Military Readiness

A Clear Policy Is Needed to Guide Management of Frequently Deployed Units Gao ID: NSIAD-96-105 April 8, 1996

This report addresses concerns raised by Congress that the length of time that military personnel are spending away from home on deployments--commonly called personnel tempo--has increased and is stressing portions of the military community and harming readiness. GAO discusses (1) U.S. forces' frequency of deployments in recent years; (2) the effect of increased personnel tempo on the readiness of U.S. forces; and (3) Defense Department efforts to mitigate the impact of high personnel tempo, including measures to create systems for measuring personnel tempo.

GAO found that: (1) Army and Air Force deployments have increased among special forces, electronic warfare squadrons, and Patriot air defense, and military police units; (2) the percentage of personnel deployed from 1987 to 1995 has increased from 2 to 6 percent for the Air Force and 5 to 9 percent for the Army; (3) the Navy and Marine Corps traditionally deploy units at twice the rate of the other services and remain active for at least half of the year; (4) peace operations, along with smaller increases in joint activity, are the driving force behind increased deployments; (5) DOD believes that deployments can be reduced by eliminating redundant military training and combining or cancelling some exercises; (6) the Status of Resources and Training System reports less than one-third of frequently deploying units dropping below planned readiness levels; (7) DOD is concerned about the nature of frequently deploying units' personnel problems; (8) DOD statistics on personnel readiness are not useful because they are inconsistent and are only compiled at the major command level; and (9) high PERSTEMPO is likely to continue unless DOD directs the services to set up goals and policies to manage PERSTEMPO.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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