a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Subcommittee on 

Personnel, Committee on Armed 

Services, U.S. Senate

September 2004 MILITARY 

PERSONNEL

DOD Needs to 

Address Long-term 

Reserve Force 

Availability and 

Related Mobilization 

and Demobilization 

Issues

GAO-04-1031
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-1031.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Derek B. 

Stewart at (202) 512-5559 or 

stewartd@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-1031, a report to the 

Subcommittee on Personnel, Committee 

on Armed Services, U.S. Senate 

September 2004

MILITARY PERSONNEL

DOD Needs to Address Long-term 

Reserve Force Availability and Related 

Mobilization and Demobilization Issues 

Over 335,000 reserve members 

have been involuntarily called to 

active duty since September 11, 

2001, and the Department of 

Defense (DOD) expects future 

reserve usage to remain high. This 

report is the second in response to 

a request for GAO to review DOD’s 

mobilization and demobilization 

process. This review specifically 

examined the extent to which (1) 

DOD’s implementation of a key 

mobilization authority and 

personnel polices affect reserve 

force availability, (2) the Army was 

able to execute its mobilization and 

demobilization plans efficiently, 

and (3) DOD can manage the health

of its mobilized reserve forces. 

GAO recommends that DOD 

develop a strategic framework with 

personnel policies linked to human 

capital goals, update planning 

assumptions, determine the most 

efficient mobilization support 

options, update health guidance, 

set a timeline for submitting health 

assessments electronically, and 

improve medical oversight. Of eight 

recommendations, DOD agreed 

with five and partially agreed with 

three. DOD cited four documents 

that it says, along with associated 

personnel policies, constitute its 

strategic framework. GAO notes 

that DOD’s policies were issued 

prior to these framework 

documents. DOD said oversight of 

Marine Corps health data would be 

difficult. GAO believes this 

oversight is needed to determine 

the medical readiness of reservists. 

DOD’s implementation of a key mobilization authority to involuntarily call 

up reserve component members and personnel policies greatly affects the 

numbers of reserve members available to fill requirements. Involuntary 

mobilizations are currently limited to a cumulative total of 24 months under 

DOD’s implementation of the partial mobilization authority. Faced with 

some critical shortages, DOD changed a number of its personnel policies to 

increase force availability. However, these changes addressed immediate 

needs and did not take place within a strategic framework that linked human 

capital goals with DOD’s organizational goals to fight the Global War on 

Terrorism. DOD was also considering a change in its implementation of the 

partial mobilization authority that would have expanded its pool of available 

personnel. This policy revision would have authorized mobilizations of up to 

24 consecutive months without limiting the number of times personnel could 

be mobilized, and thus provide an essentially unlimited flow of forces. In 

commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that it would retain its 

current cumulative approach, but DOD did not elaborate in its comments on 

how it expected to address its increased personnel requirements. 

The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and 

demobilization plans, because the plans contained outdated assumptions 

concerning the availability of facilities and support personnel. For example, 

plans assumed that active forces would be deployed abroad, thus vacating 

facilities when reserves were mobilizing and demobilizing but reserve forces 

were used earlier and active forces had often not vacated the facilities. As a 

result, some units were diverted away from their planned mobilization sites, 

and disparities in housing accommodations existed between active and 

reserve forces. Efficiency was also lost when short notice hampered 

coordination efforts among planners, support personnel, and mobilizing or 

demobilizing reserve forces. To address shortages in housing and other 

facilities, the Army has embarked on several construction and renovation 

projects without updating its planning assumptions regarding the availability 

of facilities. As a result, the Army risks spending money inefficiently on 

projects that may not be located where the need is greatest. Further, the 

Army has not taken a coordinated approach evaluating all the support costs 

associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites in order 

to determine the most efficient options for the Global War on Terrorism. 

 

DOD’s ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve forces is 

limited because its centralized database has missing and incomplete health 

records and it has not maintained full visibility over reserve component 

members with medical problems. For example, the Marine Corps did not 

send pre-deployment health assessments to DOD’s database as required, due 

to unclear guidance and a lack of compliance monitoring. The Air Force has 

visibility of involuntarily mobilized members with health problems, but lacks 

visibility of members with health problems who are on voluntary orders. As 

a result, some personnel had medical problems that had not been resolved 

for up to 18 months, but the full extent of this situation is unknown.
Page i GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3 

Background 8 

Availability of Reserves Is Greatly Influenced by Mobilization 

Authorities and Personnel Policies 16 

The Army Was Not Able to Efficiently Execute Its Mobilization and 

Demobilization Plans 26 

Ability to Effectively Manage Health of Servicemembers Is Limited 37 

Conclusions 50 

Recommendations for Executive Action 52 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 53 

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 56 

Appendix II National Guard and Reserve End Strength Figures 61 

Appendix III Service Mobilization and Demobilization Installations 62 

Appendix IV Differences between Demobilization and Periodic 

Physicals for Reserve Component Members 68 

Appendix V Pre- and Post-Deployment Health Assessment Forms 69 

Appendix VI Service Stop-Loss Policies since September 11, 2001 75 

Appendix VII Reserve Component Recruiting Results, Fiscal Year 

1993-2004 79 

Contents 
Page ii GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Appendix VIII Service Medical and Physical Evaluation Board 

Processes 82 

Appendix IX Comments from the Department of Defense 85 

Appendix X GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 90 

Related GAO Products 91 

Tables 

Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 

11, 2001 10 

Table 2: Mobilization and Pre-Deployment Assessment Numbers 38 

Table 3: Service Decisions Concerning Reserve Component 

Member Deployability 40 

Table 4: Pre-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical 

Referrals 43 

Table 5: Post-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical 

Referrals 44 

Table 6: Comparison of Self-Reported Composite Health from Preand Post-Deployment Health Assessments 45 

Table 7: Changes in Reserve Category End Strengths 61 

Table 8: Fiscal Year 2003 End Strengths for Each of DOD’s Six 

Reserve Components 61 

Table 9: Physical Requirements 68 

Table 10: Reserve Component Recruiting Figures 80 

Figures 

Figure 1: Average Days of Duty Performed by DOD’s Reserve 

Component Forces, Fiscal Years 1989–2003 13 

Figure 2: Steps of DOD’s Disabilities Evaluation System 82 
Page iii GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Abbreviations 

AMSA Army Medical Surveillance Activity 

DOD Department of Defense 

GAO Government Accountability Office 

IMA Installation Management Agency 

IRR Individual Ready Reserve 

MEB Medical Evaluation Board 

OASD/RA Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

 (Reserve Affairs) 

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense 

PEB Physical Evaluation Board 

TPFDD Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data 

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Page 1 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

September 15, 2004 

The Honorable Saxby Chambliss 

Chairman 

The Honorable E. Benjamin Nelson 

Ranking Minority Member 

Subcommittee on Personnel 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate 

The Department of Defense (DOD) currently cannot meet its global 

commitments without sizeable participation from among its 1.2 million 

National Guard and Reserve members. Since September 11, 2001, more 

than 335,000 of DOD’s reserve component1

 members have been 

involuntarily called to active duty—almost 234,000 from the Army, almost 

56,000 from the Air Force, over 24,000 from the Marine Corps and over 

21,000 from the Navy. Furthermore, thousands of reserve component 

members have volunteered for extended periods of active duty service, 

according to DOD officials. During this period, the Army has had more 

reserve component members mobilized than all the other services 

combined. Much of the Army’s reserve component force has been 

organized, trained, and resourced as a strategic reserve that would receive 

personnel, training, and equipment as a later-deploying reserve force 

rather than an operational force designed for continued overseas 

deployments. 

Reserve component members have been deployed around the world; some 

helping to maintain peace and security at home while others serve on the 

front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. According to DOD 

figures, over 195,000 of the mobilized reserve component members had 

been demobilized as of April 7, 2004. Since the pace of reserve operations 

is expected to remain high due to the Global War on Terrorism stretching 

 1

DOD’s reserve components include the collective forces of the Army National Guard and 

the Air National Guard, as well as the forces from the Army Reserve, the Naval Reserve, the 

Marine Corps Reserve, and the Air Force Reserve. The Coast Guard Reserve also assists 

DOD in meeting its commitments. However, we did not cover the Coast Guard Reserve 

during this review because it accounts for about 1 percent of the total reserve force and 

comes under the day-to-day control of the Department of Homeland Security rather than 

DOD. 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

indefinitely into the future, it is critical that the services mobilize and 

demobilize their reserve forces as efficiently as possible.2

 Furthermore, 

DOD has recognized that the treatment of these servicemembers is one of 

the keys to the retention of a quality force. In addition, the health and 

treatment of Guard and Reserve members when mobilized have been the 

subject of recent media reports and congressional hearings. Health data 

are important to determine reservists’ deployability and to identify health 

trends for servicemembers, which could assist in the early identification of 

the causes of potential post-deployment health problems. 

This is the second and final report responding to your Subcommittee’s 

request that we review a wide range of issues related to mobilizations and 

demobilizations. Our first report, issued in August 2003, focused on 

reserve mobilization issues, including the mobilization approval process, 

visibility over the process, and DOD’s limited use of the Individual Ready 

Reserve. 3 As agreed with your offices, this review specifically examined 

the extent to which (1) DOD’s implementation of a key mobilization 

authority to involuntarily call up reserve component members and DOD’s 

personnel polices affect reserve component force availability, (2) the Army 

was able to efficiently execute its mobilization and demobilization plans, 

and (3) DOD can effectively manage the health status of its mobilized 

reserve component members. 

In addressing our objectives, we reviewed policies from the services and 

the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in light of the various 

mobilization authorities that are available to DOD and planned 

deployment rotations. We also visited sites where the services conduct 

mobilization and demobilization processing and interviewed responsible 

officials at those sites. Although we visited sites for all the services, we 

focused our review primarily on the Army’s mobilization and 

demobilization processes, since more personnel from the Army have been 

and are expected to be mobilized than from all the other services 

combined. We analyzed personnel and facility data obtained during the 

 2

 Mobilization is the process of assembling and organizing personnel and equipment, 

activating or federalizing units and members of the National Guard and Reserves for active 

duty, and bringing the armed forces to a state of readiness for war or other national 

emergency. Demobilization is the process necessary to release from active duty units and 

members of the National Guard and Reserve components who were ordered to active duty 

under various legislative authorities. 

3

 GAO, Military Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of 

Mobilizations for Reserve Forces, GAO-03-921 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 21, 2003). 
Page 3 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

site visits and held meetings with military and civilian officials from OSD, 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the service headquarters, reserve component 

headquarters, and support agencies. In addition, we examined the 

collection and processing of pre- and post-deployment health assessment 

information, and spoke to officials responsible for collecting and 

reviewing health assessment information at the mobilization and 

demobilization sites we visited. We also interviewed the officer in charge 

of the organization responsible for maintaining DOD’s centralized health 

assessment database, and obtained and analyzed information from the 

database containing the health assessments of over 290,000 reserve 

component members who were mobilized or demobilized from November 

2001 through March 2004. We also interviewed reserve component 

members with medical problems at the mobilization and demobilization 

sites we visited, and interviewed hospital commanders and their staffs, 

case managers and medical liaison officers, and officials from the service 

Surgeons General offices. Finally, we tracked and analyzed trends in 

service data concerning the numbers of personnel with medical problems, 

their locations, and the elapsed time since they had been diagnosed with 

their medical problems. Based on our review of databases we used, we 

determined that the DOD-provided data were reliable for the purposes of 

this report. We conducted our review from November 2003 through July 

2004 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. A more thorough description of our scope and methodology is 

provided in appendix I. 

DOD’s implementation of a key mobilization authority and the 

department’s personnel policies greatly affect the numbers of National 

Guard and Reserve personnel available to fill the increased requirements 

for the Global War on Terrorism. 

• The manner in which DOD implements its mobilization authorities 

affects the number of reserve component members available. The 

partial mobilization authority limits involuntary mobilizations to not 

more than 1 million reserve component members at any one time, for 

not more than 24 consecutive months during a time of national 

emergency. Under DOD’s current implementation of the authority, 

reserve component members can be involuntarily mobilized more than 

once, but involuntary mobilizations are limited to a cumulative total of 

24 months. If DOD’s implementation of the partial mobilization 

authority restricts the cumulative time that reserve component forces 

can be mobilized, then it is possible that DOD will run out of forces. 

Faced with critical shortages of some reserve component personnel, 

Results in Brief 
Page 4 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

DOD considered a change in its implementation of the partial 

mobilization authority that would have expanded its pool of available 

personnel. Under such a revised implementation, DOD could have 

mobilized its reserve component forces for less than 24 consecutive 

months; sent them home for an unspecified period; and then 

remobilized them, repeating this cycle indefinitely and providing an 

essentially unlimited flow of forces. 

• DOD’s personnel policies also affect the availability of reserve 

component members. Many of DOD’s policies that affect mobilized 

reserve component personnel were implemented in a piecemeal 

manner and were focused on the short-term requirements of the 

services and the needs of reserve component members rather than on 

long-term requirements and predictability. For example, DOD has 

sometimes implemented stop-loss policies, which are short-term 

measures that increase the availability of reserve component forces by 

retaining both active and reserve component members on active duty 

beyond the end of their obligated service. Overall, the policies reflect 

DOD’s past use of the reserve component as a later-deploying reserve 

force rather than a force designed for continued overseas deployments. 

However, DOD’s policies were not developed within the context of an 

overall strategic framework, which would set human capital goals 

concerning the availability of reserve forces and show how the policies 

work in conjunction with each other to meet the department’s longterm requirements for the Global War on Terrorism. Consequently, the 

policies underwent numerous changes as DOD strove to increase the 

availability of the reserve components to meet current requirements. 

These policy changes created uncertainties for reserve component 

members concerning the likelihood of their mobilization, the length of 

their service commitments, the length of their overseas rotations, and 

the types of missions that they would be asked to perform. It remains 

to be seen how these uncertainties will affect recruiting, retention, and 

the long-term viability of the reserve components. There are already 

indications that some portions of the force are being stressed. For 

example, the Army National Guard failed to meet its recruiting goal 

during 14 of 20 months from October 2002 through May 2004, and 

ended fiscal year 2003 approximately 7,800 soldiers below its recruiting 

goal. 

• Furthermore, it is unclear how DOD plans to meet its longer-term 

requirements for the Global War on Terrorism. In commenting on a 

draft of this report, DOD stated that it would retain its current 

implementation approach to the partial mobilization authority—

limiting mobilizations to a cumulative total of 24 months. Policies that 
Page 5 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

limit involuntary mobilizations based on cumulative service make it 

difficult for mobilization planners, who must keep track of prior 

mobilizations in order to determine which forces are available to meet 

future requirements. In June 2004, DOD had more than 150,000 reserve 

component members mobilized, and it projects that over the next 3 to 5 

years, it will continuously have 100,000 to about 150,000 reserve 

component members mobilized. It also noted that about 30,000 reserve 

members had already been mobilized for 24 months. The availability of 

the reserve force will continue to play an important role in the success 

of DOD’s missions. However, DOD’s comments that said it would retain 

its current implementation approach to the partial mobilization 

authority did not elaborate on how it would address the increased 

requirements under this approach. 

The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and 

demobilization plans because the plans contained outdated assumptions 

concerning the availability of facilities and support personnel. Specifically, 

the plans assumed (1) that active forces would deploy away from the 

mobilization and demobilization sites before the reserve forces arrived and 

(2) that specialized reserve component support units would remain 

available to support ongoing mobilizations and demobilizations. However, 

installation officials were not always able to prepare adequate facilities for 

the arrival of mobilizing and demobilizing reserve component forces 

because active forces had not deployed away from the mobilization and 

demobilization sites as plans had assumed. As a result, some reserve 

component units were diverted away from their planned mobilization 

sites, and disparities in housing accommodations arose between active 

and reserve component forces at the same installations. To address 

housing and other facilities shortages at mobilization and demobilization 

sites, the Army has embarked on a number of facility construction and 

renovation projects without updating its planning assumptions regarding 

the availability of facilities. In addition, installation officials faced 

uncertainties concerning the availability of specialized reserve component 

support units that provide much of the medical, training, logistics, and 

processing support during mobilization and demobilization. Faced with 

the prospect of mobilizing support personnel for more than 24 months, the 

Army began a series of initiatives to replace many of these specialized 

reserve component support personnel with civilians or contractors. These 

initiatives coupled with the facility construction and renovation projects 

are projected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. However, the 

Army did not take a coordinated approach to evaluate all the support costs 

associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites—

including both facility (construction, renovation, and maintenance) and 
Page 6 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

support personnel (reserve component, civilian, contractor or a 

combination) costs—and determine the most efficient options. 

DOD’s ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve 

component members is limited because (1) its centralized database has 

missing and incomplete health records and (2) it has not maintained full 

visibility over reserve component members with medical problems. 

• First, not all of the required information collected from reserve 

component members has reached DOD’s central data collection point. 

For example, the Marine Corps did not send servicemembers’ predeployment health assessment forms to the centralized database as 

required.4

 Marine Corps officials told us that Marine Corps guidance did 

not require them to submit pre-deployment health assessments to the 

centralized database. The Marine Corps also lacks a mechanism for 

overseeing the submission of these forms to the database. Some 

records in DOD’s centralized health assessment database did not 

include information that could be used to identify the causes of various 

medical problems, often because the forms were not submitted 

electronically. Even though all of the reserve components have the 

capability to submit the forms electronically—and such electronic 

submission would expedite the inclusion of key data for meaningful 

analysis, increase accuracy of the reported information, and lessen the 

burden of sites forwarding paper copies and the likelihood that 

information would be lost—DOD has not set a timeline for the services 

to electronically submit the health assessment forms to the centralized 

database. Despite some missing information in the database, we 

determined that over 90 percent of the more than 290,000 mobilized 

reserve component personnel rated their overall health as good to 

excellent. Despite the small percentages of mobilized personnel with 

medical problems, there are still thousands of reserve component 

personnel on active duty with medical problems, due to the large 

reserve component mobilizations. 

• Second, DOD’s ability to effectively manage the health of its reserve 

component members is limited because some of the reserve 

components could not adequately track personnel with medical issues. 

The Army previously lacked central visibility over its reserve 

 4

 DOD policy requires that the services collect pre- and post-deployment health information 

from servicemembers, and submit copies of the forms that are used to collect this 

information to the Army Medical Surveillance Activity. 
Page 7 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

component personnel with medical problems, and this contributed to 

housing and pay problems for the reserve component members, lost 

health care coverage for their dependents, and allegations that it was 

taking too long to get medical treatment. The Army has taken steps to 

address all of these problems and now has good visibility over its 

reserve component personnel who are on active duty with medical 

problems. However, the Air Force has visibility over only some of its 

personnel on active duty with medical problems because it lacks a 

mechanism for tracking reserve component members with health 

problems who are on voluntary active duty orders.5

 As a result, some 

air reserve component members have medical issues that may not have 

been resolved over long periods of time. For example, at one of the 

sites we visited, several reservists told us that they were currently on 

voluntary orders with medical problems, and one reservist who was 

currently on voluntary orders told us that his problem had lasted for 18 

months and he did not expect resolution of his case anytime soon. The 

extent to which such a problem is commonplace is unknown, given the 

inability of the Air Force to track such personnel. 

We are making eight recommendations in this report. We recommend that 

DOD develop a strategic framework that sets human capital goals 

concerning the availability of its reserve force to meet the longer-term 

requirements of the Global War on Terrorism and that DOD identify 

personnel policies that should be linked within the context of the strategic 

framework. We also recommend that DOD update the Army’s 

mobilization- and demobilization-planning assumptions, evaluate all 

support costs associated with mobilization and demobilization at 

alternative Army sites to determine the most efficient options, update 

Marine Corps guidance concerning the submission of health assessments, 

improve Marine Corps oversight of the submission of health assessments, 

set a timeline for the military departments to electronically submit health 

assessments, and develop a mechanism for Air Force tracking of reserve 

component members on voluntary active duty orders with health 

problems. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with five of our 

eight recommendations and partially concurred with the other three. DOD 

stated that it has a strategic framework for setting human capital goals, 

 5

 Reserve component members often switch to voluntary mobilization orders after the 

expiration of involuntary orders, but the Air Force has also used voluntary mobilizations in 

lieu of involuntary mobilizations under the current partial mobilization authority. 
Page 8 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

which was established through a December 2002 force mix review, a 

January 2004 rebalancing report, and other planning and budgeting 

guidance. However, DOD agreed that it should review and, as appropriate, 

update its strategic framework. Although the documents cited by DOD lay 

some of the groundwork needed to develop a strategic framework, these 

documents do not specifically address how DOD will integrate and align 

its personnel policies to maximize its efficient usage of reserve component 

personnel in order to meet its overall organizational goals. DOD also 

stated that its September 20, 2001, personnel and pay policy and its July 

19, 2002, addendum established personnel policies associated with this 

strategic framework and said that the department should review, and as 

appropriate, update the policies. However, the policies cited by DOD predate the 2004 report and the December 2002 review, which DOD cited as 

part of its strategic framework. The strategic framework should be 

established prior to the creation of personnel policies. Regarding our 

recommendation concerning Marine Corps oversight of health 

assessments, DOD stated that electronic submission might not be practical 

for every Marine Corps deployment. However, this recommendation was 

directed at the oversight of health assessments regardless of how the 

assessments are submitted—in paper or electric form. We continue to 

believe that the Marine Corps needs to establish a mechanism for 

overseeing the submission of its pre- and post-deployment health 

assessments. 

Mobilization is the process of assembling and organizing personnel and 

equipment, activating or federalizing units and members of the National 

Guard and Reserves for active duty, and bringing the armed forces to a 

state of readiness for war or other national emergency. It is a complex 

undertaking that requires constant and precise coordination between a 

number of commands and officials. Mobilization usually begins when the 

President invokes a mobilization authority and ends with the voluntary or 

involuntary mobilization of an individual Reserve or National Guard 

member. Demobilization6

 is the process necessary to release from active 

duty units and members of the National Guard and Reserve components 

who were ordered to active duty under various legislative authorities. 

 6

 Some of the services use the term “deactivation” to describe the process for taking 

reserve component members off active duty and use the term “demobilization” to describe 

the broader processes that also include restoring equipment to its reserve status. We have 

used the more common “demobilization” term throughout this report even though the 

report is focused on personnel issues. 

Background 
Page 9 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Mobilization and demobilization times can vary from a matter of hours to 

months depending on a number of factors. For example, many air reserve 

component units are required to be available to mobilize within 72 hours 

while Army National Guard brigades may require months of training as 

part of their mobilizations. Reserve component members’ usage of accrued 

leave can greatly affect demobilization times. Actual demobilization 

processing typically takes a matter of days once the member arrives back 

in the United States. However, since members earn 30 days of leave each 

year, they could have up to 60 days of leave available to them at the end of 

a 2-year mobilization. 

DOD has six reserve components: the Army Reserve, the Army National 

Guard, the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, the Naval Reserve, 

and the Marine Corps Reserve. Reserve forces can be divided into three 

major categories: the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve, and the Retired 

Reserve. The Ready Reserve had approximately 1.2 million National Guard 

and Reserve members at the end of fiscal year 2003, and its members were 

the only reservists who were subject to involuntary mobilization under the 

partial mobilization declared by President Bush on September 14, 2001. 

Within the Ready Reserve, there are three subcategories: the Selected 

Reserve, the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), and the Inactive National 

Guard. Members of all three subcategories are subject to mobilization 

under a partial mobilization. 

• At the end of fiscal year 2003, DOD had 875,072 Selected Reserve 

members. The Selected Reserve’s members included individual 

mobilization augmentees—individuals who train regularly, for pay, 

with active component units—as well as members who participate in 

regular training as members of National Guard or Reserve units. 

• At the end of fiscal year 2003, DOD had 274,199 IRR members. During a 

partial mobilization, these individuals—who were previously trained 

during periods of active duty service—can be mobilized to fill 

requirements. Each year, the services transfer thousands of personnel 

who have completed the active duty or Selected Reserve portions of 

their military contracts, but who have not reached the end of their 

military service obligations, to the IRR.7

 However, IRR members do not 

 7

 While enlistment contracts can vary, a typical enlistee would incur an 8-year military 

service obligation, which could consist of a 4-year active duty obligation followed by a 4-

year IRR obligation. 

Reserve Components and 

Categories 
Page 10 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

participate in any regularly scheduled training, and they are not paid 

for their membership in the IRR.8

• At the end of fiscal year 2003, the Inactive National Guard had 2,138 

Army National Guard members. This subcategory contains individuals 

who are temporarily unable to participate in regular training but who 

wish to remain attached to their National Guard unit. 

Appendix II contains additional information about end strengths within 

the various reserve components and different categories. 

Most reservists who were called to active duty for other than normal 

training after September 11, 2001, were mobilized under one of the three 

legislative authorities listed in table 1. 

Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 11, 2001 

Title 10 U.S.C. 

section 

Type of 

mobilization 

Number of 

Ready 

Reservists that 

can be 

mobilized at 

any one time Length of mobilizations 

12304 

(Presidential 

reserve call-up 

authority) 

Involuntary 200,000aNot more than 270 days for any 

operational mission 

12302 

(Partial 

mobilization 

authority) 

Involuntary 1,000,000 Not more than 24 consecutive 

months 

12301 (d) Voluntary Unlimited Unlimited 

Source: GAO. 

a

Under this authority, DOD can mobilize members of the Selected Reserve and certain IRR members 

but it is limited to not more than 200,000 members at any one time, of whom not more than 30,000 

may be members of the IRR. 

 8

 IRR members can request to participate in annual training or other operations, but most 

do not. Those who are activated are paid for their service. Also, there are small groups of 

IRR members who participate in unpaid training. The members of this last group are often 

in the IRR only for short periods while they are waiting to transfer to paid positions in the 

Selected Reserve. IRR members can receive retirement credit if they meet basic eligibility 

criteria through voluntary training or mobilizations. 

Mobilization Authorities 
Page 11 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

On September 14, 2001, President Bush declared that a national emergency 

existed as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York 

City, New York, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and he invoked 10 

U.S.C. § 12302, which is commonly referred to as the “partial mobilization 

authority.” On September 20, 2001, DOD issued mobilization guidance that, 

among a host of other things, directed the services as a matter of policy to 

specify in initial orders to Ready Reserve members that the period of 

active duty service under 10 U.S.C. § 12302 would not exceed 12 months. 

However, the guidance allowed the service secretaries to extend orders 

for an additional 12 months or remobilize reserve component members 

under the partial mobilization authority as long as an individual member’s 

cumulative service did not exceed 24 months under 10 U.S.C. § 12302. It 

further specified that “No member of the Ready Reserve called to 

involuntary active duty under 10 U.S.C. 12302 in support of the effective 

conduct of operations in response to the World Trade Center and 

Pentagon attacks, shall serve on active duty in excess of 24 months under 

that authority, including travel time to return the member to the residence 

from which he or she left when called to active duty and use of accrued 

leave.” The guidance also allowed the services to retain members on active 

duty after they had served 24 or fewer months under 10 U.S.C. § 12302 

with the member’s consent if additional orders were authorized under 10 

U.S.C. § 12301(d).9

Combatant commanders are principally responsible for the preparation 

and implementation of operation plans that specify the necessary level of 

mobilization of reserve component forces. The military services are the 

primary executors of mobilization. At the direction of the Secretary of 

Defense, the services prepare detailed mobilization plans to support the 

operation plans and provide forces and logistical support to the combatant 

commanders. 

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, who reports to the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, is to provide 

policy, programs, and guidance for the mobilization and demobilization of 

the reserve components. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after 

 9

 According to DOD, this policy guidance is still in effect and the only major change to the 

policy has been to allow the Army to call up reserve component members for more than 12 

months on their initial orders. However, DOD also noted that there have been multiple 

other documents published to augment the policy, provide more information, or implement 

legal requirements. 

Mobilization and 

Demobilization Roles and 

Responsibilities 
Page 12 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

coordination with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, 

the secretaries of the military departments, and the commanders of the 

Unified Combatant Commands, is to advise the Secretary of Defense on 

the need to augment the active forces with members of the reserve 

components. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also has 

responsibility for recommending the period of service for units and 

members of the reserve components ordered to active duty. The service 

secretaries are to prepare plans for mobilization and demobilization and to 

periodically review and test the plans to ensure the services’ capabilities to 

mobilize reserve forces and to assimilate them effectively into the active 

forces. 

Within the constraints of the existing mobilization authorities and DOD 

guidance, the services have flexibility as to how, where, and when they 

conduct mobilization and demobilization processing. Unit readiness also 

affects time frames. For example, air reserve component units, which 

must be ready to deploy on short notice, generally complete their 

mobilization processing much quicker than Army units that have been 

funded at low levels under the Army’s tiered readiness concept. However, 

higher-priority units may take longer to complete demobilization 

processing because, at the end of the processing, they must be ready to 

deploy on short notice again. 

The reserve components differ in their approaches to the mobilization and 

demobilization processes. The Army and Navy use centralized approaches, 

mobilizing and demobilizing their reserve component forces at a limited 

number of locations. The Army utilizes 15 primary sites that it labels 

“power projection platforms” and 12 secondary sites called “power 

support platforms.” The Navy has 15 geographically dispersed Navy 

Mobilization Processing Sites but is currently using only 5 of these sites 

because of the relatively small numbers of personnel who are mobilizing 

and demobilizing. 

By contrast, the Air Force uses a decentralized approach, mobilizing and 

demobilizing its reserve component members at their home stations—135 

for the Air Force Reserve and 90 for the Air National Guard. The Marine 

Corps uses a hybrid approach. It has five Mobilization Processing Centers 

to centrally mobilize individual reservists and is currently using three of 

these centers. However, the Marine Corps uses a decentralized approach 

to mobilize its units. Selected Marine Corps Reserve units do most of their 

mobilization processing at their home stations and then report to their 

gaining commands, such as the First or Second Marine Expeditionary 

Reserve Component 

Approaches to 

Mobilization and 

Demobilization 
Page 13 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Force located at Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune, respectively. 

Individuals usually demobilize at the same location where they mobilized 

and units generally demobilize at Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejeune. See 

appendix III for a listing of the services’ mobilization and demobilization 

sites. 

Figure 1 shows reserve component usage on a per capita basis since fiscal 

year 1989 and demonstrates the dramatic increase in usage that occurred 

after September 11, 2001. It shows that the ongoing usage—which includes 

support to operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi 

Freedom—exceeds the usage rates during the 1991 Persian Gulf War in 

both length and magnitude.10

Figure 1: Average Days of Duty Performed by DOD’s Reserve Component Forces, Fiscal Years 1989–2003 

Note: Duty days in figure 1 include training days as well as support for operational missions. 

 10 Noble Eagle is the name for the domestic war on terrorism. Enduring Freedom is the 

name for the international war on terrorism, including operations in Afghanistan. Iraqi 

Freedom is the name for operations in and around Iraq. 

Service Usage of the 

Reserve Component since 

September 11, 2001 

Duty days per capita

0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0

140.0

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Fiscal year

Source: GAO analysis of OASD/RA data
Page 14 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

While reserve component usage increased significantly after September 

11, 2001, an equally important shift occurred at the end of 2002. Following 

the events of September 11, 2001, the Air Force initially used the partial 

mobilization authority more than the other services. However, service 

usage shifted in 2002, and by the end of that year, the Army had more 

reserve component members mobilized than all the other services 

combined. Since that time, usage of the Army’s reserve component 

members has continued to dominate DOD’s figures. On June 30, 2004, the 

Army had about 131,000 reserve component members mobilized while the 

Air Force had about 12,000, the Marine Corps about 9,000, and the Navy 

about 3,000. 

Under the current partial mobilization authority, DOD increased not only 

the numbers of reserve component members that it mobilized, but also the 

length of the members’ mobilizations. The average mobilization for 

Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-91 was 156 days. 

However, by December 31, 2003, the average mobilization for operations 

Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom was 319 days, or 

double the length of mobilizations for Desert Shield and Desert Storm. By 

March 31, 2004, the average mobilization for the three ongoing operations 

had increased to 342 days, and that figure is expected to continue to rise. 

Section 1074f of Title 10, United States Code required that the Secretary of 

Defense establish a system to assess the medical condition of members of 

the armed forces (including members of the reserve components) who are 

deployed outside of the United States, its territories, or its possessions as 

part of a contingency operation or combat operation. It further required 

that records be maintained in a centralized location to improve future 

access to records and that the Secretary establish a quality assurance 

program to evaluate the success of the system in ensuring that members 

receive pre- and post-deployment medical examinations11 and that 

recordkeeping requirements are met. 

DOD policy requires that the services collect pre- and post-deployment 

health information from their members and submit copies of the forms 

that are used to collect this information to the Army Medical Surveillance 

 11 Physical examinations are not required but servicemembers may request physicals as 

part of their demobilization processing. Appendix IV shows the differences between 

required periodic physicals and optional demobilization physicals. 

DOD’s Management of 

Reserve Component 

Health Issues 
Page 15 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Activity (AMSA).12 Initially, deployment health assessments were required 

for all active and reserve component personnel who were on troop 

movements resulting from deployment orders of 30 continuous days or 

greater to land-based locations outside the United States that did not have 

permanent U.S. military medical treatment facilities. However, on October 

25, 2001, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs updated 

DOD’s policy and required deployment-related health assessments for all 

reserve component personnel called to active duty for 30 days or more. 

The policy specifically stated that the assessments were to be done 

whether or not the personnel were deploying outside the United States. 

Both assessments use a questionnaire designed to help military health care 

providers in identifying health problems and providing needed medical 

care. The pre-deployment health assessment is generally administered at 

the service mobilization site or unit home station before deployment, and 

the post-deployment health assessment is completed either in theater 

before redeployment to the servicemember’s home unit or shortly after 

redeployment. 

On February 1, 2002, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued 

updated deployment health surveillance procedures. Among other things, 

these procedures specified that servicemembers must complete or 

revalidate the health assessment within 30 days prior to deployment. The 

procedures also stated that the original completed health assessment 

forms were to be placed in the servicemember’s permanent medical record 

and a copy “immediately forwarded to AMSA.” 

Both the pre- and the post-deployment assessments were originally twopage forms, but on April 22, 2003, the post-deployment assessment was 

expanded to four pages “in response to national interest in the health of 

deployed personnel, combined with the timing and scope of current 

deployments.” Both forms include demographic information about the 

servicemember, member-provided information about the member’s 

general health, and information about referrals that are issued when 

service medical providers review the health assessments. The predeployment assessment also includes a final medical disposition that 

shows whether the member was deployable or not, and the postdeployment assessment contains additional information about the location 

where the member was deployed and things that the member might have 

been exposed to during the deployment. Compared with the two-page 

 12 AMSA operates the Defense Medical Surveillance System, which was established in 1997. 
Page 16 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

post-deployment form, the four-page form captures more-detailed 

information on deployment locations, potentially hazardous exposures, 

and medical symptoms the servicemember might have experienced. It also 

asks a number of mental health questions. Examples of the forms can be 

found in appendix V. 

Our August 2003 report found the following: 

• DOD’s process to mobilize reservists after September 11, 2001, had to 

be modified and contained numerous inefficiencies. 

• DOD did not have visibility over the entire mobilization process 

primarily because it lacked adequate systems for tracking personnel 

and other resources. 

• The services have used two primary approaches—predictable 

operating cycles and formal advance notification—to provide time for 

units and personnel to prepare for mobilizations and deployments. 

• Mobilizations were hampered because one-quarter of the Ready 

Reserve was not readily available for mobilization or deployment. Over 

70,000 reservists could not be mobilized because they had not 

completed training requirements, and the services lacked information 

needed to fully use the 300,000 previously trained IRR members. 13

We made a number of recommendations in our report to enhance the 

efficiency of DOD’s reserve component mobilizations. DOD generally 

concurred with the recommendations and has mobilization reengineering 

efforts under way to make the process more efficient. The Army has also 

taken steps to improve the information it maintains on IRR members. 

The availability of reserve component forces to meet future requirements 

is greatly influenced by DOD’s implementation of the partial mobilization 

authority and by the department’s personnel policies. Furthermore, many 

of DOD’s policies that affect mobilized reserve component personnel were 

implemented in a piecemeal manner, and were focused on the short-term 

needs of the services and reserve component members rather than on 

long-term requirements and predictability. The availability of reserve 

component forces will continue to play an important role in the success of 

DOD’s missions because requirements that increased significantly after 

 13 GAO-03-921. 

GAO’s Prior Report on 

DOD’s Mobilization 

Process 

Availability of 

Reserves Is Greatly 

Influenced by 

Mobilization 

Authorities and 

Personnel Policies
Page 17 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

September 11, 2001, are expected to remain high for the foreseeable 

future. As a result, there are early indicators that DOD may have trouble 

meeting predictable troop deployment and recruiting goals for some 

reserve components and occupational specialties. 

On September 14, 2001, DOD broke with its previous pattern of invoking 

successive authorities by invoking a partial mobilization authority without 

a prior Presidential Reserve call-up. In addition, DOD was considering a 

change in its implementation of the partial mobilization authority. The 

manner in which DOD implements the mobilization authorities currently 

available can result in either an essentially unlimited supply of forces or 

running out of forces available for deployment, at least in the short term. 

While DOD has consistently used two mobilization authorities to gain 

involuntary access to its reserve component forces since 1990, the 

methods of using the authorities has not remained constant. On August 22, 

1990, the President invoked Title 10 U.S.C. Section 673b, allowing DOD to 

mobilize Selected Reserve members for Operation Desert Shield.14 The 

provision was then commonly referred to as the Presidential Selected 

Reserve Call-up authority and is now called the Presidential Reserve Callup authority.15 This authority limits involuntary mobilizations to not more 

than 200,000 reserve component members at any one time, for not more 

than 270 days, for any operational mission. On January 18, 1991, the 

President invoked Title 10 U.S.C. Section 673, commonly referred to as the 

“partial mobilization authority,” thus providing DOD with additional 

authority to respond to the continued threat posed by Iraq’s invasion of 

Kuwait.16 The partial mobilization authority limits involuntary 

mobilizations to not more than 1 million reserve component members at 

any one time, for not more than 24 consecutive months, during a time of 

national emergency. During the years between Operation Desert Shield 

and September 11, 2001, DOD invoked a number of separate missionspecific Presidential Reserve Call-ups for operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, 

Southwest Asia, and Haiti. The department did not seek a partial 

 14 The provision was renumbered 12304 in 1994. Pub. L. No. 103-337, §1662(e) (2) (1994). 

15 In 1990, the authority permitted the involuntary call-up of only members of the Selected 

Reserve. The statute was amended to permit the call-up of up to 30,000 members of the 

Individual Ready Reserve and is consequently now referred to as the Presidential Reserve 

Call-up authority. Pub. L. No. 105-85 § 511 (1997). 

16 This provision was renumbered 12302 in 1994. Pub. L. No. 103-337, §1662(e) (2) (1994). 

DOD’s Recent Use of 

Mobilization Authorities 
Page 18 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

mobilization authority for any of these operations, and it continued to 

view the partial mobilization authority as the second step in a series of 

progressive measures to address escalating requirements during a time of 

national emergency. 

Unlike the progressive use of mobilization authorities following Iraq’s 1990 

invasion of Kuwait, after the events of September 11, 2001, the President 

invoked the partial mobilization authority without a prior Presidential 

Reserve Call-up.17 Since the partial mobilization for the Global War on 

Terrorism went into effect in 2001, DOD has used both the partial 

mobilization authority and the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority to 

involuntarily mobilize reserve component members for operations in the 

Balkans. 

The manner in which DOD implements the partial mobilization authority 

affects the number of reserve component forces available for deployment. 

When DOD issued its initial guidance concerning the partial mobilization 

authority in 2001, it limited mobilization orders to 12 months but allowed 

the service secretaries to extend the orders for an additional 12 months or 

remobilize reserve component members, as long as an individual 

member’s cumulative service under the partial mobilization authority did 

not exceed 24 months. Under this cumulative implementation approach, it 

is possible for DOD to run out of forces during an extended conflict such 

as the long-term Global War on Terrorism. During our review, DOD was 

already facing some critical personnel shortages. To expand its pool of 

available personnel, DOD was considering a policy shift that would have 

authorized mobilizations of up to 24 consecutive months under the partial 

mobilization authority with no limit on cumulative months. Under the 

considered approach, DOD would have been able to mobilize its forces for 

less than 24 months; send them home; and then remobilize them, repeating 

this cycle indefinitely and providing essentially an unlimited flow of 

forces. 

 17 In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD indicated that under its analysis of the 

applicable authorities at the time, DOD was not authorized to use Presidential Reserve 

Call-up authority in September 2001. DOD also noted that 10 U.S.C 12304(b) has since been 

changed to allow for the call-up of Reserve members in response to “...a terrorist attack or 

threatened terrorist attack...”. 
Page 19 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Many of DOD’s policies that affect mobilized reserve component 

personnel were implemented in a piecemeal manner and were not linked 

within the context of a strategic framework to meet the organizational 

goals. Overall, the policies reflected DOD’s past use of the reserve 

components as a strategic force rather than DOD’s current use of the 

reserve component as an operational force to respond to the increased 

requirements of the Global War on Terrorism. Faced with some critical 

shortages, the policies focused on the short-term needs of the services and 

reserve component members rather than on long-term requirements and 

predictability. This approach was necessary because the department had 

not developed a strategic framework that identified DOD’s human capital 

goals necessary to meet organizational requirements. Without a strategic 

framework, OSD and the services made several changes to their personnel 

policies to increase the availability of the reserve components for the 

longer-term requirements of the Global War on Terrorism, and 

predictability declined for reserve component members. Specifically, 

reserve component members have faced uncertainties concerning the 

likelihood of their mobilizations, the length of their service commitments, 

the length of their overseas rotations, and the types of missions that they 

would be asked to perform. 

The partial mobilization authority allows DOD to involuntarily mobilize 

members of the Ready Reserve, including the IRR;18 but after the President 

invoked the partial mobilization authority on September 14, 2001, DOD 

and service policies encouraged the use of volunteers and generally 

discouraged the involuntary mobilization of IRR members. DOD officials 

said that they could meet requirements without using the IRR and stated 

that they wanted to focus involuntary mobilizations on the paid, rather 

than unpaid members, of the reserve components. However, our August 

2003 report documented the lack of predictability that resulted from the 

volunteer and IRR policies.19 These policies were disruptive to the integrity 

of Army units because there was a steady flow of personnel among units. 

Personnel were transferred from nonmobilizing units to mobilizing units 

that were short of personnel, and when the units that had supplied the 

 18 The partial mobilization authority (10 U.S.C. § 12302) states that “To achieve fair 

treatment as between members in the Ready Reserve who are being considered for recall 

to duty without their consent, consideration shall be given to (1) the length and nature of 

previous service, to assure such sharing of exposure to hazards as the national security and 

military requirements will reasonably allow; (2) family responsibilities; and (3) employment 

necessary to maintain the national health, safety, or interest.” 

19 GAO-03-921. 

Piecemeal Policies Did Not 

Address Long-term 

Requirements or 

Predictability 

Volunteer and Individual Ready 

Reserve Policies 
Page 20 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

personnel were later mobilized, they in turn were short of personnel and 

had to draw personnel from still other units. Despite the DOD and Army 

reluctance to use the IRR, the Chief of the Army Reserve has advocated 

using the IRR to cut down on the disruptive cross-leveling and individual 

mobilizations that have been breaking Army units. From September 11, 

2001 to May 15, 2004, the Army Reserve mobilized 110,000 of its reservists, 

but more than 27,000 of these reservists were cross-leveled and mobilized 

with units that they did not normally train with. Furthermore, because the 

IRR makes up almost one-quarter of the Ready Reserve, policies that 

discourage the use of the IRR will cause members of the Selected Reserve 

to share greater exposures to the hazards associated with national security 

and military requirements. Moreover, policies that discourage the use of 

the IRR could cause DOD’s pool of available reserve component personnel 

to shrink by more than 200,000 personnel. 

Since our August 2003 report, Navy and Air Force officials have stated that 

they still have not involuntarily mobilized any members of their IRRs. In 

our August 2003 report, we noted that the Air Force’s reluctance to use 

any of its more than 44,000 IRR members resulted in unfilled requirements 

for more than 9,000 personnel to guard Air Force bases. However, the 

Army National Guard agreed to provide personnel from its Selected 

Reserve units to fill these requirements. Faced with critical personnel 

shortages, the Army recently changed its policy and now plans to make 

limited use of its IRR. To date, the Marine Corps has made the most 

extensive use of its IRR, capitalizing on the willingness of many members 

to voluntarily return to active duty. 

At various times since September 2001, all of the services have had “stoploss” policies in effect.20 These policies are short-term measures that 

increase the availability of reserve component forces while decreasing 

predictability for reserve component members who are prevented from 

leaving the service at the end of their enlistment periods. Stop-loss policies 

are often implemented to retain personnel in critical or high-use 

occupational specialties. Appendix VI contains a summary of the services’ 

stop-loss policies that have been in effect since September 2001. 

The only stop-loss policy in effect when we ended our review was an Army 

policy that applied to units rather than individuals in critical occupations. 

 20 Stop-loss policies can affect active as well as reserve component personnel. The focus of 

our report was those policies affecting the reserves. 

Stop-Loss Policies 
Page 21 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Under that policy, Army reserve component personnel were not permitted 

to leave the service from the time their unit was alerted21 until 90 days after 

the date when their unit was demobilized. Because many Army units 

undergo several months of training after being mobilized but before being 

deployed overseas for 12 months, stop-loss periods can reach 2 years or 

more. 

According to Army officials, a substantial number of reserve component 

members have been affected by the changing stop-loss policies. As of June 

30, 2004, the Army had over 130,000 reserve component members 

mobilized and thousands more alerted or demobilized less than 90 days. 

Because they have remaining service obligations, many of these reserve 

component members would not have been eligible to leave the Army even 

if stop-loss policies had not been in effect. However, from fiscal year 1993 

through fiscal year 2001,22 Army National Guard annual attrition rates 

exceeded 16 percent and Army Reserve rates exceeded 25 percent. Even a 

16 percent attrition rate means that 20,800 of the mobilized 130,000 reserve 

component soldiers would have left their reserve component each year. If 

attrition rates exceed 16 percent or the thousands of personnel who are 

alerted or who have been demobilized for less than 90 days are included, 

the numbers of personnel affected by stop-loss policies would increase 

even more.23 When the Army’s stop-loss policies are eventually lifted, 

thousands of servicemembers could retire or leave the service all at once 

and the Army’s reserve components could be confronted with a huge 

increase in recruiting requirements. 

Following DOD’s issuance of guidance concerning the length of 

mobilizations in September 2001, the services initially limited most 

mobilizations to 12 months, and most services maintained their existing 

operational rotation policies to provide deployments of a predictable 

length that are preceded and followed by standard maintenance and 

training periods. However, the Air Force and the Army later increased the 

length of their rotations, and the Army increased the length of its 

mobilizations as well. These increases in the length of mobilizations and 

 21 The Army goal is to alert units at least 30 days prior to the units’ mobilization date. 

22 Army stop-loss policies went into effect early in fiscal year 2002. 

23 Officials from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve 

Affairs) estimated that recent stop-loss policies might have prevented more than 42,000 

reserve component soldiers from leaving the service on the date when they would have 

been eligible if stop-loss policies had not been in effect. 

Mobilization and Rotation 

Policies 
Page 22 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

rotations increased the availability of reserve component forces but 

decreased predictability for individual reserve component members who 

were mobilized and deployed under one set of policies but later extended 

as a result of the policy changes. 

The Air Force’s operational concept prior to September 2001, was based 

on a rotation policy that made reserve component forces available for 3 

out of every 15 months. After September 2001, the Air Force was not able 

to solely rely on its normal rotations and had to involuntarily mobilize 

large numbers of reserve component personnel. From September 11, 2001, 

to March 31, 2004, the Air National Guard mobilized more than 31,000 

personnel, and the Air Force Reserve mobilized more than 24,000 

personnel. Although most Air Force mobilizations were for 12 months or 

less, more than 10,000 air reserve component members had their 

mobilization orders extended to 24 months. Most of these personnel were 

in security-related occupations. Since September 2001, the Air Force has 

not been able to return to its normal operating cycle, and in June 2004, the 

Air Force Chief of Staff announced that Air Force rotations would be 

increased to 4 months beginning in September 2004. 

Before September 2001, the Army mobilized its reserve component forces 

for up to 270 days under the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority, and it 

deployed these troops overseas for rotations that lasted about 6 months. 

When it began mobilizing forces under the partial mobilization authority in 

September 2001, the Army generally mobilized troops for 12 months. 

However, troops that were headed for duty in the Balkans continued to be 

mobilized under the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority. When 

worldwide requirements for both active and reserve component Army 

troops increased, the Army changed its Balkan rotation schedules. These 

schedules had been published years in advance to allow poorly resourced 

Guard and Reserve units time to train and prepare for the deployments. As 

a result of the changed schedules, some reserve component units did not 

have adequate time to prepare and train for Balkan rotations and then 

deploy for 6 months and still remain with the 270-day limit of the 

Presidential Reserve Call-up authority. Therefore, the Army mobilized 

some reserve component units under the partial mobilization authority so 

that they could undergo longer training periods prior to deploying for 6 

months under the Presidential Reserve Call-up authority. The Army’s 

initial deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan were scheduled for 6 months, 

just like the overseas rotations for the Balkans. Eventually, the Army 

increased the length of its rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan to 12 months. 

This increased the availability of reserve component forces, but it 

decreased predictability for members who were mobilized and deployed 
Page 23 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

during the transition period when the policy changed. Because overseas 

rotations were extended to 12 months and mobilization periods must 

include mobilization and demobilization processing time, training time, 

and time for the reserve component members to take any leave that they 

earn, the change in rotation policy required a corresponding increase in 

the length of mobilizations. 

DOD has a number of training initiatives underway that will increase the 

availability of its reserve component forces to meet immediate needs. 

Servicemembers are receiving limited training—called “cross-training”—

that enables them to perform missions that are outside their area of 

expertise. In the Army, field artillery and air defense artillery units have 

been trained to perform some military police duties. Air Force and Navy 

personnel received additional training and are providing the Army with 

additional transportation assets. DOD also has plans to permanently 

convert thousands of positions from low-use career fields to stressed 

career fields. 

While it remains to be seen how the uncertainty resulting from changing 

personnel policies will affect recruiting, retention, and the long-term 

viability of the reserve components, there are already indications that 

some portions of the force are being stressed. For example, the Army 

National Guard failed to meet its recruiting goal during 14 of 20 months 

and ended fiscal year 2003 approximately 7,800 soldiers below its 

recruiting goal. (Appendix VII contains additional information about 

reserve component recruiting results.) 

The Secretary of Defense established a force-planning metric to limit 

involuntary mobilizations to “reasonable and sustainable rates” and has set 

the metric for such mobilizations at 1 year out of every 6. However, on the 

basis of current and projected usage, it appears that DOD may face 

difficulties achieving its goal within the Army’s reserve components in the 

near term. Since February 2003, the Army has continuously had between 

20 and 29 percent of its Selected Reserve members mobilized. To 

illustrate, even if the Army were to maintain the lower 20 percent 

mobilization rate for Selected Reserve members, it would need to mobilize 

Cross-Training Policies 

Early Indications That 

DOD May Have Trouble 

Meeting Its Rotation and 

Recruiting Goals Exist 
Page 24 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

one-fifth of its selected reserve members each year.24 DOD is aware that 

certain portions of the force are used much more highly than others, and it 

plans to address some of the imbalances by converting thousands of 

positions from lower- demand specialties into higher-demand specialties. 

However, these conversions will take place over several years and even 

when the positions are converted, it may take some time to recruit and 

train people for the new positions. 

It is unclear how DOD plans to address its longer-term personnel 

requirements for the Global War on Terrorism, given its current 

implementation of the partial mobilization authority. Requirements for 

reserve component forces increased dramatically after September 11, 

2001, and are expected to remain high for the foreseeable future. In the 

initial months following September 11, 2001, the Air Force used the partial 

mobilization authority more than the other services, and it reached its 

peak with almost 38,000 reserve component members mobilized in April 

2002. However, by July 2002, Army mobilizations surpassed those of the 

Air Force, and since December 2002, the Army has had more reserve 

component members mobilized than all the other services combined. 

Although many of the members who have been called to active duty under 

the partial mobilization authority have been demobilized, as of March 31, 

2004, approximately 175,000 of DOD’s reserve component members were 

still mobilized and serving on active duty. According to OASD/RA data, 

about 40 percent of DOD’s Selected Reserve forces had been mobilized 

from September 11, 2001, to March 31, 2004.25

By June 30, 2004, the number of mobilized reserve component members 

had dropped to about 155,000—consisting of about 131,000 members from 

the Army, about 12,000 from the Air Force, about 9,000 from the Marine 

Corps, and about 3,000 from the Navy. However, the number of mobilized 

reserve component forces is projected to remain high for the foreseeable 

 24 Given the fiscal year 2003 attrition rates of 17 percent for the Army National Guard and 

21 percent for the Army Reserve, it might be possible to achieve the one in six metric if 

attrition is concentrated in the population that has already been mobilized, and the Army is 

able to fully utilize its entire selected reserve population by mobilizing individual soldiers 

out of its reserve component units that have already been mobilized. 

25 This percentage does not take into account the more than 270,00 IRR members who can 

be mobilized under a partial mobilization authority. DOD officials said that IRR members 

make up less than 2 percent of the 343,020 reserve component members who were 

mobilized from September 11, 2001, to March 31, 2004. 

DOD Plans to Address 

Increased Personnel 

Requirements Are Unclear 
Page 25 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

future. DOD projects that over the next 3 to 5 years, it will continuously 

have 100,000 to about 150,000 reserve component members mobilized, and 

the Army National Guard and Army Reserve will continue to supply most 

of these personnel. 

While Army forces may face the greatest levels of involuntary 

mobilizations over the next few years, all the reserve components have 

career fields that have been highly stressed. For example, the Navy and 

Marine Corps have mobilized 60 and 100 percent of their enlisted law 

enforcement specialists and 48 and 100 percent of their intelligence 

officers, respectively. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve 

mobilized 64 and 93 percent of their enlisted law enforcement specialists 

and 71 and 86 percent of their installation security personnel, respectively. 

• As noted earlier, during our review, DOD was considering changing its 

implementation of the partial mobilization authority from its current 

approach, which limits mobilizations to 24 cumulative months, to an 

approach that would have limited mobilizations to 24 consecutive 

months to expand its pool of available personnel. However, in 

commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that it would retain 

its current cumulative implementation approach. Policies that limit 

involuntary mobilizations on the basis of cumulative service make it 

difficult for mobilization planners, who must keep track of prior 

mobilizations in order to determine which forces are available to meet 

future requirements. This can be particularly difficult now, when many 

mobilizations involve individuals or small detachments rather than 

complete units. 

• In June 2004, DOD noted that about 30,000 reserve members had 

already been mobilized for 24 months. Under DOD’s cumulative 

approach, these personnel will not be available to meet future 

requirements. The shrinking pool of available personnel, along with the 

lack of a strategic plan to clarify goals regarding the reserve 

component force’s availability, will present the department with 

additional short- and long-term challenges as it tries to fill requirements 

for mobilized reserve component forces. In its comments on a draft of 

our report, DOD did not elaborate on how it expected to address its 

increased personnel requirements. 
Page 26 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

The Army was not able to efficiently execute its mobilization and 

demobilization plans, because mobilization and demobilization site 

officials faced uncertainties concerning demands for facilities, turnover 

among support personnel, and the arrival of reserve component forces. 

The efficiency of the mobilization and demobilization process depends on 

advanced planning and coordination. However, the Army’s planning 

assumptions did not accurately portray the availability of installations and 

personnel needed to fully accommodate the high number of mobilizations 

and demobilizations. Moreover, officials did not always have adequate 

notice to prepare for arriving troops. The Army has several initiatives 

under way to improve facility and support personnel availability, but it has 

not taken a coordinated approach to evaluate all the support costs 

associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites in 

order to determine the most efficient options under the operating 

environment for the Global War on Terrorism. 

The efficiency of the mobilization and demobilization processes depends 

largely on advanced planning in the form of facility preparation and 

coordination between installation planners, support personnel, and 

arriving reserve component units or individuals. The Army attempts to 

take the necessary planning steps to support efficient servicemember 

mobilization and demobilization. For example, installations that are 

responsible for mobilizing and demobilizing reserve component forces 

attempt to contact units or personnel prior to their arrival, so that both the 

reserve component forces and the supporting installations can be 

prepared to meet the Army’s mobilization and demobilization 

requirements. During these contacts, reserve component forces are told 

what records, and equipment to bring to the mobilization and 

demobilization sites and installation officials obtain information—such as 

the number of arriving troops and the anticipated time of their arrival—

that is necessary for them to efficiently prepare for the arrival of the 

reserve component forces. With this information, the installations can plan 

where they will house, feed, and train the troops; how they will transport 

the troops around the installation and to their final destinations; and when 

The Army Was Not 

Able to Efficiently 

Execute Its 

Mobilization and 

Demobilization Plans 

Advanced Planning and 

Coordination Are Key to 

Efficient Mobilizations and 

Demobilizations 
Page 27 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

they will send the troops for medical and dental screenings and 

administrative processing.26

Army guidance, which states that units are to demobilize at the same 

installation where they mobilized, can add to the efficiency of the 

demobilization process. Efficiencies can be realized because many of 

records created during the mobilization process or copies of the records 

are kept at the installation and can be used to do advanced preparation 

before the demobilizing unit arrives at the installation. Army officials told 

us that since September 11, 2001, most units have demobilized at the same 

installation where they mobilized, but there have been some exceptions. 

For example, officials from the First U.S. Army told us that they had 

mobilized a unit for Operation Iraqi Freedom at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and 

were demobilizing the unit at Fort Benning, Georgia. They also told us that 

troops who had mobilized at Fort Stewart, Georgia, were going to be 

demobilizing at Fort Dix, New Jersey, after a deployment to Kosovo. To 

accommodate shifts in demobilization sites, the new sites must, among 

other things, obtain reserve component unit medical, dental, and 

personnel records and must coordinate the return of individual equipment, 

such as helmets, sleeping bags, packs, and canteens that were issued at 

the original mobilization site.27 With adequate notice and planning, 

alternate demobilization sites can demobilize reserve component units 

without any major problems. However, officials at Fort Lewis, 

Washington, told us that their support personnel had to reconstruct dental 

records for 150 soldiers in an engineer unit that had originally mobilized at 

Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Because the Army’s goal is to complete 

demobilization processing within 5 days of a unit’s arrival at a 

demobilization site, the Fort Lewis personnel were not able to wait for the 

arrival of the dental records, which had been sent from Fort Leonard 

Wood via routine mail rather than overnight delivery. 

 26 Among other things, this administrative processing involves issuing identification cards; 

storing, retrieving, and checking pay and personnel records; processing travel vouchers; 

and providing numerous briefings on the reserve component members’ rights and benefits, 

such as health care. At one site we visited, 17 different briefings were given to the reserve 

component members during mobilization processing and 13 different briefings during 

demobilization processing. The briefings cover topics such as health benefits, pay, and 

legal and mental health matters. Some briefings were given during both mobilization and 

demobilization processing; other briefings were applicable only one time. 

27 Body armor had been among the items that were returned to the sites where it had been 

issued, but during our visit to Fort Lewis in March 2004, officials told us that body armor 

was being managed in theater and not being returned to the demobilization sites. 
Page 28 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

The Army’s planning assumptions did not accurately portray the 

availability of installations and personnel needed to fully accommodate 

the high number of mobilizations and demobilizations. Specifically, 

planning assumptions regarding the availability of facilities for 

mobilization and demobilization were outdated, and did not anticipate the 

availability of specially designed reserve component support units to 

provide much of the medical, training, logistics, and processing support 

needed to mobilize and demobilize reserve component units and 

individuals. 

The Army’s planning assumptions regarding the availability of facilities for 

mobilization and demobilization were outdated. Consequently, 

installations sometimes lacked the support infrastructure needed to 

accommodate both active and reserve component mobilizing and 

demobilizing members in an equitable manner. The Army’s mobilization 

and demobilization plans assumed that active forces would be deployed 

abroad, thus vacating installations when reserve component forces were 

mobilizing and often demobilizing. These assumptions are important 

because they served as a basis to help the Army determine which 

installations would have the necessary support facilities to serve as its 

primary and secondary mobilization sites.28 Most of the Army’s primary 

mobilization sites are installations that serve as home bases for large 

active Army units. For example, three of the Army’s primary sites that we 

visited—Fort Lewis, Washington; Fort Stewart, Georgia; and Fort Hood, 

Texas—are home to two active combat brigades, an active combat 

division, and two active combat divisions, respectively, along with hosts of 

other active forces. Fort Hood alone has about 42,000 active troops 

assigned to the installation. 

Under the Army’s plans, reserve component units were assigned 

mobilization and demobilization sites so that units could plan in advance 

for their mobilizations. Units often developed relationships with the 

installations where they expected to mobilize and in many cases the units 

trained at these installations. However, because active units had not 

vacated many of the Army’s major mobilization sites as planned, 

mobilizing reserve component forces were moved to sites where they had 

 28 The Army refers to its primary mobilization and demobilization sites as “power 

projection platforms” and its secondary sites as “power support platforms” and mobilizes 

most of its reserve component forces at these installations. However, the Army also uses a 

number of other installations to mobilize and demobilize small units or other troops that 

are slated to remain at or in the immediate vicinity of these other mobilizing installations. 

Army Planning 

Assumptions Were Not 

Accurate 

Assumptions for Availability of 

Facilities Were Outdated 
Page 29 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

not trained and where they had not developed any relationships that could 

have increased the mobilizations’ efficiency. As a result, transportation 

distances for personnel and equipment were increased, and extra 

coordination was required with the mobilization sites and sometimes even 

within units. For example, the 116th Cavalry Brigade from the Idaho Army 

National Guard, which had planned to mobilize at Fort Lewis, Washington, 

was mobilized at Fort Bliss, Texas, because, among other things, adequate 

housing facilities were not available at Fort Lewis. Another Army National 

Guard Brigade, which was mobilized at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, faced 

increased coordination challenges because one of its battalions was 

mobilized at Fort Drum, New York, and another at Fort Stewart, Georgia, 

because of a lack of available facilities at Fort Bragg. 

At mobilization and demobilization sites where active forces remained on 

the installations while reserve component forces were mobilizing or 

demobilizing, competing demands sometimes led to housing inequities for 

the reserve members. For example, at the installations we visited, single 

active component personnel who were permanently assigned to the 

installation were generally housed in barracks where two to four people 

shared a room,29 but mobilized reserve component personnel were often 

housed in open-bay barracks. At some installations, reserve component 

personnel were housed in tents, gymnasiums, or older buildings that were 

designed for short training periods rather than mobilization periods that 

could last several months. The presence of large active duty and reserve 

contingents on the same installations at the same time also strained 

training and medical facilities.30 Fort Hood officials said that the 

scheduling and rescheduling of training ranges presented major challenges 

during 2003 when the installation was preparing to deploy both its active 

divisions and a large group of reserve component forces at the same time. 

To address these facility challenges, the Army has begun a number of 

housing and facility construction and renovation projects. 

The Army did not anticipate that its reserve component units that support 

mobilizations and demobilizations would be needed beyond 24 months 

under a partial mobilization authority. When the Army created these units 

to provide much of the medical, training, logistics, and processing support 

to mobilizing and demobilizing units and individuals, it anticipated that the 

need for these units would be commensurate with the mobilization 

 29 Officers and senior enlisted personnel often had individual rooms. 

30 Medical facility issues are addressed in the next section of this report. 

Assumptions Did Not Account 

for Long-term Needs for 

Reserve Component Support 

Personnel under a Partial 

Mobilization Authority 
Page 30 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

authority in place at the time. However, the Army is now facing support 

requirements for a long-term Global War on Terrorism, while being limited 

to involuntary mobilizations of not more than 24 cumulative months under 

the department’s implementation of the partial mobilization authority. 

The underlying assumptions of the Army’s mobilization and 

demobilization plans were that (1) only a small portion of these reserve 

component support personnel would be required to support the limited 

mobilizations associated with a Presidential reserve call-up and (2) all of 

the reserve component support personnel would be available for as long 

as needed to support the large mobilizations for long periods that are 

associated with full or total mobilizations. The Army’s plans called for 

these support personnel to be among the first reserve component 

members mobilized and the last demobilized. Army officials assumed that, 

under a partial mobilization authority, these reserve component support 

forces would be able to support large mobilizations and demobilizations, 

or support mobilizations for long periods, but not large mobilizations for 

long periods. 

As a result of the large requirements for the Army’s reserve component 

forces, many pieces of the reserve component support units were 

mobilized for 12 months early in the Global War on Terrorism and then 

later extended. Some support personnel were mobilized for 24 months 

under the partial mobilization authority—which, under DOD’s current 

implementation, limits involuntary mobilizations to 24 cumulative 

months—and then sent home. However, many others agreed to stay on 

active duty under voluntary mobilization orders after they had served 24 

months under the partial mobilization authority. For example, from a 27-

person support detachment that was mobilized for 12 months at Fort 

Hood, in October 2001, 13 people were later extended for a full 2 years, 

and 6 of these reserve component personnel accepted voluntary orders at 

the end of their mobilizations. At Fort Lewis, two reserve component 

support detachments—one with 59 personnel and the other with 17—were 

mobilized in September 2001. Both detachments served on active duty for 

2 full years. In July 2004, more than 1,100 reserve component support 

personnel were on voluntary orders or mobilization extensions. 

Even though some reserve component support personnel have voluntarily 

extended their orders, the Army is facing a shortage of mobilization and 

demobilization support personnel because the Global War on Terrorism is 

lasting beyond the time when most reserve component support personnel 

would reach their 24-month mobilization points. Consequently, the Army 

has begun hiring civilian and contractor replacement personnel to provide 
Page 31 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

medical, training, logistics, and administrative support at its mobilization 

and demobilization sites. 

Planners and the installations that mobilize and demobilize reserve 

component forces have not always had adequate notice to prepare for 

arriving troops. Without advanced notice, officials at these sites are forced 

to make last-minute adjustments that may result in the inefficient use of 

installation facilities and support personnel. Our prior report highlighted 

problems associated with the lack of advance notice in March 2003.31

While officials at the installations we visited noted that the level of 

advance notice had improved significantly for mobilizing troops, they still 

faced some short-notice mobilizations. According to Army officials, the 

Army is currently providing 30 days’ notice to all involuntarily mobilized 

troops. However, as of May 2004 some units that are being mobilized 

under the partial mobilization authority are still being mobilized with less 

than 30 days advance notice. According to Army Reserve officials, each 

member of these units signs a volunteer waiver stating that he or she 

agrees to be mobilized with less than 30 days advance notice. Therefore, 

the Army does not violate its policy concerning advance notice for 

involuntary mobilizations. 

Installation planning officials told us that they typically receive shorter 

notice and less definitive information concerning the arrival of 

demobilizing troops. Typically, when an installation mobilizes a reserve 

component unit, the installation planner records the length of unit 

mobilization orders. Depending on the length of unit mobilization orders 

and the resulting time available for leave at the end of the orders, 

installation planners begin to anticipate the return of the unit up to several 

months before the unit’s orders expire. The planners said that they use a 

variety of formal and informal means to try to ascertain the specific arrival 

dates and times for demobilizing troops but that the arrival dates and 

times are often uncertain right up until the time the troops arrive. This is 

because their different sources of information sometimes provide 

conflicting information. 

The planners generally begin their search for information about units 

returning to their installation using the automated systems within DOD’s 

Joint Operations Planning and Execution System. A primary source of 

 31 GAO-03-921. 

Installation Planning and 

Support Officials 

Sometimes Lacked 

Adequate Notice to 

Prepare for Arriving 

Troops 
Page 32 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

information is the time-phased force and deployment data (TPFDD). 

Installation planning officials told us that the TPFDD is most valuable in 

providing them with information on large units with orders that have not 

changed and that return as complete units. However, the planners stated 

that it is not uncommon for the TPFDD to be incorrect or outdated 

because changes are constantly being made to redeployment schedules, 

particularly for small units or individuals. 

One source of such last-minute changes stems from changes in travel 

arrangements. According to DOD officials, when there are empty seats 

available on planes departing the theater of operations, small units are 

often placed on the planes at the last minute to fill the empty seats. 

However, these changes are not always captured in the TPFDD or DOD’s 

other automated systems. For example, while we were visiting Fort Lewis, 

planning officials were trying to determine which unit or units might be 

returning to Fort Lewis to go through demobilization processing along 

with the 502nd Transportation Company and 114th Chaplain detachment that 

were scheduled to arrive on March 1, 2004. Neither the TPFDD nor the 

other automated tracking systems that were available to planning officials 

at Fort Lewis provided definitive answers. As a result of contacts through 

informal channels, at 11:20 a.m. on March 1, 2004, Fort Lewis officials 

thought that 21 people from the 854th Quartermaster Unit were going to 

arrive at McChord Air Force Base—located adjacent to Fort Lewis, just 

south of Tacoma, Washington—40 minutes later. Due to the lack of 

reliable information, Fort Lewis officials could not finalize planning 

arrangements. For example, because they did not know whether to expect 

male or female soldiers, they could not finalize housing plans for the 

soldiers. Nor did they know whether the unit was bringing weapons with 

them or what types of weapons they might have, and thus transportation 

personnel and personnel in the arms room at Fort Lewis were placed on 

standby. A check with McChord officials at 11:50 a.m. revealed that there 

were no inbound flights. At 3:53 p.m. Fort Lewis officials had confirmation 

that the soldiers would be arriving at 9:35 p.m. and that there were 19 

additional personnel from an unknown unit or units on the plane with the 

21 soldiers from the 854th Quartermaster unit. By 4:12 p.m. on March 1, 

2004, the Fort Lewis officials had canceled the scheduled demobilization 

processing times for the 854th because information showed that the unit 

would not arrive until 7:42 a.m. on the following day, March 2, 2004. 

Planning officials had to make several other adjustments to planned 

schedules before the Quartermaster unit finally arrived. Moreover, the 

502nd Transportation Company and 114th Chaplain detachment, which had 

been visible through DOD’s formal systems, also arrived later than the 

expected March 1 date. 
Page 33 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Sometimes, planning officials receive information from informal sources, 

such as family members of deployed personnel. During our visit to Fort 

Lewis, officials had begun tracking an inbound Army National Guard 

military police unit on the basis of information received from an informal 

information source. This unit became visible to the planning officials when 

the wife of one of the soldiers, who also served as the unit’s family 

readiness coordinator, notified the officials that her husband and 11 other 

unit personnel had left Iraq, were in Germany, and were scheduled to fly to 

Washington state on a commercial airliner the next day. The coordinator 

also provided the Fort Lewis officials with the names and social security 

numbers for all 12 returning soldiers. According to Fort Lewis officials, in 

the past, 2 out of every 10 units have arrived at the site without 

notification. The demobilization planning officials at Fort Lewis summed 

up their visibility situation by stating, “Most valuable information on unit 

redeployment is not official, rather it is word of mouth.” 

Demobilization officials at other installations said that they also had good 

visibility over large units that returned as planned but said that it was 

difficult to plan for the arrival of small units and individuals. During our 

visit to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, 28 soldiers—a 9-soldier unit, and a 19-

soldier unit—arrived at the site unexpectedly. In addition, officials at Fort 

Hood said that they were able to track the evacuation of medical patients 

from the theater to stabilization hospitals, such as the Walter Reed Army 

Medical Center in Washington, D.C., or Brooke Army Medical Center in 

Texas, but that they often lost visibility of the patients during the last leg 

of their journey back to Fort Hood. They also said that visibility was 

sometimes a problem for individual soldiers who had reached the end of 

their enlistments or mobilization orders and were returning as individuals 

on “freedom flights” because the automated tracking systems were 

designed primarily to handle units and not individuals. 

Without updating its planning assumptions regarding the availability of 

facilities for mobilization and demobilization, the Army has begun a 

number of costly short- and long-term efforts to address facility and 

support personnel shortfalls at individual mobilization and demobilization 

sites. Furthermore, the Army has not taken a coordinated approach to 

evaluate all the support costs associated with mobilization and 

demobilization at alternative sites in order to determine the most efficient 

options under the operating environment for the Global War on Terrorism. 

The use of civilian and contractor personnel to provide mobilization and 

demobilization support may not provide cost-effective alternatives to some 

reserve component support personnel. 

Army Facility 

Improvements Were Begun 

with Outdated 

Assumptions and Were Not 

Coordinated with Support 

Personnel Changes 
Page 34 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

To address housing and other facilities shortages at mobilization and 

demobilization sites, the Army has embarked on a number of facility 

construction and renovation projects without updating its planning 

assumptions regarding the availability of facilities and personnel. As a 

result, the Army risks spending money inefficiently on projects that may 

not be located where the need is greatest. Until the Army updates its 

planning assumptions, it cannot determine whether the current primary 

and secondary mobilization sites are the best sites for future mobilizations 

and demobilizations. 

The Army has a variety of individual construction and renovation plans 

under way. For example, Fort Hood has a $5.1 million project to renovate 

its open-bay, cinder block barracks that have been used to house reserve 

component soldiers at North Fort Hood. Fort Stewart has a similar project 

under way to renovate National Guard barracks to current mobilization 

standards. Fort Stewart has also submitted plans to build a new facility to 

house its reserve component members with medical problems. 

The Army also has developed a plan to construct several new buildings 

that would be used to house active and reserve component soldiers who 

are undergoing training. In addition, these facilities would be available for 

use when reserve component units were mobilizing and demobilizing. This 

project has not yet been funded or approved by Army leadership. However 

possible sites for these buildings include Fort Lewis, Washington; Fort 

Hood, Texas; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Carson, Colorado; Fort Polk, 

Louisiana; Fort Riley, Kansas; and Fort Stewart, Georgia. The construction 

of some of these facilities could begin as early as 2006. However, a recent 

GAO review found that DOD’s efforts to improve facility conditions are 

likely to take longer than expected because of competing funding 

pressures. The review also found that without periodic reassessments of 

project prioritization, projects that are important to an installation’s ability 

to accomplish its mission and improve servicemembers’ quality of life 

could continually be deferred.32

The Army also has plans to make greater use of one of its secondary 

mobilization sites. The Army is planning to make greater use of Camp 

Shelby, Mississippi, a secondary mobilization site that is owned by the 

state of Mississippi. Because this site does not have active troops and has 

 32 GAO, Defense Infrastructure: Long-term Challenges in Managing the Military 

Construction Program, GAO-04-288 (Washington D.C.: Feb. 24, 2004). 

Facility Construction and 

Renovation Projects Are Not 

Based on Updated Planning 

Assumptions 
Page 35 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

a large housing capacity, the Army plans to use this site to relieve 

immediate pressures on its primary mobilization sites. However, Camp 

Shelby’s facilities are not new, and they are in need of repairs. Housing 

units are made of cinder block, have no heating or air conditioning, and 

were not designed for year-round accommodations. According to officials 

from the U.S. Army Forces Command, Camp Shelby will require $22 

million in federal funding for renovations. 

Key officials at the mobilization and demobilization sites we visited 

expressed a number of concerns about the availability of civilian or 

contractor personnel and the abilities of these personnel to provide 

capable, flexible replacements for the reserve component support 

personnel at a reasonable cost. In addition, the Army has not fully 

analyzed the costs of hiring these civilian and contractor personnel at its 

existing mobilization sites compared with the costs and feasibility of hiring 

support personnel at an alternative set of mobilization and demobilization 

sites. 

At Fort Stewart, Georgia, officials said that there is a very small civilian 

population in the area from which to draw replacement personnel. They 

also noted that the rural nature of the area and lack of cultural amenities 

makes it difficult to attract physicians and other highly paid specialists 

who support the mobilization and demobilization process. Officials at Fort 

Lewis had already replaced many of their medical support personnel at the 

time of our visit but acknowledged that even with the large population of 

the Seattle-Tacoma area to draw upon, they were still facing challenges in 

the hiring of physician assistants and nurse practitioners. The commander 

of the hospital at Fort Hood said that the hospital had issued a contract to 

try to fill its nurse shortage, but the only result from the contract was that 

civilian nurses at the hospital left the hospital to work for a contractor that 

paid them more. Thus, the net result was that the hospital did not fill its 

shortages, and it kept the same nurses but paid the contractor more for 

their services. 

Even when civilian or contractor personnel are available to replace 

reserve component personnel, the replacements may not be able to 

provide the same capability or flexibility as reserve component support 

personnel. During our visit to Fort Hood, officials told us that over the past 

10 years, the Army had repeatedly looked at the option of using civilian or 

contractor medical evacuation teams to replace reserve component 

support personnel. However, the option has not been adopted because the 

civilians would not be able to fly into live-fire training areas or under 

blackout conditions without costly Army flight training. Fort Lewis 

Civilian and Contractor 

Personnel May Not Provide 

Cost-Effective Alternatives to 

Some Reserve Component 

Support Personnel 
Page 36 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

officials raised similar concerns about the limited abilities of civilian 

helicopter rescue teams during our prior review.33 In addition, officials at 

mobilization and demobilization sites said that reserve component support 

personnel provided them with great flexibility in dealing with the 

unexpected arrival of mobilizing or demobilizing soldiers. Reserve 

component personnel are technically available 24 hours per day, 7 days 

per week. Therefore, processing could be scheduled for any hour and any 

day without regard to overtime considerations. During our visits, we 

observed several cases where civilian personnel left their processing sites 

at the end of their scheduled workday but reserve component personnel 

stayed until all processing was completed. 

In addition to the civilian replacements for reserve component medical 

support personnel, the Army is looking for replacements for the reserve 

component personnel who performed administrative processing, logistic, 

training, and other support functions within its garrison support units. The 

Army’s Installation Management Agency (IMA) is working with the Army 

Contracting Agency to develop short- and long-term replacement 

solutions. The long-term solution is an “Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite 

Quantity” contract that will allow installation commanders to place task 

orders to hire or contract workers for particular support functions. 

According to contracting officials, this contract will be awarded on or 

about October 1, 2004. IMA is programmed to receive $238 million for this 

contract in fiscal year 2005. By July 2004, IMA had received $56 million 

and had allocated $48.4 million to 12 different mobilization sites to cover 

the transition period until the long-term contract is in place. This interim 

funding can be used to expand existing installation support contracts or to 

hire temporary workers. In addition, the Army is also keeping over 1,100 

reserve component members on active duty to help cover the transition 

period.34

 33 GAO-03-921. 

34 These personnel had not been mobilized for 24 months under the partial mobilization 

authority, or they had agreed to accept voluntary mobilization orders. 
Page 37 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

DOD’s ability to effectively manage the health status of its reserve 

component members is limited because (1) its centralized database has 

missing and incomplete health records and (2) it has not maintained full 

visibility over reserve component members with medical issues. 

During our review of health data collected at AMSA, DOD’s central data 

collection point, we found that the database had missing and incomplete 

records. Not all of the required health information collected from reserve 

component members had reached AMSA. Furthermore, only some of the 

health assessment information that had reached AMSA had been entered 

into the centralized database. 

DOD policy guidance issued in October 2001 directed the services to 

submit pre- and post-deployment health forms to AMSA, 35 but not all of the 

required health information collected from reserve component members 

during their mobilization and demobilization processing has reached 

DOD’s central collection activity at AMSA. Table 2 compares the number 

of personnel who were mobilized from September 11, 2001, to March 30, 

2004 with the number of pre-deployment health assessments submitted to 

AMSA from November 1, 2001—the first month when health assessments 

were required for all mobilizing and demobilizing reserve component 

members—to March 31, 2004. The differences between the mobilization 

numbers and the pre-deployment health assessment numbers provide 

indications that assessment forms may be missing for members of all six 

of DOD’s reserve components. However, because the mobilization and 

health assessment data cover slightly different time periods and come 

from different sources, we could not determine the exact extent of the 

mismatch. When we investigated the cause of the large differences 

between Marine Corps numbers, officials told us that the Marine Corps’ 

guidance did not require them to submit pre-deployment health 

assessments to AMSA. 

 35 The tracking system was established pursuant to 10 U.S.C. Section 1074f. 

Ability to Effectively 

Manage Health of 

Servicemembers Is 

Limited

DOD’s Centralized 

Database Has Missing and 

Incomplete Health 

Records 

Required Health Assessments 

Have Not Reached DOD’s 

Assessment Collection Point 
Page 38 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Table 2: Mobilization and Pre-Deployment Assessment Numbers 

Reserve component 

Mobilizations 

Sept. 11, 2001-Mar. 31, 2004 

Pre-deployment health 

assessments 

Nov. 1, 2001-Mar. 29, 2004

Army National Guard 138,345 120,664

Army Reserve 95,515 78,835

Air Force National Guard 31,383 22,225

Air Force Reserve 24,468 9,980

Marine Corps Reserve 24,468 2,104

Navy Reserve 21,328 5,786

Total 335,507 239,594

Source: GAO analysis of data from AMSA and OASD/RA. 

Note: Pre-deployment health assessments became mandatory for all mobilized reserve component 

members on October 25, 2001. 

The officials cited guidance, in the form of two Marine Corps 

administrative messages that directed responsible officials to submit postdeployment health assessments to AMSA. However, the administrative 

messages neglect to direct the officials to submit pre-deployment health 

assessments. Furthermore, no additional administrative messages have 

addressed the requirement for pre-deployment assessments. As a result, 

the AMSA database contained only 2,104 pre-deployment health 

assessments but 11,499 post-deployment health assessments for Marine 

Corps reservists. 

Another possible reason why the Marine Corps has not submitted predeployment health assessments to AMSA is because the Marine Corps 

lacks a mechanism for overseeing the submission of these forms. There is 

no current Marine Corps requirement for tracking and reporting the 

submission of theses forms in the Deployment Health Quality Assurance 

program. In a March 12, 2004, memorandum to the Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Force Health Protection and Readiness, the 

Marine Corps reported the number and percentage of post-deployment 

health assessments that were completed but did not report any 

information on pre-deployment assessments. 

Officials at Camp Lejeune told us that they would begin submitting predeployment health assessments to AMSA after we raised the issue during a 

site visit in 2004 and the issuance of subsequent Navy Department 

guidance. Officials told us that the Marine Corps Medical Office had 

drafted new guidance to address this requirement, but the guidance had 
Page 39 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

not been issued by the time we drafted our report in July 2004 and we 

were not able to determine the cause of the delay or to verify that new 

guidance would adequately address the submission of pre-deployment 

health assessments. 

Navy health assessment submissions to AMSA also appear to be 

incomplete. According to Navy procedures, all mobilizing reservists are to 

complete their pre-deployment health assessment at their local reserve 

center before they report to their Navy Mobilization Processing Sites. In 

such cases, the reserve center is required to send the reservists’ completed 

pre-deployment health assessment forms to AMSA. Therefore, Navy data 

collection is only done centrally at the Navy Mobilization Processing 

Stations in limited cases when a reservist arrives without a completed predeployment health assessment. We did not visit any individual Navy 

Reserve centers to verify the submission of pre-deployment health 

assessments. We did review Navy Quality Assurance program guidance 

and found that it does not address the submission of pre-deployment 

health assessments. However, the guidance specifies that a 90 percent 

submission rate is considered satisfactory for post-deployment health 

assessments. 

In September 2003, we reported similar findings for the active forces.36

Specifically, we found that DOD did not maintain a complete, centralized 

database of active servicemember health assessments and immunizations. 

Following our 2003 review, DOD established a deployment health quality 

assurance program to improve data collection and accuracy. The 

department’s first annual report documenting issues relating to 

deployment health assessments will not be available until February 2005, 

and it is too early to determine the extent to which the new quality 

assurance program will provide effective oversight to address data 

submission problems from each of the services and their reserve 

components. 

While the services are not in complete compliance with the requirement to 

submit pre- and post-deployment assessments to AMSA, the number of 

assessments in the database has grown significantly. According to AMSA 

officials, the database contained about 140,000 assessments at the end of 

 36 GAO, Defense Health Care: Quality Assurance Process Needed to Improve Force Health 

Protection and Surveillance, GAO-03-1041 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 19, 2003). 
Page 40 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

1999, and grew to about 1 million assessments by May 2003, and 1,960,125 

by June 2004. 

Not all the records in the AMSA database contained complete information, 

thus limiting the amount of meaningful analysis that can be conducted. 

Health assessment database records sometimes did not include 

information that could be used to identify the causes of various medical 

problems. Nonetheless, the available data indicate that the overall pre- and 

post-deployment health status of mobilized reserve component members 

was good. 

Records in the health assessment database sometimes did not include key 

information or information that could be used to identify the causes of 

various medical problems. For example, records were sometimes missing 

information on the servicemember’s deployability and the specific types of 

medical referrals that were given to members with referrals. 

Almost 6 percent of the nearly 240,000 pre-deployment health assessments 

we reviewed did not have the servicemember’s deployability status 

recorded in the AMSA database. As shown in table 3, the missing data 

ranged from less than 4 percent for the Army National Guard to almost 18 

percent for the Naval Reserve. 

Table 3: Service Decisions Concerning Reserve Component Member Deployability 

Reserve 

component Deployable Nondeployable Answer missing Total

Percentage 

missing

Percentage 

nondeployable

Army 

Reserve 67,747 6,907 4,181 78,835 5.3% 9.3%

Army 

National 

Guard 108,237 7,891 4,536 120,664 3.8% 6.8%

Naval 

Reserve 4,704 63 1,019 5,786 17.6% 1.3%

Air Force 

Reserve 8,243 98 1,639 9,980 16.4% 1.2%

Marine Corps 

Reserve 1,752 18 334 2,104 15.9% 1.0%

Air National 

Guard 19,630 140 2,455 22,225 11.0% 0.7%

Total 210,313 15,117 14,164 239,594 5.9% 6.7%

Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data. 

Data from Health Assessments 

Have Not Been Entered into 

DOD’s Centralized Database 

Some Database Records 

Missing Key Information 
Page 41 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

For the remaining records with the deployability status recorded, 93 

percent of the servicemembers were deployable. Nondeployable rates 

ranged from less than 1 percent in the Air National Guard to more than 9 

percent in the Army Reserve. Other data showed that most of the 

nondeployable personnel had medical conditions that clearly made them 

nondeployable, and which did not require medical referrals. According to 

medical officials, some of these personnel, such as those who had suffered 

multiple heart attacks, should have been discharged prior to the time that 

they received their mobilization orders. Others had temporary conditions, 

such as broken bones and pregnancies that did not warrant medical 

discharges but made them nondeployable at the time of their assessment. 

Detailed referral information could assist the services in determining and 

addressing the factors that cause reserve component members to be 

nondeployable; however, these data were often missing in AMSA’s 

database. About 99 percent of the pre- and post-deployment assessments 

we reviewed showed whether or not reserve component members had 

been given a medical referral, but less than 44 percent of the records with 

referrals contained detailed information about the type of referral that was 

given to the member (eye, ear, cardiac, mental health, etc.). 

One reason for the incomplete health assessment records we found at 

AMSA at the time of our data draw in March 2004 is that some of the 

health assessments were entered into AMSA’s database by hand. 

According to the officer in charge of AMSA, records in the database with 

detailed referral data had been submitted electronically rather than as 

paper copies, which the installations are required to forward to the 

centralized database. Generally, electronic data are sent to AMSA after 

being collected in one of two different ways: (1) from applications that are 

available at Army installations and over the Internet and (2) on stand-alone 

laptop computers and hand-held personal digital assistant units, which 

collect data in the theater and elsewhere. All electronic data are 

transmitted to AMSA and updated immediately upon receipt. Because of 

workload demands, when paper forms were received at AMSA, database 

personnel captured only a data element indicating if a referral was needed, 

not the specific type of referral indicated.37 In addition, when there was a 

backlog of four page paper post-deployment health assessments to be 

 37 After summary data from the forms are entered into the database, AMSA scans an image 

of the complete health assessment forms, and additional data from the form can be entered 

into the database at a later date. Individual health assessments in the database can 

sometimes be linked to other detailed health records. 
Page 42 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

entered into the database, data entry personnel were entering only the first 

and last pages of the form and not the middle two pages. Because of this, 

at various times the data that have been collected from servicemembers 

may not be available for analysis. However, as of June 2004, the officer in 

charge of AMSA said that AMSA had no backlog of paper forms to be 

entered into the centralized database and had 15 people working full-time 

to process pre- and post-deployment health assessment forms. 

Furthermore, he estimated that by the end of July 2004, they would be 

caught up with the entries of the middle pages of the post-deployment 

health assessments that had been skipped earlier. Still, there is a delay 

between receipt of the form and its entry into the database. The AMSA 

Chief said the paper forms take approximately 1 week for processing, 

scanning, and entering data. 

All of the reserve components have the capability to submit the health 

assessments electronically, including detailed medical referral 

information. Many Army and Air Force servicemember health assessments 

are now transmitted electronically, and detailed information is captured 

into the database from those forms. The Army has been sending electronic 

health assessment data for active and reserve servicemembers to AMSA 

since July 2003. Although the Army is capable of transmitting all of its 

forms electronically, only about 52 percent of its forms submitted from 

January 1, 2003, to May 3, 2004, had been submitted electronically. The Air 

Force began sending electronic data to AMSA in June 2004. The Navy and 

Marine Corps have established a working group that is currently 

evaluating several options and developing an implementation plan. 

DOD established a deployment health task force to make 

recommendations by late April 2004 on completing all pre- and postdeployment health assessments electronically. However, the Deployment 

Health Task Force is continuing its work to expedite and monitor progress 

toward the electronic capture of deployment health assessment forms. 

Even though electronic submission of the health assessment forms from 

the mobilization and demobilization sites to AMSA’s centralized database 

would expedite the inclusion of key data for meaningful analysis, increase 

accuracy of the reported information, and lessen the burden of sites 

forwarding paper copies and the likelihood of lost information, DOD has 

not set a timeline for the services to electronically submit the health 

assessment forms to the centralized database. 

Table 4 shows that 98 percent of the reserve component members 

reported that they were in good to excellent health when they completed 

their pre-deployment health assessments. The Army Reserve had the 

Available Data Show Reserve 

Component Members SelfReported Health Is Good 
Page 43 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

lowest number—97 percent—of servicemembers considering themselves 

in good to excellent health.38

Table 4: Pre-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical Referrals 

Overall health status 

Reserve component Good or excellent Fair or poor Medical referrals

Marine Corps Reserve 99% 1% 3%

Naval Reserve 99% 1% 4%

Air National Guard 99% 1% 1%

Air Force Reserve 99% 1% 2%

Army National Guard 98% 2% 5%

Army Reserve 97% 3% 6%

Total 98% 2% 5%

Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data. 

Table 4 also shows that the total referral rate that resulted from the predeployment health assessments was 5 percent but ranged from 1 percent 

for the Air National Guard to 6 percent for the Army Reserve. 

Table 5 shows that even after deployment, a high percentage of reserve 

component members thought they were in good to excellent health. 

However, a comparison of table 4 with table 5 shows that numbers had 

generally declined from pre-deployment levels. In particular, the 

percentage of personnel who rated their health as good to excellent 

declined from 98 percent to 93 percent. The Army Reserve had the lowest 

percentage of servicemembers who considered themselves in good to 

excellent health during their post-deployment assessments—89 percent--

while the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve had the highest 

percentage of servicemembers who considered themselves in good to 

excellent health after deployment—98 percent. 

 38 The percentages do not necessarily mean that the servicemembers were in those 

categories when first mobilized. Because pre-deployment health assessments have to be 

completed within 30 days of deployment, thousands of reserve component members 

(primarily in the Army) who had long post-mobilization training periods completed two or 

more pre-deployment health assessments. Only the most recent pre-deployment health 

assessment is kept in the AMSA database. 
Page 44 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Table 5: Post-Deployment Overall Health Status and Medical Referrals 

Overall health status 

Reserve component Good or excellent Fair or poor Medical referrals

Marine Corps Reserve 90% 10% 24%

Naval Reserve 96% 4% 13%

Air National Guard 98% 2% 8%

Air Force Reserve 98% 2% 10%

Army National Guard 92% 8% 21%

Army Reserve 89% 11% 30%

Total 93% 7% 21%

Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data. 

Moreover, the percentage of medical referrals jumped to 21 percent on the 

post-deployment health assessments. A comparison of tables 4 and 5 

shows that the referral rate that resulted from post-deployment 

assessments was quadruple the 5 percent referral rate from predeployment assessments. There were also differences between the 

services, in that reserve component personnel from the Army and Marine 

Corps received higher referral rates, as would be expected for ground 

forces, than those in the Air Force and the Navy. The percentages ranged 

from 8 percent for the Air National Guard to 30 percent for the Army 

Reserve. 

Table 6 shows that when reserve component members completed their 

post-deployment health assessments, almost half of them chose the same 

category to characterize their overall health as they had chosen on their 

pre-deployment health assessment. The table shows that almost 14 percent 

of the personnel who completed both pre- and post-deployment health 

surveys believed that their health had improved enough to warrant 

recharacterizations of their original assessments. 
Page 45 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Table 6: Comparison of Self-Reported Composite Health from Pre- and PostDeployment Health Assessments 

Reserve 

component

Matching preand postdeployment 

health 

assessments Health improved

Health stayed 

the same Health declined

Marine 

Corps 

Reserve 871 9% 39% 52%

Naval 

Reserve 3,438 12% 52% 36%

Air National 

Guard 14,118 14% 58% 28%

Air Force 

Reserve 5,345 14% 57% 29%

Army 

National 

Guard 51,514 14% 46% 39%

Army 

Reserve 39,220 13% 44% 43%

Total 114,506 14% 48% 39%

Source: GAO analysis of AMSA data. 

Note: DOD’s health assessments ask servicemembers to categorize their general health into one of 

five categories: (1) excellent, (2) very good, (3) good, (4) fair, or (5) poor. 

The table above also shows that 39 percent of the personnel who 

completed both the pre- and post-deployment health surveys reported that 

their health had declined between the assessments. Reserve component 

personnel from the Army and Marine Corps experienced larger declines 

than those of the Navy and Air Force. 

Some of the services could not maintain visibility over reserve component 

members with medical issues because they could not adequately track 

those personnel, which contributed to problems for those personnel. In 

the Army, the lack of tracking information for reserve component 

personnel with medical issues contributed to problems for those 

personnel. In the Army, the lack of visibility over reservists with medical 

issues resulted in housing and pay problems for some personnel. The Air 

Force has also lost visibility of some reservists with medical issues, which 

has resulted in lengthy periods of time without resolution to their medical 

issues. 

DOD Could Not Maintain 

Visibility over Reserve 

Component Personnel on 

Active Duty with Medical 

Issues 
Page 46 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Reserve component personnel who have been involuntarily mobilized, 

along with members who are voluntarily serving on active duty, may 

experience medical problems for a variety of reasons. Some are injured 

during combat operations; others become injured or sick during the 

course of their training or routine duties; and others have problems that 

are identified during medical appointments, physicals, or health 

assessments and other medical screenings. Our review focused on reserve 

component members with medical problems that were expected to keep 

them from being returned to full duty or from being demobilized within 30 

days. This group contained reserve component members with a wide 

variety of injuries and ailments. During our visits to mobilization and 

demobilization sites, we spoke with reserve component members who had 

suffered heart attacks or combat wounds, as well as to members with knee 

and ankle injuries, diabetes, chronic back pain, and mental health 

problems. 

The services have used different policies and procedures to accommodate 

involuntarily mobilized reserve component personnel who have long-term 

medical problems. In some cases, the services have left the members on 

their original mobilization orders and then extended those orders as 

necessary. In other cases, the services have switched the members to 

voluntary orders or offered the members the option to leave active duty 

and have their medical conditions cared for through the Department of 

Veterans Affairs.39

The dramatic increase in the use of the reserve components has led to a 

dramatic increase in the numbers of reserve component members on 

active duty with medical problems. For example, our analysis of data from 

the more than 239,500 pre-deployment health assessments collected in the 

AMSA database from November 2001 through March 2004 showed that 

over 15,100 members, or almost 7 percent, were not deployable; almost 

14,800 of these members came from the Army’s reserve components.40

Prior to a change in Army policy in October 2003, personnel who were 

mobilized and found to be non-deployable were kept on active duty until 

(1) their medical problems had been resolved and they were returned to 

full duty or (2) they had been referred to a medical board process and 

 39 DOD officials told us that very few members choose this option because they lose their 

active duty pay and some other benefits when they leave active duty. 

40 Over 14,100 records, or almost 6 percent, were missing information concerning the 

servicemembers’ deployability status. 

Army
Page 47 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

discharged from the Army. (See appendix VIII for additional information 

on the services’ medical evaluation boards.) 

As a result of its October 2003 policy change, the Army was able to 

demobilize personnel who were found to be nondeployable within the first 

25 days of their mobilizations. This policy change helped to reduce the 

inflow of reserve component personnel on active duty with medical 

problems who were identified during the pre-deployment health-screening 

process. However, the reserve component members who were already on 

active duty with medical problems that had been identified during the predeployment health-screening process were not demobilized when the 

policy changed. In addition, significant numbers of reserve component 

personnel continued to experience medical problems as a result of injuries 

or illnesses that occurred (1) after the members had been mobilized for 25 

days and (2) as a result of problems that were identified during their postdeployment heath assessments. As a result, on July 14, 2004, the Army still 

had over 4,000 reserve component personnel on active duty with medical 

problems.41 Although Army officials said that the primary responsibility 

that these soldiers had was to go to their medical treatment so they could 

get well, many of the soldiers did not require daily medical treatment. As a 

result, these soldiers often do other work ranging from temporary details 

to maintain base facilities to longer-term jobs such as working at 

mobilization processing sites or working as mechanics in installation 

motor pools. 

Initially, issues associated with the care of Army personnel with medical 

problems were usually dealt with at the Army installation where the 

servicemember was mobilized or demobilized and at nearby medical 

treatment facilities. As the numbers of reserve component personnel with 

medical problems increased, the Army found that it had difficulty 

maintaining visibility of such personnel, resulting in some housing, pay, 

and other problems for the personnel. 

For example, at Fort Stewart, Georgia, reserve component soldiers with 

medical problems were being housed in open-bay, cinder block barracks 

that did not have heating or air conditioning. In addition, shower and 

bathroom facilities were in separate, nearby buildings. These facilities 

 41 The 4,000-plus personnel were in units that Army identifies as “medical hold” or “medical 

holdover,” respectively, depending on whether the members are actually attached to a 

medical treatment facility or attached to an installation and are just receiving care at the 

medical treatment facility. 
Page 48 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

normally housed National Guard personnel during their 2-week annual 

training periods. Following media attention to these conditions, the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness issued a memorandum 

that established housing standards for personnel with medical problems in 

October 2003. During our visit to Fort Stewart, in November 2003 we 

found that the soldiers with medical problems were being housed in 

accordance with the updated standards, which required climate-controlled 

quarters that included integrated bathroom facilities. The Army also 

created a servicewide medical-status tracking system during the summer 

of 2003. This system generates regular weekly reports on the numbers of 

reserve component members on active duty with medical problems, their 

locations, and the length of time that they have been receiving medical 

care. 

Following up on allegations in 2003 that medical treatment was taking too 

long, and that soldiers were missing their scheduled medical 

appointments, investigators at Fort Stewart also found that case 

managers42 were needed to track the care of the soldiers with medical 

problems and that a command structure was needed to manage the other 

needs and duties of these personnel. At the time of our visit, Fort Stewart 

had 15 case managers in place, and a new command and control structure 

had been set up to manage the soldiers with medical problems. However, 

officials told us that they still faced challenges with the management and 

care of these soldiers because the group was so large. On November 19, 

2003, there were 661 reserve component members with medical problems 

at Fort Stewart; as of July 14, 2004, there were 349 members. 

The lack of visibility and tracking also caused problems for members with 

medical problems at Fort Lewis, Washington. Army procedures called for 

reserve component members on involuntary mobilization orders to be 

switched over to voluntary active duty medical extension orders after a 

long-term medical problem had been identified. The administrative 

process for issuing these active duty medical extensions was cumbersome, 

and mechanisms were not in place to effectively track requests for these 

extensions, which had to be submitted from the units with 

servicemembers experiencing medical problems to a central office in the 

Pentagon. When we visited Fort Lewis in March 2004, we found that 

medical extension orders had expired for 19 of 84 personnel in the medical 

 42 The Army has been using nurses or administrative personnel who report to nurses to 

serve as case managers. 
Page 49 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

hold unit. When a servicemember’s orders expire, the member’s pay stops 

and the member’s dependents lose their health care coverage. 43 After our 

visit to Fort Lewis, the Army changed its policy concerning active duty 

medical extensions. On March 6, 2004, the Assistant Secretary of the Army 

for Manpower and Reserve Affairs issued a policy that provides 

installations with the ability to issue voluntary orders for up to 180 days 

for reserve component members with medical problems without going 

through the cumbersome active duty medical extension process. While the 

authority to issue these voluntary orders has been delegated to the 

installation level, the Army is still maintaining visibility over its reserve 

component personnel with medical problems because these personnel are 

assigned to units that must report their personnel numbers on a weekly 

basis. 

In the Air Force, a lack of central visibility of some reserve component 

personnel with medical problems who are serving on active duty has 

resulted in delayed resolution to their medical problems. The Air Force 

does have central visibility over reserve component personnel with 

medical problems who remain on their original mobilization orders or 

receive extensions to those orders.44 However, the Air Force also allows 

personnel with medical problems to switch over to voluntary orders.45

These orders are issued by the Air Force’s major commands. The Air 

Force can track the number of orders issued and the number of days 

covered by these orders, but it does not have a mechanism in place to 

track the numbers of personnel who have medical problems and are 

serving under these orders. As with many of the reserve component 

personnel in the Army’s medical hold and holdover units, many of the air 

reserve component personnel with medical problems are still able to 

perform significant amounts of work while undergoing their medical 

treatment or medical discharge processing. 

While the reservists experiencing medical problems who we interviewed 

did not identify any difficulties with their housing or their orders, they did 

identify problems with the amount of time it was taking to resolve their 

medical issues, much like the problems identified at Fort Stewart prior to 

 43 A number of GAO reports on pay problems are included in the list of related GAO 

products at the end of this report. 

44 On June 11, 2004, there were 219 personnel in these categories. 

45 The Air Force refers to these as military personnel appropriation (MPA) day orders. 

Air Force 
Page 50 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

the deployment of case managers to that location. At one of the sites we 

visited, an Air Force reservist told us that he had been in a medical status 

on voluntary orders for 18 months and did not expect resolution of his 

case anytime soon. The extent to which such a problem is commonplace is 

unknown, given the inability of the Air Force to track such personnel. 

As the Global War on Terrorism is entering its fourth year, DOD officials 

have made it clear that they do not expect the war to end anytime soon. 

Furthermore, indications exist that certain components and occupational 

specialties are being stressed and the long-term impact of this stress on 

recruiting and retention is unknown. Moreover, although DOD has a 

number of rebalancing efforts under way, these efforts will take years to 

implement. Because this war is expected to last a long time and requires 

far greater reserve component personnel resources than any of the smaller 

operations of the previous two decades, DOD can no longer afford policies 

that are developed piecemeal to maximize short-term benefits and must 

have an integrated set of policies that address both the long-term 

requirements for reserve component forces and individual reserve 

component members’ needs for predictability. 

For example, service rotation polices are directly tied to other personnel 

policies such as policies concerning the use of the IRR, and the extent of 

cross training. Policies to fully utilize the IRR would increase the pool of 

available servicemembers and would thus decrease the length of time each 

member would need to be deployed based on a static requirement. 

Policies that encourage the use of cross-training for lesser-utilized units 

could also increase the pool of available servicemembers and decrease the 

length of rotations. Until DOD addresses its personnel policies within the 

context of an overall strategic framework, it will not have clear visibility 

over the forces that are available to meet future requirements. In addition, 

it will be unable to provide reserve component members with clear 

expectations of their military obligations and the increased predictability, 

which DOD has recognized as a key factor in retaining reserve component 

members who are seeking to successfully balance their military 

commitments with family and civilian employment obligations. 

The Army’s mobilization and demobilization plans contained outdated 

assumptions about the location of active duty forces during reserve 

mobilizations and demobilizations. As a result, facilities were not always 

available to equitably support active and reserve component forces that 

were collocated on bases that serve as mobilization and demobilization 

sites. Until the Army updates the assumptions in its mobilization and 

Conclusions 
Page 51 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

demobilization plans and therefore recognizes that active and reserve 

component forces are likely to need simultaneous support at Army 

installations within the United States, it may not be able to adequately 

address the support needs of both its active and reserve component 

forces. The Army has a number of uncoordinated efforts under way to 

correct the facility infrastructure shortage that has developed. However, 

these projects are being conducted without considering the long-term 

requirements and associated costs. In addition, when the Army created 

medical, training, logistics, and administrative support units that relied 

heavily on reserve component members, it did not anticipate that it would 

have to support long-term mobilization requirements for a Global War on 

Terrorism under a partial mobilization authority. As a result, the reserve 

component force cannot continue to support mobilizations as DOD 

currently implements the partial mobilization authority and the Army is 

now planning to rely on civilians and contractors. However, the Army has 

not determined the costs and availability of these civilian and contractor 

personnel. Until the Army makes these determinations, it cannot plan to 

conduct future mobilizations and demobilizations in the most efficient 

manner. 

DOD’s ability to effectively manage the health status of reserve component 

members has been hampered by a lack of complete information and the 

inability to track servicemembers with health issues. For example, the 

AMSA database does not contain a large number of health assessment 

records for the Marine Corps and lacks complete information from some 

of the health assessment records that were submitted to the database in a 

nonelectronic format. Consequently, the deployability status and related 

health problems of some reserve component members were not 

discoverable. Until the Marine Corps addresses its data submission 

problems with updated guidance and a mechanism to oversee the 

submission of health assessments to the centralized database and until 

DOD establishes a timeline for the military departments to submit health 

assessments electronically, DOD and the services will continue to face 

difficulties in determining and addressing the factors that cause reserve 

component members to be nondeployable. Moreover, until the Air Force 

develops a mechanism to track its reserve component members who are 

on voluntary active duty orders with health problems, it cannot determine 

whether these personnel are having their health problems addressed in a 

timely manner. Furthermore, the treatment of the nation’s reserve 

component members who have served their country and experienced 

medical problems while on active duty is an important issue for DOD to 

address. Until DOD gains visibility over the status of all of its reserve 

component personnel on active duty with medical problems, it cannot 
Page 52 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

effectively oversee their situations and deploy, demobilize, or discharge 

them. 

We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary 

of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in concert with the service 

secretaries and Joint Staff, to take the following two actions: 

• develop a strategic framework that sets human capital goals 

concerning the availability of its reserve component forces to meet the 

longer-term requirements of the Global War on Terrorism under 

various mobilization authorities and 

• identify personnel policies that should be linked within the context of 

the strategic framework. 

We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the 

Army to take, within the context of establishing DOD’s strategic 

framework for force availability, the following two actions: 

• update mobilization and demobilization planning assumptions to 

reflect the new operating environment for the Global War on 

Terrorism—long-term requirements for mobilization and 

demobilization support facilities and personnel and the likelihood that 

active forces will continue to rotate through U.S. bases while reserve 

component forces are mobilizing and demobilizing and 

• develop a coordinated approach to evaluate all the support costs 

associated with mobilization and demobilization at alternative sites—

including both facility (construction, renovation, and maintenance) and 

support personnel (reserve component, civilian, contractor, or a 

combination) costs—to determine the most efficient options; and then 

update the list of primary and secondary mobilization and 

demobilization sites as necessary. 

We also recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following four 

actions: 

• direct the Commandant of the Marine Corps to issue updated 

mobilization guidance that specifically lists the requirement to submit 

pre-deployment health assessments to AMSA, 

• direct the Commandant of the Marine Corps to establish a mechanism 

for overseeing submission of pre- and post-deployment assessments to 

the centralized database, 

• direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in 

concert with the service secretaries, to set a timeline for the military 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 
Page 53 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

departments to electronically submit pre-and post-deployment heath 

assessments, 

• direct the Secretary of the Air Force to develop a mechanism for 

tracking reserve component members who are on voluntary active duty 

orders with medical problems. 

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD generally concurred 

with our recommendations. The Department specifically concurred with 

our recommendations to (1) update Army mobilization and demobilization 

planning assumptions to reflect the new operating environment for the 

Global War on Terrorism; (2) develop a coordinated approach to evaluate 

all the support costs associated with Army mobilizations and 

demobilizations at alternative sites—including both facility and support 

personnel costs—to determine the most efficient options, and then update 

the list of primary and secondary mobilization and demobilization sites as 

necessary; (3) issue updated Marine Corps mobilization guidance that 

specifically lists the requirement to submit pre-deployment health 

assessments to AMSA; (4) set a timeline for the military departments to 

electronically submit pre- and post-deployment heath assessments; and (5) 

develop a mechanism for tracking Air Force reserve component members 

who are on voluntary active duty orders with medical problems. 

DOD partially concurred with our other three recommendations. In 

partially concurring with our recommendation concerning the 

development of a strategic framework, DOD stated that it has a strategic 

framework for setting human capital goals, which was established through 

its December 2002 comprehensive review of active and reserve force mix, 

its January 2004 force rebalancing report, and other planning and 

budgeting guidance. However, DOD agreed that it should review and, as 

appropriate, update its strategic framework. Although the documents cited 

by DOD lay some of the groundwork needed to develop a strategic 

framework, these documents do not specifically address how DOD will 

integrate and align its personnel policies, such as its stop-loss and IRR 

policies, to maximize its efficient usage of reserve component personnel to 

meet its overall organizational goals. 

In partially concurring with our recommendation to identify personnel 

policies that should be linked within the context of a strategic framework, 

DOD stated that its September 20, 2001, personnel and pay policy and its 

July 19, 2002, addendum established personnel policies associated with its 

strategic framework. DOD also stated that the department should review, 

and as appropriate, update these policies. We agree that the Office of the 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 
Page 54 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Secretary of Defense has issued personnel policies and various guidance 

and reports concerning its reserve components. However, the policies 

cited by DOD pre-date the 2002 comprehensive review and 2004 force 

rebalancing report that were cited as part of the department’s strategic 

framework. The strategic framework should be established prior to the 

creation of personnel policies. We continue to believe that DOD’s policies 

were implemented in a piecemeal manner and focused on short-term 

needs. For example, our report details service changes to policies 

concerning the use of the IRR, mobilization lengths, deployment lengths, 

and service obligations. 

In partially concurring with our recommendation concerning oversight of 

the Marine Corps’ pre- and post-deployment health assessments, DOD 

stated that system improvements are ongoing and that electronic 

submission of pre- and post-deployment health assessments is possible 

and highly desirable but may not be practical for every Marine Corps 

deployment. However, our recommendation was directed at oversight of 

health assessments regardless of how the assessments are submitted—in 

paper or electronic form. We continue to believe that the Marine Corps 

needs to establish a mechanism for overseeing the submission of its preand post-deployment health assessments. The other services have 

established such mechanisms as part of their quality assurance programs. 

Finally, in commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that after 

reviewing its implementation of the partial mobilization authority, it 

decided to retain its “24-cumulative month” policy. DOD noted that it had 

identified significant problems with changing to a 24-consecutive-month 

approach but did not elaborate on those problems. The final decision 

concerning the implementation of the partial mobilization authority was 

not made until after our review ended, and the decision was counter to the 

decision expected by senior personnel we met with during the course of 

our review. As noted in our report, with a 24-cumulative-month 

interpretation of the partial mobilization authority, DOD risks running out 

of forces available for deployment, at least in the short term. Regardless of 

DOD’s interpretation of the partial mobilization authority, the department 

needs to have a strategic framework to maximize the availability of its 

reserve component forces. For example, usage of the more than 250,000 

IRR members can affect rotation policies because the use of these 

reservists would increase the size of the pool from which to draw 

mobilized reservists. Therefore, without a strategic framework setting 

human capital goals, how DOD will continue to meet its large 

requirements for the Global War on Terrorism remains to be seen. We 
Page 55 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

have modified our report to recognize the decision that DOD made 

regarding its implementation of the partial mobilization authority. 

DOD’s comments on our recommendations are included in this report in 

appendix IX. DOD also provided other relevant comments on portions of 

the draft report and technical comments, which we incorporated as 

appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the 

Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; the Commandant of 

the Marine Corps; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the 

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

available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at 

no charge on the GAO Web site at http:www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov or Brenda S. Farrell, 

Assistant Director, at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Others making 

significant contributions to this report are included in appendix X. 

Derek B. Stewart 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 56 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

To determine how the Department of Defense’s (DOD) implementation of 

the partial mobilization authority and its personnel polices affect reserve 

component force availability, we reviewed and analyzed the mobilization 

authorities that are available under current law, along with personnel 

policies from the services and Office of the Secretary of Defense. We also 

collected and analyzed data on DOD’s historical usage of the reserve 

components and its usage of these forces since September 11, 2001. We 

analyzed usage trends since the 1991 Persian Gulf War and compared 

usage rates across services, reserve components, and occupational 

specialties. We also reviewed DOD documents that addressed the 

projected future use of reserve component forces and plans to mitigate the 

high usage of forces within certain occupational specialties. We analyzed 

the structure of the reserve component forces and evaluated the effects of 

utilizing or excluding members of the Individual Ready Reserve from 

involuntary call-ups. We discussed the implementation of mobilization 

authorities and the effects of various personnel policies with responsible 

officials from the 

• Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C.; 

• Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, Washington, D.C.; 

• Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, 

Washington, D.C.; 

• U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia; 

• Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia; 

• Commandant, Marine Corps (Manpower, Plans, and Policy), Quantico 

Marine Corps Base, Virginia; and 

• U.S. Army Reserve Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia. 

During our visits to mobilization and demobilization sites, we also 

interviewed reserve component members concerning the length of their 

mobilizations, deployments, and service commitments. 

To determine how efficiently the Army executed its mobilization and 

demobilization plans, we interviewed senior and key mobilization officials 

involved with the mobilization and demobilization processes to document 

their roles and responsibilities and collect data about the processes. We 

visited selected sites where the Army conducts mobilization and 

demobilization processing. At those sites, we observed mobilization and 

demobilization processing and interviewed responsible Army officials as 

well as soldiers being processed for mobilization and demobilization at 

those sites. We collected and analyzed cost data for facility renovation and 

construction projects. We also collected and analyzed available cost 

information on the contracts to replace reserve component members with 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 57 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

civilian and contractor personnel. Finally, we documented problems that 

the installations had tracking the arrival of mobilizing and demobilizing 

troops though their automated systems. We visited five mobilization and 

demobilization sites. These sites included four installations that supported 

both active and reserve component troops and one site that supported 

only reserve component troops. Four of the sites were among the largest 

in terms of the numbers of reserve component members mobilized and 

demobilized. One was among the smallest. Specifically we visited the 

following sites: 

• Fort Stewart, Georgia; 

• Fort Hood, Texas; 

• Fort McCoy, Wisconsin; 

• Fort Lewis, Washington; and 

• Fort McPherson, Georgia. 

We also interviewed Army officials from the following locations: 

• U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia; 

• First U.S. Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia; 

• Fifth U.S. Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas; 

• Army Installation Management Activity, Arlington, Virginia; and 

• Army Contracting Agency, Fort McPherson, Georgia. 

As requested, we also visited sites where the other services conducted 

mobilization and demobilization processing, but we did not report on the 

efficiency of the other services’ processes because the numbers of reserve 

component members who were mobilizing and demobilizing through these 

sites were insufficient for us to draw any conclusions about the services’ 

processes. Specifically, we interviewed responsible officials and observed 

ongoing mobilizations and demobilizations at the following sites: 

• Quantico Marine Corps Base, Virginia; 

• Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, North Carolina; 

• Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia; 

• Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; and 

• Navy Mobilization Processing Site Norfolk, Virginia. 

At some of the demobilization locations, we observed reservists receiving 

medical, legal, and family support briefings, and interviewed some 

individuals who had been demobilized, including some on medical 

extensions. We also walked through and compared facilities used to house 

active and reserve component personnel, specifically focusing on the 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 58 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

facilities used to house personnel with medical problems. We interviewed 

appropriate officials about facility capacities, and gathered and analyzed 

information about facility renovations and new construction projects. We 

obtained and reviewed additional documentation such as mobilization 

orders, activation checklists, and demobilization processing checklists. We 

also collected and analyzed reserve component mobilization data, 

flowcharts, reports, plans, directives, manuals, instructions, and 

administrative guidance. We reviewed relevant GAO reports and contacted 

other audit and research organizations regarding their work in the area. 

We reviewed congressional testimony by Navy officials in which they 

described steps planned by the Navy to improve its demobilization 

process, and we followed up on the status of those planned steps with 

officials at the Navy Mobilization Processing Site Norfolk, Virginia. 

To examine the extent to which DOD can effectively manage the health 

status of its mobilized reserve component members, we collected and 

analyzed data from a variety of sources throughout DOD. We tracked 

weekly data from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Reserve Affairs (OASD/RA), which showed the numbers of Army, Navy, 

Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel on medical extensions, and the 

numbers of Army personnel in medical statuses. We also collected, 

tracked, and analyzed data from the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General. 

These data showed the numbers of reserve component personnel in 

medical statuses by installation and by time spent in a medical status. We 

also reviewed the Army’s projected medical status numbers, the Army’s 

plans to mitigate future problems, and reports on the lessons that were 

learned from the medical-related problems that occurred at Fort Stewart 

during 2003. We also obtained and analyzed information from the Office of 

the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Health Protection and 

Readiness, Deployment Health Support Directorate. We collected and 

reviewed the services’ medical instructions, memoranda, and policies. In 

addition, we interviewed personnel responsible for the processing, 

reviewing, and collection of the deployment health assessments at the 

mobilization and demobilization sites visited. We compared information 

about the services’ medical and physical evaluation board processes. We 

discussed these medical issues with responsible officials from 

• Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, 

Washington, D.C.; 

• U.S. Army Medical Department, Army Medical Command, Washington, 

D.C.; 

• U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia; 

• First U.S. Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia; 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 59 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

• Fifth U.S. Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas; 

• U.S. Army Medical Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas; 

• Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.; 

• Winn Army Community Hospital, Fort Stewart, Georgia; 

• Darnall Army Community Hospital, Fort Hood, Texas; 

• Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis, Washington; 

• Fort McCoy, Wisconsin; 

• Quantico Marine Corps Base, Virginia; 

• Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, North Carolina; 

• Navy Mobilization Processing Site, Norfolk, Virginia; 

• Headquarters, United States Air Force Military Policy Division, 

Washington, D.C.; 

• Air National Guard, Washington, D.C.; 

• Air Force Medical Operations Agency, Washington, D.C.; and 

• Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia. 

We also interviewed reserve component members who were in medical 

status at the mobilization and demobilization sites visited. We interviewed 

hospital commanders and their staff, case managers, medical liaison 

officers, and officials from the services’ Surgeons General Offices. 

We interviewed the Chief of the Army Medical Surveillance Activity 

(AMSA). We discussed the information in the consolidated health 

assessment database and obtained selected data from all the reserve 

component member pre- and post-deployment health assessments that 

were completed from October 25, 2001—when assessments became 

mandatory for all mobilized reserve component members through March 

2004. The data we obtained contained health assessment records for 

290,641 reserve component members. For 122,603 members, we obtained 

only pre-deployment health assessments, for 51,047 members we obtained 

only post-deployment health assessments, and for 116,991 members we 

obtained both pre-and post-deployment health assessments. We analyzed 

the data that we obtained to determine referral, deployability, and 

exposure rates. We also analyzed data on the self-reported general health 

of the reserve component members and compared the data from predeployment assessments with the data from post-deployment assessments. 

We also analyzed the month-by-month flow of forms to the AMSA to see if 

the services had been submitting the forms as required. We compared 

elapsed times between pre- and post-deployment assessments. We 

conducted cross tabulations of the data to identify relationships between 

various variables such as the overall health status, deployability, and 

referral variables. All of our analyses compared data across the reserve 

components to look for differences or trends. 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 60 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

We assessed the reliability of reserve component mobilization, 

demobilization, and general usage data supplied by OASD/RA by (1) 

reviewing existing information about the data and the systems that 

produced them and (2) interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about 

the data. We also compared the data with data supplied to us by the 

services. Our assessment of the AMSA data was even more rigorous and 

included the electronic testing of relevant data elements, and discussions 

with knowledgeable officials about not only the procedures for collecting 

the data but also the procedures for coding the data. As a result of our 

assessments, we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the 

purposes of this report. 

We conducted our review from November 2003 through July 2004 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Appendix II: National Guard and Reserve End 

Strength Figures 

Page 61 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Tables 7 and 8 show information about the Ready Reserve and its 

subcategories. Table 7 shows that the strength of the Ready Reserve has 

declined steadily from fiscal year 1993 to fiscal year 2003, but the strength 

of the Selected Reserve remained fairly steady from fiscal year 1998 to 

fiscal year 2003 after declining by more than 170,000 personnel from fiscal 

year 1993 to fiscal year 1998. The Selected Reserve is the portion of the 

Ready Reserve that participates in regular training. Table 8 shows the 

relative sizes of the reserve components at the end of fiscal year 2003. The 

Army’s reserve components are larger than those of the other services and 

are expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. 

Table 7: Changes in Reserve Category End Strengths 

 Fiscal year 

Category 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Ready 

Reserve 1,840,650 1,779,436 1,633,497 1,522,451 1,437,722 1,340,557 1,276,190 1,238,715 1,211,264 1,186,388 1,154,140

 Selected 

 Reserve 1,057,676 998,330 945,852 920,371 902,216 881,491 870,917 865,242 867,422 874,326 875,072

 Individual 

 Ready 

 Reserve 776,080 774,336 681,203 596,788 530,777 454,352 398,525 370,858 336,610 305,922 274,199

 Inactive 

 National 

 Guard 6,894 6,770 6,442 5,292 4,729 4,714 4,590 4,212 4,049 3,142 2,138

Source: Defense Manpower Data Center data. 

Table 8: Fiscal Year 2003 End Strengths for Each of DOD’s Six Reserve Components 

Army 

National 

Guard 

Army 

Reserve

Naval 

Reserve

Marine Corps 

Reserve

Air National 

Guard 

Air Force 

Reserve

Department 

of Defense 

Total

Ready Reserve 353,227 329,295 152,855 98,868 108,137 111,758 1,154,140

 Selected Reserve 351,089 211,890 88,156 41,046 108,137 74,754 875,072

 Individual Ready Reserve 117,405 61,968 57,822 37,004 274,199

 Inactive National Guard 2,138 2,138

Source: Defense Manpower Data Center data. 

Appendix II: National Guard and Reserve End 

Strength Figures 
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Page 62 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Fort Carson, Colorado. 

Fort Benning, Georgia. 

Fort Stewart, Georgia. 

Fort Riley, Kansas. 

Fort Campbell, Kentucky. 

Fort Polk, Louisiana. 

Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

Fort Dix, New Jersey. 

Fort Drum, New York. 

Fort Sill, Oklahoma. 

Fort Bliss, Texas. 

Fort Hood, Texas. 

Fort Eustis, Virginia. 

Fort Lewis, Washington. 

Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. 

Fort Rucker, Alabama. 

Fort Huachuca, Arizona. 

Camp Roberts, California. 

Gowen Field, Idaho. 

Camp Atterbury, Indiana. 

Fort Knox, Kentucky. 

Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. 

Camp Shelby, Mississippi. 

Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. 

Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico. 

Fort Jackson, South Carolina. 

Fort Lee, Virginia. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site New London, Connecticut. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Seattle, Washington. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Gulfport, Mississippi. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Jacksonville, Florida. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Norfolk, Virginia. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Pensacola, Florida. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Port Hueneme, California. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Washington, D.C. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Memphis, Tennessee. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site London, United Kingdom. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Army 

Power Projection 

Platforms 

Power Support Platforms 

Navy 
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Page 63 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site San Diego, California. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Great Lakes, Illinois. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 

Navy Mobilization Processing Site Camp Pendleton, California. 

Camp Pendleton, California (Used to mobilize and demobilize units and 

individuals for worldwide usage). 

Camp Lejeune, North Carolina (Used to mobilize and demobilize units and 

individuals for worldwide usage). 

Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia (Primarily used to mobilize and 

demobilize individual reservists for duty in the Washington, D.C. Metro 

area). 

Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California. 1

Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. 

Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. 

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. 

Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. 

Beale Air Force Base, California. 

March Air Reserve Base, California. 

Travis Air Force Base, California. 

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. 

Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. 

Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado. 

Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. 

Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. 

Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida. 

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. 

 1

 Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, 

North Carolina, were both used as mobilization sites after September 11, 2001, but they 

were not being used when we visited Camp Lejeune and Quantico in the spring of 2004. 

Marine Corps 

Air Force 

United States Air Force 

Reserve Sites 
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Page 64 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. 

Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia. 

Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. 

Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. 

Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. 

Grissom Air Reserve Base, Indiana. 

McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas. 

Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. 

New Orleans Air Reserve Station, Louisiana. 

Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. 

Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts. 

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. 

Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan. 

Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport Air Reserve Station, 

Minnesota. 

Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. 

Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. 

Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. 

Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina. 

Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. 

Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. 

McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. 

Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. 

Fort Hamilton, New York. 

Niagara Falls International Airport Air Reserve Station, New York. 

Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. 

Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio. 

Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. 

Portland International Airport, Oregon. 

Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania. 

Willow Grove Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania. 

Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. 

Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. 

Brooks Air Force Base, Texas. 

Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Texas. 

Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. 

Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. 

Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. 

Hill Air Force Base, Utah. 

Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. 

Norfolk Naval Air Station, Virginia. 

Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington. 
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Page 65 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

McChord Air Force Base, Washington. 

General Mitchell Air Reserve Base, Wisconsin. 

Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. 

Kulis Air National Guard Base, Alaska. 

Birmingham International Airport, Alabama. 

Montgomery Regional Airport, Alabama. 

Fort Smith Regional Airport, Arkansas. 

Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. 

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Arizona. 

Tucson International Airport, Arizona. 

Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, California. 

Fresno Air Terminal, California. 

March Air Reserve Base, California. 

Moffett Federal Airfield, California. 

Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado. 

Bradley Air National Guard Base, Connecticut. 

New Castle County Airport, Delaware. 

Jacksonville International Airport, Florida. 

Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. 

Savannah International Airport, Georgia. 

Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. 

Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. 

Des Moines International Airport, Iowa. 

Sioux City Airport, Iowa. 

Gowen Field, Idaho. 

Greater Peoria Airport, Illinois. 

Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. 

Springfield Capital Airport, Illinois. 

Fort Wayne International Airport, Indiana. 

Terre Haute International Airport, Indiana. 

Forbes Field, Kansas. 

McConnel Air Force Base, Kansas. 

Standiford Field, Kentucky. 

New Orleans Naval Air Station, Louisiana. 

Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts. 

Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts. 

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. 

Martin State Airport, Maryland. 

Bangor International Airport, Maine. 

Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan. 

W.K. Kellog Airport, Michigan. 

Air National Guard Sites 
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Page 66 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Duluth Air National Guard International Airport, Minnesota. 

Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Minnesota. 

Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport, Missouri. 

Rosecrans Memorial Airport, Missouri. 

Jackson International Airport, Mississippi. 

Key Field, Mississippi. 

Great Falls International Airport, Montana. 

Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, North Carolina. 

Hector International Airport, North Dakota. 

Lincoln Municipal Airport, Nebraska. 

Pease Air National Guard Base, New Hampshire. 

Atlantic City Municipal Airport, New Jersey. 

McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. 

Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. 

Reno Cannon International Airport, Nevada. 

F.S. Gabreski Airport, New York. 

Hancock Field, New York. 

Niagara Falls International Airport, New York. 

Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York. 

Stratton Air National Guard Base, New York. 

Mansfield Lahm Airport, Ohio. 

Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio. 

Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport, Ohio. 

Toledo Express Airport, Ohio. 

Tulsa International Airport, Oklahoma. 

Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Oklahoma. 

Klamath Falls International Airport, Oregon. 

Portland International Airport, Oregon. 

Harrisburg International Airport, Pennsylvania. 

Pittsburgh International Airport, Pennsylvania. 

Willow Grove Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania. 

Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, Puerto Rico. 

Quonset State Airport, Rhode Island. 

McEntire Air National Guard Station, South Carolina. 

Joe Foss Field, South Dakota. 

McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, Tennessee. 

Memphis International Airport, Tennessee. 

Nashville International Airport, Tennessee. 

Ellington Field, Texas. 

Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Texas. 

Kelly Air Force Base, Texas. 

Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah. 

Richmond International Airport, Virginia. 

Burlington International Airport, Vermont. 
Appendix III: Service Mobilization and 

Demobilization Installations 

Page 67 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Camp Murray, Washington. 

Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington. 

General B. Mitchell Air National Guard Base, Wisconsin. 

Truax Field, Wisconsin. 

Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, West Virginia. 

Yeager Air National Guard Airport, West Virginia. 

Cheyenne Air National Guard, Wyoming. 
Appendix IV: Differences between 

Demobilization and Periodic Physicals for 

Reserve Component Members 

Page 68 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Table 9: Physical Requirements 

Demobilization physical Periodic physical 

requirements Requirements Frequency 

Army Screenings for all soldiers; 

referrals and treatment are 

based on screening. 

Limited physical examination at 

the request of the soldier; 

includes 

• height, weight, blood 

pressure, pulse, and 

temperature; 

• “hands on” clinical evaluation 

of head, face, scalp, nose, 

sinuses, mouth, throat, ears, 

eyes, heart, lungs, vascular 

system, abdomen, 

extremities, feet, spine, skin, 

neurologic exam, and 

breast/testicular exam; and 

• focused laboratory work 

based on specific problems 

or physical findings. 

Examination includes 

• height, weight, blood pressure, pulse, 

temperature, vision, and hearing; 

• clinical evaluation of head, face, scalp, nose, 

sinuses, mouth, throat, ears, eyes, heart, lungs, 

vascular system, abdomen, extremities, feet, 

spine, skin, neurologic exam, breast 

exam/testicular exam, neck, and anus; 

• lab work includes urinalysis, HIV, and 

cholesterol testing; 

Age 40 and over exam includes prostate exam, 

rectal exam with stool, urine-specific tests (gravity 

and microscopic), test for intraocular pressure, and 

fasting blood sugar and fasting lipid profile. 

Annual health screenings. 

Physical every 5 years 

beginning at age 30 and 

annually at age 60. 

Requirements and frequency 

vary on the basis of 

occupational specialty. 

Air Force All reservists get an 

assessment by a medical 

technician and are referred to a 

provider if needed. 

All members returning from 

austere locations see medical 

providers regardless of their 

physical condition. 

Same as the Army. Annual health assessment. 

Requirements and frequency 

vary on the basis of 

occupational specialty. 

Navy/Marine 

Corps 

Screenings for all sailors and 

Marines; physical examinations 

and specialty referrals are given 

as indicated on a patientdirected, symptom-driven basis. 

Physical examinations 

conducted if the periodic 

examination expired during the 

mobilization period. 

General examination requirements similar to the 

Army. 

Annual health certification. 

Full physical every 5 years 

through age 50, every 2 

years through age 60, and 

annually after age 60. 

Requirements and frequency 

vary on the basis of 

occupational specialty. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD instructions and regulations. 

Appendix IV: Differences between 

Demobilization and Periodic Physicals for 

Reserve Component Members 
Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment Health 

Assessment Forms 

Page 69 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment 

Health Assessment Forms 
Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment Health 

Assessment Forms 

Page 70 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment Health 

Assessment Forms 

Page 71 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment Health 

Assessment Forms 

Page 72 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment Health 

Assessment Forms 

Page 73 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix V: Pre- and Post-Deployment Health 

Assessment Forms 

Page 74 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since 

September 11, 2001 

Page 75 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

On September 14, 2001, the Secretary of Defense delegated his stop-loss 

authority to the service secretaries. This authority allows the services to 

retain both active and reserve component members on active duty beyond 

the end of their obligated service. Reserve component members who are 

affected by the order generally cannot retire or leave the service until 

authorized by competent authority. Each of the services has exercised its 

stop-loss authority on different occasions and for different military 

occupational specialties. 

The Army issued a stop-loss message on December 4, 2001, imposing stoploss on several active component skill-based specialties. As the needs of 

the Army changed, the number of occupational specialties expanded and 

then contracted, and included the reserve components as well as the 

Army’s active forces. The Army ended its specialty-based stop-loss on 

November 13, 2003. The Army’s current stop-loss policy, which affects 

active and reserve component forces, is unit-based rather than 

occupational specialty driven. Significant stop-loss policy changes that 

affected the Army’s reserve component forces are listed below. 

• January 2002. The stop-loss policy already in effect for the active 

component is expanded to include soldiers in the Ready Reserve. 

Soldiers with 23 different occupational specialties, including special 

forces, civil affairs, psychological operations, certain aviation 

categories, mortuary affairs, and maintenance are affected. 

• February 2002. The Army expands its stop-loss policy for the active 

and reserve components, adding 38 occupational specialties to the 

stop-loss program. The new categories include military police, military 

intelligence specialties and technicians, comptrollers, foreign area 

officers (Eurasia, Middle East/North Africa), contract and industrial 

management, additional aviator specialties, criminal investigators, and 

linguists. 

• June 2002. The Army expands and retracts its stop-loss policy for the 

active and reserve components. New occupational specialties affected 

include information operations, strategic intelligence, various field 

artillery and air defense specialties, explosive ordnance disposal, and 

unmanned aerial vehicle operators. Soldiers in the foreign area officer 

(Eurasia) and select intelligence specialties were released from the 

stop-loss policy. 

Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since 

September 11, 2001 

Army 
Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since 

September 11, 2001 

Page 76 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

• November 2002. Army ends skill-based stop-loss policy for the Ready 

Reserve and Guard forces. The new stop-loss policy is unit based, 

beginning when the unit is alerted until 90 days after the end of the 

unit’s mobilization. 

• February 2003. Army expands stop-loss to include active component 

units identified for deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

• November 2003. Army again issues unit stop-loss for active forces, 

and cancels occupational specialty stop losses that had been issued 

since February 2003. (There were several stop-loss changes issued 

between February 2003 and November 2003 but these changes were 

focused on active forces.) The unit stop-loss policies for reserve 

component forces have remained continuously in effect since they 

were instituted in 2002. 

The Navy exercised its stop-loss authority on September 28, 2001, by 

imposing stop-loss on several occupational specialties. Unlike the Army, 

the Navy’s initial stop-loss policy affected both active and reserve 

component forces. The Navy’s significant stop-loss policy changes are 

listed below. 

• September 2001. The Navy issues a stop-loss policy for a variety of 

officer and enlisted occupational specialties, and subspecialties to 

include personnel in special operations/special warfare, security, law 

enforcement, cryptology, and explosive ordnance disposal as well as 

selected physicians, nurses, and linguists. 

• March 2002. The Navy modifies its existing stop-loss policy, adding 

new specialties and removing others. After the changes, selected 

linguists and personnel in security, law enforcement, and cryptology 

were subject to the stop-loss restriction. 

• August 2002. The Navy ends its stop-loss policy. 

The Air Force exercises its stop-loss authority on September 22, 2001, by 

imposing a servicewide stop-loss on all Air Force personnel. Unlike the 

Army, the Air Force’s initial policy affected active, reserve, and Air 

National Guard members. The Air Force’s significant stop-loss policy 

changes are listed below. 

• September 2001. The Air Force implements a servicewide, stop-loss 

policy. 

Navy 

Air Force 
Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since 

September 11, 2001 

Page 77 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

• January 2002. The Air Force releases 64 occupational specialties from 

the general stop-loss. Specialties that still fall under the limitations of 

the stop-loss policy include selected pilots, navigators, intelligence 

specialists, weather specialists, security personnel, engineers, 

communications specialists, selected health care providers, lawyers, 

chaplains, aircrew operators, aircrew protection personnel, command 

and control specialists, fuel handlers, logisticians and supply 

specialists, selected maintenance providers, and investigators. 

• June 2002. The Air Force exempts additional occupational specialties 

from the general stop-loss. Specialties that remain under the limitations 

of the stop-loss policy include selected pilots, navigators, security 

personnel, aircrew operators, command and control specialists, 

intelligence specialists, aircrew protection, and fuel handlers. 

• March 2003. The Air Force announces that effective May 2, 2003, stoploss will be expanded to cover a total of 99 occupational specialties. 

Specialties that are affected by the stop-loss policy include selected 

pilots, navigators, command and control specialists, intelligence 

specialists, security personnel, engineers, selected health care 

providers, investigators, aircrew operators, aircrew protection 

personnel, communications specialists, logisticians and supply 

specialists, and fuel handlers. 

• May 2003. The Air Force modifies its stop-loss policy, releasing about 

half of the previously selected occupational specialties. The list of 

specialties still affected by the stop-loss includes selected pilots, 

navigators, intelligence specialists, security forces, special 

investigators, aircrew operators, fuel handlers, and maintenance 

personnel. 

• June 2003. The Air Force ends its stop-loss policy. 

The Marine Corps exercised its stop-loss authority for selective active and 

reserve Marines in January 2002. Specific policies varied as to their 

applicability to active and reserve forces; however, expansion of stop-loss 

policy eventually covered all Marines. The Marine Corps’ significant stoploss policy changes are listed below. 

• January 2002. The Marine Corps implements a specific stop-loss 

authority for Marines with C-130 specialties to assist in Operation 

Enduring Freedom. This stop-loss authority includes Marines in the 

reserve component. 

Marine Corps 
Appendix VI: Service Stop-Loss Policies since 

September 11, 2001 

Page 78 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

• January 2003. The Marine Corps implements a general stop-loss 

policy for all Marines, regardless of component. Marine Corps 

reservists cannot be extended beyond the completion of 24 cumulative 

months of activated service. Furthermore, the first general officer in a 

Marine’s chain of command can exempt Marines from the stop-loss 

policy. 

• May 2003. The Marine Corps lifts its stop-loss policy. 
Appendix VII: Reserve Component Recruiting 

Results, Fiscal Year 1993-2004 

Page 79 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

The services use recruiting and retention strategies together to achieve 

their programmed end strengths. If retention is better than expected in a 

particular year, then the reserve components may achieve their desired 

end strengths without achieving their recruiting goals. While the services 

can effectively meet their yearly programmed end strengths through a 

wide range of recruiting and retention combinations, long-term 

overreliance on either recruiting or retention can eventually cause 

negative impacts for a service or service component. 

A service or component that repeatedly misses its recruiting goals will 

need to retain a higher-than-planned percentage of its personnel each year. 

This will eventually lead to a force that is out of balance. Either too many 

people will be promoted and the component will end up with too many 

senior personnel and not enough junior personnel or promotion rates will 

decline. Decreased promotion rates tend to lead to increased attrition 

rates, which would lead to end strength problems if a component were 

already having problems meeting its recruiting goals. 

Appendix VI showed that the services have employed a variety of stop-loss 

policies since September 11, 2001. Because these policies artificially 

inflate retention rates, recruiting figures rather than retention or end 

strength figures may be the best indicator of whether or not the 

components will face difficulties meeting their future programmed end 

strengths. Table 10 shows historical recruiting results. It shows that all the 

reserve components met their recruiting goals in fiscal year 2002. But it 

shows that the Army National Guard fell far short of its goal in fiscal year 

2003 and was falling far short of its fiscal year 2004 monthly goals through 

May of 2004. This dramatic drop in recruiting results occurred as the Army 

was significantly increasing its involuntary mobilizations of Army National 

Guard combat forces. The improving job market in the United States may 

make it even more difficult for the Army National Guard to achieve its 

recruiting objectives over the next few years. 

Appendix VII: Reserve Component Recruiting 

Results, Fiscal Year 1993-2004 
Appendix VII: Reserve Component Recruiting 

Results, Fiscal Year 1993-2004 

Page 80 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Table 10: Reserve Component Recruiting Figures 

Fiscal 

year 

Army National 

Guard 

Army 

 Reserve 

Naval

Reserve

Marine Corps 

Reserve

Air National 

Guard 

Air Force 

Reserve DOD total

Goal 

1993 68,177 50,600 19,537 10,140 10,454 10,592 169,500

1994 69,710 46,500 13,144 11,122 10,325 10,434 161,235

1995 60,649 47,732 13,660 11,748 8,496 12,578 154,863

1996 61,793 50,179 16,850 10,388 11,000 7,090 157,300

1997 59,262 47,935 16,950 10,063 9,996 9,702 153,908

1998 56,638 47,940 15,329 10,174 8,004 10,874 148,959

1999 56,958 52,084 20,455 9,464 8,520 11,791 159,272

2000 54,034 48,461 18,410 9,341 10,080 9,624 149,950

2001 60,252 34,910 15,250 8,945 11,808 8,051 139,216

2002 60,504 38,857 15,000 9,835 9,570 6,080 139,846

2003 62,000 40,900 12,000 8,173 5,712 7,512 136,297

2004 56,002 34,782 10,500 7,960 8,842 7,997 126,083

2004a 36,575 20,862 6,622 5,268 5,702 5,816 80,845

Accessions 

1993 67,360 50,255 18,367 10,216 9,163 10,908 166,269

1994 61,248 47,412 13,006 11,236 9,177 11,464 153,543

1995 56,711 48,098 13,701 12,043 8,351 9,757 148,661

1996 60,444 46,187 16,820 12,566 9,958 7,566 153,541

1997 63,495 47,153 17,106 10,744 9,986 8,383 156,867

1998 55,401 44,212 14,986 10,213 8,744 8,877 142,433

1999 57,090 41,784 15,715 9,565 8,398 7,518 140,070

2000 61,260 48,596 14,911 9,465 10,730 7,740 152,702

2001 61,956 35,622 15,344 9,117 10,258 8,826 141,123

2002 63,251 41,385 15,355 10,090 10,122 6,926 147,129

2003 54,202 41,851 12,772 8,222 8,471 7,557 133,075

2004a 32,052 21,569 7,140 5,505 5,284 5,304 76,854

Goal achievement 

1993 98.8% 99.3% 94.0% 100.7% 87.7% 103.0% 98.1%

1994 87.9% 102.0% 99.0% 101.0% 88.9% 109.9% 95.2%

1995 93.5% 100.8% 100.3% 102.5% 98.3% 77.6% 96.0%

1996 97.8% 92.0% 99.8% 121.0% 90.5% 106.7% 97.6%

1997 107.1% 98.4% 100.9% 106.8% 99.9% 86.4% 101.9%

1998 97.8% 92.2% 97.8% 100.4% 109.2% 81.6% 95.6%

1999 100.2% 80.2% 76.8% 101.1% 98.6% 63.8% 87.9%
Appendix VII: Reserve Component Recruiting 

Results, Fiscal Year 1993-2004 

Page 81 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Fiscal 

year 

Army National 

Guard 

Army 

 Reserve 

Naval

Reserve

Marine Corps 

Reserve

Air National 

Guard 

Air Force 

Reserve DOD total

2000 113.4% 100.3% 81.0% 101.3% 106.4% 80.4% 101.8%

2001 102.8% 102.0% 100.6% 101.9% 86.9% 109.6% 101.4%

2002 104.5% 106.5% 102.4% 102.6% 105.8% 113.9% 105.2%

2003 87.4% 102.3% 106.4% 100.6% 148.3% 100.6% 97.6%

2004a 87.6% 103.4% 107.8% 104.5% 92.7% 91.2% 95.1%

Source: Defense Manpower Data Center. 

a

Signifies fiscal year 2004 data through May. 
Appendix VIII: Service Medical and Physical 

Evaluation Board Processes 

Page 82 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

DOD’s Physical Disabilities Evaluation System consists of four main 

elements: 

1. medical evaluation by Medical Evaluation Boards (MEBs), 

2. physical disability evaluation by Physical Evaluation Boards (PEBs) to 

include appellate review, 

3. servicemember counseling, and 

4. final disposition by appropriate personnel authorities. 

Figure 2 shows the steps of the disabilities evaluation system, which will 

eventually lead to one of two outcomes. Servicemembers will either be 

returned to duty or they will be discharged from their military service. 

Members who are discharged sometimes, but not always, receive disability 

compensation. 

Figure 2: Steps of DOD’s Disabilities Evaluation System 

Reserve component personnel who have been involuntarily mobilized, 

along with members who are voluntarily serving on active duty, may end 

up with medical problems for a variety or reasons. Some are injured 

during combat operations; others become injured or sick during the 

course of their training or routine duties; and others have problems that 

are identified during medical appointments, physicals, or medical 

screenings. Servicemembers on active duty or in the Ready Reserve are 

eligible for referral into the Disability Evaluation System when they are 

Appendix VIII: Service Medical and Physical 

Evaluation Board Processes 

Disabilities 

Evaluation System 

Return to duty

Medical 

evaluation

Medical 

evaluation 

board

Physical

evaluation 

board

Review 

and 

appeals

Final 

disposition

(discharged)

Continuing to receive care throughout process

Source: GAO analysis of DOD regulations and instructions.
Appendix VIII: Service Medical and Physical 

Evaluation Board Processes 

Page 83 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

unable to reasonably perform the military duties of their office, grade, 

rank, or rating as a result of a diagnosed medical condition. 

Servicemembers who have been diagnosed with medical conditions that 

may render them unfit for military service enter into medical treatment 

programs. 

The initial stage of the process, when medical professionals are 

diagnosising servicemembers’ problems, determining courses of 

treatment, and evaluating the effectiveness of the ongoing treatments is 

often the most time-consuming portion of the medical process. According 

to service officials, this initial phase is intentionally long to give 

servicemembers a good chance to get well and return to full duty. If, 

however, the servicemembers have not returned to full duty within 1 year 

of their diagnoses or if prior to a year they reach a point where they have 

achieved the maximum recovery expected, and additional treatment is not 

expected to materially affect their condition, their medical status and duty 

limitations will be documented and referred to a MEB. 

The MEB documents full clinical information on all medical conditions 

and states whether each condition is cause for referral into the Disability 

Evaluation System. The duty-related impairment MEB package should 

include a medical history; records from physical examinations; records of 

medical tests and their results; and documentation of medical and surgical 

consultations, diagnoses, treatments and prognoses. If the servicemember 

meets retention standards, the disability processing ends with the MEB. If 

the MEB concludes that the servicemembers do not meet retention 

standards, the members’ cases are referred to the PEB to determine fitness 

for duty and possible entitlement to benefits. 

The first step in the PEB process is referral of the cases to informal PEBs 

that review documents from the MEB and other administrative documents 

without the presence of the servicemember. The informal PEB then issues 

its initial findings and recommendations. If servicemembers are found to 

be fit for duty, the disability processing ends with the informal PEB. If 

servicemembers are found to be unfit for duty, they may request to 

personally appear before the PEB during formal PEB hearings. 

Servicemembers who do not agree with the decisions of the Formal PEB 

have an additional opportunity to appeal the decisions. 

When a physician initiates an MEB, the processing time should normally 

not exceed 30 days from the date the MEB report is initiated to the date it 

is received by the PEB. For cases where reserve component members are 
Appendix VIII: Service Medical and Physical 

Evaluation Board Processes 

Page 84 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

referred for solely a fitness determination on a non-duty-related condition, 

processing time for conducting an MEB or physical examination should 

not exceed 90 days. And when the PEB receives the MEB or physical 

examination report, the processing time to the date of the final disposition 

of the reviewing authority should normally be no more than 40 days. 

All servicemembers who enter the Disability Evaluation System receive 

counseling. Counselors inform the servicemembers of the sequence and 

nature of the steps in the process, statutory and regulatory rights, the 

effects of findings and recommendations, and the servicemember’s 

recourse in the case of an unfavorable finding. 

It is not within the mission of the military departments to retain members 

on active duty or in the Ready Reserve to provide prolonged, definitive 

medical care when it is unlikely the member will return to full military 

duty. Servicemembers should be referred into the Disability Evaluation 

System as soon as the probability that they will be unable to return to full 

duty is ascertained and optimal medical treatment benefits have been 

reached. 
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 85 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Appendix IX: Comments from the 

Department of Defense 
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 86 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Note: Page numbers in 

the draft report may differ 

from those in this report. 
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 87 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 88 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix IX: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 89 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 
Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Page 90 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Brenda S. Farrell (202) 512-3604 

In addition to the individual named above Kenneth F. Daniell, Michael J. 

Ferren, Christopher R. Forys, Jim Melton, Kenneth E. Patton, Gary W. 

Phillips, Jennifer R. Popovic, Sharon L. Reid, Irene A. Robertson, Nicole 

Volchko, and Robert K. Wild also made significant contributions to the 

report. 

Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

Acknowledgments 
Related GAO Products 

Page 91 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Military Pay: Army Reserve Soldiers Mobilized to Active Duty 

Experienced Significant Pay Problems. GAO-04-990T. Washington, D.C.: 

July 20, 2004. 

Reserve Forces: Observations on Recent National Guard Use in Overseas 

and Homeland Missions and Future Challenges. GAO-04-670T. 

Washington, D.C.: April 29, 2004. 

Defense Infrastructure: Long-term Challenges in Managing the Military 

Construction Program. GAO-04-288. Washington, D.C.: February 24, 2004. 

Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty 

Experienced Significant Pay Problems. GAO-04-413T. Washington, D.C.: 

January 28, 2004. 

Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty 

Experienced Significant Pay Problems. GAO-04-89. Washington, D.C.: 

November 13, 2003. 

Defense Health Care: Quality Assurance Process Needed to Improve 

Force Health Protection and Surveillance. GAO-03-1041. Washington, 

D.C.: September 19, 2003. 

Military Personnel: DOD Needs More Data to Address Financial and 

Health Care Issues Affecting Reservists. GAO-03-1004. Washington, D.C.: 

September 10, 2003. 

Military Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of 

Mobilizations for Reserve Forces. GAO-03-921. Washington, D.C.: August 

21, 2003. 

Homeland Defense: DOD Needs to Assess the Structure of U.S. Forces for 

Domestic Military Missions. GAO-03-670. Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2003. 

Defense Health Care: Army Has Not Consistently Assessed the Health 

Status of Early-Deploying Reservists. GAO-03-997T. Washington, D.C.: 

July 9, 2003. 

Defense Infrastructure: Changes in Funding Priorities and Management 

Processes Needed to Improve Condition and Reduce Costs of Guard and 

Reserve Facilities. GAO-03-516. Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2003. 

Related GAO Products 
Related GAO Products 

Page 92 GAO-04-1031 Military Personnel 

Homeland Defense: Preliminary Observations on How Overseas and 

Domestic Missions Impact DOD Forces. GAO-03-677T. Washington, D.C.: 

April 29, 2003. 

Defense Health Care: Army Needs to Assess the Health Status of All 

Early-Deploying Reservists. GAO-03-437. Washington, D.C.: April 15, 2003. 

Military Treatment Facilities: Eligibility Follow-up at Wilford Hall Air 

Force Medical Center. GAO-03-402R. Washington, D.C.: April 4, 2003. 

Military Personnel: Preliminary Observations Related to Income, 

Benefits, and Employer Support for Reservists during Mobilizations. 

GAO-03-549T. Washington, D.C.: March 19, 2003. 

Military Personnel: Preliminary Observations Related to Income, 

Benefits, and Employer Support for Reservists during 

Mobilizations. GAO-03-573T. Washington, D.C.: March 19, 2003. 

Defense Health Care: Most Reservists Have Civilian Health Coverage but 

More Assistance Is Needed When TRICARE Is Used. GAO-02-829. 

Washington, D.C.: September 6, 2002. 

Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between 

Reservists and Their Employers. GAO-02-608. Washington, D.C.: June 13, 

2002. 

Wartime Medical Care: DOD Is Addressing Capability Shortfalls, but 

Challenges Remain. GAO/NSIAD-96-224. Washington, D.C.: September 25, 

1996. 

Reserve Forces: DOD Policies Do Not Ensure That Personnel Meet 

Medical and Physical Fitness Standards. GAO/NSIAD-94-36. Washington, 

D.C.: March 23, 1994. 

Defense Health Care: Physical Exams and Dental Care Following the 

Persian Gulf War. GAO/HRD-93-5. Washington, D.C.: October 15, 1992. 

(350449) 
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