WASHINGTON - A survey by the Army and Air Force National Guard indicates more part-time troops could begin leaving the stressed U.S. military after overseas deployments such as Iraq, a Guard spokesman said on Friday.

The voluntary survey of 5,000 Guard troops returning from Iraq and other overseas deployments found that the rate of those leaving the military after such assignments could jump from a current 12.5 percent to more than 20 percent.

"Yes, we are concerned. And that's the reason that we do it," said Dan Donohue, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon, referring to taking surveys.

Donohue and other officials said the survey, taken late last year among returning Guard members in 15 states, was random and should not be extrapolated to the overall National Guard and Reserves.

But the survey, first reported in USA Today, is expected to fuel concern that the military might face a future exodus among the tens of thousands of part-time soldiers called to active duty upon whom it has been relying heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It is not a knee-jerk reaction to a number" in the survey, said Donohue. "We want to have a good handle on that soldier's or that airman's mind as they return from overseas because a big issue is retention. It is keeping the good people you've got."

Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the survey was part of efforts to watch for any negative trend in recruitment and retention in the all-volunteer military.

"It is something that is virtually under constant review. There is an awful lot of attention and action being taken," Di Rita said.

NEED TO AVERT A CRISIS

Lt. Gen. James Helmly, the top officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, this week said the military needed to move quickly to avert a crisis in retaining Army Reserve troops amid concern that many will leave the service as soon as their commitments are completed.

Helmly said retention figures were "artificially" propped up, and a possible future crisis was being masked, because reserve soldiers currently are prohibited under "stop-loss" orders from departing the service while they are stationed in Iraq.

Army Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking, a Pentagon spokesman, played down any significance in the Guard survey.

"That (any major decrease in retention rate) is a worst-case projection," Stoneking said. "Here's the reality right now. There is no exodus. The Army National Guard did meet its end-strength goals last year and the Guard is exceeding its fiscal 2004 retention goals right this second for both first-term and career soldiers."

"This was a limited, completely voluntary survey. If you offer such a survey in the mess hall, for example, who's going to step forward -- those who don't like the chow," he added.

But Daniel Goure, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank, said there could be a significant retention problem within the Guard and Reserve in the near term.

Analysts have charged that the Army failed to keep faith with its part-time troops by extending their deployments in Iraq beyond what had been promised.

"The problem here is the unpredictability of it -- the Army was not able to keep its original commitments to these guardsmen and reservists," Goure said.

Goure said the Pentagon has been forced to rely heavily on these part-time troops because the size of the overall military is too small and the force is structured poorly to meet 21st century requirements.

Copyright 2004 Reuters Ltd

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