we never recruit a great many people in December, because it is Christmas. So, we are not going to be able to fit. And any changes, of course, will move us off that line.

General DEPUY. So, what will happen to us in 1972 is a combination of many, many things. First of all, when we put in the President's budget, we were on the blue line, which would have taken us into fiscal year 1973 at this point. In other words, at the end of the current fiscal year, the strength of the Army would have been 942,000 people. Then several things happened. First, the President made another announcement on Vietnam which lowered the number of Army people in Vietnam. We then recomputed our manpower program and found we had 23,000 man-years authorized in the President's budget that we did not need.

The second thing that happened is that in the hearings and in deliberations here in the Congress, another 27,000 man-year reduction occurred. Then we did two things. We did not react right away. Perhaps foolishly, we hoped maybe that would be restored; it was not. So, we waited. That cost us some man-years. Then our management was not perfect and for several months, we ran over strength. So the combination of all of that gave us problems. The 50,000 man-year cut would have put us on this line here, the black line, but our actual performance was up here. And it so happens, as you know, that in this man-year average strength business, to the extent that you are above your target line in one part of the year, you have to be equally below it in the other half of the year. These two spaces must be equal. So, we are now in the middle of a massive early release program. We are releasing from the Army in the months of December and January all the people who would have gone out in a 6-month period. And

now in the month of February, we are releasing people who would have been released next September.

This brought us down very sharply. Instead of coming into fiscal year 1973 at 942,000, we are going to come in at 861,000; 80,000 people lower in actual strength.

It also, as I will show you in a moment, gives you a peculiar phenomenon in that in the middle of fiscal year 1973, we are going to be higher than either the beginning or the end strength, and these are trainees.

I might just say that the gains to the Army should ideally fit precisely the losses, and the losses are in a wave motion. What happened 2 years ago determines the losses we have now.

You might be surprised to know, for example, that in our program that we run out into fiscal year 1974, we have [deleted] we do in 1973208,000 in 1973 and about [deleted] in 1974 because of that phenom

enon.

We just want to explain this hump in midfiscal year 1973 because we are concerned that somebody would just draw a straight line from 861 to 841 and lop off the man-years and the dollars above that line. We do not want to have that happen, Mr. Chairman.

General DEPUY. This just sort of puts the magnitude of the problem into perspective. These are the numbers of end strength we have come down in the Army each year, since we started down at the end of 1968; 59,000, 169,000, 199,000, and this year, 262,000. To get down 262,000 in end strength, 480,000 men are leaving the Army this fiscal year.

Senator SYMINGTON. What percentage of that is your total strength?

General DEPUY. That would be about half of the Army, sir, because we are in the 800,000 to 900,000 bracket as we are coming down. Senator SYMINGTON. It is going to be more than half.

General DEPUY. A little more than half; yes, sir.

All of our personnel policies were really planned on the basis of doing that in 2 years instead of one, so we have run into a number of problems there.

Senator SYMINGTON. Let me get this straight. You are going very fast and it is very interesting. It is good you are going fast. I wish I could stay for all of it. As I understand it, 50 percent of Army personnel-over 50 percent of Army personnel, because of policy decisions are going to be cut out of the Army in fiscal 1972?

General DEPUY. Oh, no, sir. A total of 480,000 people as individuals will leave the Army, and 262,000 will not be replaced.

Senator SYMINGTON. I see.

General DEPUY. So, the net reduction in the end strength of the Army is 262,000 in this fiscal year.

Senator SYMINGTON. So around 30 percent will not be replaced, and the other 20 percent is just a fifth?

General DEPUY. That is part of going down.

Senator SYMINGTON. The trained and untrained?

General DEPUY. You can see this causes us a tremendous problem in retraining, particularly in our skills.

General DEPUY. Let me discuss just to get to this little hump so that the committee understands it. These blocks are 6-month blocks. This is 1972, this is 1973. These are gains and these are losses. And they are average per month. This says that for the 6 months that we are

now in, the last half of fiscal year 1972, each month we will average losses of [deleted]. We will average gains of [deleted].

We are taking losses in 1972 that we would have taken in 1973, so a strange phenomenon occurs in 1973. Our losses are low, lower than our gains by about [deleted] a month. The gains are higher because they are being put in to take care of later losses. So that difference of about [deleted] if multiplied by 6 is about [deleted]; that is the buildup here. These are all trainees we are building up, not units. If we do not go up to that [deleted] level, we will not be at 841,000 at the end of the year. We will be lower than that, and we will not be able to support our structure. We therefore would like the committee's understanding and support. If you do not change the structure, we would like to follow that particular program.

INCREASED COSTS

Senator SYMINGTON. I noticed yesterday that Secretary Kelley said despite this heavy reduction, the pay cost was greater. Do you think it necessary in order to maintain order and status?

General DEPUY. The total budget, Mr. Chairman, for the Army for military personnel is not up, it is a little down. But the dollars per man are up very, very sharply.

Senator SYMINGTON. I think he said here: "Despite substantial reductions in the size of our military forces, total manpower costs have risen sharply in recent years, now account for more than 50 cents of every Defense dollar spent."

I thought when he said total manpower costs he meant the cost of the people left.

General DEPUY. Per man, but not for the total.

Senator SYMINGTON. He says total.

General DEPUY. That may be for defense, sir, it is not for the Army. I can show you very quickly.

There is the Army's budget, and the total goes from $8.6 billion to $8.9, then $7.7 over the fiscal years. So the total is down. That is military personnel costs only. The end strength is down and the man-years are down. The dollars are not down the way you would like to see them go down, because at the same time the man-years go down, the dollar cost-per-man goes up.

Senator SYMINGTON. It says total manpower costs have risen sharply. I would think the total manpower cost involves what we are talking about.

Do you want to comment on that, Mr. Secretary?

Mr. KELLEY. Yes, sir; that statement is correct. The total manpower costs have risen; they do account for more than 50 cents of every defense dollar proposed to be spent in 1972.

Senator SYMINGTON. If these figures are correct, does that mean the costs of the Air Force and the Navy more than offset this reduction? Mr. KELLEY. When I referred to total manpower costs, I was talking about the military as well as the civilian component.

To respond to your question just now, on a relative scale, the manpower costs have risen more in the Air Force than they have in the Army, and this is reflected in the fact that the total military personnel account is higher today than it was before reduction

74-696 0-72—pt. 1—12

Senator SYMINGTON. To make it clear to all: The figures General DePuy has stated of fiscal 1971 of $8.687 billion; fiscal 1972, $8.172 billion; fiscal 1973, $7.703 billion-General, I assure you I will read this carefully, and I am very grateful for what has been learned to date. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN (presiding). Senator, I thank you for presiding. Again, General, I want to express my regrets that I could not be here to hear the preceding testimony. We are running on kind of a doubleheader schedule over there in the Senate, and we will have to do the best we can.

General DEPUY. I am almost at the very end. I would just like to make one point, if I could, with you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely. I would be grateful if you did repeat some of your testimony.

General DEPUY. When we stopped last night, we were on Europe. I will not go back to that. I have finished that up. But on our manpower program, I would like to make just one or two points, because after all, that is the purpose of this hearing, our manpower authoriza

tion.

General DEPUY. I would like to point out the problem that we have. This is a little training aid that shows that if these are the losses, hypothetical, in a fiscal year, we have to plan our gains 5 to 6 months ahead of time to exactly match those losses if we wish to follow a par