Secretary MCELROY. Well, we have some reductions in certain activities of the Air Force which are being gradually reduced, yes. As the size of the forces are being reduced the training program is being reduced. Mr. KILDAY. Thank you, Mr. McElroy. Now, while we have you here, Mr. Secretary, and while you are relatively new in office, I want to make a request of you. Secretary MCELROY. All right, sir. Mr. KILDAY. That you employ some rather bright, energetic person in your Department to make a particular study of the laws which have been passed by Congress within the last 5 or 6 years, such as the Contingency Option Act, with its benefits for the survivors of retired personnel under that law; reenlistment bonuses, the Survivors Benefits Act under which all members of the Armed Forces get full socialsecurity coverage, the only public employees in the United States who do get that. Other cities, counties, and States have given a portion of their existing retirement system and social security, but only the military in the United States get all of their preexisting retirement rights, and things of that kind, plus full social-security coverage. The Dependents' Medical Care Act, where the entire family of a member of the armed services can check into any hospital in the United States and have the Government pick up everything except the first $25 of the check no matter how high it may be. Each of the services should be required to see to it that in every military organization there is somebody with the responsibility of bringing these things to the attention of every man in the service. Probably something like the period of time given the recruit in teaching him something about the Articles of War. These things should be brought to their attention. This is a modern pay system. I don't believe in your former industrial connection you had anything that was better, surely, and I doubt if as good. So these men when they get to hearing about all the advantages outside, that they know these advantages exist, and that the advantages cannot come in pay alone because, after all, income tax is going to take a part of that. So you wind up disappointed in the modern system with these fringe things. Up until 1952 we were lagging way behind industry, but we are now a little ahead of industry, and I don't believe there has been an adequate effort made to bring it to the attention of the officers and the enlisted men. Secretary McELROY. I think it is a very good point. Mr. KILDAY. A major general ready to retire because of disability asked me to see if there was anything that could be done to expedite the correction of his military record because of inadequate information where he had made the wrong election under the Contingency Option Act. A major general on active duty! So I think one of the greatest services you can do toward making the services attractive is to bring consciousness to the military personnel of what they do actually now have. And when you do that please don't use the word "appreciate." One of Mr. Francis' predecessors used that word at a conference of military men, and it made them violently angry because they thought he meant it in the sense that you should appreciate getting something to which you were not entitled. Use it in the sense of knowing what these benefits are. I think you would be pretty well surprise, Mr. Secretary, to see how we have modernized the employment opportunities for our military men. If you can get that done and see that everybody finds it out, we will appreciate it. Secretary McELROY. Once you do these things and make the service an attractive service, unless each individual knows how it can apply to him, and make it attractive for him, it can't have its result. Mr. KILDAY. That is right, and I am afraid that it hasn't been made known down the line. Of course, we will all attempt to retain the customs and traditions of the service, which is a great thing to military people, and it is something that they prize even more highly than money. Sometimes these small irritations hit them in a big way. Like putting a surcharge on commissaries which I hope we can talk the Appropriations Committee out of in the future. The question of post exchanges, and right in there I think comes along longevity pay. I am afraid that if in one fell swoop you abolish longevity pay, you pick on one of the old customs and traditions of the service that is going to hurt for a long time. We did that in 1949 when we changed the retirement system and looking back over the years I have about come to the conclusion that that is where we lost the great enthusiasm of our military personnel. Because the wives quit talking. "Well, we don't do as well here, but the Army, Navy, and Air Force always takes care of its own." Since that time there has been a little different feeling. You are going to be retired on a percentage of your disability. We are going to try to think of those things when we look on this bill. I want to thank you for your testimony, and for the attitude in which you have approached this. You have done us a great service because you have left the matter flexible enough that we can really work with the people in your organization and in the military departments and get a bill which will do just exactly what you want. Secretary MCELROY. I appreciate your courtesy and that of all your committee, sir. Mr. KILDAY. Now, Secretary Gates, we have kept you here all afternoon, and I apologize. I want to hear you. I trust you are so anxious to get a pay bill that you are willing to stay here. Secretary GATES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, it is a privilege to be here today, and a responsibility as great as any that has fallen to me. What I will discuss, in complete agreement with the Secretary of Defense and with my colleagues, the Secretaries of the Army and of the Air Force, lies at the very roots of this country's military strength. This committee and everyone in this room understands very well the compelling need that America be strong. We need power and prestige sufficient to make it unthinkable to any aggressor to risk allout war-sufficient to prevent, if necessary to win decisively, any limited war or aggression and sufficient to support our national foreign policy under all circumstances. Military power is weapons-missiles, ships, aircraft, scientific devices and it is people. Without the right kind of people, intelligent, devoted, and well trained, everything else is nothing. This career compensation legislation is in a sense a pay bill. In a broader sense, it is a management tool, designed to allow the defense departments to attract and keep in service careers the kind of men and the kind of officers we need to make our military strength real. Of course, it is not the only management tool we have. We have made and we will continue to make every effort to use every tool of enlightened management and leadership to run our personnel business better-in selection, training, rotation, career opportunity, and justice. But adequate compensation is absolutely essential. We have a real problem. I will not belabor it, but it is a fact of record that we are losing trained men and educated officers that we simply cannot afford to lose. We are failing to attract the material that we need for the future. Inadequate compensation for the more skilled and the better trained is at the root of it. The Navy is people; 645,000 men in Navy uniform-190,000 marines and 400,000 civilians. Fine, dedicated people used to long separations from family, people who are alert and ready off Formosa, off Iceland, off Suez, off a thousand places where trouble can start and where they will be called on first. People backing up people in training, in industry, in laboratories. A big slice of America with all of the hopes, desires, and worries of the rest of us. People with whom one can serve only with humility and pride. Certainly a great many of these people love the Navy, and would prefer a naval career to all others. But it is not fair, and it is not intelligent, to make these people choose between the Navy and a reasonable standard of living for themselves and their families, a standard that they would have little trouble achieving in civil life. If we attract and retain these people, we can (1) Reduce training costs; (2) Get more efficient use from our expensive ships, weapons, and aircraft; (3) Improve our manpower programs; and (4) Reduce replacements and repa repairs. Most important, we can guarantee operating and combat capa bility-essential to the defense of this country. There are two major principles before us : To pay people more nearly what they are worth, and To improve our quality all along the line. These proposals are not a panacea for all military problems-but I think them essential to our military vigor. In all earnestness, I think the time for action is now, and that the action you take should be full and complete. We, in the Navy, take a considerable pride in our scientific record. We have not been last to recognize and support advanced science in the national interest. We have long supported, and have recently greatly expanded in, the technical education of officers and especially of young enlisted men. Dedicated young officers and men, young scientists, and technicians, young sailors, marines, soldiers, and airmen are in fact our greatest military resource. We should be very sure that they can find in our Armed Forces a worthy and attractive career. We must find the means to pay our devoted officers and men in accordance with their worth. The Navy has become unbelievably complex: atomic ships, jet warplanes, ballistic missiles, advanced electronics-you name it-we have it. We train thousands hundreds of thousands in all these skills and technologies only to see a great many depart for civil life, where rewards in money are so much greater. In both a monetary and a military sense, we simply cannot afford to let them go for lack of an enlightened pay policy. We in Defense have worked hard for solution to this problem. We have evolved this proposal which we think has promise. We ask your help, in the national interest, to bring this proposal into being. Mr. KILDAY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I am sure that the principal thing accomplishing these things would in your mind be the adoption of the proficiency pay system, is that correct, Mr. Secretary? Secretary GATES. Yes, Mr. Chairman, what we call the incentive career system. I have heard the testimony before, and I think to some extent it didn't feature the fact that this is to be an incentive for people to stay in the service, to look ahead to a future. Mr. KILDAY. And to improve themselves within their various specialties and thereby receive more compensation. Secretary GATES. Yes, sir. Mr. KILDAY. And the question of longevity pay can somewhat be compromised and still fully implement a proficiency pay system. Secretary GATES. Mr. Chairman, I am inexpert in this field compared with you and the members of the subcommittee. I don't know how it can fit into this kind of incentive proposal, except in the grade. I realize the problems moralewise in abandoning longevity pay, and there may be some way to preserve features of longevity pay. Mr. KILDAY. We will work with your personnel people to see if there is some way that we can maybe lessen the length of time that it continues to be integrated together, but there has been an impression which had grown up that leaves the impression that a person can stay in the military service and just be a bump on a log and keep on staying in and because of longevity, he continues to get more pay. Of course, you don't have to reenlist everybody. Secretary GATES. We do not reenlist everybody. Mr. KILDAY. You don't reenlist the inefficient, or the bums or the undesirables. You do not reenlist, but that does not say you do not need an incentive for a man to improve himself. Everybody has to have an incentive, of course. Secretary GATES. That is right. Mr. KILDAY. Then the impression that officers can just get a commission and stay on and they don't have to produce, and they continue to stay on-of course, in the Navy for many, many, many years that has not been possible, has it? Secretary GATES. No, sir. We have a pretty rigorous selection system, as you very well know, sir, and we have a very high selection all the way up the line. It sometimes worries you how many good people do not get selected. Then we have a means of eliminating the inefficient people, and we also have means of asking people to retire, and they do. Mr. KILDAY. And I am sure they will, if given proper request. Any questions from the committee? Mr. RIVERS. I would like to say that I think the Secretary is really in the same position we are in. I think we have the same thing in mind. It is a question of arriving at it and giving you the authority to act when action is necessary to retain that individual who in your opinion is so indispensable to your highly complex military machine. That is the main question, is it not? Secretary GATES. Yes, sir, Mr. Rivers, to retain and have for the young officer an incentive to stay in the career and be happy and look forward to a future that is properly compensated for, and attractive to him. Mr. RIVERS. That is the main question, and whether or not it is a question of longevity, you can be sure that we have the same thing in mind that you have. I think you have made a fine statement. Mr. WILSON. Mr. Secretary, I think, too, that you have made a very fine statement about the problem that faces us here on the committee in trying to implement the recommendations that you have made. I think it is significant that you did not make a recommendation, a specific recommendation for the adoption of the bill that is before us. I would take it from that that you feel that you recognize that this bill is going to have to really perhaps be rewritten from the start in order to put the recommendation that you have suggested into effect. Secretary GATES. Yes, Mr. Wilson. I support the bill as presented, but I realize it is a complicated subject, and I want to be flexible and work with the committee on it. Mr. WILSON. I just wanted to point out that you weren't being hardheaded about it, that "It is this bill, or else." Secretary GATES. I did want to say one thing, Mr. Chairman. When you were telling Mr. McElroy at the end, there, about the various changes that have been made since 1952, I wonder if you are aware of the fact that the Navy has teams going throughout the Navy at all times, on board ship and throughout the Shore Establishment, telling people about these various benefits and trying to make this part of their indoctrination so that they will stay in, and this I think has had considerable effect in recent years, because our reenlistment rate, while it is still very poor, only about 15 percent has come up from a low of about 9. Mr. KILDAY. I was not aware of that, and I am mighty glad to hear it. It is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind for all of the services. I am glad to know that the Navy has already undertaken a program of that kind. Mr. MILLER. I believe you have a pamphlet, do you not, that shows all of these things? Secretary BATES. I think we do. Mr. MILLER. With little illustrated features to it. Secretary GATES. We will. Mr. REECE. At the risk of referring to a detail, and I am restrained to do so, in connection with your selection system, I realize the difficulties the selection boards have. The difficulties are tremendous. I recognize that. But I am going to take one instance, one example which had to do with one of my midshipmen, who is now a commander who failed of selection. He failed of selection primarily because, when the criteria were set up by which certain officers were excluded, he fell into that category because of an unfortunate personality conflict he had had one time that had nothing to do with his technical skill or his fine qualities. It happened to be a man who is a technician, who had made a very substantial contribution to the Navy, |