I repeat my mantra that the biggest thing with retention today is not $$$$. I saw it in the early 70's in the fighter community with many friends bailing out because the Vietnam scenario was not going away, and the airlines were hiring due to all the WW2 and Korean pilots retiring.
The 16 years we Yanks have spent in the sandbox has no end in sight. We haven't lost as many folks as we did from 1961 to 1973, but the smaller force is deploying a lot more. In 'nam we would go bout every 2 or 3 years, as we had a daisy chain system that used "return dates" and such.
Spot on, Gums. Same issues, much smaller scale, on the other side of the pond. The other push is the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ when you get home. Overburdened by ‘niff naf and trivia’ and red tape coupled to no fun factor that all joined for. The strangest and smallest of things are the final catalyst that sees the “I don’t want to this anymore” flag being raised.
The seniors and the bean counters have for years played the poker game of “nah, they’re bluffing, they won’t leave”. Well guess what, they are and thanks to cuts and savings in other areas there are no means to train the replacements and no money to pay for it!