Military Attrition

The Defense Department (DOD) could save as much as $39 million over the long term by better screening military recruits, who often go through basic training only to be discharged because of preexisting conditions, such as disqualifying medical problems, drug use, or lack of physical fitness. For at least the last decade, about one-third of enlistees in the armed forces have failed to complete their first tours of duty. DOD's main database for managing attrition cannot be used to pinpoint the reasons that recruits leave and to set appropriate targets for reducing attrition because (1) the services interpret and apply DOD's uniform set of separation codes differently due to a lack of DOD directives and (2) current separation codes only list the official reason why an enlistee leaves the military. Thousands of recruits leave during the first six months because the military does not adequately screen applicants for disqualifying medical conditions or for drug use. One reason that this screening is inadequate is that recruiters do not have sufficient incentives to ensure that their recruits are qualified. Thousands of recruits are also discharged because they fail to meet minimum performance criteria, primarily because they are not physically prepared for basic training or they lack motivation.

GAO found that: (1) all the services agree that reducing attrition is desirable; (2) three services have attrition-reducing targets ranging from 4 to 10 percent; (3) if the services reach their goals, they would realize immediate short-term annual savings ranging from around $5 million to $12 million; (4) the services may not be able to realize savings through reductions in their related training and recruiting infrastructure for many years, but possible long-term savings could range from more than $15 million to $39 million; (5) despite the fact that the services have these goals, DOD, at present, lacks consistent and complete information on the causes of attrition; (6) implementing arbitrary attrition-reduction goals could result in a reduction in the quality of recruits; (7) DOD's primary database for managing attrition cannot be used to adequately determine the reasons that recruits separate and to set appropriate targets for reducing attrition for two reasons: (a) the services interpret and apply DOD's uniform set of separation codes differently because DOD has not issued directives on how to interpret them; and (b) current separation codes capture only the official reason that an enlistee leaves the service; (8) thousands of recruits are separated in the first 6 months because the services do not adequately screen applicants for disqualifying medical conditions or for preservice drug use; (9) one reason that this screening is inadequate is that recruiters do not have sufficient incentives to ensure that their recruits are qualified; (10) thousands of recruits also are separated who fail to meet minimum performance criteria; and (11) recruits have problems meeting performance standards because they are not physically prepared for basic training and because they lack motivation.

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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