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Fewer first-term sailors shipping over

COLUMBUS, Ohio — For the second year in a row, retention among first-term sailors is dropping — and officials are starting to get concerned.

“It’s the fist time I’ve seen it,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen told Navy Times on Wednesday. “Right now, we’re trying to ‘shred’ that and understand the overall impact.”

For five straight years starting in 2001, Navy officials had no problems meeting — and exceeding — their recruiting and retention goals. That has now changed.

In 2006, first-term retention slipped below the service’s goal, personnel officials say; only 51.34 percent of those eligible to ship over opted to stay in the Navy.

Now, halfway through fiscal 2007, officials are worried this year’s 50 percent retention goal might not be attainable, either.

Though currently officials say they’re ahead of the game at 54.7 percent, officials say that first-term re-enlistments traditionally dip during the summer months.

Navy leaders cannot put a finger on exactly what’s causing the overall drop, but they are seeing some interesting side effects.

Mullen told Navy Times many sailors now are opting to extend their current enlistments — a short-term obligation — and not re-enlisting, which is a long term commitment.

“We are seeing a very high ‘stay’ rate at this point in the year — meaning they’re not leaving,” he said. “But, they’re coming up on their [end of active obligated service date] and instead of re-enlisting, they are just extending.”

Mullen said that some, but not all, of those extensions might be sailors waiting to ship over once they reach a combat zone — making their bonus and each annual payment tax free.

“Those figures are fairly significant — but at the same time I’m alert, but not alarmed,” Mullen said. “I am fairly concerned because these things go in cycles — we’ve been up a long time — though I am confident that as an institution, we can focus on problems like this quickly.”