An Open Letter to President Bush other Administration leaders, Each Member of Greetings: The National Association for Uniformed Services represents all ranks and branches of uniformed services personnel, their spouses and survivors. Our nation-wide nonpartisan association includes active, retired, reserve and National Guard, disabled and other veterans of the seven uniformed services: Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Public Health Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Our affiliate, the Society of Military Widows, is an active group of women who were married to uniformed services personnel of all grades and ranks and represents a broad spectrum of military society. NAUS and SMW are representative of the entire veterans and military community. As a founding organizer and leader of the military and veterans coalitions together we represent the nation's 27 million veterans and their families. We are very concerned by the fact that none of the proposals regarding the use of the declared peace dividend, either from the White House or Congress hints at meeting the government's obligation to those members of the uniformed services who sacrificed and won the peace dividend. None recognize the unique contract under which servicemembers earned for themselves, their families and survivors the benefits and entitlements that they were promised. No one, including President Bush in his recent State of the Union Address, has stepped forward to say "let this grateful nation first pay our debt to those who won the peace dividend before we move to other priorities". Although in his State of the Union Address he recognized the great contributions of the brave men and women of this nation who fought for and won freedom over the last 45 years, he outlined no plan nor expressed even a hint of a reward for their sacrifices. As you know, the Republican Party and candidates often tend to believe that retired and disabled veterans and other veterans who retain a continuing interest in retiree and veterans affairs and national defense (some 27,000,000 Americans plus an average of two family members for over 81,000,000 qualified as potential voters) will naturally vote for President Bush because he is a veteran and the Commander-inChief. However, this large voting block can no longer be taken for granted by the President and the Republican Party, especially since his Secretary of Defense and several of his key staff members are not perceived by veterans as having taken any interest in ensuring that the promised benefits of the hot and Cold War retired veterans and military families are honored in fact just the opposite. Despite the victorious veterans winning the peace dividend, the recent emphasis of the Administration and Congress has centered on obtaining the votes of the so called "middle class" who according to the President paid for the cold war victory with their taxes. The veterans strongly resent this. They, too, are largely middle class but were on the front line fighting the hot wars and Cold War. They not only performed their duties on the front lines around the world, but also paid for it with their taxes. This resentment is causing veterans and those sympathetic to veterans concerns to consider more support of Democratic congressmen and candidates who are perceived to be more sympathetic to people issues and their personal needs than the President and Republican legislators and candidates appear to be. Most veterans consider themselves the middle class - yet they see an Administration and Congress that not only ignores them but in the case of the Administration through the past and current Director of OMB examples of Administration officials actively attacking military personnel and veterans programs. Specifically: For five years the President's budget submissions singled out for cuts the promised and earned cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for military retired pay and military survivor benefit plan annuities as budget balancing efforts. We were able to defeat these proposals in Congress through our vigorous lobbying efforts with Congress and especially with the help of Democratic Congressmen, but they resent a Commanderin-Chief being so insensitive to their needs. Veterans are also dismayed by other budget cuts which resulted in many of their comrade in arms being disenfranchised from Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities, or which shattered their estate plans with the chopping of promised and counted upon benefits such as was done by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (OBRA). OBRA's draconian cuts were made without the benefit of public hearings or input by those affected - it had no "grandfather clause" to protect those who now cannot change irrevocable decisions made years ago based upon having a reinstateable entitlement such as dependency and indemnity compensation. Military retirees see a don't give a damn attitude on the part of top level Department of Defense (DoD) officials regarding benefits such as medical care, military commissaries, exchanges and other benefits that were earned by them in exchange for their 20 or more years of dedicated service to provide this nation's national defense. Frankly, military families active and retired and veterans believe that they are being taken for granted and their concerns are being ignored. I have beer. the Keynote Speaker at a large number of Retiree and Veterans Recognition Days in the past year across the country. I have had extensive discussions with these groups in 1991 and early 1992 involving tens of thousands of people. They have been telling me that they are most concerned with what they visualize as a lack of support by Congress and especially the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense on personnel support issues, especially for retirees, National Guard and reserve members. They now believe that DoD is primarily concerned with manning the active regular force of the services and is not concerned with the promises and commitment to the retirees and veterans who have fought the hot wars and the 45 year Cold War. Retirees and veterans have told me they will vote in the upcoming election only for Democratic and Republican candidates who take their issues seriously. They certainly will not vote a straight Republican ticket in large numbers unless there is a major shift in the Administration's support of their concerns. They will be watching all candidates closely for an expression of their concerns. Military families throughout the nation, believe that the President has relegated military family support and retired issues to the Secretary of Defense, his nonsupportive deputies ASD (Force Management and Personnel) and OSD Comptroller and others, and the Director of Management and Budget. They know that not one of these DoD officials has military service and they perceive them as having little sympathy for the concerns of military personnel and reserve personnel and their families and are not interested in funding explicit and implied benefits earned by them but are overly concerned with saving money in the Defense Budget at the expense of personnel. Military personnel and their families also believe that political appointees in the Pentagon budget and logistics areas are largely dominating the decision making process in DoD on personnel issues and that only lip-service support is being paid to personnel and other retiree issues. They are, in the words of one veteran, "getting a negative response from DoD on people issues". Since retirees comprise a large part of the mobilization base, at least one fourth of them holding mobilization orders to man the force in a general mobilization, this makes them angry. The present DoD staff confirms their lack of concern for retiree and reserve personnel by signaling that they are primarily concerned with manning the active regular current force. Apparently they do not realize that new recruits, after hearing a pitch from a military service recruiter, almost invariably make a reality check with a retiree or other veteran to confirm that the promises made before enlisting or reenlisting will be there when the need them. These officials certainly should not let the present situation of easily meeting military recruiting goals in this drawdown period fool them. If promises made to current retirees and veterans are not kept over time their advice to these new recruits will most certainly be to be careful in opting for a military career in an outfit that doesn't keep its promises. Over time this could be disastrous to an adequate national defense no matter how small the force. These perceptions of a "don't give a damn" attitude by DoD officials are driven by statements such as made by the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Force Management and Personnel), regarding personnel support funds for active duty personnel when he recently said in an interview with an Army Times reporter. "My job is to represent the personnel, compensation, manpower issues in the larger defense arena. My job performance is not measured by how much extra money I get for service members." We recognize that he must be loyal to his political bosses, but he should at least represent the interests of service personnel and be an active and honest broker for all member of the total force. If he, as the personnel proponent and ombudsman, doesn't push for the issues for which he has responsibility, who will? Other specific examples of this "don't give a damn" attitude towards those who have and are providing our national defense follow: The December 4, 1991 memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Production and Logistics), for Secretaries of the Military Departments, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Directors of the Defense Agencies, which clarified the DoD policy on the continued operation of commissaries and exchanges on or nearby installations scheduled to be closed or retained as reserve component training facilities. "The policy is...for...complete closure and reduction to reserve component status. On such installations commissaries and exchanges will be closed. The principal purpose of ti se resale activities is to support active duty military personnel. While reservists, retirees and certain other nonactive duty people have been extended authorization to shop at commissaries and exchanges, we cannot justify, and will not consider retaining resale operations primarily for their use." Since exchanges are self-supporting, needing no subsidy from DoD, this statement is neither good policy nor conducive to taking care of our own and meeting what these retirees see as part and parcel of their entitlements for 20 or more years of service in this turbulent period in the nation's defense. Further, it relegates the reserve components to second class status, even though Title 10 and Title 32, United States Code directs reserve component and National Guard personnel be given access to commissaries and exchanges and considers them as being in the active duty personnel category, a point apparently lost on Pentagon officials. Another point apparently missed by DoD officials is that military retirees, reserve and National Guard personnel, and their family members comprise 65 percent of the base exchange patrons and 60 percent of exchange profits go to support morale, welfare and recreatic (MWR) activitie for the active regular force. Exchange profits are used for MWR purposes to supplement appropriated fund support which will be greatly reduced in the future. To close the facilities where they can be kept at little or no appropriated fund cost is a very, very poor business strategy and shows a total lack of concern for the retirees, other veterans and personnel of the reserve components who have earned these entitlements. As The Adjutant General of the Army in the late 70's and early 80's, I had major responsibilities for Army support programs for all Army component personnel. Although it was important for recruiting and retaining individuals for the Reserve Components, it took a major effort to overcome the strong and continued opposition within OSD when we wanted to extend some active regular force benefits to the Reserve components under the total force concept. It was only because of the political help of the Reserve forces leaders and key congressmen, especially Rep. Sonny Montgomery and Senator Sam Nunn, that we were successful in gaining the G.I. Bill, (which was never supported by DoD despite its great success in building the force that performed so magnificently in the Persian Gulf War), and exchange and commissary benefits for the Reserve Components. "Don't give a damn" comments by current DoD officials indicate that there has been no change on the part of the OSD attitude concerning retirees and Reserve Component personnel over these past years despite the reserves becoming an even more important part of the total national force as the active regular force is dramatically reduced. Additional evidence concerning the Department of Defense disregard for its most vital element, the people who man the force, is contained in a letter to me dated 23 January 1992 from the Deputy Assistant Secretary (Military Manpower & Personnel Policy) in which he said he was answering for Secretary Cheney and others in DoD, "...Nevertheless, we continue to believe the compensation and retirement systems remain about right but will come under scrutiny for potential savings just like the rest of the defense budget." Promised entitlements, including a cost-of-living adjusted retirement system, should not be reduced because of a perceived reduced national security threat! These promised and earned entitlements, which are compensation packages, should not be subject to cuts resulting from military force reductions. The government should honor its promises to those who have provided its defense. Military benefits are earned entitlements and are not and should never be considered part of the nation's social or welfare systems which are purely needs based. Military benefits should be defined as part of the contract a service member enters into with the government. The promised and earned benefits should never be modified adversely on a retroactive basis as we have seen in these past years, such as the lifetime medical care and other personnel ben fits that were promised but never adequately met. Military personnel are very concerned that military medical care will be cut further, as no doubt is planned, because of planned reductions in medical personnel authorizations. These reductions will even more seriously impact on one of the most important entitlements - medical care which is already inadequate, especially medical care for military retirees over age 65. The access to medical care situation will be greatly exacerbated by the mindles closing of medical facilities at bases slated for closure despite the fact that in many cases it would be very cost effective to the government to retain them. These facilities can be annexed to nearby bases as will be done when the Mather Air Force Base Hospital is annexed to McClellan Air Force Base when Mather Air Force Base closes. The other equally important rouree entitlement is cost-of-living adjusted retired pay since it represents their lifetime investment in service and sacrifice to their country. After all, investors in government bonds and securities receive the contracted for return on their investment. We ask you to oppose the President's fiscal 1993 Budget proposal that would again attack the COLA by eliminating the exemption from |