Serving Away from Home How Deployments Influence Reenlistment

How does deployment affect reenlistment? The authors look at this issue in wake of the high rate of military deployment throughout the 1990s and with the prospect that deployment will rise even more in the coming years. The research uses two models to analyze deployment and reenlistment: one focusing on the direct effect of deployment indicators on reenlistment, and the other looking at both the direct effect of deployment and its indirect effect through the rate of promotion. The authors found that reenlistment was higher among members who deployed compared with those who did not, and that sizeable increases in deployments, all hostile, appeared unlikely to reduce reenlistment. The research suggests that past deployment influences current reenlistment behavior because it enables members to learn about their preferences for deployment and about its frequency and duration, which may revise members' previously held, more-naive expectations.