Take the bars, stars, stripes and c**t cap off for a minute, James, and ask yourself -- as I have -- how recently promoted majors must be seeing their future with the Army under such a light.

Back when I grew up as an Air Force Brat the whole notion of entering the service involved putting one's life on the line for one's country and, in return, knowing one's future was secure (thought not necessarily plush) in return.

Now? Well, now the military's starting to adopt the business model Rummy pushed for all of his years in office. The effect? Those who risk the most are most likely to be treated poorly by a growing segment of our population (damn libs) AND who are now finding out that Uncle Sam is behaving like, well, a Dutch Uncle.

Now? A surprising number look at hitting their 20 as a stepping stone toward the financial security that will let them explore career interests they'd deferred while in the military.

or eschew major wars

Hey...there's a thought.

Okay, maybe not all wars, maybe just all those ones that really don't pose any kind of existential, or even serious, threat to us.

Here's a short list of modern examples:
Korea
Vietnam
Panama
Grenada
Kosovo
Somalia
Rwanda
Iraq
Afghanistan
Iraq again

(Yes I am including "police actions")

The survey that I conducted indicated that 60% of those officers that came in the Army in the early to mid-90s plan to retire at just 20-years of service or less.

But that's pretty much always been the case, no? Almost all officers retire as LTCs even if they have decent prospects of making COL.

James, it sounds like you're saying the structural problem is that whatever Army the young officer thought he was joining is almost guaranteed to be a vastly different organization a decade later, which is what makes Major such a bottleneck. Is that it?

Jim, yes, that's a huge part of it. And it's neither the Army's fault nor the young officer's: Shit happens and the Army, even more so than any of the other Services, changes quickly to adapt.

Beyond that, though, the Army is a bureaucracy with near zero external entry at the mid levels. I could, theoretically, join the State Department or most other governmental bureaus as, say, a GS-14 based on my education and experience. Aside from doctors and lawyers and such (which, I'm given to understand, one's mama should encourage you to be rather than, say, a cowboy) there's no way to join the Army at a rank above second lieutenant.

This means that, the new lieutenants of 2008 is the only pool from which the majors of 2019 can be drawn (give or take a year group). If the Army doubles in size, there simply aren't going to be enough captains in the pipeline to promote to major. Conversely, if the Army cuts their ranks by a third, a lot of good officers will have their careers ended at the rank of captain because promotions to major will go back to 60-65 percent range.

At best, perhaps this story by Ms Tyson will generate some open discussion on the issue.

I'd be happy to give you a copy of my study.

MAJ George Brown

And as for the shortage of field-graders, when I was an AF captain in the late 90s, I was already hearing horror stories about how the Army couldn't hold onto its captains & were losing them in droves. It doesn't take many brain cells to figure out that if you've got a shortage of captains in year X, you're going to have a shortage of majors in year Y... This really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone in uniform.