A Comprehensive Officer Sabbatical Program: Rethinking the Military Officer Career Path

The military needs to retain its best officers and maximize the skills and abilities of these officers to achieve the more proficient and professional officer corps required in the modern, complex operating environment. Due to externalities affecting retention, limited opportunities for formal and informal education outside the military environment, changing demographics within the greater military family, difficulty competing with characteristics of the civilian workforce, and a growing civilian-military cultural gap, the military has not successfully maximized the quality, proficiency and professionalism of its officer corps. This paper proposes a comprehensive sabbatical program to address these issues. This program would require military professionals, at certain junctures in their careers, to take a hiatus from military service for a 2- or 3-year period to pursue an education, start a family, work in the civilian labor force, or otherwise pursue a life outside the military, before returning to the military to resume their careers.