Ward’s team notices some interesting disparities between the Army and Marine Corps captain retention incentives:
Bonuses that offer more money and more choices equate to greater retention – even when the incentives are tied to a longer obligation.
That’s the lesson taken from the results of vastly different captain retention programs offered by the Army and Marine Corps.
The Army, which offered a bonus of up to $35,000 or a host of career choices for captains to remain in the service for three additional years, saw roughly 70 percent of eligible officers accept the deal.
The Marine Corps, which offered captains $4,000 for an additional year of service, had less than 50 percent of eligible officers accept.
All told, approximately 16,000 Army officers signed up for the retention program out of a possible 23,000, while 3,045 Marine captains re-upped for another year out of 7,000 eligible.
Combat captains are the ground forces’ seed corn, and if too few of them decide to continue in service when their initial obligation is up, the service is in for a rough time down the road. Thus the pay to stay.
I always had a kind of moral ambivalence about retention bonuses, although I greedily took them at every opportunity. When I was a lieutenant we were offered $12k year for six years (or until the 14th year of service) to stay on, and it maybe helped push me over the edge, especially when combined with choice orders to an adversary squadron in Key West. But they also set up a dual-tier system within multi-seat squadrons, because in many cases pilots were offered them when naval flight officers were not. The bonuses even varied among pilots, with certain communities getting more year over year than others.
Pilots were more expensive to train than NFOs of course, and in those days had very lucrative careers waiting for them in the airline industry after “graduating” from the Navy. But you couldn’t accomplish the mission in those multi-seat squadrons without the whole team on board, and the inevitable perception was that the Navy valued some folks of equivalent rank and responsibility more than others. Don’t even ask the surface warfare folks of that time what they thought.
The Navy even offered bonuses for aviation commanders in sea-going jobs, to the effect that, in real terms, a squadron executive officer or CO might be making more than his air wing commander – something that was pointed out to me often enough by my own CAG when I was a CO. Eventually the captains started getting “go to sea” bonuses too. At which point the whole exercise became perceived more as an entitlement than an incentive – just another part of the compensation package.
Cheaper, though: Bonuses let the awardee shake a few reefs out of the mains’l and made him feel momentarily wealthy while adding nothing to the service’s open-ended retirement obligation. And although the notion of selfless service to country eschews fiscal considerations, in real life people typically have their families to think of by the time they’ve paid back their original obligation. If you look a young captain with battle ribbons on his dress uniform (and maybe battle scars underneath it) and try to tell him that he owes it to his nation to continue his service, he’ll look at all the other people in his generation with their MBAs and country club memberships and conclude that you’re from another planet. He’s done his bit.
The Marine Corps has always had a reputation for institutional stinginess (among other things), so I’m not surprised that they have essentially offered their combat captains a half a month’s pay at the end of the year while a hard-pressed Army is throwing money at their own cohort of company grade leadership. If you can get a guy happily past the 10-year mark, then the odds of him staying on another 10 to see where it takes him increase rapidly. There’s something to be said for retirement pay at age 41, not to mention the medical benefits.
On the other hand, there’s a Marine manpower manager somewhere noting that his service has achieved 71% of the Army’s effect while spending only 11% of their outlay. He’s probably quietly satisfied.
Us surface riding restricted line types realized that the Navy wasn’t paying ya’ll more, just sooner. Now the VP/VQ guys “deploying” with per diem checks, that always seemed pretty Air Force(ish).
I’d be interested in seeing your calculations, Lex. The Army got almost 160% the relative to the misguided children. It cost the Army more, but they offered nearly 9 times the money per capita. Frankly, the Army was savaged by the post-Vietnam RIF and they deeply regreted sacking all those non-degreed officers,as well as rhose holding degrees. The Marines seem to think manpower is easier to get than for the Army. I seriously doubt that’s true. It certainly wasn’t in the mid 70s when I had a Marine Officer recruited almost camped on my door.
you’re assuming someone in the Marines was capable of doing the math..
“Us surface riding restricted line types realized that the Navy wasn’t paying ya’ll more, just sooner. ”
Or some civlian employer will happily step. Esp for the Navy Engineering types. /heh
My dad and step mom favored recruiting Navy Engineering O’s to run their facilities when “Vet” was a dirty word in the 70′s and 80′s. (he in hospital admin and she as exec recruiter for Powerplants)
Dad had been in the blackgang during his WWII service (MM and then in V12 at MIT) and knew the value of that Navy Engineering tech/leadership mix.
Ah, Yes. Swo here. Gomen…
As the fair Captain points out there was a bit of angst among the Navy Blue shoe’ed brothers about the “Pilot Bonus” back in the day. Myself included since my older brother was a Naval Aviator and a P-3 guy to boot. I remember visiting him once when he walked into the living room holding aloft his latest per diem check from his latest deployment(from HI to CA) and announced, “Let the drinking games begin.” I must admit that I felt a pang of anger at his good fortune.
That being said; I have been a carton of meat in the back of a C-2 doing both traps and shots off a CVN – during daylight and in good weather. All I can say is that you all are welcome to the bonus and God bless you. Those trips were collectively the second most violent experiences of my life. The only thing that beat them out was an LCAC trip in seas that were way, way too big – stuff breaking off the bulkheads, our seats collapsing, crewmembers rebating their lunch, tearing up half the skirt on the port side before finally getting into the well deck. Ugh.
Although I really didn’t want to admit it at the time, I feel that the SWO bonus probably did impact my decision to remain in the Navy. Kinda brought us in a bit of parity with all the other folks out there; other folks being Nukes and Aviators.
Love the Marines and love the time I spent at the USMC Command and Staff College. Truly a special and valued group of folks that I would go work with again if they would have me. I fear though they put too much on the service to country on the subject of continued service. At some point one has to consider the home life and the other fiduciary considerations as a way of way of making up for the frequent separations. If you feel like you are undervalued by you present employer you just might seek employment elsewhere. Seeing a Co-equal being paid a lot more for basically the same thing has got to hurt.
God bless John Lehman-he refused to let the navy pay bonuses to pilots unless they also paid NFO’s.
Besides I should’ve gotten a bonus for having to fly with Nose.
Skippy, I hear you – I can think of several (not Nose, though) who pegged my fun-meter.
I recall a number of my single-anchor colleagues getting huge checks and buying Harley’s when I was contemplating staying in/getting out at the 8-year mark (circa ’94). I was happy for them, but I coulda used a bit myself.
We double-anchors weren’t being offered anything to stay that I can recall – as a matter of fact I remember the Navy’s attitude being one of “Don’t let the screen door hit you in the a** on the way out. We got plenty of ‘FO’s, what with the extra BN’s lying around from those A-6 sqdns we just retired. We’ll cross-train some of them and make ‘em dept heads in your squadrons. Needs of the Navy and all. No hard feelings.”
It wasn’t an over-riding factor in my decision to leave – working in DC and seeing the belly of the beast (read *severe lack of leadership at the top*) in the post ‘Hook days had much more to do with it – that and family considerations.
Tough choice at the time, much tougher for those LT’s now.
Brian
Ah, the cross training initiative. I was on the Wing staff when that little piece of good news came out. I remember reading the message and asking WTF? So if the E-2 community was going away would they screen me for Tomcat command? We both know what the answer to that question was.
Not that some of the guys they brought over were not good guys-but I was always amazed at the reception they got. Even though they were E-2 CO/XO’s they “weren’t really” E-2 guys. When they became eligible for major command selection-a couple even picked up CAG and the folks in DC had the balls to say ” See, an E-2 guy can make CAG.”
It was especially hard to know guys who had worked hard, paid their dues, done the hard jobs and then got shunted aside to make room for the cross community screeners. To ad insult to injury-the Navy also got rid of some of the really good “consolation prize” jobs that those could have gotten-so their reward for a job well done was more punishment.
You are right though-LT’s have a much tougher choice now. Stay and do an IA-bonus or no-or leave to an uncertain job market. And as an extra added bonus-they are expected to get a Masters on their own time. “No time for you to do an unproductive tour at PG school or a civilian university-do it while putting in 12 hour days at the RAG”.
I think the bonuses are a two edged sword. Probably a necessary evil-but a better thought career flow that emphasized the fun things about being in Aviation would help just as much as bonuses.
My thoughts at the time, exactly – no way an E2 guy would be allowed to cross-deck to & take a CO slot.
If you were on Wing staff at that time I presume TLJ (former 115 CO) was Wing Cdr? Served under him as XO/CO. Good stick and a good CO. His XO (one of those E2 CAGs) was a great guy too. My 2nd PG cruise was outstanding because of those guys.
Might have been that we were in a meeting or two together back in the day…
Caffery was my boss at the Wing. TLJ was my Commodore during my CO tour. I was on his bad boy list because we spent up all the wing’s TAD money on 4 Hurrevacs to Key West during drug ops. ( Actually worked out fine-one phone call from JIATFE One star put a stop to that whining.)
Ack, Commodore, not Wing Cdr…how the memory fades with age and kids. I thought J was at his best when he was at sea flying.
Sounds like you were running rather a number of years ahead of me. At that time I was PM for E2/C2 training systems (in PMA-205, but worked for PMA-231) – basically bringing in new WST and bus-driver trainers. I was lucky – it wasn’t the best career move for staying in, but it set me up very well when I punched out.
Skimmer guys around ’03 hated the fact that they could be XO and the DHs were being paid more.
Me, I’m glad I’m doing a job I like but paying back that nuke bonus and the sub pay *hurt*.