WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Feb. 16, 2005) -- A new affiliation bonus of $6,000 is now available to officers and warrant officers leaving active duty and signing up for service with National Guard or Army Reserve units.

In addition, an accession bonus of $6,000 will also be available to some newly commissioned officers who choose critical specialties with the Guard or Reserve.

The new bonuses are aimed at eliminating a shortage of 10,000 company-grade officers in the Guard and Reserve, said Col. Mark Patterson, Officer Division chief in the Directorate of Military Personnel Management, G1. The shortage is mostly at the captain level and is split about 50-50 between the Army Reserve and National Guard, Patterson said.

Officers who received ROTC scholarships or a West Point education are not eligible for the accessions bonus, Patterson said. Those receiving any other type of bonus coming off active duty are not eligible for the affiliation bonus, he said.

The National Guard and Army Reserve leadership have not yet announced which branches will be considered critical for the purposes of the accession bonus. Each component will identify their critical shortages and then announce which specialties will qualify for the bonus, Patterson said.

The affiliation bonus, on the other hand, is open to qualifying officers and warrants coming off active duty in any branch, going to any position in a reserve- component unit. All ranks are also eligible.

"It's really targeted to the company-grade," though Patterson said.

Officers in the Individual Ready Reserve who have never served in a Selected Reserve unit are also eligible for the $6,000 affiliation bonus, Patterson said. The bonuses are paid after the officer reports to the RC unit, he explained.

The bonuses are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Army efforts at eliminating the RC officer shortage, Patterson said.

n Officers commissioned through ROTC will no longer have the option to go to the IRR, Patterson said. All will be assigned a unit and will go to the Officer Basic Course within 90 days of commissioning, he said.

n ROTC detachments will be assigned a formal mission to recruit. "In the past, it was a good objective," Patterson said. "Now we're managing it."

n Promotions to first lieutenant will now be automated, Patterson said. If a second lieutenant has no adverse personnel action or flag pending, he will be automatically promoted, provided he has attended the Officer's Basic Course. In order to stop an automatic promotion, Patterson said a lieutenant's commander would need to submit a DA Form 78 (Recommendation for Promotion to First Lieutenant).
The Army formalized its transition mission and increased the number of officers coming off active duty that it intends to recruit into reserve-component units. The goal last year was 35 percent of officers leaving active duty and Patterson said the Army just missed that by less than 2 percent. This year the goal is up to 45 percent.

"If you can meet 33 percent with no mission, no focus, no incentives, we think we can hit 45 percent," Patterson said, given both the affiliation and accession bonuses and other measures.

The 10,000 officer shortage is not a result of the Global War on Terror, Patterson said. He explained that it's been developing for seven to 10 years.

The drawdown of the active component in the 90s led to more officers going to the Guard and Reserve, Patterson said. That flow has long since slowed, he said, as the active component is now actually expanding.

Some past personnel policies may have actually hampered growth of the RC officer corps, Patterson said. For instance, past promotion board policies required all officers to submit their diplomas as proof of college graduation. About 600 to 800 officers a year were non-selected for promotion because they did not submit diplomas, Patterson said.

ROTC graduates and academy grads are no longer required to submit diplomas to promotion boards, Patterson said, because they are not commissioned until they receive their degree. In other words, they never would have been commissioned if they did not have a bachelor's degree. So why make them prove it? he said.

The Army is going to implement smarter management practices, Patterson said. Officers not selected for promotion at their second board will automatically be looked at for selective continuation, he said.

The Army has also asked Congress to include in the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act a college loan repayment program for officers, Patterson said, similar to the one now offered to enlisted Soldiers.

"We recognize this is a tough recruiting environment," Patterson said. "We're at war."

But he went on to say that he is confident that the new incentives will cut back the officer shortfall in the reserve components.