Your Aug. 3 article “The Army is growing, so why are soldiers so afraid of being forced out?” does a disservice to U.S. soldiers and to the Army.
The data the RAND Corporation analyzed was collected from 2014 to 2016 — a time when the Army was shrinking rapidly. Your headline suggests soldiers have the same concerns today, when the Army is growing — but our research says nothing of the sort.
Neither does our report quote soldiers as saying: “This place sucks, my chain of command sucks, this food sucks, my job sucks,” as your opening paragraph suggests.
The U.S. Army asked RAND to determine the extent to which the Army provides sufficient services to the soldiers and families needing them.
This was the first such assessment conducted across the Army of the match between Army programs and the needs of soldiers and their families.
When soldiers or family members used the resources provided at their installations, fewer than 20 percent of respondents reported that their needs were unmet, according to our research.
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This is essentially a good news story — the Army’s garrison commanders and Installation Management Command met the needs of soldiers and their families most of the time while in the midst of a major drawdown.
Thank you for this opportunity to set the record straight.
Michael Linick is a senior international and defense research analyst and Carra Sims is a senior behavioral social scientist for the RAND Corporation.
