VFW criticizes Stanley over cost comments - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

VFW criticizes Stanley over cost comments

After only 16 days on the job, the Pentagon’s new personnel chief has drawn the ire of the nation’s largest organization for combat veterans.

Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Clifford Stanley, recently confirmed as undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told a Senate panel Wednesday that the Defense Department is worried about rising personnel costs, especially rising costs for medical care.

“We are at the point where rising personnel costs could affect the readiness of our forces,” Stanley said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel.

Thomas Tradewell, who heads Veterans of Foreign Wars, the largest and oldest organization of U.S. combat veterans, said Stanley is making a mistake.

“Any attempt to link rising military personnel costs with shrinking military readiness is total nonsense,” he said. “If the Defense Department needs a larger budget for personnel programs, then let the VFW carry that message to Congress. Don’t pin the budget blame on service members and military retirees.”

Stanley’s remarks came as he was talking about the 1.4 percent military raise proposed for 2011 and about concerns about holding down health care expenses, especially for retirees.

Tradewell likened Stanley’s comments to those of Stanley’s predecessor, Dr. David Chu, who in 2005 angered veterans and retirees by saying the cost of benefits had reached the point where they were “hurtful” to national defense and were “taking away from the nation’s ability to defend itself.”

“What is hurtful is a continuing perception that DoD is more concerned about the budget than they are about recruiting and retaining a professional volunteer force that has been at war now for more than eight years,” Tradewell said.