NOT WELCOME: Sailors leaving Navy over stress on social issues, Top Gun instructor says.

“Sailors continue to cite the over-focus on social issues by senior leadership, above and beyond discussions on war fighting — a fact that demoralizes junior and mid-grade officers alike,” Cmdr. Snodgrass wrote this month on the U.S. Naval Institute website, an independent forum for active and retired sailors and Marines. . . .

“The U.S. Navy has a looming officer retention problem,” Cmdr. Snodgrass writes, adding there is an “erosion of trust in senior leadership.”

He says retention racked up its “worst year in history” for the special warfare community, including Navy SEALs, with a record number of lieutenants declining to stay.

Is it so hard for an article to link to the actual paper? (It’s also available as a PDF on Google Docs and Scribd.)

There is now a survey with which the author hopes to gather more information about officer retention.