DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATI FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 1988 U.S. SENATE, MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE, MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS FOR THE TOTAL FOR The subcommittee met in open session, pursuant to not 9:30 a.m., Senator John Glenn (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Glenn, Wilson, and McCain. Staff present: Patrick A. Tucker, minority counsel; Da Lyles, Frederick F.Y. Pang, and Patricia L. Watson, profe staff members; Debra A. Rice, staff assistant. Also present: Phillip P. Upschulte, assistant to Senator Jeffrey B. Subko, assistant to Senator Exon; Wiliam J. Wig sistant to Senator Warner; Samuel J. Routson, assistant to S Symms; and Anthony H. Cordesman, assistant to Senator M OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN GLENN, CHAIR Senator GLENN. I call the committee to order. Before we proceed with the hearing this morning, I just w take a minute to note the attendance with us this mornin Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Thomas Ke the Navy, who is here today in support of Admiral Edney. C Kelley is a native of Boston. He entered the Navy through th program after graduation from Holy Cross. He served as commander, River Assault Division 152, in nam. On June 15, 1969, when then Lieutenant Kelley, he charge of a column of eight river assault crafts which were e ing a company of Army infantry troops from an overrun p In the heat of that battle Lieutenant Kelley, at the risk own life, maneuvered his craft to the exposed side of a pro cordon that he had formed. In direct line of the enemy's f ordered his craft to fire on the enemy in order to cover the ation. His boat took direct hits, resulting in serious injury t and he continued to lead his men until the enemy was silence After recovery from his injuries, Captain Kelley served o ous destroyers and commanded the U.S.S. Land and the M Sealift Command Far East. He is now assigned as Special As for Legislative Coordination on Vice Admiral Edney's staff. (1) Captain Kelley, any time I am around anybody that g gressional, I try to take note of that. Would you please be recognized. [Applause.] The Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel meets ing to begin the first of three hearings on the manpowe the revised Department of Defense budget authorization fiscal year 1989. Today's hearing will focus on the ma quirements of the armed services. The next hearing, which is scheduled for the 24th of 1 focus on recruiting, retention, and compensation. And hearing, which is scheduled for the 29th of March, wi wartime and peacetime medical programs. That is the have talked a lot about in the last couple of years. It co to being a war-stopper, I think, than anything else we h whole personnel area, that is the medical situation w selves in. On April 13, we will have a joint hearing with the Subcommittee regarding Army combat support and com support. Last year, the Congress authorized a 2-year budget partment of Defense. The manpower portion authorized Reserve force strength levels for each of the military s fiscal year 1988 and 1989. For the Active force, Congress military strength for fiscal year 1988 at the levels reque President. This provided the Navy an increase of 6,200, and th increase of 100 from the fiscal year 1987 levels. For t forces, the Congress authorized an increase in Select strength of 19,800 or 60 percent of the increase reques President for fiscal year 1988. Included in this increase crease of 2,500 full-time personnel. The Congress felt that the Reserve forces needed to c vidual skill qualification problems, reported as the se critical factor limiting readiness in the Reserve for adding much more to the manpower inventory of the S serve. For fiscal year 1989, the Congress authorized Active a force strengths at the same level it authorized for fiscal The Congress did this in anticipation that a budget sun ment, which none of us particularly liked but we went t are saddled with anyway, the budget summit agreement lihood would require the Department of Defense to deve ed strength levels for fiscal year 1989. I know that the revised strength levels for fiscal yea the result of some very difficult choices that DOD has h in coming down to the $299.5 billion defense budget leve by that budget summit. And I do want to address th ments in some detail later on in the hearing, because I need to assure ourselves that the reduced levels reques fact the levels necessary to adequately sustain the p force structure in each of the military services. Because of the compressed time frame in which the I of Defense had to develop its revised budget for fiscal much of the documentation that would normally ac and and is mornortion of quest for ower re -ch, will e third ocus on ring we s closer in this nd ouradiness service he Deve and ces for orized by the my an eserve eserve y the an in indimost efore d Re serve 1988. gree and likejust are nake d to Juste we e in med ent 989, ya yet received the Defense Manpower Requirements Repor we would use to help us evaluate the strength levels reques I make this point because I believe it is important for know that we will be relying heavily on the testimony we today to guide us in our markup of the budget authoriza quest. I want to recognize the witnesses this morning. The sub tee welcomes Mr. Grant Green, the Assistant Secretary of for Force Management and Personnel. It is Mr. Green's pearance before the subcommittee. Mr. Green was appoint position on February 8, 1988. I had the privilege of cha confirmation hearing at the full committee level. During that hearing and in subsequent meetings I have Mr. Green, I have been impressed with his positive and coo attitude in getting things done. Mr. Green, we look forward to your testimony this morni Accompanying Mr. Green are military personnel represe from each of the services: Lt. Gen. Allen Ono, Deputy Chie for Personnel for the Army; Vice Adm. Leon A. Edney, Naval Personnel; Lt. Gen. John Hudson, Deputy Chief of Personnel of the Marine Corps; Maj. Gen. Larry Dillinghan ant Deputy Chief of Personnel of the Air Force. Gentlemen, the Subcommittee on Manpower and Person comes you and looks forward to your testimony this mornin Before we have opening statements from all witnesses, I say just a few words about the first issue we will address our favorite subject these days, and over the last year or s cer strength reductions that are mandated in statute f years 1989 and 1990, of 2 percent each year. The Departme fense has requested the Congress to repeal this statute. For just a little bit of background, the subcommittee an sonally became very concerned about the disproportionate in officer strength from 1980 to 1985. Over that period strength in the military services grew at a rate of one o every 2.2 enlisted personnel added to the inventory. Our normal ratios have been somewhere around 1:6.5 officer to enlisted ratios. So this was quite a change and came across it, and also because the Department of Defe unable to justify this lopsided growth in officers in this tim we mandated a 6-percent cut in officer end strength from t year 1986 level, that would restore it to about the usual tra ratios. That cut was to be spread out over 3 years: 1 pe fiscal 1987, 2 percent in fiscal 1988, and 3 percent in 1989. And I must say here, when we tried to get information looking back on it, I believe even the service Chiefs agreed got stonewalled over here. So we dug in our heels and ins getting better information and better justification for why creases occurred. We had a few harsh words back and forth and a lot of and a lot of consideration of this whole issue in the past; I has been almost 3 years since we started on this. And one of the things that was very disturbing was tha ures we were given to justify this, were given apparently that the whole problem would go away. These figures turne be very unreliable in some cases and I would say almost on being fictitious in some other cases. Now, that is a pretty harsh charge, but I think in retros is exactly what happened. But we have been making progress in this area, though and I do not want to indicate is lost on this or that we have not made considerable prog have. Last year, after taking the 1 percent cut in fiscal year military services put on a full court press for a repeal o maining 2 percent and 3 percent reductions. However, bec year they were unable to present any analytically compell fication for the lopsided officer growth, Congress took no repeal the reductions. In order to give the Department of Defense another c make its case, the Congress gave the Secretary of Defens thority to spread the reduction out so that the Departme fense could take a 1 percent reduction in fiscal year 1988, cent reduction in each of the two succeeding fiscal years. But the Congress also required the Department of D submit a comprehensive report on officer requirements by of this year. The Secretary of Defense has exercised his to spread out the reduction and has submitted the require I do believe the Department of Defense has made much in getting oversight responsibility over manpower requ under control. We are not completely satisfied, but the much more substantial than the meager offering we had I might just indicate this was the report we got last y not say that all reports should be judged on poundage o volume or number of pages, but this one is as last year' the one for this year. Obviously there is a little more volu at least, and I trust the substantive material in there wi indicated by the comparative sizes here, we hope, Mr. G all of you here this morning. So I think we are making a lot of progress in this regard I also think the stonewall mentality in the Departme fense has finally been breached, because for the first t this debate started the Department of Defense has reco weaknesses in this area and is doing something about it am complimentary to you all in that regard. I know the hard feelings on this and the very heartfel on this matter, including a meeting I had with the Jo over at the tank in the Pentagon, where we went into th siderable detail. So Mr. Green, I believe you and other witnesses have written statements for the record. We would hope that, no objection, those would be included in the record in th ty, and we hope that you could summarize your stateme would ask other witnesses to do likewise. Before we go on, we have been joined by our ranking member, Senator Wilson, and we will welcome any op marks he has. Before turning to him, I want to say I appreciate the of Senator Wilson on this subcommittee. He has done a 1 |