Rating the Volunteer Army

A Rand study says it's better than many believed

When the draft ended in June 1973,the new volunteer Army began attracting a long gray line of critics. In Congress and elsewhere, detractors of the changed Army maintained that it would not be able to meet the nation's defense manpower needs, that its quality would decline, its costs rise out of sight and, perhaps worst of all, it would turn into a mercenary force composed mainly of the black poor in search of good pay.

Last week the Rand Corp., in a study for the Pentagon, argued that the nation is far better off with volunteer soldiers than with draftees. The 394-page report is the work of Richard V.L. Cooper, a respected economist and manpower specialist. His key findings, as outlined in his report and in an interview with TIME:

Quantity The Army can indeed meet its recruiting requirements with volunteers, though it has always been harder to fill than the Air Force, Marines or Navy, which are smaller and have rarely resorted to the draft. Although the 17-to 21-year-old population will decrease from 1980 through the early '90s, there will actually be a greater proportion of high school graduates--the prime recruiting target. Still, says Cooper, "the pool of eligible young people the Army draws from will be smaller, and that means it must be able to reduce its turnover and lower the need for more recruits." He proposes screening applicants more carefully, offering incentive bonuses and allowing free trips home between assignments.

Quality As the Army has been insisting all along, it is signing up higher-caliber men than those who were dragged into uniform by the draft. Since conscription ended, the portion of enlistees in the top three of four mental categories used for classifying eligible people has increased from 76% to 93%. The Army's strategy is to continue raising standards so that the lowest mental category can eventually be eliminated. Since the end of the draft, the Army has already reduced the proportion of the bottom-category enlistees to 11% from 24%.

Cost The critics' claim that the volunteer military is responsible for the soaring costs of defense manpower is "plainly incorrect," says Cooper. Thus far, he reports, "the volunteer force has added less than $300 million to the budget cost of defense manpower--about two-tenths of 1% of the defense budget." While spending for defense personnel did rise from about $22 billion in 1964 to more than $50 billion in 1976, in part because of the higher pay scale, the primary cause was the higher cost of civilian defense employees and a military retirement system enacted at the end of World War II.

Blacks and the poor In proportion to their eligible numbers, Cooper points out, twice as many blacks as whites served in the old Army. That ratio has stayed about the same under the new volunteer system, which he views as a "positive sign" for the blacks and also for the country. His reasoning: despite the raised standards, more blacks are qualifying for the Army and now constitute 23% of those being inducted into the Army. Argues Cooper: "People are signing on for the same reasons they always did. They are young people not sure of what they want to do. This is not a poor man's Army." Despite widespread unemployment among black youth, he sees no chance of the U.S. ever having a predominantly black Army.

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