the services' overall ability to meet their
retention needs was based on our analyses of the data and other documents
that the services provided to substantiate their needs or positions to
fill, the numbers of officers available in specific subgroups, and
continuation rates for officers by accession source, as well as
occupational and demographic subgroups.

Table 10: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Army Commissioned
Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years and Key
Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers

Fiscal year and year             ROTC                       
of service            Academy Scholarship OCS Other^a Total Nonscholarship 
2001                                                                       
Year 3                     95          96  86      85    90             92 
Year 4                     98          74  78      90    81             81 
Year 5                     68          85  90      97    87             84 
Year 10                    91          95  95      97    89             94 
2003                                                                       
Year 3                     99          98  90      93    88             94 
Year 4                     98          83  90      93    84             88 
Year 5                     80          90  93      98    92             90 
Year 10                    95          96  96      96    92             95 
2005                                                                       
Year 3                     98          97  87      87    90             93 
Year 4                     96          71  85      88    83             82 
Year 5                     62          82  88      94    90             81 
Year 10                    94          95  96      92    91             94 

Source: GAO analysis of Army data.

^aThis category includes direct commissioned officers in the Army,
interservice transfers, returns to active duty, and officers from unknown
sources.

Our review of the continuation rates in table 10 also revealed three other
notable patterns. First, the total continuation rate for FY 2003 was
higher than the rate for the other 2 years, reflecting the stop-loss
policy^25 that prevented officers from leaving the Army. Second, for each
source and fiscal year, the lowest continuation rate for a commissioning
source typically came in the first year that officers were eligible to
leave the military--for example, year 5 for USMA and year 4 for ROTC
scholarship. Third, since (1) the ROTC scholarship program produces more
officers than any other commissioning source and (2) scholarship officers
are eligible to leave the Army at year 4, that year of service had the
lowest or next lowest total continuation rate for all 3 of the fiscal
years that we examined.

^25The stop-loss policy temporarily prevents personnel from leaving the
military even when an obligation is finished. As a result, it may
artificially inflate continuation rates for the period when the policy is
in effect and artificially deflate continuation rates for the months after
it is rescinded.

The Congressional Research Service reported that Army projections show
that its officer shortage will be approximately 3,000 line officers in FY
2007, grow to about 3,700 officers in FY 2008, and continue at an annual
level of 3,000 or more through FY 2013.^26 For example, the Army FY 2008
projected shortage includes 364 lieutenant colonels, 2,554 majors, and 798
captains who entered in FYs 1991 through 2002. The criteria that the Army
uses to determine its retention needs are personnel-fill rates for
positions, based on officers' rank and specialty. In addition to the
general problem of not having enough officers to fill all of its
positions, the Army is promoting some junior officers faster than it has
in the recent past and therefore not allowing junior officers as much time
to master their duties and responsibilities at the captain rank. For
example, the Army has reduced the promotion time to the rank of captain
(O-3) from the historical average of 42 months from commissioning to the
current average of 38 months and has promoted 98 percent of eligible first
lieutenants (O-2), which is more than the service's goal of 90 percent.
Likewise, the Army has reduced the promotion time to the rank of major
(O-4) from 11 years to 10 years and has promoted 97 percent of eligible
captains to major--more than the Army's goal. Also, the Army is
experiencing a large shortfall at the rank of major, and the shortfall
affects a wide range of branches. For FY 2007, the Army projects that it
will have 83 percent of the total number of majors that it needs. Table 11
shows that the positions for majors in 14 Army general specialty areas
(termed branches by the Army) will be filled at 85 percent or less in FY
2007--a level that the Army terms a critical shortfall.

^26The Congressional Research Service noted that the shortfall in line
officers includes infantry, armor, air defense, aviation, field artillery,
engineer, military intelligence, military police, chemical, ordnance,
quartermaster, signal, transportation, adjutant general, and finance. See
Congressional Research Service, Army Officer Shortages: Background and
Issues for Congress, RL33518 (Washington, D.C.: July 5, 2006).

Table 11: Army's Projected Percentages of Overfilled and Underfilled
Positions for Majors in Specified Specialty Areas in FY 2007

Basic branch          Percent 
Infantry                  107 
Armor                      99 
Finance                    98 
Special forces             97 
Adjutant general           96 
Ordnance                   88 
Quartermaster              86 
Signal corps               84 
Field artillery            79 
Aviation                   77 
Military police            76 
Chemical                   75 
Engineer                   74 
Military intelligence      73 
Air defense                66 
Transportation             48 
Total                      81 
Special branch        Percent 
Medical doctor             99 
Chaplain                   91 
Army nurse                 86 
Medical service            82 
Veterinary corps           78 
Judge advocate             72 
Medical specialist         67 
Dentist                    49 
Total                      85 

Source: GAO analysis of Army data.

Numerous factors may have contributed to the retention challenges facing
the Army. Among other things, Army officials noted that some of the
shortfalls originated in the post-Cold War reduction in forces and
accessions. Although Congress has increased the authorized end strength of
the Army by 30,000 since FY 2004 to help the Army meet its many missions
expanding the mid-level officer corps could prove problematic since it
will require retaining proportionally more of the officers currently in
the service, as well as overcoming the officer accession hurdles that we
identified earlier. Unlike civilian organizations, the Army requires that
almost all of its leaders enter at the most junior level (O-1) and earn
promotions from within the organization. Additionally, as part of our
September 2005 report,^27 the Office of Military Personnel Policy
acknowledged that retention may have suffered because of an improving
civilian labor market and the high pace of operations. Army officers may
have already completed multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan since
the Army is the service providing the majority of the personnel for those
operations. Another reason why the Army may be having more difficulty than
other services in retaining its officers could be related to its use of
continuation pays and incentives. Table 12 shows that the Army spent less
than any other service in FY 2005 on retention-related pays and incentives
for officers.

Table 12: Service-Specific Continuation Pays and Incentives Awarded to
Officers in FY 2005

Dollars in thousands         
Service                Total 
Army                  13,591 
Marine Corps          18,707 
Navy                 129,273 
Air Force            202,536 

Source: GAO analysis of OUSD (P&R) data.

While the Army has identified some steps that it needs to take in order to
improve officer retention, the actions that have been implemented will
have no immediate effect on retention. The Army has begun guaranteeing
entering officers their postcommission choice of general specialty area
(branch), installation, or the prospect of graduate school to encourage
retention. A number of Army officers commissioned in FY 2006 took
advantage of this initiative, and as a result, have a longer active duty
service obligation. For example, as of May 2006, 238 academy graduates
accepted the offer of a longer service obligation in exchange for the Army
paying for them to attend graduate school. Although the Army believes that
these initiatives will help address future retention problems, none will
affect continuation rates until 2009 at the earliest because
servicemembers are obligated to stay in the Army for at least 3 years. The
more immediate retention challenge for the Army is keeping officers with
3, 4, or 5 years of service, as we have identified in this report.
However, these officers are not affected by these initiatives.

^27GAO-05-952.

While the Army staff reported that they are exploring numerous options for
addressing officer retention shortfalls, Army leadership has not
identified which options will be funded and implemented. As noted earlier
in this report, GPRA and the Standards for Internal Control in the Federal
Government provide a basis for developing a results-oriented strategic
plan. Moreover, GAO's guidance for implementing a results-oriented
strategic plan highlights the importance of for ROTC scholarship
identifying long-term goals and including the approaches or strategies
needed to meet these goals. Without a plan to address both its accession
and retention challenges, the Army will not have the information and tools
it needs to effectively and efficiently improve its retention of officers
in both the near term and beyond.

  Other Services Generally Met Their Past Retention Needs but Will Face Certain
  Retention Challenges in the Future

The Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force generally met their retention needs
and had higher continuation rates from their major accession programs than
did the Army. While the Navy and Air Force are currently undergoing force
reductions that will decrease the size of their officer corps, all three
services face officer retention challenges in certain ranks and
specialties.

The Marine Corps was able to meet its overall retention needs for FYs
2001, 2003, and 2005 by generally retaining more than 9 of every 10
officers at the four career-continuation points that we examined. Except
for the 4-year career mark, our analysis showed that the Marine Corps's
total continuation rates for all 3 fiscal years typically exceeded 90
percent (see table 13). Officers who graduated from USNA had the lowest
continuation rates at the end of their fifth year of service, coinciding
with the minimum active duty service obligation for that commissioning
source. Likewise, officers from ROTC scholarship programs had lower
continuation rates at the end of year 4. For example, in FY 2003, the
continuation rate was 67 percent; and in FY 2005, it was 79 percent.

Table 13: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Marine Corps
Commissioned Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years
and Key Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers

Fiscal year and                ROTC                         
year of service     Academy Scholarship OCS^a Other^b Total Nonscholarship 
2001                                                                       
Year 3                  100          ^c    98      95    97             96 
Year 4                   99          85    74      87    89             88 
Year 5                   88          83   100      ^c    94             96 
Year 10                  91          90    50      90    89             89 
2003                                                                       
Year 3                  100         100    ^c      96   100             98 
Year 4                   99          67    93      93    96             94 
Year 5                   94          89    97      99    96             97 
Year 10                  95          92    88      90    90             91 
2005                                                                       
Year 3                  100         100   100      88    99             94 
Year 4                   98          79    86      83    88             85 
Year 5                   86         100    83      93    96             92 
Year 10                  93          91   100      92    91             92 

Source: GAO analysis of Marine Corps data.

^aOCS includes Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program and Officer
Candidate Course.

^bThis category does not include direct commissioned officers in the
Marine Corps, though it does include officers commissioned through the
Marine Corps's Platoon Leader's Class, interservice transfers, return to
active duty, other, and unknown sources. The Marine Corps does not
directly commission officers; instead, it relies on the Navy to provide it
with the types of professionals--such as physicians, dentists, and
nurses--who receive direct commissions. A certain number of officers are
included whose accession source is unknown.

^cThe Marine Corps supplied data which exceeded 100 percent, an
impossibility. According to Marine Corps officials, they attributed this
to either missing or incorrect data entered in the first year and then
subsequently corrected in the following years.

With a few exceptions, the Marine Corps met its retention needs and was
able to fill critical specialties and ranks. We found that the Marine
Corps was either under or just meeting its goal for fixed wing aviators
(such as the junior officer level for the KC-130 tactical airlift airplane
commanders and the AV-8 Harrier attack aircraft), rotary wing officers (at
the junior officer level for all rotary wing occupations except one), and
mid-level and senior intelligence, administrative, and communications
officers in past fiscal years. Additional problems were present when we
examined FY 2006 continuation data for emerging problems. Although the FY
2006 continuation rate averaged about 92 percent--excluding the fixed and
rotary wing communities--the Marine Corps experienced lower than normal
retention among combat support officers (such as administrative and
financial management officers), combat arms officers (such as infantry,
field artillery, and tank officers) as well as communications, logistics,
and human source intelligence officers.^28 However, FY 2007 projections
for these categories of jobs averaged about a 90 percent continuation
rate, excluding fixed wing and rotary wing communities.

While the Navy generally retained sufficient numbers of officers in FYs
2001, 2003, and 2005, Navy officials and our independent review of
documents revealed some areas that were not readily apparent solely by
reviewing the continuation rates for the total Navy and officers entering
through each commissioning program. The continuation rate among Navy
junior officers commissioned from USNA or OCS was 90 percent or better in
years 3, 4, and 5 of service for all 3 fiscal years studied (see table
14). However, officers commissioned from the Navy ROTC scholarship program
had lower continuation rates at the end of 4 and 5  years of service,
coinciding with their minimum active duty service obligation.
Additionally, the Navy experienced lower continuation rates among
officers, both overall and from each of the training programs, after 10
years of service. This lower rate at the 10-year career point may be
partially explained because pilots incur additional obligations that may
not allow them to leave until 8 or more years of service have been
completed.

^28Marine Corps retention is comprised of three categories: releases,
resignations, and retirements. Specifically, the Marine Corps experienced
an increase in resignations, thus contributing to lower than normal
retention rates among officer communities as listed above.

Table 14: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Navy Commissioned
Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years and Key
Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers

Fiscal year and year             ROTC                       
of service            Academy Scholarship OCS Other^a Total Nonscholarship 
2001                                                                       
Year 3                    100          99  86      97    93             96 
Year 4                     99          85  96      93    89             91 
Year 5                     91          85  91      90    91             90 
Year 10                    83          79  81      86    88             85 
2003                                                                       
Year 3                    100          98  98      97    94             97 
Year 4                     99          86  94      94    89             92 
Year 5                     91          88  95      93    92             92 
Year 10                    85          86  93      94    89             88 
2005                                                                       
Year 3                     93          93  87      93    94             93 
Year 4                     95          85  92      92    89             90 
Year 5                     90          86  87      92    92             91 
Year 10                    91          88  88      89    90             89 

Source: GAO analysis of Navy data.

^aThis category includes direct commissioned officers in the Navy,
interservice transfers, returns to active duty, and officers from unknown
sources.

The Navy's potential future retention challenges may be eased by the
flexibility that the Navy gains from not having to retain officers in some
specialties at traditional rates since it is going through downsizing.
However, our discussions with the officials who manage the Navy general
specialty areas (termed officer communities by the Navy) and our
independent analyses of retention documents revealed that the medical,
dental, surface warfare, and intelligence communities are experiencing
junior officer losses, which can later exacerbate mid-level shortfalls.
Moreover, several managers of general specialty areas indicated that they
were concerned about using individual Navy officers (rather than Navy
units) to augment Army and Marine Corps units. The managers were unable to
estimate the effect of such individual augmentee assignments on officer
retention. These deployments are longer than the Navy's traditional
6-month deployments and sometimes occur after officers have completed
their shipboard deployment and are expecting their next assignment to be
ashore with their families.

Our review of documents for FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005, as well as our
discussions with Air Force officials identified no major past retention
problems. Except for the year 3 and 4 career points in FY 2001, the Air
Force total continuation rates were 90 percent or higher (see table 15).

Table 15: Overall Continuation Rates in Percent for Air Force Commissioned
Officers by Commissioning Program for Selected Fiscal Years and Key
Retention-Related Years in Officers' Careers

Fiscal year and year             ROTC                       
of service            Academy Scholarship OCS Other^a Total Nonscholarship 
2001                                                                       
Year 3                    100          88  91      93    76             88 
Year 4                     89          90  93      94    85             89 
Year 5                     88          92  94      95    89             91 
Year 10                    87          92  89      91    90             90 
2003                                                                       
Year 3                     99          90  93      96    80             92 
Year 4                     91          91  93      96    86             91 
Year 5                     93          93  93      97    90             93 
Year 10                    92          91  93      93    91             92 
2005                                                                       
Year 3                     98          85  89      96    84             91 
Year 4                     89          89  92      96    87             91 
Year 5                     92          93  94      96    89             93 
Year 10                    96          95  95      91    89             94 

Source: GAO analysis of Air Force data.

^aThis category includes direct commissioned officers in the Air Force,
interservice transfers, returns to active duty, and officers from unknown
sources.

The Air Force is reducing the size of its officer corps through a planned
downsizing. In FY 2006, the Air Force reduced its force by about 1,700
junior officer positions. By 2011, the Air Force plans to complete an
approximate 13 percent reduction in the number of its officers, totaling
approximately 9,200 officers. The Air Force plans to accomplish the
downsizing through the use of force shaping tools such as selective early
retirement, voluntary separation pay, and other measures. Despite the need
to retain fewer officers, the Air Force anticipates shortages in three
specialties areas--control and recovery officers who specialize in
recovering aircrews who have abandoned their aircraft during operational
flights, physicians, and dentists. Staffing levels for these three
specialties are just below 85 percent.

While All Services Had High Continuation Rates among African American and
Hispanic Officers, Each Service Encountered Challenges Retaining Female Officers

While the services did well retaining African Americans and Hispanic
officers, they did not do as well retaining women. The services want to
retain a diverse, experienced officer corps to reflect applicable groups
in the nation's population. For the fiscal years and career points that we
examined, African American and Hispanic officers usually had higher
continuation rates than white and non-Hispanic officers, respectively; but
female officers more often had lower continuation rates than male
officers.

When we compared the continuation rate of African American officers to
that of white officers for a specific fiscal year and career point, our
analyses found that the services were typically retaining African
Americans at an equal or a higher rate than whites (see table 16). At one
extreme, 11 of the 12 comparisons (all except for the FY 2003 3-year
point) for the Army officers showed equal or higher rates for African
American officers. Similarly, 8 of the 12 comparisons for both the Navy
and Marine Corps rates as well as 6 of the 12 Air Force rates showed a
similar pattern.

Table 16: Service-Specific Continuation Rates in Percent for
African-American and White Officers for Selected Fiscal Years

Race, by                         Marine     Air      
year of       Army        Navy   Corps     Force     
service  2001 2003 2005 2001  2003 2005     2001       2003 2005 2001 2003 2005
African                                                                                
American                                                                               
Year 3               94       93     94 95    98 94 97   96   96        84   91 93     
Year 4               88       91     87 91    95 91 89   96   90        88   91 90     
Year 5               88       91     88 89    93 93 88   97   89        93   92 88     
Year 10              94       96     96 88    94 87 92   93   85        93   94 96     
White                                                                                  
Year 3               91       94     93 97    97 93 96   99   95        88   92 92     
Year 4               80       87     81 92    92 91 88   93   84        90   91 91     
Year 5               83       89     80 90    92 91 93   96   92        91   93 94     
Year 10              93       95     94 84    88 89 90   91   92        89   92 93     

Source: GAO analysis of service-provided data.

Likewise, our analysis showed that the services were typically retaining
Hispanic officers better than non-Hispanic officers (see table 17). In all
12 comparisons of the two groups of Army officers at the four career
points in the 3 fiscal years, the continuation rates for Hispanic officers
were equal to or higher than those for non-Hispanic officers. For 9 of the
12 Navy-based comparisons and 5 of the 12 Marine Corps-based comparisons,
the same pattern was present. While the Air Force supplied information on
Hispanics and non-Hispanic continuation rates for only FY 2005, the same
pattern occurred for 3 of the 4 comparisons.^29

Table 17: Service-Specific Continuation Rates in Percent for Hispanic and
Non-Hispanic Officers for Selected Fiscal Years

Ethnicity,                               Marine      Air
by year of   Army          Navy          Corps      Force
service      2001     2003 2005 2001       2003      2005 2001 2003 2005 2001 2003 2005
Hispanic                                                                                     
Year 3         92  95             95         99  97    93        92   94   94        ^a   a  93
Year 4         89  94             89         92  91    89        85   91   88         a   a  95
Year 5         90  96             88         90  93    87        95   96   87         a   a  92
Year 10        95  95             95         93  92    90        78   93   86         a   a  97
Non-Hispanic                                                                          a   a  
Year 3         92  94             93         96  97    93        96   99   94         a   a  92
Year 4         81  88             81         91  92    90        88   93   85         a   a  91
Year 5         83  89             81         90  91    91        92   96   92         a   a  93
Year 10        94  95             94         84  88    89        90   91   92         a   a  93

Source: GAO analysis of service-provided rates.

^aThe Air Force did not supply this information because prior to 2003 the
Air Force did not collect ethnicity information based on officers
identifying themselves as either Hispanic or non-Hispanic.

In contrast, our analyses showed that all services encountered challenges
retaining female officers. In 11 out of 12 comparisons for both the Army
and Navy, our analysis found that male officers continued their active
duty service at a higher rate than female officers (see table 18). For 10
of the 12 Air Force-based comparisons and 6 of the 12 Marine Corps-based
comparisons, the same pattern was present. Furthermore, each service
generally experienced lower continuation rates among its female officers
compared with male officers at years 3, 4, and 5 of service. For example,
overall, the Navy had the greatest difference in continuation rates
between male and female officers who reached years 4 and 5 of service for
all fiscal years studied; female officers averaged at least a 9 percentage
point lower continuation rate than male officers. Similarly, continuation
rates among female Air Force officers averaged almost 7 percentage points
lower than the rate for male Air Force officers; among Army female
officers, almost 6 percentage points; and among Marine Corps female
officers, almost 4 percentage points.

^29In September 2005, we recommended that the services gather data on
racial and ethnic subgroup membership in a manner that is consistent with
the required procedures set forth by the Office of Management and Budget
in 1997. We further noted that in addition to requiring that recruits
provide their racial and ethnic subgroup membership using revised
categories and procedures, DOD should also determine procedures that could
be used for updating the information on servicemembers who previously
provided their racial and ethnic subgroup membership with different
subgroup categories and questions. For more information see, GAO-05-952.

Table 18: Service-Specific Continuation Rates in Percent by Gender for
Selected Fiscal Years

Gender,                                              
by year                                Marine       Air
of           Army           Navy       Corps       Force
service 2001 2003 2005    2001 2003      2005 2001  2003 2005    2001 2003 2005
Female                                                                                 
Year 3              92 92        92        94   96    90      89   98   99      83 89 86
Year 4              79 82        76        84   86    80      80   89   90      85 86 84
Year 5              79 84        78        82   83    84      87   96   83      88 87 87
Year 10             90 93        92        91   86    88      90   92   86      90 93 88
Male                                                                                   
Year 3              91 95        93        97   97    94      96   98   94      90 92 93
Year 4              82 90        83        93   93    93      88   93   85      91 92 93
Year 5              84 91        82        91   93    92      93   96   93      92 95 95
Year 10             94 95        94        83   89    89      89   91   92      90 92 95

Source: GAO analysis of service-provided data.

Retaining women may be particularly challenging in certain occupational
specialties. For example, Navy officials explained that some female
surface warfare officers do not view service as a surface warfare officer
as compatible with family life and have much less incentive to stay in the
Navy even when offered a continuation bonus. DOD officials stated that the
behavior of women is different than men because of family considerations,
and they said it is not surprising that women have different retention
patterns and behavior than men. Retaining female officers at lower rates
than male officers in these critical years may result in negative
consequences such as having a less diverse cadre of leaders. We have
previously reported that DOD has responded positively to most demographic
changes by incorporating a number of family-friendly benefits; however,
opportunities exist to improve current benefits in this area.^30

Steps Are Being Taken to Improve the Foreign Language Proficiency of Junior
Officers, but Many Impediments Could Slow Progress

DOD and the services are taking steps to enhance the foreign language
proficiency of junior officers, but many impediments must be overcome to
achieve the language objectives that DOD has laid out for junior officers.
For example, to address DOD's foreign language objectives, the service
academies have requested additional funding and teaching positions to
improve foreign language training for officer candidates at the academies.
However, time demands on officer candidates, the inability to control
foreign language curricula at ROTC colleges, hurdles in providing language
training after commissioning, and problems in maintaining language skills
among officers pose challenges to the services in developing a broader
linguistic capacity.

DOD and the Services Are Taking Steps to Improve Junior Officers' Foreign
Language Proficiency

DOD has issued guidance and the services have developed plans to achieve
greater foreign language capabilities and cultural understanding among
officers. In February 2005, DOD published its Defense Language
Transformation Roadmap which stated, among other things, that
post-September 11, 2001, military operations reinforce the reality that
DOD needs to significantly improve its capability in emerging strategic
languages and dialects. In July 2005, the Principal Deputy in OUSD (P&R)
issued a memorandum that required the services' assistant secretaries for
manpower and reserve affairs and their deputies to develop plans to
achieve 2 of the Roadmap's 43 objectives: develop a recruiting plan for
attracting university students with foreign language skills and establish
a requirement that junior officers complete added language training by
2013. Specifically, the OUSD (P&R) memo stated that (1) 80 percent of
junior officers (O-1 and O-2) will have a demonstrated proficiency in a
foreign language by achieving Interagency Language Roundtable Level 1+
proficiency; and (2) 25 percent of commissioned officers ("non-foreign
area officers") will have a Level 2 proficiency in a strategic language
other than Spanish or French, with related regional knowledge.^31 The
February 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review went further, recommending, among
other things, required language training for service academy and ROTC
scholarship students and expanded immersion programs and semester-abroad
study opportunities.

^30GAO, Military Personnel: Active Duty Benefits Reflect Changing
Demographics, but Opportunities Exist to Improve, GAO-02-935 (Washington,
D.C.: Sept. 18, 2002).

In response to the 2005 OUSD (P&R) memo and the department's language
objectives, the Marine Corps developed a foreign language training plan
that discussed the costs of achieving the two objectives and offered an
alternative proposal for planning, implementing, facilitating, and
maintaining foreign language and cultural skills of Marine officers and
enlisted personnel. Other services are still drafting their responses to
the OUSD (P&R) memo and DOD's other language objectives for officers.

In addition, the service academies have requested additional funding and
positions to expand the foreign language training offered to their officer
candidates. USMA already requires all its officer candidates to take two
semesters of a language as part of their core curriculum. Beginning with
the class that entered in 2005 and will graduate in 2009, USMA will
require its officer candidates who select humanities or social science
majors to add a third, and possibly a fourth, semester of foreign language
study. USMA is also expanding its summer immersion, exchange, and
semester-abroad programs in FY 2007 to give more officer candidates
exposure to foreign languages and cultural programs. Within the next year,
USNA plans to expand the foreign language and cultural opportunities
available to its officer candidates by developing foreign language and
regional studies majors, adding 12 new regional studies instructors in the
political science department, and adding 12 new language instructors in
critical languages such as Arabic and Chinese. Starting with the class
that will enter in 2007 and graduate in 2011, USAFA will require certain
majors to study four semesters of a foreign language. This change will
affect about half of the academy's officer candidates. The rest--primarily
those in technical majors like engineering and the sciences--will take at
least two semesters of foreign language, though they currently have no
foreign language requirement.

^31DOD assesses language capability based on a scale established by the
federal Interagency Language Roundtable. The scale has six levels--0 to
5--with 5 being the most proficient. The Roundtable describes speaking
level 1 as "elementary proficiency," in that the individual has a
sufficient capability to satisfy basic survival needs and minimum courtesy
and travel requirements. The Roundtable describes speaking level 2
capability as "limited working proficiency," in that an individual has a
sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job
requirements. A plus is assigned when proficiency substantially exceeds
one skill level but does not fully meet the criteria for the next level
capability.

Impediments Could Both Slow the Services' Efforts to Improve Foreign Language
Proficiency for Junior Officers and Lead to Negative Recruiting Outcomes

Some service officials, particularly those associated with commissioning
programs, have identified many impediments that could affect future
progress toward the foreign language objectives identified by DOD. These
impediments include the following:

           o Time demands on officer candidates. Some academy and ROTC
           program officials expressed concerns about adding demands on the
           officer candidates' time by requiring more foreign language
           credits. Each academy requires its officer candidates to complete
           at least 137 semester credit hours, in contrast to the
           approximately 120 semester hours required to graduate from many
           other colleges. Reductions in technical coursework to compensate
           for increases in language coursework could jeopardize the
           accreditation of technical degree programs at the academies.
           Similarly, some officer candidates in ROTC programs may already be
           required to complete more hours than their nonmilitary peers. At
           some colleges, officer candidates may be allowed to count their
           ROTC courses as electives only. Academy and ROTC officer
           candidates in engineering and other technical majors may find it
           difficult to add hours for additional foreign language
           requirements since accreditation standards already result in
           students in civilian colleges often needing 5 years to complete
           graduation requirements.

           o Lack of control over ROTC officer candidates' foreign language
           curricula. While one of the objectives outlined by the Principal
           Deputy of OUSD(P&R) indicated that 25 percent of commissioned
           officers (non-foreign area officers) will have a Level 2
           proficiency in a strategic language other than Spanish or French,
           ROTC programs do not have control over the languages offered at
           the colleges where their officer candidates attend classes. For
           example, out of nearly 761 host and partner Army ROTC colleges,
           the Army states that only 12 offer Arabic, 44 offer Chinese, and 1
           offers Persian Farsi, all languages deemed critical to U.S.
           national security. Even if the ROTC programs could influence the
           foreign languages offered, additional impediments include finding
           qualified instructors and adapting to annual changes to DOD's list
           of strategic languages. Moreover, if an officer candidate in ROTC
           or one of the academies takes a language in college based on DOD's
           needs at that time, the language may no longer be judged strategic
           later in the officer's career. For example, DOD operations in the
           Caribbean created a need for Haitian Creole speakers in the 1990s;
           however, that language may not be as strategic today because of
           changing operational needs.

           o Language training expensive after commissioning. While language
           training after commissioning may appear to be an alternative step
           to help the services achieve DOD's foreign language objectives,
           the Marine Corps identified significant costs associated with
           providing language training after commissioning. Unlike the other
           services, the Marine Corps obtains the vast majority of its
           officers through OCS or other, nonacademic sources. The Marine
           Corps estimated that it would need an end strength increase of 851
           officers in order to extend its basic 6-month school of
           instruction by another 6 months and achieve Level 1+ foreign
           language proficiency for 80 percent of its junior officers, a
           stated goal in the OUSD (P&R) memo. It also estimated a one-time
           $150 million cost for military construction plus $115 million
           annually: $94.1 million for additional end strength and $21
           million for training costs. The estimates for achieving the 25
           percent goal for Level 2 proficiency totaled an additional $163
           million, largely because of the $104 million associated with an
           end strength increase of 944 officers.

           o Maintaining foreign language proficiency throughout an officer's
           career. Although DOD offers online tools for language maintenance,
           our prior work has shown the difficulties of maintaining foreign
           language capabilities.^32 We noted that DOD linguists experienced
           a decline (of up to 25 percent in some cases) in foreign language
           proficiency when they were in technical training to develop their
           nonlanguage skills (such as equipment operation and military
           procedures). Proficiency could decline if officers do not have an
           opportunity to use their language skills between the times when
           they complete their training and are assigned to situations where
           they can use their skills.

Additional foreign language requirements could also have a negative effect
on recruiting for the officer commissioning programs. Army, Marine Corps,
and Air Force officials expressed concern that the new foreign language
requirement may deter otherwise-qualified individuals from entering the
military because they do not have an interest in or an aptitude for
foreign languages. Service officials also stated that requiring additional
academic credits for language study beyond the credits required for
military science courses could also be problematic, particularly for
nonscholarship ROTC officer candidates who are not receiving a financial
incentive for participating in officer training. Since at least 63 percent
of Army's current ROTC officer candidates are not on a ROTC scholarship,
officials said that increasing the language requirement could make it more
difficult to reach recruiting and accession goals as well as the objective
of having 80 percent of junior officers with a minimal foreign language
proficiency.

^32GAO, DOD Training: Many DOD Linguists Do Not Meet Minimum Proficiency
Standards,  GAO/NSIAD-94-191 (Washington, D.C.: July 12, 1994).

At the same time, our recent reports raised concerns about foreign
language proficiency in DOD and other federal agencies such as the
Department of State.^33 Service officials recognize the impediments to
foreign language training and are developing plans to implement DOD's
initiatives. Since many of these problem-identification and
action-planning efforts began in the last 2 years, it is still too early
to determine how successful the services will be in implementing the
foreign language and cultural goals outlined in DOD documents such the
Defense Language Transformation Roadmap and the Quadrennial Defense
Review; therefore, we believe that it would be premature to make any
specific recommendations.

Conclusions

While all of the services are challenged to recruit, access, and retain
certain types of officers, the Army is facing the greatest challenge.
Frequent deployments, an expanding overall force, and a variety of other
factors present Army officials with an environment that has made accessing
and retaining officers difficult using their traditional management
approaches. Moreover, delays in addressing its officer accession and
retention shortages could slow the service's implementation of planned
transformation goals, such as reorganizing its force into more modular and
deployable units, which require more junior and mid-level officers than in
the past. Although the Army has begun to implement some steps that could
help with its long-term officer needs, accessing and retaining enough
officers with the right specialties are critical issues. Moreover, the
limited coordination among the Army's officer accession programs presents
another hurdle in effectively addressing attrition rates at USMA, student
participation in ROTC, and resource constraints for OCS. Similarly, the
Army has not performed an analysis that would identify and analyze
potential risks of continuing retention problems in the near term in order
to determine priorities for allocating its resources. Without a strategic
plan for addressing its officer shortages, the Army's ability to
effectively and efficiently set goals, analyze risks, and allocate
resources could jeopardize its ability to achieve future mission
requirements.

^33GAO, State Department: Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas
Being Met, but Gaps Remain in Hard-to-Learn Languages, GAO-04-139
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2003); and GAO, Department of State: Staffing
and Foreign Language Shortfalls Persist Despite Initiatives to Address
Gaps, GAO-06-894 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 4, 2006).

Recommendation for Executive Action

In order for the Army to maintain sufficient numbers of officers at the
needed ranks and specialties, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Secretary of the Army to develop and implement a strategic plan
that addresses the Army's current and projected accession and retention
shortfalls. Actions that should be taken in developing this plan should
include

           o developing an overall annual accession goal to supplement
           specialty-specific goals in order to facilitate better long-term
           planning,

           o performing an analysis to identify risks associated with
           accession and retention shortfalls and develop procedures for
           managing the risks, and

           o making decisions on how resources should best be allocated to
           balance near- and long-term officer shortfalls.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred
with our recommendation. DOD's comments are included in this report as
appendix II.

DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to develop and implement a
strategic plan that addresses the Army's current and projected officer
accession and retention shortfalls. DOD agreed that the Army does not have
a strategic plan dedicated to current and projected officer accessions and
retention. DOD said, however, that the Army performs analyses, identifies
risk, develops procedures to mitigate risks, and performs other tasks
associated with its strategy and planning process for officer accessions
and retention. We recognize that these are important tasks, however they
are not sufficient to correct the Army's current and future officer
accession and retention problems for the following reasons. First, as
noted in our report, these tasks are fragmented, administered in a
decentralized manner across multiple Army offices, and lack the
integrated, long-term perspective that is needed to deal with the Army's
current officer shortfalls and future challenges. A more strategic,
integrated approach would allow the Army to (1) establish long-term,
outcome-related program goals as well as integrated strategies and
approaches to achieve these goals and (2) effectively and efficiently
manage and allocate the resources needed to achieve these goals. Second,
some of these tasks are not fully developed. For example, the Army's
procedures for mitigating risk did not address important considerations
such as the short- and long-term consequences of not implementing the
option and an analysis of how various options could be integrated to
maximize the Army's efforts. Third, with regard to funding--a key element
in strategic planning, Army officials indicated that they hope to use
supplemental funding to address some of the challenges that we identified,
but they also acknowledged that supplemental funding may be curtailed. In
recent reports,^34 we too noted our belief that supplemental funding is
not a reliable means for decision-makers to use in effectively and
efficiently planning for future resource needs, weighting priorities, and
assessing tradeoffs. Considering all of the limitations that we have
identified in the Army's current approach, we continue to believe that our
recommendation has merit and that an integrated and comprehensive
strategic plan is needed.

DOD mischaracterized our findings when it indicated our report (1)
asserted that Army officer accessions and retention are down and (2)
implied that recent decreases in accessions or retention have caused the
challenges. On the contrary, our report discussed many factors that
contributed to the Army's officer-related staffing challenges and provided
data that even showed, for example, an increase in accessions from FY 2001
to FY 2003 and FY 2005. The first table of our report showed the Army
commissioned 6,045 in FY 2005, an increase of 505 from FY 2001 and an
increase of 116 from FY 2003. Also, our report provides a context for
readers to understand that these increases in accessions would still leave
the Army short of officers because of new demands for more officers. Among
other things, a larger officer corps is needed to lead a larger active
duty force and the reorganization of the force into more modular and
deployable units. With regard to retention, our report does not state that
overall retention is down. Instead, we document retention by commissioning
source, occupation, and pay grade, which revealed shortages that were not
readily apparent at the aggregate level. Our report shows that the Army
has experienced decreased retention among officers early in their careers,
particularly among junior officers who graduated from USMA or received
Army ROTC scholarships. Table 11 of our report makes the point by showing
which types of occupations were over- and underfilled for officers at the
rank of major. We show, for example, that infantry (an occupational group
with a large number of officer positions) were overfilled (107 percent),
but positions in numerous other occupational groups such as military
intelligence (73 percent) were underfilled. Moreover, as with accessions,
as the Army grows, it will be required to retain officers at higher than
average percentages in order to fill higher pay grades.

^34GAO has previously reported on DOD's over reliance on supplemental
appropriations. See GAO, Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq: Key
Issues for Congressional Oversight, GAO-07-308SP (Washington, D.C.: Jan.
9, 2007) and GAO, Global War on Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs,
and Future Commitments, GAO-06-885T (Washington, D.C.: July 18, 2006).

DOD also provided technical comments that we have incorporated in this
report where appropriate.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days
after its issue date. At that time we will provide copies of this report
to interested congressional committees and the Secretary of Defense. We
will also make copies available to others upon request. This report will
be available at no charge on GAO's Web site at http://www.gao.gov .

If you or other members of the committee have any additional questions
about officer recruiting, retention, or language training issues, please
contact me at (202) 512-5559 or [email protected] . Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on
the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to
the report are listed in appendix III.

Derek B. Stewart
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Scope

We limited the scope of our work to the four active duty Department of
Defense (DOD) services: Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Also, we
examined data for fiscal years 2001, 2003, and 2005 as well as projections
for the current year (FY 2006 when we began our work) and future years. FY
2001 data represented the situations present immediately before the
terrorist events of September 11, 2001; and FY 2005 data represented the
most recent fiscal year for which the services had complete data. FY 2003
data provided information on interim conditions and allowed us to examine
the data for trends.

Methodology

To determine the extent to which the services are accessing the numbers
and types of commissioned officers required to meet their needs, we
reviewed laws and DOD-wide and service-specific officer-management
guidance, including Title 10 of the U.S. Code, including provisions
originally enacted as part of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act
(DOPMA), defense authorization acts, the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review,
and policies and directives. To gain a firm background on the origin and
evolution of the all volunteer force, we studied information in books^1 on
the all volunteer force as well as information published by GAO, DOD,
Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office, and other
organizations such as RAND. We reviewed documents from and obtained the
perspectives of officials in Office Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness, OUSD (P&R), services' headquarters, services'
personnel and manpower commands, service academies, Reserve Officer
Training Corps commands, and Officer Candidate Schools and Officer
Training School commands (see table 19). The documents and meetings with
officials allowed us to obtain an integrated understanding of recruitment
and accession procedures, the availability of newly commissioned officers
to fill positions in the military services, and potential causes and
effects of any gaps between the numbers of officers available and the
numbers of positions to be filled. We obtained and analyzed accessions and
continuation data from DOD's Defense Manpower Data Center, but our
assessment of the data's reliability identified incorrect information that
was severe enough to prevent those data from being used for this report.^2
As a result, we subsequently obtained accession and continuation
information from the services. While we did not conduct independent
analyses using the services' databases, we did assess the reliability of
their data through interviews and reviewing relevant documentation on
service-specific databases. Comparisons of service-provided rates with
similar information from other sources--such as information on the number
of officer commissioned from the USMA--suggested that the service-provided
rates were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.
Specifically, we examined information showing the numbers of officers
commissioned from the services' officer programs during FY 2001, 2003, and
2005 for trends and other patterns and compared the numbers of officers
accessed to staffing needs. We performed these comparisons with
consideration for the specialty, race, ethnicity, and gender of the
officers.

^1For example, Barbara A. Bicksler, Curtis L. Gilroy, and John T. Warner,
eds., The All-Volunteer Force: Thirty Years of Service (Dulles, Va.:
Brassey's, Inc., 2004).

^2Our assessment of the numbers of officers commissioned from the various
training programs revealed major data reliability concerns for the
information that we obtained from the Defense Manpower Data Center. The
services subsequently supplied us with information that showed under- and
overcounts for the officers commissioned in each service. At the extreme,
the Center's results showed that the Marine Corps commissioned 17 officers
in FY 2005; whereas the service indicated that it had actually
commissioned 160. We, therefore, used only services-provided data in this
report.

Table 19: Installations and Offices Where GAO Obtained Documentary
Evidence and Officials' Views Pertaining to Officer Accessions

Organization Installation or office                                       
DOD          Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and      
                Readiness, Arlington, Virginia                               
                Defense Manpower Data Center, Seaside, California            
Army         Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army, Arlington,         
                Virginia                                                     
                U.S. Army Accessions Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia          
                U.S. Army Cadet Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia               
                U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York                  
                Army Officer Candidate School, Fort Benning, Georgia         
                Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis, West Point, New    
                York                                                         
Navy         Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Arlington, Virginia 
                Navy Personnel and Reserve Commands, Millington Naval Air    
                Station, Tennessee                                           
                Navy Recruiting Command, Millington Naval Air Station,       
                Tennessee                                                    
                U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland                      
                Naval Education and Training Command, Pensacola Naval Air    
                Station, Florida                                             
                Naval Reserve Officer Training Command, Pensacola Naval Air  
                Station, Florida                                             
                Officer Training Command, Pensacola Naval Air Station,       
                Florida                                                      
Marine Corps U.S. Marine Corps Manpower Plans & Policy Division,          
                Quantico, Virginia                                           
Air Force    Office of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Commissioning 
                Programs Division, Arlington, Virginia                       
                Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Manpower and       
                Reserve Affairs, Arlington, Virginia                         
                U.S. Air Force, Medical Recruiting, Arlington, Virginia      
                U.S. Air Force Personnel Center, Randolph Air Force Base,    
                Texas                                                        
                U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado           
                Air Force Officer Accession and Training Schools, Maxwell Air
                Force Base, Alabama                                          
                Air Force Officer Training School, Maxwell Air Force Base,   
                Alabama                                                      
                Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, Maxwell Air Force  
                Base, Alabama                                                

Source: GAO.

To assess the extent to which the services are retaining the numbers and
types of officers they need, we reviewed laws and DOD-wide and
service-specific policies and directives to gain a comprehensive
understanding of officer retention. To gain a firm background on officer
retention, we examined reports and studies by GAO, DOD, Congressional
Research Service, Congressional Budget Office, and other organizations
such as RAND. Additionally, we met with a number of DOD officials located
at the services' personnel directorates to obtain an understanding of
officer retention missions, goals, historical trends, and projected
forecasts for each service. We worked with DOD and service officials to
identify differences in the metrics that each service uses to assess
retention success, and to review proposed initiatives for enhancing
officer retention and to address downsizing efforts. We analyzed documents
from and obtained the perspectives of officials in the services'
headquarters, services' personnel and manpower commands, service
academies, ROTC commands, and OCS/OTS commands to obtain an understanding
of retention, specifically whether the services are retaining the total
numbers they needed as well as the number of officers needed in specific
ranks and specialties (see table 20). We obtained and analyzed data
provided by service headquarters on officer continuation rates at critical
years in an officer's service. In our calculation of continuation rates,
officers were considered as having continued in a year if they were on the
rolls on the first day of the fiscal year and the last day. We, in
consultation with retention experts from the four services, chose to
examine four key points in an officer's career: years 3, 4, 5, and 10.
Years 3, 4, and 5 reflect the minimum active duty service obligation for
the major accession programs, that is, the first year an officer could
leave the active duty service through resignation. For example, the
minimum active duty service obligation is 3 years for OCS graduates and
officers who were commissioned by ROTC but did not receive scholarship.
Officers who received an ROTC scholarship have an obligation to serve 4
years, and academy graduates must serve at least 5 years. Additionally,
some officers who receive specialized training, such as pilots, may be
obligated to serve at least a 10-year obligation or 8 years from the
completion of pilot training. We also analyzed continuation rates for
subgroup differences broken out by occupation, race, ethnicity, and
gender. Once we identified particular issues of concern to the service,
such as the shortages for mid-level officers in the Army, we explored
these issues in further detail. We relied on rates provided by service
headquarters because of our previously cited concerns about the Defense
Manpower Data Center data. Using the data reliability-assessment
procedures discussed for our accessions work, we determined that the data
were sufficiently reliability for the purposes of our report.

Table 20: Installations and Offices Where GAO Obtained Documentary
Evidence and Officials' Views Pertaining to Officer Retention

Organization Installation or office          
DOD          Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and
                Readiness, Arlington, Virginia  
                Defense Manpower Data Center, Seaside, California
Army         Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army, Arlington, Virginia
Navy         Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Arlington, Virginia
                Navy Personnel and Reserve Commands, Millington Naval Air
                Station, Tennessee              
Marine Corps U.S. Marine Corps Manpower Plans & Policy Division
Air Force    Office of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Force
                Management Branch, Officer Management Policy, Arlington,
                Virginia                        

Source: GAO.

Finally, to assess the steps taken and impediments confronting the
services in their attempts to increase foreign language proficiency among
junior officers, we reviewed policy materials such as the Quadrennial
Defense Review, DOD policies and directives on officer candidate training,
curricula for the academies, DOD and service memoranda, reports by GAO and
others, and other materials related to language acquisition and
maintenance by military personnel and federal employees. We obtained
additional perspectives about foreign language issues in meetings with DOD
and service officials located in OUSD (P&R), the services' personnel
directorates, service academies, ROTC commands, OCS/OTS commands, and the
Defense Language Office. In each instance, we discussed the training
programs for officer candidates, the ongoing and proposed steps to
increase language proficiency among junior officers, and the challenges
these programs face in providing officer candidates with the foreign
language and training they need to serve as officers. We conducted our
review from September 2005 through November 2006 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Derek B. Stewart, (202) 512-5559 or [email protected]

Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact above, Jack E. Edwards, Assistant Director;
Kurt A. Burgeson, Laura G. Czohara; Alissa H. Czyz; Barbara A. Gannon;
Cynthia L. Grant; Julia C. Matta; Jean L. McSween; Bethann E. Ritter;
Angela D. Thomas; and Adam J. Yu made key contributions to this report.

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(350735)

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www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-224.

To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on the link above.

For more information, contact Derek Stewart at (202) 512-5559 or
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Highlights of GAO-07-224, a report to the Committee on Armed Services,
House of Representatives

January 2007

MILITARY PERSONNEL

Strategic Plan Needed to Address Army's Emerging Officer Accession and
Retention Challenges

Accessing and retaining high-quality officers in the current environment
of increasing deployments and armed conflict may be two of the all
volunteer force's greatest challenges. The military services use three
programs to access officer candidates: (1) military academies, (2) the
Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), and (3) Officer Candidate Schools
(OCS). In addition to accessing new officers, the services must retain
enough experienced officers to meet current operational needs and the
services' transformation initiatives.

GAO was asked to assess the extent to which the services are accessing and
retaining the officers required to meet their needs. GAO also identified
steps that the Department of Defense (DOD) and the services have taken and
the impediments they face in increasing officers' foreign language
proficiency. For this report, GAO examined actual accession and retention
rates for officers in fiscal years (FYs) 2001, 2003, and 2005 as well as
projections for later years. Also, GAO reviewed documents on foreign
language training and plans.

[38]What GAO RecommendsGAO recommends that the Army develop and implement
a strategic plan to address its emerging officer accession and retention
problems. DOD partially concurred with GAO's recommendation.

The services generally met most of their overall accession needs for newly
commissioned officers, but the Army faces challenges accessing enough
officers to meet its needs. The Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force met
their overall FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005 officer accession needs, but are
experiencing challenges accessing specific groups, like flight officers
and medical professionals. Moreover, the Army did not meet its needs for
officers in FY 2001 and FY 2003 and expects to struggle with future
accessions. To meet its officer accession needs, the Army's traditional
approach has been to rely first on its ROTC and academy programs and then
compensate for shortfalls in these programs by increasing its OCS
accessions. Between FYs 2001 and 2005, the Army nearly doubled the number
of OCS commissioned officers due to (1) academy and ROTC shortfalls,(2)
decreased ROTC scholarships, and (3) a need to expand its officer corps.
But OCS is expected to reach its capacity in FY 2007, and resource
limitations such as housing and classroom space may prevent further
expansion. In addition, the Army's three accession programs are
decentralized and do not formally coordinate with one another, making it
difficult for the Army, using its traditional approach, to effectively
manage risks and allocate resources across programs in an integrated,
strategic fashion. Without a strategic, integrated plan for determining
overall annual accession goals, managing risks, and allocating resources,
the Army's ability to meet its future mission requirements and to
transform to more deployable, modular units is uncertain.

All of the services except the Army generally met their past overall
officer retention needs. The Army, which continues to be heavily involved
in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, faces many retention
challenges. For example, the Army is experiencing a shortfall of mid-level
officers, such as majors, because it commissioned fewer officers 10 years
ago due to a post-Cold War force reduction. It projects a shortage of
3,000 or more officers annually through FY 2013. While the Army is
implementing and considering initiatives to improve officer retention, the
initiatives are not integrated and will not affect officer retention until
at least 2009 or are unfunded. As with its accession shortfalls, the Army
does not have an integrated strategic plan to address its retention
shortfalls. While the Army is most challenged in retaining officers, the
Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force generally met their retention needs in
FYs 2001, 2003, and 2005; but each experienced challenges in occupational
specialties such as medical officers.

DOD and the services are taking steps to enhance the foreign language
proficiency of junior officers, but many impediments must be overcome to
achieve the language objectives that DOD has laid out for junior officers.
For example, academy and ROTC officer candidates already have demanding
workloads and ROTC does not control curricula at host institutions. The
services recognize these impediments and are drafting plans to implement
DOD's foreign language objectives.

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