Military Personnel
DOD Needs to Address Long-term Reserve Force Availability and Related Mobilization and Demobilization Issues Gao ID: GAO-04-1031 September 15, 2004Over 335,000 reserve members have been involuntarily called to active duty since September 11, 2001, and the Department of Defense (DOD) expects future reserve usage to remain high. This report is the second in response to a request for GAO to review DOD's mobilization and demobilization process. This review specifically examined the extent to which (1) DOD's implementation of a key mobilization authority and personnel polices affect reserve force availability, (2) the Army was able to execute its mobilization and demobilization plans efficiently, and (3) DOD can manage the health of its mobilized reserve forces.
DOD's implementation of a key mobilization authority to involuntarily call up reserve component members and personnel policies greatly affects the numbers of reserve members available to fill requirements. Involuntary mobilizations are currently limited to a cumulative total of 24 months under DOD's implementation of the partial mobilization authority. Faced with some critical shortages, DOD changed a number of its personnel policies to increase force availability. However, these changes addressed immediate needs and did not take place within a strategic framework that linked human capital goals with DOD's organizational goals to fight the Global War on Terrorism. DOD was also considering a change in its implementation of the partial mobilization authority that would have expanded its pool of available personnel. This policy revision would have authorized mobilizations of up to 24 consecutive months without limiting the number of times personnel could be mobilized, and thus provide an essentially unlimited flow of forces. In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that it would retain its current cumulative approach, but DOD did not elaborate in its comments on how it expected to address its increased personnel requirements. The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and demobilization plans, because the plans contained outdated assumptions concerning the availability of facilities and support personnel. For example, plans assumed that active forces would be deployed abroad, thus vacating facilities when reserves were mobilizing and demobilizing but reserve forces were used earlier and active forces had often not vacated the facilities. As a result, some units were diverted away from their planned mobilization sites, and disparities in housing accommodations existed between active and reserve forces. Efficiency was also lost when short notice hampered coordination efforts among planners, support personnel, and mobilizing or demobilizing reserve forces. To address shortages in housing and other facilities, the Army has embarked on several construction and renovation projects without updating its planning assumptions regarding the availability of facilities. As a result, the Army risks spending money inefficiently on projects that may not be located where the need is greatest. Further, the Army has not taken a coordinated approach evaluating all the support costs associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites in order to determine the most efficient options for the Global War on Terrorism. DOD's ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve forces is limited because its centralized database has missing and incomplete health records and it has not maintained full visibility over reserve component members with medical problems. For example, the Marine Corps did not send pre-deployment health assessments to DOD's database as required, due to unclear guidance and a lack of compliance monitoring. The Air Force has visibility of involuntarily mobilized members with health problems, but lacks visibility of members with health problems who are on voluntary orders. As a result, some personnel had medical problems that had not been resolved for up to 18 months, but the full extent of this situation is unknown.
RecommendationsOur 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.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-04-1031, Military Personnel: DOD Needs to Address Long-term Reserve Force Availability and Related Mobilization and Demobilization Issues
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Report to the Subcommittee on Personnel, Committee on Armed Services,
U.S. Senate:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
September 2004:
MILITARY PERSONNEL:
DOD Needs to Address Long-term Reserve Force Availability and Related
Mobilization and Demobilization Issues:
GAO-04-1031:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-1031, a report to the Subcommittee on Personnel,
Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate:
Why GAO Did This Study:
Over 335,000 reserve members have been involuntarily called to active
duty since September 11, 2001, and the Department of Defense (DOD)
expects future reserve usage to remain high. This report is the second
in response to a request for GAO to review DOD‘s mobilization and
demobilization process. This review specifically examined the extent
to which (1) DOD‘s implementation of a key mobilization authority and
personnel polices affect reserve force availability, (2) the Army was
able to execute its mobilization and demobilization plans efficiently,
and (3) DOD can manage the health of its mobilized reserve forces.
What GAO Found:
DOD‘s implementation of a key mobilization authority to involuntarily
call up reserve component members and personnel policies greatly
affects the numbers of reserve members available to fill requirements.
Involuntary mobilizations are currently limited to a cumulative total
of 24 months under DOD‘s implementation of the partial mobilization
authority. Faced with some critical shortages, DOD changed a number of
its personnel policies to increase force availability. However, these
changes addressed immediate needs and did not take place within a
strategic framework that linked human capital goals with DOD‘s
organizational goals to fight the Global War on Terrorism. DOD was
also considering a change in its implementation of the partial
mobilization authority that would have expanded its pool of available
personnel. This policy revision would have authorized mobilizations of
up to 24 consecutive months without limiting the number of times
personnel could be mobilized, and thus provide an essentially
unlimited flow of forces. In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD
stated that it would retain its current cumulative approach, but DOD
did not elaborate in its comments on how it expected to address its
increased personnel requirements.
The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and
demobilization plans, because the plans contained outdated assumptions
concerning the availability of facilities and support personnel. For
example, plans assumed that active forces would be deployed abroad,
thus vacating facilities when reserves were mobilizing and demobilizing
but reserve forces were used earlier and active forces had often not
vacated the facilities. As a result, some units were diverted away from
their planned mobilization sites, and disparities in housing
accommodations existed between active and reserve forces. Efficiency
was also lost when short notice hampered coordination efforts among
planners, support personnel, and mobilizing or demobilizing reserve
forces. To address shortages in housing and other facilities, the Army
has embarked on several construction and renovation projects without
updating its planning assumptions regarding the availability of
facilities. As a result, the Army risks spending money inefficiently
on projects that may not be located where the need is greatest.
Further, the Army has not taken a coordinated approach evaluating all
the support costs associated with mobilization and demobilization at
alternative sites in order to determine the most efficient options for
the Global War on Terrorism.
DOD‘s ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve
forces is limited because its centralized database has missing and
incomplete health records and it has not maintained full visibility
over reserve component members with medical problems. For example, the
Marine Corps did not send pre-deployment health assessments to DOD‘s
database as required, due to unclear guidance and a lack of compliance
monitoring. The Air Force has visibility of involuntarily mobilized
members with health problems, but lacks visibility of members with
health problems who are on voluntary orders. As a result, some
personnel had medical problems that had not been resolved for up to 18
months, but the full extent of this situation is unknown.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that DOD develop a strategic framework with personnel
policies linked to human capital goals, update planning assumptions,
determine the most efficient mobilization support options, update
health guidance, set a timeline for submitting health assessments
electronically, and improve medical oversight. Of eight
recommendations, DOD agreed with five and partially agreed with three.
DOD cited four documents that it says, along with associated personnel
policies, constitute its strategic framework. GAO notes that DOD‘s
policies were issued prior to these framework documents. DOD said
oversight of Marine Corps health data would be difficult. GAO believes
this oversight is needed to determine the medical readiness of
reservists.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-1031.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Derek B. Stewart at
(202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Availability of Reserves Is Greatly Influenced by Mobilization
Authorities and Personnel Policies:
The Army Was Not Able to Efficiently Execute Its Mobilization and
Demobilization Plans:
Ability to Effectively Manage Health of Servicemembers Is Limited:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: National Guard and Reserve End Strength Figures:
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and Demobilization Installations:
Appendix IV: Differences between Demobilization and Periodic Physicals
for Reserve Component Members:
Appendix V: Pre-and Post-Deployment Health Assessment Forms:
Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since September 11, 2001:
Appendix VII: Reserve Component Recruiting Results, Fiscal Year 1993-
2004:
Appendix VIII: Service Medical and Physical Evaluation Board Processes:
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Related GAO Products:
Tables:
Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 11,
2001:
Table 2: Mobilization and Pre-Deployment Assessment Numbers:
Table 3: Service Decisions Concerning Reserve Component Member
Deployability:
Table 4: Pre-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical Referrals:
Table 5: Post-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical Referrals:
Table 6: Comparison of Self-Reported Composite Health from Pre-and
Post-Deployment Health Assessments:
Table 7: Changes in Reserve Category End Strengths:
Table 8: Fiscal Year 2003 End Strengths for Each of DOD's Six Reserve
Components:
Table 9: Physical Requirements:
Table 10: Reserve Component Recruiting Figures:
Figures:
Figure 1: Average Days of Duty Performed by DOD's Reserve Component
Forces, Fiscal Years 1989-2003:
Figure 2: Steps of DOD's Disabilities Evaluation System:
Abbreviations:
AMSA: Army Medical Surveillance Activity DODDepartment of Defense:
GAO: Government Accountability Office:
IMA: Installation Management Agency:
IRR: Individual Ready Reserve:
MEB: Medical Evaluation Board:
OASD/RA: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Reserve Affairs):
OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense:
PEB: Physical Evaluation Board:
TPFDD: Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
September 15, 2004:
The Honorable Saxby Chambliss:
Chairman:
The Honorable E. Benjamin Nelson:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Personnel:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate:
The Department of Defense (DOD) currently cannot meet its global
commitments without sizeable participation from among its 1.2 million
National Guard and Reserve members. Since September 11, 2001, more than
335,000 of DOD's reserve component[Footnote 1] members have been
involuntarily called to active duty--almost 234,000 from the Army,
almost 56,000 from the Air Force, over 24,000 from the Marine Corps and
over 21,000 from the Navy. Furthermore, thousands of reserve component
members have volunteered for extended periods of active duty service,
according to DOD officials. During this period, the Army has had more
reserve component members mobilized than all the other services
combined. Much of the Army's reserve component force has been
organized, trained, and resourced as a strategic reserve that would
receive personnel, training, and equipment as a later-deploying reserve
force rather than an operational force designed for continued overseas
deployments.
Reserve component members have been deployed around the world; some
helping to maintain peace and security at home while others serve on
the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. According to DOD
figures, over 195,000 of the mobilized reserve component members had
been demobilized as of April 7, 2004. Since the pace of reserve
operations is expected to remain high due to the Global War on
Terrorism stretching indefinitely into the future, it is critical that
the services mobilize and demobilize their reserve forces as
efficiently as possible.[Footnote 2] Furthermore, DOD has recognized
that the treatment of these servicemembers is one of the keys to the
retention of a quality force. In addition, the health and treatment of
Guard and Reserve members when mobilized have been the subject of
recent media reports and congressional hearings. Health data are
important to determine reservists' deployability and to identify health
trends for servicemembers, which could assist in the early
identification of the causes of potential post-deployment health
problems.
This is the second and final report responding to your Subcommittee's
request that we review a wide range of issues related to mobilizations
and demobilizations. Our first report, issued in August 2003, focused
on reserve mobilization issues, including the mobilization approval
process, visibility over the process, and DOD's limited use of the
Individual Ready Reserve.[Footnote 3] As agreed with your offices, this
review specifically examined the extent to which (1) DOD's
implementation of a key mobilization authority to involuntarily call up
reserve component members and DOD's personnel polices affect reserve
component force availability, (2) the Army was able to efficiently
execute its mobilization and demobilization plans, and (3) DOD can
effectively manage the health status of its mobilized reserve component
members.
In addressing our objectives, we reviewed policies from the services
and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in light of the
various mobilization authorities that are available to DOD and planned
deployment rotations. We also visited sites where the services conduct
mobilization and demobilization processing and interviewed responsible
officials at those sites. Although we visited sites for all the
services, we focused our review primarily on the Army's mobilization
and demobilization processes, since more personnel from the Army have
been and are expected to be mobilized than from all the other services
combined. We analyzed personnel and facility data obtained during the
site visits and held meetings with military and civilian officials from
OSD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the service headquarters, reserve
component headquarters, and support agencies. In addition, we examined
the collection and processing of pre-and post-deployment health
assessment information, and spoke to officials responsible for
collecting and reviewing health assessment information at the
mobilization and demobilization sites we visited. We also interviewed
the officer in charge of the organization responsible for maintaining
DOD's centralized health assessment database, and obtained and analyzed
information from the database containing the health assessments of over
290,000 reserve component members who were mobilized or demobilized
from November 2001 through March 2004. We also interviewed reserve
component members with medical problems at the mobilization and
demobilization sites we visited, and interviewed hospital commanders
and their staffs, case managers and medical liaison officers, and
officials from the service Surgeons General offices. Finally, we
tracked and analyzed trends in service data concerning the numbers of
personnel with medical problems, their locations, and the elapsed time
since they had been diagnosed with their medical problems. Based on our
review of databases we used, we determined that the DOD-provided data
were reliable for the purposes of this report. We conducted our review
from November 2003 through July 2004 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. A more thorough description of
our scope and methodology is provided in appendix I.
Results in Brief:
DOD's implementation of a key mobilization authority and the
department's personnel policies greatly affect the numbers of National
Guard and Reserve personnel available to fill the increased
requirements for the Global War on Terrorism.
* The manner in which DOD implements its mobilization authorities
affects the number of reserve component members available. The partial
mobilization authority limits involuntary mobilizations to not more
than 1 million reserve component members at any one time, for not more
than 24 consecutive months during a time of national emergency. Under
DOD's current implementation of the authority, reserve component
members can be involuntarily mobilized more than once, but involuntary
mobilizations are limited to a cumulative total of 24 months. If DOD's
implementation of the partial mobilization authority restricts the
cumulative time that reserve component forces can be mobilized, then it
is possible that DOD will run out of forces. Faced with critical
shortages of some reserve component personnel, DOD considered a change
in its implementation of the partial mobilization authority that would
have expanded its pool of available personnel. Under such a revised
implementation, DOD could have mobilized its reserve component forces
for less than 24 consecutive months; sent them home for an unspecified
period; and then remobilized them, repeating this cycle indefinitely
and providing an essentially unlimited flow of forces.
* DOD's personnel policies also affect the availability of reserve
component members. Many of DOD's policies that affect mobilized reserve
component personnel were implemented in a piecemeal manner and were
focused on the short-term requirements of the services and the needs of
reserve component members rather than on long-term requirements and
predictability. For example, DOD has sometimes implemented stop-loss
policies, which are short-term measures that increase the availability
of reserve component forces by retaining both active and reserve
component members on active duty beyond the end of their obligated
service. Overall, the policies reflect DOD's past use of the reserve
component as a later-deploying reserve force rather than a force
designed for continued overseas deployments. However, DOD's policies
were not developed within the context of an overall strategic
framework, which would set human capital goals concerning the
availability of reserve forces and show how the policies work in
conjunction with each other to meet the department's long-term
requirements for the Global War on Terrorism. Consequently, the
policies underwent numerous changes as DOD strove to increase the
availability of the reserve components to meet current requirements.
These policy changes created uncertainties for reserve component
members concerning the likelihood of their mobilization, the length of
their service commitments, the length of their overseas rotations, and
the types of missions that they would be asked to perform. It remains
to be seen how these uncertainties will affect recruiting, retention,
and the long-term viability of the reserve components. There are
already indications that some portions of the force are being stressed.
For example, the Army National Guard failed to meet its recruiting goal
during 14 of 20 months from October 2002 through May 2004, and ended
fiscal year 2003 approximately 7,800 soldiers below its recruiting
goal.
* Furthermore, it is unclear how DOD plans to meet its longer-term
requirements for the Global War on Terrorism. In commenting on a draft
of this report, DOD stated that it would retain its current
implementation approach to the partial mobilization authority--
limiting mobilizations to a cumulative total of 24 months. Policies
that limit involuntary mobilizations based on cumulative service make
it difficult for mobilization planners, who must keep track of prior
mobilizations in order to determine which forces are available to meet
future requirements. In June 2004, DOD had more than 150,000 reserve
component members mobilized, and it projects that over the next 3 to 5
years, it will continuously have 100,000 to about 150,000 reserve
component members mobilized. It also noted that about 30,000 reserve
members had already been mobilized for 24 months. The availability of
the reserve force will continue to play an important role in the
success of DOD's missions. However, DOD's comments that said it would
retain its current implementation approach to the partial mobilization
authority did not elaborate on how it would address the increased
requirements under this approach.
The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and
demobilization plans because the plans contained outdated assumptions
concerning the availability of facilities and support personnel.
Specifically, the plans assumed (1) that active forces would deploy
away from the mobilization and demobilization sites before the reserve
forces arrived and (2) that specialized reserve component support units
would remain available to support ongoing mobilizations and
demobilizations. However, installation officials were not always able
to prepare adequate facilities for the arrival of mobilizing and
demobilizing reserve component forces because active forces had not
deployed away from the mobilization and demobilization sites as plans
had assumed. As a result, some reserve component units were diverted
away from their planned mobilization sites, and disparities in housing
accommodations arose between active and reserve component forces at the
same installations. To address housing and other facilities shortages
at mobilization and demobilization sites, the Army has embarked on a
number of facility construction and renovation projects without
updating its planning assumptions regarding the availability of
facilities. In addition, installation officials faced uncertainties
concerning the availability of specialized reserve component support
units that provide much of the medical, training, logistics, and
processing support during mobilization and demobilization. Faced with
the prospect of mobilizing support personnel for more than 24 months,
the Army began a series of initiatives to replace many of these
specialized reserve component support personnel with civilians or
contractors. These initiatives coupled with the facility construction
and renovation projects are projected to run into the hundreds of
millions of dollars. However, the Army did not take a coordinated
approach to evaluate all the support costs associated with mobilization
and demobilization at alternative sites--including both facility
(construction, renovation, and maintenance) and support personnel
(reserve component, civilian, contractor or a combination) costs--and
determine the most efficient options.
DOD's ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve
component members is limited because (1) its centralized database has
missing and incomplete health records and (2) it has not maintained
full visibility over reserve component members with medical problems.
* First, not all of the required information collected from reserve
component members has reached DOD's central data collection point. For
example, the Marine Corps did not send servicemembers' pre-deployment
health assessment forms to the centralized database as
required.[Footnote 4] Marine Corps officials told us that Marine Corps
guidance did not require them to submit pre-deployment health
assessments to the centralized database. The Marine Corps also lacks a
mechanism for overseeing the submission of these forms to the database.
Some records in DOD's centralized health assessment database did not
include information that could be used to identify the causes of
various medical problems, often because the forms were not submitted
electronically. Even though all of the reserve components have the
capability to submit the forms electronically--and such electronic
submission would expedite the inclusion of key data for meaningful
analysis, increase accuracy of the reported information, and lessen the
burden of sites forwarding paper copies and the likelihood that
information would be lost--DOD has not set a timeline for the services
to electronically submit the health assessment forms to the centralized
database. Despite some missing information in the database, we
determined that over 90 percent of the more than 290,000 mobilized
reserve component personnel rated their overall health as good to
excellent. Despite the small percentages of mobilized personnel with
medical problems, there are still thousands of reserve component
personnel on active duty with medical problems, due to the large
reserve component mobilizations.
* Second, DOD's ability to effectively manage the health of its reserve
component members is limited because some of the reserve components
could not adequately track personnel with medical issues. The Army
previously lacked central visibility over its reserve component
personnel with medical problems, and this contributed to housing and
pay problems for the reserve component members, lost health care
coverage for their dependents, and allegations that it was taking too
long to get medical treatment. The Army has taken steps to address all
of these problems and now has good visibility over its reserve
component personnel who are on active duty with medical problems.
However, the Air Force has visibility over only some of its personnel
on active duty with medical problems because it lacks a mechanism for
tracking reserve component members with health problems who are on
voluntary active duty orders.[Footnote 5] As a result, some air reserve
component members have medical issues that may not have been resolved
over long periods of time. For example, at one of the sites we visited,
several reservists told us that they were currently on voluntary orders
with medical problems, and one reservist who was currently on voluntary
orders told us that his problem had lasted for 18 months and he did not
expect resolution of his case anytime soon. The extent to which such a
problem is commonplace is unknown, given the inability of the Air Force
to track such personnel.
We are making eight recommendations in this report. We recommend that
DOD develop a strategic framework that sets human capital goals
concerning the availability of its reserve force to meet the longer-
term requirements of the Global War on Terrorism and that DOD identify
personnel policies that should be linked within the context of the
strategic framework. We also recommend that DOD update the Army's
mobilization-and demobilization-planning assumptions, evaluate all
support costs associated with mobilization and demobilization at
alternative Army sites to determine the most efficient options, update
Marine Corps guidance concerning the submission of health assessments,
improve Marine Corps oversight of the submission of health assessments,
set a timeline for the military departments to electronically submit
health assessments, and develop a mechanism for Air Force tracking of
reserve component members on voluntary active duty orders with health
problems.
In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with five of our
eight recommendations and partially concurred with the other three. DOD
stated that it has a strategic framework for setting human capital
goals, which was established through a December 2002 force mix review,
a January 2004 rebalancing report, and other planning and budgeting
guidance. However, DOD agreed that it should review and, as
appropriate, update its strategic framework. Although the documents
cited by DOD lay some of the groundwork needed to develop a strategic
framework, these documents do not specifically address how DOD will
integrate and align its personnel policies to maximize its efficient
usage of reserve component personnel in order to meet its overall
organizational goals. DOD also stated that its September 20, 2001,
personnel and pay policy and its July 19, 2002, addendum established
personnel policies associated with this strategic framework and said
that the department should review, and as appropriate, update the
policies. However, the policies cited by DOD pre-date the 2004 report
and the December 2002 review, which DOD cited as part of its strategic
framework. The strategic framework should be established prior to the
creation of personnel policies. Regarding our recommendation concerning
Marine Corps oversight of health assessments, DOD stated that
electronic submission might not be practical for every Marine Corps
deployment. However, this recommendation was directed at the oversight
of health assessments regardless of how the assessments are submitted-
-in paper or electric form. We continue to believe that the Marine
Corps needs to establish a mechanism for overseeing the submission of
its pre-and post-deployment health assessments.
Background:
Mobilization is the process of assembling and organizing personnel and
equipment, activating or federalizing units and members of the National
Guard and Reserves for active duty, and bringing the armed forces to a
state of readiness for war or other national emergency. It is a complex
undertaking that requires constant and precise coordination between a
number of commands and officials. Mobilization usually begins when the
President invokes a mobilization authority and ends with the voluntary
or involuntary mobilization of an individual Reserve or National Guard
member. Demobilization[Footnote 6] is the process necessary to release
from active duty units and members of the National Guard and Reserve
components who were ordered to active duty under various legislative
authorities. Mobilization and demobilization times can vary from a
matter of hours to months depending on a number of factors. For
example, many air reserve component units are required to be available
to mobilize within 72 hours while Army National Guard brigades may
require months of training as part of their mobilizations. Reserve
component members' usage of accrued leave can greatly affect
demobilization times. Actual demobilization processing typically takes
a matter of days once the member arrives back in the United States.
However, since members earn 30 days of leave each year, they could have
up to 60 days of leave available to them at the end of a 2-year
mobilization.
Reserve Components and Categories:
DOD has six reserve components: the Army Reserve, the Army National
Guard, the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, the Naval
Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve. Reserve forces can be divided
into three major categories: the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve,
and the Retired Reserve. The Ready Reserve had approximately 1.2
million National Guard and Reserve members at the end of fiscal year
2003, and its members were the only reservists who were subject to
involuntary mobilization under the partial mobilization declared by
President Bush on September 14, 2001. Within the Ready Reserve, there
are three subcategories: the Selected Reserve, the Individual Ready
Reserve (IRR), and the Inactive National Guard. Members of all three
subcategories are subject to mobilization under a partial mobilization.
* At the end of fiscal year 2003, DOD had 875,072 Selected Reserve
members. The Selected Reserve's members included individual
mobilization augmentees--individuals who train regularly, for pay, with
active component units--as well as members who participate in regular
training as members of National Guard or Reserve units.
* At the end of fiscal year 2003, DOD had 274,199 IRR members. During a
partial mobilization, these individuals--who were previously trained
during periods of active duty service--can be mobilized to fill
requirements. Each year, the services transfer thousands of personnel
who have completed the active duty or Selected Reserve portions of
their military contracts, but who have not reached the end of their
military service obligations, to the IRR.[Footnote 7] However, IRR
members do not participate in any regularly scheduled training, and
they are not paid for their membership in the IRR.[Footnote 8]
* At the end of fiscal year 2003, the Inactive National Guard had 2,138
Army National Guard members. This subcategory contains individuals who
are temporarily unable to participate in regular training but who wish
to remain attached to their National Guard unit.
Appendix II contains additional information about end strengths within
the various reserve components and different categories.
Mobilization Authorities:
Most reservists who were called to active duty for other than normal
training after September 11, 2001, were mobilized under one of the
three legislative authorities listed in table 1.
Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 11,
2001:
Title 10 U.S.C. section: 12304; (Presidential reserve call-up
authority);
Type of mobilization: Involuntary;
Number of Ready Reservists that can be mobilized at any one time:
200,000[A];
Length of mobilizations: Not more than 270 days for any operational
mission.
Title 10 U.S.C. section: 12302; (Partial mobilization authority);
Type of mobilization: Involuntary;
Number of Ready Reservists that can be mobilized at any one time:
1,000,000;
Length of mobilizations: Not more than 24 consecutive months.
Title 10 U.S.C. section: 12301 (d);
Type of mobilization: Voluntary;
Number of Ready Reservists that can be mobilized at any one time:
Unlimited;
Length of mobilizations: Unlimited.
Source: GAO.
[A] Under this authority, DOD can mobilize members of the Selected
Reserve and certain IRR members but it is limited to not more than
200,000 members at any one time, of whom not more than 30,000 may be
members of the IRR.
[End of table]
On September 14, 2001, President Bush declared that a national
emergency existed as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center
in New York City, New York, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and
he invoked 10 U.S.C. § 12302, which is commonly referred to as the
"partial mobilization authority." On September 20, 2001, DOD issued
mobilization guidance that, among a host of other things, directed the
services as a matter of policy to specify in initial orders to Ready
Reserve members that the period of active duty service under 10 U.S.C.
§ 12302 would not exceed 12 months. However, the guidance allowed the
service secretaries to extend orders for an additional 12 months or
remobilize reserve component members under the partial mobilization
authority as long as an individual member's cumulative service did not
exceed 24 months under 10 U.S.C. § 12302. It further specified that "No
member of the Ready Reserve called to involuntary active duty under 10
U.S.C. 12302 in support of the effective conduct of operations in
response to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, shall serve on
active duty in excess of 24 months under that authority, including
travel time to return the member to the residence from which he or she
left when called to active duty and use of accrued leave." The guidance
also allowed the services to retain members on active duty after they
had served 24 or fewer months under 10 U.S.C. § 12302 with the member's
consent if additional orders were authorized under 10 U.S.C. §
12301(d).[Footnote 9]
Mobilization and Demobilization Roles and Responsibilities:
Combatant commanders are principally responsible for the preparation
and implementation of operation plans that specify the necessary level
of mobilization of reserve component forces. The military services are
the primary executors of mobilization. At the direction of the
Secretary of Defense, the services prepare detailed mobilization plans
to support the operation plans and provide forces and logistical
support to the combatant commanders.
The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, who reports to
the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, is to
provide policy, programs, and guidance for the mobilization and
demobilization of the reserve components. The Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, after coordination with the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Reserve Affairs, the secretaries of the military
departments, and the commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands, is
to advise the Secretary of Defense on the need to augment the active
forces with members of the reserve components. The Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff also has responsibility for recommending the
period of service for units and members of the reserve components
ordered to active duty. The service secretaries are to prepare plans
for mobilization and demobilization and to periodically review and test
the plans to ensure the services' capabilities to mobilize reserve
forces and to assimilate them effectively into the active forces.
Reserve Component Approaches to Mobilization and Demobilization:
Within the constraints of the existing mobilization authorities and DOD
guidance, the services have flexibility as to how, where, and when they
conduct mobilization and demobilization processing. Unit readiness also
affects time frames. For example, air reserve component units, which
must be ready to deploy on short notice, generally complete their
mobilization processing much quicker than Army units that have been
funded at low levels under the Army's tiered readiness concept.
However, higher-priority units may take longer to complete
demobilization processing because, at the end of the processing, they
must be ready to deploy on short notice again.
The reserve components differ in their approaches to the mobilization
and demobilization processes. The Army and Navy use centralized
approaches, mobilizing and demobilizing their reserve component forces
at a limited number of locations. The Army utilizes 15 primary sites
that it labels "power projection platforms" and 12 secondary sites
called "power support platforms." The Navy has 15 geographically
dispersed Navy Mobilization Processing Sites but is currently using
only 5 of these sites because of the relatively small numbers of
personnel who are mobilizing and demobilizing.
By contrast, the Air Force uses a decentralized approach, mobilizing
and demobilizing its reserve component members at their home stations-
-135 for the Air Force Reserve and 90 for the Air National Guard. The
Marine Corps uses a hybrid approach. It has five Mobilization
Processing Centers to centrally mobilize individual reservists and is
currently using three of these centers. However, the Marine Corps uses
a decentralized approach to mobilize its units. Selected Marine Corps
Reserve units do most of their mobilization processing at their home
stations and then report to their gaining commands, such as the First
or Second Marine Expeditionary Force located at Camp Pendleton and Camp
Lejeune, respectively. Individuals usually demobilize at the same
location where they mobilized and units generally demobilize at Camp
Pendleton or Camp Lejeune. See appendix III for a listing of the
services' mobilization and demobilization sites.
Service Usage of the Reserve Component since September 11, 2001:
Figure 1 shows reserve component usage on a per capita basis since
fiscal year 1989 and demonstrates the dramatic increase in usage that
occurred after September 11, 2001. It shows that the ongoing usage--
which includes support to operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and
Iraqi Freedom--exceeds the usage rates during the 1991 Persian Gulf War
in both length and magnitude.[Footnote 10]
Figure 1: Average Days of Duty Performed by DOD's Reserve Component
Forces, Fiscal Years 1989-2003:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Duty days in figure 1 include training days as well as support
for operational missions.
[End of figure]
While reserve component usage increased significantly after September
11, 2001, an equally important shift occurred at the end of 2002.
Following the events of September 11, 2001, the Air Force initially
used the partial mobilization authority more than the other services.
However, service usage shifted in 2002, and by the end of that year,
the Army had more reserve component members mobilized than all the
other services combined. Since that time, usage of the Army's reserve
component members has continued to dominate DOD's figures. On June 30,
2004, the Army had about 131,000 reserve component members mobilized
while the Air Force had about 12,000, the Marine Corps about 9,000, and
the Navy about 3,000.
Under the current partial mobilization authority, DOD increased not
only the numbers of reserve component members that it mobilized, but
also the length of the members' mobilizations. The average mobilization
for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-91 was 156 days.
However, by December 31, 2003, the average mobilization for operations
Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom was 319 days, or
double the length of mobilizations for Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
By March 31, 2004, the average mobilization for the three ongoing
operations had increased to 342 days, and that figure is expected to
continue to rise.
DOD's Management of Reserve Component Health Issues:
Section 1074f of Title 10, United States Code required that the
Secretary of Defense establish a system to assess the medical condition
of members of the armed forces (including members of the reserve
components) who are deployed outside of the United States, its
territories, or its possessions as part of a contingency operation or
combat operation. It further required that records be maintained in a
centralized location to improve future access to records and that the
Secretary establish a quality assurance program to evaluate the success
of the system in ensuring that members receive pre-and post-deployment
medical examinations[Footnote 11] and that recordkeeping requirements
are met.
DOD policy requires that the services collect pre-and post-deployment
health information from their members and submit copies of the forms
that are used to collect this information to the Army Medical
Surveillance Activity (AMSA).[Footnote 12] Initially, deployment
health assessments were required for all active and reserve component
personnel who were on troop movements resulting from deployment orders
of 30 continuous days or greater to land-based locations outside the
United States that did not have permanent U.S. military medical
treatment facilities. However, on October 25, 2001, the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs updated DOD's policy and
required deployment-related health assessments for all reserve
component personnel called to active duty for 30 days or more. The
policy specifically stated that the assessments were to be done whether
or not the personnel were deploying outside the United States. Both
assessments use a questionnaire designed to help military health care
providers in identifying health problems and providing needed medical
care. The pre-deployment health assessment is generally administered at
the service mobilization site or unit home station before deployment,
and the post-deployment health assessment is completed either in
theater before redeployment to the servicemember's home unit or shortly
after redeployment.
On February 1, 2002, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued
updated deployment health surveillance procedures. Among other things,
these procedures specified that servicemembers must complete or
revalidate the health assessment within 30 days prior to deployment.
The procedures also stated that the original completed health
assessment forms were to be placed in the servicemember's permanent
medical record and a copy "immediately forwarded to AMSA."
Both the pre-and the post-deployment assessments were originally two-
page forms, but on April 22, 2003, the post-deployment assessment was
expanded to four pages "in response to national interest in the health
of deployed personnel, combined with the timing and scope of current
deployments." Both forms include demographic information about the
servicemember, member-provided information about the member's general
health, and information about referrals that are issued when service
medical providers review the health assessments. The pre-deployment
assessment also includes a final medical disposition that shows whether
the member was deployable or not, and the post-deployment assessment
contains additional information about the location where the member was
deployed and things that the member might have been exposed to during
the deployment. Compared with the two-page post-deployment form, the
four-page form captures more-detailed information on deployment
locations, potentially hazardous exposures, and medical symptoms the
servicemember might have experienced. It also asks a number of mental
health questions. Examples of the forms can be found in appendix V.
GAO's Prior Report on DOD's Mobilization Process:
Our August 2003 report found the following:
* DOD's process to mobilize reservists after September 11, 2001, had to
be modified and contained numerous inefficiencies.
* DOD did not have visibility over the entire mobilization process
primarily because it lacked adequate systems for tracking personnel and
other resources.
* The services have used two primary approaches--predictable operating
cycles and formal advance notification--to provide time for units and
personnel to prepare for mobilizations and deployments.
* Mobilizations were hampered because one-quarter of the Ready Reserve
was not readily available for mobilization or deployment. Over 70,000
reservists could not be mobilized because they had not completed
training requirements, and the services lacked information needed to
fully use the 300,000 previously trained IRR members.[Footnote 13]
We made a number of recommendations in our report to enhance the
efficiency of DOD's reserve component mobilizations. DOD generally
concurred with the recommendations and has mobilization reengineering
efforts under way to make the process more efficient. The Army has also
taken steps to improve the information it maintains on IRR members.
Availability of Reserves Is Greatly Influenced by Mobilization
Authorities and Personnel Policies:
The availability of reserve component forces to meet future
requirements is greatly influenced by DOD's implementation of the
partial mobilization authority and by the department's personnel
policies. Furthermore, many of DOD's policies that affect mobilized
reserve component personnel were implemented in a piecemeal manner, and
were focused on the short-term needs of the services and reserve
component members rather than on long-term requirements and
predictability. The availability of reserve component forces will
continue to play an important role in the success of DOD's missions
because requirements that increased significantly after September 11,
2001, are expected to remain high for the foreseeable future. As a
result, there are early indicators that DOD may have trouble meeting
predictable troop deployment and recruiting goals for some reserve
components and occupational specialties.
DOD's Recent Use of Mobilization Authorities:
On September 14, 2001, DOD broke with its previous pattern of invoking
successive authorities by invoking a partial mobilization authority
without a prior Presidential Reserve call-up. In addition, DOD was
considering a change in its implementation of the partial mobilization
authority. The manner in which DOD implements the mobilization
authorities currently available can result in either an essentially
unlimited supply of forces or running out of forces available for
deployment, at least in the short term.
While DOD has consistently used two mobilization authorities to gain
involuntary access to its reserve component forces since 1990, the
methods of using the authorities has not remained constant. On August
22, 1990, the President invoked Title 10 U.S.C. Section 673b, allowing
DOD to mobilize Selected Reserve members for Operation Desert
Shield.[Footnote 14] The provision was then commonly referred to as the
Presidential Selected Reserve Call-up authority and is now called the
Presidential Reserve Call-up authority.[Footnote 15] This authority
limits involuntary mobilizations to not more than 200,000 reserve
component members at any one time, for not more than 270 days, for any
operational mission. On January 18, 1991, the President invoked Title
10 U.S.C. Section 673, commonly referred to as the "partial
mobilization authority," thus providing DOD with additional authority
to respond to the continued threat posed by Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait.[Footnote 16] The partial mobilization authority limits
involuntary mobilizations to not more than 1 million reserve component
members at any one time, for not more than 24 consecutive months,
during a time of national emergency. During the years between Operation
Desert Shield and September 11, 2001, DOD invoked a number of separate
mission-specific Presidential Reserve Call-ups for operations in
Bosnia, Kosovo, Southwest Asia, and Haiti. The department did not seek
a partial mobilization authority for any of these operations, and it
continued to view the partial mobilization authority as the second step
in a series of progressive measures to address escalating requirements
during a time of national emergency.
Unlike the progressive use of mobilization authorities following Iraq's
1990 invasion of Kuwait, after the events of September 11, 2001, the
President invoked the partial mobilization authority without a prior
Presidential Reserve Call-up.[Footnote 17] Since the partial
mobilization for the Global War on Terrorism went into effect in 2001,
DOD has used both the partial mobilization authority and the
Presidential Reserve Call-up authority to involuntarily mobilize
reserve component members for operations in the Balkans.
The manner in which DOD implements the partial mobilization authority
affects the number of reserve component forces available for
deployment. When DOD issued its initial guidance concerning the partial
mobilization authority in 2001, it limited mobilization orders to 12
months but allowed the service secretaries to extend the orders for an
additional 12 months or remobilize reserve component members, as long
as an individual member's cumulative service under the partial
mobilization authority did not exceed 24 months. Under this cumulative
implementation approach, it is possible for DOD to run out of forces
during an extended conflict such as the long-term Global War on
Terrorism. During our review, DOD was already facing some critical
personnel shortages. To expand its pool of available personnel, DOD was
considering a policy shift that would have authorized mobilizations of
up to 24 consecutive months under the partial mobilization authority
with no limit on cumulative months. Under the considered approach, DOD
would have been able to mobilize its forces for less than 24 months;
send them home; and then remobilize them, repeating this cycle
indefinitely and providing essentially an unlimited flow of forces.
Piecemeal Policies Did Not Address Long-term Requirements or
Predictability:
Many of DOD's policies that affect mobilized reserve component
personnel were implemented in a piecemeal manner and were not linked
within the context of a strategic framework to meet the organizational
goals. Overall, the policies reflected DOD's past use of the reserve
components as a strategic force rather than DOD's current use of the
reserve component as an operational force to respond to the increased
requirements of the Global War on Terrorism. Faced with some critical
shortages, the policies focused on the short-term needs of the services
and reserve component members rather than on long-term requirements and
predictability. This approach was necessary because the department had
not developed a strategic framework that identified DOD's human capital
goals necessary to meet organizational requirements. Without a
strategic framework, OSD and the services made several changes to their
personnel policies to increase the availability of the reserve
components for the longer-term requirements of the Global War on
Terrorism, and predictability declined for reserve component members.
Specifically, reserve component members have faced uncertainties
concerning the likelihood of their mobilizations, the length of their
service commitments, the length of their overseas rotations, and the
types of missions that they would be asked to perform.
Volunteer and Individual Ready Reserve Policies:
The partial mobilization authority allows DOD to involuntarily mobilize
members of the Ready Reserve, including the IRR;[Footnote 18] but after
the President invoked the partial mobilization authority on September
14, 2001, DOD and service policies encouraged the use of volunteers and
generally discouraged the involuntary mobilization of IRR members. DOD
officials said that they could meet requirements without using the IRR
and stated that they wanted to focus involuntary mobilizations on the
paid, rather than unpaid members, of the reserve components. However,
our August 2003 report documented the lack of predictability that
resulted from the volunteer and IRR policies.[Footnote 19] These
policies were disruptive to the integrity of Army units because there
was a steady flow of personnel among units. Personnel were transferred
from nonmobilizing units to mobilizing units that were short of
personnel, and when the units that had supplied the personnel were
later mobilized, they in turn were short of personnel and had to draw
personnel from still other units. Despite the DOD and Army reluctance
to use the IRR, the Chief of the Army Reserve has advocated using the
IRR to cut down on the disruptive cross-leveling and individual
mobilizations that have been breaking Army units. From September 11,
2001 to May 15, 2004, the Army Reserve mobilized 110,000 of its
reservists, but more than 27,000 of these reservists were cross-leveled
and mobilized with units that they did not normally train with.
Furthermore, because the IRR makes up almost one-quarter of the Ready
Reserve, policies that discourage the use of the IRR will cause members
of the Selected Reserve to share greater exposures to the hazards
associated with national security and military requirements. Moreover,
policies that discourage the use of the IRR could cause DOD's pool of
available reserve component personnel to shrink by more than 200,000
personnel.
Since our August 2003 report, Navy and Air Force officials have stated
that they still have not involuntarily mobilized any members of their
IRRs. In our August 2003 report, we noted that the Air Force's
reluctance to use any of its more than 44,000 IRR members resulted in
unfilled requirements for more than 9,000 personnel to guard Air Force
bases. However, the Army National Guard agreed to provide personnel
from its Selected Reserve units to fill these requirements. Faced with
critical personnel shortages, the Army recently changed its policy and
now plans to make limited use of its IRR. To date, the Marine Corps has
made the most extensive use of its IRR, capitalizing on the willingness
of many members to voluntarily return to active duty.
Stop-Loss Policies:
At various times since September 2001, all of the services have had
"stop-loss" policies in effect.[Footnote 20] These policies are short-
term measures that increase the availability of reserve component
forces while decreasing predictability for reserve component members
who are prevented from leaving the service at the end of their
enlistment periods. Stop-loss policies are often implemented to retain
personnel in critical or high-use occupational specialties. Appendix VI
contains a summary of the services' stop-loss policies that have been
in effect since September 2001.
The only stop-loss policy in effect when we ended our review was an
Army policy that applied to units rather than individuals in critical
occupations. Under that policy, Army reserve component personnel were
not permitted to leave the service from the time their unit was
alerted[Footnote 21] until 90 days after the date when their unit was
demobilized. Because many Army units undergo several months of training
after being mobilized but before being deployed overseas for 12 months,
stop-loss periods can reach 2 years or more.
According to Army officials, a substantial number of reserve component
members have been affected by the changing stop-loss policies. As of
June 30, 2004, the Army had over 130,000 reserve component members
mobilized and thousands more alerted or demobilized less than 90 days.
Because they have remaining service obligations, many of these reserve
component members would not have been eligible to leave the Army even
if stop-loss policies had not been in effect. However, from fiscal year
1993 through fiscal year 2001,[Footnote 22] Army National Guard annual
attrition rates exceeded 16 percent and Army Reserve rates exceeded 25
percent. Even a 16 percent attrition rate means that 20,800 of the
mobilized 130,000 reserve component soldiers would have left their
reserve component each year. If attrition rates exceed 16 percent or
the thousands of personnel who are alerted or who have been demobilized
for less than 90 days are included, the numbers of personnel affected
by stop-loss policies would increase even more.[Footnote 23] When the
Army's stop-loss policies are eventually lifted, thousands of
servicemembers could retire or leave the service all at once and the
Army's reserve components could be confronted with a huge increase in
recruiting requirements.
Mobilization and Rotation Policies:
Following DOD's issuance of guidance concerning the length of
mobilizations in September 2001, the services initially limited most
mobilizations to 12 months, and most services maintained their existing
operational rotation policies to provide deployments of a predictable
length that are preceded and followed by standard maintenance and
training periods. However, the Air Force and the Army later increased
the length of their rotations, and the Army increased the length of its
mobilizations as well. These increases in the length of mobilizations
and rotations increased the availability of reserve component forces
but decreased predictability for individual reserve component members
who were mobilized and deployed under one set of policies but later
extended as a result of the policy changes.
The Air Force's operational concept prior to September 2001, was based
on a rotation policy that made reserve component forces available for 3
out of every 15 months. After September 2001, the Air Force was not
able to solely rely on its normal rotations and had to involuntarily
mobilize large numbers of reserve component personnel. From September
11, 2001, to March 31, 2004, the Air National Guard mobilized more than
31,000 personnel, and the Air Force Reserve mobilized more than 24,000
personnel. Although most Air Force mobilizations were for 12 months or
less, more than 10,000 air reserve component members had their
mobilization orders extended to 24 months. Most of these personnel were
in security-related occupations. Since September 2001, the Air Force
has not been able to return to its normal operating cycle, and in June
2004, the Air Force Chief of Staff announced that Air Force rotations
would be increased to 4 months beginning in September 2004.
Before September 2001, the Army mobilized its reserve component forces
for up to 270 days under the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority,
and it deployed these troops overseas for rotations that lasted about 6
months. When it began mobilizing forces under the partial mobilization
authority in September 2001, the Army generally mobilized troops for 12
months. However, troops that were headed for duty in the Balkans
continued to be mobilized under the Presidential Reserve Call-up
authority. When worldwide requirements for both active and reserve
component Army troops increased, the Army changed its Balkan rotation
schedules. These schedules had been published years in advance to allow
poorly resourced Guard and Reserve units time to train and prepare for
the deployments. As a result of the changed schedules, some reserve
component units did not have adequate time to prepare and train for
Balkan rotations and then deploy for 6 months and still remain with the
270-day limit of the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority. Therefore,
the Army mobilized some reserve component units under the partial
mobilization authority so that they could undergo longer training
periods prior to deploying for 6 months under the Presidential Reserve
Call-up authority. The Army's initial deployments to Iraq and
Afghanistan were scheduled for 6 months, just like the overseas
rotations for the Balkans. Eventually, the Army increased the length of
its rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan to 12 months. This increased the
availability of reserve component forces, but it decreased
predictability for members who were mobilized and deployed during the
transition period when the policy changed. Because overseas rotations
were extended to 12 months and mobilization periods must include
mobilization and demobilization processing time, training time, and
time for the reserve component members to take any leave that they
earn, the change in rotation policy required a corresponding increase
in the length of mobilizations.
Cross-Training Policies:
DOD has a number of training initiatives underway that will increase
the availability of its reserve component forces to meet immediate
needs. Servicemembers are receiving limited training--called "cross-
training"--that enables them to perform missions that are outside their
area of expertise. In the Army, field artillery and air defense
artillery units have been trained to perform some military police
duties. Air Force and Navy personnel received additional training and
are providing the Army with additional transportation assets. DOD also
has plans to permanently convert thousands of positions from low-use
career fields to stressed career fields.
Early Indications That DOD May Have Trouble Meeting Its Rotation and
Recruiting Goals Exist:
While it remains to be seen how the uncertainty resulting from changing
personnel policies will affect recruiting, retention, and the long-term
viability of the reserve components, there are already indications that
some portions of the force are being stressed. For example, the Army
National Guard failed to meet its recruiting goal during 14 of 20
months and ended fiscal year 2003 approximately 7,800 soldiers below
its recruiting goal. (Appendix VII contains additional information
about reserve component recruiting results.)
The Secretary of Defense established a force-planning metric to limit
involuntary mobilizations to "reasonable and sustainable rates" and has
set the metric for such mobilizations at 1 year out of every 6.
However, on the basis of current and projected usage, it appears that
DOD may face difficulties achieving its goal within the Army's reserve
components in the near term. Since February 2003, the Army has
continuously had between 20 and 29 percent of its Selected Reserve
members mobilized. To illustrate, even if the Army were to maintain the
lower 20 percent mobilization rate for Selected Reserve members, it
would need to mobilize one-fifth of its selected reserve members each
year.[Footnote 24] DOD is aware that certain portions of the force are
used much more highly than others, and it plans to address some of the
imbalances by converting thousands of positions from lower-demand
specialties into higher-demand specialties. However, these conversions
will take place over several years and even when the positions are
converted, it may take some time to recruit and train people for the
new positions.
DOD Plans to Address Increased Personnel Requirements Are Unclear:
It is unclear how DOD plans to address its longer-term personnel
requirements for the Global War on Terrorism, given its current
implementation of the partial mobilization authority. Requirements for
reserve component forces increased dramatically after September 11,
2001, and are expected to remain high for the foreseeable future. In
the initial months following September 11, 2001, the Air Force used the
partial mobilization authority more than the other services, and it
reached its peak with almost 38,000 reserve component members mobilized
in April 2002. However, by July 2002, Army mobilizations surpassed
those of the Air Force, and since December 2002, the Army has had more
reserve component members mobilized than all the other services
combined. Although many of the members who have been called to active
duty under the partial mobilization authority have been demobilized, as
of March 31, 2004, approximately 175,000 of DOD's reserve component
members were still mobilized and serving on active duty. According to
OASD/RA data, about 40 percent of DOD's Selected Reserve forces had
been mobilized from September 11, 2001, to March 31, 2004.[Footnote 25]
By June 30, 2004, the number of mobilized reserve component members had
dropped to about 155,000--consisting of about 131,000 members from the
Army, about 12,000 from the Air Force, about 9,000 from the Marine
Corps, and about 3,000 from the Navy. However, the number of mobilized
reserve component forces is projected to remain high for the
foreseeable future. DOD projects that over the next 3 to 5 years, it
will continuously have 100,000 to about 150,000 reserve component
members mobilized, and the Army National Guard and Army Reserve will
continue to supply most of these personnel.
While Army forces may face the greatest levels of involuntary
mobilizations over the next few years, all the reserve components have
career fields that have been highly stressed. For example, the Navy and
Marine Corps have mobilized 60 and 100 percent of their enlisted law
enforcement specialists and 48 and 100 percent of their intelligence
officers, respectively. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve
mobilized 64 and 93 percent of their enlisted law enforcement
specialists and 71 and 86 percent of their installation security
personnel, respectively.
* As noted earlier, during our review, DOD was considering changing its
implementation of the partial mobilization authority from its current
approach, which limits mobilizations to 24 cumulative months, to an
approach that would have limited mobilizations to 24 consecutive months
to expand its pool of available personnel. However, in commenting on a
draft of this report, DOD stated that it would retain its current
cumulative implementation approach. Policies that limit involuntary
mobilizations on the basis of cumulative service make it difficult for
mobilization planners, who must keep track of prior mobilizations in
order to determine which forces are available to meet future
requirements. This can be particularly difficult now, when many
mobilizations involve individuals or small detachments rather than
complete units.
* In June 2004, DOD noted that about 30,000 reserve members had already
been mobilized for 24 months. Under DOD's cumulative approach, these
personnel will not be available to meet future requirements. The
shrinking pool of available personnel, along with the lack of a
strategic plan to clarify goals regarding the reserve component force's
availability, will present the department with additional short-and
long-term challenges as it tries to fill requirements for mobilized
reserve component forces. In its comments on a draft of our report, DOD
did not elaborate on how it expected to address its increased personnel
requirements.
The Army Was Not Able to Efficiently Execute Its Mobilization and
Demobilization Plans:
The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and
demobilization plans, because mobilization and demobilization site
officials faced uncertainties concerning demands for facilities,
turnover among support personnel, and the arrival of reserve component
forces. The efficiency of the mobilization and demobilization process
depends on advanced planning and coordination. However, the Army's
planning assumptions did not accurately portray the availability of
installations and personnel needed to fully accommodate the high number
of mobilizations and demobilizations. Moreover, officials did not
always have adequate notice to prepare for arriving troops. The Army
has several initiatives under way to improve facility and support
personnel availability, but it has not taken a coordinated approach to
evaluate all the support costs associated with mobilization and
demobilization at alternative sites in order to determine the most
efficient options under the operating environment for the Global War on
Terrorism.
Advanced Planning and Coordination Are Key to Efficient Mobilizations
and Demobilizations:
The efficiency of the mobilization and demobilization processes depends
largely on advanced planning in the form of facility preparation and
coordination between installation planners, support personnel, and
arriving reserve component units or individuals. The Army attempts to
take the necessary planning steps to support efficient servicemember
mobilization and demobilization. For example, installations that are
responsible for mobilizing and demobilizing reserve component forces
attempt to contact units or personnel prior to their arrival, so that
both the reserve component forces and the supporting installations can
be prepared to meet the Army's mobilization and demobilization
requirements. During these contacts, reserve component forces are told
what records, and equipment to bring to the mobilization and
demobilization sites and installation officials obtain information--
such as the number of arriving troops and the anticipated time of their
arrival--that is necessary for them to efficiently prepare for the
arrival of the reserve component forces. With this information, the
installations can plan where they will house, feed, and train the
troops; how they will transport the troops around the installation and
to their final destinations; and when they will send the troops for
medical and dental screenings and administrative processing.[Footnote
26]
Army guidance, which states that units are to demobilize at the same
installation where they mobilized, can add to the efficiency of the
demobilization process. Efficiencies can be realized because many of
records created during the mobilization process or copies of the
records are kept at the installation and can be used to do advanced
preparation before the demobilizing unit arrives at the installation.
Army officials told us that since September 11, 2001, most units have
demobilized at the same installation where they mobilized, but there
have been some exceptions. For example, officials from the First U.S.
Army told us that they had mobilized a unit for Operation Iraqi Freedom
at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and were demobilizing the unit at Fort
Benning, Georgia. They also told us that troops who had mobilized at
Fort Stewart, Georgia, were going to be demobilizing at Fort Dix, New
Jersey, after a deployment to Kosovo. To accommodate shifts in
demobilization sites, the new sites must, among other things, obtain
reserve component unit medical, dental, and personnel records and must
coordinate the return of individual equipment, such as helmets,
sleeping bags, packs, and canteens that were issued at the original
mobilization site.[Footnote 27] With adequate notice and planning,
alternate demobilization sites can demobilize reserve component units
without any major problems. However, officials at Fort Lewis,
Washington, told us that their support personnel had to reconstruct
dental records for 150 soldiers in an engineer unit that had originally
mobilized at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Because the Army's goal is to
complete demobilization processing within 5 days of a unit's arrival at
a demobilization site, the Fort Lewis personnel were not able to wait
for the arrival of the dental records, which had been sent from Fort
Leonard Wood via routine mail rather than overnight delivery.
Army Planning Assumptions Were Not Accurate:
The Army's planning assumptions did not accurately portray the
availability of installations and personnel needed to fully accommodate
the high number of mobilizations and demobilizations. Specifically,
planning assumptions regarding the availability of facilities for
mobilization and demobilization were outdated, and did not anticipate
the availability of specially designed reserve component support units
to provide much of the medical, training, logistics, and processing
support needed to mobilize and demobilize reserve component units and
individuals.
Assumptions for Availability of Facilities Were Outdated:
The Army's planning assumptions regarding the availability of
facilities for mobilization and demobilization were outdated.
Consequently, installations sometimes lacked the support
infrastructure needed to accommodate both active and reserve component
mobilizing and demobilizing members in an equitable manner. The Army's
mobilization and demobilization plans assumed that active forces would
be deployed abroad, thus vacating installations when reserve component
forces were mobilizing and often demobilizing. These assumptions are
important because they served as a basis to help the Army determine
which installations would have the necessary support facilities to
serve as its primary and secondary mobilization sites.[Footnote 28]
Most of the Army's primary mobilization sites are installations that
serve as home bases for large active Army units. For example, three of
the Army's primary sites that we visited--Fort Lewis, Washington; Fort
Stewart, Georgia; and Fort Hood, Texas--are home to two active combat
brigades, an active combat division, and two active combat divisions,
respectively, along with hosts of other active forces. Fort Hood alone
has about 42,000 active troops assigned to the installation.
Under the Army's plans, reserve component units were assigned
mobilization and demobilization sites so that units could plan in
advance for their mobilizations. Units often developed relationships
with the installations where they expected to mobilize and in many
cases the units trained at these installations. However, because active
units had not vacated many of the Army's major mobilization sites as
planned, mobilizing reserve component forces were moved to sites where
they had not trained and where they had not developed any relationships
that could have increased the mobilizations' efficiency. As a result,
transportation distances for personnel and equipment were increased,
and extra coordination was required with the mobilization sites and
sometimes even within units. For example, the 116TH Cavalry Brigade
from the Idaho Army National Guard, which had planned to mobilize at
Fort Lewis, Washington, was mobilized at Fort Bliss, Texas, because,
among other things, adequate housing facilities were not available at
Fort Lewis. Another Army National Guard Brigade, which was mobilized at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, faced increased coordination challenges
because one of its battalions was mobilized at Fort Drum, New York, and
another at Fort Stewart, Georgia, because of a lack of available
facilities at Fort Bragg.
At mobilization and demobilization sites where active forces remained
on the installations while reserve component forces were mobilizing or
demobilizing, competing demands sometimes led to housing inequities for
the reserve members. For example, at the installations we visited,
single active component personnel who were permanently assigned to the
installation were generally housed in barracks where two to four people
shared a room,[Footnote 29] but mobilized reserve component personnel
were often housed in open-bay barracks. At some installations, reserve
component personnel were housed in tents, gymnasiums, or older
buildings that were designed for short training periods rather than
mobilization periods that could last several months. The presence of
large active duty and reserve contingents on the same installations at
the same time also strained training and medical facilities.[Footnote
30] Fort Hood officials said that the scheduling and rescheduling of
training ranges presented major challenges during 2003 when the
installation was preparing to deploy both its active divisions and a
large group of reserve component forces at the same time. To address
these facility challenges, the Army has begun a number of housing and
facility construction and renovation projects.
Assumptions Did Not Account for Long-term Needs for Reserve Component
Support Personnel under a Partial Mobilization Authority:
The Army did not anticipate that its reserve component units that
support mobilizations and demobilizations would be needed beyond 24
months under a partial mobilization authority. When the Army created
these units to provide much of the medical, training, logistics, and
processing support to mobilizing and demobilizing units and
individuals, it anticipated that the need for these units would be
commensurate with the mobilization authority in place at the time.
However, the Army is now facing support requirements for a long-term
Global War on Terrorism, while being limited to involuntary
mobilizations of not more than 24 cumulative months under the
department's implementation of the partial mobilization authority.
The underlying assumptions of the Army's mobilization and
demobilization plans were that (1) only a small portion of these
reserve component support personnel would be required to support the
limited mobilizations associated with a Presidential reserve call-up
and (2) all of the reserve component support personnel would be
available for as long as needed to support the large mobilizations for
long periods that are associated with full or total mobilizations. The
Army's plans called for these support personnel to be among the first
reserve component members mobilized and the last demobilized. Army
officials assumed that, under a partial mobilization authority, these
reserve component support forces would be able to support large
mobilizations and demobilizations, or support mobilizations for long
periods, but not large mobilizations for long periods.
As a result of the large requirements for the Army's reserve component
forces, many pieces of the reserve component support units were
mobilized for 12 months early in the Global War on Terrorism and then
later extended. Some support personnel were mobilized for 24 months
under the partial mobilization authority--which, under DOD's current
implementation, limits involuntary mobilizations to 24 cumulative
months--and then sent home. However, many others agreed to stay on
active duty under voluntary mobilization orders after they had served
24 months under the partial mobilization authority. For example, from a
27-person support detachment that was mobilized for 12 months at Fort
Hood, in October 2001, 13 people were later extended for a full 2
years, and 6 of these reserve component personnel accepted voluntary
orders at the end of their mobilizations. At Fort Lewis, two reserve
component support detachments--one with 59 personnel and the other with
17--were mobilized in September 2001. Both detachments served on active
duty for 2 full years. In July 2004, more than 1,100 reserve component
support personnel were on voluntary orders or mobilization extensions.
Even though some reserve component support personnel have voluntarily
extended their orders, the Army is facing a shortage of mobilization
and demobilization support personnel because the Global War on
Terrorism is lasting beyond the time when most reserve component
support personnel would reach their 24-month mobilization points.
Consequently, the Army has begun hiring civilian and contractor
replacement personnel to provide medical, training, logistics, and
administrative support at its mobilization and demobilization sites.
Installation Planning and Support Officials Sometimes Lacked Adequate
Notice to Prepare for Arriving Troops:
Planners and the installations that mobilize and demobilize reserve
component forces have not always had adequate notice to prepare for
arriving troops. Without advanced notice, officials at these sites are
forced to make last-minute adjustments that may result in the
inefficient use of installation facilities and support personnel. Our
prior report highlighted problems associated with the lack of advance
notice in March 2003.[Footnote 31] While officials at the installations
we visited noted that the level of advance notice had improved
significantly for mobilizing troops, they still faced some short-notice
mobilizations. According to Army officials, the Army is currently
providing 30 days' notice to all involuntarily mobilized troops.
However, as of May 2004 some units that are being mobilized under the
partial mobilization authority are still being mobilized with less than
30 days advance notice. According to Army Reserve officials, each
member of these units signs a volunteer waiver stating that he or she
agrees to be mobilized with less than 30 days advance notice.
Therefore, the Army does not violate its policy concerning advance
notice for involuntary mobilizations.
Installation planning officials told us that they typically receive
shorter notice and less definitive information concerning the arrival
of demobilizing troops. Typically, when an installation mobilizes a
reserve component unit, the installation planner records the length of
unit mobilization orders. Depending on the length of unit mobilization
orders and the resulting time available for leave at the end of the
orders, installation planners begin to anticipate the return of the
unit up to several months before the unit's orders expire. The planners
said that they use a variety of formal and informal means to try to
ascertain the specific arrival dates and times for demobilizing troops
but that the arrival dates and times are often uncertain right up until
the time the troops arrive. This is because their different sources of
information sometimes provide conflicting information.
The planners generally begin their search for information about units
returning to their installation using the automated systems within
DOD's Joint Operations Planning and Execution System. A primary source
of information is the time-phased force and deployment data (TPFDD).
Installation planning officials told us that the TPFDD is most valuable
in providing them with information on large units with orders that have
not changed and that return as complete units. However, the planners
stated that it is not uncommon for the TPFDD to be incorrect or
outdated because changes are constantly being made to redeployment
schedules, particularly for small units or individuals.
One source of such last-minute changes stems from changes in travel
arrangements. According to DOD officials, when there are empty seats
available on planes departing the theater of operations, small units
are often placed on the planes at the last minute to fill the empty
seats. However, these changes are not always captured in the TPFDD or
DOD's other automated systems. For example, while we were visiting Fort
Lewis, planning officials were trying to determine which unit or units
might be returning to Fort Lewis to go through demobilization
processing along with the 502ND Transportation Company and 114TH
Chaplain detachment that were scheduled to arrive on March 1, 2004.
Neither the TPFDD nor the other automated tracking systems that were
available to planning officials at Fort Lewis provided definitive
answers. As a result of contacts through informal channels, at 11:20
a.m. on March 1, 2004, Fort Lewis officials thought that 21 people from
the 854TH Quartermaster Unit were going to arrive at McChord Air Force
Base--located adjacent to Fort Lewis, just south of Tacoma, Washington-
-40 minutes later. Due to the lack of reliable information, Fort Lewis
officials could not finalize planning arrangements. For example,
because they did not know whether to expect male or female soldiers,
they could not finalize housing plans for the soldiers. Nor did they
know whether the unit was bringing weapons with them or what types of
weapons they might have, and thus transportation personnel and
personnel in the arms room at Fort Lewis were placed on standby. A
check with McChord officials at 11:50 a.m. revealed that there were no
inbound flights. At 3:53 p.m. Fort Lewis officials had confirmation
that the soldiers would be arriving at 9:35 p.m. and that there were 19
additional personnel from an unknown unit or units on the plane with
the 21 soldiers from the 854TH Quartermaster unit. By 4:12 p.m. on
March 1, 2004, the Fort Lewis officials had canceled the scheduled
demobilization processing times for the 854TH because information
showed that the unit would not arrive until 7:42 a.m. on the following
day, March 2, 2004. Planning officials had to make several other
adjustments to planned schedules before the Quartermaster unit finally
arrived. Moreover, the 502ND Transportation Company and 114TH Chaplain
detachment, which had been visible through DOD's formal systems, also
arrived later than the expected March 1 date.
Sometimes, planning officials receive information from informal
sources, such as family members of deployed personnel. During our visit
to Fort Lewis, officials had begun tracking an inbound Army National
Guard military police unit on the basis of information received from an
informal information source. This unit became visible to the planning
officials when the wife of one of the soldiers, who also served as the
unit's family readiness coordinator, notified the officials that her
husband and 11 other unit personnel had left Iraq, were in Germany, and
were scheduled to fly to Washington state on a commercial airliner the
next day. The coordinator also provided the Fort Lewis officials with
the names and social security numbers for all 12 returning soldiers.
According to Fort Lewis officials, in the past, 2 out of every 10 units
have arrived at the site without notification. The demobilization
planning officials at Fort Lewis summed up their visibility situation
by stating, "Most valuable information on unit redeployment is not
official, rather it is word of mouth."
Demobilization officials at other installations said that they also had
good visibility over large units that returned as planned but said that
it was difficult to plan for the arrival of small units and
individuals. During our visit to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, 28 soldiers--a
9-soldier unit, and a 19-soldier unit--arrived at the site
unexpectedly. In addition, officials at Fort Hood said that they were
able to track the evacuation of medical patients from the theater to
stabilization hospitals, such as the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington, D.C., or Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, but that they
often lost visibility of the patients during the last leg of their
journey back to Fort Hood. They also said that visibility was sometimes
a problem for individual soldiers who had reached the end of their
enlistments or mobilization orders and were returning as individuals on
"freedom flights" because the automated tracking systems were designed
primarily to handle units and not individuals.
Army Facility Improvements Were Begun with Outdated Assumptions and
Were Not Coordinated with Support Personnel Changes:
Without updating its planning assumptions regarding the availability of
facilities for mobilization and demobilization, the Army has begun a
number of costly short-and long-term efforts to address facility and
support personnel shortfalls at individual mobilization and
demobilization sites. Furthermore, the Army has not taken a coordinated
approach to evaluate all the support costs associated with mobilization
and demobilization at alternative sites in order to determine the most
efficient options under the operating environment for the Global War on
Terrorism. The use of civilian and contractor personnel to provide
mobilization and demobilization support may not provide cost-effective
alternatives to some reserve component support personnel.
Facility Construction and Renovation Projects Are Not Based on Updated
Planning Assumptions:
To address housing and other facilities shortages at mobilization and
demobilization sites, the Army has embarked on a number of facility
construction and renovation projects without updating its planning
assumptions regarding the availability of facilities and personnel. As
a result, the Army risks spending money inefficiently on projects that
may not be located where the need is greatest. Until the Army updates
its planning assumptions, it cannot determine whether the current
primary and secondary mobilization sites are the best sites for future
mobilizations and demobilizations.
The Army has a variety of individual construction and renovation plans
under way. For example, Fort Hood has a $5.1 million project to
renovate its open-bay, cinder block barracks that have been used to
house reserve component soldiers at North Fort Hood. Fort Stewart has a
similar project under way to renovate National Guard barracks to
current mobilization standards. Fort Stewart has also submitted plans
to build a new facility to house its reserve component members with
medical problems.
The Army also has developed a plan to construct several new buildings
that would be used to house active and reserve component soldiers who
are undergoing training. In addition, these facilities would be
available for use when reserve component units were mobilizing and
demobilizing. This project has not yet been funded or approved by Army
leadership. However possible sites for these buildings include Fort
Lewis, Washington; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Carson,
Colorado; Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Riley, Kansas; and Fort Stewart,
Georgia. The construction of some of these facilities could begin as
early as 2006. However, a recent GAO review found that DOD's efforts to
improve facility conditions are likely to take longer than expected
because of competing funding pressures. The review also found that
without periodic reassessments of project prioritization, projects that
are important to an installation's ability to accomplish its mission
and improve servicemembers' quality of life could continually be
deferred.[Footnote 32]
The Army also has plans to make greater use of one of its secondary
mobilization sites. The Army is planning to make greater use of Camp
Shelby, Mississippi, a secondary mobilization site that is owned by the
state of Mississippi. Because this site does not have active troops and
has a large housing capacity, the Army plans to use this site to
relieve immediate pressures on its primary mobilization sites. However,
Camp Shelby's facilities are not new, and they are in need of repairs.
Housing units are made of cinder block, have no heating or air
conditioning, and were not designed for year-round accommodations.
According to officials from the U.S. Army Forces Command, Camp Shelby
will require $22 million in federal funding for renovations.
Civilian and Contractor Personnel May Not Provide Cost-Effective
Alternatives to Some Reserve Component Support Personnel:
Key officials at the mobilization and demobilization sites we visited
expressed a number of concerns about the availability of civilian or
contractor personnel and the abilities of these personnel to provide
capable, flexible replacements for the reserve component support
personnel at a reasonable cost. In addition, the Army has not fully
analyzed the costs of hiring these civilian and contractor personnel at
its existing mobilization sites compared with the costs and feasibility
of hiring support personnel at an alternative set of mobilization and
demobilization sites.
At Fort Stewart, Georgia, officials said that there is a very small
civilian population in the area from which to draw replacement
personnel. They also noted that the rural nature of the area and lack
of cultural amenities makes it difficult to attract physicians and
other highly paid specialists who support the mobilization and
demobilization process. Officials at Fort Lewis had already replaced
many of their medical support personnel at the time of our visit but
acknowledged that even with the large population of the Seattle-Tacoma
area to draw upon, they were still facing challenges in the hiring of
physician assistants and nurse practitioners. The commander of the
hospital at Fort Hood said that the hospital had issued a contract to
try to fill its nurse shortage, but the only result from the contract
was that civilian nurses at the hospital left the hospital to work for
a contractor that paid them more. Thus, the net result was that the
hospital did not fill its shortages, and it kept the same nurses but
paid the contractor more for their services.
Even when civilian or contractor personnel are available to replace
reserve component personnel, the replacements may not be able to
provide the same capability or flexibility as reserve component support
personnel. During our visit to Fort Hood, officials told us that over
the past 10 years, the Army had repeatedly looked at the option of
using civilian or contractor medical evacuation teams to replace
reserve component support personnel. However, the option has not been
adopted because the civilians would not be able to fly into live-fire
training areas or under blackout conditions without costly Army flight
training. Fort Lewis officials raised similar concerns about the
limited abilities of civilian helicopter rescue teams during our prior
review.[Footnote 33] In addition, officials at mobilization and
demobilization sites said that reserve component support personnel
provided them with great flexibility in dealing with the unexpected
arrival of mobilizing or demobilizing soldiers. Reserve component
personnel are technically available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Therefore, processing could be scheduled for any hour and any day
without regard to overtime considerations. During our visits, we
observed several cases where civilian personnel left their processing
sites at the end of their scheduled workday but reserve component
personnel stayed until all processing was completed.
In addition to the civilian replacements for reserve component medical
support personnel, the Army is looking for replacements for the reserve
component personnel who performed administrative processing, logistic,
training, and other support functions within its garrison support
units. The Army's Installation Management Agency (IMA) is working with
the Army Contracting Agency to develop short-and long-term replacement
solutions. The long-term solution is an "Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite
Quantity" contract that will allow installation commanders to place
task orders to hire or contract workers for particular support
functions. According to contracting officials, this contract will be
awarded on or about October 1, 2004. IMA is programmed to receive $238
million for this contract in fiscal year 2005. By July 2004, IMA had
received $56 million and had allocated $48.4 million to 12 different
mobilization sites to cover the transition period until the long-term
contract is in place. This interim funding can be used to expand
existing installation support contracts or to hire temporary workers.
In addition, the Army is also keeping over 1,100 reserve component
members on active duty to help cover the transition period.[Footnote
34]
Ability to Effectively Manage Health of Servicemembers Is Limited:
DOD's ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve
component members is limited because (1) its centralized database has
missing and incomplete health records and (2) it has not maintained
full visibility over reserve component members with medical issues.
DOD's Centralized Database Has Missing and Incomplete Health Records:
During our review of health data collected at AMSA, DOD's central data
collection point, we found that the database had missing and incomplete
records. Not all of the required health information collected from
reserve component members had reached AMSA. Furthermore, only some of
the health assessment information that had reached AMSA had been
entered into the centralized database.
Required Health Assessments Have Not Reached DOD's Assessment
Collection Point:
DOD policy guidance issued in October 2001 directed the services to
submit pre-and post-deployment health forms to AMSA,[Footnote 35] but
not all of the required health information collected from reserve
component members during their mobilization and demobilization
processing has reached DOD's central collection activity at AMSA. Table
2 compares the number of personnel who were mobilized from September
11, 2001, to March 30, 2004 with the number of pre-deployment health
assessments submitted to AMSA from November 1, 2001--the first month
when health assessments were required for all mobilizing and
demobilizing reserve component members--to March 31, 2004. The
differences between the mobilization numbers and the pre-deployment
health assessment numbers provide indications that assessment forms may
be missing for members of all six of DOD's reserve components. However,
because the mobilization and health assessment data cover slightly
different time periods and come from different sources, we could not
determine the exact extent of the mismatch. When we investigated the
cause of the large differences between Marine Corps numbers, officials
told us that the Marine Corps' guidance did not require them to submit
pre-deployment health assessments to AMSA.
Table 2: Mobilization and Pre-Deployment Assessment Numbers:
Reserve component: Army National Guard;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001- Mar. 31, 2004: 138,345;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001- Mar. 29, 2004: 120,664.
Reserve component: Army Reserve;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001-Mar. 31, 2004: 95,515;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001-Mar. 29, 2004: 78,835.
Reserve component: Air Force National Guard;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001-Mar. 31, 2004: 31,383;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001-Mar. 29, 2004: 22,225.
Reserve component: Air Force Reserve;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001-Mar. 31, 2004: 24,468;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001-Mar. 29, 2004: 9,980.
Reserve component: Marine Corps Reserve;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001- Mar. 31, 2004: 24,468;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001- Mar. 29, 2004: 2,104.
Reserve component: Navy Reserve;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001-Mar. 31, 2004: 21,328;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001-Mar. 29, 2004: 5,786.
Total;
Mobilizations Sept. 11, 2001-Mar. 31, 2004: 335,507;
Pre-deployment health assessments Nov. 1, 2001-Mar. 29, 2004: 239,594.
Source: GAO analysis of data from AMSA and OASD/RA.
Note: Pre-deployment health assessments became mandatory for all
mobilized reserve component members on October 25, 2001.
[End of table]
The officials cited guidance, in the form of two Marine Corps
administrative messages that directed responsible officials to submit
post-deployment health assessments to AMSA. However, the administrative
messages neglect to direct the officials to submit pre-deployment
health assessments. Furthermore, no additional administrative messages
have addressed the requirement for pre-deployment assessments. As a
result, the AMSA database contained only 2,104 pre-deployment health
assessments but 11,499 post-deployment health assessments for Marine
Corps reservists.
Another possible reason why the Marine Corps has not submitted pre-
deployment health assessments to AMSA is because the Marine Corps lacks
a mechanism for overseeing the submission of these forms. There is no
current Marine Corps requirement for tracking and reporting the
submission of theses forms in the Deployment Health Quality Assurance
program. In a March 12, 2004, memorandum to the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Force Health Protection and Readiness, the
Marine Corps reported the number and percentage of post-deployment
health assessments that were completed but did not report any
information on pre-deployment assessments.
Officials at Camp Lejeune told us that they would begin submitting pre-
deployment health assessments to AMSA after we raised the issue during
a site visit in 2004 and the issuance of subsequent Navy Department
guidance. Officials told us that the Marine Corps Medical Office had
drafted new guidance to address this requirement, but the guidance had
not been issued by the time we drafted our report in July 2004 and we
were not able to determine the cause of the delay or to verify that new
guidance would adequately address the submission of pre-deployment
health assessments.
Navy health assessment submissions to AMSA also appear to be
incomplete. According to Navy procedures, all mobilizing reservists are
to complete their pre-deployment health assessment at their local
reserve center before they report to their Navy Mobilization Processing
Sites. In such cases, the reserve center is required to send the
reservists' completed pre-deployment health assessment forms to AMSA.
Therefore, Navy data collection is only done centrally at the Navy
Mobilization Processing Stations in limited cases when a reservist
arrives without a completed pre-deployment health assessment. We did
not visit any individual Navy Reserve centers to verify the submission
of pre-deployment health assessments. We did review Navy Quality
Assurance program guidance and found that it does not address the
submission of pre-deployment health assessments. However, the guidance
specifies that a 90 percent submission rate is considered satisfactory
for post-deployment health assessments.
In September 2003, we reported similar findings for the active
forces.[Footnote 36] Specifically, we found that DOD did not maintain a
complete, centralized database of active servicemember health
assessments and immunizations. Following our 2003 review, DOD
established a deployment health quality assurance program to improve
data collection and accuracy. The department's first annual report
documenting issues relating to deployment health assessments will not
be available until February 2005, and it is too early to determine the
extent to which the new quality assurance program will provide
effective oversight to address data submission problems from each of
the services and their reserve components.
While the services are not in complete compliance with the requirement
to submit pre-and post-deployment assessments to AMSA, the number of
assessments in the database has grown significantly. According to AMSA
officials, the database contained about 140,000 assessments at the end
of 1999, and grew to about 1 million assessments by May 2003, and
1,960,125 by June 2004.
Data from Health Assessments Have Not Been Entered into DOD's
Centralized Database:
Not all the records in the AMSA database contained complete
information, thus limiting the amount of meaningful analysis that can
be conducted. Health assessment database records sometimes did not
include information that could be used to identify the causes of
various medical problems. Nonetheless, the available data indicate that
the overall pre-and post-deployment health status of mobilized reserve
component members was good.
Some Database Records Missing Key Information:
Records in the health assessment database sometimes did not include key
information or information that could be used to identify the causes of
various medical problems. For example, records were sometimes missing
information on the servicemember's deployability and the specific types
of medical referrals that were given to members with referrals.
Almost 6 percent of the nearly 240,000 pre-deployment health
assessments we reviewed did not have the servicemember's deployability
status recorded in the AMSA database. As shown in table 3, the missing
data ranged from less than 4 percent for the Army National Guard to
almost 18 percent for the Naval Reserve.
Table 3: Service Decisions Concerning Reserve Component Member
Deployability:
Reserve component: Army Reserve;
Deployable: 67,747;
Nondeployable: 6,907;
Answer missing: 4,181;
Total: 78,835;
Percentage missing: 5.3%;
Percentage nondeployable: 9.3%.
Reserve component: Army National Guard;
Deployable: 108,237;
Nondeployable: 7,891;
Answer missing: 4,536;
Total: 120,664;
Percentage missing: 3.8%;
Percentage nondeployable: 6.8%.
Reserve component: Naval Reserve;
Deployable: 4,704;
Nondeployable: 63;
Answer missing: 1,019;
Total: 5,786;
Percentage missing: 17.6%;
Percentage nondeployable: 1.3%.
Reserve component: Air Force Reserve;
Deployable: 8,243;
Nondeployable: 98;
Answer missing: 1,639;
Total: 9,980;
Percentage missing: 16.4%;
Percentage nondeployable: 1.2%.
Reserve component: Marine Corps Reserve;
Deployable: 1,752;
Nondeployable: 18;
Answer missing: 334;
Total: 2,104;
Percentage missing: 15.9%;
Percentage nondeployable: 1.0%.
Reserve component: Air National Guard;
Deployable: 19,630;
Nondeployable: 140;
Answer missing: 2,455;
Total: 22,225;
Percentage missing: 11.0%;
Percentage nondeployable: 0.7%.
Reserve component: Total;
Deployable: 210,313;
Nondeployable: 15,117;
Answer missing: 14,164;
Total: 239,594;
Percentage missing: 5.9%;
Percentage nondeployable: 6.7%.
Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data.
[End of table]
For the remaining records with the deployability status recorded, 93
percent of the servicemembers were deployable. Nondeployable rates
ranged from less than 1 percent in the Air National Guard to more than
9 percent in the Army Reserve. Other data showed that most of the
nondeployable personnel had medical conditions that clearly made them
nondeployable, and which did not require medical referrals. According
to medical officials, some of these personnel, such as those who had
suffered multiple heart attacks, should have been discharged prior to
the time that they received their mobilization orders. Others had
temporary conditions, such as broken bones and pregnancies that did not
warrant medical discharges but made them nondeployable at the time of
their assessment.
Detailed referral information could assist the services in determining
and addressing the factors that cause reserve component members to be
nondeployable; however, these data were often missing in AMSA's
database. About 99 percent of the pre-and post-deployment assessments
we reviewed showed whether or not reserve component members had been
given a medical referral, but less than 44 percent of the records with
referrals contained detailed information about the type of referral
that was given to the member (eye, ear, cardiac, mental health, etc.).
One reason for the incomplete health assessment records we found at
AMSA at the time of our data draw in March 2004 is that some of the
health assessments were entered into AMSA's database by hand. According
to the officer in charge of AMSA, records in the database with detailed
referral data had been submitted electronically rather than as paper
copies, which the installations are required to forward to the
centralized database. Generally, electronic data are sent to AMSA after
being collected in one of two different ways: (1) from applications
that are available at Army installations and over the Internet and (2)
on stand-alone laptop computers and hand-held personal digital
assistant units, which collect data in the theater and elsewhere. All
electronic data are transmitted to AMSA and updated immediately upon
receipt. Because of workload demands, when paper forms were received at
AMSA, database personnel captured only a data element indicating if a
referral was needed, not the specific type of referral
indicated.[Footnote 37] In addition, when there was a backlog of four
page paper post-deployment health assessments to be entered into the
database, data entry personnel were entering only the first and last
pages of the form and not the middle two pages. Because of this, at
various times the data that have been collected from servicemembers may
not be available for analysis. However, as of June 2004, the officer in
charge of AMSA said that AMSA had no backlog of paper forms to be
entered into the centralized database and had 15 people working full-
time to process pre-and post-deployment health assessment forms.
Furthermore, he estimated that by the end of July 2004, they would be
caught up with the entries of the middle pages of the post-deployment
health assessments that had been skipped earlier. Still, there is a
delay between receipt of the form and its entry into the database. The
AMSA Chief said the paper forms take approximately 1 week for
processing, scanning, and entering data.
All of the reserve components have the capability to submit the health
assessments electronically, including detailed medical referral
information. Many Army and Air Force servicemember health assessments
are now transmitted electronically, and detailed information is
captured into the database from those forms. The Army has been sending
electronic health assessment data for active and reserve servicemembers
to AMSA since July 2003. Although the Army is capable of transmitting
all of its forms electronically, only about 52 percent of its forms
submitted from January 1, 2003, to May 3, 2004, had been submitted
electronically. The Air Force began sending electronic data to AMSA in
June 2004. The Navy and Marine Corps have established a working group
that is currently evaluating several options and developing an
implementation plan.
DOD established a deployment health task force to make recommendations
by late April 2004 on completing all pre-and post-deployment health
assessments electronically. However, the Deployment Health Task Force
is continuing its work to expedite and monitor progress toward the
electronic capture of deployment health assessment forms. Even though
electronic submission of the health assessment forms from the
mobilization and demobilization sites to AMSA's centralized database
would expedite the inclusion of key data for meaningful analysis,
increase accuracy of the reported information, and lessen the burden of
sites forwarding paper copies and the likelihood of lost information,
DOD has not set a timeline for the services to electronically submit
the health assessment forms to the centralized database.
Available Data Show Reserve Component Members Self-Reported Health Is
Good:
Table 4 shows that 98 percent of the reserve component members reported
that they were in good to excellent health when they completed their
pre-deployment health assessments. The Army Reserve had the lowest
number--97 percent--of servicemembers considering themselves in good to
excellent health.[Footnote 38]
Table 4: Pre-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical Referrals:
Reserve component: Marine Corps Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 99%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 1%;
Medical referrals: 3%.
Reserve component: Naval Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 99%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 1%;
Medical referrals: 4%.
Reserve component: Air National Guard;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 99%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 1%;
Medical referrals: 1%.
Reserve component: Air Force Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 99%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 1%;
Medical referrals: 2%.
Reserve component: Army National Guard;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 98%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 2%;
Medical referrals: 5%.
Reserve component: Army Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 97%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 3%;
Medical referrals: 6%.
Total;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 98%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 2%;
Medical referrals: 5%.
Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data.
[End of table]
Table 4 also shows that the total referral rate that resulted from the
pre-deployment health assessments was 5 percent but ranged from 1
percent for the Air National Guard to 6 percent for the Army Reserve.
Table 5 shows that even after deployment, a high percentage of reserve
component members thought they were in good to excellent health.
However, a comparison of table 4 with table 5 shows that numbers had
generally declined from pre-deployment levels. In particular, the
percentage of personnel who rated their health as good to excellent
declined from 98 percent to 93 percent. The Army Reserve had the lowest
percentage of servicemembers who considered themselves in good to
excellent health during their post-deployment assessments--89 percent-
-while the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve had the highest
percentage of servicemembers who considered themselves in good to
excellent health after deployment--98 percent.
Table 5: Post-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical Referrals:
Reserve component: Marine Corps Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 90%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 10%;
Medical referrals: 24%.
Reserve component: Naval Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 96%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 4%;
Medical referrals: 13%.
Reserve component: Air National Guard;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 98%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 2%;
Medical referrals: 8%.
Reserve component: Air Force Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 98%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 2%;
Medical referrals: 10%.
Reserve component: Army National Guard;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 92%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 8%;
Medical referrals: 21%.
Reserve component: Army Reserve;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 89%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 11%;
Medical referrals: 30%.
Total;
Overall health status: Good or excellent: 93%;
Overall health status: Fair or poor: 7%;
Medical referrals: 21%.
Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data.
[End of table]
Moreover, the percentage of medical referrals jumped to 21 percent on
the post-deployment health assessments. A comparison of tables 4 and 5
shows that the referral rate that resulted from post-deployment
assessments was quadruple the 5 percent referral rate from pre-
deployment assessments. There were also differences between the
services, in that reserve component personnel from the Army and Marine
Corps received higher referral rates, as would be expected for ground
forces, than those in the Air Force and the Navy. The percentages
ranged from 8 percent for the Air National Guard to 30 percent for the
Army Reserve.
Table 6 shows that when reserve component members completed their post-
deployment health assessments, almost half of them chose the same
category to characterize their overall health as they had chosen on
their pre-deployment health assessment. The table shows that almost 14
percent of the personnel who completed both pre-and post-deployment
health surveys believed that their health had improved enough to
warrant recharacterizations of their original assessments.
Table 6: Comparison of Self-Reported Composite Health from Pre-and
Post-Deployment Health Assessments:
Reserve component: Marine Corps Reserve;
Matching pre-and post- deployment health assessments: 871;
Health improved: 9%;
Health stayed the same: 39%;
Health declined: 52%.
Reserve component: Naval Reserve;
Matching pre-and post-deployment health assessments: 3,438;
Health improved: 12%;
Health stayed the same: 52%;
Health declined: 36%.
Reserve component: Air National Guard;
Matching pre-and post-deployment health assessments: 14,118;
Health improved: 14%;
Health stayed the same: 58%;
Health declined: 28%.
Reserve component: Air Force Reserve;
Matching pre-and post-deployment health assessments: 5,345;
Health improved: 14%;
Health stayed the same: 57%;
Health declined: 29%.
Reserve component: Army National Guard;
Matching pre-and post- deployment health assessments: 51,514;
Health improved: 14%;
Health stayed the same: 46%;
Health declined: 39%.
Reserve component: Army Reserve;
Matching pre-and post-deployment health assessments: 39,220;
Health improved: 13%;
Health stayed the same: 44%;
Health declined: 43%.
Reserve component: Total;
Matching pre-and post-deployment health assessments: 114,506;
Health improved: 14%;
Health stayed the same: 48%;
Health declined: 39%.
Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data.
Note: DOD's health assessments ask servicemembers to categorize their
general health into one of five categories: (1) excellent, (2) very
good, (3) good, (4) fair, or (5) poor.
[End of table]
The table above also shows that 39 percent of the personnel who
completed both the pre-and post-deployment health surveys reported that
their health had declined between the assessments. Reserve component
personnel from the Army and Marine Corps experienced larger declines
than those of the Navy and Air Force.
DOD Could Not Maintain Visibility over Reserve Component Personnel on
Active Duty with Medical Issues:
Some of the services could not maintain visibility over reserve
component members with medical issues because they could not adequately
track those personnel, which contributed to problems for those
personnel. In the Army, the lack of tracking information for reserve
component personnel with medical issues contributed to problems for
those personnel. In the Army, the lack of visibility over reservists
with medical issues resulted in housing and pay problems for some
personnel. The Air Force has also lost visibility of some reservists
with medical issues, which has resulted in lengthy periods of time
without resolution to their medical issues.
Reserve component personnel who have been involuntarily mobilized,
along with members who are voluntarily serving on active duty, may
experience medical problems for a variety of reasons. Some are injured
during combat operations; others become injured or sick during the
course of their training or routine duties; and others have problems
that are identified during medical appointments, physicals, or health
assessments and other medical screenings. Our review focused on reserve
component members with medical problems that were expected to keep them
from being returned to full duty or from being demobilized within 30
days. This group contained reserve component members with a wide
variety of injuries and ailments. During our visits to mobilization and
demobilization sites, we spoke with reserve component members who had
suffered heart attacks or combat wounds, as well as to members with
knee and ankle injuries, diabetes, chronic back pain, and mental health
problems.
The services have used different policies and procedures to accommodate
involuntarily mobilized reserve component personnel who have long-term
medical problems. In some cases, the services have left the members on
their original mobilization orders and then extended those orders as
necessary. In other cases, the services have switched the members to
voluntary orders or offered the members the option to leave active duty
and have their medical conditions cared for through the Department of
Veterans Affairs.[Footnote 39]
Army:
The dramatic increase in the use of the reserve components has led to a
dramatic increase in the numbers of reserve component members on active
duty with medical problems. For example, our analysis of data from the
more than 239,500 pre-deployment health assessments collected in the
AMSA database from November 2001 through March 2004 showed that over
15,100 members, or almost 7 percent, were not deployable; almost 14,800
of these members came from the Army's reserve components.[Footnote 40]
Prior to a change in Army policy in October 2003, personnel who were
mobilized and found to be non-deployable were kept on active duty until
(1) their medical problems had been resolved and they were returned to
full duty or (2) they had been referred to a medical board process and
discharged from the Army. (See appendix VIII for additional information
on the services' medical evaluation boards.)
As a result of its October 2003 policy change, the Army was able to
demobilize personnel who were found to be nondeployable within the
first 25 days of their mobilizations. This policy change helped to
reduce the inflow of reserve component personnel on active duty with
medical problems who were identified during the pre-deployment health-
screening process. However, the reserve component members who were
already on active duty with medical problems that had been identified
during the pre-deployment health-screening process were not demobilized
when the policy changed. In addition, significant numbers of reserve
component personnel continued to experience medical problems as a
result of injuries or illnesses that occurred (1) after the members had
been mobilized for 25 days and (2) as a result of problems that were
identified during their post-deployment heath assessments. As a result,
on July 14, 2004, the Army still had over 4,000 reserve component
personnel on active duty with medical problems.[Footnote 41] Although
Army officials said that the primary responsibility that these soldiers
had was to go to their medical treatment so they could get well, many
of the soldiers did not require daily medical treatment. As a result,
these soldiers often do other work ranging from temporary details to
maintain base facilities to longer-term jobs such as working at
mobilization processing sites or working as mechanics in installation
motor pools.
Initially, issues associated with the care of Army personnel with
medical problems were usually dealt with at the Army installation where
the servicemember was mobilized or demobilized and at nearby medical
treatment facilities. As the numbers of reserve component personnel
with medical problems increased, the Army found that it had difficulty
maintaining visibility of such personnel, resulting in some housing,
pay, and other problems for the personnel.
For example, at Fort Stewart, Georgia, reserve component soldiers with
medical problems were being housed in open-bay, cinder block barracks
that did not have heating or air conditioning. In addition, shower and
bathroom facilities were in separate, nearby buildings. These
facilities normally housed National Guard personnel during their 2-week
annual training periods. Following media attention to these conditions,
the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness issued a
memorandum that established housing standards for personnel with
medical problems in October 2003. During our visit to Fort Stewart, in
November 2003 we found that the soldiers with medical problems were
being housed in accordance with the updated standards, which required
climate-controlled quarters that included integrated bathroom
facilities. The Army also created a servicewide medical-status tracking
system during the summer of 2003. This system generates regular weekly
reports on the numbers of reserve component members on active duty with
medical problems, their locations, and the length of time that they
have been receiving medical care.
Following up on allegations in 2003 that medical treatment was taking
too long, and that soldiers were missing their scheduled medical
appointments, investigators at Fort Stewart also found that case
managers[Footnote 42] were needed to track the care of the soldiers
with medical problems and that a command structure was needed to manage
the other needs and duties of these personnel. At the time of our
visit, Fort Stewart had 15 case managers in place, and a new command
and control structure had been set up to manage the soldiers with
medical problems. However, officials told us that they still faced
challenges with the management and care of these soldiers because the
group was so large. On November 19, 2003, there were 661 reserve
component members with medical problems at Fort Stewart; as of July 14,
2004, there were 349 members.
The lack of visibility and tracking also caused problems for members
with medical problems at Fort Lewis, Washington. Army procedures called
for reserve component members on involuntary mobilization orders to be
switched over to voluntary active duty medical extension orders after a
long-term medical problem had been identified. The administrative
process for issuing these active duty medical extensions was
cumbersome, and mechanisms were not in place to effectively track
requests for these extensions, which had to be submitted from the units
with servicemembers experiencing medical problems to a central office
in the Pentagon. When we visited Fort Lewis in March 2004, we found
that medical extension orders had expired for 19 of 84 personnel in the
medical hold unit. When a servicemember's orders expire, the member's
pay stops and the member's dependents lose their health care
coverage.[Footnote 43] After our visit to Fort Lewis, the Army changed
its policy concerning active duty medical extensions. On March 6, 2004,
the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs
issued a policy that provides installations with the ability to issue
voluntary orders for up to 180 days for reserve component members with
medical problems without going through the cumbersome active duty
medical extension process. While the authority to issue these voluntary
orders has been delegated to the installation level, the Army is still
maintaining visibility over its reserve component personnel with
medical problems because these personnel are assigned to units that
must report their personnel numbers on a weekly basis.
Air Force:
In the Air Force, a lack of central visibility of some reserve
component personnel with medical problems who are serving on active
duty has resulted in delayed resolution to their medical problems. The
Air Force does have central visibility over reserve component personnel
with medical problems who remain on their original mobilization orders
or receive extensions to those orders.[Footnote 44] However, the Air
Force also allows personnel with medical problems to switch over to
voluntary orders.[Footnote 45] These orders are issued by the Air
Force's major commands. The Air Force can track the number of orders
issued and the number of days covered by these orders, but it does not
have a mechanism in place to track the numbers of personnel who have
medical problems and are serving under these orders. As with many of
the reserve component personnel in the Army's medical hold and holdover
units, many of the air reserve component personnel with medical
problems are still able to perform significant amounts of work while
undergoing their medical treatment or medical discharge processing.
While the reservists experiencing medical problems who we interviewed
did not identify any difficulties with their housing or their orders,
they did identify problems with the amount of time it was taking to
resolve their medical issues, much like the problems identified at Fort
Stewart prior to the deployment of case managers to that location. At
one of the sites we visited, an Air Force reservist told us that he had
been in a medical status on voluntary orders for 18 months and did not
expect resolution of his case anytime soon. The extent to which such a
problem is commonplace is unknown, given the inability of the Air Force
to track such personnel.
Conclusions:
As the Global War on Terrorism is entering its fourth year, DOD
officials have made it clear that they do not expect the war to end
anytime soon. Furthermore, indications exist that certain components
and occupational specialties are being stressed and the long-term
impact of this stress on recruiting and retention is unknown. Moreover,
although DOD has a number of rebalancing efforts under way, these
efforts will take years to implement. Because this war is expected to
last a long time and requires far greater reserve component personnel
resources than any of the smaller operations of the previous two
decades, DOD can no longer afford policies that are developed piecemeal
to maximize short-term benefits and must have an integrated set of
policies that address both the long-term requirements for reserve
component forces and individual reserve component members' needs for
predictability.
For example, service rotation polices are directly tied to other
personnel policies such as policies concerning the use of the IRR, and
the extent of cross training. Policies to fully utilize the IRR would
increase the pool of available servicemembers and would thus decrease
the length of time each member would need to be deployed based on a
static requirement. Policies that encourage the use of cross-training
for lesser-utilized units could also increase the pool of available
servicemembers and decrease the length of rotations. Until DOD
addresses its personnel policies within the context of an overall
strategic framework, it will not have clear visibility over the forces
that are available to meet future requirements. In addition, it will be
unable to provide reserve component members with clear expectations of
their military obligations and the increased predictability, which DOD
has recognized as a key factor in retaining reserve component members
who are seeking to successfully balance their military commitments with
family and civilian employment obligations.
The Army's mobilization and demobilization plans contained outdated
assumptions about the location of active duty forces during reserve
mobilizations and demobilizations. As a result, facilities were not
always available to equitably support active and reserve component
forces that were collocated on bases that serve as mobilization and
demobilization sites. Until the Army updates the assumptions in its
mobilization and demobilization plans and therefore recognizes that
active and reserve component forces are likely to need simultaneous
support at Army installations within the United States, it may not be
able to adequately address the support needs of both its active and
reserve component forces. The Army has a number of uncoordinated
efforts under way to correct the facility infrastructure shortage that
has developed. However, these projects are being conducted without
considering the long-term requirements and associated costs. In
addition, when the Army created medical, training, logistics, and
administrative support units that relied heavily on reserve component
members, it did not anticipate that it would have to support long-term
mobilization requirements for a Global War on Terrorism under a partial
mobilization authority. As a result, the reserve component force cannot
continue to support mobilizations as DOD currently implements the
partial mobilization authority and the Army is now planning to rely on
civilians and contractors. However, the Army has not determined the
costs and availability of these civilian and contractor personnel.
Until the Army makes these determinations, it cannot plan to conduct
future mobilizations and demobilizations in the most efficient manner.
DOD's ability to effectively manage the health status of reserve
component members has been hampered by a lack of complete information
and the inability to track servicemembers with health issues. For
example, the AMSA database does not contain a large number of health
assessment records for the Marine Corps and lacks complete information
from some of the health assessment records that were submitted to the
database in a nonelectronic format. Consequently, the deployability
status and related health problems of some reserve component members
were not discoverable. Until the Marine Corps addresses its data
submission problems with updated guidance and a mechanism to oversee
the submission of health assessments to the centralized database and
until DOD establishes a timeline for the military departments to submit
health assessments electronically, DOD and the services will continue
to face difficulties in determining and addressing the factors that
cause reserve component members to be nondeployable. Moreover, until
the Air Force develops a mechanism to track its reserve component
members who are on voluntary active duty orders with health problems,
it cannot determine whether these personnel are having their health
problems addressed in a timely manner. Furthermore, the treatment of
the nation's reserve component members who have served their country
and experienced medical problems while on active duty is an important
issue for DOD to address. Until DOD gains visibility over the status of
all of its reserve component personnel on active duty with medical
problems, it cannot effectively oversee their situations and deploy,
demobilize, or discharge them.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in concert with the service
secretaries and Joint Staff, to take the following two actions:
* develop a strategic framework that sets human capital goals
concerning the availability of its reserve component forces to meet the
longer-term requirements of the Global War on Terrorism under various
mobilization authorities and:
* identify personnel policies that should be linked within the context
of the strategic framework.
We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the
Army to take, within the context of establishing DOD's strategic
framework for force availability, the following two actions:
* update mobilization and demobilization planning assumptions to
reflect the new operating environment for the Global War on Terrorism-
-long-term requirements for mobilization and demobilization support
facilities and personnel and the likelihood that active forces will
continue to rotate through U.S. bases while reserve component forces
are mobilizing and demobilizing and:
* develop a coordinated approach to evaluate all the support costs
associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites--
including both facility (construction, renovation, and maintenance) and
support personnel (reserve component, civilian, contractor, or a
combination) costs--to determine the most efficient options; and then
update the list of primary and secondary mobilization and
demobilization sites as necessary.
We also recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following four
actions:
* direct the Commandant of the Marine Corps to issue updated
mobilization guidance that specifically lists the requirement to submit
pre-deployment health assessments to AMSA,
* direct the Commandant of the Marine Corps to establish a mechanism
for overseeing submission of pre-and post-deployment assessments to the
centralized database,
* direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in
concert with the service secretaries, to set a timeline for the
military departments to electronically submit pre-and post-deployment
heath assessments,
* direct the Secretary of the Air Force to develop a mechanism for
tracking reserve component members who are on voluntary active duty
orders with medical problems.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD generally concurred
with our recommendations. The Department specifically concurred with
our recommendations to (1) update Army mobilization and demobilization
planning assumptions to reflect the new operating environment for the
Global War on Terrorism; (2) develop a coordinated approach to evaluate
all the support costs associated with Army mobilizations and
demobilizations at alternative sites--including both facility and
support personnel costs--to determine the most efficient options, and
then update the list of primary and secondary mobilization and
demobilization sites as necessary; (3) issue updated Marine Corps
mobilization guidance that specifically lists the requirement to submit
pre-deployment health assessments to AMSA; (4) set a timeline for the
military departments to electronically submit pre-and post-deployment
heath assessments; and (5) develop a mechanism for tracking Air Force
reserve component members who are on voluntary active duty orders with
medical problems.
DOD partially concurred with our other three recommendations. In
partially concurring with our recommendation concerning the development
of a strategic framework, DOD stated that it has a strategic framework
for setting human capital goals, which was established through its
December 2002 comprehensive review of active and reserve force mix, its
January 2004 force rebalancing report, and other planning and budgeting
guidance. However, DOD agreed that it should review and, as
appropriate, update its strategic framework. Although the documents
cited by DOD lay some of the groundwork needed to develop a strategic
framework, these documents do not specifically address how DOD will
integrate and align its personnel policies, such as its stop-loss and
IRR policies, to maximize its efficient usage of reserve component
personnel to meet its overall organizational goals.
In partially concurring with our recommendation to identify personnel
policies that should be linked within the context of a strategic
framework, DOD stated that its September 20, 2001, personnel and pay
policy and its July 19, 2002, addendum established personnel policies
associated with its strategic framework. DOD also stated that the
department should review, and as appropriate, update these policies. We
agree that the Office of the Secretary of Defense has issued personnel
policies and various guidance and reports concerning its reserve
components. However, the policies cited by DOD pre-date the 2002
comprehensive review and 2004 force rebalancing report that were cited
as part of the department's strategic framework. The strategic
framework should be established prior to the creation of personnel
policies. We continue to believe that DOD's policies were implemented
in a piecemeal manner and focused on short-term needs. For example, our
report details service changes to policies concerning the use of the
IRR, mobilization lengths, deployment lengths, and service obligations.
In partially concurring with our recommendation concerning oversight of
the Marine Corps' pre-and post-deployment health assessments, DOD
stated that system improvements are ongoing and that electronic
submission of pre-and post-deployment health assessments is possible
and highly desirable but may not be practical for every Marine Corps
deployment. However, our recommendation was directed at oversight of
health assessments regardless of how the assessments are submitted--in
paper or electronic form. We continue to believe that the Marine Corps
needs to establish a mechanism for overseeing the submission of its
pre-and post-deployment health assessments. The other services have
established such mechanisms as part of their quality assurance
programs.
Finally, in commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that after
reviewing its implementation of the partial mobilization authority, it
decided to retain its "24-cumulative month" policy. DOD noted that it
had identified significant problems with changing to a 24-consecutive-
month approach but did not elaborate on those problems. The final
decision concerning the implementation of the partial mobilization
authority was not made until after our review ended, and the decision
was counter to the decision expected by senior personnel we met with
during the course of our review. As noted in our report, with a 24-
cumulative-month interpretation of the partial mobilization authority,
DOD risks running out of forces available for deployment, at least in
the short term. Regardless of DOD's interpretation of the partial
mobilization authority, the department needs to have a strategic
framework to maximize the availability of its reserve component forces.
For example, usage of the more than 250,000 IRR members can affect
rotation policies because the use of these reservists would increase
the size of the pool from which to draw mobilized reservists.
Therefore, without a strategic framework setting human capital goals,
how DOD will continue to meet its large requirements for the Global War
on Terrorism remains to be seen. We have modified our report to
recognize the decision that DOD made regarding its implementation of
the partial mobilization authority.
DOD's comments on our recommendations are included in this report in
appendix IX. DOD also provided other relevant comments on portions of
the draft report and technical comments, which we incorporated as
appropriate.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the
Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; the Commandant of
the Marine Corps; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the
Director, Office of Management and Budget. We will also make copies
available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http:www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov or Brenda S. Farrell,
Assistant Director, at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Others
making significant contributions to this report are included in
appendix X.
Signed by:
Derek B. Stewart:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To determine how the Department of Defense's (DOD) implementation of
the partial mobilization authority and its personnel polices affect
reserve component force availability, we reviewed and analyzed the
mobilization authorities that are available under current law, along
with personnel policies from the services and Office of the Secretary
of Defense. We also collected and analyzed data on DOD's historical
usage of the reserve components and its usage of these forces since
September 11, 2001. We analyzed usage trends since the 1991 Persian
Gulf War and compared usage rates across services, reserve components,
and occupational specialties. We also reviewed DOD documents that
addressed the projected future use of reserve component forces and
plans to mitigate the high usage of forces within certain occupational
specialties. We analyzed the structure of the reserve component forces
and evaluated the effects of utilizing or excluding members of the
Individual Ready Reserve from involuntary call-ups. We discussed the
implementation of mobilization authorities and the effects of various
personnel policies with responsible officials from the:
* Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C;
* Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, Washington, D.C;
* Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs,
Washington, D.C;
* U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia;
* Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia;
* Commandant, Marine Corps (Manpower, Plans, and Policy), Quantico
Marine Corps Base, Virginia; and:
* U.S. Army Reserve Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia.
During our visits to mobilization and demobilization sites, we also
interviewed reserve component members concerning the length of their
mobilizations, deployments, and service commitments.
To determine how efficiently the Army executed its mobilization and
demobilization plans, we interviewed senior and key mobilization
officials involved with the mobilization and demobilization processes
to document their roles and responsibilities and collect data about the
processes. We visited selected sites where the Army conducts
mobilization and demobilization processing. At those sites, we observed
mobilization and demobilization processing and interviewed responsible
Army officials as well as soldiers being processed for mobilization and
demobilization at those sites. We collected and analyzed cost data for
facility renovation and construction projects. We also collected and
analyzed available cost information on the contracts to replace reserve
component members with civilian and contractor personnel. Finally, we
documented problems that the installations had tracking the arrival of
mobilizing and demobilizing troops though their automated systems. We
visited five mobilization and demobilization sites. These sites
included four installations that supported both active and reserve
component troops and one site that supported only reserve component
troops. Four of the sites were among the largest in terms of the
numbers of reserve component members mobilized and demobilized. One was
among the smallest. Specifically we visited the following sites:
* Fort Stewart, Georgia;
* Fort Hood, Texas;
* Fort McCoy, Wisconsin;
* Fort Lewis, Washington; and:
* Fort McPherson, Georgia.
We also interviewed Army officials from the following locations:
* U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia;
* First U.S. Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia;
* Fifth U.S. Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas;
* Army Installation Management Activity, Arlington, Virginia; and:
* Army Contracting Agency, Fort McPherson, Georgia.
As requested, we also visited sites where the other services conducted
mobilization and demobilization processing, but we did not report on
the efficiency of the other services' processes because the numbers of
reserve component members who were mobilizing and demobilizing through
these sites were insufficient for us to draw any conclusions about the
services' processes. Specifically, we interviewed responsible
officials and observed ongoing mobilizations and demobilizations at the
following sites:
* Quantico Marine Corps Base, Virginia;
* Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, North Carolina;
* Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia;
* Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; and:
* Navy Mobilization Processing Site Norfolk, Virginia.
At some of the demobilization locations, we observed reservists
receiving medical, legal, and family support briefings, and interviewed
some individuals who had been demobilized, including some on medical
extensions. We also walked through and compared facilities used to
house active and reserve component personnel, specifically focusing on
the facilities used to house personnel with medical problems. We
interviewed appropriate officials about facility capacities, and
gathered and analyzed information about facility renovations and new
construction projects. We obtained and reviewed additional
documentation such as mobilization orders, activation checklists, and
demobilization processing checklists. We also collected and analyzed
reserve component mobilization data, flowcharts, reports, plans,
directives, manuals, instructions, and administrative guidance. We
reviewed relevant GAO reports and contacted other audit and research
organizations regarding their work in the area. We reviewed
congressional testimony by Navy officials in which they described steps
planned by the Navy to improve its demobilization process, and we
followed up on the status of those planned steps with officials at the
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Norfolk, Virginia.
To examine the extent to which DOD can effectively manage the health
status of its mobilized reserve component members, we collected and
analyzed data from a variety of sources throughout DOD. We tracked
weekly data from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Reserve Affairs (OASD/RA), which showed the numbers of Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marine Corps personnel on medical extensions, and the
numbers of Army personnel in medical statuses. We also collected,
tracked, and analyzed data from the Army's Office of the Surgeon
General. These data showed the numbers of reserve component personnel
in medical statuses by installation and by time spent in a medical
status. We also reviewed the Army's projected medical status numbers,
the Army's plans to mitigate future problems, and reports on the
lessons that were learned from the medical-related problems that
occurred at Fort Stewart during 2003. We also obtained and analyzed
information from the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Force Health Protection and Readiness, Deployment Health
Support Directorate. We collected and reviewed the services' medical
instructions, memoranda, and policies. In addition, we interviewed
personnel responsible for the processing, reviewing, and collection of
the deployment health assessments at the mobilization and
demobilization sites visited. We compared information about the
services' medical and physical evaluation board processes. We discussed
these medical issues with responsible officials from:
* Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs,
Washington, D.C;
* U.S. Army Medical Department, Army Medical Command, Washington, D.C;
* U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia;
* First U.S. Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia;
* Fifth U.S. Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas;
* U.S. Army Medical Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas;
* Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C;
* Winn Army Community Hospital, Fort Stewart, Georgia;
* Darnall Army Community Hospital, Fort Hood, Texas;
* Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis, Washington;
* Fort McCoy, Wisconsin;
* Quantico Marine Corps Base, Virginia;
* Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, North Carolina;
* Navy Mobilization Processing Site, Norfolk, Virginia;
* Headquarters, United States Air Force Military Policy Division,
Washington, D.C;
* Air National Guard, Washington, D.C;
* Air Force Medical Operations Agency, Washington, D.C; and:
* Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia.
We also interviewed reserve component members who were in medical
status at the mobilization and demobilization sites visited. We
interviewed hospital commanders and their staff, case managers, medical
liaison officers, and officials from the services' Surgeons General
Offices.
We interviewed the Chief of the Army Medical Surveillance Activity
(AMSA). We discussed the information in the consolidated health
assessment database and obtained selected data from all the reserve
component member pre-and post-deployment health assessments that were
completed from October 25, 2001--when assessments became mandatory for
all mobilized reserve component members through March 2004. The data we
obtained contained health assessment records for 290,641 reserve
component members. For 122,603 members, we obtained only pre-deployment
health assessments, for 51,047 members we obtained only post-deployment
health assessments, and for 116,991 members we obtained both pre-and
post-deployment health assessments. We analyzed the data that we
obtained to determine referral, deployability, and exposure rates. We
also analyzed data on the self-reported general health of the reserve
component members and compared the data from pre-deployment assessments
with the data from post-deployment assessments. We also analyzed the
month-by-month flow of forms to the AMSA to see if the services had
been submitting the forms as required. We compared elapsed times
between pre-and post-deployment assessments. We conducted cross
tabulations of the data to identify relationships between various
variables such as the overall health status, deployability, and
referral variables. All of our analyses compared data across the
reserve components to look for differences or trends.
We assessed the reliability of reserve component mobilization,
demobilization, and general usage data supplied by OASD/RA by (1)
reviewing existing information about the data and the systems that
produced them and (2) interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about
the data. We also compared the data with data supplied to us by the
services. Our assessment of the AMSA data was even more rigorous and
included the electronic testing of relevant data elements, and
discussions with knowledgeable officials about not only the procedures
for collecting the data but also the procedures for coding the data. As
a result of our assessments, we determined that the data were
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.
We conducted our review from November 2003 through July 2004 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: National Guard and Reserve End Strength Figures:
Tables 7 and 8 show information about the Ready Reserve and its
subcategories. Table 7 shows that the strength of the Ready Reserve has
declined steadily from fiscal year 1993 to fiscal year 2003, but the
strength of the Selected Reserve remained fairly steady from fiscal
year 1998 to fiscal year 2003 after declining by more than 170,000
personnel from fiscal year 1993 to fiscal year 1998. The Selected
Reserve is the portion of the Ready Reserve that participates in
regular training. Table 8 shows the relative sizes of the reserve
components at the end of fiscal year 2003. The Army's reserve
components are larger than those of the other services and are expected
to remain so for the foreseeable future.
Table 7: Changes in Reserve Category End Strengths:
Category: Ready Reserve;
Fiscal year: 1993: 1,840,650;
Fiscal year: 1994: 1,779,436;
Fiscal year: 1995: 1,633,497;
Fiscal year: 1996: 1,522,451;
Fiscal year: 1997: 1,437,722;
Fiscal year: 1998: 1,340,557;
Fiscal year: 1999: 1,276,190;
Fiscal year: 2000: 1,238,715;
Fiscal year: 2001: 1,211,264;
Fiscal year: 2002: 1,186,388;
Fiscal year: 2003: 1,154,140.
Category: Selected Reserve;
Fiscal year: 1993: 1,057,676;
Fiscal year: 1994: 998,330;
Fiscal year: 1995: 945,852;
Fiscal year: 1996: 920,371;
Fiscal year: 1997: 902,216;
Fiscal year: 1998: 881,491;
Fiscal year: 1999: 870,917;
Fiscal year: 2000: 865,242;
Fiscal year: 2001: 867,422;
Fiscal year: 2002: 874,326;
Fiscal year: 2003: 875,072.
Category: Individual Ready Reserve;
Fiscal year: 1993: 776,080;
Fiscal year: 1994: 774,336;
Fiscal year: 1995: 681,203;
Fiscal year: 1996: 596,788;
Fiscal year: 1997: 530,777;
Fiscal year: 1998: 454,352;
Fiscal year: 1999: 398,525;
Fiscal year: 2000: 370,858;
Fiscal year: 2001: 336,610;
Fiscal year: 2002: 305,922;
Fiscal year: 2003: 274,199.
Category: Inactive National Guard;
Fiscal year: 1993: 6,894;
Fiscal year: 1994: 6,770;
Fiscal year: 1995: 6,442;
Fiscal year: 1996: 5,292;
Fiscal year: 1997: 4,729;
Fiscal year: 1998: 4,714;
Fiscal year: 1999: 4,590;
Fiscal year: 2000: 4,212;
Fiscal year: 2001: 4,049;
Fiscal year: 2002: 3,142;
Fiscal year: 2003: 2,138.
Source: Defense Manpower Data Center data.
[End of table]
Table 8: Fiscal Year 2003 End Strengths for Each of DOD's Six Reserve
Components:
Ready Reserve;
Army National Guard: 353,227;
Army Reserve: 329,295;
Naval Reserve: 152,855;
Marine Corps Reserve: 98,868;
Air National Guard: 108,137;
Air Force Reserve: 111,758;
Department of Defense Total: 1,154,140.
Selected Reserve;
Army National Guard: 351,089;
Army Reserve: 211,890;
Naval Reserve: 88,156;
Marine Corps Reserve: 41,046;
Air National Guard: 108,137;
Air Force Reserve: 74,754;
Department of Defense Total: 875,072.
Individual Ready Reserve;
Army Reserve: 117,405;
Naval Reserve: 61,968;
Marine Corps Reserve: 57,822;
Air Force Reserve: 37,004;
Department of Defense Total: 274,199.
Inactive National Guard;
Army National Guard: 2,138;
Department of Defense Total: 2,138.
Source: Defense Manpower Data Center data.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and Demobilization Installations:
Army:
Power Projection Platforms:
Fort Carson, Colorado.
Fort Benning, Georgia.
Fort Stewart, Georgia.
Fort Riley, Kansas.
Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Fort Polk, Louisiana.
Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Fort Drum, New York.
Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Fort Bliss, Texas.
Fort Hood, Texas.
Fort Eustis, Virginia.
Fort Lewis, Washington.
Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.
Power Support Platforms:
Fort Rucker, Alabama.
Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
Camp Roberts, California.
Gowen Field, Idaho.
Camp Atterbury, Indiana.
Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico.
Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Fort Lee, Virginia.
Navy:
Navy Mobilization Processing Site New London, Connecticut.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Seattle, Washington.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Gulfport, Mississippi.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Jacksonville, Florida.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Norfolk, Virginia.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Pensacola, Florida.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Port Hueneme, California.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Washington, D.C.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Memphis, Tennessee.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site London, United Kingdom.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site San Diego, California.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Great Lakes, Illinois.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Navy Mobilization Processing Site Camp Pendleton, California.
Marine Corps:
Camp Pendleton, California (Used to mobilize and demobilize units and
individuals for worldwide usage).
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina (Used to mobilize and demobilize units
and individuals for worldwide usage).
Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia (Primarily used to mobilize and
demobilize individual reservists for duty in the Washington, D.C.
Metro area).
Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California.[Footnote 46]
Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.
Air Force:
United States Air Force Reserve Sites:
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas.
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.
Luke Air Force Base, Arizona.
Beale Air Force Base, California.
March Air Reserve Base, California.
Travis Air Force Base, California.
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.
Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado.
Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida.
MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.
Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.
Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia.
Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.
Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.
Grissom Air Reserve Base, Indiana.
McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas.
Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.
New Orleans Air Reserve Station, Louisiana.
Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts.
Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts.
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.
Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan.
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport Air Reserve Station,
Minnesota.
Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri.
Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi.
Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi.
Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina.
Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina.
Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.
McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.
Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.
Fort Hamilton, New York.
Niagara Falls International Airport Air Reserve Station, New York.
Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio.
Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
Portland International Airport, Oregon.
Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania.
Willow Grove Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania.
Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina.
Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina.
Brooks Air Force Base, Texas.
Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Texas.
Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas.
Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.
Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.
Norfolk Naval Air Station, Virginia.
Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington.
McChord Air Force Base, Washington.
General Mitchell Air Reserve Base, Wisconsin.
Air National Guard Sites:
Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.
Kulis Air National Guard Base, Alaska.
Birmingham International Airport, Alabama.
Montgomery Regional Airport, Alabama.
Fort Smith Regional Airport, Arkansas.
Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas.
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Arizona.
Tucson International Airport, Arizona.
Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, California.
Fresno Air Terminal, California.
March Air Reserve Base, California.
Moffett Federal Airfield, California.
Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado.
Bradley Air National Guard Base, Connecticut.
New Castle County Airport, Delaware.
Jacksonville International Airport, Florida.
Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.
Savannah International Airport, Georgia.
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.
Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
Des Moines International Airport, Iowa.
Sioux City Airport, Iowa.
Gowen Field, Idaho.
Greater Peoria Airport, Illinois.
Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.
Springfield Capital Airport, Illinois.
Fort Wayne International Airport, Indiana.
Terre Haute International Airport, Indiana.
Forbes Field, Kansas.
McConnel Air Force Base, Kansas.
Standiford Field, Kentucky.
New Orleans Naval Air Station, Louisiana.
Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts.
Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts.
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.
Martin State Airport, Maryland.
Bangor International Airport, Maine.
Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan.
W.K. Kellog Airport, Michigan.
Duluth Air National Guard International Airport, Minnesota.
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Minnesota.
Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport, Missouri.
Rosecrans Memorial Airport, Missouri.
Jackson International Airport, Mississippi.
Key Field, Mississippi.
Great Falls International Airport, Montana.
Charlotte- Douglas International Airport, North Carolina.
Hector International Airport, North Dakota.
Lincoln Municipal Airport, Nebraska.
Pease Air National Guard Base, New Hampshire.
Atlantic City Municipal Airport, New Jersey.
McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.
Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.
Reno Cannon International Airport, Nevada.
F.S. Gabreski Airport, New York.
Hancock Field, New York.
Niagara Falls International Airport, New York.
Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York.
Stratton Air National Guard Base, New York.
Mansfield Lahm Airport, Ohio.
Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio.
Springfield- Beckley Municipal Airport, Ohio.
Toledo Express Airport, Ohio.
Tulsa International Airport, Oklahoma.
Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Oklahoma.
Klamath Falls International Airport, Oregon.
Portland International Airport, Oregon.
Harrisburg International Airport, Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh International Airport, Pennsylvania.
Willow Grove Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania.
Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, Puerto Rico.
Quonset State Airport, Rhode Island.
McEntire Air National Guard Station, South Carolina.
Joe Foss Field, South Dakota.
McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, Tennessee.
Memphis International Airport, Tennessee.
Nashville International Airport, Tennessee.
Ellington Field, Texas.
Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Texas.
Kelly Air Force Base, Texas.
Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah.
Richmond International Airport, Virginia.
Burlington International Airport, Vermont.
Camp Murray, Washington.
Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington.
General B. Mitchell Air National Guard Base, Wisconsin.
Truax Field, Wisconsin.
Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, West Virginia.
Yeager Air National Guard Airport, West Virginia.
Cheyenne Air National Guard, Wyoming.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Differences between Demobilization and Periodic Physicals
for Reserve Component Members:
Table 9: Physical Requirements:
Army; Demobilization physical requirements: Screenings for all
soldiers;
referrals and treatment are based on screening;
Limited physical examination at the request of the soldier; includes;
* height, weight, blood pressure, pulse, and temperature;
* "hands on" clinical evaluation of head, face, scalp, nose, sinuses,
mouth, throat, ears, eyes, heart, lungs, vascular system, abdomen,
extremities, feet, spine, skin, neurologic exam, and breast/testicular
exam; and;
* focused laboratory work based on specific problems or physical
findings;
Army; Periodic physical: Requirements: Examination includes;
* height, weight, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, vision, and
hearing;
* clinical evaluation of head, face, scalp, nose, sinuses, mouth,
throat, ears, eyes, heart, lungs, vascular system, abdomen,
extremities, feet, spine, skin, neurologic exam, breast exam/testicular
exam, neck, and anus;
* lab work includes urinalysis, HIV, and cholesterol testing;
Age 40 and over exam includes prostate exam, rectal exam with stool,
urine-specific tests (gravity and microscopic), test for intraocular
pressure, and fasting blood sugar and fasting lipid profile;
Army; Periodic physical: Frequency: Annual health screenings;
Physical every 5 years beginning at age 30 and annually at age 60;
Requirements and frequency vary on the basis of occupational specialty.
Air Force; Demobilization physical requirements: All reservists get an
assessment by a medical technician and are referred to a provider if
needed;
All members returning from austere locations see medical providers
regardless of their physical condition;
Air Force; Periodic physical: Requirements: Same as the Army;
Air Force; Periodic physical: Frequency: Annual health assessment;
Requirements and frequency vary on the basis of occupational specialty.
Navy/Marine Corps; Demobilization physical requirements: Screenings
for all sailors and Marines; physical examinations and specialty
referrals are given as indicated on a patient-directed, symptom-driven
basis; Physical examinations conducted if the periodic examination
expired during the mobilization period;
Navy/Marine Corps; Periodic physical: Requirements: General
examination requirements similar to the Army;
Navy/Marine Corps; Periodic physical: Frequency: Annual health
certification;
Full physical every 5 years through age 50, every 2 years through age
60, and annually after age 60;
Requirements and frequency vary on the basis of occupational specialty.
Source: GAO analysis of DOD instructions and regulations.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix V: Pre-and Post-Deployment Health Assessment Forms:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
[End of section]
Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since September 11, 2001:
On September 14, 2001, the Secretary of Defense delegated his stop-loss
authority to the service secretaries. This authority allows the
services to retain both active and reserve component members on active
duty beyond the end of their obligated service. Reserve component
members who are affected by the order generally cannot retire or leave
the service until authorized by competent authority. Each of the
services has exercised its stop-loss authority on different occasions
and for different military occupational specialties.
Army:
The Army issued a stop-loss message on December 4, 2001, imposing stop-
loss on several active component skill-based specialties. As the needs
of the Army changed, the number of occupational specialties expanded
and then contracted, and included the reserve components as well as the
Army's active forces. The Army ended its specialty-based stop-loss on
November 13, 2003. The Army's current stop-loss policy, which affects
active and reserve component forces, is unit-based rather than
occupational specialty driven. Significant stop-loss policy changes
that affected the Army's reserve component forces are listed below.
* January 2002. The stop-loss policy already in effect for the active
component is expanded to include soldiers in the Ready Reserve.
Soldiers with 23 different occupational specialties, including special
forces, civil affairs, psychological operations, certain aviation
categories, mortuary affairs, and maintenance are affected.
* February 2002. The Army expands its stop-loss policy for the active
and reserve components, adding 38 occupational specialties to the stop-
loss program. The new categories include military police, military
intelligence specialties and technicians, comptrollers, foreign area
officers (Eurasia, Middle East/North Africa), contract and industrial
management, additional aviator specialties, criminal investigators,
and linguists.
* June 2002. The Army expands and retracts its stop-loss policy for the
active and reserve components. New occupational specialties affected
include information operations, strategic intelligence, various field
artillery and air defense specialties, explosive ordnance disposal, and
unmanned aerial vehicle operators. Soldiers in the foreign area officer
(Eurasia) and select intelligence specialties were released from the
stop-loss policy.
* November 2002. Army ends skill-based stop-loss policy for the Ready
Reserve and Guard forces. The new stop-loss policy is unit based,
beginning when the unit is alerted until 90 days after the end of the
unit's mobilization.
* February 2003. Army expands stop-loss to include active component
units identified for deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
* November 2003. Army again issues unit stop-loss for active forces,
and cancels occupational specialty stop losses that had been issued
since February 2003. (There were several stop-loss changes issued
between February 2003 and November 2003 but these changes were focused
on active forces.) The unit stop-loss policies for reserve component
forces have remained continuously in effect since they were instituted
in 2002.
Navy:
The Navy exercised its stop-loss authority on September 28, 2001, by
imposing stop-loss on several occupational specialties. Unlike the
Army, the Navy's initial stop-loss policy affected both active and
reserve component forces. The Navy's significant stop-loss policy
changes are listed below.
* September 2001. The Navy issues a stop-loss policy for a variety of
officer and enlisted occupational specialties, and subspecialties to
include personnel in special operations/special warfare, security, law
enforcement, cryptology, and explosive ordnance disposal as well as
selected physicians, nurses, and linguists.
* March 2002. The Navy modifies its existing stop-loss policy, adding
new specialties and removing others. After the changes, selected
linguists and personnel in security, law enforcement, and cryptology
were subject to the stop-loss restriction.
* August 2002. The Navy ends its stop-loss policy.
Air Force:
The Air Force exercises its stop-loss authority on September 22, 2001,
by imposing a servicewide stop-loss on all Air Force personnel. Unlike
the Army, the Air Force's initial policy affected active, reserve, and
Air National Guard members. The Air Force's significant stop-loss
policy changes are listed below.
* September 2001. The Air Force implements a servicewide, stop-loss
policy.
* January 2002. The Air Force releases 64 occupational specialties from
the general stop-loss. Specialties that still fall under the
limitations of the stop-loss policy include selected pilots,
navigators, intelligence specialists, weather specialists, security
personnel, engineers, communications specialists, selected health care
providers, lawyers, chaplains, aircrew operators, aircrew protection
personnel, command and control specialists, fuel handlers, logisticians
and supply specialists, selected maintenance providers, and
investigators.
* June 2002. The Air Force exempts additional occupational specialties
from the general stop-loss. Specialties that remain under the
limitations of the stop-loss policy include selected pilots,
navigators, security personnel, aircrew operators, command and control
specialists, intelligence specialists, aircrew protection, and fuel
handlers.
* March 2003. The Air Force announces that effective May 2, 2003, stop-
loss will be expanded to cover a total of 99 occupational specialties.
Specialties that are affected by the stop-loss policy include selected
pilots, navigators, command and control specialists, intelligence
specialists, security personnel, engineers, selected health care
providers, investigators, aircrew operators, aircrew protection
personnel, communications specialists, logisticians and supply
specialists, and fuel handlers.
* May 2003. The Air Force modifies its stop-loss policy, releasing
about half of the previously selected occupational specialties. The
list of specialties still affected by the stop-loss includes selected
pilots, navigators, intelligence specialists, security forces, special
investigators, aircrew operators, fuel handlers, and maintenance
personnel.
* June 2003. The Air Force ends its stop-loss policy.
Marine Corps:
The Marine Corps exercised its stop-loss authority for selective active
and reserve Marines in January 2002. Specific policies varied as to
their applicability to active and reserve forces; however, expansion of
stop-loss policy eventually covered all Marines. The Marine Corps'
significant stop-loss policy changes are listed below.
* January 2002. The Marine Corps implements a specific stop-loss
authority for Marines with C-130 specialties to assist in Operation
Enduring Freedom. This stop-loss authority includes Marines in the
reserve component.
* January 2003. The Marine Corps implements a general stop-loss policy
for all Marines, regardless of component. Marine Corps reservists
cannot be extended beyond the completion of 24 cumulative months of
activated service. Furthermore, the first general officer in a Marine's
chain of command can exempt Marines from the stop-loss policy.
* May 2003. The Marine Corps lifts its stop-loss policy.
[End of section]
Appendix VII: Reserve Component Recruiting Results, Fiscal Year 1993-
2004:
The services use recruiting and retention strategies together to
achieve their programmed end strengths. If retention is better than
expected in a particular year, then the reserve components may achieve
their desired end strengths without achieving their recruiting goals.
While the services can effectively meet their yearly programmed end
strengths through a wide range of recruiting and retention
combinations, long-term overreliance on either recruiting or retention
can eventually cause negative impacts for a service or service
component.
A service or component that repeatedly misses its recruiting goals will
need to retain a higher-than-planned percentage of its personnel each
year. This will eventually lead to a force that is out of balance.
Either too many people will be promoted and the component will end up
with too many senior personnel and not enough junior personnel or
promotion rates will decline. Decreased promotion rates tend to lead to
increased attrition rates, which would lead to end strength problems if
a component were already having problems meeting its recruiting goals.
Appendix VI showed that the services have employed a variety of stop-
loss policies since September 11, 2001. Because these policies
artificially inflate retention rates, recruiting figures rather than
retention or end strength figures may be the best indicator of whether
or not the components will face difficulties meeting their future
programmed end strengths. Table 10 shows historical recruiting results.
It shows that all the reserve components met their recruiting goals in
fiscal year 2002. But it shows that the Army National Guard fell far
short of its goal in fiscal year 2003 and was falling far short of its
fiscal year 2004 monthly goals through May of 2004. This dramatic drop
in recruiting results occurred as the Army was significantly increasing
its involuntary mobilizations of Army National Guard combat forces. The
improving job market in the United States may make it even more
difficult for the Army National Guard to achieve its recruiting
objectives over the next few years.
Table 10: Reserve Component Recruiting Figures:
Fiscal year: 1993;
Army National Guard: Goal: 68,177;
Army Reserve: Goal: 50,600;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 19,537;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 10,140;
Air National Guard: Goal: 10,454;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 10,592;
DOD total: Goal: 169,500.
Fiscal year: 1994;
Army National Guard: Goal: 69,710;
Army Reserve: Goal: 46,500;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 13,144;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 11,122;
Air National Guard: Goal: 10,325;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 10,434;
DOD total: Goal: 161,235.
Fiscal year: 1995;
Army National Guard: Goal: 60,649;
Army Reserve: Goal: 47,732;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 13,660;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 11,748;
Air National Guard: Goal: 8,496;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 12,578;
DOD total: Goal: 154,863.
Fiscal year: 1996;
Army National Guard: Goal: 61,793;
Army Reserve: Goal: 50,179;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 16,850;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 10,388;
Air National Guard: Goal: 11,000;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 7,090;
DOD total: Goal: 157,300.
Fiscal year: 1997;
Army National Guard: Goal: 59,262;
Army Reserve: Goal: 47,935;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 16,950;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 10,063;
Air National Guard: Goal: 9,996;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 9,702;
DOD total: Goal: 153,908.
Fiscal year: 1998;
Army National Guard: Goal: 56,638;
Army Reserve: Goal: 47,940;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 15,329;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 10,174;
Air National Guard: Goal: 8,004;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 10,874;
DOD total: Goal: 148,959.
Fiscal year: 1999;
Army National Guard: Goal: 56,958;
Army Reserve: Goal: 52,084;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 20,455;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 9,464;
Air National Guard: Goal: 8,520;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 11,791;
DOD total: Goal: 159,272.
Fiscal year: 2000;
Army National Guard: Goal: 54,034;
Army Reserve: Goal: 48,461;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 18,410;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 9,341;
Air National Guard: Goal: 10,080;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 9,624;
DOD total: Goal: 149,950.
Fiscal year: 2001;
Army National Guard: Goal: 60,252;
Army Reserve: Goal: 34,910;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 15,250;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 8,945;
Air National Guard: Goal: 11,808;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 8,051;
DOD total: Goal: 139,216.
Fiscal year: 2002;
Army National Guard: Goal: 60,504;
Army Reserve: Goal: 38,857;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 15,000;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 9,835;
Air National Guard: Goal: 9,570;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 6,080;
DOD total: Goal: 139,846.
Fiscal year: 2003;
Army National Guard: Goal: 62,000;
Army Reserve: Goal: 40,900;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 12,000;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 8,173;
Air National Guard: Goal: 5,712;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 7,512;
DOD total: Goal: 136,297.
Fiscal year: 2004;
Army National Guard: Goal: 56,002;
Army Reserve: Goal: 34,782;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 10,500;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 7,960;
Air National Guard: Goal: 8,842;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 7,997;
DOD total: Goal: 126,083.
Fiscal year: 2004[A];
Army National Guard: Goal: 36,575;
Army Reserve: Goal: 20,862;
Naval Reserve: Goal: 6,622;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal: 5,268;
Air National Guard: Goal: 5,702;
Air Force Reserve: Goal: 5,816;
DOD total: Goal: 80,845.
Fiscal year: 1993;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 67,360;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 50,255;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 18,367;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 10,216;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 9,163;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 10,908;
DOD total: Accessions: 166,269.
Fiscal year: 1994;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 61,248;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 47,412;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 13,006;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 11,236;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 9,177;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 11,464;
DOD total: Accessions: 153,543.
Fiscal year: 1995;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 56,711;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 48,098;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 13,701;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 12,043;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 8,351;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 9,757;
DOD total: Accessions: 148,661.
Fiscal year: 1996;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 60,444;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 46,187;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 16,820;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 12,566;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 9,958;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 7,566;
DOD total: Accessions: 153,541.
Fiscal year: 1997;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 63,495;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 47,153;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 17,106;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 10,744;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 9,986;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 8,383;
DOD total: Accessions: 156,867.
Fiscal year: 1998;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 55,401;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 44,212;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 14,986;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 10,213;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 8,744;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 8,877;
DOD total: Accessions: 142,433.
Fiscal year: 1999;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 57,090;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 41,784;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 15,715;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 9,565;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 8,398;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 7,518;
DOD total: Accessions: 140,070.
Fiscal year: 2000;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 61,260;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 48,596;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 14,911;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 9,465;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 10,730;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 7,740;
DOD total: Accessions: 152,702.
Fiscal year: 2001;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 61,956;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 35,622;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 15,344;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 9,117;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 10,258;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 8,826;
DOD total: Accessions: 141,123.
Fiscal year: 2002;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 63,251;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 41,385;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 15,355;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 10,090;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 10,122;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 6,926;
DOD total: Accessions: 147,129.
Fiscal year: 2003;
Army National Guard: Accessions: 54,202;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 41,851;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 12,772;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 8,222;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 8,471;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 7,557;
DOD total: Accessions: 133,075.
Fiscal year: 2004[A];
Army National Guard: Accessions: 32,052;
Army Reserve: Accessions: 21,569;
Naval Reserve: Accessions: 7,140;
Marine Corps Reserve: Accessions: 5,505;
Air National Guard: Accessions: 5,284;
Air Force Reserve: Accessions: 5,304;
DOD total: Accessions: 76,854.
Fiscal year: 1993;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 98.8%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 99.3%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 94.0%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.7%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 87.7%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 103.0%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 98.1%.
Fiscal year: 1994;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 87.9%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 102.0%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 99.0%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 101.0%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 88.9%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 109.9%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 95.2%.
Fiscal year: 1995;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 93.5%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.8%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.3%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 102.5%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 98.3%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 77.6%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 96.0%.
Fiscal year: 1996;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 97.8%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 92.0%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 99.8%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 121.0%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 90.5%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 106.7%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 97.6%.
Fiscal year: 1997;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 107.1%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 98.4%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.9%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 106.8%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 99.9%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 86.4%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 101.9%.
Fiscal year: 1998;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 97.8%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 92.2%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 97.8%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.4%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 109.2%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 81.6%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 95.6%.
Fiscal year: 1999;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 100.2%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 80.2%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 76.8%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 101.1%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 98.6%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 63.8%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 87.9%.
Fiscal year: 2000;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 113.4%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.3%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 81.0%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 101.3%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 106.4%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 80.4%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 101.8%.
Fiscal year: 2001;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 102.8%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 102.0%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.6%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 101.9%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 86.9%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 109.6%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 101.4%.
Fiscal year: 2002;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 104.5%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 106.5%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 102.4%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 102.6%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 105.8%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 113.9%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 105.2%.
Fiscal year: 2003;
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 87.4%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 102.3%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 106.4%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.6%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 148.3%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 100.6%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 97.6%.
Fiscal year: 2004[A];
Army National Guard: Goal achievement: 87.6%;
Army Reserve: Goal achievement: 103.4%;
Naval Reserve: Goal achievement: 107.8%;
Marine Corps Reserve: Goal achievement: 104.5%;
Air National Guard: Goal achievement: 92.7%;
Air Force Reserve: Goal achievement: 91.2%;
DOD total: Goal achievement: 95.1%.
Source: Defense Manpower Data Center.
[A] Signifies fiscal year 2004 data through May.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix VIII: Service Medical and Physical Evaluation Board Processes:
Disabilities Evaluation System:
DOD's Physical Disabilities Evaluation System consists of four main
elements:
1. medical evaluation by Medical Evaluation Boards (MEBs),
2. physical disability evaluation by Physical Evaluation Boards (PEBs)
to include appellate review,
3. servicemember counseling, and:
4. final disposition by appropriate personnel authorities.
Figure 2 shows the steps of the disabilities evaluation system, which
will eventually lead to one of two outcomes. Servicemembers will either
be returned to duty or they will be discharged from their military
service. Members who are discharged sometimes, but not always, receive
disability compensation.
Figure 2: Steps of DOD's Disabilities Evaluation System:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Reserve component personnel who have been involuntarily mobilized,
along with members who are voluntarily serving on active duty, may end
up with medical problems for a variety or reasons. Some are injured
during combat operations; others become injured or sick during the
course of their training or routine duties; and others have problems
that are identified during medical appointments, physicals, or medical
screenings. Servicemembers on active duty or in the Ready Reserve are
eligible for referral into the Disability Evaluation System when they
are unable to reasonably perform the military duties of their office,
grade, rank, or rating as a result of a diagnosed medical condition.
Servicemembers who have been diagnosed with medical conditions that may
render them unfit for military service enter into medical treatment
programs.
The initial stage of the process, when medical professionals are
diagnosising servicemembers' problems, determining courses of
treatment, and evaluating the effectiveness of the ongoing treatments
is often the most time-consuming portion of the medical process.
According to service officials, this initial phase is intentionally
long to give servicemembers a good chance to get well and return to
full duty. If, however, the servicemembers have not returned to full
duty within 1 year of their diagnoses or if prior to a year they reach
a point where they have achieved the maximum recovery expected, and
additional treatment is not expected to materially affect their
condition, their medical status and duty limitations will be documented
and referred to a MEB.
The MEB documents full clinical information on all medical conditions
and states whether each condition is cause for referral into the
Disability Evaluation System. The duty-related impairment MEB package
should include a medical history; records from physical examinations;
records of medical tests and their results; and documentation of
medical and surgical consultations, diagnoses, treatments and
prognoses. If the servicemember meets retention standards, the
disability processing ends with the MEB. If the MEB concludes that the
servicemembers do not meet retention standards, the members' cases are
referred to the PEB to determine fitness for duty and possible
entitlement to benefits.
The first step in the PEB process is referral of the cases to informal
PEBs that review documents from the MEB and other administrative
documents without the presence of the servicemember. The informal PEB
then issues its initial findings and recommendations. If servicemembers
are found to be fit for duty, the disability processing ends with the
informal PEB. If servicemembers are found to be unfit for duty, they
may request to personally appear before the PEB during formal PEB
hearings. Servicemembers who do not agree with the decisions of the
Formal PEB have an additional opportunity to appeal the decisions.
When a physician initiates an MEB, the processing time should normally
not exceed 30 days from the date the MEB report is initiated to the
date it is received by the PEB. For cases where reserve component
members are referred for solely a fitness determination on a non-duty-
related condition, processing time for conducting an MEB or physical
examination should not exceed 90 days. And when the PEB receives the
MEB or physical examination report, the processing time to the date of
the final disposition of the reviewing authority should normally be no
more than 40 days.
All servicemembers who enter the Disability Evaluation System receive
counseling. Counselors inform the servicemembers of the sequence and
nature of the steps in the process, statutory and regulatory rights,
the effects of findings and recommendations, and the servicemember's
recourse in the case of an unfavorable finding.
It is not within the mission of the military departments to retain
members on active duty or in the Ready Reserve to provide prolonged,
definitive medical care when it is unlikely the member will return to
full military duty. Servicemembers should be referred into the
Disability Evaluation System as soon as the probability that they will
be unable to return to full duty is ascertained and optimal medical
treatment benefits have been reached.
[End of section]
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Note: Page numbers in the draft report may differ from those in this
report.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE:
RESERVE AFFAIRS:
WASHINGTON, DC 20301-1500:
AUG 27 2004:
Mr. Derek B. Stewart:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
U.S. General Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Stewart:
This is the Department of Defense response to the GAO draft report,
"MILITARY PERSONNEL: DOD Needs to Address Long-Term Reserve Forces
Availability and Related Mobilization and Demobilization Issues," dated
August 12, 2004, (Code 350449/GAO-04-1031). The Department's response
to the report is provided in three sections: 1) Responses to GAO's
eight recommendations for executive action, 2) Other relevant comments
on portions of the report, and 3) technical corrections, The response,
which includes all three sections, is enclosed.
The point of contact for this office Mr. Daniel J, Kohner, OASD/RA
(M&P), who can be reached at (703) 693-7479 or via e-mail at
dan.kohner@osd.mil.
Sincerely,
Signed for:
T. F. Hall:
Enclosure
As stated:
GAO DRAFT REPORT - DATED AUGUST 12, 2004 GAO CODE 350449/GAO-04-1031:
"MILITARY PERSONNEL: DoD Needs to Address Long-Term Reserve Forces
Availability and Related Mobilization and Demobilization Issues"
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COMMENTS TO THE RECOMMENDATIONS:
RECOMMENDATION 1: The GAO recommended that the Secrctary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness, in concert with
the Service Secretaries and Joint Staff, to develop a strategic
framework that sets human capital goals concerning the availability of
its reserve component forces to meet the long-term requirements of the
Global War on Terrorism under various mobilization authorities. (Page
59/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The Department partially concurs with the recommendation,
though the recommendation would be more accurately stated if it
proposed that the Department review and, as appropriate, update the
current strategic framework for human capital goals specifically
dealing with availability of its reserve component members. The
recommendation implies that no strategic framework for setting human
capital goals exists. The Department's Strategic Planning Guidance,
Contingency Planning Guidance, Comprehensive Review of Active/Reserve
Force Mix, and Force Rebalancing Report, all establish the strategic
framework for setting human capital goals, especially regarding the use
of Reserve forces.
RECOMMENDATION 2: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness, in concert with
the Service Secretaries and Joint Staff to identify personnel policies
that should be linked within the context of the strategic framework.
(Page 59/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The Department partially concurs with the recommendation,
though the recommendation would be more accurately stated if it
proposed that the Department review and. as appropriate, update the
personnel policies linked to the strategic framework for human capital
goals specifically dealing with availability of its reserve component
members. The recommendation implies that no personnel policies linked
to the strategic framework for setting human capital goals exist, when,
in fact, they do exist. And, the original personnel and pay policy
published September 20, 2001, along with the 1" addendum to that
policy, dated July 19, 2002, which establish those personnel policies
associated with the strategic framework, and set specific guidelines
regarding the use of Reserve forces for this mobilization, remain in
effect today. Review and updating of policies is a continuous process
in DoD to ensure proper adjustments to meet changing requirements. For
example, the Secretary of Defense is currently reviewing the rules for
deployment of troops - both Active and Reserve, the results of which
will ensure a consistent application of policy.
RECOMMENDATION 3: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Secretary of the Army to take, within the context of
establishing DoD's strategic framework for force availability, action
to update mobilization and demobilization planning assumptions to
reflect the new operating environment for the Global War on Terrorism-
long-term requirements for mobilization and demobilization support
facilities and personnel and the likelihood that active forces will
continue to rotate through U.S. bases while reserve component forces
are mobilizing and demobilizing. (Page S9/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The Department concurs with the recommendation, The
Secretary of Defense is currently reviewing the rules for deployment of
troops. The follow-on extension of this will be for the Department of
the Army, using the Secretary's guidelines, to update their planning
assumptions and requirements for support personnel, medical personnel,
and facilities that support the Reserve component mobilization and
demobilization mission.
RECOMMENDATION 4: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Secretary of Army to take, within the context of
establishing DoD's strategic framework for force availability, action
to develop a coordinated approach to evaluate all the support costs
associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites -
including both facility (construction, renovation and maintenance) and
the support personnel (reserve component, civilian, contractor or a
combination) costs-to determine the most efficient options; and then
update the list of primary and secondary mobilization and
demobilization sites as necessary. (Page 59-60/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The Department concurs with the recommendation. The
Secretary of Defense is currently reviewing the rules for deployment of
troops. The follow-on extension of this will be for the Department of
the Army, using the Secretary's guidelines, to update their planning
assumptions and requirements for support personnel, medical personnel,
and facilities that support the Reserve component mobilization and
demobilization mission.
RECOMMENDATION S: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Commandant of the Marine Corps to issue updated mobilization
guidance that specifically lists the requirement to submit pre-
deployment health assessments to the Army Medical Surveillance
Activity. (Page 60/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The DoD concurs with the recommendation. All Services,
including the Marine Corps, support the requirements for collection and
submission of pre-and post-deployment health data. Marine Corps units
are working to resolve past problems with submission. Changes to the
current Marine Corps Deployment Health QA Program policy memo clearly
and specifically address pre-and post-deployment assessments, their
submission, and development of programs to monitor compliance. The
revised Marine Corps policy memo is currently in coordination with
publication expected in the October 2004 to November 2004 timeframe.
RECOMMENDATION 6: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Commandant of the Marine Corps to establish a mechanism for
overseeing submission of pre-and post-deployment assessments to the
centralized database. (Page 60/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The DoD partially concurs with the recommendation.
Electronic submission of the data is highly desirable and facilitates
data analysis. Though electronic submission of DD Forms 2795 and 2796
is currently a possibility, given the nature of the Marine Corps
mission, it may not currently be practical for every deployment,
Information management system improvements are ongoing that will
eventually enable such collection and transmission.
RECOMMENDATION 7: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in
concert with the Service Secretaries, to set a timetable for the
Military Departments to electronically submit pre-and post-deployment
health assessments. (Page 60/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: The DoD concurs with the recommendation. As noted in the
GAO report, the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs)
established a Deployment Health Task Force in February, 2004. ASD(HA)
directed the Task Force to work with the Services to fully automate the
collection of pre-and post-deployment health assessments.
The Services initially reported their progress on April 19, 2004 and
provided a follow-up brief on June 14, 2004. Another update is
scheduled for September 10, 2004. In an August 17th draft briefing
provided to ASD(HA), the Army reported capturing over 80% of all pre-
and post-deployment health assessments electronically. They plan to
increase the use of automation in Iraq, Kuwait, and in CONUS while
beginning the deployment of automated systems in Afghanistan. Timelines
were to be incorporated by the September briefing.
For the immediate term the Air Force has implemented methods to capture
both pre-and post-deployment assessments electronically and will issue
formal guidance on electronic submission of pre-deployment assessments
by September 2004. In the same August 17 draft briefing, the Air Force
stated they will select an option for in-theater electronic collection
by September 30, 2004 with the goal of being fully operational by
March, 2005.
In a July 12, 2004 memorandum to the Surgeon General of the Navy,
ASD(HA) re-emphasized his intent of achieving full electronic capture
of pre-and post-deployment health assessments. The Navy is examining
five options for the electronic collection of health assessments for
both the Navy and Marine Corps and, in his July 21, 2004 reply to
ASD(HA), the Navy Surgeon General advised a final decision on these
plans would be forthcoming in the next few weeks.
RECOMMENDATION 8: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Secretary of the Air Force to develop a tracking mechanism
for tracking reserve component members who are on voluntary active duty
orders with medical problems. (Page 60/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: DoD concurs with the recommendation. The Air Force is
aware of the tracking problem associated with certain reserve component
members who are on voluntary active duty orders with medical problems,
and has initiated action to address this issue.
[End of section]
Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Brenda S. Farrell (202) 512-3604:
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the individual named above Kenneth F. Daniell, Michael
J. Ferren, Christopher R. Forys, Jim Melton, Kenneth E. Patton, Gary W.
Phillips, Jennifer R. Popovic, Sharon L. Reid, Irene A. Robertson,
Nicole Volchko, and Robert K. Wild also made significant contributions
to the report.
[End of section]
Related GAO Products:
Military Pay: Army Reserve Soldiers Mobilized to Active Duty
Experienced Significant Pay Problems. GAO-04-990T. Washington, D.C.:
July 20, 2004.
Reserve Forces: Observations on Recent National Guard Use in Overseas
and Homeland Missions and Future Challenges. GAO-04-670T. Washington,
D.C.: April 29, 2004.
Defense Infrastructure: Long-term Challenges in Managing the Military
Construction Program. GAO-04-288. Washington, D.C.: February 24, 2004.
Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty
Experienced Significant Pay Problems. GAO-04-413T. Washington, D.C.:
January 28, 2004.
Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty
Experienced Significant Pay Problems. GAO-04-89. Washington, D.C.:
November 13, 2003.
Defense Health Care: Quality Assurance Process Needed to Improve Force
Health Protection and Surveillance. GAO-03-1041. Washington, D.C.:
September 19, 2003.
Military Personnel: DOD Needs More Data to Address Financial and Health
Care Issues Affecting Reservists. GAO-03-1004. Washington, D.C.:
September 10, 2003.
Military Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of
Mobilizations for Reserve Forces. GAO-03-921. Washington, D.C.: August
21, 2003.
Homeland Defense: DOD Needs to Assess the Structure of U.S. Forces for
Domestic Military Missions. GAO-03-670. Washington, D.C.: July 11,
2003.
Defense Health Care: Army Has Not Consistently Assessed the Health
Status of Early-Deploying Reservists. GAO-03-997T. Washington, D.C.:
July 9, 2003.
Defense Infrastructure: Changes in Funding Priorities and Management
Processes Needed to Improve Condition and Reduce Costs of Guard and
Reserve Facilities. GAO-03-516. Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2003.
Homeland Defense: Preliminary Observations on How Overseas and Domestic
Missions Impact DOD Forces. GAO-03-677T. Washington, D.C.: April 29,
2003.
Defense Health Care: Army Needs to Assess the Health Status of All
Early-Deploying Reservists. GAO-03-437. Washington, D.C.: April 15,
2003.
Military Treatment Facilities: Eligibility Follow-up at Wilford Hall
Air Force Medical Center. GAO-03-402R. Washington, D.C.: April 4, 2003.
Military Personnel: Preliminary Observations Related to Income,
Benefits, and Employer Support for Reservists during Mobilizations.
GAO-03-549T. Washington, D.C.: March 19, 2003.
Military Personnel: Preliminary Observations Related to Income,
Benefits, and Employer Support for Reservists during
Mobilizations. GAO-03-573T. Washington, D.C.: March 19, 2003.
Defense Health Care: Most Reservists Have Civilian Health Coverage but
More Assistance Is Needed When TRICARE Is Used. GAO-02-829. Washington,
D.C.: September 6, 2002.
Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between
Reservists and Their Employers. GAO-02-608. Washington, D.C.: June 13,
2002.
Wartime Medical Care: DOD Is Addressing Capability Shortfalls, but
Challenges Remain. GAO/NSIAD-96-224. Washington, D.C.: September 25,
1996.
Reserve Forces: DOD Policies Do Not Ensure That Personnel Meet:
Medical and Physical Fitness Standards. GAO/NSIAD-94-36. Washington,
D.C.: March 23, 1994.
Defense Health Care: Physical Exams and Dental Care Following the
Persian Gulf War. GAO/HRD-93-5. Washington, D.C.: October 15, 1992.
FOOTNOTES
[1] DOD's reserve components include the collective forces of the Army
National Guard and the Air National Guard, as well as the forces from
the Army Reserve, the Naval Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, and the
Air Force Reserve. The Coast Guard Reserve also assists DOD in meeting
its commitments. However, we did not cover the Coast Guard Reserve
during this review because it accounts for about 1 percent of the total
reserve force and comes under the day-to-day control of the Department
of Homeland Security rather than DOD.
[2] Mobilization is the process of assembling and organizing personnel
and equipment, activating or federalizing units and members of the
National Guard and Reserves for active duty, and bringing the armed
forces to a state of readiness for war or other national emergency.
Demobilization is the process necessary to release from active duty
units and members of the National Guard and Reserve components who were
ordered to active duty under various legislative authorities.
[3] GAO, Military Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Improve the
Efficiency of Mobilizations for Reserve Forces, GAO-03-921 (Washington,
D.C.: Aug. 21, 2003).
[4] DOD policy requires that the services collect pre-and post-
deployment health information from servicemembers, and submit copies of
the forms that are used to collect this information to the Army Medical
Surveillance Activity.
[5] Reserve component members often switch to voluntary mobilization
orders after the expiration of involuntary orders, but the Air Force
has also used voluntary mobilizations in lieu of involuntary
mobilizations under the current partial mobilization authority.
[6] Some of the services use the term "deactivation" to describe the
process for taking reserve component members off active duty and use
the term "demobilization" to describe the broader processes that also
include restoring equipment to its reserve status. We have used the
more common "demobilization" term throughout this report even though
the report is focused on personnel issues.
[7] While enlistment contracts can vary, a typical enlistee would incur
an 8-year military service obligation, which could consist of a 4-year
active duty obligation followed by a 4-year IRR obligation.
[8] IRR members can request to participate in annual training or other
operations, but most do not. Those who are activated are paid for their
service. Also, there are small groups of IRR members who participate in
unpaid training. The members of this last group are often in the IRR
only for short periods while they are waiting to transfer to paid
positions in the Selected Reserve. IRR members can receive retirement
credit if they meet basic eligibility criteria through voluntary
training or mobilizations.
[9] According to DOD, this policy guidance is still in effect and the
only major change to the policy has been to allow the Army to call up
reserve component members for more than 12 months on their initial
orders. However, DOD also noted that there have been multiple other
documents published to augment the policy, provide more information, or
implement legal requirements.
[10] Noble Eagle is the name for the domestic war on terrorism.
Enduring Freedom is the name for the international war on terrorism,
including operations in Afghanistan. Iraqi Freedom is the name for
operations in and around Iraq.
[11] Physical examinations are not required but servicemembers may
request physicals as part of their demobilization processing. Appendix
IV shows the differences between required periodic physicals and
optional demobilization physicals.
[12] AMSA operates the Defense Medical Surveillance System, which was
established in 1997.
[13] GAO-03-921.
[14] The provision was renumbered 12304 in 1994. Pub. L. No. 103-337,
§1662(e) (2) (1994).
[15] In 1990, the authority permitted the involuntary call-up of only
members of the Selected Reserve. The statute was amended to permit the
call-up of up to 30,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve and is
consequently now referred to as the Presidential Reserve Call-up
authority. Pub. L. No. 105-85 § 511 (1997).
[16] This provision was renumbered 12302 in 1994. Pub. L. No. 103-337,
§1662(e) (2) (1994).
[17] In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD indicated that under
its analysis of the applicable authorities at the time, DOD was not
authorized to use Presidential Reserve Call-up authority in September
2001. DOD also noted that 10 U.S.C 12304(b) has since been changed to
allow for the call-up of Reserve members in response to "—a terrorist
attack or threatened terrorist attack—".
[18] The partial mobilization authority (10 U.S.C. § 12302) states that
"To achieve fair treatment as between members in the Ready Reserve who
are being considered for recall to duty without their consent,
consideration shall be given to (1) the length and nature of previous
service, to assure such sharing of exposure to hazards as the national
security and military requirements will reasonably allow; (2) family
responsibilities; and (3) employment necessary to maintain the national
health, safety, or interest."
[19] GAO-03-921.
[20] Stop-loss policies can affect active as well as reserve component
personnel. The focus of our report was those policies affecting the
reserves.
[21] The Army goal is to alert units at least 30 days prior to the
units' mobilization date.
[22] Army stop-loss policies went into effect early in fiscal year
2002.
[23] Officials from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army
(Manpower and Reserve Affairs) estimated that recent stop-loss policies
might have prevented more than 42,000 reserve component soldiers from
leaving the service on the date when they would have been eligible if
stop-loss policies had not been in effect.
[24] Given the fiscal year 2003 attrition rates of 17 percent for the
Army National Guard and 21 percent for the Army Reserve, it might be
possible to achieve the one in six metric if attrition is concentrated
in the population that has already been mobilized, and the Army is able
to fully utilize its entire selected reserve population by mobilizing
individual soldiers out of its reserve component units that have
already been mobilized.
[25] This percentage does not take into account the more than 270,00
IRR members who can be mobilized under a partial mobilization
authority. DOD officials said that IRR members make up less than 2
percent of the 343,020 reserve component members who were mobilized
from September 11, 2001, to March 31, 2004.
[26] Among other things, this administrative processing involves
issuing identification cards; storing, retrieving, and checking pay and
personnel records; processing travel vouchers; and providing numerous
briefings on the reserve component members' rights and benefits, such
as health care. At one site we visited, 17 different briefings were
given to the reserve component members during mobilization processing
and 13 different briefings during demobilization processing. The
briefings cover topics such as health benefits, pay, and legal and
mental health matters. Some briefings were given during both
mobilization and demobilization processing; other briefings were
applicable only one time.
[27] Body armor had been among the items that were returned to the
sites where it had been issued, but during our visit to Fort Lewis in
March 2004, officials told us that body armor was being managed in
theater and not being returned to the demobilization sites.
[28] The Army refers to its primary mobilization and demobilization
sites as "power projection platforms" and its secondary sites as "power
support platforms" and mobilizes most of its reserve component forces
at these installations. However, the Army also uses a number of other
installations to mobilize and demobilize small units or other troops
that are slated to remain at or in the immediate vicinity of these
other mobilizing installations.
[29] Officers and senior enlisted personnel often had individual rooms.
[30] Medical facility issues are addressed in the next section of this
report.
[31] GAO-03-921.
[32] GAO, Defense Infrastructure: Long-term Challenges in Managing the
Military Construction Program, GAO-04-288 (Washington D.C.: Feb. 24,
2004).
[33] GAO-03-921.
[34] These personnel had not been mobilized for 24 months under the
partial mobilization authority, or they had agreed to accept voluntary
mobilization orders.
[35] The tracking system was established pursuant to 10 U.S.C. Section
1074f.
[36] GAO, Defense Health Care: Quality Assurance Process Needed to
Improve Force Health Protection and Surveillance, GAO-03-1041
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 19, 2003).
[37] After summary data from the forms are entered into the database,
AMSA scans an image of the complete health assessment forms, and
additional data from the form can be entered into the database at a
later date. Individual health assessments in the database can sometimes
be linked to other detailed health records.
[38] The percentages do not necessarily mean that the servicemembers
were in those categories when first mobilized. Because pre-deployment
health assessments have to be completed within 30 days of deployment,
thousands of reserve component members (primarily in the Army) who had
long post-mobilization training periods completed two or more pre-
deployment health assessments. Only the most recent pre-deployment
health assessment is kept in the AMSA database.
[39] DOD officials told us that very few members choose this option
because they lose their active duty pay and some other benefits when
they leave active duty.
[40] Over 14,100 records, or almost 6 percent, were missing information
concerning the servicemembers' deployability status.
[41] The 4,000-plus personnel were in units that Army identifies as
"medical hold" or "medical holdover," respectively, depending on
whether the members are actually attached to a medical treatment
facility or attached to an installation and are just receiving care at
the medical treatment facility.
[42] The Army has been using nurses or administrative personnel who
report to nurses to serve as case managers.
[43] A number of GAO reports on pay problems are included in the list
of related GAO products at the end of this report.
[44] On June 11, 2004, there were 219 personnel in these categories.
[45] The Air Force refers to these as military personnel appropriation
(MPA) day orders.
[46] Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, and Marine Corps Air
Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, were both used as mobilization
sites after September 11, 2001, but they were not being used when we
visited Camp Lejeune and Quantico in the spring of 2004.
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