Military Officer - January 2007 - (Page 14)

yourviews “[The Army Reserve is] going to have to address the inequity in retirement benefits.” — Lt. Col. Kurt Westerman, USAR Reserve Reservations I am certain that Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, USA, is doing his level best to handle the impossible assignment the civilian and military leadership has handed him as chief of the Army Reserve [“High Demand,” November 2006]. [But] his description of the “beneﬁts” of the Army Force Generation Model seems to represent wishful thinking, at best. The Clinton and Bush administrations have … zealously joined in cutting the active Army in half while simultaneously making increasingly unsustainable demands upon it. They have been writing checks they cannot cash and have sought to cover their overdrafts using the only currency they have available, the dedicated soldiers of the Army Reserve and National Guard. … In a heroic attempt to keep this jury-rigged system going, Stultz suggests that we can now sustain such long-term commitments by attract14 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2007 ing and retaining high quality soldiers in the Army Reserve when they are to be called up for one year out of every ﬁve. There are a host of problems with this “rosy scenario,” but I will address only two of them. First, the Army Reserve will lose many of its best young ofﬁcers and NCOs, those who have stellar business or professional careers in competitive ﬁelds wherein taking a “sabbatical” every ﬁfth year will place the individual hopelessly behind his or her peers. … Would [Stultz] have been where he was at P&G if he had had ﬁve separate yearlong deployments during his 20-year civilian career? Many (certainly not all) employers are patriotic, and some, such as P&G, might be able to afford this luxury, but no small or mid-sized ﬁrm can sustain such a personnel drain in this era of “lean and mean” stafﬁng. Any reservist with a ﬁne civilian future would have to think long and hard before making such a wager with the future of his family. Stultz says he can offer these soldiers TRICARE and GI Bill beneﬁts in exchange for the one-in-ﬁve year schedule; frankly, for “fast-track” people, such beneﬁts are usually of little importance. Of course, reservists who have tenured public-sector jobs, family businesses, or other special circumstances might well be able to face such a “one out of ﬁve” future with equanimity, and their services will no doubt prove very valuable; however, many soldiers with highly competitive skills and attributes desirable in deployed units will no longer be found in these units under this scheme. Another apparent [problem] is that there is no way to control events and truly guarantee that a transportation unit ﬁnishing its deployment will not be needed again for four years, since a major new conﬂict or presidential “commitment” might occur at any time. The enemies of this country will not conduct themselves so as to keep to our carefully honed timetable. Col. Lawrence R. Stack, AUS-Ret. Lake Forest, Ill. It was disappointing to see that reserve beneﬁts are not changing to match the increased frequency of mobilization. … The beneﬁts [Stultz] describes — tuition assistance, TRICARE, and the GI Bill — are only incentives for new recruits. They offer nothing to the mid-grade reservist who is already educated and has health care through his civilian employer. If the Army Reserve wants to retain soldiers for 20 years and subject them to mobilization every ﬁve years, they are going to have to address the inequity in retirement beneﬁts, especially the requirement to wait until age 60 to collect. The rationale for the age-60 delay was that reservists do not face the hardships

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Military Officer - January 2007 Contents From the Editor From the Chairman Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Cover Story: Osprey Rising? Battlefields of the Great War I Resolve ... New Mission Pages of History Information Exchange Advertising Index MOAA Scholarship Donors MOAA Member Services MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps Member Books Encore

Military Officer - January 2007

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