# U.S. Army Attrition; pre-9/11 till now



## JimMCpog (May 26, 2009)

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20090526.aspx

I zeroed in on one study that said pre-9/11 27% of recruits given a moral waiver failed to complete their enlistment. This figure is twice that of non-moral waiver recruits. So when you factor in people who are discharged due to injury and pregnancy, that's about 1/2 of the people not finishing their enlistment correct?

That seems awfully high. I remember someone at the Marine S.O.I. telling us that 20% who graduate bootcamp will not finish their enlistment. Even that seemed high based on my experience, but obviously that's limited.

It also says people grumble about the quality of troops that came in post 9/11 or to be more exact, from 2005 till now. At least from what I saw in Post 9/11 till 2005, the quality of the troops went UP. I guess with the patriotism and anger at the terrorist attacks, we got a larger cross section of America. I met quite a few guys who had been very successful in their endeavors pre-military and were doing a great job at applying that to their military service. I guess with the war becoming increasingly unpopular that it would be difficult getting some folks to join. But that appears to be going away, with things looking up in Iraq and new energy being brought to the task in Afghanistan.


Anyway, my original point is asking if the Army really did discharge that many people for discipline problems? I know that the Coast Guard discharges A LOT of people early on for failure to adapt, and apparently it worked for them. My brother called it "trimming the fat."


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