in the Air Force, that in 1960 or 1961 we may have to exceed the Officer Grade Limitation Act in the grade of major by not more than a maximum of 1,100 officers for a period of possibly 3 to 4 years.

I cannot state at this time that this is an absolute fact and that will happen. It depends upon many things. How many of our Reserve officers as they get up into the 20-year area will voluntarily retire? If a lot of them do, we won't go above the Officer Grade Limitation Act. If they want to stay on, we may exceed the Officer Grade Limitation Act.

Mr. BLANDFORD. But you can plan for that by keeping some vacancies in the grades of lieutenant colonel and colonel, because that is cumulative. You can take those vacancies and use them for excess numbers in majors, so long as you have vacancies in your lieutenant colonels and colonels.

I am merely mentioning this because I think we want to be very sure of what we are doing here insofar as the trouble we may get into with the Appropriations Committee later on.

Colonel AYLES. Yes, sir.

Mr. BLANDFORD. If we authorize you to make all of these adjustments and then by doing so we put ourselves in excess of the Officer Grade Limitation Act, and you didn't save your vacancies in the upper grade which would be cumulative, so you can apply them to your major; we may be in serious trouble. So why could you not save that number of vacancies in the lieutenant colonel and colonel slot, to anticipate that situation which may arise in your majors in 1960?

Colonel AYLES. That is the way we are actually operating today in our promotion system. We have room for many permanent colonels, but we are only promoting 150 a year to have an orderly progression into it.

Here, we are doing the same thing in our permanent lieutenant colonel bracket, and the temporary lieutenant colonel area also.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I am just saying that I think maybe we ought to be a little careful about any language that allows you to exceed the Officer Grade Limitation Act. I would much prefer to see the Officer Grade Limitation Act amended on a clear cut issue as to how many you need in grade, rather than to allow you to temporarily exceed it, because once you have exceeded it temporarily, that becomes permanent, and that will be the method of operation from here on out, and that will take us right back into the same rat race we had 2 years ago. And I don't think this committee wants to write another Officer Grade Limitation Act for the next 10 years.

All you have to do is cut down your temporary promotions in colonels and lieutenant colonels and you can have those vacancies for all of the permanent majors you want.

Is that agreed?

Colonel AYLES. Yes. What is more important-when these Regular officers, of course, proceed through a mandatory promotion point, they have to be considered.

Mr. BLANDFORD. I think your Regular officers on their permanent promotions should receive every consideration and should be using those vacancies.

I am personally not convinced you should be allowed to exceed the Officer Grade Limitation Act to permanently promote people to

permanent grade, and at the same time go merrily on your way in your temporary promotions.

That is my point. Not when I read figures like that, which indi

cate

Colonel AYLES. We are controlling our temporary promotion program in order to stay within the Officer Grade Limitation Act.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Someplace in here, I had a question on the number of people receiving two temporary grades above their permanent grade, and it is a rather substantial number in the Air Force. We have gone all through that, and know why it is necessary, but why bother with that if we are going to exceed the Officer Grade Limitation Act by temporary promotions in order to promote people to permanent grade.

Colonel AYLES. Yes, sir. I believe the reason that was put in there was to prevent us from reducing a Regular officer from his higher temporary grade to his permanent grade or mandatorily causing elimination of Reserve officers.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Just slow down your temporary promotions whenever you find you are getting a squeeze. Can that be done, General? General STONE. Yes. That can be done, and is being done.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Don't you think from a practical viewpoint that is a pretty good approach, rather than to get into this problem that we constantly face?

General STONE. That is the program now. the limit of the Officer Grade Limitation Act.

We have not gone to

Mr. BLANDFORD. In other words, you would not feel badly if we struck that portion of the bill out, that would allow you to exceed that portion of the Officer Grade Limitation Act?

General STONE. I don't think so.

Mr. BLANDFORD. Thank you.

Mr. KILDAY. Continue, Colonel Ayles.

Colonel AYLES. Before we go any further into this, we would just like to discuss the resources for the augmentation.

It consists of approximately 114,000 Reserve officers on active duty, 168,000 Reserve officers not on active duty, which includes National Guard officers and an undetermined number of civilian specialists who may desire a Regular officer commission.

For the purpose of this presentation we propose to discuss only the augmentation from among Reserve officers on active duty, as that is the group from which we expect to get the majority of our applications. The next chart will show you how the Reserve officers on active duty will be distributed on January 1, 1958.

Here we show the distribution of 113,587 Reserve officers on active duty January 1958.

This tall hump consists of Reserve officers commissioned in the Army Air Force in 1941 and 1942.

This small hump here consists of officers recalled to active duty in the Korean situation.

You will note we do not have many Reserve officers beyond the 17- and 18-year bracket.

Therefore, most of our integration in this program must be in this back area. These Reserve officers will compete among themselves within their own year group for appointments in the Regular structure in this area.

I have stated we will appoint approximately 24,000 officers on January 1, 1958.

The next chart will show you how those officers would be distributed at that time.

The

All of the augmentation has been in this crosshatched area. total area, including the crosshatched, includes 49,986 Regular officers.

You will notice that we have augmented right on top of the Regular officer hump approximately 2,000 officers.

We have done this purposely, because many of our most experienced and finest officers are in the Reserve officer hump that you saw on the other chart, and we feel that we should give them an opportunity at this time to attain a Regular officer status.

Our remaining discrepancy consists of officers that are above the optimum line at this point.

As Colonel Holliday explained to you adequately on the first day, we feel we cannot live with this hump situation, because these excess officers must be counted against the vacant spaces in this forward area and this valley [indicating].

As the hump moves forward in time, when these officers exceed the spaces in front, we must make room in behind, and as they drop out at the end of the structure, to maintain our strength we have to increase our procurement greatly, and we will have another hump, or have to live with an excessively low officer structure with a valley all the way through it.

Therefore we propose to adjust the promotion list service of the officers in the hump area by granting them 1 to 2 years of constructive service, cutting the hump off at this point and moving it down and forward into this vacant area in front of it.

Actually as this is pictured here, there are 13,000 officers. Fortyfive hundred of those officers will get 2 years of constructive service. Sixty-five hundred of them will get 1 year of constructive service, and the remainder will not get any.

It actually happens this way. If you will notice the 21-year area, we have approximately 500 officers there.

We take those officers, and we move them up to where they would be in a senior position in that year group. We then go back to the 20th year area, and take approximately 1,000 officers in that area as a block, and give them 1 year of constructive service, and move them over into the 21st year area immediately under the 500 that are already there.

We need approximately 500 more to fill the 21-year group. We go back to the 19-year area, take the 500 senior officers from that group and give them 2 years' constructive service and move them into the junior position in the 21-year area.

This process continues on until this hump has been eliminated and moved into this vacant area.

This constructive service is for promotion purposes and mandatory elimination purposes.

Nobody will pass anybody on the lineal list, but will keep the relative position which they now have.