Research for Marine Corps

As the Armed Services continue to fight the Long War, recruiting conditions are likely to remain tough. With this in mind, we examine recent trends in Marine Corps bootcamp attrition, using both year-to-date attrition and cohort attrition rates. In addition, we document which bundles of recruit characteristics observable at the time of enlistment are associated with the completion of bootcamp. We then compare the relative attrition risk of recruits given their individual characteristics. We find that the recruits who pose the lowest attrition risk: sign contracts as high school seniors, ship in June through September or October through January, are high quality (i.e., Tier I and Category I-IIIAs), and meet the weight-for-height retention standard.

Given increasingly difficult recruiting conditions, we examine the feasibility of raising the Marine Corps’ self-imposed cap of 1 percent on Category IV accessions. We limit our analysis to top Category IVAs (Cat. IVAs)–those scoring between 26 and 31 on the AFQT who are high school degree graduates. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 to analyze the national population of Cat. IVAs. We find that the population of top Cat. IVAs is large enough to support an increase in the accession cap. Then, using CNA accession cohort data, we compare the attrition rates of top Cat. IVAs to bottom Cat. IIIB (AFQT between 31 and 41 and high school degree graduates) and Adult Education/ 1 Semester college recruits. Top Cat. IVAs have attrition rates, both from bootcamp and from the first term of service, similar to those of bottom Cat. IIIBs. We also find that Top Cat. IVA Marines have lower attrition than Adult Education/ 1 Semester College Marines.

This study hopes to improve the Selected Reserve Incentive Program (SRIP) and to help the Marine Corps Reserve (MCR) to better understand Selected Reserve (SelRes) attrition. First, we document the legislative authorities for the payment of SelRes unit bonuses and bonus offerings across the Guard/Reserve components. Next, we document findings from focus groups held with Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). The study also describes recommended changes to the current SRIP that could help improve its ability to recruit and retain Marines in SMCR units. Finally, we present our analysis of SelRes attrition and the effect of SRIP bonuses on retention.

The paper focuses on the post-9/11 relationship between deployment tempo and retention, especially on differences in responses for Marines with and with dependents. The main text describes major findings; the statistical work is found in the appendices. We found that, at least for career Marines and officers, high deployment tempo had little negative effect of reenlistment/continuation decisions. In fact, we found that officer retention increased with total days deployed or deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. On the other hand, we found that increases in deployed days lowered reenlistment rates for first-term Marines—particularly those without dependents. First-term Marines without dependents also averaged more deployed days than their counterparts with dependents. We focused mainly on retention in FY04, but we also looked at retention patterns in FY02 an FY03.