[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 13 (Thursday, January 22, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S776-S778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ALASKA TERRITORIAL GUARD

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, sometime this week letters will be 
mailed from the U.S. Army Human Resources Command in St. Louis, MO, to 
25 elderly Alaskans. Those letters will tell these 25 elderly Alaskans 
that the Army has changed its mind--it has changed its mind--about 
whether their service in the Alaska Territorial Guard during World War 
II counts toward military retirement. The effect of this abrupt 
reversal in position is to reduce the monthly retirement payments to 
each of these 25 elderly Alaskans. These retirement payments will be 
reduced by an average of $386 a month. Six will lose more than $500 a 
month in retirement pay. These reductions will take effect on February 
1.
  So in less than 10 days, these individuals who have been receiving 
these payments--these elderly Alaskans who served us during World War 
II--will be receiving a letter, maybe before their benefits are cut 
off, but they will be receiving a letter saying: Sorry, your service 
doesn't count toward military retirement.
  Mr. President, I state again: None of these 25 elderly Alaskans knows 
this is coming. It will come as a complete surprise to them, possibly, 
when they receive that letter. Whether they are tuning in to C-SPAN and 
hear my comments tonight, we don't know.
  It is going to take a while for these letters coming out of St. 
Louis, MO, to reach their destinations because these letters are being 
sent to some of the remotest parts of our State, of rural Alaska. Four 
of these letters are destined for the village of Noatak. This is an 
Inupiat Eskimo village of 489 people in northwest Alaska. I would 
suggest, Mr. President, that outside of you and I, there is probably 
nobody in Washington, DC, who could identify Noatak on a map. Four of 
these letters are destined for the village of Kwigillingok. We call it 
Kwig because it is so difficult to pronounce. This is a Yupik Eskimo 
community of 361 people.
  All told, these letters are being sent to elders in 15 Alaska Native 
communities in interior and western Alaska. The poster board that I 
have behind me indicates some of the elderly gentlemen who may be 
receiving these letters in the next several weeks.
  This decision is tragic. It is tragic because it affects veterans who 
defended Alaska and who defended the United States from the Japanese 
during World War II. It is a tragedy because these people were led to 
believe they would be compensated for their service to our Nation. It 
is a tragedy because most of the people I am talking about, most of 
these gentlemen, are Eskimos--among the first people of the United 
States, members of a class of people to whom the United States 
Government has broken its promises time and time again. It is a tragedy 
because they were misled into believing their retirement pay was 
increasing. It is a further tragedy because this bad news is going to 
be communicated in a letter signed by a branch chief in the Army Human 
Resources Command. These people deserve an apology from the Secretary 
of Defense. They do not need to be receiving this news about this error 
from a branch chief in the Army Human Resources Command.
  It is also a tragedy because some of these people in the Department 
of Defense chose to implement this decision in the dead of an Alaska 
winter, when we know that our Native elders in rural Alaska are most 
vulnerable. Right now, in the village of Kwig and in Noatak and in the 
other communities, it is dark, it is cold, and resources are scarce. 
The increase in retirement pay, which was implemented just this last 
June, was very welcome news to those who were receiving it. It came at 
a time when the cost of fuel was rising to levels in our rural 
communities that people simply could not pay.
  If you will recall, back home in June and July, in the cities, we 
were paying $4.50, $5 a gallon for our fuel. But out in the villages 
they were paying $7, $8 a gallon, and in some areas even higher than 
that. Throughout the State, but particularly in rural Alaska last 
summer, folks were anxious about whether they were going to be able to 
afford to heat their homes this winter.
  Last week, in the Indian Affairs Committee, the Presiding Officer had 
an opportunity to join us, and I was able to put on the record the 
plight of some of the Native people in the community of Emmonak who 
have literally had to choose between buying stove oil to heat their 
homes or whether they should buy food for their families.
  I guess some of the good news we have learned is that none of these 
letters informing these elders that they will see a reduction in 
benefits is going to the village of Emmonak, but I would suspect many 
of the villages to which these letters are going are no better off. You 
just have to ask the question: How can our government be so 
insensitive--taking money, taking retirement benefits out of the 
pockets of our elders, of our seniors, at a time of the year when they 
are absolutely the most vulnerable?
  I hope I have gained the attention of some, and with the indulgence 
of my colleagues, I would like to fill in a little bit of the 
background. I will not be

[[Page S777]]

talking too long--I know one of our Senators is waiting--but it is an 
interesting story, and I think he will appreciate it.
  The Alaska Territorial Guard was created in June of 1942 in response 
to increasing Japanese activity and attacks on and around Alaska. At 
the time, the U.S. Army was reassigning our Alaska National Guard 
soldiers away from the State, and so there were no ground troops left 
to protect Alaska. So Earnest Gruening, who was the territorial 
governor at the time, called for volunteers to defend our great land up 
there in the north. Some 6,389 Alaskans answered the call. These 
volunteers came to be known as the Eskimo Scouts, but they were 
representative of all of Alaska. They were Inupiat Eskimos, Yupik 
Eskimos, Aleut people, Athabascan and Tlingit Indians, and there were 
Caucasians.
  With no pay and very little equipment, these volunteers--these Eskimo 
Scouts--patrolled 5,400 miles of coastline to fend off a possible 
Japanese invasion. They shot down Japanese air balloons carrying bombs 
and eavesdropping radios. They rescued downed airmen, they transported 
equipment and supplies, they constructed airstrips and support 
facilities, they manned the field hospital outpost, and they engaged 
the enemy in combat.
  You see the picture behind me of the Eskimo Scout in his snowshoes 
standing guard, standing ready. These men answered the call of our 
country and they defended our homeland. The Territorial Guard stood as 
the first line of defense for the terrain around the Lend-Lease area, 
the route from America to Russia, and it was this vital lifeline that 
allowed the United States to supply our Russian ally with essential 
military aircraft and proved essentially crucial to Russia's defense 
against Hitler's Germany.

  In March of 1947, the Eskimo Scouts were disbanded, but many of them 
went on to continue to serve our Nation in the Army and the Alaska 
National Guard. For more than half a century after the Territorial 
Guard was disbanded, these brave and truly dedicated volunteers 
received not one ounce of recognition from our Federal Government for 
the service they had performed. It wasn't until the year 2000 that 
Senator Stevens succeeded in adding language to the Defense 
appropriations bill to recognize the Territorial Guard, and that 
legislation required the Secretary of Defense to treat the Alaska 
Territorial Guard just like any other soldiers and to require them to 
issue discharge certificates to those who remain alive.
  I was privileged to be at a couple of ceremonies where some of these 
elders received their official discharge certificates, and it was 
incredibly moving to be with them when, after decades, their Government 
finally recognized their service. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs was 
also directed to treat these people as any other veteran of the Armed 
Forces of the United States.
  I do understand and we are told that the Department of Defense was 
slow to implement the mandate of this legislation. I can tell you from 
my own experience in dealing with many of the veterans and their 
families, the efforts to get these discharge certificates in a timely 
fashion has been very frustrating--frustrating for the families, 
frustrating for those who have served, most certainly, and frustrating 
for those of us who have been trying to make it happen. Some former 
members of the Territorial Guard are still waiting to get their 
discharge certificates. We have been assisted by a wonderful volunteer, 
Bob Goodman, who lives in Anchorage. He helps the former members of the 
Territorial Guard document their service, and he tells me that unless 
we can get this turned around, unless we can kind of move through this 
roadblock, we are going to see more of these fine Americans who will 
pass on before they get their long-awaited recognition.
  I just don't understand. I can't understand why it took nearly 8 
years--8 years--for the Defense Department to recognize the Alaska 
Territorial Guard's service for military retirement benefits. But, as I 
mentioned, back in June of 2008, they did it. Apparently, that decision 
did not please some at the Defense Department. Between Thanksgiving and 
Christmas, we learned they made a case that the members of the 
Territorial Guard are not eligible for retirement benefits. This was 
all happening over there at the Department under the radar of Secretary 
Geren here in Washington. The Secretary says there is nothing we can do 
at this point in time; the retirement benefits have been reduced on the 
computers of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the 
payments are going to go down effective February 1.
  I am not going to stand here and blame the lawyers for telling their 
clients that the policy of crediting Alaska Territorial Guard service 
toward retirement pay doesn't comport with the law. But at the same 
time, the Defense Department hasn't released that legal opinion, so I 
can't judge--the presiding officer can't judge--whether this conclusion 
is really compelled by the law. If the conclusion was compelled by the 
law, I suppose we can't call out the lawyers for saying so. But I do 
fault their clients, the leaders who knew this was coming. They knew it 
was coming, but they didn't bother to tell any of the members of the 
Alaska Congressional Delegation.
  I was not notified; you were not notified, Mr. President; our Member 
in the House of Representatives--nobody came to us late last year and 
said: Hey, we have a problem. We have a problem, and it requires a 
legislative fix. Can we work together, can we do something either at 
the end of the 110th Congress or immediately at the outset of this new 
Congress?
  The senior leaders in the Army and DOD didn't even acknowledge that 
there was a problem until you and I contacted the Secretary of the Army 
and asked: Is there a problem? We hear there is stuff floating around. 
What is going on?
  As far as I was concerned, the reason we suspected there was a 
problem was because the adjutant general of Alaska, after trying to 
work through this problem at his level and through the chain of 
command, told us something was coming and it was going to be coming 
imminently.
  Then just last week, Army Secretary Geren confirmed those fears, the 
fear that it will be real, that the retirement pay will be cut 
effective February 1. He says there is nothing he can do about it.
  This afternoon, the members of the Alaska Congressional Delegation 
are writing to the administration, asking that he intervene to ensure 
that those Native elders who are affected by this tragic series of 
events do not lose this safety net.
  Senator Begich and I are also preparing legislation that clarifies 
that service in the Alaska Territorial Guard is to be regarded as 
Active-Duty service for purposes of calculating retirement pay. We need 
to clear up that vagueness in the statutes.
  I would just say, as I am able to speak here on the floor of the 
Senate, to Secretary Gates, if you are within the sound of my voice, I 
believe you owe an apology to these people. It was just a month ago 
that the Army Chief of Staff sent a letter of apology to 7,000 
surviving families of the global war on terror who received letters 
addressed to John Doe. The blunder I speak of today affects far fewer 
people, but it is certainly no less of a blunder. I think we recognize 
we have just gone through a transition, moving from one administration 
to the other. Things happen during a transition period--things just 
happen. Sometimes policy blunders can occur. These things do happen, 
and then it falls upon Congress and the administration to come back and 
fix things.
  I pledge to the Alaskans, and I know the Presiding Officer and our 
colleague in the House, Representative Young--I think we all make the 
commitment to do everything we can to clean up what we are dealing with 
here. But I am left to wonder, what kind of a government, what kind of 
a Cruella, could cut retirement benefits to a group of Eskimos in their 
eighties, in the dead of an Alaskan winter, and say: Sorry, there is 
nothing we can do.
  It is time for some soul searching at the Pentagon. I am looking for 
answers. I know you are looking for answers. We are looking for 
solutions, and there is really very little time left.
  I thank the Presiding Officer. Know that we will find positive 
solutions for those who have served us honorably.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, after listening to the Senator from 
Alaska, I

[[Page S778]]

certainly would love to have her advocating on my behalf, and I know 
you two will make a great team in advocating on behalf of the people in 
Alaska, certainly seeing that they have been sent an injustice. I thank 
you for the opportunity to listen to that. Again, it is great to be 
here with the two Senators from Alaska.

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