LETTERS

...When von Rundstedt's elements broke through in the Battle of the Bulge, the roads were dogged with fleeing service troops and expensive vehicles of every description...

...If the GAO closed its doors tomorrow 60 Minutes would hardly notice it...

...yet who now favor draft registration (along with the inevitable reinstitution of inductions next year) to be forced to serve in the armed forces...

...Fair is fair, isn't it...

...One may suggest that our armed forces exist to perform a function beyond serving in wars...

...When met with machine gun fire, these troops became useless until infantry could be sorted out and sent beyond the beaches...

...KEITH W. BOSE Kings Park, New York...

...This letter N / C TOTAL $700 Net 30 After a second reading of the article (N/C), I've discovered several avenues for further research and analysis...

...Letters GAO Regarding the comment in your article about the GAO [April] that "without GAO...

...Indeed, the mere addition of numbers may contribute nothing...

...America ended World War II with over ten million in uniform, yet only a few hundred thousand were ever in any danger from the enemy...

...60 Minutes would splutter into silence after half an hour," implying that 60 Minutes uses GAO reports extensively as source material, you couldn't be more wrong...

...Senator Proxmire has pointed out that we have more lieutenant colonels than second lieutenants, but we may also discover that we have as many sergeants as privates first class...

...PHILIP SCHEFFLER New York, New York The writer is the producer 0/60 Minutes...

...With the proliferation of higher headquarters, and because every field grade officer needs a coterie, this leaves little to the combat units...

...Consultants As a Washington consultant, I thoroughly enjoyed Gregg Easterbrook's "The Art of Further Study" [May], yet I can not ethically bill my reading time to any govern merit client or to the firm's overhead...

...MURRA Y POLNER Great Neck, New York There is reason to suspect that our military problem goes far deeper than the need .to draft more manpower...

...There was a draft in effect during all of my terms in service...

...When we landed at Omaha Beach, the first waves included bulldozers and service troops intended to buiid beach installations...

...whatever their age...

...Only one in ten soldiers is assigned to combat...

...For example, of the most recent 115 stories we have broadcast (approximately one year's worth) only one was largely ba,sed on a GAO report, and that story was about the GAO itself and how it conducts its audits...

...If they're too old and feeble to go then one of their children ought to be inducted...

...And, I'll be damned if I'm going to charge it to my precious vacation time...

...LEX RICHARDSON Washington, D.C...

...Draft the Rich After reading "Draft the Rich" [April] I had the thought that rather than concentrate on the rich we ought to require every congressional representative and senator who never served and whose children never served (e.g., John Stennis, Jamie Whitten, Lester Wolff, etc...

...I like the idea so much that I'd include prodraft editorial writers, columnists, television commentators and some of the White House gang like Eizenstat and Powell...

...This letter, therefore, serves as the invoice for my services to your magazine: CONTRACT: EASTERBROOK ARTICLE Labor: $150 -Reading, duplicating, and distributing- 20 copies -Bullshittirig with colleagues Time: 3 hours Fringe benefits, ~dministrative $550 costs, overhead etc...

...In the last five years no more than five or six 60 Minutes reports turned on a GAO audit, and even in those we did our own independent investigation...

...Please contact me at your earliest convenience so that we can arrange a mutually beneficial business agreement...

...I noticed when visiting higher echelon commands that the enlisted men serving in those safe havens were always the best educated and contributed the least disciplinary problems...