[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 146 (Friday, October 17, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2081-E2082]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WHY WE NEED MORE MILITARY END STRENGTH

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. IKE SKELTON

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 17, 2003

  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, throughout my years of service, I have 
spent considerable time learning and understanding the complexities of 
our Nation's national security programs, and in particular our military 
personnel policies. It is with this experience and appreciation that I 
rise to share with my colleagues my deep concerns regarding the 
Nation's military end strength.
  In February 1991, this Nation joined with our allies and went to war 
in the Persian Gulf. American service members were sent to the Middle 
East to help restore liberty and freedom to the citizens of Kuwait. The 
defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1991, provided the Army an 
end-strength of 702,170, the Navy 570,500, the Marine Corps 193,735, 
and the Air Force 510,000. When we went to war in 1991, the Army had 12 
divisions, the Navy had 529 ships and the Air Force had 165 air wings.
  The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the 
successful prosecution of the first Persian Gulf War all led to the 
demand and belief that our country should and needed to reduce its 
military end-strength. The pressure for a ``peace dividend'' became the 
popular call.
  By 1996, we had reduced Army end strength to 495,000, a reduction of 
over 207,000. The Navy was cut to 428,340, the Marine Corps downsized 
to 174,000, and the Air Force lost 129,000 for an end-strength of 
388,200. The ``peace dividend'' was fast becoming a reality--in 5 years 
the military end-strength had been reduced by more than a half million.
  However, the world has remained far from peaceful. The end of the 
Cold War has brought its own challenges--nearly 100,000 American forces 
have been called to serve in Bosnia and Kosovo, and thousands of 
National Guardsmen and Reserves are still being called to serve today. 
The United States has also sent our men and women in uniform to other 
operations around the world, including humanitarian assistance missions 
to Somalia and Haiti, drug interdiction operations in South America, 
and training government troops opposed to insurgents in the 
Philippines. Unfortunately, as the number of military operations has 
increased, there has also continued to be a slow and steady decrease in 
the size of our military.
  But starting in 1995, the harsh reality of the worldwide operational 
burden on our forces led to calls for more forces. In 1995, Army 
Lieutenant General Ted Stroup, then Deputy Chief of Staff for 
Personnel, testified that the Army's active end strength should be 
520,000, not the 495,000 that was requested in the 1996 budget request. 
Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, reiterated that position 
during a hearing before the Armed Services Committee in July 2001. He 
told us that the Army needs a force of 520,000 people.
  However, instead of proposing to increase military end-strength, the 
Bush administration has sought to gain greater efficiencies in the 
current force. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed the 
services to find ways to convert military positions that were not on 
the tip of the spear to civilian positions or private contractor jobs. 
The services also have been conducting reviews of their own to find 
ways to convert non-combat units to units with missions more relevant 
to actually fighting wars in order to relieve the burden on the front 
line forces now deployed around the world.
  While I agree that we need to support more efficient use of the 
force, the administration's solution to our operational dilemma is 
wrong, shortsighted and self-defeating. Failing to increase our end 
strength will only increase the pressure on our current force. There is 
simply no substitute for having enough people to do

[[Page E2082]]

the job--``boots on the ground'' in military parlance and all the 
organizational efficiency in the world is no substitute.
  It is said that history often repeats itself. Our Nation has 
historically reduced the number of men and women in uniform following 
major conflicts, such as World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea, and 
the Cold War. As a result of this historical phenomenon, we had a 
relatively small force by historical standards when we were violently 
attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. In the days since then, 
hundreds of thousands of National Guard and Reservists have been called 
to active duty to provide security at our Nation's airports, bridges, 
nuclear power plants, and other important facilities. Thousands of men 
and women in uniform were sent to Afghanistan to remove terrorists and 
their supporters in Operation Enduring Freedom. And, in March of this 
year, Armed Forces personnel were sent to invade Iraq and remove a 
cruel and ruthless dictator from power, and are likely to be in Iraq 
for years to come. The message from these events is clear--because 
there are not enough troops to meet our worldwide military obligations, 
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even those guarding against 
terrorism inside the United States, face longer call ups, deployments 
and hardships than would be required if we had a larger force. We 
simply need more people in our military to do the job right!
  On September 23, 1999, then presidential candidate Bush stated, 
``Frustration is up, as families are separated and strained. Morale is 
down. Recruitment is more difficult. And many of our best people in the 
military are headed for civilian life.'' Just four short years later, I 
say the same words to the President. Frustration is up, and families 
have been separated and strained more today than at any other time in 
recent history. Morale is declining. Although military recruiting is 
now satisfactory, many military leaders have expressed their fear that 
retention and recruiting will decline as troops rotate back home.
  The time has come for Congress to ensure that our Nation has the 
military manpower that it needs to successfully execute the missions we 
ask our brave service men and women to perform. We need to increase our 
military end-strength, particularly in the Army, now. We need to ensure 
that the all volunteer force will continue to work as well as it has 
for the last 30 years. And that will only happen if we have enough 
people in uniform.

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