the Air Reserve, mainly the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, is that what these tests are?

Mr. DAVIS. That is correct, sir.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. This does not involve the Air Guard or the Air Reserves?

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir. We are talking about the Army Reserve and Army National Guard.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Well, why was a low percentage of those taking the test, why was it not higher? It is not mandatory by the National Guard or by the Army Reserve chiefs or what?

Mr. DAVIS. We issued a report a couple of years ago that got at that issue. There were two reasons cited. The first had to do with command emphasis and the second had to do with incentives. Command emphasis really gets to the issue of time. There is so little time for the reservists to partake in training that the commanders just did not feel that it was absolutely necessary to take the time away from the individual training.

Second, there is a difference between the Active Army and the reserves. Whereas in the Active Army, a soldier is required to take an SQT to qualify for promotion, that is not true in the Army Re

serve.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. How about the Army Guard?

Mr. DAVIS. That is also not true in the Army Guard. In fact, I should point out a recent development. I believe that the Army Reserve now is considering and may already have implemented a requirement that to be considered for promotion a reservist must take an SQT. But, as I understand it, the Guard is not considering that at this time.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. BYRON. I still was trying to get an idea of where the 30 percent comes from and where the 70 percent that does not take the test comes from. Is it across the board nationwide or is it specifically in a region area that finds it much more advantageous to make the time available to take the test or not.

Mr. DAVIS. The figures that we have cited, the 70 percent and the 30 percent are for all Guard and Reserve soldiers. It does not apply to any one particular region or any particular MOS. It is a function of the number of soldiers who were scheduled to take a Skill Qualification Test versus the number that actually did.

Mrs. BYRON. Mr. Bateman?

Mr. BATEMAN. I have no questions, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. BYRON. Mr. Montgomery?

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am rather concerned on these statistics that you have given us because 50 percent of the combat mission of the Army now is on the National Guard. You have got to have the individual skills, in my opinion, Madam Chairman, to do these jobs.

I really do not know where to begin, where to start; but I think when we get the different chiefs up here, maybe they can explain it a little more.

Are you recommending, today, Mr. Davis, that all of the reservists in the Army and the National Guard would take these individ

Mr. DAVIS. No, we are not. As I mentioned earlier, the results that we are talking about today are based on ongoing jobs and we have not completed our work. But the Army's own requirement is that Active duty people take these tests at least yearly and that reservists take it at least every 2 years. I think that this test or any other test that would give the Army some data as to the qualifications of these people in terms of their proficiency is needed. I think a commander does need this type of information if he wants to have a sense of how his people are doing and how proficient they are. Also, he may be able to use this information to develop individual training programs for his people as well as his unit.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. The Marines have infantry, also. Does this cover the Marine Reserves?

Mr. DAVIS. It does not.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. We have been talking-I have been talking that because of the different percentage we have in the reserves, now, that we are getting the brightest men and women. We are getting quick learners. Did you look into that? I mean, it seems to me, even though you have a shortage of drills, if you have quick learners, that they could accomplish these tests and participate. Sometime out there, you can try, is what I am saying, a former National Guard commander of a company and a battalion. I think you can find in the Reserve as well the National Guard, the non-commissioned officers have to take the tests just like the regulars to get promoted to the next line. Do you have any comments on the time element of these reservists, whether that would be a factor that they would not take the test?

Mr. DAVIS. The Reserve Forces Policy Board's most recent annual report indicates that next to the lack of people, the lack of individual skills are the most limiting factor when it comes to readiness.

I think what that says is that the Reserve managers, themselves, in looking at the situation realize that even though we are possibly getting better educated individuals in the Reserves, there is still a problem in terms of training them. The constraint that is identified most frequently involves available training time. Only 38 days a year is required and the 38 days is not even continuous training. We are talking about a weekend a month and 2 weeks training during the year. The fact is that when reservists report for weekend training, they have a lot of time that is nonproductive because of distances they have to travel to training facilities or because of the administrative requirements. It is a real limiting factor and it impacts on the skill qualifications of the Reserves.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Sometimes, we compare the Reserves with the regulars and sometimes it is an unfair comparison to what you just mentioned in contact, shortage of daylight and other problems. Under this test, can you compare the National Guard and the Reserves with the regular Army. Is that a fair comparison?

Mr. CARROLL. Sir, if I could add to what Mr. Davis has already said? The Army has, at the present time, one set of critical tasks that applies to all soldiers regardless of whether they are Active component soldiers, Army Reserve, or Army National Guard. Those lists of critical tasks are contained in what is called a "Soldiers' Manual for each Military Occupational Specialty."

The Skill Qualification Tests are really a sampling of the critical tasks from the Soldiers' Manual according to the skill level of the soldier. You asked previously about the number of supervisors that were taking the test when they were required to. We have individual information for both the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard, but to give you an example of how the supervisors, the noncommissioned officers, also are not taking the SQT, I will give you a few figures.

In the Army Reserve for fiscal year 1987 for example, at Skill Level 3 which would be the E-6's, there were 25,234 soldiers scheduled to take it. Only 10,034, or 40 percent took it. So, the fact that a large percentage of the Army Reserve and National Guard members are not taking the Skill Qualification Test as required is not a function of just lower ranks. There are supervisors, non-commissioned officers, who are also required to take it that are not taking the test.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. My time is up.

Mrs. BYRON. Mr. Ravenel?

Mr. RAVENEL. The members have had differences of rating the proficiency test for the National Guard-

Mr. DAVIS. The tests are the same. For whatever the specialty is we are talking about the test for the Active components, the Army Reserve and the National Guard are all the same.

Mr. RAVENEL. What I mean is-

Mr. DAVIS. In terms of the test results?

Mr. RAVENEL. Right. In terms of test results――

Mr. DAVIS. Sir, they are identical. For fiscal year 1987, the mean score of all Army reservists who took the SQT is 64 and the mean score of all National Guard soldiers who took the SQT is 64. They are the same.

Mrs. BYRON. Mr. Pickett.

Mr. PICKETT. I have no questions, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. BYRON. Thank you very much.

Yes, Mr. Montgomery?

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Let me follow up with a few more questions. Madam Chairman, we will get the chief in a few minutes but, certainly, if we have these problems, they need correcting because the Congress and I think most taxpayers want this mission to the National Guard-

Mrs. BYRON. I have got some questions for the chiefs and one of the things that concerns me is that listed under the most critical factors on the Army Guard is personnel and individual skill qualifications and under the Reserve, that is the second most critical after the number of personnel.

So, when you have testing and you have got 30 percent of the individuals taking those tests, it makes me question the other 70 percent, if the qualifications have come out of those testing. The most critical issue is skill qualifications. Why are we not testing individuals to find out their strengths and their weaknesses?

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Madam Chairman, I just have one other question. On the Skill Qualification Test, this is not the only measure that the National Guard and Reserves used. Can commanders and supervisors write an efficiency report that could be written out

that maybe this supervisor, sergeant, does not need to take this test. Did you run across that? I am just asking that.

Mr. DAVIS. It is our understanding that the SQT is the only test that the Army has to determine the proficiency of its soldiers.

Mr. CARROLL. If I could add to that, sir, the training policies and standards within the Army require that first line supervisors maintain a history of the performance and proficiency of their soldiers in critical tasks. We have not done enough work to know whether the supervisors are in fact maintaining those records. It is called a job book. It is a listing of the tasks that the supervisor keeps in his pocket. It is a part of our follow-on work. We do intend to look at that when we visit National Guard and Army Reserve units.

But Mr. Davis is absolutely right. It is our understanding that the Skill Qualification Test is the only objective assessment currently available to the Army to determine the overall proficiency of individual soldiers according to Soldier Manual standards. Mr. MONTGOMERY. Thank you.

Mrs. BYRON. But it is only given to a small segment.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Yes.

Mrs. BYRON. It is the only test that there is.

Thank you very much. There are not further questions.
Secretary Duncan, welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN M. DUNCAN, ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESERVE AFFAIRS

Secretary DUNCAN. Madam Chairman, I understand there may be some questions on the comments that were just made. I will be happy to respond to those, but I presume that you would like for me to proceed with my opening general statement.

Mrs. BYRON. Yes. Go right ahead.

Secretary DUNCAN. What I would like to do, if I might, is speak broadly of certain issues other than just that issue and then respond to any questions which you and the members of the committee might have. I would be pleased to do that.

I might simply note first, that I am delighted to be here today. This is my first appearance before any congressional committee since I was sworn in. I might also say very quickly that this has been a very challenging time for the Reserve Forces. I think the members of this committee know as well as anybody in the country just how much we are asking our Reserve Forces to do these days. There is simply not a contingency plan anywhere in the world that could be effectively executed without the commitment of our National Guard and Reserve Forces in the same time frame as our Active component forces. That necessarily requires us to focus a great deal on making sure that our Reserve forces, especially our early deploying units, are absolutely ready to do what they are being asked to do.

Several recent developments involving the Reserve Forces have been significant and I might just quickly summarize those.

In October of last year, we conducted the first "no-notice" exercise of the President's statutory authority under 10 U.S. Code 673b to call up to 200,000 members of the Selected Reserve to Active duty. That exercise, of course, was conducted in conjunction with

an ongoing JCS exercise, PROUD SCOUT 88. I am not sure what others expected from that test, but I found the results surprisingly good. Nearly 94 percent of the members of the units who were selected by random sample actually were contacted. Over 92 percent physically reported to their Reserve Center or their National Guard Armory or were excused pursuant to standards which had been set by the respective services.

Another significant development in fiscal 1987 was the establishment of a policy requiring eligible personnel of the Individual Ready Reserve to perform at least one day of Active duty during the year in order to permit an evaluation of their skill proficiency, to let us update our data base, to find out what their current address is, to see what kind of physical condition they are in, and so forth.

The IRR is, of course, important because it is our principal source of pre-trained individuals who would be called if we had to mobilize. This is the first time that we have gone through one complete screening of the IRR and I think it has proved to be very successful. There were some side benefits that perhaps had not been originally anticipated. It reminded some folks of their continuing military obligation and it reminded us where they are. It also proved to be a pretty good recruiting vehicle. A lot of people that we tested actually found out that there were some opportunities in the Selective Reserve they did not know about and they came in. Another significant development was the convening of the Sixth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation. This, of course, will be the first review that focuses on military reserve compensation and I anticipate several recommendations later this spring in their final report.

I am also pleased to tell you that we have had continued success with our recruiting and retention efforts. Between fiscal year 1980 and fiscal year 1987, the annual Selected Reserve Enlisted accessions, including both those with prior service and no prior service, increased nearly 8 percent. During the same period, total enlisted and in-strength increased by 33 percent. In addition, and like the Active forces, the quality of the Selected Reserve remains high. Some 89 percent of all fiscal year 1987 enlisted reservists were high school graduates and some 91 percent of those people scored average or higher on the Armed Forces Qualification Test.

Now, while a number of factors have contributed to that, I think it is fair to say that one of the most important appears to have been the Montgomery GI Bill. The use of those benefits, of course, has been steadily increasing since the program was commenced in July of 1985. It is aimed directly at young high school graduates who are interested in pursuing their education beyond high school. Our data reflects that some 90 percent of the enlisted participants are under age 30 and 50 percent are under the age of 22. With 85 percent of the current participants attending school either fulltime or three-fourths of the time, it certainly seems to be reaching its intended audience.

We have also continued to improve the equipment of the National Guard and Reserve Forces. The impact of the congressional funding of reserve equipment is certainly being reflected in both the improved capabilities and the equipment fill rates. Our equip