Join the Army And Feel Elite

Plenty of gloom is evident in the Pentagon these days. Air Force officers grumble bitterly about Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's decision to cancel the Skybolt missile and his refusal to request more than minimal funds for development of the RS-70 bomber. Navymen are aghast at McNamara's doubts about the utility of aircraft carriers. But the unhappiness of the Air Force and Navy contrasts strikingly with the contented smiles of the Pentagon's Armymen. The U.S. Army is exceedingly pleased with Secretary McNamara. Bubbled an Army general last week: "It is wonderful to have this feeling, this elite feeling, this needed and wanted feeling."

Sounding the Trumpet. Three years ago, that "needed and wanted feeling" was painfully absent. Prevailing U.S. military doctrine relied mainly upon the threat of nuclear retaliation to deter not only big wars but also little wars. Lacking strategic nuclear punch, the Army was assigned only a relatively minor role in U.S. defense planning. After Korea the Army gradually dwindled to 14 understrength divisions. Renowned Army Generals Matthew Ridgway, James Gavin and Maxwell D. Taylor resigned in protest against the down-rating of the Army. In his clamor-making book The Uncertain Trumpet, Taylor attacked what he considered excessive reliance on nuclear retaliation.

Within a few months after taking office as President, John F. Kennedy confronted the crisis that climaxed with the building of the Berlin Wall. When he ordered military readiness to demonstrate his determination to Khrushchev, the President was shocked to find that the Army was in a lower state than he had supposed. The Army repeatedly had to borrow equipment from one unit to fit out another. Reserve units called to duty found they had no weapons. Kennedy decided to get started on building up the Army: he called General Taylor from retirement, made him a military troubleshooter and later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Since that troubled spring of 1961, a shift in official defense doctrine has taken place in Washington. Pentagon planning now puts relatively more emphasis than it did a few years ago on "graduated" or "flexible" responses. The nuclear striking power of strategic bomber and missile forces remains the nation's ultimate defense, but defense policy no longer envisions that those forces would be used to counter limited aggression. This flexible-response doctrine, as General Taylor labeled it, stirred misgivings among some Air Force and civilian strategists. They argued that it might encourage Communists to risk limited aggression, might even weaken the effectiveness of nuclear striking power as a deterrent against a major Communist thrust. The debate has since quieted down, but last week, in a speech in Seattle, Washington's Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson showed that misgivings still linger. He "strongly supported the strengthening of our conventional forces," said Jackson, but the U.S. must not forget that its safety and that of the free world ultimately depend upon nuclear weapons and the nation's "will" to use them if necessary. "What defends Berlin?" Jackson asked.

The New Road. For the Army, the change in defense doctrine has meant more men and new weapons. Army manpower has increased to 960,000, from 870,000 in 1960. The Army now has 16 divisions, all of them said to be "combat-ready." Three of five regular Army divisions stationed in Europe have been mechanized with M-113 armored personnel carriers. The Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), the mobile striking force stationed in the U.S. for rapid deployment anywhere on the globe, has been expanded from three divisions to eight. Equipment for two full STRAC divisions has been stockpiled in Europe to lighten the load of troops speeding from the U.S. in the event of crisis. The Special Forces, the Army's guerrilla fighters in green berets, have more than tripled in the past two years, to more than 7,000 men.

In the remodeling of the Army, the older five-group divisions, judged too rigid in organization and too light in firepower, are being replaced by what the jargon calls Reorganization Objective Army Divisions. ROAD divisions are organized on various patterns, depending on the job the unit is expected to do. To assure that the Army is ready to fight when called upon, the Pentagon is adopting a system of assigning each outfit to one of five "readiness" categories. With their units labeled for all to note, commanders will be under steady pressure to upgrade readiness.

Into the Air. For the future the Army is looking to the air. Army plans call for acquiring 1,600 new airplanes in the current fiscal year. Each ROAD division has 97 helicopters and six fixed-wing airplanes, double the number of aircraft in the old five-group division. At Fort Benning, Ga., the Army is training the first elements of its newly created 11th Air Assault Division with its own transport planes, armed helicopters and observation planes.

The Army's take-off into the air pains Air Force men. They complain that the Army is trying to steal the Air Force's mission of tactical air support. General Earle G. Wheeler, Army Chief of Staff, argues that the Army is merely trying to use "an air vehicle to move people and things and act as a weapons platform in the combat area." Growled an Air Force general: "Hogwash! They're talking about aircraft that try to do the same thing as we do."

The Army buildup has cost a lot of money. For the current fiscal year the Army has confidently asked for $3.3 billion for new equipment alone, more than three times what the Army was getting for equipment pre-McNamara. Total Army expenditures have swelled from $9.4 billion in 1960 to an estimated $12 billion in the last fiscal year. McNamara and his men consider the money well spent.

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