A Longitudinal Examination of First Term Attrition and Reenlistment among FY1999 Enlisted Accessions

The U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) developed Project First Term as a multi-year, longitudinal investigation of Soldier attrition and reenlistment among the cohort of recruits who joined the Army in Fiscal Year 1999. This effort allowed the evaluation of models of attrition and reenlistment intentions based on information contained in personnel records and collected from Soldiers who were surveyed as they entered the service, completed training segments, conducted duty assignments, and left the service. These models explored reasons for attrition and reenlistment intentions, and suggested management strategies that might be employed to reduce attrition. This report provides a comprehensive description of Project First Term methodology and analyses, and documents those results that are most relevant to the management of first term attrition. The focus of the analysis was on attrition that occurred during four major phases of a Soldier's first term (48 months) of service, specifically: Basic Combat Training (BCT), Advanced Individual Training (AIT), One-Station Unit Training (OSUT), and In-Unit. The authors devote a separate chapter of the report to examining attrition occurring in each of these phases (Chapters 4-7). In Chapter 2 they define how attrition was coded for the analyses conducted in each chapter as well as how the samples examined in these chapters were defined. In Chapter 3 they open their examination of attrition with a general look at attrition across all 48 months of service. Chapter 8 presents the results of modeling reenlistment.