In article , Charlie Self
wrote:


snipped

Reenlistment rates havwe always bounced around a lot in the all-volunteer
Army.
In fact, without the draft in earlier years, reenlistment rates for the Army
were generally not great. More meaningful comparisons might be made with
U.S.M.C. and Air Force reenlistment rates at the current time. I don't note
Navy here because, in general, enlisted personnel in the Navy aren't coming
under fire with any kind of regularity.

Charlie Self
"When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do - lose." Dwight
D. Eisenhower

Although the vast majority of the Navy is not under direct fire there
is some evidence that the extended. and more often deployments, and
more back to back sea tours is effecting USN retention. Part of this is
the experiment of not bringing ships home but leaving them deployed
then swapping the whole crew out in an overseas location. On the plus
side it keeps an asset in theater much longer by cutting off the month
transit time on each side but it cuts down on port calls and makes the
crew do more in depth maintence on the ship.

A significant reason for me getting of active duty was getting married
and looking at the previous three years I had been gone 150 days year
one, 210 year two and 270 year three. Of course, in my 9 years in the
Naval Reserve I got recalled for Bosnia, Kosovo, three trip to Northern
Watch and one to Southern watch but such was the bureden for getting to
fly a high demand low density asset.

Allen
Catonsville, MD