Research for Formals

As part of the CNA's support to the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies at the Naval Operational Medicine Institute (NOMI), CNA is examining Repatriated Prisoners of War (RPOW) data sources that currently reside at the Mitchell Center. Thirty-four tapes were created with data on Vietnam-era RPOWs. There has been no attempt to make these data available to researchers, or to document the status of the data stored on the tapes. NOMI and the Mitchell Center have asked us to examine all of these data sources to see if they contain information that could be made available to both internal and external researchers exploring the effects of long-term captivity.

In FY 98, the Navy failed to meet its enlisted recruiting goal by 7,000 recruits, or 12 percent. Early in FY99, it appeared that the recruiting difficulties would continue. All of the military services were facing a tight recruiting market because of such factors as low unemployment, a decreased propensity of youth to enlist, and increasing college enrollments. The Secretary of the Navy responded in February 1999 by increasing the cap on the recruitment of non-high school diploma graduates (NHSDGs) from 5 to 10 percent of enlisted accessions. Although NHSDGs are less costly to recruit than high-school-diploma graduates (HSDGs), both in terms of recruiter time and in marketing, the military services limit the number of NHSDG recruits because they have much higher attrition than high school graduates. Because the Navy was concerned about how the increased numbers of NHSDGs would affect overall recruit survival, it initiated the following two programs: Navy recruiting modified the Compensatory Screening Model (CSM), the screen used to determine NHSG eligibility-the new screen, called the High Performance Predictor Profile (HP3), was implemented with new contacts durine February 1999; and the Commander, Navy Education and Training (CNET) developed a 1-week course for NHSDG recruits called Academic Capacity Enhancement (ACE), which began in March 1999, discontinued during the summer surge, and returned as a fully revised course in October 1999. Commander, Navy Recruiting Command (CNRC) asked CNA to analyze (a) the survival of NHSDGs under these two new policies and (b) the overall cost-effectiveness of the policy to increase the cap on NHSDG accessions. This annotated briefing presents our findings.

When the Navy's downsizing ended in the 1990s, undermanning in the fleet became evident. By the end of the decade, fewer than 90 percent of the enlisted billets were filled. Problems with recruiting, distributing, and retaining sailors all contributed to the undermanning difficulties. In response, the Navy fought to reverse the trend by instituting initiatives to alleviate attrition. As part of the Navy's efforts to increase manning through reduced attrition, the Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Manpower and Personnel (N1B) asked CNA to analyze the causes of fleet attrition-that is, early separations among sailors who make it to a full-duty billet, both on shore and at sea. Because most fleet attrition occurs soon after arrival in the fleet, we focused on first term attrition. First, we studied the patterns of fleet attrition losses in the Navy. Then we investigated the causes of attrition and how those factors changed in the 1990s. We conducted an analysis of yearly cohort attrition for first-term sailors on both sea and shore duty. Then, restricting our analysis to sailors on surface ships, we explored how the deployment cycle influences attrition, Finally, because attrition is costly, we explored strategies aimed at reducing it and keeping it low.

The Navy expects to enlist about 55,000 sailors each year in the near future, and faces the challenge of training and delivering these recruits to operational billets. Accordingly, policy-makers wish to monitor the fraction of recruits who complete training, as well as the time it takes them to reach the fleet. In this report, we track sailors "from street to fleet, " analyzing factors that influence attrition from the Navy during the period of initial skills training. A companion report describes street-to-fleet trends and focuses on the time it takes recruits to reach the fleet. The Director, Assessment Division (N81) requested this study as part of the Navy's Manpower and Personnel Integrated Warfare Architecture (IWAR). The IWAR is a planning vehicle that uses analyses to shape long-range goals and policies. This study examines prefleet attrition from the Navy; it does not investigate losses from the fleet, attrition from specific courses, or transitions between training programs. CNA conducted a regression analysis to define patterns in attrition as they relate to gender, rating, and training time.