From CNN comes a note on just how much involuntary military turnover occurs:
Gen. David Berger, the new Marine Corps. commandant, said he was “troubled by the extent to which drug abuse is a characteristic of new recruits and the fact that the vast majority of recruits require drug waivers for enlistment.” He also said over the last ten years more than 25,000 Marines were dismissed from the service for misconduct, and drug and alcohol offenses.
Is this a lot? Over ten years, this suggests 2500 Marines are dismissed for drug and misconduct each year, or nearly 7 a day, 365 days a year.
Wikipedia lists Marine Corp strength at 182,000. Assuming that’s an average figure over the last ten years, then roughly 1.3% of the Corp is lost to drugs and misconduct each year. While it’s highly unfortunate, and speaks to the problems of the greater society, it’s a little hard to get excited about it without a time series that tells us if this is a waxing, waning, or weird outlier number. I don’t know how to find that information.
