Army plans to cut 40,000 troops

This doesn't surprise me. I would imagine many in the Army are looking to polish up their resume and will start looking toward civilian opportunities given the fact that unemployment is down and the overall economy seems to be getting better. It seems to me that a large number of enlisted and officers will be thinking hard about what to do when their first service obligation nears the end. Do you roll the dice and stay, or look for other opportunities.

The 40,000 drop will leave us near what we were prior to 9/11 but if the sequestration is allowed to continue and there is another cut of 30,000, people could start leaving like rats from a sinking ship.

The sad part is that those that have the skills and resumes to land that good job in the civilian market are the same ones the Army would love to keep. With such uncertainty retaining these soldiers will become difficult.

I wouldn't call it "like rats from a sinking ship." An old CBO reports shows the Army's accession objective of 80,000 for 2001. The rention goals initial enlistment in 2005 was 26,935. To make the discussion easier, assuming 4 year enlistment term, the Army was expecting to lose more that 60% after the initial enlistment. The reality is that the Army is not designed to keep majoirty of it's enlistees for 20 years. Also, based on the rank struture, if the Army ended up having too many soldiers staying for 20 years, the promotion rate will slow to a crawl.
 
As for the reduction in the civilian positions, with combination of not filling vacant positions and early retirement incentives, I don't see the Army needing to actually firing anyone.

I actually think they will need to cut some, but from a different reason.

I read online today (militarytimes.com) that GA will lose @4300 soldiers between Benning and Stewart. That means there will be civilian jobs cut too. I.E. the adminstration assistant (GS) in a unit that will be shut down will not be needed.
~ Ft. Rich in AK is getting cut big time as I have read it, I believe the post will reduce by several thousand, 4000 to 1050. http://www.militarytimes.com/story/...n-bigger-if-budget-impasse-persists/29873457/
The GSs that work as plumbers, electricians, etc. on post will not be needed at the same level. The question will become if Elmendorf will pick up the buildings, in that case they can probably just transfer over, but if the buildings are moth balled or care taker status, than those jobs are gone.

The same article stated some glaring points.
It's the second time the Army announced a drawdown plan only to accelerate it under budget pressure. The Army said in 2013 that it would fall to 490,000 soldiers by 2017, but is due to hit that target at the end of this fiscal year. The Army had 566,000 soldiers in 2010.
This is FY15. They are 2 years ahead of schedule by 9/30.
Should Congress fail to reach a deal to avert sequestration budget cuts, end-strength reductions could get worse. Budget writers warn, as senior Army officials have in recent months, that end-strength under sequestration would fall to 420,000 by 2020

OUCH! That means for all of those candidates applying right now they could be looking at even more competition because they may offer fewer scholarships.

The good news is they stated:
The Army says it needs to start moving ahead with planned troop reductions, although most will be accomplished through attrition and forced retirement of officers rather than layoffs of enlisted soldiers.

The problem in my opinion is most Americans never comprehended what sequestration truly meant. They thought that it began and ended with the cutting civilian hours for 8 weeks years ago. They did not realize the only reason that happened was because it was so late in the FY they had no other option than to cut them. They didn't pay attention to the fact that this was going to be 10 years of cutting.
~ I lived in AK (Elmendorf...attached to Ft. Rich). Losing 3000 military members will impact Eagle River. Eagle River is referred to as the base housing of the North. If you can't get on base/post housing many live in the suburbs of Eagle River or Wasilla. They are not big towns. It will send that housing market into a downward spiral. They can't absorb even 150 homes going on the market at the same time without lowering the asking price.

I think Gen. Dempsey said it the best in the article.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, told Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at Tuesday's hearing that he was opposed to shrinking the size of the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, an airborne infantry unit based at Fort Richardson, Alaska, because he wanted to save the Army from a "strategic blunder."

Dempsey told Sullivan that Congress has been "telling us 'no'" to money-saving changes that could reduce the need for troop cuts.

"We have $1 trillion — that's a T, not a B — a trillion dollars less in budget authority over 10 years. We've said from the beginning, it's a disaster," Dempsey said.
 
The reality is that the Army is not designed to keep majoirty of it's enlistees for 20 years. Also, based on the rank struture, if the Army ended up having too many soldiers staying for 20 years, the promotion rate will slow to a crawl.

I have a question.

I know for the AF, they have ratios. Flag to Field, Field to Company, Officer to Enlisted. There is a rank ratio for enlisted too.

So in other words it really can come down to year group and rank. They do what I call a surgical attack. For example:
~ O4 with 14 years may not be offered the VSP, but O4 with 15 may be offered the opportunity to collect a check and bolt.
~ O3 with 9 years may see their O4 board speed up with a lower selection rate than the board before them.
~~ Passed over 2x for O4 = to buh bye.
~ Stop/Loss also played into the equation.

I have seen the promotion boards slow to a crawl, but again it came down to the ratios. Go back to the blood letting in the early 90s.
~ O4s for AF met at the 11 year marker. The rate was @60% selection. The reason why I was told was O4s are Field. They can't move from company to field until enough retire or make flag due to the ratio
~~ This was the same time they hit the O3s with 6-9 years first with the RIF. A year later they hit the O5s with SERB.

In other words they took 3 different approaches...surgical based on rank to get the ratio back for the smaller force.

FFWD 3 years. O4 promotion board was at the 9 year marker with an 80% rate. The AF went OH crap the economy is going great, airlines are hiring at a faster rate than we can replace those experienced fliers that we cut years ago with the RIF and O4 boards. Now we need to throw money hand over fist to keep them. For Bullets year group we had no less than a 10% pay raise every year for 3 years. O5s might have had 5%. It again was a surgical strike.
~ Bullet was lucky. When the blood letting occurred, he was never given the option to walk. The year group in front of him was slaughtered. It all came down to timing regarding his commissioning.

Just saying, if you even look at the class of 13 grads not AD yet/14 AFROTC cadets they were told they could walk. If enough didn't they would do a RIF, but they didn't offer any O1 or 2 to bolt or threaten a RIF. It was a surgical strike that the year group from a ratio aspect was going to be too big.

1,000,000% agree that they have an algorithm regarding how many will bolt, but because of sequestration that algorithm may need to be adjusted, just like when our economy went into the tanks in 07/08 and they didn't leave at the rate they expected.
~ Assume they entered in 01. Re-upped in 05. Economy is in the tank, re-upped again in 09. They are now at 14 years in. Do you not stay for 6 more years and collect your 50% base pay starting at 38 for the rest of your life?

That is the problem they are facing. Their algorithm did not include a long drawn out economic recovery, and now they are on the hook financially for those that will be at a higher rank and pay for many years to come.
 
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Well here it is
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/army-troop-cuts-grow-budget-impasse-persists-32320521

A portion of the Army's 40,000-troop reduction would be achieved through attrition and adjustments to recruiting, but an undetermined number of soldiers — officers as well as enlisted — would be forced out of uniform, the Army said.

Army officials said the plan calls for cuts at nearly every installation in 2016 and 2017, with Fort Benning, Georgia, and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, taking the largest reductions. Benning is to lose 3,402 soldiers, or 29 percent of its current personnel, as the Army converts the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division to a smaller unit known as a battalion task force. Elmendorf-Richardson is to lose 2,631 soldiers, or 59 percent of its personnel, as the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division undergoes the same conversion, according to figures released by the Army.

Fort Hood, Texas, the Army's largest base, would lose 3,350 soldiers, or 9 percent of its personnel. Among others, Fort Bliss, Texas, would lose 1,219 soldiers, or 5 percent; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, would lose 1,251, or 5 percent, and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, would lose 1,214, or 8 percent.

The Army estimates that the overall cut of 40,000 soldiers will result in savings of $7 billion over four years.
 
~ Assume they entered in 01. Re-upped in 05. Economy is in the tank, re-upped again in 09. They are now at 14 years in. Do you not stay for 6 more years and collect your 50% base pay starting at 38 for the rest of your life?

Yes, if you are only looking at the retiremene benefit.

There are many things that could make the retirement benefit less important - getting married, pace of deployment, being stationed at one of not so desired Army posts, not being promoted, and etc.

Financially, at 14 year mark, a military members should stay 6 more years. But we all know that many people don't make life altering decisions soley based on financial considerations.
 
No disagreement.

I am just saying that the military may be in this predicament because our economy tanked and those that they expected to leave between 2007-2014 stuck around for employment reasons.

It could be that the Army is very top heavy and there would be no need for concern regarding ROTC.

Several years ago all of the SAs had 1350+ incoming class size ---1650 appointments. They asked for waivers to surpass the 4400 number. That is not happening now. Appointments are @1350.

ROTC scholarships are changing too.

My point is before we go to the Chicken Little stage with the sky falling, let's look at the very big picture. They have been doing surgical cuts for a few years now.

Army has more wiggle room impo than AF and Navy for ROTC. They add in the Guard/Reserve option from day 1 for ROTC. AF/NROTC do not.
~ AF Guard units hire on their own. They are a separate process.
 
Question... Will National Guard be included and/or impacted by these cuts? Or are they a separate budget entity because states provide funding?
 
My point is before we go to the Chicken Little stage with the sky falling, let's look at the very big picture. They have been doing surgical cuts for a few years now.

I would call this situation a wicked problem. From the Wiki - "A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil."

Easy for us to second guess after the fact, but other than trying to play safe by going with a higher estimate, how can DoD accurately plan and execute for their manpower needs 5 years from now. There was a simple game we used demonstrate supply chain during one of my business school classes. The game was a playing a beer distributer. The goal was to have minimum inventory while meeeting customer demand. Our input was to determine how much beer to order without know what the customer demand was. So if we ordered a lot, we met customer demand but had high inventory. If we order little, we could have ended up not meeting customer demand. So called "surgical cuts" are liek reactive orders of beer to make up for whatever shorting comings caused by the previous order, except the customer demand changes constantly. In conclusion, I personally can't fault DoD when the civilain leadership is not giving them any long term consistentcy.

If we want to talke about big picture, how about those F35s?:eek: Any decision DoD makes have second, third order consequences.
 
I'm just hoping they don't cut much of our Armored force; with the Armata UCP coming out, we'll need all our Abrams units ready
 
Member,

I don't disagree at all. I also don't blame the DoD because they can't predict things like 9/11 and they couldn't predict the 07 recession. All they can do is a knee jerk quick fix reaction.

They do have long term planning, but that works impo only if the world stays on track.

What to me should be scarier is they are talking about bringing it down as low as 420,000 by 2020 if they can't stop sequestration. If I am right that a 25% cut from the original of 566,000.

Now if that is the case I would think ROTC is going to take a big hit.
 
From an article in the Army Times regarding the reductions:

"The four two-star commands on Fort Knox – Cadet Command, Recruiting Command, Human Resources Command and the 84th Training Command – each will be reduced by 25 percent"


You think things dragged on long before in Cadet Command, this sure won't help.
 
That does hurt from not only the perspective of scholarship notifications, but processing orders.

About 4 years ago when the AF did the start of their cuts, what they did was close down many host colleges as a way to cut costs. I wonder if the Army will follow suit by consolidating units.
~ I recall DS saying some kids traveled 60+ miles because of the consolidation. In the DC/MD/VA metro area 60 miles at 6:00 a.m or after 3:00 p.m. can mean 90 -120 minutes.

Will they do what the HQ AFROTC did last year and try to reduce summer training so they do not have to pay them. 28 days for the AF is the make or break.
 
I'm not sure if this recent announcement in the cause or not because we received this brief back at my detachment in the fall semester, but in our detachment the future forecast for contracts looks something like this:

2014 - 24ish contract slots
2015 (Dec. 2014 - Aug. 2015 grads) - 23 contract slots
2016 (current Dec. 2015, May 2016, & Aug. 2016 grads)- 23 contracts
2017 (Dec. 2016 - Aug. 2017 grads) - 17-19 with around a 60/40 or 50/50 split of AD vs. GRFD contracts and focus on STEM
2018 (Dec. 2017 - Aug. 2018 grads)- 12 slots with a focus on contracting STEM majors

It was also mentioned that we would be going to a system where you almost have to fall into a STEM category in order to contract by the time we get to mission set 18 (Dec. 2017 - Aug. 2018 grads).

Some background on our detachment:
- Host university plus three major satellite schools and numerous other smaller satellite schools
-Roughly 120 cadets make up detachment (breakdown by class: MS Is - 40ish, MS IIs - 35ish, MS IIIs - 25 ish, MS IVs - 22-23ish)

Like I said, this info came out to us in the fall semester, so it's likely to have changed, but contracting in and of itself is becoming increasingly more difficult. I can only imagine how few scholarships will be available if there are only 12 total contracts for an entire school's mission set.
 
AROTC contracting for this Dummy here regarding this statement.
Like I said, this info came out to us in the fall semester, so it's likely to have changed, but contracting in and of itself is becoming increasingly more difficult

I thought for AROTC it was not like AF/NROTC where as a sophomore it could be your make or break year from a selection board perspective.

I always thought that as long as you maintain a specific cgpa and passed their summer training they automatically would contract their junior year. However, the way I am reading your post, there is some sort of stop /lock that occurs somewhere as an AROTC cadet not on scholarship.
 
I thought for AROTC it was not like AF/NROTC where as a sophomore it could be your make or break year from a selection board perspective.

I always thought that as long as you maintain a specific cgpa and passed their summer training they automatically would contract their junior year. However, the way I am reading your post, there is some sort of stop /lock that occurs somewhere as an AROTC cadet not on scholarship.

Yes and No.

Cadets that receive a 4 or 3 year scholarship or are contracted during their sophomore year through SMP, automatically go on to their junior year and the Advanced Course if the meet the requirements of their contract.

Non Scholarship cadets and SMP cadets that have not yet been offered a contract have always had to compete for a contract to move into the Advanced Course. This is where the competition will begin to get tougher in the future.

If they indeed move, as kellen stated, to almost exclusive STEM, AROTC will go through some interesting times, they will have to ramp up the recruitment of STEM majors, if our economy continues to improve there will need to be incentive to get these STEM majors to sign up, if they lower the number of scholarships this could be difficult.

I hope there isn't an increase in students that choose a STEM major simply to increase their chances of a contract. Grades will suffer, learning will suffer because the students heart won't be into what they are learning. This may not be PC to say, but not all STEM grads are that good at what they do. My industry is engineer heavy and believe me there are some new engineering grads that truly need to look at other job opportunities. My favorite structural engineer is a History major that the principle engineer and owner of the firm trained from scratch, her work is better then half the new grads coming out today. Of course she can't stamp the plans, the principle does that,

So I'm just saying, having a system that encourages students to be STEM majors when they are not suited really doesn't give that much of a benefit. I would take a History, Poly Sci, or other major that graduates with high grades, excelled in what they did in school, over a STEM that just barely makes it through and has little interest in what they studied.
 
Still the Dummy here.

Is there a certain board they meet? If so, how does it work?

IE. AFROTC cadets, scholarship or not must fight for summer field training as a sophomore. The board does not know if the cadet is scholarship...no edge for them.
~ In the AF it is called masked. Nobody on the board knows anything regarding this aspect. No points awarded for being scholarship.

NROTC non-scholarship must fight for contracting as a junior from a board selection process. Scholarship mids are safe since they are contracted.

Just trying to grasp how/when they do the make or break. Not selected for certain training over the summer like AFROTC?
~ Do the CoCs have voices in the selection?
~ What is the criteria they use to select?

I am not trying to be rude, I was always just under the assumption if I could afford to pay for my Johnny Joe to attend college on my dime, and he did AROTC he would commission 4 years later (cgpa, pfa, DoDMERB, tec. qualified) in either AD, Guard or Reserve.


I understand your position of the STEM aspect...kids gaming it for a scholarship as an example. However, AF/NROTC have this system in place for a decade plus. AFROTC calls it TECH, but for all purposes it is STEM. Both offer @80-85% of all scholarships to this curriculum field.

MPO is I think this is their desire because technology is advancing at a very fast pace, and they believe STEM/Tech majors will grasp it faster.
~ Your DS is a pilot like mine. Mine was a govt/international relations dual major. He was scholarship. The number 1 grad in his class was prior E that went through night school on base and earned a commission via OCS. He got an F22.
~~ Just saying education is only one part of the equation, and nobody should assume it is a predictor of success.
 
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Is there a certain board they meet? If so, how does it work?

There is no board, the decision to contract or not to contract a cadet is in the hands of the PMS, to drop a cadet used to have to go through the brigade, I hear that it's changed so the the PMS and battalion Cadre can make that decision in house.

I am not trying to be rude, I was always just under the assumption if I could afford to pay for my Johnny Joe to attend college on my dime, and he did AROTC he would commission 4 years later (cgpa, pfa, DoDMERB, tec. qualified) in either AD, Guard or Reserve.

This has never been the case. Cadets have alway needed to be offered a contract, either through a scholarship or by the PMS/Cadre. Simply joining AROTC and paying tuition does not and never has guaranteed a commission. Cadets must be offered a contract by the time they enter their MS3 year to be able to continue and commission. There have always been cadets that are not offered contracts and do not continue in the program.
 
I commissioned through AROTC back in 1988 and what Jcleppe said was very true then. There were several MS II cadets who would have loved to have continued in the AROTC program, however they were not offered contracts at the end of the year and could not go to "Advanced Camp" or continue on. Usually, each program has a mission for how many new 2LTs they commission based upon the needs of the Army strength for that year group. So, as the needs are reduced, then fewer contracts are given. My year group 1988 was over strength and we were offered early out's in 1991 with no payback of our scholarships. I took it and was out after just a little more than 3 years on active duty and onto my civilian career.
 
Basically, if I read this right, the CoC holds it in their hands. There is no national board. If Col Smith at Universiy of XYZ says NO, it is all over?

Again, Dummy here. For AFROTC it is national. There is no PMS that says buh-bye. The way your post reads is it is is PMS has that voice, no national competition. They are the beginning and end for their ROTC career if not on scholarship.
 
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