Fleet Marine Life #141 – Attrition
Being a Marine sucks ass. Sure I “wasn’t promised a rose garden,” but holy crap. I didn’t expect stupidity and bullshit on a scale of which I can only imagine. Neither did a lot of other Marines. You didn’t need any data to tell you that not too many people willingly reenlisted.
Check out this data complied by the Military Leadership Diversity Commision (MLDC).
http://mldc.whs.mil/download/documents/Issue%20Papers/31_Enlisted_Retention.pdf
The USMC has a low Enlisted re-enlistment rate. To be clear, re-enlistment is defined as a change in the ETS (Expiration, Term of Service; End of Active Service, EAS) date of 36 months or more.
Service members were characterized in 3 zones.
Zone A: 17 months to 6 years in service when they reenlist. (First termers)
Zone B: 6-10 years of service. (Second Termers)
Zone C: 10-14 years of service. (Careerists aka Lifers)
As you can see, the majority of first termers leave. Even second termers are somewhat reluctant to stay.
Marine Corps’s enlisted reenlistment rates for Males (Not exact):
2000-2008
Zone A: 20% – 35%
Zone B: 45% – 65%
Zone C: 70% – 80%
With these numbers, let’s say there’s 1,000 people who join the Corps. After their first term, about 200-350 are left. After one more term, about 90-228 are left. That’s a lot of people gone after about 8-10 years! This goes to show you how shitacular life is in the USMC.
Out of all the branches in the military, it is no surprise that the USMC has the lowest reenlistment rates. Marines get treated like sub-human beings. We would talk amongst each other wishing that we lived like the people in the Air Force. They had the nicest barracks, the nicest things, the nicest… EVERYTHING. We were all jealous! All we could do was talk shit about how “they’re not tough” or “at least we’re Marines,” but deep down, we felt our regret. It’s kind of like buying a used car that breaks down a lot when you could have bought a brand new car with the same amount of money. You can’t do much except say something along the lines of, “Oh yeah? Well my car looks better than yours!”
Just for fun, let’s look at the Air Force.
Air Force’s enlisted reenlistment rates for Males (Not exact):
2000-2008
Zone A: 35% – 50%
Zone B: 55% – 75%
Zone C: 80% – 85%
With these numbers, let’s say there’s 1,000 people who join the Air Force. After their first term, about 350-500 are left. After one more term, about 193-375 are left. Not too bad.
Not reenlisting since 1779.
i got out after the end of the cold war and i remember seeing sgt’s and above at battalion trying to reenlist and being told they couldn’t because of force reductions. ever seen a lifer cry? it’s freaking hilarious! i always heard of government studies that determined that people who reenlist have lower i.q. scores than those who get out but i can’t find the official figures.
NO IM NOT A TROLL But in the last couple years the economy got so bad that marines are staying in at a much higher rate now to the point re enlistment is almost impossible.it funny no one wants to stay in but we all need that job lol and now the corps is making things worse on us because there not Interested in retaining. They have enough of that now its all about kicking ppl out. Plus you don’t wanna stay in noway now the wars ending units are playing more fuck fuck games than usual because marines are bored
I was seeing that too… It’s crazy.
Fool me once… (and thank god the comics are back!)
..but they’ve never left.