the understanding that the Congress would lend every assistance in the voluntary recruitment program. The enactment of S. 1392 would manifestly remove a major portion of that essential assistance. It is, therefore, the considered opinion of the War Department that certain action described below must be taken to offset the loss of the enlistment inducements represented by the GI bill of rights.

The War Department deems it essential that certain of the benefits now serving to discourage reenlistment be made available to men who do reenlist in the Army. It is with primary emphasis upon educational benefits that this recommendation is made. The War Department is now in the process of formulating plans and considering the extent of legislative authority necessary for the realization of that objective. In addition to the foregoing, which is designed primarily to stimulate reenlistment, the War Department recognizes an urgent necessity for providing educational opportunities as an inducement to the original enlistee over and above the training he may receive in technical Army jobs. Unfortunately, from the standpoint of personnel procurement, the Army carries with it many jobs which are so purely military in nature that they have few if any civilian counterparts. Many men enlist in the Army with an eye to future civilian employment, therefore supplementing the purely military type of training with academic and/or vocational education would serve to remove any possible hiatus in a man's normal progression toward advancement. The War Department feels that such a program would serve to offset the loss of veterans benefits as a recruiting incentive, and would go a long way toward insuring the success of the voluntary recruitment effort.

Our greatest concern in recruiting is the fulfillment of our occupational commitments. We must have the manpower to do this job since it is obviously still a part of the emergency. The War Department contemplates requesting additional funds for the implementation of this program as soon as the cost can be determined.

In consideration of the information contained in this statement, the War Department offers no objection to the enactment of S. 1392. Senator MORSE. General Paul, in regard to this program which you propose to really take the place of the GI bill of rights, how far have you gone? You have a bill pending on that have you not?

General PAUL. We have a bill pending on the recruitment but we have no bill which will offset the loss of these rights under the so-called GI bill of rights.

Senator MORSE. I notice one of the most significant things in your statement today is that the existing GI bill of rights, if I interpret you correctly, is really causative of a very low rate of reenlistment. General PAUL. That is correct, Senator Morse.

Senator MORSE. Because even if they do intend to go back in the Army at a later time, they get out now in order to get the benefits of the bill and them come back maybe at a later time, and then the age factor is going to prevent that in a great many cases.

Genral PAUL. As I stated, the bill S. 1392 terminates a measure which has brought into the Army many thousands of young men, fine type, high type, the type we like; but the present law also encourages their getting out and thereby ceases the reenlistment rate or drops the reenlistment rates because of the type they are who want

to go on and get ahead, and get an education. Some of those may come back to the Army. Most of those, if they do, would probably come back as officers.

Senator MORSE. One facet of it, as it is now, permits enlistment for a year, is it-he can enlist now for a year?

General PAUL. If he has 12 months' service, he can reenlist, but he has to enlist for an original term of 18 months.

Senator MORSE. Take the high-school senior now. Between now and September 1, he can enlist for 18 months. At the end of that time he can get a 4-year course of study.

General PAUL. Within 6 months of a full 4-year course. For the first 90 days he will get 1 year of college education and he gets 1 month for each month of service in addition to that.

Senator MORSE. I think there are two things, Senator Pepper, I ought to review for you of General Paul's testimony here.

He points out, among other things: (1) Under the present GI bill of rights, although it is an inducement in getting these men to enlist, the fact is they enlist for 18 months and then obtain practically all the benefit of the educational provisions of the bill, so they can go ahead and take a college course under it with what benefits the bill provides, short only of 6 months, approximately 6 months of a 4-year course; so although the GI bill is providing the Army with a considerable number of enlistments it is, however, having the effect of decreasing the number of reenlistments because of the fact that after he has served 18 months he has no inducement to reenlist. The real incentive is to get out of the Army and take advantage of the educational provisions of the bill. That is point No. 1.

Point No. 2: General Paul testifies that the adoption of this bill is going to have a very definite effect on the enlistment program and that therefore some substitute has to be worked out. He is suggesting an educational program within the Army itself (there is no pending bill as to that), but he wants the committee to understand that if we pass this legislation we are going to be confronted, however, with a shortage of manpower, he fears, on the part of the Army to carry on the assigned duties that the Congress has imposed on it, including, for example, the occupational duty.

Is that a fair summary?

General PAUL. A very good summary, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MORSE. But let me say, General, if you put that question to the Members of Congress as to whether or not they know that the enlistees are getting the benefit of the education provisions of the GI bill of rights, I dare say a majority of them will tell you that it comes to them as a great surprise. We found that out in our discussions in the committee. People do not know that the GI bill of rights is really extending benefits to men enlisting in peacetime.

I cannot speak for the Congress, but I think that at the present time at least there is a pretty strong sentiment for fixing a termination date.

Senator PEPPER. General, do you have any statistics on the percentage of the enlistees since the actual end of hostilities was declared, who have taken advantage of the GI bill and gone to school?

General PAUL. No, sir; I have not. I think I could obtain those for you but it would require quite a bit of research.

Senator PEPPER. A considerable number, I guess.

General PAUL. Undoubtedly a large number.

We agree and feel very strongly that these limits have got to be reached. The provision obviously was set up for men who fought the war. It has helped us materially, as I said, in getting men into the Army.

We feel a better solution, a better Army, and a better result to the Government as a whole would occur if we had an authorization for this same type of thing, in part, for education within the Army where a man could better his academic standing or a man could learn a trade or that sort of thing.

Senator MORSE. I think that is a very interesting suggestion. I want to analyze it from two standpoints. I can see the possibility of doing it from a vocational standpoint. Take a man in the Army and you can make a pretty good electrician out of him; you can take another man in the Army and you can make a pretty good mechanic out of him; take another man and you can make a good carpenter out of him-give him good vocational training, I should think.

But what are you going to run into in the eduactional world if you take him into the Army and try to give him the academic background necessary for the professions?

General PAUL. We could not do that, Mr. Chairman. What we would want to do would be to allow every man who comes in to come out a better man eventually and if he stayed in the Army to have a better educational background. I have not a bill on this yet and I am talking now personally because I have not discussed this with the Secretary in any detail at all, but I think it would have to be a voluntary proposition whereby a man if he had a seventh-grade education could go on, we will say, and finish high school if he wanted. Senator MORSE. Through extension courses?

General PAUL. Yes, sir; we have thousands of men who have during the war completed their high-school education by virtue of the Armed Forces Institute, and we can do the same thing for the men who want to better themselves.

Senator MORSE. While in the Army?

General PAUL. That is correct. We feel a man should be able to do this. We feel we should not just be a fire-department proposition, just sitting down where a man is just waiting for a call, but in that interim he should be able to get beneficial results from the Army service as well.

Senator PEPPER. I never knew the details of the Army's Armed Forces Institute, I am sorry to state. How did that work?

General PAUL. I have General Lanham who directed that work with me. General Lanham is head of the Troop Information and Education Division of the War Department Special Staff.

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. C. T. LANHAM, CHIEF, TROOP INFORMATION AND EDUCATION DIVISION, WAR DEPARTMENT SPECIAL STAFF

General LANHAM. I operate the Troop Information and Education Division. The Education Branch is part of that operation. It is a very large operation now, as it was during the war.

I would like to give just a little background before I answer the question in detail.

As indicative of the work that has been done not only vocationally but in the broad field of academic work, and cultural work, the American Council on Education reported at its convention this year that more than 2,000,000 servicemen and women have received formal academic credit in the civilian institutions in this country for the work they pursued in the armed forces.

More than half a million have received their high-school diplomas. as a result of work pursued in the armed forces.

Today, even with the vast dislocations shaking the Army, we are averaging more than 400 high-school diplomas for men who are now in the armed forces who are completing their education while they are in there but this is on a very small basis with the funds we have, the civilian instructors available, pieced out with people from the occupied countries and foreign nationals carefully screened, plus military personnel.

Now, the heart of our educational program is the United States Armed Forces Institute which is located in Madison, Wis.

This is essentially a unified operation with the Navy. The Navy is with us.

At the present time we have approximately 350,000 active enrollments in USAFI-we use the initials.

Senator PEPPER. Have you been able to agree on the same text to teach the same things?

General LANHAM. Yes, sir; as a matter of fact, Senator, we have agreed in this operation with the Navy on just about everything. It is really an excellent understanding in all phases of our work, not only in education but in the Armed Forces Radio Service, in our basic job that we consider not only making better soldiers and sailors but a better citizen and we work in that field endlessly.

But in USAFI we offer extension courses, that is correspondence courses; we offer self-study courses; we offer group study materials; we provide counseling, guidance, advisement, testing, and accreditation and to date there are in the United States 46-there were 44 and the District of Columbia that recognize our work-there are two more States that are coming aboard with us now to make a total of 46, and some of the pioneering work we have done in the field of mass education and in developing, for example, the general educational development tests, is being extended to civilian life not only for veteransthey are already recognized for veterans-but for the adults who are nonveterans.

But in the meantime, in addition to these correspondence courses that we operate, and our self-study courses, we also operate a combination of on-duty and off-duty schools all over the world.

At the present time we have approximately-I think it runs about 130 schools in Europe, and throughout the Pacific, Korea, Japan, Saipan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, where a man may go just about as far as he wants within the Army. But that again is within very narrow limits and our professional staff is falling off all the time. It is very hard to keep them, very hard to get the money to run this-we are running on a shoestring.

But the work is very interesting; we have 26,000 men in the Pacific, including Hawaii, who are enrolled in combination duty time and off-duty class.

Now, the thing that General Paul proposes is that we step up this program in order that we may make it available more widely on a broader basis, a broader foundation, because we have the basic structure for this in existence in the Army now.

Senator PEPPER. You have teachers, you have civilian and Army teachers.

General LANHAM. Yes, sir.

Senator PEPPER. Who give personal instruction to enrollees?

General LANHAM. Yes, sir; operate for all classes; about 300 civilian instructors from the States who are teaching overseas now. They are supplemented by military personnel operating on a part-time duty status who volunteered for this work without pay. Then we have foreign nationals that we can get much cheaper, who are screened and who are specialists in their subjects-English, French, Belgians, natives of Luxemburg, Switzerland.

Senator PEPPER. Do you have to have centers? Where the Army is so widely dispersed, will you be able to have enough centers to take care of most of them, to give access to most of them in the Army and Navy?

General LANHAM. Yes, sir; we do. There are various systems for that, depending upon the physical location of the troops. We call them general Army educational centers. In some places they operate on the basis of unit schools, for instance, within the regiment or division. There will be a school set up right within that unit.

In some others it will be set up on a basis of areas-Europe particularly utilizes the area school idea, and men from units are drawn into that by busses that take them there and back from their work. Others are more convenient to the unit.

In the Pacific, of course, it has to be organized on the smaller islands right on each island itself so that the enrollument varies.

Senator PEPPER. Do you give any instructions as advanced as college work?

General LANHAM. Our work, sir, runs from literacy training-ard that is quite an interesting series of work; we have the adult level there-from literacy training the man can go clear through college.

Our own services within the Army offer courses that run though the freshman year of college and some courses a little above that. We have had to cut down through lack of funds to that level. Formerly we went clear through college. But at the same time we have contracts we call them contracts-with 73 colleges and universities in this country with USAFI as a clearinghouse and they provide extension work from their extension departments so that a man may enroll for any one of these colleges when he gets beyond the freshman year: he enters the college of his choice and follows that course of training right straight through to graduation from college if he elects to do so.

STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL PAUL-Resumed

General PAUL. We believe that some authorization has got to be given to offset the loss of this GI bill of rights and we believe we have got the basic structure to build on; and that in turn will enhance our reenlistment rates.