Laura L Miller

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) must evaluate whether military officers being considered for appointments, promotions, or retirements meet an exemplary conduct standard. The authors of this report analyze DoD and Service policies and processes for tracking and reporting adverse and other unfavorable information about military officers and identify opportunities to better align Senate, DoD, and Service expectations, policies, and processes.

The authors developed a new methodological framework for assessing military personnel and military family needs. This monograph describes the development and testing of a survey based on that framework that the Department of Defense and local military commanders can use to gauge the problems and problem-related needs of service members and their families, how well those needs are being met, and the barriers and bridges to accessing services.

This report characterizes legal, policy, practice, and cost implications of U.S. Department of Defense options to comply with new congressional requirements to allow service academy cadets and midshipmen who become parents to retain their parental rights. The authors also recommend changes to military policies and practices that could help these student-parents better care for their children, succeed in school, and become exemplary officers.

Airmen, their families, and Air Force civilian employees face a range of personal and work-related challenges. To assist Air Force leaders and service providers in identifying the needs of their communities and prioritizing efforts to address them, the Air Force sponsored the 2017 Air Force Community Feedback Tool--a self-reported needs assessment of Air Force community members. This report synthesizes results and draws lessons from the findings.

Concern about sexual assault within the U.S. military is ongoing. To assist Air Force prevention and response efforts, this report focuses on providing a better understanding of sexual assaults committed by airmen, including suspect characteristics and behaviors, the suspect's relationship to the victim, victim characteristics, the settings and circumstances of sexual assaults, and behavior and justifications following sexual assaults.

This report describes results of a unique survey approach to understanding the most-pressing problems that soldiers and their families face, the needs those problems generate, soldiers' use of Army and non-Army resources to address their needs, and barriers to using those resources. It also reports soldiers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the resources used and the implications of unmet needs for soldiers' attitudes toward military service.

This report aims to assist the Air Force in its continued efforts to combat sexual assault perpetration within its ranks by examining the existing empirical literature on adult perpetrators who commit sexual assault against other adults, with a particular focus on research published in 2000 or later. The literature search focused on the current state of scientific knowledge and was not limited to studies focusing on military populations.

This final report in a series is designed to help the Air Force promote mental and physical resilience among its Airmen, civilian employees, and Air Force families and thus improve overall health and well-being. The report reviews the concepts and measures of resilience, resilience factors, hardiness and flourishing. It highlights the eight fitness domain companion reports and types of Air Force data that could be used to track resilience.

To help Air Force Services tailor support for Airmen and families, researchers applied established social indicators and neighborhood studies methodologies to identify areas that may need more-targeted Air Force resources. This report shows whether and how base-area characteristics are associated with individual-level Airman outcomes across several domains, including health and well-being, social cohesion, and ratings of neighborhood resources.

While some headlines have accented the negative side of gender integration in the military, this study paints a brighter picture. Gender integration has had only small effects on the matters that count most: defense readiness, unit cohesion, and morale. Among the officers and enlisted personnel of both sexes who participated in the study, there is a consensus that leadership, training, and workload are the primary influences on how well their units function. They also agree that servicewomen perform about as well as men. However, there are some areas of concern, such as confusion and anxiety about what constitutes sexual harassment and how the charges are handled; perceived double standards about physical requirements, and the effects of pregnancy on the readiness of units that are already understaffed or that include disproportionate numbers of women. The authors encountered a wide range of reaction to the women's expanded presence and roles. Taken together, however, the surveys, interviews and focus groups yielded a positive portrait of life in the integrated military.