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Though perhaps done with the best of intentions, there is no indication that the impact of this policy on military readiness was ever weighed. And considering the military’s ongoing recruiting challenges, it was reckless not to think more carefully about how an expanded leave policy would actually be put into practice. Indeed, the new policy puts leaders in impossible positions where they must accomplish the mission without the necessary people.

Some argue that expanding parental leave can help boost recruiting and retention. And while that’s almost certainly true for recruits and service members who will benefit from parental leave, it’s also true that the experience of being overworked due to compensating for absent servicemembers in a unit may make the military less attractive for others.

No one would argue that service members don’t deserve time to spend with the newest members of their families, or that this new policy isn’t well intentioned. But the new policy seems poorly calibrated to meet the challenges confronting the military today, and the Department of Defense owes the American people a candid assessment of how this new policy could negatively affect readiness, endangering American families of all stripes

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