The study identifies the magnitude of the shortfall of health care personnel to meet the wartime medical requirements of the United States Army. It identifies the total personnel shortfall, critical types of personnel and specific job skills by component. The Army's dependency upon elements of the Reserve Component which may not be available upon mobilization is reviewed. The effect of the shortages on trained strength in units is noted. Some of the history of the draft in the United States and historical solutions to the medical strength problem are then reviewed. Currently proposed retention methods are applied to the shortfall and the results are compared to the wartime requirements in four different wartime scenarios, all within one year. New acquisition and management programs are examined, and projections made about how effective they would be given the same four wartime scenarios as before. Different forms of compulsory service are compared to the remaining shortfall under the wartime scenarios and the results are discussed. Among the conclusions drawn are: (1) without legislation enacted and a medical draft mechanism in place before M-day, no solution discussed will solve the problem (even within six months); (2) without new draft legislation, expanded use of retirees appears to be the most responsive alternative; (3) the "best" apparent solution is a "standby" draft keyed to the strength of the Selected Reserve, the Individual Ready Reserve and the Inactive National Guard. An operating standby draft would provide units that are training together and near full strength along with an identified pool of individual replacements on M-day. The study concludes that if a "standby" draft cannot be ongoing, the only other suitable alternative is legislation permitting a draft of medical manpower well in advance of the mobilization of the force.

ADA 212701 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)