WASHINGTON: The US Army’s growth plans and the demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are contributing to a shortfall of thousands of majors, critical mid-level officers whose ranks are not expected to be replenished for five years, according to army data and a recent officers survey. Majors plan and direct day-to-day military operations for army battalions, the units primarily responsible for waging the counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout the army, majors fill key roles as senior staff members, putting together war plans, managing personnel and coordinating logistics.

The gap in majors represents about half of the army’s current shortage of more than 4,000 officers, and officials say there are no easy solutions to the deficit. “We need more officers, and we are pulling every lever we can,” said Col Paul Aswell, chief of the army’s personnel division for officers.

The army’s plan to expand its ranks by 65,000 active-duty soldiers by 2012 to a total active-duty force of 547,000 is increasing the service’s demand for captains and majors. The army is currently about 15 per cent short of its goal of 15,700 majors, and the gap is expected to surpass 20 per cent in 2012, according to army data.

The shortfall is forcing the army to promote captains more quickly to rank of major, even though the service is also about 10 per cent short of captains. While the army projects that it will fill the captain shortage by 2011, it will continue to have a deficit of majors until 2013, according to Aswell.

Some majors predict that the gap could widen because of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Those missions, some of which have lasted more than a year, are leading many of them to plan to retire from the army.

“A lot of my retirement plan hinges on the deployment cycle and the war on terror as it exists today,” said Maj James Blanton, an infantry officer who returned in 2007 from a 15-month deployment to Iraq.

The army says its data do not currently show majors or other officers leaving the force at accelerated rates. “Our loss rates are fairly stable, and the growth is what’s killing us,” Aswell said, referring to the army expansion effort, first announced in January 2007.

But a recent survey of more than 400 majors at the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., indicates that could change in coming years.“There is a tipping point that we have started to reach,” said Maj George B. Brown III, who conducted the survey and has discussed the problem with army officials. “There is a much larger percentage of officers ... planning to get out right at 20 years, and once they are gone, they are gone,” said Brown, a graduate student at the college.

“We are overworked because of the shortages and have nothing to look forward to but another rotation to Afghanistan or Iraq, so everything weighs towards getting out,” Brown said, adding that upon retiring in their early 40s after 20 years in the army, majors receive half their base pay and can begin civilian careers. “It’s almost like a perfect storm.”

Other majors said the shortage means they are continually pulled into war-fighting jobs and have less opportunity to attend schools required for promotion or to take jobs that expand their horizons. — Dawn/ The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post