Modern Volunteer Army

Project VOLAR, or Project Volunteer Army, was an American series of experiments designed to determine how to successfully transition the U.S. Army to total volunteerism. Its primary mission was to determine how to increase volunteer enlistment and retention. It did so by evaluating the values most important to service members. The project took place in response to the imminent abolishment of the draft, so as to maintain the Army's strength without conscription. The project was created and sponsored by the Special Assistant for the Modern Volunteer Army, a program of the United States Army. It was conducted throughout 1971.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon established the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force to develop a plan to return to an all-volunteer military where the national civil-political discourse implied the imminent evolution towards a volunteer army. The U.S. Army relied heavily on the Selective Service Act to satisfy enlistment. Additionally, re-enlistment rates were at an all-time low. On October 13, 1970, General William Westmoreland announced his intentions to appoint an officer to oversee an Army program to move towards an all-volunteer force. The Army staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense subsequently established their goals to increase recruiting efforts and to secure the retention of enlistees. On January 1, 1971, Project VOLAR was launched. The Army began to financially emphasize its desire to move towards an all-volunteer force. The experiments of improving military quality of life were conducted at several forts, but the three most central were Fort Benning, Fort Carson, and Fort Ord.

In November 1970, General Westmoreland wrote a message to Army commanders, in which he provided detailed guidance on transitioning to a volunteer army. Westmoreland wrote specifically that “unnecessary elements and unattractive features of Army life” must be eliminated, and that they must “leave no stone unturned”. Additionally, Westmoreland articulated his wishes that the recruitment and retention system should deal with people as individuals, on more personal levels. Army leaders desired not only basic improvements in the quality of Army life, but also in the standards of Army professionalism. The project needed to create substantive policies to do so. The project also needed to focus on the shifting cultural patterns of American youth, and determine precisely how their values intersected with the potential for their military enlistment.

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