Military Asks Power to Cut Some Officers From Ranks

The military services, faced with the need to make huge manpower cutbacks as defense spending declines in coming years, sought congressional permission Tuesday to force officers out of the ranks if they will not go willingly.

The initiative is the first installment in a package of proposed personnel policy changes that the military services are drafting to ease the task of reducing their rolls by 38,000 men and women in 1991 and by almost 300,000 over the next five years.

Previously, senior Defense Department officials had said they hoped to avoid involuntary layoffs as they shrink the size of the armed forces. But pressures for still deeper cuts have made it “inevitable” that some soldiers will get pink slips, one knowledgeable Army officer said.

Army officials said the proposed change foreshadows the painful, human side of the military shrinkage mandated by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

By offering military officers greater incentives to leave voluntarily--and by reinforcing the option to retire some involuntarily--the service hopes to maintain the quality of its forces and avoid such demoralizing measures as deferring promotions of those who continue to serve.

“We must retain the best performers,” said Army Lt. Gen. Allen K. Ono in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

If approved by Congress, the shift in military personnel policy would loosen existing prohibitions against laying off military officers.

Those laws “are not adequate to shape a balanced officer corps in the situation of steep reductions we feel today,” Ono testified. “We are asking for additional flexibility to allow us to shape the officer corps in a balanced and equitable way.”

While all the services have asked for permission to force retirements, the Army, which faces cuts of 17,000 servicemen and women by 1994, expects to use the new latitude most frequently. Half of the Army’s proposed cuts are expected to come from the officer corps.

The Navy and Air Force, which are to trim 6,000 and 15,000 men and women, respectively, in the coming fiscal year, face less difficulty in reducing their personnel rolls.

Ono said the measures, which primarily would affect mid-level officers, would allow the services to welcome a steady flow of new officers and enlistees into their ranks and prevent the emergence of a gap in certain ranks.

Such a gap, which could develop if the reductions were accomplished mainly by curtailing incoming recruits while allowing existing officers to remain in the service, could “bring havoc to the Army for over a generation,” Ono said.

The package introduced Tuesday would allow the services to force out Army, Air Force and Marine lieutenant colonels and Navy captains if they have been passed over for promotion once. Existing law requires that such officers be passed over twice before they can be retired.

In addition, the services could issue walking papers to captains and colonels within two years of their maximum service time of 30 years.

The proposed initiatives also would authorize the military services to offer severance pay for officers who choose to leave before becoming eligible for full retirement benefits.

Still to come are more sweeping changes in the policies that affect the livelihoods of the nation’s 2.1-million active-duty servicemen and women.

One knowledgeable defense source said the Pentagon is drafting another package of initiatives that would include severance pay for enlistees, increased severance pay for some officers and a retirement package that would allow officers and enlistees to draw prorated retirement benefits after serving 17 years.

Currently, only those who have served 20 years or more receive retirement benefits.