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Statement of Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Davis Military Personnel Subcommittee Hearing on Recruiting, Retention, and Compensation

February 26, 2008

"Today the subcommittee will turn its attention to recruiting, retention, and compensation programs-three essential building blocks of military manpower. This is a very challenging recruiting and retention environment and we believe that a relatively low unemployment rate, a protracted war on terrorism, a decline in propensity to serve, and a growing disinclination of influencers to recommend military service will cause the environment to remain difficult during fiscal year 2008 and in the years that follow.

"As you might expect, the subcommittee is concerned about the need to achieve the number of new recruits needed to meet mission requirements, particularly now that we are engaged in adding forces to both the Army and the Marine Corps.

"In terms of the narrow objective to simply meet the number requirements, the armed services and their National Guard and Reserve components were remarkably successful during fiscal year 2007 and during the first four months of fiscal year 2008.

"However, those recruiting and retention successes continue to be accompanied by sacrifices in recruit quality and increasing costs. The subcommittee has become increasingly troubled that the erosion of recruit quality over an extended period will result in long-term consequences for force management and leadership development.

"For a number of years, the subcommittee has also expressed concern about the increasing reliance of recruiting and retention programs on emergency supplemental funding. This trend contributes to the steadily increasing costs because fragile recruiting and retention programs require strategic planning and timely execution. We seem destined to learn again and again that these programs cannot be optimally managed with supplemental funding inserted at the 11th hour.

"The subcommittee was not alone in observing that recruit quality has suffered and that the cost of maintaining the all volunteer force has increased. Representatives of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves have cited these trends when justifying their conclusions that the current personnel management model and retirement system is not competitive in the employment marketplace, cannot be fiscally sustained, and must be reformed.

"The subcommittee is anxious to discuss these issues with our witnesses."