this definition holds true, many people don’t consider the attrition that occurs outside of individual actions such as draw-downs and force shaping. The end of the cold war era was one of the biggest drawdowns that took place in the past 50 years. Over the previous two decades, the Navy took steps to reduce the size of its crew requirements for surface ships through an initiative called optimal manning; a process that was supposed to cut costs and manage workloads effectively. In as little as five years ago the Navy implemented Enlisted Distribution Boards (ERB’s) to cut personnel from jobs that had become overmanned. These two initiatives reduced the naval force by roughly 60,000 active duty Sailors and 30,000 reservists over the last decade alone (Military Times, 2014). Sometimes these force shaping strategies are necessary to meet the needs of the Navy. Such was the case with ERB, but with optimal manning a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO, 2017) determined that manpower re...