The branch post exchange, sir, for the cantonment is the same size as we are providing in troop complexes and is needed because of the increase in strength at North Post.

The chapel center, sir, on page 189, is very much needed. We are having to give up everything we have at the South Post. We only have a chapel, 1 chapel, on the North Post of 264 seats. It has no religious education space. It is inadequate for the present program of religious activities. As you know, sir, we have funerals every day over there, on the hour, that have to do with National Arlington Cemetery. We have weddings, a greater number of them, in this chapel. It is inadequate now for all these. It will become more inadequate as each increment of barracks and family housing is completed under the triservice plan.

Actually the on-post population of the main post will increase fourfold in the near future, so we feel that we need one other chapel to handle the Arlington Cemetery problem, the weddings and the normal religious education activities, sir, and the religious worship. Senator INOUYE. This will be built on the North Post? General SHULER. Yes, sir.

We intend to tear down everything that is on the South Post, sir, all the temporary facilities, and expand that over, in the next years, into additional Arlington Cemetery, sir.

Senator INOUYE. In light of the many churches of all denominations which are located in the immediate areas surrounding Fort Myer, you still think that this is necessary?

General SHULER. Yes, sir; I do. I do not have the chaplain, but I have the post engineer from Fort Myer who has talked to the chaplain there about it, and I would like to bring him up here not as a chaplain, sir, but as a man more familiar with the need than I am.

Colonel CARROLL. I have been meeting with the chaplain recently about this possibility of our people going to offpost chapels. He tells me that his conversations with the local clergymen-there is no doubt that they cannot take on the load of Fort Myer.

When you consider that we have in execess of 6,000 people living on Fort Myer, this is quite a little community, and he tells me that this community, if it were constructed, as a single entity on the outside that it would require in the neighborhood of 10 churches to support this population denominationally.

We, with nondenominational services are able to take care of this population with increased numbers of services and increased numbers of other activities during the week.

To repeat, sir, he has contacted his counterparts in the civilian economy, and they state they are not able to take care of the Fort Myer load.

Senator INOUYE. For the record, can you submit a report on the number of weddings and funerals that are presently conducted at this -264-seat chapel in a 1-year period?

General SHULER. Yes, sir.

Senator INOUYE. This may help the committee in deciding.

General SHULER. Yes, sir.

(The information referred to follows:)

The weekly average for the period of 1961 through 1964 at the existing Fort Myer Chapel has been 20 funerals and 6 weddings per week, or over 1,000 funerals and 300 weddings per year.

General SHULER. The last item, sir, on page 190, is the water storage addition. This again is brought about by the increase in the population and the necessity to increase our storage of water for both domestic and sanitary and fire purposes.

Senator INOUYE. Is commercial water insufficient?

Colonel CARROLL. Sir, this is just to give us the residual flow that would be required in any normal water system. We do take water from the Potomac, actually from the District of Columbia system. We do not produce our own water. This is a pressure problem at Fort Myer.

Senator INOUYE. All right, thank you, Colonel.

WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER,
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

General SHULER. The last station, sir, on this first book, is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, two items.

The second item, sir, which is the alteration to the incinerator we respectfully request that we be allowed to withdraw our present request, because on proceeding with the engineering of this item we find that this is not enough money to cover what has to be done, and we will have to come back next year at an increased request on the item again. So we respectfully and regretfully withdraw the project, sir. On the first item, which is the repair of the plenum chamber; Í believe the layman's term for that is an air chamber, this is because this particular building, which was constructed for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology location at Walter Reid, was one of the blastproof buildings that was constructed at that time. It is practically without windows, and it has blastproof features in it.

The air conditioning is extremely important, and the only means for providing ventilation is through the air conditioning system. Due to the corrosiveness of the water and the air in the plenum chamber, the metals have rusted through or corroded so much that to keep this building operable it is necesary to rebuild these chambers using noncorrosive metals and materials. This is an important request, sir, and this would alleviate this condition.

Senator INOUYE. On my recent visit to the hospital I sensed that the hospital was rather crowded, and in certain areas rather obsolete. Do you have plans to modernize Walter Reed?

General SHULER. We do not have plans, a specific plan, sir, in the near future for a new Walter Reed or modernizing that I know of. General Heaton has spoken to me several times—the Surgeon General, concerning the need.

Do you know of any future plan-there have none been approved. Do you know of any plan on this, Colonel Adams? I am sure eventually we will have to come up for a modernization or possibly for a new Walter Reed some day, but there is nothing in any approved plan now for that, sir.

Senator INOUYE. We have just completed book No. 1. Before proceeding to the next book I have several questions I would like to ask. This year's requests seem to place more emphasis on major headquarters facilities than in the past. What is the reason for this?

General SHULER. Sir, the reason is, I think, quite basic. They have been neglected horribly in the past. The problem has been swept under the rug each year by people who reviewed our program, and even by ourselves on occasion when we did not have a large enough budget in which to put them.

We come to a situation where a lot of them need betterments or need replacements by an efficient and modern type building. It just seems to me, sir, that when we talk about training personnel and buying sophisticated, complex military equipment, and when we talk about managing our posts and saving money, that we have got to look at the nerve center that controls all this, that runs the training and manages all these things, and I think they deserve an efficient headquarters in which to operate. I do not see how they can efficiently do their job otherwise.

Now we have just come this year to the point where we have got to start attacking this problem, and this is basically the reason, sir. Senator INOUYE. We have not yet considered oversea stations and posts, but what is the Army doing to reduce the so-called outflow of gold?

General SHULER. We have a very active program in this regard, sir. Actually the fiscal year 1964 program was held up completely for a number of months while we worked on this problem. We have gone to a system where we make the maximum use possible of U.S. materials, U.S. contractors, U.S. shipping on which we ship this overseas to the location. In other words, we are trying to avoid in every way the outflow of gold in this regard.

We have projects in this program that are costing us more dollars but that save the outflow of gold because of using these methods.

I have a complete table of every country, with a tabulation, sir, in this regard, and I request that I be allowed to place this in the record at the proper time or I can put it in at this point in time, sir. Senator INOUYE. Without objection, it will be placed in the record at this point.

(The document referred to follows:)

Fiscal year 1966 program-Revised and normal procedure cost estimate

Senator INOUYE. Do you use any Public Law 480 funds?
General SHULER. Counterpart?

Senator INOUYE. Yes.

General SHULER. We have to have a certification, sir, from the finance officer-that none of those funds are available to us-that is they are committed to other agencies before we can proceed with a construction job in the countries involved. We have in the past used some of them, sir, but they are very scarce to us. They are always overcommitted.

Senator INOUYE. I would assume in this year's requests you are not using them.

General SHULER. No, sir.

Senator INOUYE. Public Law 480 funds.

General SHULER. We do have to get this certificate. The finance officer is responsible by statute, that he has to certify for this, that they are not available for our use.

Senator INOUYE. What percentage of the Army construction contracts are awarded through competitive bidding?

General SHULER. About 97 percent, sir. I believe we have always had this fine record, sir, and I do not believe any other program in existence has a record this high.

Senator INOUYE. Do you feel that you are getting good competition from construction industry firms?

General SHULER. Yes, sir. The Corps of Engineers will not make an award unless they have ascertained that they have had good competitive bidding.

General Clarke would like to add to that, sir.

General CLARKE. Mr. Chairman, we are getting an average of about seven bidders on each of our proposals that goes out, and we think this is very good competition. The prices coming in are generally quite close to the estimate of what we consider a reasonable price, and usually just a few percent under our estimate, and we think this indicates very fine competition.

Senator INOUYE. All right, thank you, General.

How long would it take the Army to replace the old inadequate World War II bachelor officers quarters at the level being requested in this year's bill?

General SHULER. It would take us, sir, at the rate we are requesting about 8 years, but we have had a situation, sir, last year and the year before where the Congress has cut our request in half, not the authorization but the funding of the authorization. They have told us to select those installations within the half of the funds where we would go ahead with our bachelor officers quarters.

We are hoping that because of the situation previously described that we can sustain the rate that we requesting this year in the program.

Senator INOUYE. In your statements made in support of recreational facilities, gymnasiums, auditoriums, bachelor officers quarters, barracks and such, on several occasions I recall you stated that these facilities were necessary to retain these highly trained personnel and to also boost the morale of the men.

Have you made any studies as to the effect inadequate facilities would have on, say, reenlistments?

General SHULER. Yes, sir. The personnel people in the Army have through questioning enlisted men, questioning young officers, questioning wives of married officers, and sifting through these answers and remarks, I think have pretty well proved that these are great factors that are involved, sir, in the decision to reenlist or how long to stay in the service.

There are many times when the wife is the reason the man doesn't stay because she is dissatisfied with family housing conditions.

Soldiers that have to live in these old World War II coal-fired jobs we have are probably going to have less tendency to reenlist than if they lived in a permanent barracks. I think we have proved this by these

answers.

Senator INOUYE. Is this report available to this committee?

General SHULER. I do not know of a specific report, sir. These are questionnaires that have been put out by the DCSPERS, and I would be glad to get the personnel people to provide for the record a résumé of this or some factual data that would support this.

Senator INOUYE. We would appreciate this very much.

(The information referred to follows:)

The Army, over the past years, has conducted numerous studies and attitude surveys in order to determine the major reasons for procurement and retention of military personnel. Additional studies and attitude surveys are underway at the present time.

A review of the results of the more important studies and surveys of the past 5 years revealed the following major pertinent reasons as common among all the findings. No order of importance is attached to the reasons shown. It is the cumulative effect of their interaction on the individual that produces the decision to leave the service. Although the area of fringe benefits includes a myriad of topics, it is directly affected by MCA projects in the morale and welfare area. (a) Pay housing, and fringe benefits.-Pay, in adequate Government private housing, and reduction in the value of benefits.

(b) Family considerations.-Separation, movement, quarters, education, and lack of normal family size.

(c) Prestige.-Improve public image of the Army, and limited promotional opportunities.

A 1963 survey of both junior officers and their wives revealed that over 25 percent of the wives mentioned housing problems as a major disadvantage of military service. Housing and seperation were two categories frequently mentioned by both parties.

Senator INOUYE. The committee would like to continue with the hearings tomorrow morning at 10:30 if this would be convenient for you.

General SHULER. That would be fine, sir.

Senator INOUYE. So, thank you very much, and I appreciate your assistance this afternoon.

(Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, May 12, 1965.)

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