Organization and the Decision to Participate

Abstract

'THERE IS CONSIDERABLE DATA to suggest that the Department of Defense (DOD) has recently encountered increasing difficulty obtaining, maintaining, and increasing commitment to its armed services organizations. In 1955, the 84th Congress passed the Career Incentive Act. The stated purpose of the bill was to reduce, to the greatest possible extent, the extremely rapid turnover of personnel in the uniformed services. 1 The report on this pay bill further stated that in fiscal 1954 the armed services experienced one of the lowest reenlistment rates in the nation's history. The military field report prepared for Congress concerning this situation alluded to multiple causes but assumed inadequate pay was the most important. Interestingly, in the 50 years prior to the Career Incentive Act, pay raises for the military services were few and relatively insignificant. There were two major bills (1908 and 1949) that completely restructured the pay system. But even these two major bills involved overall pay increases of little more than 4 per cent. There were two lesser pay bills passed (1942 and 1946) primarily as the result of war and postwar situations. A third lesser pay bill was passed in 1952, again increasing less than