Ike Skelton

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. If the gentleman would yield one more time, in other words this is in our national interests to do this.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to point out there is a difference between this and just general foreign aid. I am not sure that is clear.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I pay tribute to a great Army officer, and a great soldier. This month Morrie Boyd will depart Washington to assume new duties as the deputy commanding general, III Corps. Fort Hood, TX. For the past 18 months he has served as the Chief of Army Legislative Liaison where he has proven himself to be a trusted adviser to the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff. During his tour as the Chief, Army Legislative Liaison, he guided the Army's relationship with Congress, wielding a deft and skillful touch during a period of tremendous change. Throughout this period, Morrie Boyd ably assisted the Army's senior leadership in dealings with Members of Congress and their staffs in helping them to understand the needs of the Army as it transforms itself from a forward deployed force to a power projection force. Drawing on years of experience, he skillfully charted the way for an enhanced understanding of the Army's role in the legislative process and for telling the Army story. His leadership resulted in cohesive legislative strategies, responsiveness to constituent inquires, well-prepared Army leaders and a coherent Army message. Morrie Boyd's career has reflected a deep commitment to our Nation, which has been characterized by dedicated selfless service, love for soldiers and a commitment to excellence. Major General Boyd is a consummate professional whose performance in over three decades of service, in peace and war has personified those traits of courage, competency, and integrity that our Nation has come to expect from its Army officers. The Pentagon and the Army Secretariat loss will be Fort Hood's gain, as Major General Boyd continues to serve his Nation. On behalf of the Congress of the United States and the people of this great Nation, I offer our heartfelt appreciation for a job well done over the past 18 months and best wishes for continued success, to a great soldier and friend of Congress.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Harman].

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak against the amendment. The military of the United States is not some amorphous thing, it is not a green glob of protoplasm. Mr. Chairman, it is people, my neighbors, my colleagues' neighbors, mostly young men and young women. In speaking against this amendment I speak for the young sergeants and petty officers who come from all across America. In cutting this budget by $13 billion it would cut into the personnel accounts, it would cause that mother of that sergeant to have that sergeant/husband gone more often because the operational tempo would increase. It would cut the O&M that has the ability to fix the appliances in their rundown place in Germany. It would not allow them to live as they should. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor].

Mr. SKELTON. I thank my friend and colleague from California for yielding me this time. First let me compliment him on two fronts. The first is the framing of the debate so well regarding the three aspects of national security: domestic, foreign policy and the properly sized military, and, second, I would be remiss if I did not complement the gentleman on his eloquence because this Chamber through the years has seldom heard such persuasive and eloquent words as we hear from our friend from California, and I salute him for that. Let us look at these elements very briefly in the time that we have. I think it is absolutely right; what are we defending? Then, on the domestic front, we have the grandest civilization ever known in the history of mankind. That is what we are defending, and we have interests all over this world, whether they be moral interests, or whether they be trade interests or other economic interests. So we must maintain a strong domestic pattern in our life. Second, the foreign policy. As my friend from California says, we must be engaging in the world, and we engaging in the world. I think we are doing a fair job of that, whether it be by diplomacy, or whether it be by military, whether it be by economics, whether it be by trade. We are the sole surviving superpower, and our foreign policy has brought us to that point. I might say that regarding diplomacy the need for the third element is very apparent. To back up diplomacy from time to time it is necessary to have an adequate and strong military. Otherwise the words spoken are empty. Third, and this is the primary reason we are here today, on having a proper sized military. Now of course everyone looks at it, I suppose, through our own individual eyes and through the eyes of the people we represent. Maybe the installations are the factories that we have in our own part of the country. But it is a broader issue than that. We must have a properly sized military that is capable of protecting this country and capable of protecting our interests throughout the world. Our interests throughout the world, of course, include precluding war, keeping the peace, because we know so full and well that small conflicts develop into major conflicts. I think the QDR, the quadrennial defense review, has the strategy right, and it looks at shaping and responding and preparing. Actually it is a broader strategy than that put forth by our late friend, Les Aspin, which was limited to two major regional contingencies. This one, I think, is more on balance. So I suggest in using the words of my California colleague, let the debate go forward. Had this debate taken place in this Chamber, had this debate taken place in the French Parliament, had this debate taken place in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in the 1920's, the second world war might well have been averted because we know from history that all three of those countries, particularly the United Kingdom and France, allowed their military to slip drastically. It was the late George C. Marshal as a major in the Army, gave a speech here in Washington to a small education group one day, 1923 when he decried the doing and undoing of those things for national defense, and he put the finger right on the Congress of the United States. And, my colleagues, under the constitution the buck stops with us in Harry Truman's words. We under article I section 8 are charged with raising and maintaining the military and charged with establishing the rules by which they shall live. That is our job. So I welcome this debate, and I compliment my friend for engaging in it. Looking into the future is like a kaleidoscope, we do not know what the next pattern is going to be, but we know the pieces of which it is made. I think our major challenge in the military is keeping good people. We have operational tempo that is high on keeping families happy and keeping a stability. A stability means a stable budget. We are blessed with the weapons systems that others do not have when they be satellite GPS's, global positioning systems, smart weapons or stealth technology which is so very important as reflected by the B-2 bomber and by the F-117 which did so well in the gulf war. We must look to the future in the light of what our friend has said, to protect the grandest civilization we have, to develop and keep that engaging foreign policy that is successful and to have a properly sized military that George Marshal did not have, that France did not have, that Great Britain did not have. So in the days ahead we will have a more peaceful and a better opportunity for those young people who grow and follow in our footsteps.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself with the gentleman's recent remarks about the young men and women in uniform. I am convinced, after being on the committee on which I serve, formerly known as the Armed Services Committee and now the Committee on National Security, and meeting with them in all parts of this country and other countries where they are literally on the edge in representing the American interests, that they are the finest military we have ever had. They are truly a national treasure, and it is up to us in this Congress under the Constitution to take care of them, to make sure that we have them properly equipped, properly trained, and that we keep the good people in, encourage them so that the days and years ahead, when those troubles come, and sure as the Lord made little green apples, those troubles will come, whether they can either deter or stop aggression. I appreciate the gentleman's kind remarks about the people in the military, and that is why I think this bill is worthwhile.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, it is 1 year ago that we lost our friend, our colleague, my fellow Missourian, Bill Emerson. In his stead and in his shoes today is that charming and wonderful gentlewoman from Missouri, Mrs. Jo Ann Emerson, who represents the Eighth District of the State of Missouri. The grief has passed, the loss of pain has passed, and I still find myself, Mr. Speaker, because I rode with him so very often to and from this work, at the end of the day standing toward the back looking around for my friend Bill to hitch a ride out to McLean. But we still have a lot of wonderful memories. His memories live on. He was truly an outstanding legislator. He understood bipartisanship. He understood what it was to represent wonderful people back home. He understood the legislative process. But most of all I found him, as so many, many did, as a friend, a true friend. What he leaves today is more for those who follow us in this Chamber and who lead and will lead America in the days and years ahead; to the pages, which he once was, to the young people who he spent so much time with in his office and back home in the Eighth District of Missouri, for he was truly a role model. I hope and pray that his memory will live in those young folks who will stand in his shoes, in our shoes in the years ahead. We miss him, but we revere his memory. We always shall.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, after nearly 40 years of teaching with integrity and commitment, Dr. Everett Slavens, a former Missourian, now of Arkadelphia, AR, has announced his retirement. Slavens, who has been blind since birth, has taught in the History Department at Ouachita Baptist University for 36 years. Student workers have assisted Slavens by taking attendance and proctoring during quizzes. In the office, student workers record readings of all papers and tests for Slavens to listen to and grade at his own convenience. Aside from teaching, Slavens is a scholar of black culture studies. While attending the University of Missouri, at Columbia, he focused his doctoral dissertation on the black press. He is the author of numerous articles and book reviews related to African-American newspapers. Slavens is an active member of First Presbyterian Church, where he serves on an AIDS care team. After retirement, he plans to write a book and take more time for writing and researching. It is the dedicated individuals, like Dr. Slavens, who are providing the basis for our future--the education of America's youth. I join with many others in wishing Dr. Everett Slavens all the best in his retirement and in thanking him for his years of service.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, it is with deep sadness that I inform the House of the death of Sergeant Marlin C. Carroll of Warsaw, MO. Sergeant Carroll had a distinguished 30-year career in the Missouri State Highway Patrol before his retirement in 1988. I knew him as a friend, as a dedicated law enforcement officer, and as a man of honor and integrity. Sgt. Carroll was born on a farm in Worth County, MO, in 1933, the son of Ralph Wayne and Aloha June Morin Carroll. He grew up in Worth County and graduated from Grant City High School in 1951. He married Gerry Heisman on May 18, 1952. He served his country with distinction in the U.S. Army and in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. In 1958, Sgt. Carroll joined the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and was stationed in my hometown of Lexington, MO. IN 1965, he received the American Red Cross Life Saving Award for his prompt and professional actions in rescuing a child from a life-threatening accident. In 1967, he was promoted to Corporal and transferred to Carrollton, MO, and in 1971, he was promoted to Sergeant and moved to Warsaw where he served as zone sergeant for Benton and Henry Counties until his retirement. Sgt. Carroll was an active member of his community, and he will be missed by all who had the privilege to know him. I know the Members of the House will join me in extending heartfelt condolences to his family: his wife, Gerry: his daughter, Patty; his two sons, David and Eddie; his nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; and his mother, brother, and two sisters.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I want to vote for a balanced budget amendment tonight, but I cannot do it in all good conscience should the Shuster substitute pass. I suppose in speaking for a balanced budget, on the one hand, and against the Shuster substitute, I could bring to the attention of this body how it cuts into education, those young people that are the hope of the future, how it cuts into the fight against crime, how it cuts veterans and those people who are now reaching the age where they need veterans' help in hospitals, and how it cuts into agriculture, which is the very heart of the district that I represent. Mr. Chairman, it cuts drastically into the national security of our country; $5.65 billion. That is over a billion dollars a year; that is the equivalent of 50,000 troops cut per year. So, Mr. Chairman, I speak on the subject this evening that has been avoided in this debate, and that is of national security and of that lone soldier who is out there standing on top of the hill in Bosnia because his Commander in Chief sent him there. We want to encourage him. We want to keep him trained. We want to take care of his family. And when he returns, we do not want him to have to go back on additional unnecessary deployments because of the lack of fellow soldiers. Cutting into national defense is cutting into the basic insurance policy of America. We cannot allow that to happen. We must think of where we are in this world. We are the superpower in this world. If we are to have diplomacy that is to be credible, we must have it backed by strong national defense. We cannot allow ourselves to become a second- rate military. If we become a second-rate military, we become a second- rate power. This is a step in the wrong direction should the Shuster substitute pass. Should it pass, I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against the bill because we would not then have a balanced, balanced budget amendment.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, Gen. George Patton, as vigorous a proponent of advanced military technology as ever served in the U.S. Armed Forces, once said, ``Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by people.'' Today, in the last of three speeches I am making on the future of the U.S. military, I want to talk about the most important resource that the Nation has in protecting its security: Our people, the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces and the civilians who support them. As I have emphasized in each of my previous speeches, under the Constitution it is Congress' responsibility to ensure that U.S. forces are able to carry out their duties. Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to raise and support armies; to provide and maintain a Navy; and to make rules for the Government and regulation of the land and naval forces. Unfortunately, Congress has not always fulfilled its responsibility to provide for the common defense. Too often in the past, indeed perhaps most often in this century, the United States has been unprepared for the military challenges it has faced. As George C. Marshall lamented in a 1923 speech that I quoted earlier, immediately following a war, Congress and the public remember the terrible price paid by young Americans at the start of a war for which we were unprepared. But very soon thereafter, under the weight of the public debt, the costs of war are forgotten and military strength is allowed to erode. In earlier speeches, I discussed military strategy and defense budgets. In those statements, I said, first, that the strategy which appears to be emerging from the Quadrennial Defense Review or QDR that is now underway in the Pentagon appears to be correct and appropriately broad and demanding. I said, second, however, that the resources that the QDR anticipates to be available appear inadequate to support the strategy. I am concerned especially that the QDR will require reductions in active duty troop levels, and I do not feel that any reductions are warranted in view of the demands on the force. I am even more concerned that this round of force cuts will be followed by a perpetual cycle of budget shortfalls and additional cuts in the future, unless defense budgets grow modestly over time. Those are critically important issues, in large part because of how they bear on the matters I will discuss today. An ambitious strategy accompanied by inadequate resources is a prescription for placing tremendous strain on the people who serve. As it has been said, all of the money for defense that Congress may provide, all of the weapons that the services may buy, all of the logistics infrastructure that may undergird the force, all of the military doctrine that strategists may pronounce, all of the campaign plans that commanders may devise, all of these things ultimately come down to a single soldier walking on point. It is also true, as a corollary, that the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces deserve material and moral support sufficient to allow them to do what we ask of them. In peacetime, however, we most often forget the costs of war and neglect to pay the price of peace. Sometimes I worry that this tendency to forget those who wear the uniform is inherent in a democratic society. The famous British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled ``Tommy,'' about the treatment of soldiers in time of peace. It is written from the point of view of a British infantryman dressed in his red coat who was refused a pint of beer in a public house, and he complains: ``For It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' `Chuck him out, the brute!' But it's `Savior of `is country' When the guns begin to shoot.'' Like the British public a century ago, we Americans, too, have loudly cheered the troops coming home from war, only to turn away from these troops when the garlands of victory are no longer fresh. Remember the yellow ribbons that were so prominent during the Persian Gulf crisis in 1990 and 1991? Recall the welcome home parade for our victorious troops? I fear that those moments of pride and glory are no longer in the consciousness of most Americans or of this Congress. Today, I want to focus our attention on the men and women who serve, but I want to do it with some care. In assessing how we treat our people, I am torn between two strong feelings. On the one hand, I am concerned that the pressures we are putting on servicemembers and on DOD civilians are growing to the breaking point. On the other hand, I do not want to discourage those who are willing to serve either from joining their Armed Forces or from staying in. On the contrary, and all I will say, I hope to encourage those who are willing and able to serve their country. The fact that we are now at peace and that no single great enemy threatens us does not mean that military service is any less necessary or any less to be valued than in the past. On the contrary, the burden of maintaining the peace lies on the shoulders of those who serve, and it is no less critical a mission than any soldier, sailor, marine, or airman has ever had before. So though I am going to discuss at length all of the problems that those who serve may encounter, I do not want to dishearten the patriotic people that the mission of defense requires. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that most impressed me and many others about former Secretary of Defense Perry was his focus on people. When he first became Secretary, one of the things he did most was to travel to military bases around the country, indeed, all around the world, and talk to the servicepeople he met there; management by walking around, he called it. As a result of this walking around was the persistent emphasis he put on improving the quality of life in the military. For those of us who had known William Perry for many years to be a hardware expert, his focus on people was an unexpected side of his character that was greatly welcomed. The value of Secretary Perry's focus on people was, above all, the message that it sent to the troops. I can tell the Members that it was noticed throughout the military and did much to prevent an unbridgeable rift from opening between the civilian leaders of the Clinton administration and the men and women in the Armed Forces. The example of Secretary Perry's focus on people is one that those of us in policymaking positions should take to heart. The U.S. military is a complex human culture, and its human dimensions must always be considered in making choices on strategy, budgets, programs, social rules, and regulations, or any other aspect of policy. In retrospect, therefore, I believe it was a mistake that the Quadrennial Defense Review did not include a separate panel on people. As many of my colleagues are aware, the work of the QDR has been carried out by six panels on strategy, force structure, modernization, readiness, infrastructure, and a late addition, intelligence, with an integration panel linking it all together. As I have been thinking recently about the issues that the QDR is addressing, so many of them, it seems to me, come down to people. Many people issues are integral to the work of the QDR's six panels. What stresses and strains are put on people by the strategy, given the force structure available to implement it? How does the quality of life in the military affect readiness to carry out missions? How does military training, education and leadership development affect the military's ability to exploit new technology effectively? How will reductions in the defense infrastructure affect the morale of people in the services and of the civilians who support them? All of the QDR panels, therefore, will touch on people to some extent, but not as an explicit focus of attention. Moreover, many critically important people issues may not be addressed at all in the QDR. Do the people in the military have a clear sense of the manner in which the jobs they do contribute to the common defense? How are all the changes in the society as a whole affecting the military, changes that include increasing opportunities for women, the growing proportion of two-earner households, the problems of sexual harassment, the dynamics of race relations? Is there, as many fear, a growing gap between the culture of the U.S. military and of that civilian society, and how will this affect public support for national security and the willingness of many people to serve? The Quadrennial Defense Review will probably not address these questions; and yet, in the end, such matters have as much to do with national security as the size of the budget or the quality of new weapons technology. So in this speech, I want us to focus on the people who protect our national security and to raise some questions which I think need to be considered as Congress evaluates the forthcoming Quadrennial Defense Review. Above all, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that if pressures on U.S. military forces do not ease, then the military will begin to lose many of its best and brightest people. Those I have talked to in the services most often cite three reasons why good people leave the force: First, because the operational tempo is too high; second, because of concerns about their families; and, third, because of uncertainty about the future. In the remainder of this speech, I will address each of these concerns. Certainly, the most immediate people issue on the agenda is how current demands in the force are affecting the troops. Two years ago, Lt. Gen. Ted Stroup, the Assistant Army Chief of Staff for Personnel, was asked what it was like for soldiers who served in an Army that was then composed of 520,000 active duty personnel. Soldiers, he said, were ``stretched and stressed'' by all the demands being put on them. He was asked what the effect would be when the numbers dropped to 495,000, as was then planned. He answered, ``stretched and stressed all the more.'' Recently, however, the Department of Defense has proposed reducing the size of the Army to 475,000, which the Army has resisted. Meanwhile, the actual strength of the Army has eroded to about 490,000, even though the official end-strength target required by current law remains at 495,000. It is widely reported that the QDR will reduce Army end-strength by 15,000 or more. So Army people will be stretched and stressed even more. At what point does all this stretching and stressing reach the breaking point? Each of the other services has to face the same issues. Recently a senior Navy official testified at length before the Committee on National Security about the difficulty the Navy has had keeping forces on station as much as it had planned. In large part, this is because the Navy, to its credit, rightly tries to limit overseas deployment to 6 months and puts other constraints on the amount of time units may be away from home. In the same testimony, however, the official had to defend the decision to reduce the Navy's end-strength by 11,000 in order to find money for equipment maintenance. The two issues cannot be separated. As end-strength declines, you can either increase personnel deployment times, which is damaging to your people and which the Navy has correctly refused to do, or you can reduce deployments, which means you are not fully supporting the military strategy. In the other services, and in the Army especially, the ability to limit deployments is not as great. Requirements for Army personnel are driven by overseas duty tours and by the increasing number of military operations, which are not as easy to limit as the number of ship days on station. As a result, too many people in the Army are being stretched and stressed individually by the demands of military operations. For those of us who spent any amount of time out talking to people in uniform, this message comes across very loudly. I spent the Thanksgiving weekend last year on a trip to visit United States troops in Aviano, Italy, Bosnia, and Hungary. In Hungary, I spent some time with soldiers from Missouri, and I recall asking each of them how many military deployments they had been involved in during recent enlistment periods. Several had two deployments, a few had three, and one sergeant had five deployments. Every time I visit the troops, I hear similar stories. As a result, I have been thinking about the extent of the problem, its causes and its solutions. I am convinced, first of all, that the extent of the problem is not adequately identified by current measures. As I said, the Navy has in place a set of rigid limits on unit deployments abroad. Even in the Navy, however, the pace of deployment for individual personnel is not directly measured and limited. In other services, there is no systematic, effective way to measure the extent of individual deployments. So we really do not know how much stress we are putting on individuals in uniform. One of the things the QDR should have considered, therefore, is how to measure the strain put on individuals in the uniformed services and means of controlling it. I have recently seen a draft list from the Air Force of some things we should be measuring. It includes: How many people have temporary duty assignments of less than 90 days a year, 90 to 120 days, or over 120 days a year? If too many people are being deployed away from home on a constant basis, that is a sure sign of an excessive operating tempo. What is the average duty week for people on their assignments? 40 to 45 hours a week; 45 to 55; or over 55? Some jobs require long hours, but if the trend over the whole force is up over time, that is also a cause for stress. How many aircraft crews receive waivers of training hour requirements? If the trend is up, then too many people are being asked to do too many other things besides their primary jobs. How many major exercises are people engaged in, on average, per year? How many people are delayed in meeting training qualification requirements for position upgrades? What share of enlisted personnel are pursuing college degrees and what share of officers are pursuing advanced degrees? What share of each disenroll from course work? A decline in the number of people pursuing advanced education is a good measure of stress on the force. How many people have accrued leave exceeding 60 days? How many fathers have missed a child's birth due to a temporary duty assignment? How many have been assigned to duty away within 30 days of a child's birth? The list goes on, and I could add to it. I am convinced, just by talking to people, that measures such as these will show a dramatic increase in the tempo of work in all of the services. Unless we get a handle on the degree of strain we are putting on the force, and do some things to control it, then we are heading for real trouble in retaining good people. What are the causes of such apparent problems? To me, the root cause is a tendency to underestimate how much is required to carry out military operations while still preparing adequately for full scale war. After all, it is the military's main mission to fight and win America's wars. In the past, the military services did not worry very much about the impact that smaller scale military operations would have on the force, first, because the cold war era force was relatively large, so a small deployment was not felt, and, second, because smaller military operations were relatively rare. That is the main reason why measures of stress on the force are inadequate. Now the force is smaller, and military operations have become more frequent and also, often, of very long duration. One calculation in this year's Army Posture Statement is striking. Over the 40 years from 1950 through 1989, the Army was engaged in 10 deployments. In the 7 years between 1990 and 1996, the Army was engaged in 25 deployments. Meanwhile, the size of the Army has declined by a third and the budget has dropped by 39 percent. Les Aspin's bottom-up review of 1993 did not come to grips with the impact of a larger number of operations on a smaller force. The bottom- up review simply assumed that a force designed to fight 2 major regional conflicts would be large and diverse enough to handle any number of smaller operations. Only now are the services beginning to understand why such a cold war way of thinking will not do. The Army, for example, now has a way of assessing the impact of smaller conflicts that begins to explain the stresses. For each unit deployed in an ongoing operation, the Army says, four units are needed in the force. One unit is deployed. Another unit is preparing for deployment. A third unit is coming off deployment and needs time to restore its readiness. And a fourth unit is depleted because some of its troops were drawn on to fill out the unit that is deployed. Add to this the fact that only a part of the Army is available for deployments, because a portion is undergoing education and skills training, is in transit, or is in support functions and other positions. According to the General Accounting Office, 63 percent of active duty Army troops are deployable at any given time. So out of the 495,000 total, 312,000 troops are available for operations. At the end of 1996, the Army says, 35,800 troops were deployed in operations, mainly in Bosnia. This does not count the number of troops forward deployed in Korea, by the way, who probably ought to be counted as deployed and not simply as forward based. Multiply 35,800 by 4 and the number of troops affected by deployments is 143,200, which is 46 percent of the deployable force. The other 54 percent of the force, of course, is supposed to be training hard to be ready for two major regional wars. Mr. Speaker, this is what has me so concerned about the impact of further reductions in Army force levels. At any one time, a large part of the Army is either involved in operations or is directly affected by them. Already the Army has to draw people away from their normal assignments in order to fill out units that are being employed. To me, this is especially straining for Army people, because such assignments are not planned and often are for temporary duty of 179 days, without any offsetting benefits. Moreover, the people left in the unit from which people were taken away have to work twice as hard to accomplish the workload, which of course does not decline. Now the plan is to further reduce the overall number of personnel without reducing the number of divisions. If the reductions are made from division strengths, then some specialties will have even lower manning levels. If the reductions are made from support positions, which is presumably the rationale, then the opportunity for Army personnel to serve in slots that are somewhat less subject to uncertainty will decline. I do not believe that the Defense Department has an accurate level of understanding of the strains that these further reductions will put on the force. I fear that such reductions will break the force. And, this will be a national tragedy. So how can we resolve these problems? Each of the services has been searching for ways to manage resources to meet the needs, but I am not sure how successful the solutions have been or, if successful from the present, how successful they will remain in the future. One solution has been to use volunteer reservists to fill out deployed units. The key issue here is when we will reach the limit of reserve availability. Reservists willing and able to volunteer have likely come forward already for one duty tour, and enough may not be available in the future. Involuntary mobilization of reservists would soon cause many of them to quit. In addition, mobilization of reservists is expensive. Reservists receive full active duty pay and benefits when they are on active duty. Because Congress insists on offsetting supplemental funding for military operations with rescissions, such costs have to be absorbed within the overall defense budget. Another potential solution may be to reduce nondivision support troop levels in order to fill out division slots. But too often we lose sight of the fact that support personnel carry out assignments that are critical to mission effectiveness. Intelligence, for example, is considered a support function but operations cannot proceed without adequate, timely, usable intelligence. Nor can operations proceed without supplies or medical care or any other basic services provided through support activities. I intend to look very critically at the Quadrennial Defense Review to see how attentive the Defense Department has been to the issue of personnel and operating tempos. I believe there is a vast underestimation of the strain that ongoing smaller scale operations put on the force, that means of measuring the strain are inadequate, and that further force reductions may severely aggravate the problems. The second reason people cite for leaving the force is concern about their families. The U.S. military today is an All-Volunteer Force. Because of this, it is very different from the draft armies of the past. A larger and larger share of the force is composed of people who choose the military as a career, which is a positive trend, because modern, sophisticated weapons and ways of fighting require well- trained, professional people. The professional U.S. military force is the envy of the rest of the world. It sets the standard to which other nations aspire. As a result of this evolution, the force is, on the whole, older than in the past and, most often, married. Today 64 percent of active duty Army personnel are married and, except for the Marine Corps, the proportion is similar in the other services. The modern American military cannot maintain its high quality, therefore, without adequately taking care of military families. The common phrase now is, ``We enlist soldiers, we reenlist families.'' Early on in the days of the All-Volunteer Force, we did not do a good job of taking care of families. Military pay levels eroded after the All-Volunteer Force was instituted in 1973. Military housing and other military facilities, following the war in Vietnam, were in awful condition. Social problems that plagued the rest of society, including drug use and racial tensions, also affected the military. Since the late 1970's, attention to the needs of military families has improved dramatically. Pay raises in 1979 and 1980 and much more attention to family needs in the years since then have had tremendously beneficial effects. The military has led the way in responding to social problems; I say this fully aware of some continued shortcomings. The results have been seen in the quality of people recruited into the Armed Forces and the ability to retain good people with the necessary skills. I am concerned, however, that the strains on military families are growing and that we are not doing as good a job as we should in protecting families. To be sure, many of the strains on military families are inherent in the nature of military life. Military personnel are necessarily away from home for extended periods of time. Military families move frequently, which makes it difficult for spouses to build careers, and which itself puts a strain on marriages. These factors make it all the more important that we devote special care and attention to the condition of military families. The most important correction needed is to limit personnel and operating tempos so that military personnel are not away from their families for longer times than necessary. It is especially important that temporary duty assignments away from home be kept within limits. We also need to ensure that military pay keeps up with pay in the civilian sector. I am concerned that pay levels have eroded over time because of the way we calculate pay raises. In addition, we need to be careful to preserve some of the benefits which military families rely on. I am disturbed by proposals to eliminate military commissaries and exchanges. Because of the demands of jobs in the military, I believe it is critically important to assist military families in having access to quality child care. Quality health care for military families must be protected. I think it was a mistake to allow impact aid for schools with military bases to decline as it has. Military families care deeply about education for their children, and we need to ensure that the highest quality education is available wherever they are based. One of the most important initiatives the Defense Department has under taken recently is the effort to improve military housing. While much military housing is very good, much of it is not. I have seen military housing with broken appliances, cracked walls, warped floors, peeling tile, inadequate heat, stopped up drains, and with very poor responsiveness from maintenance staffs. We have to change this and we have to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. I fear that the QDR will suffer from a major gap if it does not address the quality of life of military families. A third reason people cite for leaving the force is uncertainty about the future. Many military people have been willing to tolerate the stresses that have been placed on the force in recent years because they believe things will get better in the future. If things do not soon get better, however, I am afraid that the best people will throw in the towel and get out of the military. As I noted in this speech on defense budgets that I made a week ago, we have already gone through a defense drawdown that has reduced active duty force levels by about a third. This drawdown has imposed an immense burden on military personnel. It has meant that people have had to move to new jobs much more frequently than before because of the need to replace the large number of people who were leaving. It has imposed this strain on the military education and training system, and often people have started new jobs without complete training. It has made the military personnel system rather brutally competitive, the pressure to force people out means that any single mistake will cost a good soldier his or her career. This has directly affected people's ability to meet their career goals. Officers cannot count on receiving the education they need to advance. The amount of time that officers spend in command assignments, where they really can learn their trade, has declined significantly. Officers used to have 2 years of previous command experience at lower levels before they rose to be battalion commanders. Now they have a year or a year and a half. As a result, we are not adequately seasoning our officers, we are sometimes setting them up for failure, and we are not offering people the command experience for which they joined the force. All of these changes in the force, together with the high operating tempo, have created a great deal of uncertainty about the future. As a result, unless we stabilize the force, unless we pay attention to training and education, unless we allow good people to progress through the ranks in a predictable, fair way, we will discourage the best people from remaining in the force. Already we see signs of good people beginning to leave. It would be wrong to attribute the exodus to external factors. Pilots are leaving in large numbers, many say, because the airlines are hiring again. I will acknowledge that may be a factor but not the main one. The best people in the military services will always be confident of opportunities in the civilian sector. The people we want most to keep in the force are precisely the people who can always find lucrative careers on the outside. The issue therefore is not what lures people out but what drives them to leave. Good people do not sign up for the military as a career because they expect to make a lot of money. They need enough to provide security for their families but they are not going to be lured away by simply higher salaries. If good people are leaving, it is because military service no longer offers them the rewards they expected or because the burdens of service have become too great. If we continue to cut budgets, to reduce force levels, to require people to do more with less, we will drive away the best and the brightest. Mr. Speaker, these are the problems that I believe may in time lead too many good people to leave the force: High operating tempos, eroding support for families, and uncertainty about the future. There are other people issues that the Quadrennial Defense Review should also be expected to address. One is the very broad issue of civil-military relations. While there are many aspects to the issue, I am concerned especially about a potentially growing gap in culture between those who serve in the military and civilian society. We ask a great deal of people in the military. Sometimes, I think, we may expect too much. When we see failures in the military such as evidence of sexual harassment at Aberdeen or in the Tailhook episode, the cultural gap may grow wider unless parties on all sides are careful in their judgments. When issues such as these arise, some within the military react by criticizing civilian society for imposing too much on the military, while some outside conclude that military culture itself is flawed. Both are wrong. Yes, I think there are failures within the military, but I also believe that the military can be counted on to identify and correct its failures. No, I do not think that the military can be exempted from advancing social norms, including requirements for sexual and racial equality, nor do I think that the military is identical to civilian society. Within the Congress, we have a special responsibility to take care of the military personnel from whom we ask so much. We are responsible under our Constitution to make rules for the Government and regulation of the land and naval forces. It is incumbent upon us therefore not to allow the gap between military and civil society to grow into a gulf. Mr. Speaker, over the past 2 weeks I have delivered three speeches on the future of the U.S. military. In each of these statements, I have called attention to the fact that Congress has often failed in its responsibility to provide for the common defense. I have said that I fear we are again embarked on a course which will leave our forces ill-prepared for challenges to come. More than that, I have argued that failure to maintain military strength will encourage the evolution of new international threats in the future that otherwise would not arise to challenge our security. This is a strong message. It is a sincere message. It is one that, I expect, some of my colleagues will find difficult to accept. I have tried to state it carefully and to explain my reasoning and to use good facts and figures to support my conclusions. Sometimes, however, an argument such as this needs something stronger. I am reminded in this regard of a passage in Gen. Douglas MacArthur's autobiography entitled ``Reminiscences,'' in which MacArthur discussed a meeting he had with President Roosevelt in the late 1930's. At the time, MacArthur was Army Chief of Staff, and he was meeting with the President, along with the Secretary of War, to make an appeal for more defense spending. Secretary Dern, wrote MacArthur, quietly explained the deteriorating international situation and appealed to the President not to economize on the military. Roosevelt, however, was unmoved and reacted to Dern with biting sarcasm. Then MacArthur joined the argument, which became more and more heated. Here is how MacArthur describes what followed: In my emotional exhaustion, I spoke recklessly and said something to the general effect that when we lost the next war, and an American boy, lying in the mud with an enemy bayonet through his belly and an enemy foot on his dying throat, spat out his last curse, I wanted the name not to be MacArthur but Roosevelt. The President grew livid. You must not talk that way to the President, he roared. He was, of course, right, and I knew it almost before the words had left my mouth. I said I was sorry and apologized. But I felt my Army career was at an end. I told him he had my resignation as Chief of Staff. As I reached the door his voice came with that cool detachment which so reflected his extraordinary self-control' ``Don't be foolish, Douglas; you and the budget must get together on this.'' Neither the President nor I ever spoke of the meeting, but from that time on he was on our side. Mr. Speaker, I hope that this Congress will not require an appeal like MacArthur's to remember the lessons of the past, that the price of unpreparedness is paid in war. The price of peace is much less. Let us, therefore, treasure those Americans who wear the uniform of our country. Let us appreciate them, encourage them, and care for them. For after all, it is they who bear the burdens of defending that precious American virtue: freedom.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, in all of this budget business, which has been in the headlines, I found not one word referring to the budget for national security. Thus, this second of three speeches I am making about the future of the U.S. military is not only appropriate, but timely. This afternoon, I will address whether projected defense budgets are sufficient to support the military strategy that is emerging from the Quadrennial Defense Review or QDR the reassessment of defense policy that the Defense Department is due to provide to Congress on May 15. In the first speech, I discussed the principles that should shape U.S. military strategy in coming years. In the final speech, I intend to consider how we are treating our people--the men and women in the Armed Forces and the civilian personnel who support them. Constitutional Role of Congress As I remarked in my first speech on these topics, I intend to begin each statement by reiterating a simple point under the Constitution, it is Congress' responsibility to ensure that the size and composition of U.S. military forces are sufficient to provide for the common defense. I referred to article 1, section 8 of the Constitution. Historically, Congress has often failed in this responsibility. As a result, the United States has repeatedly been unprepared for the military challenges it has faced. The price for this unpreparedness has been paid in the blood of young men and women in the Armed Forces. I fear in the future that the price will be even greater. At the very least, I fear, our security will erode because we will no longer have the strength to keep smaller scale conflicts from weakening international stability. And at worst, I fear, major new threats will evolve in the future that would not have developed if we had maintained our strength. My fellow Missourian, Harry S Truman, made the point clearly: We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we will pay the price of war. I believe that Harry Truman's assessment is no less true now than when he spoke those words. Once again, however, as so often in the past, the U.S. Congress appears unwilling to pay the price of peace. Since the mid-1980's, the Department of Defense budget has declined by 40 percent in real, inflation-adjusted dollars. Funding for weapons procurement has declined even further by 67 percent since 1985. Today we are spending just one-third as much on new weapons as we did in the mid-1980's. I do not believe that these levels of spending can be tolerated without critically weakening our military capabilities. And yet, there is all too little support for restoring even modest rates of growth in military spending. On the contrary, the budget plan that the administration presented earlier this year projected that defense spending would continue down in fiscal year 1998 and then, essentially, level off in real terms. The budget agreement that was announced last Friday calls for inadequate levels for defense across the board--both in budget authority and budget outlays. Even more importantly, for long-term planning purposes, the Quadrennial Defense Review is being carried out on the assumption that defense budgets will be frozen at about $250 billion per year, in constant prices, as far as the eye can see. The military services have been required to plan, therefore, on the assumption that any real growth in costs will have to be offset by reductions in programs--and, as I will argue shortly, I believe that growth in costs is unlikely to be avoided in the military. The Price of Peace is Small The reluctance to support modest growth in defense spending is all the more tragic because it is so unnecessary. Looked at from any reasonable, long-term perspective, the price of peace today is extraordinarily small. In 1997, the defense budget amounts to 3.4 percent of gross domestic product. Under the new White House- congressional budget plan, it will decline to 2.7 percent of GDP by 2002. As recently as 1986, defense spending was over 6 percent of GDP, and even at its lowest level in the mid-1970's, it was about 5 percent. As a share of the Federal budget, defense spending has declined even further and faster defense is now 16 percent of the Federal budget, down from 25 percent in the mid-1970's and 1980's, and down from 42 percent as recently as 1970. Suppose we were to allow military spending to decline to, say, 3 percent of GDP and then grow at no more than 1 or 2 percent in real terms each year thereafter. As I will argue shortly, such very modest real growth in defense spending is necessary to maintain a well- equipped, high-quality, well-trained force. At that level of spending, the defense budget would represent less than half the burden on the economy it did at the end of the cold war, and it would decline over time. This, to me, would be a disproportionately small price to pay for the benefits we derive from having a force that can maintain a significant, visible U.S. military presence abroad, respond to crises across the whole spectrum of conflict, and prepare for advanced technological challenges in the future. Instead of trying to bolster public and congressional support for so modest a defense burden, however, the administration, supported by the congressional leadership, has decided to try to support its defense strategy with budgets that start out two sizes too small and will become tighter and tighter as the years go by. As I pointed out last week, the strategy that the Defense Department is articulating in the QDR is appropriately broad and demanding. It calls for forces able to shape the international security environment, respond to the full range of challenges to our security, including two concurrent major theater wars, and prepare for potential future threats. This strategy is rightly more ambitious than the strategy that was laid out in the Bottom-Up Review of 1993. The QDR strategy is an improvement because it explicitly takes account of the fact that activities short of major theater war have imposed great strains on our current forces and have to be taken into account in shaping forces for the future. I do not see how it will be possible to support such a strategy with a force smaller than the force designed to support Les Aspin's Bottom- Up Review--a strategy that sized the force simply to deal with two major regional contingencies. The new strategy, as I said, is rightly more demanding. And yet, by all accounts, in the QDR, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon is mandating reductions in forces in order to find savings with which to finance a very modest increase in funding for weapons modernization. The reason for this inconsistency between strategy and plans is not far to seek--the QDR is being driven by budgets, not by strategy. Force cuts, probably proportional reductions imposed on each of the services, have to be considered because budgets will not support existing force levels, while allowing any room to increase weapons funding. Now it would be one thing if the cuts in forces being driven by budgets were a onetime deal. That would be bad enough. My concern is that the effort to maintain even a slightly smaller force with flat budgets will lead to a perpetual cycle of budget shortfalls, cuts in weapons programs, reductions in maintenance and training, and pressures to cut forces yet again. The turbulence in the force that has been such a burden on our people will never end. And, in the long run, we will see a slow, steady, but almost imperceptible erosion in our military capabilities until, eventually, our forces are not present in key regions of the globe, we give up on responding to important threats to the peace, and we encourage others to challenge our eroding strength in key regions of the globe. The Need for Growth in Defense Budgets To me, it is terribly ill-advised for the Defense Department to attempt to plan on the basis of flat budgets for the foreseeable future. Indeed, until recently, the Defense Department rightly insisted that modest growth was necessary in the long term. As recently as a year ago, I recall Secretary of Defense Perry telling the National Security Committee how the Defense Department planned to reverse the decline in weapons procurement that I referred to earlier. Funding to recapitalize the force, he said, would come from three sources: First, the four rounds of military base closures that had cost money in the past would soon begin to achieve savings, and the entire increment would be used to boost procurement funding; second, savings from acquisition reform, though not assumed in the budget, would also be allocated to procurement; and, third, modest growth in defense spending that was then projected in Administration plans, would also go for weapons modernization. All three sources, he said, are necessary to recapitalize. Well, that was just a year ago. Now, the story is, we will recapitalize the force, how? Also with savings from base closures and improved ways of doing business but not with modest increases in the budget. Instead, the Defense Department is being driven to make reductions in force levels in order to meet targets for increasing weapons procurement. But without a resumption of some growth in the future, where will this process end? And how much can we count on savings from infrastructure reductions, outsourcing, inventory cuts and other efficiencies to substitute for the growth in spending that was previously in the plan? Historically, we have not been able to support a force of a given size with flat defense budgets. A couple of years ago, the Congressional Research Service did a study which simply measured the trend in defense spending relative to the size of the force from fiscal year 1955, just after the Korean war, projected through the year 2000 under the administration plan. It found that defense budgets have, on average, grown by about 1.7 percent per year in real, inflation- adjusted prices per active duty troop. For defense budget analysts, this is not a surprising finding. Some of you may recall in the late 1970's the debate over whether to increase defense spending by 3 percent per year. The premise was that defense budgets should increase in real terms over time for several reasons. For one thing, in order to keep quality people in the force, the quality of life in the military has to keep pace with the quality of life in the civilian sector. So pay, housing expenditures, facility maintenance accounts and other related activities have to increase with the overall growth of the economy. Second, we have found that modern, advanced weapons grow in cost from one generation to the next. According to a recent report on theater, or tactical fighter, aircraft programs by the Congressional Budget Office, each generation of aircraft typically doubles in price, in real terms, compared to the generation that went before. So budgets should grow to allow the military services to take advantage of evolving technology. Finally, although the services have always hoped that new weapons would be more reliable and cheaper to operate and maintain than the generation that went before, this has never turned out to be the case. Since weapons necessarily are designed to maximize performance, operation and maintenance costs typically grow in real terms. Now if the Defense Department believes that these long-term trends in the costs of doing business have changed, then they should explain the reasons why. For my part, I cannot see how these trends would be reversed. On the contrary, a number of factors ought to make it more difficult to limit cost growth. We have not, for one thing, been able to reduce the size of the defense infrastructure in proportion to cuts in the size of the force, and I am very doubtful the Congress will approve another round of base closures in the near future. So we have to maintain a relatively large support structure, which drives up costs relative to the size of the force. Second, we are trying, in at least some parts of the force, to use technology to substitute for force size so the capital investments required will be relatively large compared to the size of the force. Moreover, with an all-volunteer force, it is more important than ever that the quality of life be protected. In recent years, we have been skimping on military pay raises; much military housing is in terrible condition and we have only belatedly begun efforts to improve it; we have deferred maintenance of military facilities for many years, and the backlog of requirements will inevitably catch up with us; and we have projected savings in military health care costs that will be extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Finally, requirements that the military comply with environmental regulations and with health and safety norms are increasing costs in the Defense Department as in every other part of the society. So the requirement that the military services plan on the basis of flat budgets is a prescription for perpetual underfunding of long-term defense requirements and the steady erosion of our military strength. Modest, steady, sustainable rates of real growth in military spending are necessary to maintain a well-equipped, well-trained, high-quality force of a size large enough to carry out the U.S. military strategy and protect U.S. national security. How Not to Think about Defense Spending Now, for some of my colleagues, that the notion that defense spending should grow over time must seem rather alien. In fact, my conclusion that defense budgets should increase follows straightforwardly from clear thinking about defense. The only proper way to decide how much to spend on defense is, first, to begin by deciding on a military strategy that will ensure our security, second, to determine what size force is needed to support the strategy, and then, finally, to calculate what resources are needed to ensure the quality of the force. But all kinds of other, extraneous arguments about defense spending get in the way of this clear line of thought. One common argument against defense spending is that potential enemies today appear to spend so much less than the United States. The implication is either that threats are not so great as our planning assumes, or that the U.S. military should be able to maintain its strength with much less money. The flaws in such reasoning are legion. For one thing, potential enemies simply have to be strong in only one area of military capability in order to challenge stability in their own regions. Possible challenges to U.S. security, however, come from so many different directions and in such a wide variety of forms that the United States must maintain strong military capabilities of all types. Second, the U.S. military is not in the business of being barely stronger than the Iraqs of the world. As General Shalikashvili has said repeatedly, we had military dominance in the Persian Gulf war, we liked it, and we want to keep it. More fundamentally, however, it is not enough for those who want to cut U.S. military spending to cite how much possible enemies spend. Instead, those who call for cuts ought to be able to identify aspects of U.S. military strength that they would give up. If the argument is that North Korea is not as great a threat as U.S. military plans assume, for example, because North Korea spends so little, then let us consider whether to weaken the U.S. military posture in Korea. Looked at that way, however, the argument is harder to sustain. Whatever North Korea spends, our intelligence assessments tell us how threatening their military capabilities are, and anyone who looks closely at the situation is aware of how much damage North Korean forces could wreak even if confronted by strong United States and South Korean troops. Few, therefore, would want to encourage aggression by weakening our deterrent posture in Korea. So an argument based on North Korea, or Iraqi, or Iranian levels of military spending is irrelevant. The only real issue is what are the threats and what U.S. posture is needed to deal with them. A second common argument for cutting U.S. defense spending is that the United States today is spending about as much on defense in inflation-adjusted dollars as it did, on average, during the cold war. The implication is clear--now that the cold war is over, we should be able to spend less. The flaw in this argument is one I have already discussed. To maintain forces of a given size costs more over time because of the need to improve the quality of life, pursue more advanced technology, and operate more sophisticated weapons. The fact is, we have cut the size of the force substantially since the end of the cold war. In 1987, the active duty force level was about 2.1 million. Today, it is about 1.4 million--about one-third less. A force of that size understandably should cost more than a larger force 25 or 30 years ago--but it is nonetheless substantially smaller and less costly than a force of the size that would be necessary if the cold war had continued. How Much Is Enough? So if those are some of the ways not to think about defense spending, how should we think about it? How much is enough for national defense? Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago, I prepared an alternative defense budget that I believed at the time was adequate to maintain U.S. military strength over the next 5 years. It called for spending about $45 billion more on defense than the administration was projecting at the time. I still think that alternative budget is wise. Today, however, I want to talk a bit more broadly about the principles that the Congress should apply in fulfilling its responsibility to decide how much is enough. First, I do not believe that we should cut force levels further. I am disturbed by reports that the QDR may include a decision to reduce total defense end-strength by as much as 144,000 individuals. To me, such reductions would be destructive and dangerous. They would be destructive because they would break faith with the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces. As I noted just a few minutes ago, we have already gone through a defense drawdown that has reduced active duty force levels by about one-third. This drawdown has imposed an immense burden on military personnel. It has meant that people have had to change jobs much more often than would have been necessary if force levels were stable, because people have had to be moved around to replace the larger number of people who were leaving. It has imposed an immense strain on the military education and training system, and often people have started new jobs without complete training. It has made the military personnel system rather brutally competitive--many military personnel have complained to me that the pressure to force people out means that any single mistake will cost a good soldier his or her career. Military planners have a term of art for all of this--they call it turbulence in the force. In fact, it has meant a good deal of turbulence in peoples lives. In my view, the good people who serve in the Armed Forces have suffered through this turbulence for long enough. For years we have told them that the problems that attended the drawdown would ease once the reductions were over. We told them to hang in and that things would get better. I do not believe it is right to ask these people to go through yet another period of such turbulence. To start another drawdown on top of the one just completed is to break faith with the people who serve. I also think that we cannot afford to reduce force levels for strategic reasons. All of the services are being strained to the breaking point by the multiple requirements imposed on them by the demands, first, to be trained and ready for major wars and, second, meanwhile, to be engaged in the multiplicity of smaller operations which have proliferated since the end of the cold war. Already the Army is short about 40,000 slots in support positions. This has meant that operations in Haiti or Bosnia, for example, require that support personnel be taken out of units that are not deployed abroad in order to fill out units that are being deployed. The remaining support personnel then have to do twice the work they should. Now we are talking about further thinning Army ranks, which, inevitably will make these shortfalls even worse. Four Guiding Principles We should be guided by four principles: First, I do not believe we should reduce force levels further. The second principle is, increase weapons investments enough to get back to a steady state replacement rate for major items of equipment. A key goal of the QDR, reportedly, is to find funds to increase weapons procurement substantially--the target that has been set for several years is $60 billion a year for procurement. This will require an increase of about one-third from current levels--for the past couple of years, we have spent about $45 billion on procurement. I hope that the QDR will get there--though not at the cost of cuts in the size of the force. I am doubtful, however, that $60 billion a year will be enough. To explain my doubts, it will take a little arithmetic. Currently, between them, the Air Force and the Navy have about 3,000 fighter aircraft in their inventories--about 2,000 in the Air Force and 1,000 in the Navy. If we assume a 20 year average service life for fighters-- which is getting pretty long-in-the tooth--then, on average, we have to buy 150 aircraft a year to maintain a steady-state replacement rate. For the past few years, we have bought about 28-42 fighter aircraft a year. So, by my calculations, we need to increase aircraft procurement by at least 400 percent to get to the right level. Similarly for the Navy--the Navy now needs a minimum of about 350 battle force ships. If we assume an average service life of 35 years, we need to buy 10 ships a year. Lately we have been buying four or five. So we need to double shipbuilding budgets to get back to a steady state replacement rate. Add to those increases, the need to increase spending modestly each year in order to exploit new technology. Suffice to say, $60 billion a year won't do it. So the next question is, what are we giving up by not modernizing as fast as we probably should, and how are we going to adjust to the shortfalls? We may be able to keep some equipment going longer by pursuing upgrades instead of new systems. We may be able to limit cost growth between generations of new weapons by careful attention to cost--as the services plan for the Joint Strike Fighter. But all of these adjustments come at a price in reduced military strength. The compromises should be kept to a minimum. The third principle is that we should not allow military readiness to decline. On this issue, I am skeptical about DOD budget plans that show operation and maintenance costs declining in the future relative to the size of the force. Some savings, to be sure, may be achieved from base closures and other changes in ways of doing business. But it is unrealistic to expect training costs to decline or to plan on reduced maintenance costs of major weapons. Fourth, and finally, while I do believe that some savings can be achieved by improving DOD business practices, I am very skeptical about claims that very large savings can be achieved. It may be true that there is waste in defense business practices--but waste is not a line item in the budget that can easily be eliminated. I am very concerned that proponents of revolutionary changes in government procurement practices are vastly overstating the savings that can be made. in conclusion Mr. Speaker, these four principles--maintain force levels; increase weapons modernization funding substantially; protect military readiness; do not overstate savings from improved business practices-- force me to conclude that currently projected levels of defense spending are not enough. And as the years go by, if defense spending is frozen at the current inadequate level, I fear that we will see the erosion of U.S. military strength and, as a direct result, the slow decline of U.S. global leadership.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, today is the first of three speeches I intend to make on the future of the U.S. military. This afternoon I will address the principles that should shape U.S. military strategy in coming years. In the second speech I will discuss whether projected budgets are sufficient to support U.S. strategy. In the final speech, I intend to consider how we are treating our most important resource for protecting national security, our people, the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces and the civilian personnel who support them. I intend to begin each of these speeches by making a simple point that Congress is responsible for ensuring that U.S. Armed Forces are prepared to preserve and protect the security of the United States. Let me emphasize the key phrase in this statement: Congress is responsible. Under the Constitution, it is the duty of the Congress, not of the President, let alone of the Secretary of Defense or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are not constitutional officers, to determine the size and composition of the Armed Forces. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which lists the powers of the Congress, makes this clear. It assigns to Congress the powers to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy and to make rules for the Government and regulation of the land and naval forces. It falls to the Congress, therefore, to ensure that our military strength is adequate to defend our Nation and our national interests. Indeed, there is no more important duty placed upon us as Members of this institution than to provide for the common defense. It is a duty which we owe not only to our fellow citizens today, but to the Americans of tomorrow. We have a duty, as well, not to squander, through short-sightedness and neglect, the sacrifices which generations before us have made to grant us the peace and security with which we are blessed. We have a duty to future generations of Americans to pass on to them the legacy of peace, prosperity, and freedom which has been bequeathed to us. It is the Congress, therefore, which is ultimately responsible for approving a strategy to guide U.S. military policy and, above all, for establishing a proper balance between national strategy and the resources available to carry it out. Historically, Congress has often failed in this responsibility. In the years since the end of the cold war, many commentators have noted how badly the Nation has handled the aftermath of major conflicts in the 20th century. After World War I, after World War II, and after the war in Vietnam, we allowed our military forces to deteriorate to a degree that cost us dearly in the conflicts that inevitably arose later on. In fact, such a failure is not unique to this century. A few years ago, I discovered a speech made in 1923 by then-Army Maj. George C. Marshall that discerned a similar, though not quite identical, pattern of failure even earlier in our history. Major Marshall, of course, later became the most distinguished American soldier and statesman of this century, as Chief of Staff in the Army in World War II, Secretary of State in the early years of the cold war, and Secretary of Defense during the war in Korea. ``From the earliest days of this country,'' said Marshall in 1923, ``the Regular Army was materially increased in strength and drastically reduced with somewhat monotonous regularity.'' It was perhaps understandable, he said, that there should be a reduction in the size of the military following a war. But, in fact, he discovered the pattern was not quite so simple. Often, following a war, the size of the Regular Army was increased above what it had been before the conflict, but then, within a very few years, or even a few months, in some cases it was reduced below the pre-war level. In struggling to comprehend this inconsistency, Marshall offered the following explanation: ``It appears that when the war was over, every American's thoughts were centered on the tragedies involved in the lessons just learned. So the Congress, strongly backed by public opinion, determined that we should be adequately prepared for the future, and accordingly enacted a law well devised for this express purpose. However, in a few months, the public mind ran away from the tragedies of the war and reasons therefor and became obsessed with the magnitude of the public debt and the problem of its reduction. Forgetting almost immediately the bitter lesson of unpreparedness, they demanded and secured the reduction of the Army, which their representatives had so recently increased for very evident reasons.'' It is this pattern of failure that I fear we may now be repeating. For my own part, I have been debating whether the current era resembles more the period of about 1903 or the period of about 1923. At the turn of the century, the Nation had just won a short, popular war against Spain, after which, support for the Army and Navy ran high. But within a few years, funding for the military was reduced, in part because the world seemed to be comfortably at peace, and many believed that war had become impossible. Just a few years later, all of Europe was in flames, and by 1917, the United States had declared war on Germany, but without any degree of military preparedness. Marshall recalled seeing United States soldiers in France at the end of 1917 marching through the ice and snow ``without shoes and with their feet wrapped in gunny-sacks.'' The allies had to continue to hold the line for more than a year before the United States was prepared to participate in the final battles that brought the Great War to a close. In 1923, the United States had recently participated in what was then the most horrible war in human history. But the public mind, as Marshall lamented, had already forgotten the lessons of that war and the costs of unpreparedness. The majority in Congress could not foresee circumstances in which the United States would again embroil itself in Europe's conflicts, and support for military expenditures had dissolved. Less than 20 years later, we were engaged in an even more destructive global war, for which we were also terribly unprepared. Today, in the aftermath of a successful conclusion of the cold war with the USSR, we are well on our way to repeating the same mistake of denuding ourselves militarily. The world is no less turbulent or dangerous than it was during the cold war. Regional threats, along with rising terrorism and the possibility of nuclear and chemical weapons proliferation, should cause us to keep up our guard. Today, a few of my colleagues frequently challenge me with a question that surely echoed through these Halls in 1903 or 1923. ``What is the enemy,'' I am asked? And with that question, there are many others. Why continue to support more spending for defense when the cold war is over? Why plan for two major regional wars when a second threat did not materialize during the Persian Gulf war? Why continue to pursue expensive, new, advanced weapons when U.S. technology was so dominant in Operation Desert Storm, and when no other nation is spending nearly what we do on military hardware? Why keep a robust force structure and a fair-sized personnel level? Today, and in the two speeches to follow, I will provide answers to those narrower questions. But to the broader question of what is the enemy, there is no clear and simple answer; as, indeed, there was no clear and simple answer that Marshall could have given in 1923. For my part, I think any attempt to see into the future is like looking into a kaleidoscope. We never know what new pattern will emerge. We only know that the colors making up the pattern will remain the same. In viewing the future of international affairs, we cannot foresee the new shape of the world, but we know that the colors are those of the human condition, including all the traits of human character and all the circumstances of human life that have ever led to war. Those colors have not changed, and the need to prepare for conflict has not diminished merely because an era of conflict with a particular foe has ended and a new era, of yet uncertain pattern, is emerging. So to respond to my colleagues who ask, ``what is the enemy,'' I say, true; today we cannot define precisely what the enemy is or will be. We can say, however, that we will fail in our responsibility in this Congress if, once again, we allow the armed forces to be unprepared for the enemies that may emerge. In fact, as I will argue today, a failure to support a strong military in the present historical circumstances would be even more unfortunate and more unforgivable than in the past for two reasons. First, today the United States is the only Nation able to protect the peace. In the past we were fortunate that allies were able, often by the narrowest of margins, to hold the line while we belatedly prepared for war. Bismarck once said: ``God protects fools, and the United States.'' Today, no one else is capable either of preventing conflict from arising in the first place, or of responding decisively if a major threat to the peace does occur. While I trust in God, I believe God has given us the tools we need to keep peace, and it is our task to use them wisely. Second, and perhaps most importantly, if we fail in our responsibility to maintain U.S. military power, the United States, and, indeed, the world as a whole, may lose an unprecedented opportunity to construct an era of relative peace that could last for many, many years. Today, our military strength is the foundation of a relatively secure international order in which small conflicts, though endemic and inevitable, will not decisively erode global stability. As such, our military strength is also a means of preventing the growth of one or more new powers that could, in time, constitute a threat to peace and evolve into the enemy we do not now foresee. Because of this, the very limited investment required to maintain our military strength, though somewhat larger than we are making right now, is disproportionately small compared to the benefits we, and the rest of the world, derive from it. My fellow Missourian, Harry S Truman, stated this clearly: ``We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we will pay the price of war.'' These two premises, that the United States alone is able to protect the peace, and that adequate, visible U.S. military power may prevent new enemies from arising in the future, are, it seems to me, the cornerstones of a sound strategy for the years to come. These are the premises that will guide my evaluation of the current reassessment of defense policy, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR, that the Defense Department is due to deliver to the Congress on May 15. In the remainder of this statement I want to discuss what I have heard of the strategy that is evolving in the process of the Quadrennial Defense Review, the QDR, what I see as its strengths, and how I think it might be improved. In carrying out this assessment, I will be referring on occasion to a draft of the QDR statement of strategy that was printed recently in a reliable newsletter called ``Inside the Army.'' To be sure, this is not the final draft of this strategy, which is still to be released officially. It remains subject to change. I will refer to it, nonetheless, because it reflects the thinking going on inside the Pentagon to date, and moreover, because I believe it is a good start in defining a military strategy for the future. That being said, I do not at all agree with the judgment, which appears to be emerging from the QDR, that the new strategy can be supported with a force smaller than the force determined to be necessary by the QDR's predecessor, the Bottom-Up Review of 1993. The key theme of the new strategy is that U.S. military forces must be able to shape the international security environment in ways favorable to U.S. interests, to respond to the full spectrum of crises when it is in our interest to do so, and to prepare now to meet the challenges of an uncertain future. So the three elements of the strategy are these: Shape, respond, prepare. To shape requires forward deployment of U.S. forces; various means of defense cooperation with allies, including security assistance; and joint trading with allies and others. To respond requires the ability to execute the full spectrum of military operations, including showing the flag to deter aggression; conducting multiple, concurrent, small-scale contingency operations; and fighting and winning major theater wars, including the ability to prevail in two nearly simultaneous conflicts. To prepare requires adequately sized forces for the air, sea, and especially the land; increased investments in weapons modernization; robust efforts to exploit the evolving revolution in military affairs; and investments in research and development that hedge against the evolution of unexpected but potentially dangerous developments in military technology in the future. Now, there are those who will say of this statement of strategy that it fails because it is not selective enough in defining for what challenges U.S. military forces should prepare. Some have complained that United States military forces are being used too often to respond to crises, like the conflict in Bosnia, that are not directly threatening to United States security. I have sometimes agreed with those complaints. Others with whom I have not agreed have argued that the United States should give up the Bottom-Up Review strategy of being prepared to prevail in two near-simultaneous regional conflicts, now called major theater wars, and instead prepare for one such conflict plus smaller peace operations. Still others say we should focus less of our effort on the current challenges to our security and devote much more attention to preparing for potential new threats from a peer or near-peer military competitor in the future. I think the QDR draft statement of strategy is preferable to any of these alternative views. As against those who would be more selective in identifying commitments, the emerging QDR strategy statements reflects the fact that Presidents have long been able to commit large numbers of U.S. troops to sometimes long-lasting operations abroad pretty much as they see fit. President Clinton has done so more than others, but he is not alone in asserting his authority as Commander in Chief to undertake major new missions abroad. Since Presidents can define what U.S. interests abroad are vital enough to require the commitment of U.S. forces, then the U.S. military will have to be prepared to carry out an extraordinarily broad range of tasks short of major war. It would be misleading, for military planning purposes, for a statement of strategy to identify only a narrow range of missions, when, in fact, the military can, at any time, be called on to carry out any imaginable kind of mission while still preparing for major wars. Indeed, the key flaw of the Bottom-Up Review was that it failed to take account of the demands that would be put on forces by missions other than the requirement to be prepared to fight two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts. As against those who would give up the Bottom-Up Review's two-war requirement, that, to me, is a prescription for giving up on being a superpower. If we lack the ability to respond to a second crisis should a first arise, then in every case we would be hesitant in committing our forces to action in the first instance. Would we really respond to Saddam Hussein, for example, at the cost of critically weakening our deterrent posture in Korea? That is a choice we should never have to make. As to those who would spend less on maintaining current readiness in order to invest in future technology, I do not agree that we are in a ``threat trough''. On the contrary, the evidence of recent years is that the world after the cold war is more turbulent than ever. We have to be prepared to deal with today's conflicts, or we may be critically weakened by confronting the challenges of the future by failure to preserve the peace today. So a new statement of strategy that calls for forces able to shape, respond, and prepare seems to me to be a valuable contribution to the debate about U.S. military preparedness. It is a demanding strategy, and under current circumstances, one that will be challenging to fulfill. It is a matter of great concern to me, therefore, that everything I have heard about the rest of the QDR is at odds with the requirements implied by the new statement of strategy. Earlier this year Secretary Cohen assured the Committee on National Security that the QDR process would be driven by the strategy, not by the budget. The new strategy, it seems very clear, requires forces perhaps larger and certainly more flexible than the forces required by the Bottom-Up Review. The QDR strategy maintains the requirement to prepare for two major regional conflicts, now called major theater wars, and adds to that requirement the need to shape the environment, respond to lesser crises, and prepare for the future. It cannot be done with less. Yet, the QDR is, by all accounts, looking for cuts in the size of the force structure. Indeed, the draft statement of strategy to which I have been referring hints at reasons for cutting forces, despite the strategy. One way to cut, it says, would be to rely more on reserves. Another is to rely more on allies. I believe that these are merely transparent excuses for making reductions in forces required by budget constraints and not driven by considerations of strategy. The bulk of reserve forces are already built into war plans in a wholly integrated fashion, and other forces constitute a valuable strategic reserve. To depend on allies to be able to carry out our own strategy is the height of folly. At the very least, dependence on allies may force us to limit our strategic goals or make us hesitant to act. Also, it is not clear that we can depend on the allies to provide forces of the quality we maintain in our own forces. We can and should expect the allies to contribute in the event of major conflicts, as they did during the Persian Gulf war, but we cannot afford to assume allied participation in making our own plans. The strategy emerging from the QDR is appropriately broad and demanding. The remainder of the QDR should address frankly what forces and what weapon investment are needed to carry it out. Mr. Speaker, the time is now for the Congress to learn from the past and not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors, mistakes that allowed unpreparedness and led to battlefield disasters such as the costly defeat at Kasserine Pass in North Africa in World War II and the destruction of Task Force Smith in the Korean war. Such unpreparedness is paid for in the blood and lives of young Americans. The warning of Major, later General, George C. Marshall in 1923, though not heeded by his generation, should be heard by our generation. This Congress must not fail in this responsibility. Mr. Speaker, the 1923 Marshall speech follows for the Record. (By Major George C. Marshall, Jr.) Mr. President and Gentlemen:-- I must ask your indulgence this afternoon because, until General Gignilliat requested me to make this talk the latter part of the morning, I had no expectation of participating in this meeting. You gentlemen, I am sure, are all interested in the National Defense, and I would like to talk to you for a few minutes regarding the effect of our school histories on this question. The Army, which is the principal arm we depend upon for the defense of the country, can hardly be called the result of a slow growth. Its history has been a series of ups and downs, a continuing record of vicissitudes, with which you may be somewhat familiar in more recent years, but I cannot believe many people understand or are aware of what has happened in the past, because it seems improbable that what has happened should continue to happen if our citizens were familiar with the facts. In looking back through the history of the infantry component of the Regular Army, we find that from the earliest days of this country, it was materially increased in strength and drastically reduced with somewhat monotonous regularity. From eighty men immediately after the Revolutionary War, it was increased to sixteen regiments, about as many regiments of infantry as we have today. In 1798, two years later, it was reduced to eight regiments. With the War of 1812, it was increased considerably and then decreased immediately afterwards. I am not talking about the temporary army, but the Regular Army. Another increase came during the Mexican War, about trebling its size; and immediately thereafter came the inevitable reduction. In the early months of the Civil War it was increased from about eight regiments to sixteen. But the odd phase of this policy develops in 1866. Then the war was over, but the infantry was increased to forty-six regiments, and suddenly, but a few years later, reduced to twenty-five regiments, with which we entered the war with Spain. In 1901, this number was increased to thirty. Just before our entry into the World War, Congress provided for sixty-five regiments. Thereafter you cannot get an accurate parallel, because the Congress varied its method. Instead of authorizing regiments, it gave us numbers. When the World War was over, in the summer of 1920, they gave us 285,000 men. Nine months later this was cut to 175,000. Three months later, came a cut to 150,000; followed six months later by a further cut to 125,000. And just by the skin of our teeth we got through this last Congress without a further cut to 75,000. The remarkable aspect of this procedure to me, and I think to any one, is that both increases and reductions should have been order after the war was over and all within a brief period of time, which can be measured in months. A decrease following the establishment of peace is readily understood, but the combination of two diametrically opposed policies is difficult to comprehend. In searching for reasons to explain this inconsistency, it appears that when the war was over every American's thoughts were centered on the tragedies involved in the lessons just learned, the excessive cost of the war in human lives and money. So the Congress, strongly backed by public opinion, determined that we should be adequately prepared for the future, and accordingly enacted a law well devised for this express purpose. However, in a few months, the public mind ran away from the tragedies of the War and the reasons therefor, and became obsessed with the magnitude of the public debt and the problem of its reduction. Forgetting almost immediately the bitter lesson of unpreparedness, they demanded and secured the reduction of the Army, which their representatives had so recently increased for very evident reasons. Now what has occurred but recently has many precedents in the past. There are numerous ramifications of the same general nature, but the astonishing fact is, that we continue to follow a regular cycle in the doing and undoing of measures for the National Defense. We start in the making of adequate provisions and then turn abruptly in the opposite direction and abolish what has just been done. Careful investigation leads to the belief that this illogical course of action is the result of the inadequacies of our school histories so far as pertains to the record of our wars, and in a measure, to the manner in which history is taught. During the past few months, the War Department has been concerned as to what might properly be done to correct the defects in the school textbooks which are now being published. Naturally, it is a matter that must be handled very carefully. The Department is loathe to take any positive action, because immediately the Army would be open to the criticism of trying to create a militaristic public opinion. Furthermore, criticism of the existing textbooks would probably arouse the hostility of the publishers, and particularly, of the authors. Following a discussion between General Pershing and a prominent publisher, several of the more recent school histories were submitted to the Historical Section of the War College, and each reviewed by a number of specially qualified officers. When these reviews were assembled and digested, it became apparent that what had been done in the past, was again in the process of repetition. A reading of these reviews convinces one that our military history would probably suffer another repetition. It is apparent that you can talk about the present National Defense Act as much as you please and of the scheme of military education provided in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps Units, etc., but we will repeat our errors of the past unless public opinion is enlightened, and public opinion in these matters depends in a large measure on the written word of our histories, except for a few months immediately following such a National calamity as the World War. It is almost purposeless for the War Department to attempt to make an impression on Congress which is not in accord with public opinion. When a boy goes to school he studies history. Thereafter I believe less than five per cent of the men of the country continue this study. You gentlemen are of a class apart, and if you were not familiar with the important facts of our military history, certainly no other class of men will be. The lasting impression of the American man on what has happened in the past, is absorbed from his school history. I remember studying Barnes' American History, and I still have, I suppose, the same feeling I acquired then regarding the English nation and the British Army, so depicted in Revolutionary days. In the course of my present occupation it has become necessary for me to learn something of the actual facts in the case, which I have found are often strikingly at variance with many of the ideas Mr. Barnes implanted in my mind. You gentlemen are no doubt familiar with most of these facts, but I believe there are some of them of which even you are not aware. Certainly the average man is in the dark as to the difficulties our military leaders have invariably encountered. Take the history of the Revolutionary War for example; I imagine there are but few men today who have even a vague idea of Washington's troubles in maintaining his Revolutionary Army,--what they actually were and the causes that lay behind them. Virtually the same difficulties continued to arise in the history of our army and with the same basic reason for their recurrence. Is the average boy given an idea of the lessons of these incidents? What has the American youth been taught of the War of 1812--that it was one of the most ignominious pages in our history,--wonderful on the sea, splendid at New Orleans,--but in almost everything else, a series of glaring failures and humiliating occurrences? Were you given any such idea as this? In the Mexican War the operations of our armies were carried out in very shipshape fashion, thanks to a long period in which to prepare. But I doubt if there are more than a few people who know that after the capture of Vera Cruz, General Scott's army, preparing for its advance to Mexico City, was well nigh emasculated and rendered impotent by the policy of the Government which permitted a large proportion of the Volunteers to secure their discharges and return home. It has been alleged that this course was intended to wreck any political aspirations of General Scott. But it was an American army on foreign soil far from home, that was imperiled in this fashion. We find almost an exact repetition of this incident in the Philippines in 1809, when the obligation of the Government to return home the state volunteer troops, left a small force of the Regular Army besieged in Manila until fresh quotas of volunteers could be raised in the United States and dispatched seven thousand miles to its support. We do not realize how fraught with the possibility of National tragedy were these occurrences. Think what the result might have been had our opponent been efficient and made us pay the penalty for such a mistaken policy. Until recently the Civil War formed the major portion of our military background. In your study of the history of that period was your attention drawn to any conclusions? As to why, for example, the North experienced so many difficulties and failures during the early years of the war, and the South was so uniformly successful? There are very definite reasons for this and therefore, lessons to the drawn, but the one time school boy when he casts his vote at the polls, or represents his District in Congress, must as a rule, base his action on false and misleading premises. Popular American histories of the World War would more than startle the German reader. It is possible that he might think he was reading of some other struggles in which his country had no part. I will venture the assertion that for every boy who comes out of our public schools realizing that over a year elapsed before America's soldiers could make their first attack on the enemy,--for every youth so informed, there will be a thousand whose attention is not called to this, but who can recite the date on which we entered the war. This may seem a small matter, but it will have a definite effect on every paragraph of legislation attempted for the National Defense. We talk of Valley Forge in Revolutionary days, and do not realize that American soldiers experienced something very like Valley Forge over in France in the fall of 1917. I have seen soldiers of the First Division without shoes and with their feet wrapped in gunny-sacks, marching ten or fifteen kilometers through the ice and snow. You do not have to go back to Washington's army at Valley Forge for a period of hardships experienced, because of unpreparedness. I have seen so many horses of the First Division drop dead on the field from starvation, that we had to terminate the movements in which they engaged. One night I recall Division Headquarters being notified that the troops in an adjacent village were out of rations and the animals were too weak to haul the necessary supplies. The question to be derived was, should the men be marched to the rations and the animals left to die, or would it be possible to secure other transportation. That was in the fall of 1917. It was a small matter but it reflects the general condition of unpreparedness with which we entered the war, and it was only the strength of our Allies who held the enemy at bay for more than a year, that enabled us to fight the victorious battles which ended the war. The small boy learns that we were successful in the end, but he is carefully prevented from discovering how narrow has been the margin of our success. Good luck has always seemed to be with us and the attending circumstances seem to prove Bismarck's saying that ``God takes care of the fools in the United States.'' Some of these days, now that we are a dominant, if not the dominant power in the world, we may have to make good without Allies or time or fortuitous circumstances to assist us. There seems to have been a conspiracy to omit the pertinent facts or the lessons of our military history which would prepare the boy to be an intelligent voter or legislator. So long as this is the case, we will continue in a series of the errors I have been describing. The study of ancient history reveals innumerable occurrences which have that exact parallel in modern times. There must be some lesson to be drawn. For example: General Pershing recently called attention to the fact that while the Peace Conference was sitting in Paris in 1919, building up the Treaty which we did not accept, there were English soldiers at Cologne, American soldiers at Coblenz, and French soldiers at Mayence, and a general reserve at Treves, (General Pershing's own Headquarters). Eighteen hundred years before, during a prolonged peace, Roman Legions were stationed at Cologne, Coblenz and Mayence, with a reserve of ten thousand at Treves. The setting was identical with the recent deployment of the Allied troops along the Rhine. There must be some lesson to be drawn from this repetition of history, that is of much more moment that a recollection of the date of the signing of the Peace Treaty. The other day I had occasion to look up something regarding Phillip Sheridan, who was one of the five Generals of the Army, of which General Pershing is the most recent, and General Washington was the first. After locating my information, I read a little further and came across, what to me, was a most remarkable coincidence. General Sheridan after the Civil War was sent abroad to observe the operations of the Prussian Army in the Franco- Prussian War. He joined the Staff of the Emperor William west of Metz on the eve of the Battle of Gravelotte. The day after this fight, riding in the carriage of Bismarck, he drove through Point-a-Mousson. This town was the right flank of the American army in the St. Mihiel operation. Turing west, Bismarck and Sheridan drove on to Commercy and were billeted there for the night. They followed the exact route of the American troops being transferred from the St. Mihiel front to the Meuse-Argonne. From Commercy, Sheridan passed on to Bar-le-Duc, and he describes how he stood on a little portico of that town and watched the Bavarians marching through the Central Place as they turned north towards the Argonne in the great maneuver to corner McHahon's French Army on the Belgian frontier. American troops followed this same route and executed the same turn to the north, and I happened to have watched them pass through the Central Place of Bar-le-Duc. With Bismarck, Sheridan drove north to Clermont, following the principal axis of the advance taken by the American army in September, 1918. After a night's billet in that village, they drove through a series of towns, later to be captured by the Americans from Bismarck's descendants, and billeted in Grandpre at the other tip of the Argonne Forest. Now comes a more remarkable coincidence. General Sheridan describes how he drove from Grandpre through the Foret de Dieulet into Beaumont, where a French division had on that morning been surprised and captured by the Germans. this was the opening phase of the Battle of Sedan. Our Second Division passed through that identical Forest at night and surprised Germans at roll call in the early morning in the streets of Beaumont. Accompanying the entourage of the Emperor William, General Sheridan pressed on to Wadelincourt, and from a hilltop nearby looked down across the Meuse at the French Army, cornered but not yet captured, at Sedan. A battalion of the Sixteenth American Infantry on November 7, 1918, pressed forward to that same hill and looked down on the Germans in Sedan. Is not this a remarkable coincidence, and does it not point to the uncertainties of the future and the necessity of being prepared for almost any eventuality? I hope you will pardon my very disjointed remarks and I deeply appreciate your kind attention. (Applause.) The President, Dr. Newhall: ``Factors Contributing to Morale and Espirit de Corps,'' by General L.R. Gignilliat.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, over the past 25 years, Capt. Charles D. Connor has been a leading force in the Navy's public affairs community. His efforts, through a wide variety of assignments, played an integral role in articulating the Navy story, and ensuring public support for our policies and programs. His early public affairs assignments, including U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, Armed Forces Bicentennial Program, Navy Recruiting Region Pacific Northwest, Navy Public Affairs Office Midwest, and Navy Recruiting Command laid the groundwork for stellar performance in the most challenging and influential billets in the PAO community. In the late 1980's, Captain Connor went on to lead the public affairs efforts of the U.S. Third Fleet, following that success with 3 years at U.S. Space Command. His most recent assignments put him truly at the top of his field, where his broad professional expertise has been of incalculable benefit to the U.S. Navy. As public affairs director of U.S. Navy European Headquarters, 1992- 1994, Captain Connor, created, planned and executed the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, the centerpiece of which was the globally televised Presidential embarkation aboard Navy ships. This special event successfully underlined the fact that American power projection relies on a forward-based Navy, a vital communication objective which was brilliantly conceived and implemented. His efforts were personally commended by the White House. As the Deputy Chief of Information, 1994-1995, Captain Connor directed national and international Navy public affairs programs, managing global day-to-day media, community and internal relations operations involving hundreds of people and a multimillion dollar budget. He also created the first standardized manual on the operation of nine regional public affairs offices and introduced digital photography transmission to media, producing significant savings in processing costs. Captain Connor's outstanding public affairs acumen culminated in his assignment as public affairs officer for the Secretary of the Navy in 1995. During a time of great change and volatility due to downsizing, he spearheaded the Secretary's communications program targeting both internal and external audiences. His efforts resulted in a greater understanding of and advocacy for the Secretary's initiatives, both within the Navy and externally through the news media. He is a strategic thinker who is action-oriented. Captain Connor's professional excellence, diligence, and loyalty have made him a great asset to the U.S. Navy. I take this opportunity to wish him well upon his retirement from the Navy and for continued success. He has truly been a role model for public affairs officers who follow him.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, today I ask all Members of the House to join me in honoring the limitless contributions, valorous acts, and tremendous sacrifices demonstrated daily by the men and women of the U.S. Special Operations Command [USSOCOM]. As we observe the 10th anniversary of the creation of USSOCOM, we should make note of the unique military capability provided to our National Command Authority. The immeasurable achievement of USSOCOM since its birth--a scant 10 years ago--is testament to the vision, forethought, and dedication of those who have come before us in service of our Nation. We should also recognize the work of our former colleagues Sam Nunn, Bill Cohen, and the late Dan Daniel, effort essential for the existence of this command. Their efforts led to passage of the Nunn-Cohen amendment to what is known as the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act. The special operators of USSOCOM--``the quiet professionals''--are truly dedicated men and women. They provide a unique, unmatched, and necessary capability to our Nation in the areas of contingency response, counterterrorism, and unconventional warfare. Whether conflict erupts in Panama, Southwest Asia, Somalia, Liberia, Haiti, Bosnia, or some other unnamed site around the globe, we should gain comfort knowing they stand ready to serve our national security objectives. I hope my colleagues can join in recognizing their tradition. God bless them all.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, after 32 years of civilian service in the Department of the Army, Vena G. Edwards is being honored by her friends and peers. Vena began her long and distinguished career in 1965 in the Officer Personnel Management Directorate at the U.S. Army Personnel Command, then known as the Military Personnel Command. Once she had established herself through other assignments, she advanced to the office of the assistant deputy chief of staff for Personnel in February 1977. A professional in every sense of the word, she was the mainstay and guiding force for the entire agency. She has trained many other agency members and has successfully managed the careers of the many general officers for whom she worked. She always took a genuine interest in people and often went out of her way to help. You could say that she was truly one of those people who always walked the extra mile. She has been a lifesaver for many a general officer and hapless newcomer who found out they could always depend on Vena for the right answer or the right place. As the institutional memory for the organization, she will be sorely missed as it will take all of us much longer to look up what she already knows. A master of efficiency, she has worked tirelessly to ensure the agency goals are met and that a quality of life is maintained for all members of the U.S. Army. Vena has earned the admiration and respect from those in the highest levels of the Army, of the Department of Defense, Congress, and for the genuine caring for the well being of those who make soldiering their career. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt congratulations upon the retirement of Vena Edwards. I know Vena will be just as successful in her future endeavors as she was at the Department of the Army.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I wish to recognize the members of the Oak Grove High School wrestling team and their coach, Bob Glasgow, for their outstanding achievements and continued excellence in the sport of wrestling. During Coach Glasgow's career at Oak Grove High School, he has developed a wrestling program that is known for excellence and success. Last season, the Oak Grove wrestling team won numerous tournament championships as well as the district 6 championship for the eighth consecutive year. Under the direction of Coach Glasgow, ten exceptional wrestlers qualified for the State tournament. This kind of outstanding achievement has been a tradition for Coach Glasgow and his wrestling team during his 14 years at Oak Grove High School. During Coach Glasgow's tenure as the wrestling coach, the Oak Grove wrestling team has won 8 State championships and has had 39 individual State champions. In addition, nine Oak Grove wrestlers have signed division 1 scholarships during this time period. I wish to extend my congratulations to the Oak Grove High School wrestling team for their continued tradition of excellence.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, Maj. Gen. (MO) Pendergrass prepares to retire more than 48 years after first donning a uniform. A native of Booneville, AR, he first joined the armed forces as a member of the Air Force Reserves in September 1948, then joined his hometown Army National Guard unit, the 217th Medical Collecting Company, a litter bearer unit. The unit was called to active service in August 1950, and deployed to Korea, where General Pendergrass served with them through June 1952. By the time he moved to Missouri, General Pendergrass had been commissioned and served with signal and armor units. Locating in Rolla, MO, he joined the 1438th Engineer Company, and later would command the company. He moved up through the ranks, and at the time of his retirement as a colonel in February 1986 was deputy commander of the 35th Engineer Brigade. His time in the retired ranks lasted 7 years almost to the day. Missouri Governor, Mel Carnahan, recalled him to duty and he became Missouri's Adjutant General in February 1993. Immediately, General Pendergrass had to deal with tough reorganization decisions facing the National Guard as a result of the post-cold war reductions being made to the Army and Air Forces. But in only 4 months a more acute challenge faced him, the Great Flood of 1993. Beginning in July 1993 and for the next 2 months, General Pendergrass led the men and women of the Missouri National Guard in its largest State emergency mission ever as both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers overran their banks and everything in front of them. General Pendergrass and the men and women of the Missouri National Guard worked with scores of State and Federal agencies to provide a response capability unequaled anywhere during that massive multistate disaster. General Pendergrass applied his leadership skills to ensure that the forces of the Missouri National Guard were equally accessible for Federal missions. During his tenure as Adjutant General, units and individuals from the Missouri National Guard have served with distinction from Germany to the Balkans in Operation Joint Endeavor, and earlier in Somalia, Haiti, and Rwanda. During the same period his units led our Nation building efforts in Latin America, building roads and schools and providing medical care to families in isolated rural areas from Belize to Panama. Through all his years of service to our Nation, Raymond Pendergrass has been more than a military leader, more than a man who knows that leading involves teaching. He has served as a gentleman willing to answer the call time after time, even returning from well earned retirement. He is more than one of the last to remain in uniform with a Korean war combat patch on his right shoulder. He is a leader whose distinguished career is surely in the finest tradition of the American Citizen Soldier.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, it is with deep sadness that I inform the House of the death of Judge William T. Bellamy of Marshall, MO. Judge Bellamy was an honorable adversary in the courtroom, an outstanding jurist, and a warm and thoughtful friend. Judge Bellamy was born in Marshall in 1920, the son of Nell Newton and William T. Bellamy, Sr. He married Louise Ainsley on February 18, 1950. He was a graduate of Westminister College in Fulton, MO, and the University of Michigan School of Law. He served his country with distinction during World War II, including service on the vital Manhattan project. Following the war, Judge Bellamy returned to Marshall and practiced law as a partner in the firm of Bellamy and Bellamy. From 1978 to 1988, he served as presiding judge of the 15th Judicial Circuit of Missouri. Judge Bellamy was an active member of his community, and he served with distinction on the Marshall school board for many years. Judge William T. Bellamy will be missed by all who had the privilege to know him. I know the Members of the House will join me in extending heartfelt condolences to his family: his wife, Louise; his three sons, Brad, Tut, and Page and their wives, Suzanna, Suzanne, and Shannon; and his three grandsons, James, Caleb, and Brandt.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, today I wish to recognize a truly outstanding navel officer, Capt. Marty Alford, U.S. Navy. Captain Alford will soon be completing his assignment as the Director of the Navy Liaison Office to the House of Representatives, which will also bring to a close a long and distinguished career in the U.S. Navy. It is a pleasure for me to recognize just a few of his many outstanding achievements. A native of Columbia, MO, Captain Alford was commissioned an ensign upon graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1971. Following graduation, he entered flight training, receiving his wings of gold, and designation as a naval aviator in June 1973. Captain Alford's initial tour was with Patrol Squadron 10, homeported at Naval Air Station Brunswick, ME, flying the P-3B Orion aircraft. In February 1977, Captain Alford reported for duty as flag lieutenant to commander, Naval Safety Center, Norfolk, VA. After 18 months he transferred to the staff of commander, Carrier Group 8, also in Norfolk, where he again served as flag lieutenant and aide. Captain Alford's next tour found him at the naval air station in Jacksonville, FL with Patrol Squadron 30. Qualifying as an instructor pilot in both the P-3B and P-3C aircraft, he also served as assistant training officer and maintenance material control officer. In March 1982, he transferred to Patrol Squadron 1 at the naval air station in Barbers Point, HI. He served as training officer and operations officer while completing deployments to Cubi Point in the Philippines and to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. In January 1985, Captain Alford reported for duty to Patrol Squadron 4 in Hawaii as the executive officer and deployed to Diego Garcia. In May 1986, Captain Alford assumed command of Patrol Squadron 4 and led the squadron through a successful deployment to Naval Air Station Adak, AK. Upon successful completion of his command tour at sea in May 1987, Captain Alford began a 1 year assignment as operations officer for Commander Patrol Wing 2, followed by challenging duty in Washington, DC, as an action officer in the Strategy, Plans and Policy Division of the Naval Staff. Following selection for Fleet Reserve Squadron Command in July 1989, Captain Alford reported as commanding officer of Patrol Squadron 31 at Naval Air Station Moffet field in California. After completing his second command tour in July 1990, he began a 1 year assignment as a student at the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, DC. After graduating in June 1991, he was assigned to the staff of the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, Air Warfare as a branch head. Captain Alford reported as commander, Patrol Wing 10 in March 1992 and led the wing through several highly successful operational deployments and numerous detachments throughout the world in support of a wide variety of missions. Captain Alford completed his third major command tour in October 1993 and reported as Director, Navy Liaison to the House of Representatives in February 1994. Mr. Speaker, Marty Alford, his wife Terri, and their two children, Michelle and Mary Beth, have made many sacrifices during his 26-year naval career. Marty has spent a significant amount of time away from his family to support the vital role our naval forces play in ensuring the security of our great Nation. Captain Alford is a great credit to the U.S. Navy and the country he so proudly served. As he now prepares to depart the Navy for new challenges ahead, I call upon my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to wish him and his family every success, as well as fair winds and following seas, always.

Mr. SKELTON

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, Raymond Pendergrass prepares to retire more than 48 years after first donning a uniform. A native of Boonesville, AR, he first joined the Armed Forces as a member of the Air Force Reserves in September, 1948, then joined his hometown Army National Guard unit, the 217th Medical Collecting Company, a litter bearer unit. The unit was called to active service in August 1950 and deployed to Korea, where General Pendergrass served with them through June 1952. By the time he moved to Missouri, General Pendergrass had been commissioned and served with signal and armor units. Locating in Rolla, MO, he joined the 1438th Engineer Company, and later would command the company. He moved through the ranks, and at the time of his retirement as a colonel in February, 1986 was deputy commander of the 35th Engineer Brigade. His time in the retired ranks lasted 7 years almost to the day. Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan recalled him to duty and he became Missouri's adjutant general in February 1993. Immediately General Pendergrass had to deal with difficult reorganization decisions facing the National Guard as a result of the post-cold war reductions being made to the Army and Air Forces. But in only 4 months a more acute challenge faced him, the great flood of 1993. Beginning in July 1993 and for the next 2 months, General Pendergrass led the men and women of the Missouri National Guard in its largest State emergency mission ever as both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers overran their banks and everything in front of them. General Pendergrass and the men and women of the Missouri National Guard worked with scores of State and Federal agencies to provide a response capability unequaled anywhere during that massive multi-State disaster. General Pendergrass applied his leadership skills to ensure that the forces of the Missouri National Guard were equally accessible for Federal missions. During his tenure as adjutant general, units and individuals from the Missouri National Guard have served with distinction from Germany to the Balkans in Operation Joint Endeavor, and earlier in Somalia, Haiti, and Rwanda. During the same period his units led our nation-building efforts in Latin America, building roads and schools and providing medical care to families in isolated rural areas from Belize to Panama. Through all his years of service to our Nation, Raymond Pendergrass has been more than a military leader, more than a man who knows that leading involves teaching. He has served as a gentlewoman willing to answer the call time after time, even returning from well-earned retirement. He is more than one of the last to remain in uniform with a Korean War combat patch on his right shoulder. He is a leader whose distinguished career is surely in the finest tradition of the American citizen soldier.