THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 5, 1994 TAG: 9407050072
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC SCHMITT, THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: CAMP PENDLETON, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
At this sprawling Marine Corps base, which would send thousands of Marines to the Korean peninsula if war erupted there, Col. Jeff Scheferman is busy training troops on a no-frills budget.
Marines practice shooting at homemade papier-mache dummies instead of costly cardboard targets. Officers run command-post drills outside their office windows and pretend to be in the field to avoid using expensive batteries. Marines trek 17 miles to their training ranges to conserve truck fuel, tires and maintenance.
``The trade-off is that they spend one day hiking up and one day hiking back when they could be doing something else, but we're trying to get a bigger bang for our dollar,'' said Scheferman, the regimental commander of the 3,900-man 5th Marines.
As the Pentagon budget dwindles, a debate is raging over whether the cuts are compromising military readiness. Some lawmakers and many commanders say the Clinton administration is cutting too far, too fast, and spending much of what is left on weapons like the $2.4-billion Seawolf submarine instead of on training and pay raises for troops. ``Readiness and capability are good right now, but the cracks are beginning to show,'' said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican on the Armed Services Committee who was a career Navy officer.
Military surveys show that fewer young men and women want to join the armed forces, but the trend is more pronounced among men. America's shrinking ranks are serving in more peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, and divorce rates are rising in some units whose troops are away from home two-thirds of the year or more. To pay for training, many commanders are deferring maintenance on equipment like trucks, helicopters and even warships.
Administration officials say their budget pays for smaller forces that are still well-trained and well-equipped. Pentagon officials say they are closely watching potential trouble spots and suggest that some commanders are crying wolf to stave off more cuts.
Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff are divided on the issue. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the Army chief of staff, says the Army is on ``the razor's edge of readiness.'' But Adm. William A. Owens, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, disagrees, saying tersely: ``We are not on the razor's edge of readiness. It is our highest priority to never undercut our readiness.''
Visits to a half-dozen bases nationwide, as well as interviews with military and civilian Pentagon officials, suggest a complex problem. The armed forces clearly are being asked to do more with less. The warning signs of potential problems are real. But much of what is being cut is fat, and some commanders are finding cost-cutting innovations that do not harm readiness.
At Florida's Eglin Air Force Base, commanders say they have saved more than $1 million in the past year, largely by repairing parts rather than buying new ones. For example, it costs $315 to fix an oil-pressure gauge that costs $2,295.
``When the budgets come down, it makes us more inventive,'' said Rear Adm. Dennis C. Blair, commander of the battle group that contains the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. ``The trouble is that, with a few exceptions, we don't reward efficiency and innovation.''
Indeed, the armed forces still are struggling to adjust to the end of Cold War budgets after years of largesse in the Reagan administration. President Clinton has pledged to cut military spending by more than $100 billion by 1997 and to reduce the size of the military to 1.45 million troops by then from 1.8 million in 1992.
But with U.S. ships steaming off Haiti and Bosnia, warplanes patrolling no-flight zones in northern and southern Iraq, and Army forces in Macedonia and Saudi Arabia, commanders say they are being asked to do more with less. This higher operating tempo has strained equipment and troops and will lead to serious problems if unchecked, commanders say.
More broadly, some senior officers express unusually blunt criticism that the administration's budget cannot pay for the forces needed to carry out the military's stated goal of being able to fight and win two regional wars nearly simultaneously. ``I don't think the president understands the implications of this budget, and just how risky it is,'' said Adm. Henry H. Mauz Jr., commander of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet.
When commanders talk about the essential components of readiness, they cite three areas: personnel and quality of life issues, modernization of equipment, and training. The armed services have detailed measurements of current readiness, but are virtually blind when looking ahead several years.
The most immediate concerns center on personnel. Although 1993 was the Pentagon's third-best year for recruiting quality - behind 1991 and 1992 - surveys show that fewer young men want to enlist. The military is actually paying people to leave, so this may not pose a serious problem until the armed forces increase their recruiting goals toward the end of the decade.
Keeping the military's best people in uniform is a more pressing problem. The overall gap between civilian and military wages is 13 percent and growing.
Divorces have become common in the Air Force's last F-4G radar-attack squadron, where the same small group of pilots are rotated through assignments in northern and southern Iraq every few months. ``I don't have much of a family left,'' said Maj. Gary Gray, an F-4G pilot who is separated from his wife of 10 years.
Grumbling over pay, housing and deployment rates, many troops are looking to get out. ``I'd been considering the Navy for a career, but not now,'' said Petty Officer 3rd Class Matt Gielow, a 25-year-old seaman on the destroyer Curtis Wilbur. by CNB