Reforming the Military's Force Management and Retirement Systems: Are Longer Careers the Answer?

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The Department of Defense manages its career officer force vastly different from private industry at large. It neither hires nor fires based upon need, nor does it employ personnel for their entire useful life. Rather, it uses a combination of fifty-year-old "up or out" policies coupled with legislated quantity control of promotions and numbers in grade limitations to shape and maintain its officer corps. These methods of personnel management and retirement have sufficed for a number of years, but recent changes have rendered these policies obsolete. Mandated joint, command, staff, and education requirements for officer careers are incompatible with the current promotion progression and the length-in-service retirement restriction. The shift in demographics of the United States population, due to the aging of the baby boom generation (people born between 1946 and 1964), will present the nation's armed services with a long term force management dilemma.