Uncle Sam faces feeding growing military family

The US military is increasingly a family affair - meaning health care, housing and other benefits are taking a rising share of the military budget.

This has been seen no more clearly than in the Iraq war with the services being far more successful in retaining personnel than in finding recruits. The average soldier is now more likely to be older, married and have children.

"Family benefits are expensive, so it costs the taxpayer," said Cindy Williams, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who studies military personnel and policies. "There's also a concern that putting the services in this role of trying to take care of families will dilute their effort of fighting wars and keeping the nation safe."

A Congress Government Accountability Office report shows the average cost in pay and benefits for each active-duty service member has risen to US$112,000 ($162,000) a year in 2004 from US$80,000 in 2000.

Military pay and benefits have grown to US$109 billion this fiscal year, about 25 per cent of the defence budget, from US$73.7 billion in 2000. Housing costs rose 66 per cent and health-care costs climbed 69 per cent over the same period.

The average age in the military is just over 28, up from 25 when the draft ended in 1973. About 55 per cent of military personnel are married, up from 40 per cent.

More than half of these couples have children and about 7 per cent of service members are single parents. The military's extended family includes more than 1.23 million children, more than one-third younger than five.

The GAO report said all four service branches had met or exceeded retention goals during the past six years. In the Army, the largest of the four branches, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty said enlistment reached a 25-year high in fiscal 2003 with more than three in four soldiers eligible choosing to return. Last year's retention rate was 68.3 per cent.

These retention rates have helped offset shortfalls in recruits. Last year, Hilferty said, the Army missed its recruitment target by 6627 even as it exceeded its retention goal by 5350.

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the reasons for this difference were at least partially rooted in the loyalties that took hold once someone joined the military.

"Serving soldiers develop a tremendous sense of obligation to their comrades and are trained to see the mission through," Cordesman said. "They know the military and the risk, and they have already chosen to serve their country."

Soldiers who return also cite pay and benefits as a factor.

Sergeant Craig Covington, 28, a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic married with a two-year-old daughter, re-enlisted for the second time in October 2004, two months after returning from a 15-month tour in Iraq. He's been in the Army since January 1998.

"It's a good deal," he said. The Army "took care of my family when I was gone".

Eric Nelson, a Marine Corps helicopter pilot, was in Kuwait in March 2003 preparing for the invasion of Iraq when his second child needed cranial reconstruction surgery.

"It would have been [US] $60,000 out of my pocket but was fully paid for," he said. "We can't complain. We live well; we're comfortable."

Nelson, stationed in Jacksonville, North Carolina, has been deployed three times in the past four years, twice to Iraq. Nelson, 30, and his wife, Brooke, have two children: Gauge, three, and Wyatt, 23 months.

"My sister is married and has a little one, they don't have anything better than we've got," he said.

Selective re-enlistment bonuses - which range from a few thousand dollars to as much as US$150,000 for Special Forces members who re-enlist for six years - cost the Army US$505.6 million in 2005, up from US$142.9 million the year before. And the maximum payout from the Army College Fund increased to US$70,000 this year from US$50,000.

The services have also added less tangible benefits, such as extensive family counselling and support programmes to ease the strain of deployments to war theatres, and video teleconferencing and email service for those stationed in combat zones to help them stay in touch.

"Having more and more of our military married certainly adds expenses," said Representative Vic Snyder of Arkansas, the top Democrat on the personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services panel. "Health care is going through the roof."

Costs almost certainly will grow faster than projected, said Steven Kosiak, a defence budget analyst for the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

Deputy Defence Secretary Gordon England told service chiefs in November the military might have to cut at least US$32 billion from planned spending through 2011.

Analysts said his order reflected higher-than-expected costs for health care as well as fuel and weapons programmes.

The good news is that, with more and more service members re-enlisting, the military gains stability, experience and growing expertise. Snyder said the benefits paid to keep service members were "an investment in time and quality of life".

"Personnel these days are a lot more professional."

And the military may not have a great deal of choice, given the gap between retention and recruitment rates, say observers such as Army Chaplain Peter Frederick, whose work involves running a "Strong Bonds" programme that provides marriage counselling and weekend retreats for married service members.

"The generals don't throw money at these programmes out of the goodness of their hearts," Frederick said. "If they don't serve the families, they are going to lose them."

MILITARY MIGHT

The average age in the military is just over 28, up from 25 when the draft ended in 1973.

Active-duty service member's pay has risen to US$112,000 a year in 2004 from US$80,000 in 2000.

Military pay and benefits have grown to US$109 billion this fiscal year, about 25 per cent of the defence budget, from US$73.7 billion in 2000.

Housing costs rose 66 per cent and health-care costs climbed 69 per cent over the same period.

Selective re-enlistment bonuses - which range from a few thousand dollars to as much as US$150,000 for Special Forces members who re-enlist for six years - cost US$505.6 million in 2005, up from US$142.9 million the year before.

- BLOOMBERG