A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Accessing and retaining high-quality officers in the current environment of increasing deployments and armed conflict may be two of the all volunteer force's greatest challenges. The military services use three programs to access officer candidates: (1) military academies, (2) the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), and (3) Officer Candidate Schools (OCS). In addition to accessing new officers, the services must retain enough experienced officers to meet current operational needs and the services' transformation initiatives. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which the services are accessing and retaining the officers required to meet their needs. GAO also identified steps that the Department of Defense (DOD) and the services have taken and the impediments they face in increasing officers' foreign language proficiency. For this report, GAO examined actual accession and retention rates for officers in fiscal years (FYs) 2001, 2003, and 2005 as well as projections for later years. Also, GAO reviewed documents on foreign language training and plans."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To ease the pace of overseas deployments, the President announced a plan in 2007 to grow the Army's end strength by about 7 percent by 2013. GAO was asked to evaluate the Army's management of this growth. Specifically, GAO determined the extent to which the Army has (1) made progress in growing the force, (2) awarded cost-effective bonuses to attract and retain enlistees, (3) maintained the quality of its enlisted force, and (4) directed growth in its officer force to areas of need and determined whether trade-offs it has made to alleviate shortages will have long-term effects. GAO reviewed the Army's growth plans, bonuses, waivers, and officer promotions, and interviewed Defense and Army officials."