Naval Special Warfare (NSW) enlisted manning concerns key elements for successful growth and retention of enlisted personnel

Abstract

The Pentagon is planning to gradually increase the Navy's SEAL force over the next several years to meet increasing global demands. The move was authorized by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in a program decision memorandum (PDM) in December 2002. The PDM, which directed the growth of Special Operations Forces across the board, called on the Navy to bring the equivalent of two new SEAL Teams to the force between FY-06 and FY-08. Even though funding has been allotted to this task, there may not be enough manpower to fill these slots. Training issues coupled with retention issues have brought the growth process to a standstill. The purpose of this thesis is to identify which major variables and/or combinations of small variables need to be changed in order to increase NSW enlisted SEAL manning. The three major areas that will be looked at are recruitment, training, and retention. The focus will be to determine where NSW can do better at managing personnel in these areas. The end product will be a detailed analysis that will offer suggestions for program changes that can be implemented to increase NSW forces while raising the quality of operators at the same time.