Nation: Who'll Fight for America?

Manpower problems are undermining U.S. military might

It could have been an occasion for pure celebration: a mighty warship sailing into port on Memorial Day after an exhausting mission showing the nation's flag in distant seas. Yet the joyful welcome was clouded by a growing concern. For all of its sophisticated weaponry, America is facing a shortage of the most valuable military resource of all: manpower. The return of the U.S.S. Nimitz made the point symbolically, and President Carter made it directly as he stood on the nuclear carrier's gigantic flight deck and praised its crew.

There was, of course, exuberance aplenty. Flags were flying and horns blasting as 1,000 vessels—tugs and schooners, runabouts and yachts, skiffs and even a Chinese junk—jammed Norfolk harbor. Pier 12 was packed tight as an estimated 15,000 friends and relatives shouted, waved their hands and flourished banners. Proclaimed one: WELCOME BACK TO THE KNOWN WORLD. Another: HEY! BIG DADDY. A smiling woman sported a T shirt emblazoned: WELCOME HOME STEVE.

The Nimitz was back at last after a nine-month cruise, including 144 consecutive days at sea, most of them spent on patrol in the Indian Ocean. The ill-fated Sea Stallion helicopters had taken off from her flight deck on their attempt to rescue the 53 American hostages from their captors in Iran. Not since World War II had any U.S. warship been at sea so long.

But the excitement of the homecoming could not mask the fatigue of the 5,500 men on the Nimitz and the 934 on its two guided-missile cruiser escorts, the California and the Texas. The patrol had been an extraordinarily arduous and lonely duty. In his talk, Carter thanked the crew for projecting "the presence of the U.S. Government and its military forces at a time . . . crucial to the maintenance of peace." He then took the occasion for an announcement that implicitly acknowledged that the services of the carrier's crew and similar American forces deserved better recognition from the nation. He declared his support of a bill before Congress that would give military personnel benefits amounting to $3.5 billion over the next five years; heretofore the President had feared that the proposal, if approved, would jeopardize his chances of balancing the budget. But on the Nimitz, the onetime submariner and lieutenant commander roused cheers by declaring that he now favored the congressional measure because he believed that "a career in the military should be as rewarding personally for those who serve as a career in any pursuit."

Today, however, a career in the armed forces is not attracting enough talented Americans. The Pentagon is handicapped by shortages of sufficiently skilled and disciplined personnel in all ranks. A House Armed Services Committee report this spring charged that the U.S. now fields "a force with deficient military credibility." And Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman David C. Jones admits that "our No. 1 readiness problem is people, the availability of trained people." These views were echoed strongly at a TIME seminar on the alarming status of American military manpower (see following story).