Officer shortage looming in Army

[babylonsister]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-12-officer-shortage_N.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Officer shortage looming in Army
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WEST POINT, N.Y. — The Army, forced by five years of war to expand its ranks, faces a critical shortage of midlevel officers, interviews and military records show.

Those officers — majors and lieutenant colonels — manage troops at war. The Army estimates it has about 13,900 majors and 8,750 lieutenant colonels this year. It expects to have an annual shortage of 3,000 such officers through 2013 as it increases its ranks by 40,000 soldiers.

Beyond the shortage of midlevel officers looms an impending shortage of entry-level officers — lieutenants — from the U.S. Military Academy and university Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs. Last year, 846 cadets graduated from West Point; the goal was 900. There were 25,100 enrolled in ROTC out of a goal of 31,000, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' investigative agency.

TROOP BUILDUP: Bush wants funding for 8,200 more

Only an increase in soldiers put through the Army's Officer Candidate School allowed the service to meet its goal for lieutenants, the report said. The school is a 14-week course that obligates graduates to two years in the Army. It is expected to reach capacity this year, the GAO said.

"They're going to have problems with field-grade officers — big shortages," says Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "They're going to have to limp through."

The shortage of midlevel officers stems from Pentagon decisions 10 years ago to reduce the number of officers commissioned after the Cold War, the GAO said.

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[izzie]

1. Since officers seem to never do a thing wrong I see no problem

So far it seems the evil ones have been all the lower rates that have some how, world wide, thought of all this stuff to do to each other. Must be some thing in the air how they all come together to mis-treat sick lower rates and prisoners all at the same time. Maybe these middle rates can see the writing on the wall as they are sure the higher rates will never pay so after the lower rates taking the blame it has to be them, the middle rates, that will move into that spot. What a group of pussy cats we have in the top rates. Ike would have put them out.

[GreenZoneLT]

2. Please forward to College Republican headquarters

Junior Chickenhawks, Uncle Sam Wants YOU. And you get a sword and everything. Call today!

[sarge43]

3. I'm curious about the retention rate for career noncoms.

If they bail, the army will be an armed mob.

George Bush, the anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to shit.