Projecting Officer Strength of the United States Army Reserve from 2008-2012

As the Army continues to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, its steady need for Reserve Component Soldiers has impacted the ranks of the Army Reserve. The officer ranks are experiencing critical shortages in the ranks of captain and major. The Army Reserves goal over the next five years is to not only eliminate the officer shortages, but to also increase the number of officers in its ranks. This thesis applies a combination of projection techniques to historical data for officer strengths, accessions, promotions, and losses to predict what the Army Reserve officer strengths of second lieutenant through lieutenant colonel will be over the next five years barring any administrative actions. The first finding is that second lieutenant strength is not projected to drop below its 2007 total between 2008 and 2012. The second finding is that the maximum values of the projected end strengths show no gains through 2012. The recommendation is that the Army Reserve reviews all current officer positions. Possible actions are to keep a position as it is, permanently combine certain duties from a group of positions into fewer positions, cut a position, or reassign a position to either another rank or a civilian position.