ARMY: Soldiers’ Pay

Last week the commissioned gnomes who do the U. S. Army’s higher bookkeeping in Washington had to tear up their old pay tables, get to work on new ones. Reason: Congress had voted, along with conscription, to attract young volunteers into the Army and Marine Corps by upping the pay of buck privates from $21 to $30 a month. Also voted were increases for first-class privates (from $30 to $36 a month), corporals ($42 to $54), sergeants ($54 to $60).* The raises would be effective only after four months of service. To many prospective volunteers these looked like niggardly bribes. But privates, corporals, sergeants already in the Army welcomed a move to bring their pay nearer par with the long-favored Navy’s. And the increases reminded U. S. taxpayers that, after their new Army is recruited, they will have to pony up huge annual sums for military “housekeeping” expenses.

Pay, housing, food, transportation, medical care, other minimum necessities for a Regular Army of only 162,000 men and 13,395 officers cost the U. S. $270,500,000 in fiscal 1939. With conscription, by early 1941 the U. S. Army should have up to 375,000 men in its regular forces, some 217,000 in the mobilized National Guard, at least 400,000 draftees in training. At the increased rates, pay alone for these 992,000 men would run to $740,000,000 a year ($198,826,850 more than the Army’s total appropriation in 1939).

No honest soldier ever got rich in the U. S. Army. In 1782 George Washington’s major generals were entitled by law to $31.60 a month, plus rations; his lowest subaltern, to $3.15. But many a Revolutionary private got more. The Continental States and their impoverished Congress at Philadelphia bid against each other for men, ran prices as high as $86.66 a month (in the Massachusetts and New Hampshire Militias), up to $1,000 cash bounty, 100 to 500 acres in land-bounty a man. Said General Washington, before the war and the bidding were well under way: “Never were soldiers whose pay and provision have been so abundant and ample. . . . There is some reason to dread that the enemies of New England’s reputation may hereafter say it was not principle that saved them, but that they were bribed into the preservation of their liberties.”

General Washington need not have worried. The handsome pay of the Revolution was mostly on paper. (His men at Valley Forge were lucky if they had paper to wrap their feet against the cold.) Nor did soldiers in the first U. S. peacetime Army fare much better $82 a month for the ranking officer, $4 for privates in 1785. When the British returned for the War of 1812, privates’ pay rose to $8 a month (plus $124 bounty for enlisting). After peace came in 1815, the U. S. treated its Army as usual, cut the privates to $2.

Before the Civil War, when most citizens still doubted that there would be a war, U. S. Army privates rated $13 a month. Then war came after all, the Confederates scared the Yankees at Bull Run, and Union privates got a $100 bounty for enlisting. In 1864, when conscription had at last been voted, pay rose to $14.87. Ma jor General Ulysses Simpson Grant by then was winning the war and buying his salutary whiskey on $2,640 a year (plus keep, four servants). As a lieutenant gen eral and later a full general he received $3,240 to $4,800 (plus keep and servants).

As President of the U. S. he first got $25,000, then $50,000 a year.

Today a U. S. major general draws up to $808.33 a month (including allowances; his base pay is $666.67). Four lieutenant generals have the pay of major generals, plus annual, personal allowance of $500. As Chief of Staff and the only full general on active duty, George Catlett Marshall also draws a major general’s pay, along with a $2,200 annual allowance. Highest-paid U. S. soldier is the retired, only living General of the Armies, John J. Pershing, who by Act of Congress has $21,500 a year ($13,500 in pay, $8,000 for “quarters, heat and light”).

Typical officer pay is that of General Grant’s grandson, U. S. Grant III, who as an engineer colonel with 37 years’ service is entitled to a maximum of $600 monthly — more than three times what his distinguished granddad averaged in the service. Lowest-paid commissioned officers are the $125 shavetails. Best-off are flying officers, who, to the great envy of Army groundlings, on flying duty get 50% more than the normal base pay for their ranks,

U. S. military pay in World War I (base pay for privates: $30) was the envy of other armies. It still is. Average pay for German privates is equivalent to about $6 a month; for Italians, $7.50; Japanese, $4.65; Russians, $11.70; in May the French were getting only $1.05 per month. British Tommies average $18 a month.

* Sergeants in the three highest grades (staff, technical, master) continue to get $72 to $157.50 a month, depending on rank and length of service. These are base rates: noncoms (not otherwise furnished with quarters or rations) as well as commissioned officers may draw additional allowances for rent, subsistence, special ratings.