Mr. ELSTON. That benefit would not be accorded to the wife of a non-Regular officer, would it?

General DAHLQUIST. It would not.

Mr. KILDAY. If he was on active duty it would.

General DAHLQUIST. Yes, it would then. But a Reserve officer, disabled and entitled to retirement benefit, cannot claim any hospitalization from the Regular Army except if sent there by the Veterans' Administration.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. General, is it customary on a post hospital to have a place where the wives of the officers can go and have their children?

General DAHLQUIST. Oh, yes. In a great many cases that is the only possible medical service a person can get.

In

Mr. JOHNSON of California. Take Fairfield, Calif., where there are probably several thousand officers, most of them young. the hospital there is there a place for their wives to go and have their children?

General DAHLQUIST. Yes; undoubtedly they have delivered many babies there for the wives of officers on active duty. The officers on the retired list do not have babies.

Mr. RIVERS. General, I hate to refer to this case, and I never have since this thing has started, but in the celebrated case of General Meyers, the Army could if they wanted to that is, it would be the Secretary of the Air Forces could call him back to active service for court martial, could he not?

General DAHLQUIST. That is right. As to court martialing, I am not a lawyer enough to know what the situation would be, but he can be ordered back on active duty, and charges can be preferred; if the statute of limitations has not run out, he can be tried. We have recalled many officers to active duty and have tried them. A retired Army officer who commits an offense under the ninety-fifth article of war, conduct unbecoming an officer, would be called back to active duty, tried, and cashiered if convicted.

Mr. RIVERS. Any retired officer has got to live strictly in accord with the good of the service. He can be disciplined for conduct unbecoming the service?

General DAHLQUIST. That is right.

Mr. RIVERS. And that is why that provision is in effect?

General DAHLQUIST. Yes.

I would like to point out the practical aspects of this business of hospitalization and of post exchanges and commissaries.

Mr. NORBLAD. Before you go into that, General, is dental service included, or not?

General DAHLQUIST. Only when it is available. At the present time I do not believe anybody gets dental serve. I know I do not get dental service in Washington here for my family.

Mr. NORBLAD. For the retired officer himself is there dental service? General DAHLQUIST. To the extent that it is available.

Mr. NORBLAD. The same as hospitalization?

General DAHLQUIST. That is right.

Mr. RIVERS. General, you made the statement the other day that you knew of no fraud in the Meyers case. I believe I saw in the papers where his retirement had been cut off. Is that true? General DAHLQUIST. That is right.

Mr. RIVERS. How do you explain that?

General DAHLQUIST. You will have to ask Mr. Symington and Mr. Rovall.

Mr. RIVERS. But that is a fact?

General DAHLQUIST. It is a fact it has been stopped. I am speaking now not from personal knowledge. I imagine, in view of the situation, that they put a block against his pay to see what was going to happen. They could do it the same as against an active officer.

Mr. RIVERS. I think you said there was no fraud in his case?

General DAHLQUIST. I was asked the question whether there was fraud with respect to his retirement. There was no fraud with respect to his retirement.

Mr. RIVERS. There is no legal reason for his pay being stopped so far as you know?

General DAHLQUIST. Except the discretion of the Secretary.
Mr. RIVERS. He has that discretion?

General DAHLQUIST. He apparently has.

Mr. CLASON. Has that procedure been followed in any previous case? General DAHLQUIST. I am not sure but I believe it has, Mr. Clason. We do put stoppages against officers' pay when the situation is not clear. That is to protect the Government. When there is question, for instance, of money.

Mr. RIVERS. Discipline may come in there too?

General DAHLQUIST. Yes.

Mr. RIVERS. I never heard it discussed, that is the reason I asked you about it.

General DAHLQUIST. Yes.

To resume and discuss the practicability of the granting of privileges of hospitalization, commissaries, exchanges, and so forth, to our retired or to the Reserve or non-Regular officers who are getting retirement pay-there are now about 30,000 of them. If we had to grant hospitalization to them we would have to increase our Medical Corps. We have not enough doctors today to take care of the Regular Army or will not have next year when the ASTP students go out. The same would be true of our exchanges and our commissaries.

Mr. ELSTON. Right there, General, let me ask Admiral Sprague: Where does the Navy get its doctors?

General DAHLQUIST. Their number of retired officers, non-Regular, is something less than 5,000, is it not?

Admiral SPRAGUE. The total number of officers, non-Regular officers that have physical disability retirement is 2,900. The USN physical retirement is 4,094.

General DAHLQUIST. A further consideration with respect to the Navy is that the Navy is a seagoing outfit. The hospitals are on the coast. A lot of its sailors come from Iowa. They cannot get to the coast to get to a hospital. But the Army is spread over continental United States. There is hardly a large city that has not got an Army installation. Not only must you consider the 30,000 officers who now have a disability, ranking from minor to major degree, and who are drawing pay, but you must consider equity for the enlisted men. There are hundreds of thousands of them who have disabilities as serious or more serious than the officers. If we are going to grant hospitalization to them, commissary privileges, and so forth, you would have to turn your Army into another Veterans' Administration and

into a chain grocery store. It cannot carry out its function and take care of the tremendous mass of the people who served in World War II. The Congress has seen fit to set up an expensive Veterans' Administration. It costs more than the entire Army today. We feel that the practicability of the situation would prevent us, if nothing else, from trying to extend hospitalization, exchange privileges, and commissary privileges to other than the people who are in the service.

Mr. KILDAY. For the benefit of those who speak so often of private industry, you might comment on all these people being given post exchange and commissary privileges, in competition with private industry.

General DAHLQUIST. You would hear from the merchants in your town.

Mr. RIVERS. You will recall that last year-without going into the merits of it, I think any officer should have increased pay-but, anyway, we passed a bill called the incentive pay bill for the doctors of the Army and of the Navy. Have either of your two gentlemen had an opportunity to notice whether or not that has helped you in that respect?

General DAHLQUIST. Yes, I have. It has helped us a great deal. Admiral SPRAGUE. That is true also of the Navy.

General DAHLQUIST. It certainly has helped. I think the morale of the doctors is going up.

Mr. RIVERS. But the situation is still critical?

General DAHLQUIST. Yes, sir. There is a national shortage, however. That is, we are short of doctors all over. Actually until recently we have been carrying quite a load for the Veterans' Administration. We are still carrying a small load for them.

Mr. ELSTON. Admiral Sprague, I would like to ask you this question: By the time hostilities had ceased, both the Army and the Navy had large numbers of officers holding high temporary grades, and there was no longer any need for these high-ranking officers in such numbers in either the Army or the Navy Departments. Was not the Navy Department able to separate a rather large number of officers in their highest temporary wartime grade by virtue of Public Law 305? Admiral SPRAGUE. That is correct, sir.

Mr. ELSTON. Will you explain for the record what Public Law 305 provided and how it made that possible?

Admiral SPRAGUE. Public Law 305 provided specifically in this connection that any officer retired would retire in the highest temporary grade satisfactorily held. The reasoning behind Public Law 305, I believe, was this, that there were no permanent promotions in the Navy after 1942. All permanent promotions were stopped in 1942 and thereafter we operated exclusively under the provisions of the temporary promotion law which was passed in 1941. So that neither the Regular officers, nor the Reserve officers, had any permanent change in rank during that period.

The Navy grew, of course, during the period from roughly 13,000 officers to the present 41,000.

Mr. ELSTON. Now, General Dahlquist, did the Army have any such provisions as are contained in Public Law 305?

General DAHLQUIST. It does not.

Mr. ELSTON. On the basis of statistics submitted to the committee by the Navy Department, 572 naval officers, 33 of whom were Naval

Reserve officers, were retired in their highest temporary grade under Public Law 305.

General Dahlquist, if you were to assume that the Army had a comparable number of officers of a similar category, what procedure would the Army have to follow in retiring these officers, for reasons other than physical?

General DAHLQUIST. Were you asking me, sir?

Mr. ELSTON. Asking you, General.

General DAHLQUIST. I am sorry. I thought it was a question directed to Admiral Sprague.

Mr. ELSTON. I will repeat it, General.

On the basis of the statistics that were furnished to this committee by the Navy Department, 572 officers, 33 of whom were Naval Reserve officers, were retired in their highest temporary grade under Public Law 305, which Admiral Sprague has just explained. Assuming that the Army had a comparable number of officers of a similar category, what procedure would it have to follow in retiring these officers for reasons other than physical?

General DAHLQUIST. The procedure we would have if title 2 of H. R. 2744 should pass is that officers of 20 years' service who retire for any reason would be entitled to go out in the highest temporary grade satisfactorily held.

Now, to quote the figures, since 1940, I believe it is, up to last June we had 99 generals, who went out voluntarily, for other than physical reasons, 775 colonels, and 422 lieutenant colonels. The extent to which the lieutenant colonels and colonels were temporary generals, I do not know. But the bulk of our generals in this last war were World War I veterans or came in shortly before that. Those are the men that today have the pay of a lower grade.

For example, General Stoner, who was the chief signal officer in Europe, major general for 4 years, retired last year with 30 years' service as lieutenant colonel. General Dean, who was the head of the mission to Moscow, retired as a lieutenant colonel and because he had been in with World War I went up to colonel.

General Griner, who commanded the Twenty-seventh Division, went out as a lieutenant colonel, got the grade of colonel honorary because he had been in World War I. I could go on and name dozens of others. Mr. CLASON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question there? Mr. ELSTON. Yes, Mr. Clason.

Mr. CLASON. General, do you understand, then, there is no present system under which they can retire them as the Navy does under Public Law 305?

General DAHLQUIST. It would not have changed our procedure so far as disability is concerned, at least.

Mr. CLASON. There is no procedure at the present time.
General DAHLQUIST. There is no procedure.

Mr. ELSTON. General, let me ask you another question, since the Army has no legislation similar to Public Law 305, which applies only to the Navy, by which it can retire Regular Army officers in their highest temporary grade for reasons other than physical, do you feel that there was any calculated attempt within the Army to be more lenient in physical disability retirement for Regular Army officers in order to obtain a greater equality in the retirement benefits between the Regular officers of the two services?

General DAHLQUIST. Not in the least, and I say that from personal experience, having sat as a member of the Secretary of War's Personnel Board and turned them down. There was this result from it, however, that an officer due to be reduced for administrative reasons and knowing that if he had a disability and did not establish it at that time would lose all rights 6 months later, everyone of them turned in for a check-up, and in that way we picked up men who normally would not have been picked up for 5 or 6 years.

I cited examples of it the other day. I said that I turned into a hospital, not because I wanted retirement, or expected it, but to make sure that there was not something lurking in the way of disease that I did not know about. Another officer that I know of, in this town, turned in just as I left Walter Reed. He did not want to be retired. He did not know there was anything wrong with him. Actually he had an extremely bad kidney condition. One kidney was removed and he was hospitalized until December of this last year. Two other division commanders that I know of were retired less than 11 months after they were reduced, in the grade of brigadier general. They had been reduced from the grade of major general. They lost their right to the higher grade.

The lack of a law to permit retirement in the highest grade did not make the War Department more lenient but it did result in many officers turning in for a check-up and being found with a disability who under more normal situations would not have turned in for 1, 2, 3, or 5 years, or until they were due to be separated for another cause. Mr. ELSTON. Before getting into the matter of terminal leave promotions I would like to ask this question

Mr. JOHNSON of California. Mr. Chairman, could I ask the general a question on that subject he has just discussed?

Mr. ELSTON. Yes. Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. General, I want to get your reaction to this: If a man has served 30 years and therefore is eligible to retirement by length of service alone, when he is called before a board, in your opinion, can that board consider any other collateral matter or just the matter that he has served the required length of time and therefore is entitled to retirement?

General DAHLQUIST. No, the board does not consider how long he has served. The board considers what his physical condition is.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. But I am talking about a man who has served 30 years and more. He comes before a board. Can they go into the collateral matter of what his health is, whether he is diseased, if he has something physically wrong with him? Is that a pertinent question to consider after the man has served enough time to be retired for age or length of service?

General DAHLQUIST. Are you talking about a retirement board for physical disability or a board for class B?

Mr. JOHNSON of California. A retirement board.

General DAHLQUIST. The retirement board is an officer is placed before a retirement board only when his physical examination indicates that he has a disability-and he is placed there whether he has 1 year's service or 40.

Mr. KILDAY. I believe the gentleman is asking about retirement at his own request after 30 years' service.

General DAHLQUIST. Then no board sits on him.