European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 31, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Biggest brass ring Flop hmm i director Otott noon commanding a Imp i the unlucky Good  ships collided. The damage was relatively moderate but the fallout was nut. The Captain the ship s navigator officer of the deck and two other officers were relieved of command and Given harsh letters of reprimand. The Captain turned Over his ship and retired. Sometimes bad Luck turns to Good. Stan Fine committed another sin by turning Down orders that would have transferred him to Greece after a Long tout at sea. In what was viewed at the time As punishment the Navy exiled him to a staff position on the fledgling Polaris missile program. No one suspected the submarine fired missile had such a big future. It proved to be the boost Fine needed to rekindle a career that ended with two stars. In the closed world of the military an officer s personal life is never really personal. Two listed drinkers and Happy hour regulars Are stigmatized and enjoy less toleration today. Divorce on the other hand is not the career crippler it once was. Off duty physical conditioning has become another Arena of Competition. The number of Miles they jog has become a yardstick of excellence among Marine officers training at Quantico a. Each of the services runs its own Charm  new generals and admirals Are not Only briefed on the strategic big picture but hear lessons on dealing with the press testifying before Congress and proper dress. Spouses Are also briefed on their new social and civic responsibilities which Are frequently considerable. The Perks belonging to a general Are not what they used to be. As recently As the 1970s new admirals could look Forward to having mess stewards assigned to their officers on Active duty Hera is a breakdown of commissioned officers on Active duty in the four armed services. The numbers were supplied Cox news service by the department of defense. General Admiral 36 u. General vice adm 126 maj.  adm. Upper half 357 Brig.  adm lower half 533 colonel Captain 14,747 it. Colonel commander 33.029 major a. Commander 52,962 Captain lieutenant 102,268 1st lieutenant lieutenant Junior Grade 41,641 2nd lieutenant Ensign 36,970 total 282,669 Public quarters to help with Tho cleaning and cooking. Aides were automatically assigned and chauffeur driven cars were routine. Congressional overseers chiefly sen. William Proxmire. A wis. Radically pruned the extras now Only generals and admirals in senior command positions or special jobs Are assigned Junior officers As full time aides. The material signs of their new rank Are relatively few also new army brigadier receive a special version of the 1911 Model Colt .45 pistol or the newly adopted nine millimetre handgun. They Are entitled to Wear a wide Sam Bowie Type leather Belt with a Large distinctive buckle and to eat in special dining rooms at major defense installations. They receive a Supply of stationery and a personal one Star Flag that goes with them from Job to Job. They can also expect to spend $1.000 Lor new sets of uniforms with distinguishing trim on the coat and pants legs. But if expenses go up so does the pay. From approximately $55,300 a year a new general will jump to $70.300. Nearly $10,000 of which is non taxable As quarters and subsistence allowance. It is a frequently quoted statistic that rankles the Pentagon in june 1945, near the end of world War ii there were 2,068 Flag officers one for every 5,220 enlisted men. Today there Are 1.052 one for every 1.741 troops. Each year the number had steadily risen until 1981 when Congress finally put a Cap on. Grade creep the same phenomenon that has afflicted the officer corps As a whole is also evident among generals not Only Are there More generals today commanding fewer troops but there Are proportionately More senior generals than Ever before. In the last year of world War ii America s 12 million servicemen were Ted by 101 three Star officers and 38 full generals and admirals. Last year with Only 2.1 million under arms the Pentagon counted 126 three Star officers and 36 full generals and admirals. The services defend such proliferation by pointing out that the management and potential use of nuclear weapons justify a much higher level of control. David p. Campbell a psychologist on leave from the Center for creative leadership in Greensboro n.c., studied Flag rank officers Lor four years As they passed through the Center s leadership development programs. Campbell concluded that today s generals Are Strong willed individuals despite the common brotherhood of arms that folded them. The officers conveyed the feeling i want to be in charge of most of the people most of the time and i Don t want others to be in charge of  Campbell wrote. I doubt that any major military Power in history has had such a Well educated effective experienced honest Loyal group of career  trenched in Money to a Large extent the big ticket contracts to the major corporations involve what the Pentagon Calls terminal defense shooting Down warheads As they drop from space toward Earth. The systems derive from the anti ballistic missile abm systems which were developed in the 1960s, but abandoned by the United states after the 1972 abm treaty. Much of the work on More exotic space based components such As lasers that experts say Are decades away from the weapons stage is being done by smaller companies universities and Federal weapons laboratories although some of these contracts Are also going to the giants. Astronomer Carl Sagan a Star wars opponent argued at a recent Washington debate that Pentagon spending on strategic defense is creating a steamroller effect in the weapons Industry which May Force a later administration to a deploy the systems on which Reagan t ordered research. If you wave a trillion dollars at the . Defense Community you Are going to produce a juggernaut that will be very difficult to turn off no matter How Strong the technical evidence against it is and it is already producing. A feeding frenzy among contractors Sagan told the american astronautical society. Pentagon officials dispute Sagan s View stressing that Star wars is a research program designed to allow political leaders to decide in the mid-1990s, whether to deploy such defences probably within a Broad arms control agreement with the soviet Union. And Boeing s Gamble says the defense contractors would not be badly Hurt if Star wars is never deployed because some of the technologies seem to have applications in other  George Mulhern a spokesman for the Lockheed s aerospace group in Sunnyvale calif., says the company s approximately $160 million in ski research contracts is now 4 percent of annual sales of about $4 billion about the same magnitude As among other big defense corporations. Research awards of that size Are considered a shot in the Arm in the aerospace Field helping stimulate company laboratories without cutting into profits generated by production contracts which represent a substantially bigger piece of business. Although some Industry experts Are sceptical of Star wars goals most agree it has helped stimulate and focus research at the big defense contractors and has been even More important to scores of smaller labs. Financial analyst Campbell predicts that Star wars will not go anywhere. The generals do not support it. And when Ronald Reagan leaves office it will  however he says Star wars research fits right in with Pentagon plans. The air Force and the Navy would like to know every time a soviet backfire bomber takes off and where it is going and devices like satellite based sensors developed by ski will help them do that he said. Contractors Small and Large Are making Hay while the Sun shines concerned not so much with whether Star wars will work As a system but How to use ski Money in their own research programs. When ski came along we saw it is a target of Opportunity for some of our capabilities said Jim sides senior vice president of the Atlantic research corp. The Alexandria. A. Company with sales of $240 million last year has signed $12 million in research and development contracts Over five years mostly in the propulsion division. We Are planning around ski on the basis that it will not matter whether it is deployed or not. We Are looking at the scientific end of it he said. The stars and stripes Page 15