QandO

May 03, 2004

Special Ops Brain Drain
Posted by McQ

This is something which, with a war on terror, we can't afford:

Private security firms are wooing the highly trained troops of the world’s special operations forces with lucrative jobs in Iraq, forcing the leaders of these elite units to find new ways to keep their people.

Armed with multimillion-dollar contracts to protect people and installations, the private security industry can dangle salaries of up to $200,000 — four times the annual pay of a senior U.S. non-commissioned officer, one senior U.S. military official said.

“We have always had very capable, experienced, well-trained soldiers,” the official said. “Guess what industry likes?”

I mentioned this in an earlier post. If we're serious about expanding our Special Operations forces, one of the keys to doing so is retention. Retention is very difficult when someone else is willing to pay you up to 4 times what you're making now.

Special operations soldiers go through some of the most rigorous training their militaries have to offer, developing highly specialized skills in fields such as medicine, engineering, communications, intelligence, culture and linguistics. They are usually older than the average service member, selected and trained to operate on and off the battlefield — the perfect hire for security firms seeking to operate in hostile environments.

“Right now their military [skills], their tactical skills, are in demand. They’ve achieved a new prominence,” said a field-grade U.S. Special Forces officer working in the U.S. Central Command theater of operations.

The more time in service, the more experience and skill special operators have. But its also the time of life when most people think about settling down with the family. In special operations, especially now, that's a problem.

High operating tempos for U.S. and coalition special forces may be contributing to the exodus. Special operators did most of the heavy lifting in the post-Sept. 11 war in Afghanistan, where they rooted out the Taliban government and established an allied army. Since then, they have maintained an almost non-stop operational tempo both there and in Iraq.

Its not just a US problem either. Europe, the UK and Australia also acknowledge having the same sort of problem.

So what's the US military to do?

The U.S. Army is seeking new pay incentives to persuade its Special Forces troops to stay in, but such changes often take a long time to wind through the bureaucracy.

The service is also looking for new ways to replace the ones who leave. Three years ago, the Army began recruiting soldiers off the street for Special Forces, a chronically understrength career field that has customarily sought new members among serving troops. Officials at U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., have said that the new recruits are sailing through the training pipeline courses, but they warn that it takes several years for an off-the-street Special Forces soldier to reach the maturity level of an in-service recruit

In the field of special ops, there is no substitute for experience. To be effective in the war on terror, we're going to have to come up with a way to stop the special forces "brain drain."

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