Week 1 Discussion Peer response 1

1. My full-time career from 2011 to 2019 and my part time career from 2019 until now has been the Military. My argumentative topic will be that the US military, specifically the Marine Corps Infantry community, is facing retention issues and that it has devastating consequences for it. My research question will be, is the retention issues in the Marine Corps Infantry community having consequences for future Marines?

2. My two sources will be a Defense.Gov article and a Marine Corps Times article. Both deal with retention in general for the military and the Marine Corps. The Defense article discusses the recruiting and retention issues the military is facing across the board and what areas are more critical and what each branch thinks is necessary to fit these issues. The Marine Corps Times article covers the Marine Corps and how it has faced a continuing uphill number in recruiting numbers to make up for the decrease in Marines leaving the Corps.

3. My Peer Review Journal is MILITARY RETENTION. A COMPARATIVE OUTLOOK by Vasile SMINCHISE with the Romania Air Forces. Although from a different country it still highlights the major issues with Retention in the Military.

4. My professional source is an article from the Center For Strategic & International studies called U.S. Military Forces in FY 2021: Marine Corps by Mark F. Cancian. It discusses plans for force changes and how that will affect the funding and retention for the Marines.

5. My sources, although not focused on the infantry community, will bring light to the fact that there are retention issues in the military in general.

6. My professional and other two sources cover what the Marine Corps is currently facing for retention issues and budgets and then my peer review journal discusses what effects not having good retention could have on military units.

7. I have a very good understanding on what the Marine Corps is currently facing and have been apart of a task force that assessed retention for the infantry. The information my sources bring to the table would be specific numbers to source. It will also bring a different view on what other retention issues that may not have been brought to my attention.

WC: 371