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Allied forces of World War II. He was a Marine Corps pilot with 26 enemy planes to his credit. I might observe that he did it the hard way. He was shot down four times himself.

He won the Distinguished Flying Cross and the coveted Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor. He served in the Korean war as a colonel of the U.S. Air Force and today continues to pilot jet fighters.

Aside from his brilliant military career, Joe Foss, a South Dakota native son, has long been a prominent political figure in his home. State. He served two terms as State representative, from 1948 to 1953; two terms as Governor of his great State, from 1954 to 1958.

It was during that time, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that he served on the Governors' conference of the military affairs committee which enforced our recommendations of the 1957 conferences and embodied them in the 1958 law.

In addition to his busy schedule as civic leader, soldier, and politician he still finds time to devote to his favorite charity, aid to crippled children and adults.

I might add that there is a supercharged emotional background for his dedication to that favorite charity. In 1956 he served as chairman of the national Easter seal campaign. He is a past president of the National Society for Crippled Children and Adults, and helped organize the crippled children's school and hospital at Sioux Falls, S. Dak.

I might say that the name Foss means falls, and his daughter's name is Sue so they have an alinement with their State.

He is chief of staff of the South Dakota Air National Guard, member of the executive board of the U.S. National Guard Association, vice president of the Aeronautics Committee of the American Legion and commissioner of the American Football League.

His hobby is hunting and fishing and one gets to know the sterling qualities of a person when he hunts in the mountain country of Wyoming as I have with the general, and I can assure you that he is a good man to have in your corner when you are in the mountains.

Seldom has there been given one so young, to do so much for his country. Gentlemen, I present to you a great American, a man of unimpeachable integrity, the chairman of the board of directors of the Air Force Association, Gen. Joe Foss.

Senator CANNON. Thank you, Senator Simpson. That is a very fine nomination speech and we are very happy to have General Foss with us.

STATEMENT OF GOV. JOE FOSS, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, AIR FORCE ASSOCIATION

Governor Foss. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you Senator Simpson. It is an honor and a privilege to be invited to testify before this distinguished subcommittee.

It is also good to see my old friends up here on Capitol Hill, and I can say that I am not running for any office, even though there are those that are talking about it these days, but I am just really enjoying life.

I am speaking to the subcommittee this morning in behalf of the 75,000 members of the Air Force Association in my capacity as chairman of the board of directors of the association. Last month our board met in Washington and passed a resolution concerning the military pay legislation which this subcommittee now has before you. I will not quote the resolution in full but I offer it as an attachment to my statement and request that it be made part of the official record of this hearing.

In light of the sacrifices we ask military personnel to make in this so-called cold war-while the bulk of our population makes none-we of the Air Force Association feel that miltary pay scales are a national disgrace. We feel that an adjustment in compensation for military duty is long overdue. Five years between pay adjustments is a long time to wait in today's economy. The legislation you are now considering, in our opinion, falls far short of meeting the requirement. It is not going to do the job. It is a stopgap measure. Better than nothing, but a stopgap only. I tell you this with a conviction that comes from personal experience and close association with the men and women and the families, not only of the Air Force but of all the services. As you know, I spent a little time with the deepwater boys and the Marine Corps, too.

I do not intend to dwell at any length on the specific weakness of the bill. But I do wish to comment on a few basic inadequacies which I trust are being considered by this subcommittee:

We would like to see greater increases for personnel in the 2 to 10 years of service bracket, for retention incentive purposes.

We agree with Mr. George Meany that the treatment accorded by the bill to newly commissioned and enlisted personnel is patently unfair. We would like to see constructive credit given to holders of advanced degrees which have been earned at no expense to the Government.

We feel that the retention rates in critical areas such as scientific personnel, doctors, and lawyers deserves special attention by the Congress.

We support recomputation of retirement pay for those who retired before 1958.

However, it is not the financial inadequacy of the legislation that I wish to discuss this morning, important as that is. You have heard much testimony already on the details of the legislation and you will hear much more before the week is out. I would like to address myself to two principles which, in the opinion of the Air Force Association, are the twin cornerstones of sound military pav legislation, not merely for the present but for the years to come. These principles have already been applied by statute to the compensation base for other Federal employees. We are asking that they be extended, by statute, to apply to the other half of all Federal employees, those who wear the uniform of our country.

The first of these principles is that of pay rates for Federal service comparable to those paid in private industry for the same levels of work.

The second principle is that of annual review to insure that the principle of comparability is adhered to with the passage of time and changing conditions in the economy.

President Kennedy, in his message which accompanied the Federal salary reform bill of 1962, made quite clear his hope that all Federal employees would be paid at a rate comparable to private industry. The Congress carried out this policy insofar as civil service employees are concerned. Here let me say that we congratulate the President and the Congress for taking this historic step to provide fair treatment to the Nation's dedicated Federal civil servants. We say that members of the armed services are also Federal employees and that the principles of comparability and annual review should be part and parcel of military compensation legislation.

Let me quote from President Kennedy's message to the Congress of April 29, 1963, concerning these points. It reads, in part:

The Federal Salary Reform Act of 1962, the most important Federal employee pay legislation in 40 years, declares that Federal salary rates shall be comparable to private enterprise salary rates for the same levels of work.

The President then quoted the following provision of that legislation:

The President (1) shall direct such agency or agencies, as he deems appropriate, to prepare and submit to him annually a report which compares the rates of salary fixed by statute for Federal employees with the rates of salary paid for the same levels of work in private enterprise as determined on the basis of appropriate annual surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and, after seeking the views of such employee organizations as he deems appropriate and in such manner as he may provide, (2) shall report annually to the Congress (a) this comparison of Federal and private enterprise salary rates and (b) such recommendations for revision of statutory salary schedules, salary structures, and compensation policy, as he deems advisable.

The Air Force Association recognizes the fact that valid comparisons of military pay with that in private industry involve certain complicating factors not present in the Federal civilian employee pay structure and which have no exact counterparts in civilian industry, such as the noncontributory retirement system, frequency of transfer, remote and ardous duty, separation from family, unpaid overtime, and so on. And it should be pointed out, in reference to the law quoted above, that there are no employee groups representing the man in uniform, a fact which sharpens the responsibility of the Congress in these matters. There are fringe benefits in the military, yes. But there are offsetting fringe penalties as well. And each must be given proper weight in the equation.

Comparability is especially critical in the Armed Forces where a million civilian employees work side by side with their uniformed counterparts in a common mission and for a common cause. The Air Force Association has, as one of its advisory bodies to our President, a Civilian Personnel Council whose membership is made up of civil servants employed by the Department of the Air Force. That council last May recommended to the Air Force Association that we support the twin principles of comparability and annual review in behalf of uniformed personnel. We think this attitude on the part of a group of civil service employees is not only commendable but highly significant.

In response to this recommendation of our Civilian Personnel Council the board of directors unanimously passed a resolution incorporating these two principles. This is the resolution which I referred to previously and which is an attachment to this statement.

At this time I would like to point out that a distinguished group, the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Pay Systems-commonly called the Randall Committee from its Chairman, Clarence B. Randall-has addressed itself to the problem in a highly constructive manner. I refer to the Panel's report to the President dated December 20, 1962, and released by the White House on January 3, 1963. The Panel agreed with the Secretary of Defense that military pay reform should be an evolutionary process, with pay adjustments used to correct current deficiencies and inequities. But the Randall report went further and I would like to quote from it in support of the Air Force Association position on comparability and annual review:

We trust that the Department of Defense, acting in cooperation with the Bureau of the Budget, the Civil Service Commission and other affected agencies, will be instructed to undertake further studies, looking toward achievement of a pay system which will make it possible (a) to compare total military compensation with total compensation in other pay systems, and (b) to attain comparability between military compensation and other compensation in the broad sense of equality of treatment throughout careers. We also believe that carefully documented annual reviews of the adequacy of military compensation levels can be combined with further substantive studies to accelerate remedial action. Such annual reviews also are needed to give assurance that timely adjustments will be proposed in military compensation which are commensurate with those recommended for Federal civilian compensation * * *.

When further studies are undertaken, we urge that a new effort be made to put a price on, and to take into account, the money value of the various collateral benefits now available to the military personnel which are not shared by those serving in other departments of the Government.

A copy of the Randall report is submitted as a second attachment to this statement.

The Air Force Association strongly endorses these recommendations of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Pay Systems and strongly urges that they be incorporated into the military pay legislation now before the subcommittee.

We are dealing with both a short-term problem and a long-term problem. In the short term, we cannot afford to delay immediate adjustments in military pay-in the interest of an adequate and efficient national security posture and in the interest of simple justice and equity as well. Neither can we afford to go on forever papering over the cracks in the military pay structure. The principles of comparability and annual review must be recognized by law and this can be done immediately, with no increase in the money content of the legislation. But equally important are the studies recommended by the Randall Committee. They are required to lay a rational base from which comparability can be equitably computed and from which an annual review of comparability can be usefully made.

The Secretary of Defense, in a statement to the press dated July 10, 1963, addressed this point when he said:

From now on, we plan to conduct a continuing review of military compensation and to propose adjustments on a more timely basis than has been done in the past. Five years between adjustments was entirely too long, and it will not be repeated in the future.

We of the Air Force Association applaud these sentiments of the Secretary of Defense. We would rest easier, however, if these con

siderations were written into law to insure continuity of policy over the years to come.

At I pointed out previously, the man in uniform has no employee groups to fight his pay battles for him and thus he has to look to the Congress for understanding of his problems and protection of his best interests. You are his court of last appeal, so to speak. We are confident that the morale of the services will get an urgently needed lift, and that this rise in morale will be reflected dramatically in improved retention rates if the twin principles of comparability and annual review are written into law. The committee could hardly do better than to adopt the language of the Federal Salary Reform Act of 1962 for this purpose.

I thank the subcommittee for its kind and courteous attention. (The attachments referred to follow :)

RESOLUTION, AIR FORCE ASSOCIATION, JUNE 22, 1963

Subject: Military pay reform.

Whereas the President of the United States has appointed an Advisory Panel on Federal Salary Systems to which he has given surveillance over all Federal pay plans, including that of the Armed Forces; and

Whereas this Panel of the President's has adopted the principles that Federal pay should be comparable to that paid in industry and that the two should be kept abreast of one another; and

Whereas the Congress of the United States, in 1962, passed the Federal Salary Reform Act which established by statute that henceforth (1) salary rates of Federal employees shall be comparable to those paid for the same levels of work in private enterprise, and (2) that the salary rates of Federal employees shall be adjusted annually based upon this comparison; and

Whereas in 1962 Congress, following the precepts of the Federal Salary Reform Act, as a first step made substantial upward adjustments in the pay of civil service personnel; and

Whereas in 1963 the administration's pay proposal for armed services personnel embodied neither the comparability nor annual adjustment principles of the President's Panel on Federal Pay Systems; and

Whereas the President of the United States, in 1963, at the time of asking for further upward adjustments to civil service pay based upon comparability and annual review, called the Federal Salary Reform Act of 1962 "the most important Federal employee pay legislation in 40 years," and further stated, "The Government has sincerely committed itself to the twin proposition of fair treatment of its employees and adequate compensation for recruitment and retention purposes"; and

Whereas the armed services have critical problems of "recruitment and retention," and costs to recruit and provide military and technical training for replacements is annually costing the Nation billions of dollars: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Air Force Association commend the President of the United States and the Congress of the United States on adopting the principles of comparability and annual adjustment in dealing with the pay of Federal employees; and be it further

Resolved, That the Air Force Association support the extention of these principles in considering inadequate salaries of all classified employees, the judiciary, appointed officials, and the Members and staff of Congress; and be it further

Resolved, That the Air Force Association urge the Senate of the United States to write these same principles into the military pay bill now before the Senate for the other half of all Federal employees, the members of the Armed Forces.

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