GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to the Chairman and Ranking 

Minority Member, Subcommittee on 

Personnel, Committee on Armed 

Services, U.S. Senate

June 2000 MILITARY 

PERSONNEL

Services Need to 

Assess Efforts to Meet 

Recruiting Goals and 

Cut Attrition

GAO/NSIAD-00-146

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Contents

Letter 3

Appendixes Appendix I: DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations 32

Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 42

Appendix III: Comments From the Department of Defense 44

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 47

Tables Table 1: Services’ Success in Meeting Their Annual Recruiting 

Goals for New Active-Duty Enlistees 5

Table 2: DOD Attrition Rates for Active-Duty Enlistees 19

Table 3: Remedial Programs Offered at Fort Jackson’s Basic 

Training Site 24

Table 4: Status of DOD and Service Implementation of Our 

Previous Recommendations 34

Figures Figure 1: The Army’s Expenditures for Advertising and 

Enlistment Bonuses (fiscal year 2000 constant 

dollars in millions) 7

Figure 2: The Navy’s Expenditures for Advertising and 

Enlistment Bonuses (fiscal year 2000 constant 

dollars in millions) 9

Figure 3: The Air Force’s Expenditures for Advertising and 

Enlistment Bonuses (fiscal year 2000 constant

dollars in millions) 11

Figure 4: The Marine Corps’ Expenditures for Advertising and 

Enlistment Bonuses (fiscal year 2000 constant dollars 

in millions) 13

Figure 5: Percentage of Fiscal Year 1995 Enlistees Separating 

During Particular Periods of Their First Terms 20

Figure 6: Trends in the Timing of First-Term Enlisted Attrition 21

Figure 7: Primary Reasons That Enlistees Who Entered the 

Services in Fiscal Year 1998 Were Separated in Their 

First 6 Months of Service 22

Abbreviations

DOD Department of Defense 
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United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

National Security and

International Affairs Division

B-285028 Letr

June 23, 2000

The Honorable Tim Hutchinson

Chairman

The Honorable Max Cleland

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Personnel

Committee on Armed Services

United States Senate

The Department of Defense (DOD) faces a significant challenge in 

recruiting and retaining the hundreds of thousands of new recruits it enlists 

each year. The last 2 years, in particular, have been difficult for the military 

services as they have struggled to meet their recruiting goals. This 

difficulty, which some believe represents a recruiting crisis, makes the 

services’ problems with first-term attrition rates even more critical. The 

early separation of new recruits is costly in that the services’ recruiting and 

training investment in each enlistee averages almost $38,000. In response to 

the request of the former Chairman and the current Ranking Member, we 

assessed (1) the services’ responses to recent recruiting shortfalls and

(2) the services’ efforts to reduce their historically high attrition rates for 

first-term enlistees. 

Results in Brief To address mounting problems in recruiting sufficient numbers of qualified 

enlisted personnel, three services—the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force—

have increased their numbers of recruiters and their advertising budgets 

and have offered larger enlistment bonuses and more money for college. 

These tools have been shown by past research to help the services attract 

new recruits. The services have also sought innovative ways of expanding 

their recruiting market without reducing the quality of recruits, for 

example, by targeting persons attending community colleges and persons 

without high school degrees who meet other quality standards. Because so 

little time has passed since the services have begun to respond to their 

recent recruiting problems, they cannot yet assess the long-term success of 

their efforts. Also, the services do not yet know which of their new 

recruiting initiatives work best. For example, the Navy does not know the 

extent to which each of the changes it has made to its recruiting program—

increasing its number of recruiters, its advertising budget, or its enlistment 

bonuses—contributed toward meeting its goal in fiscal year 1999 and 
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whether that strategy will work in the future. Finally, while each of the 

services might point to localized successes, such as the Army’s ability to 

channel young people into hard-to-fill jobs by offering large enlistment 

bonuses, DOD does not know the extent to which the services might be 

competing with each other for the same potential recruits. Until sufficient 

time has passed and each of the services consistently meets its goal, DOD 

cannot be assured that individual service strategies will collectively enable 

DOD to meet its overall recruiting requirements.

In addition to improving the screening of applicants before they enlist, the 

services have also begun many efforts to reduce the attrition of first-term 

enlistees while they are in training and after they have been assigned to 

their first duty stations. These efforts include providing extra attention to 

recruits struggling during basic training and disciplining and working with 

enlistees who have completed training and are experiencing minor 

behavioral problems. These actions appear promising as they target 

recruits who might previously have been summarily discharged. 

Nonetheless, the latest attrition data available indicate that first-term 

attrition has reached all-time highs for DOD enlistees. The attrition rate for 

enlistees entering the services in the mid- to late 1980s hovered between 

30 and 34 percent, and this rate gradually rose in the 1990s from a low of 

33 percent to a peak of nearly 37 percent for enlistees entering the services 

in fiscal years 1994 and 1995. Greater success in reducing attrition may not 

yet be apparent because the services have just begun many of their efforts, 

or the continued high rate of attrition may indicate that without these 

efforts, the services’ losses would be even higher. The services, however, 

are not developing tools needed to measure the long-term success of their 

efforts, thus limiting their ability to judge the effectiveness of those efforts 

in reducing attrition. 

Because DOD does not have the tools at present to determine whether the 

services’ recruiting and retention efforts will be successful in the long term, 

we are recommending that DOD and the services (1) assess the relative 

success and cost-effectiveness of their recruiting strategies in meeting 

DOD’s overall needs by applying one service’s best practices to the other 

services whenever possible and by minimizing cross-service competition 

and (2) put in place tools for measuring the long-term success of the 

services’ attempts to reduce attrition by confirming that the services’ shortterm remedial efforts are not simply delaying attrition to later points in 

enlistees’ first terms. In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD 

agreed with our recommendations and cited steps it plans to take to 

implement them.
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Background Until fiscal year 1998, the services had been successful in meeting their 

recruiting goals for the all-volunteer force of enlistees. In fiscal year 1998, 

the Navy and the Army were the first services to miss their annual 

recruiting goals for active-duty enlisted personnel. That year, the Navy 

achieved 88 percent of its goal and the Army 99 percent. The following year, 

the Army made only 92 percent of its goal and the Air Force made 

95 percent of its objective. (See table 1.) For some Members of Congress, 

the fact that the services were missing their recruiting goals indicated a 

recruiting crisis. Added to the services’ recent struggles to meet recruiting 

goals is the fact that, historically, about one-third of their enlistees do not 

complete their first terms of service.

Table 1: Services’ Success in Meeting Their Annual Recruiting Goals for New Active-Duty Enlistees

Source: DOD.

Military Services Are 

Taking Steps to 

Address Recruiting 

Problems

In trying to reduce or eliminate recruiting shortfalls as quickly as possible, 

the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force have increased their number of 

recruiters, advertising budgets, and enlistment bonuses. Because the 

Marine Corps has successfully met its recruiting goals, it does not plan to 

initiate any major changes to its recruiting program in these areas. While 

the individual services may be able to trace an increase in numbers 

recruited to increases in recruiting resources, they have as yet been unable 

to determine which of their separate efforts are most effective. For 

example, they are not sure whether it is more effective, with limited 

resources, to increase enlistment bonuses, numbers of recruiters, or 

advertising. Without a history of what works with today’s recruits, the 

services must experiment with and document how well precise amounts of 

benefits and bonuses result in the maximum attraction and retention of 

enlistees. Finally, the services are at present unable to determine the extent 

to which their individual efforts are resulting in greater competition among 

Fiscal year 1997 Fiscal year 1998 Fiscal year 1999

Service Goal Actual

Percentage

of goal Goal Actual

Percentage

of goal Goal Actual

Percentage

of goal

Army 82,000 82,088 100 72,550 71,752 99 74,500 68,209 92

Navy 50,135 50,135 100 55,321 48,429 88 52,524 52,595 100

Marine Corps 34,512 34,548 100 34,267 34,284 100 33,668 33,703 100

Air Force 30,310 30,310 100 30,194 31,685 105 34,400 32,673 95
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themselves and thereby unnecessarily increasing the overall cost of 

recruiting to DOD.

Army Recruiting Initiatives In response to missing recruiting goals for the past 2 years, the Army has 

been putting additional resources into areas that historically have proven 

to result in greater numbers of recruits. It has not yet, however, had time to 

fully analyze whether what has worked in the past is currently working or 

is likely to work in the future. From fiscal year 1993 through 1998, the Army 

increased its number of recruiters from 4,368 to 6,331 and increased its 

advertising expenditures from $34.3 million in fiscal year 1993 to 

$112.9 million in fiscal year 1999 (in fiscal year 2000 constant dollars). The 

Army has also offered an array of enlistment bonuses to qualified personnel 

and increased the maximum amount offered from $12,000 to $20,000. 

Enlistment bonus expenditures increased substantially in just the past year, 

from $59.7 million in fiscal year 1998 to $105.2 million in fiscal year 1999. 

Figure 1 illustrates increases in the Army’s advertising and enlistment 

bonus expenditures for fiscal years 1993-99.
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Figure 1: The Army’s Expenditures for Advertising and Enlistment Bonuses (fiscal 

year 2000 constant dollars in millions)

Source: DOD.

The Army has also recently announced new ways to expand its recruiting 

market to persons it would not have sought out in the past. For example, 

through its General Educational Development Plus program, the Army 

intends to target youth who do not have high school diplomas but who have 

higher-than-average aptitude scores and no histories of disciplinary 

problems. It also plans to focus attention on youth who are college-bound. 

The College First Program, for example, proposes to pay enlistees 

attending college $150 per month for up to 2 years after they have signed a 

contract to enlist but before they actually do so. 

In an effort to more directly compete with private sector pay and benefits, 

the Army is developing the Partnership for Youth Success Program. Under 

this proposed program, the Army would obtain guarantees from private 

sector companies that they would have jobs waiting for specially trained 

enlisted personnel who successfully complete their tours. The companies 

would benefit by obtaining highly skilled personnel, and the former Army 

personnel would benefit by being assured a secure job, using their skills 

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Advertising $34.3 $45.2 $57.4 $72.1 $97.0 $97.8 $112.9

Enlistment 

bonuses $12.3 $8.1 $13.6 $19.0 $49.6 $59.7 $105.2

Number of

recruits

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

 Recruits

77,563 68,039 62,929 73,418 82,088 71,752 68,209
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upon their departure from the Army. While this program could have a very 

beneficial effect on attracting quality recruits, it could also have an adverse 

effect on retention if enlistees are provided incentives to separate from the 

military.

Navy Recruiting Initiatives Navy Recruiting Command officials noted several factors that they believe 

enabled them to meet their recruiting goal in fiscal year 1999. They were 

unable, however, to say precisely which of these factors worked or how 

well. For example, the Navy increased its number of recruiters from 3,342 

in fiscal year 1998 to 4,725 in fiscal year 1999. Simultaneously, it opened 

recruiting jobs to lower ranked, but “hard-charging,” enlisted personnel. 

Also, the Navy substantially increased its advertising expenditures—from 

$37.8 million in fiscal year 1997 to $67.3 million in fiscal year 1999. Finally, 

the Navy enhanced its bonus offerings to enlistees. For example, it 

awarded special bonuses of $3,000 to enlistees who agreed to enter basic 

training between February and May, a time when the Navy is traditionally 

hard-pressed to fill their slots. Figure 2 illustrates the Navy’s expenditures 

for advertising and enlistment bonuses for fiscal years 1993-99.
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Figure 2: The Navy’s Expenditures for Advertising and Enlistment Bonuses (fiscal 

year 2000 constant dollars in millions)

Source: DOD.

While increasing the amounts of resources spent on recruiting, the Navy 

also began to seek ways to expand its recruiting market. For example, it 

began to target persons who have prior military service and persons 

without high school diplomas who scored high on the Armed Forces 

Qualification Test, were at least 19 years old, had a minimum of three 

character references, and had proof of stable employment. The Navy is also 

targeting college-bound recruits under three separate programs. Under the 

first program—the Navy College Assistance Student Headstart Program—

selected recruits in the nuclear and submarine fields are placed on active 

duty while they are in college, receive entry-level pay for up to 1 year, and 

then attend basic training. In the second program, called Technical 

Preparation Partnerships, the Navy coordinates with community colleges 

to allow recruits to earn their associates’ degrees while they are serving 

their first enlistment terms. A third program, the Navy College Program, 

allows Navy servicemembers to receive college credit for Navy-provided 

training.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Advertising $13.9 $33.6 $39.4 $42.3 $37.8 $63.8 $67.3

Enlistment 

bonuses

$14.7 $11.2 $6.3 $7.9 $15.1 $19.8 $45.2

Number of

recruits

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

 Recruits

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

63,073 53,982 48,637 48,206 50,135 48,429 52,595
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Air Force Recruiting 

Initiatives

Air Force recruiting officials told us that a false sense of security 

contributed to their inability to meet fiscal year 1999 recruiting goals. 

Because the Air Force had easily met its goals in the past, Air Force 

officials did not believe that such recruiting investments were necessary. 

Fiscal year 1999’s recruiting results indicated that the pool of new recruits 

the Air Force had historically counted on would not always be readily 

available. To increase the chance of future success, the Air Force has 

already begun to purchase television advertising, offer enlistment bonuses 

to new recruits, and increase the number of Air Force recruiters. Because 

the Air Force will be changing its recruiting methods in the future, it has 

not yet had time to collect historical data on which recruiting techniques 

work most successfully.

Because Air Force recruiters have historically signed up about two times 

more recruits than recruiters in other services while working fewer hours, 

the Air Force has not needed to assign as many persons to recruiting duty 

as the other services have. For example, in fiscal year 1999, the Marine 

Corps employed 2,650 recruiters to recruit 33,685 new active-duty Marines, 

while the Air Force employed only 950 recruiters to recruit 32,068 enlistees. 

Banking on continued high productivity in fiscal year 1999, the Air Force 

did not staff its field recruiting force to its authorized level of 1,209. That is, 

even while the number of required annual enlistments increased and the 

Air Force said it became more difficult to recruit, the Air Force not only did 

not increase the number of its recruiters but allowed the number to fall 

below authorized levels. For fiscal year 2000, the Air Force plans to 

increase its number of actual recruiters to 1,446. 

Prior to fiscal year 1999, the Air Force also maintained a minimal 

advertising budget and had not requested money for paid advertising on 

commercial television. In that year, for the first time, the Air Force 

requested and received funding for television advertisements. The Air 

Force increased expenditures for all advertising from approximately 

$12.3 million in fiscal year 1998 to $56.8 million in fiscal year 1999.

In October 1998, the Air Force expanded its enlistment bonus program to 

target persons willing to commit to 6- rather than 4-year contracts in 

critical and highly technical skills, such as combat controllers, pararescue 
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personnel,1 linguists, and security forces. The Air Force believed that 

offering such bonuses (1) positioned it for a better return on its recruiting 

and training investment, (2) provided another tool to attract youth into the 

Air Force, and (3) would result in improved retention over time and 

ultimately in a reduction in future requirements for new recruits without 

prior military service. Enlistees in approximately 100 occupations are 

eligible for bonuses ranging from $2,000 to $12,000. Combat controllers and 

pararescue personnel are eligible for the maximum bonus of $12,000. 

Figure 3 illustrates the Air Force’s increased expenditures for advertising 

and enlistment bonuses for fiscal years 1993-99.

Figure 3: The Air Force’s Expenditures for Advertising and Enlistment Bonuses 

(fiscal year 2000 constant dollars in millions)

Source: DOD.

1

 Pararescue personnel are responsible for search, rescue, and recovery operations. They 

provide rapid response in adverse geographic and environmental conditions on land or 

water, including emergency and field medical care.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Advertising

Enlistment 

bonuses

Number of

Recruits

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

0

5,000

15,000

25,000

35,000

10,000

20,000

30,000

$5.2 $6.3 $11.4 $10.4 $11.8 $12.3 $56.8

$1.3 $0.8 $0.4 $0.6 $1.7 $4.7 $22.3

31,515 30,019 31,000 30,867 30,310 31,685 32,673

 Recruits
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Finally, to address recruiting and retention issues, the Air Force formed a 

Recruiting and Retention Task Force on March 1, 2000. Led by a brigadier 

general, the task force reports to the Under Secretary of the Air Force and 

the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The purpose of the task force is to 

serve as the single point of contact for the integration, consolidation, and 

coordination of over 120 recruiting and 89 retention initiatives.

Marine Corps Recruiting 

Initiatives 

The Marine Corps is the only service that has successfully met its recruiting 

goals each year. Consequently, it does not plan to initiate major changes in 

its recruiting strategy. Over the years, the Marine Corps has slowly but 

steadily increased its recruiting workforce and advertising budget. 

Recruiting officials believe they have been able to meet their goals because 

the Marine Corps has a consistent and recognizable identity that appeals to 

youth; because it has an institutional, financial, and resource commitment 

to supporting recruiting services; and because its recruiters work 

extremely hard. Data from the Defense Manpower Data Center’s 1998 

survey of recruiters indicate that the Marine Corps’ recruiting success 

comes at a price. Marine Corps recruiters work longer hours and take less 

leave than recruiters in any other service. 

The Marine Corps does not see itself in competition with the private sector 

to the same extent that the other services do. As such, it is institutionally 

against attempting to attract recruits with bonuses, changing its entry-level 

requirements, or increasing the number of recruiters. However, in order to 

maintain a “level playing field” with the other services, the Corps did 

increase its advertising expenditures substantially in fiscal year 1999 and 

nearly doubled its funding for enlistment bonuses in the same year. 

Figure 4 illustrates the Marine Corps’ expenditures for advertising and 

enlistment bonuses for fiscal years 1993-99.
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Figure 4: The Marine Corps’ Expenditures for Advertising and Enlistment Bonuses 

(fiscal year 2000 constant dollars in millions)

Source: DOD.

Services Have Not Fully 

Evaluated What Recruiting 

Approaches Work Best and 

How to Minimize CrossService Competition

Despite years of research on how best to recruit into the military, the Army, 

the Navy, and the Air Force are unsure of what recruiting strategies will 

work best in today’s environment. Their concerns are that private sector 

competition, the economy, the attitudes and skills of youth, and the views 

of their parents toward the military have so changed over time that old 

ways of doing things may no longer be applicable. DOD and the services 

cannot yet determine whether they are taking the appropriate steps to 

increase the number of young people they enlist without reducing the 

chances that these persons will perform acceptably and complete their 

enlistment tours. A DOD study released in March 2000 suggests that the 

Army and the Navy should consider recruiting between 85 and 90 percent 

high school diploma graduates, as opposed to the previous 90-percent 

benchmark. DOD believes that recruiting in this range should allow the 

services to adjust better to extraordinarily tight recruiting markets. 

However, DOD is not yet able to assess the long-term effect of the services’ 

attempts to recruit persons outside of their traditional markets or to bring 

 Recruits

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Advertising $11.5 $11.3 $10.6 $15.1 $21.1 $27.2 $32.1

Enlistment 

bonuses $3.6 $0.8 $1.4 $2.7 $3.1 $2.3 $4.3

Number of

recruits 34,776 32,056 33,217 33,496 34,548 34,284 33,703

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000
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in a somewhat lower percentage of high school diploma graduates. Lastly, 

DOD and the services have been unable to determine how the services’ 

individual methods of increasing the number of recruits they enlist affect 

competition among themselves.

DOD and the services are undertaking many efforts to improve their 

knowledge of the recruiting market and of recruiting methods. For 

example, a recently completed study for DOD by a contractor pointed out 

how DOD could reduce redundancies in the ways the services purchase 

marketing information and how it could improve the way the services 

market themselves to those who influence youth. Two other studies are in 

final stages: a RAND study that will provide a foundation for better 

determining advertising strategies using national and local media and a 

Navy College Fund study that will analyze the effects of differing 

enlistment incentives on the enlistment of high quality recruits. DOD has 

also begun many initiatives to reengineer recruiting. For example, it plans 

to create an on-line recruiting station, increase military internet traffic, take 

advantage of state-of-the-art civilian telemarketing business practices, and 

test the feasibility of processing applicants in areas closer to an applicant’s 

home.

These initiatives and studies appear promising in opening up new avenues 

for military recruiting. Two important areas, however, need further work: 

determining the most cost-effective mix of recruiting resources and 

analyzing the extent to which the services are competing with each other 

when they increase their numbers of recruiters or the amounts spent on 

enlistment bonuses and college incentives. In regard to the first area, DOD 

believes that such a study would be of value and plans to update a model 

that it hopes will form the basis for making wise decisions about how to 

best use recruiting resources in today’s economy. The existing model 

relates the quantity of recruits, recruit quality, and total recruiting costs and 

identifies potential tradeoffs among them. It does not, however, address the 

relative effectiveness of alternative uses of recruiting dollars for such 

things as additional recruiters, advertising, and enlistment bonuses. In the 

second area, DOD states that it has not completed an in-depth analysis of 

whether the services are competing with each other when they increase the 

number of recruiters or the amounts spent on incentives. Currently, DOD 

has no evidence to confirm or disprove whether increases in recruiters and 

enlistment incentives have resulted in increased numbers of recruits for 

DOD as a whole.
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Such analyses of the effectiveness of the services’ actions in meeting DOD’s 

overall recruiting needs would enable DOD and the services to develop 

fact-based policies on how best to spend their recruiting resources and to 

minimize interservice competition. These types of analyses are also in 

keeping with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993

(P.L. 103-62, Aug. 3, 1993), which was designed to create a new resultsoriented federal management and decision-making approach that requires 

agencies to set goals, measure performance, and report on their 

accomplishments. DOD’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000 includes a 

performance goal to “recruit, retain, and develop personnel to maintain a 

highly skilled and motivated force capable of meeting tomorrow’s 

challenges.” The plan includes two related performance measures: number 

of recruits enlisted and enlisted retention rates. The plan also includes the 

percentage of “quality” recruits as a related performance indicator.2

One example of a new program needing evaluation is the Army’s 

experiment with bringing on board a small number of motivated and 

intelligent high school dropouts in an attempt to enlarge the recruiting 

market. Before this time, the Army was reluctant to enlist persons without 

high school diplomas because they have historically had a higher attrition 

rate. Army officials noted that it will take about 3 years to determine 

whether these recruits will perform at acceptable levels so that decisions 

about enlarging and maintaining the program can be made. The Army has 

planned for such an evaluation to be conducted by a contractor. 

Similarly, the impact of higher enlistment bonuses remains in question. 

While higher enlistment bonuses may result in short-term successes in 

enlisting persons into hard-to-fill jobs, neither the services nor DOD 

planned to conduct studies to determine what the optimal amounts of such 

monetary incentives should be or whether such bonuses primarily resulted 

in competition among the services for the same limited number of recruits. 

At present, no research exists to help the services determine how much 

these bonuses should be. Recent decisions on how much to offer in 

bonuses have in some cases been based on one service’s attempt to remain 

competitive with another. For example, Navy officials told us that they felt 

compelled to “play catch-up” with the Army after the Army increased its 

bonuses to $20,000 for some occupations. On the other hand, an Army 

official believed that the Army had lost its traditional “market share” of 

2

 See GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-215 and GAO/NSIAD-99-178R for our assessment of DOD’s 

performance plan. 
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recruits to the Navy this year. Specifically, he believed that the Navy’s 

increased number of recruiters were taking away persons who would 

otherwise have joined the Army. In other words, these services see 

evidence that success for one service often comes at the expense of 

another. Service officials believe that at least to some extent, they are 

simply shifting their “market shares” of a fixed number of new recruits. 

While Army officials believe that they can determine how much the 

services are “expanding the market” and how much they are simply 

competing for a fixed number of recruits, we found no evidence that the 

services or DOD are systematically tracking the extent to which such 

shifting of market shares is resulting in unnecessarily increased recruiting 

costs.

Another enlistment program—offering bonuses to recruits who enter the 

service in certain hard-to-recruit months—could have an undesired 

negative side effect. Both the Army and the Navy are offering incentives for 

recruits to sign up and immediately begin training, even though the Navy 

believes that recruits who spend time in the Delayed Entry Program are 

better motivated and have better chances to succeed than those who 

immediately enter active duty. For this reason, while these new programs 

may help the Navy to meet immediate enlistment goals or the Army to fill 

costly training seats, they may not be cost-effective in the long term if those 

who would have dropped out during the Delayed Entry Program are now 

dropping out in basic training. In fact, Navy basic training officials cited 

shorter time spent in the Delayed Entry Program as a major reason that 

basic training attrition has risen. Army officials disagreed, arguing that 

there is little evidence that time spent in the Delayed Entry Program has 

any relation to attrition rates. Army officials believe that it is more costeffective to fill costly training slots and to take the chance that recruits will 

drop out during training than it is to allow the training slots to remain 

unfilled. 

Recently, efforts have intensified to bring together all services and the 

private sector to discuss what needs to be done to address recruiting needs 

in the 21st century. In a September 1999 symposium, top DOD military and 

civilian officials concluded that the lack of a strategic, long-term 

perspective hampers the development of effective recruiting programs and 

that more accurate information is needed to better allocate resources. 

Officials noted that better research was needed to help determine whether 

their current approaches were cost-effective and whether current 

enlistment quality standards remain valid. 
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Services Are Taking 

Steps to Reduce FirstTerm Attrition Rates

The services are taking steps to reduce first-term attrition. Initiatives are 

being taken to improve the screening of applicants before they enlist, to 

provide extra attention to new recruits struggling during basic training, and 

to discipline and retain enlistees who complete training and experience 

minor behavioral problems. Many of the services’ attrition-reduction 

actions are being taken in response to recommendations we have made in 

previous reports on this issue. These recommendations have included ways 

DOD and the services could tie their recruiter incentive systems more 

closely to their recruits’ graduation rates from basic training, ways they 

could more thoroughly screen out military applicants who have 

disqualifying medical or criminal histories, and ways they could target and 

retain some first-term enlistees who simply need remedial attention.3

 Many 

of the services’ efforts to reduce first-term attrition appear promising. 

However, the most recently available data for all the services indicate that 

attrition rates for persons entering the services in fiscal years 1994 and 

1995 and being separated by the end of fiscal years 1998 and 1999 were at 

historically high levels.4

 Since many of the services’ initiatives were 

introduced after these groups of enlistees had completed training, they 

could not be expected to have much impact on the attrition rate for these 

groups. For initiatives that were introduced before fiscal year 1994, 

attrition rates might have risen even higher without them. 

Positive Effects of Services’ 

Initiatives Are Not Yet 

Reflected in Attrition Rates

Our analysis of service-wide attrition data from the Defense Manpower 

Data Center on enlistees who entered the services in fiscal years 1994 and 

1995, the two most recent year groups for whom a full 4 years of data is 

available, indicates that service efforts initiated before these years to 

reduce training attrition had not yet been successful. Service actions 

initiated to reduce training attrition after those years would not be 

reflected in these groups’ rates. In fact, the rate of attrition at the 48-month

3

 See appendix I for a detailed listing of our prior recommendations and DOD’s response to 

them.

4

 The most recent group of enlistees we could track DOD-wide 48 months after they had 

enlisted was the group who entered in fiscal year 1995. For example, to track enlistees who 

entered the services in fiscal year 1996, we would have to track them until 48 months later, 

or the end of fiscal year 2000. At the time we did our data analysis, complete data on fiscal 

year 2000 was unavailable.
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point for these enlistees has risen.5 As shown in table 2, over the last

11 years, the DOD-wide attrition rate has varied from a low of 29.6 percent 

for enlistees who entered the services in fiscal year 1985 to an all-time high 

of 36.9 percent for those who entered in fiscal year 1994. For enlistees 

entering the services in fiscal year 1995 and separating early before the end 

of fiscal year 1999, DOD’s overall rate remained high, at 36.8 percent. The 

rates for the Marine Corps and the Air Force remained virtually the same in 

fiscal years 1994 and 1995; the rate declined by around 1 percentage point, 

and the Navy’s rate increased by 1.7 percentage points. The Marine Corps’ 

rate peaked for enlistees entering the service in fiscal year 1990. 

During the past 6 years, only the Marine Corps has begun to lower its 

attrition rate. Its rate for enlistees entering in fiscal year 1995 was almost 

the same as it was for enlistees entering in fiscal year 1985, while the rates 

of the other services remain 7-9 percentage points above their 1985 level. 

(See table 2.) Marine Corps officials attributed their success in reducing 

attrition to a change in philosophy from weeding recruits out quickly to 

taking more time to help them meet Marine Corps standards.

5

 We measure the attrition rate 48 months after enlistees enter the service because this 

captures the early separation of the majority of enlistees, who have 2-, 3-, and 4-year 

contract terms. Measuring the rate at 48 months also captures the early separation of 

persons with 5- or 6-year contracts during their first 4 years of service.
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Table 2: DOD Attrition Rates for Active-Duty Enlistees

Source: Our analysis of Defense Manpower Data Center data.

A Large Portion of Attrition 

Occurs During Enlistees’ 

Time in Training

A significant portion of first-term attrition occurs during enlistees’ first

6 months of service, when most enlistees are in basic or follow-on training. 

After the first 6 months of service, early separations decline. This pattern 

holds true for all four services. Figure 5 shows the timing of premature 

separations for enlistees who entered the services in fiscal year 1995.

Numbers in percentages

Fiscal year 

of enlistment Army Navy

Marine

Corps Air Force DOD-wide

1985 30.5 30.6 33.7 24.6 29.6

1986 31.3 33.8 35.4 26.3 31.4

1987 31.4 31.5 33.0 25.3 30.5

1988 33.7 31.6 30.4 25.5 31.3

1989 35.3 34.0 32.7 30.1 33.7

1990 36.4 32.6 36.2 30.4 34.2

1991 36.8 30.5 34.2 31.7 33.6

1992 35.9 32.2 32.2 30.0 33.2

1993 39.3 35.8 31.5 32.5 35.8

1994 40.1 37.8 33.2 32.7 36.9

1995 39.0 39.6 33.2 31.9 36.8
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Figure 5: Percentage of Fiscal Year 1995 Enlistees Separating During Particular Periods of Their First Terms

Source: Our analysis of Defense Manpower Data Center data.

From fiscal year 1985 through fiscal year 1995, as overall enlisted attrition 

has risen, the percentage of attrition occurring in the first 6 months of 

service has risen more quickly than it has during later intervals of service 

(see fig. 6). For this reason, the services have focused many of their 

initiatives to reduce attrition on activities that occur in an enlistee’s first

6 months.
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Figure 6: Trends in the Timing of First-Term Enlisted Attrition

Source: Our analysis of Defense Manpower Data Center data.

Causes of Early Separations 

During Training

Service-wide attrition data from the Defense Manpower Data Center 

indicate that enlistees who leave the military in their first 6 months are 

separated for three general reasons: (1) medical/physical problems, that is, 

medical conditions that existed prior to service or physical problems that 

developed while enlistees were in training; (2) erroneous or fraudulent 

enlistment, indicating either that the services did not detect military 
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applicants’ disqualifying conditions prior to their enlistments or that the 

applicants deliberately withheld disqualifying information from the 

services; and (3) performance problems, such as failure to pass the 

physical training test, loss of motivation, or inability to adapt to military 

life. The remaining separations at the 6-month point are for various other 

reasons, none of which is particularly predominant. 

These reasons include misconduct, excessive weight or body fat, character 

and behavior disorders, alcoholism, drug use, and homosexuality. (See 

fig. 7.)

Figure 7: Primary Reasons That Enlistees Who Entered the Services in Fiscal Year 

1998 Were Separated in Their First 6 Months of Service

Notes:

Performance problems include such behaviors as failure to pass physical training tests, losing 

motivation, or inability to adapt to military life. 

Medical and physical problems include conditions that were not detected when enlistees were 

physically examined before they entered the service, conditions that developed while enlistees were in 

the service, or injuries that enlistees suffer while in the military. 

Fraudulent enlistment is the entry into service of someone who knowingly concealed information that 

would have disqualified him or her from military service. Erroneous enlistment is the entry into service 

of someone who had a disqualifying condition that was not discovered beforehand and was not 

deliberately concealed at the time of enlistment. Separations for fraudulent or erroneous enlistment 

apply to discoveries of disqualifying conditions covering all military service requirements, for example, 

maximum number of allowable dependents, drug use, medical problems, psychological problems, or 

criminal histories. 

Source: Our analysis of Defense Manpower Data Center data.
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Programs to Reduce 

Separations for 

Performance Problems

Service-wide data from the Defense Manpower Data Center indicate that 

about 34 percent of all separations during training are for performance 

problems. Officials at the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps training 

bases we visited believe that attrition because of performance problems 

can be reduced and have instituted remedial programs to provide extra 

attention to recruits struggling with behavioral, physical training, or 

academic problems. While the Army and the Marine Corps report that they 

have recently been able to reduce attrition during training, the most 

recently available data from the Defense Manpower Data Center does not 

yet confirm this. Defense Manpower Data Center data indicate that 

attrition rates remained high for all the services’ enlistees during their first 

6 months of service. For enlistees who entered the services in fiscal year 

1998, 15.8 percent of all Army enlistees were separated before they had 

served 6 months; 16.2 percent of all Navy enlistees; 17.5 percent of all 

Marine Corps enlistees; and 12.1 percent of all Air Force enlistees. 

Table 3 describes the remedial training programs that target groups of 

enlistees for retention at the Army’s basic training site at Fort Jackson, 

South Carolina. Training officials reported that in fiscal year 1999, they 

placed 7,612 enlistees in these programs, or 22 percent of the 34,265 

recruits who were trained at Fort Jackson that year. Of those who entered 

remedial programs, 68 percent successfully completed their programs and 

were returned to regular basic training units.
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Table 3: Remedial Programs Offered at Fort Jackson’s Basic Training Site

Three of these programs are offered at all Army basic training sites: the 

Fitness Training Unit, the Retraining/Holding Unit, and the Physical 

Training and Rehabilitation Program. Army officials believe that such 

programs have resulted in reduced attrition in the first 6 months of service. 

Army data indicate that 6-month attrition peaked in fiscal year 1998 at 

17.8 percent and then dropped to 14.6 percent in fiscal year 1999 and 

14.3 percent in fiscal year 2000.

When Navy basic training attrition rates grew steadily from fiscal years 

1996 through 1999—from 13.2 to 18.3 percent—the Navy became 

concerned about how to retain more recruits. Navy officials believe that 

attrition rates would have gone even higher in fiscal year 1999 if they did 

not have three remedial programs: the Personal Applied Skills Streaming 

Program, which helped 861 recruits to address anger, motivational, and 

behavioral problems; the Fundamental Applied Skills Training Program, 

which provided instruction for 1,526 recruits struggling with academic 

Program Description 

Think It Over Remedial attention paid to recruits who have 

second thoughts about basic training in the 

first week after they have arrived

English as a Second Language A 4-day language skills program designed to 

help recruits whose primary language is not 

English

Fitness Training Unit A required remedial physical fitness training 

course for all recruits who fail the physical 

fitness test given on the second day of basic 

training

Prepare to Train A remedial academic program for those 

whose scores on the DOD entrance aptitude 

test suggest that they might have difficulty in 

the academic portion of training

Retraining/Holding Unit, “See It Through” A program for recruits who have 

performance and behavioral problems during 

their first through final weeks of basic 

training

Physical Training and Rehabilitation 

Program

A mandatory program to help injured 

enlistees remain physically fit, heal properly, 

and quickly return to training

Physical Training Course A 3-week remedial physical training course 

for enlistees who fail the Army Physical 

Fitness Test required for graduation
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problems; and PT-O, a program that helped 1,555 recruits address physical 

training problems. Before these programs were implemented, recruits 

struggling for these reasons might have been separated. While these 

programs appear promising, Navy officials have not collected data on how 

many enlistees who were enrolled in these remedial programs ultimately 

completed their first tours of duty. Therefore, the Navy cannot determine 

whether such programs were only delaying rather than preventing early 

separations. 

Data maintained by the Marine Corps indicate that it has had some success 

in reducing attrition during basic training. For example, the Marine Corps 

reports that attrition at Parris Island, South Carolina, dropped from 

17.8 percent in fiscal year 1998 to around 12.1 percent in fiscal year 1999. 

Training officials attributed this drop almost entirely to a change in training 

philosophy that involves working with troubled recruits rather than 

discharging them. Training officials stressed that such a change does not 

reduce quality or graduation requirements. 

In keeping with the Marine Corps’ change in philosophy, training officials 

instituted new or reinforced ongoing programs to reduce attrition. These 

programs include a week-long remedial program to help recruits pass their 

marksmanship qualification and a physical conditioning program for 

enlistees who fail their initial physical fitness test. Marine Corps training 

officials said that 81 percent of all male recruits and 90 percent of all female 

recruits who were sent to the physical conditioning program were returned 

to training. Officials did not have information on the attrition rates of 

persons who completed their first tours of duty after they successfully 

graduated from Parris Island’s remedial programs. 

Steps to Reduce Fraudulent 

and Erroneous Enlistments

Recruits can be separated for fraudulent enlistment if they knowingly 

conceal information that would disqualify them from military service. Such 

a discharge can result from concealing the number of one’s dependents, 

from lying about prior drug use, or from failing to report a prior medically 

or criminally disqualifying condition. Recruits can be separated for 

erroneous enlistment if their disqualifying conditions are discovered after 

they enter the military, though this type of separation has also been used to 

discharge Navy enlistees who test positive on the drug tests at basic 

training.

To reduce the numbers of fraudulent and erroneous enlistments involving 

medical and psychiatric histories, the services have attempted to improve 
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the gathering of prior medical histories of military applicants. To reduce the 

number of enlistments involving the concealment of criminal backgrounds, 

DOD and the services have taken actions to improve the criminal screening 

process. For example, the Military Entrance Processing Command, which 

is the organization responsible for operating the 65 stations located 

throughout the country where recruits receive their entry screening, has 

obtained funding from the services to purchase fingerprint machines that 

will allow the services to more efficiently conduct background searches 

before military applicants enter the service.

Steps to Reduce Early 

Separations for Medical and 

Physical Reasons

To reduce premature separations for medical and physical reasons, DOD 

and the services have taken actions to improve the medical screening of 

enlistees before they enlist. For example, DOD has adopted a 

recommendation we made in our report on attrition during training to 

revise the medical form used to gather historical medical information on 

applicants for military service in order to gather more precise medical 

information on conditions that often result in early separations.6

 Also in 

response to a recommendation we made in that report, DOD now requires 

military applicants to list their medical providers and insurers so that 

applicants will be more forthcoming in reporting their past medical 

histories. Ultimately, the Military Entrance Processing Command hopes to 

add medical screening tests, such as tests for asthma, at its processing 

stations to help screen out enlistees with medical conditions known to be 

high attrition risks. 

Officials at training bases for all four services cited attempts to reduce 

early separations for enlistees who suffer physical injuries. 

• At Fort Jackson, Army training officials determined that providing 

athletic shoes designed to properly fit each recruit would reduce the 

risk of injury for all trainees. While Fort Jackson officials believe that 

better athletic shoes have resulted in fewer trainee injuries, these 

officials have not collected data to verify this assumption. 

• Navy basic training officials have also taken several actions to reduce 

injury-related separations by redesigning their training program. This 

redesign has included rewriting the physical conditioning schedule, 

including how often recruits are required to run and march, and 

6

 See Military Attrition: DOD Could Save Millions by Better Screening Enlisted Personnel

(GAO/NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997).
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retraining drill instructors to emphasize the importance of keeping to a 

regimented routine to reduce stress fractures and other injuries. Data 

maintained by the Navy indicate that these efforts resulted in a 

reduction in the number of severe stress fractures. Specifically, Navy 

data indicate that the number of severe stress fractures peaked at 

almost 3.5 per thousand recruits in fiscal year 1998 but was reduced in 

fiscal year 1999 to about 0.5 per thousand. 

• After a spike in attrition in the first quarter of 1998, Parris Island’s 

training officials introduced initiatives to reduce training-related 

injuries, such as a Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Therapy Clinic to 

rehabilitate rather than separate recruits who suffer injuries and to 

expedite their return to training. Marine Corps training officials noted 

that attrition due to lower extremity problems fell by 10 percent during 

the first 6 months after the Sports Medicine Clinic was opened. 

• The Air Force began to change its basic training regimen after a spike in 

the attrition of persons suffering injuries in 1995. In that year, training 

officials began to alternate enlistees’ wearing of boots and athletic 

shoes, and in 1997, they added a central physical therapy clinic closer to 

where trainees were located. In January 1999, a new sports medicine 

specialist began to emphasize the importance of rehabilitating rather 

than separating enlistees who suffered injuries. Because of this new 

approach to treating injured enlistees, as well as other initiatives, the Air 

Force reports that the number of separations for medical reasons, 

including injuries, was reduced by half from fiscal year 1998 to fiscal 

year 1999.

Causes of Early Separations 

After Training

Separations for enlistees who have completed training, that is, between 

their 7th and 48th months of service, have less to do with screening and 

more to do with performance and discipline. For example, 32.4 percent of 

enlistees who entered the services in fiscal year 1995 and separated after 

serving at least 6 months were separated for misconduct; 15 percent for 

medical or physical problems; 9.7 percent for drug use; 8.3 percent for 

performance problems; and 7.1 percent for character or behavior 

disorders.

Service Efforts to Reduce 

Attrition After Training

The services have initiated a number of programs to reduce the attrition of 

enlistees who have completed training. Like their programs to reduce 

attrition from basic training, however, most of these efforts are too new to 

demonstrate their long-term effects. Examples include the following:
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• The Air Force has created First Term Airman Centers at all bases. The 

centers bring together all first-term airmen immediately upon arrival at 

their new bases for indoctrination and mandatory training. These 

classes last from 10 days to nearly 1 month.

• The Navy is developing a retraining program that is nonpunitive in 

nature and targeted at sailors lacking good life skills, such as sound 

decision-making, effective goal-setting, and good financial management.

• The Army has begun to rehabilitate and retain or punish enlistees 

previously separated as deserters.

• For a 1-year test period beginning in November 1999, the Army changed 

the probationary status of first-term enlistees who had completed 

training. Enlistees whose training is completed before their first 

180 days of service are no longer treated as on probation; commanders 

may no longer separate these persons using an expedited discharge 

process. The intent of this program is to compel commanders to 

consider rehabilitation rather than separation for enlistees in this 

category. 

Imprecise Data on the 

Causes of DOD Attrition

The only available DOD-wide data on enlisted separations are not very 

useful in specifying why enlistees are leaving early.7

 As we reported in 1997, 

the codes used to categorize separations are vague, more than one code 

can be chosen to classify the same separation, and the services use these 

codes differently. As a result, we recommended that the Secretary of 

Defense issue implementing guidance for DOD’s separation codes to 

provide a reliable database for DOD to manage attrition and for the 

services to set appropriate targets for reducing it. While DOD formed a 

working group in April 1998 to improve the separation codes, it has not yet 

issued its final set of codes or its accompanying guidance. It was therefore 

too soon for us to assess whether the new codes and guidance would 

correct problems we reported earlier. DOD has also established long-term 

efforts to collect more precise information on the medical reasons enlistees 

are being separated early. Collecting such data will enable DOD and the 

services—at some point in the future—to make fact-based decisions on 

which medical conditions result in greater or lesser attrition risks. 

DOD and the services also plan to collect survey information from enlistees 

on why they are separating from the military. As required by the National 

7

 See Military Attrition: DOD Could Save Millions by Better Screening Enlisted Personnel

(GAO/NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997).
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Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000,8 DOD plans to administer a 

survey on the attitudes toward service of individuals separating from the 

military. This survey will be given to all personnel leaving the service or 

transferring to the reserves during the 6-month period between April and 

September 2000. The Defense Manpower Data Center has been tasked with 

developing and analyzing the survey results. 

Also, all four services have begun or will shortly begin to collect 

information on their enlistees’ perceptions of quality of life through entry 

and exit surveys.

Services Do Not Yet Have 

Information on Long-Term 

Effects of Their AttritionReducing Efforts 

While all the services appear to have begun initiatives that will help them 

either to reduce first-term attrition or to prevent it from rising further, the 

effect of these initiatives will not be known until enlistees have had a 

chance to serve their entire contract terms after these initiatives have been 

in place. For example, to measure the effectiveness of initiatives begun in 

fiscal year 1999, it will be necessary to track enlistees who entered that 

year until 48 months later, in fiscal year 2003. While, in some cases, the 

services have mechanisms in place to track the success of remediation 

programs in boot camp, we did not see that the services had the tools 

necessary to track the long-term success of individuals who had 

successfully completed these programs. In other words, the services did 

not know what happened to these persons after they completed their 

training.

Conclusions DOD is experiencing a recruiting challenge that has called for an 

extraordinary increase in the attention and the resources focused on this 

area. As the services have reacted to this challenge, however, they have not 

had the time to carefully determine which of their improvement efforts are 

most effective and how their efforts affect the other services’ recruitments. 

As a result, DOD has been unable to determine the extent to which the 

services are simply competing against each other and unnecessarily raising 

the cost of recruiting. Nor has it been able to suggest to the services the 

most cost-effective mix of their recruiting resources in today’s market.

8

 Section 581 of P.L. 106-65 (Oct. 5, 1999).
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In the area of first-term attrition, DOD and the services also need more 

complete information on the root causes of attrition and on what initiatives 

work in the long term. At present, the services have no way to demonstrate 

whether or not the enlistees they are retaining in the short term by 

spending more time and resources are good long-term investments. That is, 

the services cannot yet demonstrate that these programs are not simply 

delaying the attrition of enlistees whom they help to graduate from basic 

training. 

Recommendations To maximize the effectiveness of DOD’s recruiting efforts, we recommend 

that the Secretary of Defense and the service secretaries assess the relative 

success of their various recruiting strategies in meeting DOD’s future 

needs. This assessment should address how one service’s best practices 

might be applied to the other services, how the services can minimize 

competition with each other for the same limited number of enlistees, and 

how the services can create the most cost-effective mix of numbers of 

recruiters, amounts of enlistment bonuses, college incentives, advertising, 

and other recruiting tools.

Second, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the service 

secretaries to (1) continue to identify groups of enlistees whom they 

believe could be rehabilitated and retained, both during and after training, 

and (2) put in place tools for measuring the long-term success of these 

rehabilitative efforts. These measurement tools should allow the services 

to verify that attrition that is being reduced is not simply being delayed 

until later in enlistees’ first terms. These measurement tools should also 

allow the services to determine what effect their recruitment of persons 

outside their traditional market has on attrition.

Agency Comments In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD agreed with our 

recommendations. Regarding our recommendation that DOD assess the 

relative success of various recruiting strategies, DOD believes that some 

competition among the services is healthy and productive but will consider 

using an outside contractor to measure the impact of this competition and 

explore ways to reduce duplicative efforts. DOD also indicated that it was 

looking at a variety of ways to expand recruiting efforts and plans to 

develop a new model that will allow tradeoff analyses to determine the 

relative cost-effectiveness of the various recruiting resources. We believe 

that it is important that this new model address the relative effectiveness of 
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alternative uses of recruiting dollars for such things as additional 

recruiters, advertising, and enlistment bonuses. Regarding our 

recommendation to take specific steps to reduce attrition rates, DOD 

agreed to target enlistees for rehabilitation or remedial training and to 

develop methods to measure accurately the success of such efforts in 

reducing first-term attrition.

Appendix I presents a detailed assessment of DOD’s and the services’ 

implementation of recommendations we have made in previous reports to 

improve recruiting and reduce attrition. Appendix II presents a more 

detailed description of our scope and methodology, and appendix III 

presents DOD’s comments on our draft in their entirety.

We are sending copies of this report to the Honorable William S. Cohen, 

Secretary of Defense; the Honorable Louis Caldera, Secretary of the Army; 

the Honorable Richard J. Danzig, Secretary of the Navy; the Honorable F. 

Whitten Peters, Secretary of the Air Force; General James L. Jones, 

Commandant of the Marine Corps; and the Honorable Jacob J. Lew, 

Director of the Office of Management and Budget. We will also make copies 

available to others upon request.

Please contact me at (202) 512-5140 if you or your staff have any questions 

concerning this report. Key contacts and staff acknowledgments are listed 

in appendix IV.

Norman J. Rabkin

Director, National Security Preparedness Issues
Page 32 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our Apendxies

Recommendations ApendxiI

At the request of the Senate Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee 

on Personnel, we have conducted a series of jobs to determine why the 

attrition of enlisted personnel during their first terms of duty has remained 

relatively constant despite the increased quality of new recruits and to 

analyze the management and selection of recruiters. Our work has included 

(1) a report outlining the reasons for attrition during the first 6 months of 

an enlistee’s term,1

 (2) a report recommending how recruiter selection and 

incentive systems could be improved to increase recruiter performance 

and the likelihood that enlistees will complete their first terms,2

 (3) a study 

of reasons for enlisted attrition after basic training,3

 and (4) a study of the 

process of screening incoming recruits to detect criminal backgrounds.4

 In 

these four reports, we have made 20 recommendations on ways the 

Department of Defense (DOD) could improve its management of recruiter 

incentive systems, its process of screening incoming recruits, and its 

retention of first-term enlistees.5

In this follow-on work, the Subcommittee asked us to evaluate the progress 

DOD and the services have made in implementing our previous 

recommendations. In summary, we found that DOD and the services had 

fully, substantially, or partially implemented 17 of our 20 recommendations. 

One had not yet been implemented, but some action had been taken. And in 

two cases, DOD had taken no action. We judged the actions taken by DOD 

and the services using the following categories:

• Fully implemented. We used this category when we believed that the 

entire wording of the recommendation had been fully implemented.

• Substantially implemented. We used this category when we believed 

that DOD and the services had either taken actions that met the intent of

1 Military Attrition: DOD Could Save Millions by Better Screening Enlisted Personnel

(GAO/NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997).

2 Military Recruiting: DOD Could Improve Its Recruiter Selection and Incentive Systems

(GAO/NSIAD-98-58, Jan. 30, 1998).

3 Military Attrition: Better Data, Coupled With Policy Changes, Could Help the Services 

Reduce Early Separations (GAO/NSIAD-98-213, Sept. 15, 1998).

4 Military Recruiting: New Initiatives Could Improve Criminal History Screening 

(GAO/NSIAD-99-53, Feb. 23, 1999).

5

 We withdrew a 21st recommendation, that the Secretary of Defense encourage the use of 

quarterly floating recruiting goals, because the services made compelling arguments against 

such goals.
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 33 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

our recommendation or some but not all of the services had fully 

implemented the recommendation.

• Partially implemented. We categorized recommendations as “partially 

implemented” when only a portion of the recommendation had been 

implemented, when not all services had taken action in response to the 

recommendation, or when progress in completing actions would take a 

substantial amount of time.

• Not implemented—action taken. We classified recommendations as 

“not implemented—action taken” when the services and DOD had taken 

some action in response but the intent of our recommendation had not 

been met.

• Not implemented—no action taken. We placed recommendations in 

this category when DOD and the services had taken no action in 

response to our recommendation and had no plans to do so.
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 34 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Table 4: Status of DOD and Service Implementation of Our Previous Recommendations

Recommendation GAO report and number DOD response

1. Revise separation codes and issue implementing 

guidance to collect data on reasons for attrition.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997 Revised the codes and plans to issue 

implementing guidance telling the 

services how and when to apply these 

codes. Because the new codes and 

guidance have not yet been issued, it 

is too early to determine whether 

identified problems have been 

corrected.

2. Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force revise recruiter 

incentive systems to reward for recruits’ graduation 

from basic training.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997, and NSIAD98-58, Jan. 30, 1998

3. Require military applicants to provide the names of 

their medical insurers and providers to encourage 

more accurate reporting of past problems.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997 Fielded a new medical history form to 

collect information on applicants’ past 

medical providers and insurers.

4. Revise medical history form to eliminate vague 

questions about applicants’ past medical problems.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997 Fielded a new medical history form 

with more precisely worded questions 

on past problems.

5. Use DOD’s medical database to determine 

whether new screening tests should be added.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997 Issued guidance to the services on 

how to capture medical information on 

applicants’ specific diagnoses. The 

database is now being developed for 

future use.

6. Place responsibility for reviewing medical files 

outside MEPCOMa

 to remove possible conflict of 

interest.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997 Does not believe such an outside 

review is necessary. Believes that 

existing review by MEPCOM is 

sufficient.

7. Test all applicants for drugs at the MEPSb

 to 

reduce the numbers of enlistees separated for drugs 

during basic training.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997

8. Encourage recruits to undergo physical training 

while awaiting active duty.

NSIAD-97-39, Jan. 6, 1997
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 35 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Navy response Marine Corps response Army response Air Force response Status of implementation

Partially implemented

At time of review, 

recruiters’ incentives 

already tied to recruits’ 

graduation from basic 

training.

Recruiters must replace 

each recruit who does not 

graduate from basic 

training.

Just revised incentive 

system. Recruiters are 

now awarded points 

when recruits graduate 

from basic training.

Recruiters’ 

incentives are not 

tied to basic training 

graduation rates, but 

the rates are 

considered for 

award purposes.

Substantially implemented: 

Navy, Army, and Marine 

Corps− fully implemented; Air 

Force−partially implemented

Substantially implemented

Substantially implemented

Partially implemented

Not implemented—no action 

taken

Tests applicants for drugs 

at the MEPS and at basic 

training.

Tests for drugs at the 

MEPS and at basic 

training.

Tests for drugs at the 

MEPS.

Tests for drugs at 

the MEPS.

Fully implemented

Began an Advanced 

Paygrade Program that 

rewards enlistees with an 

E-2 rank for completing 

stated requirements, 

including physical training, 

while awaiting active duty. 

Recruits are now granted 

access to military fitness 

facilities.

All recruits are 

encouraged, but not 

required, to undergo 

physical training while 

awaiting active duty. 

Recruits are now granted 

access to military fitness 

facilities.

Initiated a program that 

offers enlistees the rank 

of E-2 after they 

complete a list of tasks, 

including physical 

training, while awaiting 

active duty. Recruits are 

now granted access to 

military fitness facilities.

Enlistees are 

encouraged, but not 

required, to conduct 

physical training 

while awaiting active 

duty. Recruits are 

now granted access 

to military fitness 

facilities.

Fully implemented
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 36 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

9. Review policies allowing first-term enlistees to 

separate voluntarily more than 90 days before the 

end of their contractual obligations.

NSIAD-98-213, Sept. 15, 1998

10. Use quality-of-life surveys to target improvements 

that will result in lower first-term attrition.

NSIAD-98-213, Sept. 15, 1998 In late 1999, administered a survey of 

active-duty personnel that included 

many items aimed at assessing 

quality of life. There is also a 

legislative mandate that the services 

administer an exit survey.

11. Leadership should continually emphasize the 

cost of attrition.

NSIAD-98-213, Sept. 15, 1998 In testimonies and other forums, DOD 

has made reducing attrition an 

important goal.

12. Target first-term enlistees for retention and 

remedial action.

NSIAD-98-213, Sept. 15, 1998

13. Reassess the appropriateness of providing 

favorable types of discharge to enlistees whose 

behavior or performance led to their early separation.

NSIAD-98-213, Sept. 15, 1998 No action taken.

(Continued From Previous Page)

Recommendation GAO report and number DOD response
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 37 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Navy response Marine Corps response Army response Air Force response Status of implementation

Has taken no action in 

response to this 

recommendation. Our data 

indicated that the Navy 

had the highest number of 

enlistees allowed early 

releases.

Has taken no action 

because few persons are 

allowed such early 

releases. Our work 

confirmed this is true for 

the Marine Corps.

Reviewed policies and 

made no changes. Our 

data indicated that the 

Army grants few 

enlistees early releases.

Reviewed policies 

and decreased 

number of early 

releases.

Partially implemented

Designing a survey to be 

given to personnel at 

“transition points,” 

including when they 

separate or reenlist.

Using both exit and 

retention surveys. Awaiting 

analysis by Naval 

Postgraduate School. 

Used information from 

1993 and 1998 quality-oflife surveys to make 

improvements in housing 

and leisure and recreation 

activities. These 

improvements have been 

targeted at all Marine 

Corps personnel, not just 

first-termers.

Administering entry and 

exit surveys to first-term 

enlistees to obtain 

information on root 

causes of attrition.

Has administered 

biannual surveys 

and will institute exit 

surveys beginning in 

April 2000 to use in 

addressing 

retention.

Partially implemented

Navy officials admit they 

cannot afford to weed out 

recruits. They have 

initiated many remedial 

programs to reduce 

attrition.

The July 1999 Marine 

Corps Commandant’s 

Planning Guidance 

emphasized leadership 

responsibility for mentoring 

Marines and providing a 

framework for success.

The Army’s philosophy 

has changed from 

“Prove to us you’re good 

enough to be in our 

Army and we’ll let you 

in” to “It’s going to be 

tough, but we will train 

you. We will get you 

through it.” 

Three times a year, 

commanders of the 

recruiting, basic 

training, and 

technical commands 

meet to discuss 

issues including 

reducing attrition.

Fully implemented

Instituted six remedial 

programs targeting 

enlistees in basic training. 

These programs are aimed 

at enlistees having 

problems with academics, 

adjustment, behavior, and 

physical training. Plans to 

provide more remedial 

attention to enlistees in the 

fleet who are having minor 

disciplinary problems and 

experiencing hardships.

Began new programs in 

basic training to target 

persons threatening 

suicide and suffering 

physical problems such as 

lower extremity injuries. No 

remedial programs aimed 

at targeting persons after 

training.

Ft. Jackson, the Army’s 

largest basic training 

site, has developed 

programs designed to 

remediate enlistees 

experiencing problems 

with injuries and with 

adjustment, language, 

physical fitness, 

behavioral, and 

academic problems. 

After training, plans to 

target enlistees who 

have previously been 

separated for desertion 

or minor disciplinary 

problems.

Targeted for special 

attention persons 

with physical injuries 

and psychological 

problems in basic 

training and 

enlistees who make 

false declarations of 

homosexuality. After 

training, providing 

remedial attention to 

enlistees with minor 

disciplinary 

problems.

Substantially implemented

. Not implemented—no action 

taken
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 38 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

14. Use recruiters to select recruiters. NSIAD-98-58, Jan. 30, 1998

15. Explore the feasibility of developing or procuring 

assessment tests that can aid in the selection of 

recruiters.

NSIAD-98-58, Jan. 30, 1998

16. Have drill instructors and recruiters interact. NSIAD-98-58, Jan. 30, 1998

17. Give recruits a physical fitness test before they go 

to basic training.

NSIAD-98-58, Jan. 30, 1998

18. Develop a DOD plan to use initiatives to 

electronically transmit the background check forms 

and fingerprints.

NSIAD-99-53, Feb. 23, 1999 Has developed a timeline for the 

services to electronically transmit 

background check forms and 

fingerprints.

(Continued From Previous Page)

Recommendation GAO report and number DOD response
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 39 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Navy response Marine Corps response Army response Air Force response Status of implementation

Has five-member recruiter 

selection teams 

comprising career 

recruiters who visit units to 

screen personnel for 

recruiting duty.

Uses experienced 

recruiters to help select 

recruiters.

Has a four-member 

recruit the recruiter 

team that visits 

installations to select 

potential recruiters. 

Some, but not all, 

recruiters are selected 

by this team.

Uses experienced 

recruiters to help 

select recruiters.

Fully implemented

Has begun to test the 

Emotional Quotient 

Inventory in selecting 

recruiters.

Does not support 

assessment tests for 

recruiters. Relies on 

commanders’recommenda

tions and personal 

interviews to select 

recruiters.

Administers the 

Emotional Quotient 

Inventory to potential 

recruiters but will not 

use it to screen people 

out of recruiting until it 

has been validated. 

Also used a Prevue 

Assessment instrument 

to predict the potential 

success of persons for 

recruiting duty.

Uses the Emotional 

Quotient Inventory, 

in conjunction with 

personal interviews, 

to select recruiters.

Substantially implemented

Requires its recruiters to 

attend Recruiter Refresher 

Training program at its 

basic training camp.

Recruiters and drill 

instructors continually 

interact, both formally and 

informally. Drill instructors 

provide feedback to 

recruiters on their recruits’ 

performance in training.

Too dispersed to require 

formal and regular 

interaction between drill 

instructors and 

recruiters. There are too 

many locations for 

recruiters to keep track 

of recruits.

Interaction between 

drill instructors and 

recruiters is 

generally limited to 

one-time recruiter 

visits to basic 

training to talk with 

trainees.

Substantially implemented

Has a voluntary physical 

fitness test as part of its 

Advanced Paygrade 

System.

Gives an initial strength 

test to recruits before they 

are sent to basic training.

Has a voluntary physical 

fitness test as part of an 

incentive program for 

enlistees to achieve an 

advanced paygrade 

before they are sent to 

basic training.

Does not and does 

not intend to 

administer fitness 

tests, as it does not 

see fitness as a 

major problem.

Substantially implemented

Uses an electronic form to 

transmit background check 

forms directly to the DSS.c

Does not yet have the 

capability to send 

background check forms 

electronically.

Met DOD’s target date 

for transmitting 

background forms 

electronically. However, 

DSS backlogs require 

that most forms 

continue to be 

transmitted manually.

Transmits all 

background forms 

electronically to 

DSS.

Partially implemented
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 40 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Note: Gray shading in the table indicates areas in which either DOD or the services have no 

responsibility for implementing the recommendation.

a

MEPCOM = Military Entrance Processing Command.

b

MEPS = Military Entrance Processing Station.

c

DSS = Defense Security Service.

19. Require that all national agency checks for 

enlistment be based on full fingerprint searches.

NSIAD-99-53, Feb. 23, 1999 Plans to purchase automatic 

fingerprint machines for all 65 MEPS 

by the end of 2000. These machines 

will enable DOD to do full fingerprint 

searches quickly.

20. Do not assign enlistees to their first-duty stations 

until their background checks are complete.

NSIAD-99-53, Feb. 23, 1999

(Continued From Previous Page)

Recommendation GAO report and number DOD response
Appendix I

DOD and Service Actions to Implement Our 

Recommendations

Page 41 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Navy response Marine Corps response Army response Air Force response Status of implementation

Will have all applicants 

undergo full fingerprint 

searches even before 

automated fingerprint 

machines are installed at 

the MEPS.

Will require that all 

enlistees undergo full 

fingerprint searches as 

soon as the automated 

fingerprint machines are 

installed at the MEPS.

Plans to require all 

enlistees to undergo full 

fingerprint searches as 

soon as the automated 

fingerprint machines are 

installed at the MEPS.

Will require full 

fingerprint searches 

of all enlistees even 

before the 

automated 

fingerprint machines 

are installed at the 

MEPS.

Partially implemented

Does not hold enlistees 

until their checks are 

complete because it takes 

more than 140 days for 

DSS to complete the 

checks.

Does not hold enlistees 

until background checks 

are completed.

Does not hold enlistees 

until their background 

checks are completed 

because of the DSS 

backlog. Interviews 

each recruit whose 

check has not been 

completed before 

she/he may proceed to 

basic training.

Does not hold 

enlistees until their 

background checks 

are completed 

because of the need 

to fill monthly 

classroom seats and 

meet enlistment 

goals.

Not implemented − action 

taken
Page 42 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Appendix II

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology ApendxiI

DOD faces a significant challenge in recruiting and retaining the hundreds 

of thousands of new recruits it enlists each year. In response to the request 

of the former Chairman and the current Ranking Member, we assessed (1) 

the services’ responses to recent recruiting shortfalls and their long-term 

effects and (2) the services’ efforts to reduce their historically high firstterm enlisted attrition rates. 

To determine what the services were doing to meet their recruiting needs, 

we interviewed officials at each of the services’ recruiting commands: the 

Army Recruiting Command, Fort Knox, Kentucky; the Marine Corps 

Recruiting Command, Quantico, Virginia; the Navy Recruiting Command, 

Millington, Tennessee; and the Air Force Recruiting Service, Randolph Air 

Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. We also reviewed past research on the 

effectiveness of various approaches to recruiting.

To determine what the services have been doing to reduce attrition during 

basic training, we visited one of each service’s basic training sites: Army 

Basic Training, Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Navy Recruit Training 

Command, Great Lakes, Illinois; Marine Corps Basic Training, Parris Island, 

South Carolina; and Air Force Basic Training, Lackland Air Force Base, San 

Antonio, Texas. We interviewed officials responsible for implementing 

attrition-reduction initiatives and reviewed documentation on the 

effectiveness of these efforts. 

To determine whether service efforts to reduce first-term enlisted attrition 

have been successful, we updated our previously reported attrition data by 

adding information on the most recent group of enlistees for whom the 

Defense Manpower Data Center had data 4 years after entry into the 

service. This group involved all enlistees who entered the services with no 

prior service in fiscal year 1995 and were separated before the end of 1999. 

We compared the attrition rates of this group to attrition rates for enlistees 

who entered the services in earlier years. Although we did not extensively 

test the reliability of the Center’s database, we did compare attrition rates 

using this data to the attrition rates the services calculate themselves. 

While the services collect and maintain attrition data differently, their rates 

of attrition revealed the same trends and patterns.

To determine what DOD is doing to improve the data on reasons for early 

attrition, we interviewed officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of 

Defense, Force Management Policy, Washington, D.C.; from the U.S. 

Military Entrance Processing Command, in North Chicago, Illinois; and 

from the Walter Reed Institute of Research, Washington, D.C. We also 
Appendix II

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 43 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

reviewed revisions made to the separations codes that are used to classify 

enlistees’ discharges.

We conducted our review between August 1999 and June 2000 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Page 44 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Appendix III

Comments From the Department of Defense ApendxiI
Appendix III

Comments From the Department of Defense

Page 45 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Now on p. 30.
Appendix III

Comments From the Department of Defense

Page 46 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Now on p. 30.
Page 47 GAO/NSIAD-00-146 Military Personnel

Appendix IV

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiIV

GAO Contacts William Beusse (202) 512-3517

Acknowledgments In addition to the name above, Beverly Schladt, Joan Slowitsky, Donna 

Rogers, Julia Kennon, and Nancy Ragsdale made key contributions to this 

report. 

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