Retention and Recruitment Crisis

[ThunderHorse]

The Marine Corps recently issued a policy requiring a five year extension to accept O5 and O6 command. It’s been a good run but I’ll be submitting retirement papers in the next year.

Retention of senior field grades that bad? I suppose that's what happens when you cut so deep.

 

[Devildoc]

Five year extension.... Holy cow. Yeah, I'd be ejecting, too.

 

[Marauder06]

The Marine Corps recently issued a policy requiring a five year extension to accept O5 and O6 command. It’s been a good run but I’ll be submitting retirement papers in the next year.

Yikes, that's a lot, especially when O6s are probably at/close to 20+ years already

So that's 5 years at acceptance? 2 years in command and then 3 years of retention after?

 

[ThunderHorse]

Oh now I see what you're saying, I thought it was an extension to the window in which you could take command because you lacked O5 ad O6s. Making it an ADSO is a mix I think. The Army had ADSO's at captain level for bit with company commands. I find that stuff asinine. Unless you're getting a big monetary bonus for command? Because, remember, they won't honor their contract to you if they determine you're no longer needed.

 

[Marauder06]

Company command I can see making an ADSO, because let's face it almost every officer wants to be a company commander, and we had such a hard time retaining O3s back during the GWOT that we were offering them all kinds of incentives to stay in. We were so short on majors that we were double-BZing captains to O4. Getting captains to stay in until major often meant that they would be careerists.

Battalion anad brigade command... fewer people want those jobs, and they're hard. It's also fraught with things that can get you into trouble. It's stressful. If you know you're terminal at O6, and brigade command is hard as hell, why take the ADSO when you could have a sweet offramp job, do SkilLBridge, and then start your O6 retired pay earlier?

 

[ThunderHorse]

Company command I can see making an ADSO, because let's face it almost every officer wants to be a company commander, and we had such a hard time retaining O3s back during the GWOT that we were offering them all kinds of incentives to stay in. We were so short on majors that we were double-BZing captains to O4. Getting captains to stay in until major often meant that they would be careerists.

Battalion anad brigade command... fewer people want those jobs, and they're hard. It's also fraught with things that can get you into trouble. It's stressful. If you know you're terminal at O6, and brigade command is hard as hell, why take the ADSO when you could have a sweet offramp job, do SkilLBridge, and then start your O6 retired pay earlier?

I think that ADSO is going to have the opposite effect of retention. There's only so few command track O-6's and the amount who will get a star is 1/3 of that? Could see lower "quality" but still very good people who are willing to take the ADSO that a different higher performing officer wouldn't