More in Sorrow than in Anger

Reluctantly, many top noncoms are leaving the services

They have different talents and interests, but experienced noncoms around the country who are leaving--or considering quitting--the armed forces have common complaints about today's services, and a willingness to talk frankly about them. The views of four:

"STRETCHED TO THE BRINK"

Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Robinson, 26, works as a career planner at El Toro Marine Base near Santa Ana, Calif., charged with persuading first-term Marines to reenlist. Now, ironically, Robinson himself is leaving the service after eight years, passing up a $10,000 re-enlistment bonus, to manage apartment houses. Says Robinson: "I like the corps but I can't get by with the low pay and the diminishing benefits."

That decision did not come easily. Uninterested in going into his father's soda-fountain equipment business and intrigued by the "tough traditions" of the Marines, he had signed up fresh out of his suburban Detroit high school. He served first as a base electrician at Camp Lejeune, N.C., then was transferred to El Toro in 1973 to work on fighter planes -- F-4s, A6s, Harriers. He switched to his present assignment in 1978.

"I am stretched to the brink," says Robinson, who takes home $760 monthly. He and his wife moonlight as apartment managers; Robinson makes more in his part-time work than in his Marine job and looks upon his service pay as "little more than spending money." He also resents the way other Americans treat the military. Says Robinson: "The Marines have no prestige any more. We are looked down upon."

Not surprisingly, Robinson has found it harder and harder to persuade others to reenlist. Says the departing staff sergeant: "The job has become much more difficult in the last year."

"TRAINING IS A JOKE"

Staff Sergeant Joseph Cerce, 30, stares at the three gold hash marks on his left sleeve. Each represents three years in the Army, and Cerce does not plan to add a fourth. He will retire next March. Says Cerce: "The Army has changed for the worse. It's not a patch on what it used to be."

Cerce first signed up for a two-year hitch in 1968, fought in Viet Nam and then returned home to Batavia, N.Y., and a job as a lathe operator. The work paid well -- much better than the Army -- but Cerce began yearning for the military life. "The days on the Mekong came back, running patrols and not wondering what in hell you're doing with your life," he recalls. After talking it over with his wife LaVonne, Cerce re-enlisted and knew immediately he had made the right decision.

Then came the all-volunteer army and Cerce gradually became demoralized. A drill sergeant at Fort Dix, N.J., he saw instruction worsen and discipline decline. "These days we're just fooling around," says Cerce bitterly. "Basic training is a joke. My twelve-year-old daughter could go through it and pass at the top."

The meager pay and skimpy benefits also rankle Cerce. "My kid brother didn't graduate from high school and he makes $19,000. I make ten." He is appalled by his Government-owned housing ("The kids freeze in the winter") and is disgusted by the program of college courses offered on base ("It's a phony"). Cerce plans to accept a job as a deputy sheriff in Warren, Pa., where he will take home a bigger paycheck and have time as well to earn a college degree. Says he: "I'm not expecting to get rich, but I expect to make a better life out there."

"NO CHALLENGE, NO FUN"

As a child, Paul Barns used to love listening to his father talk about his days in the Navy during World War II. Those stories, as well as the posters urging JOIN THE NAVY AND SEE THE WORLD, persuaded Barns to enlist in 1970 at 17. See the world he did: trained in the maintenance of ship communications systems, Barns traveled to the Middle East and Taiwan. "I really felt good about myself," he recalls.

Nevertheless, Barns quit at the end of his enlistment in 1974 to study electronics in his native Dallas. Two years later, he decided to give the Navy a second try and was assigned to a nuclear at tack submarine, the U.S.S. Pintado. But when it came time last week to reenlist, Barns decided to return ashore and begin a civilian career as a digital equipment repair man. Says Barns: "It wasn't worth ten more years of my life for what I was getting out of it."

Barns echoes the common complaint of meager wages as a reason for his departure. As a petty officer first class, he was paid $11,000 annually. He also cites the shrinking number of trained sub men, noting that because of the scarcity he would have been assigned to sea duty in the next five years of his re-enlistment rather than just the next three. Moreover, he claims that the Navy is doing a poor job of instructing its personnel. "There is no on-the-job training," he says. "When a problem arises, they always go to the guy who already knows everything." Barns also resents the stiffening of regulations after the 1974 departure of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt as Chief of Naval Operations. Says Barns: "Zumwalt was great. For example, he allowed us to keep civilian clothes aboard ship. But now all that has changed. For me, it just got to the point of no challenge and no fun."

"MISSING THE AMERICAN DREAM"

When Staff Sergeant Louis Loman, 33, joined the Air Force in 1971, he did so mainly for one reason: job security. He had just been laid off as a mechanic at a paper mill in Hamilton, Ohio, and he never wanted to face such hard times again. Now he is undecided about signing up for another tour of duty in 1981. "I like my job," says Loman, a B-52 air craft mechanic. "I don't want to get out. But I've got to go where the money is to make a living for my family."

For Loman, the money is clearly not in the U.S.A.F. He takes home $550 monthly, and his family -- Wife Pat and two children -- squeaked by on food stamps until Pat took a job as a sales clerk at a nearby department store. He had to put 180,000 miles on his 1969 Plymouth before selling it last November -- and then could only afford a used 1973 Chevy. He and his family live on base because he cannot afford to buy a house. Says Loman: "I'm missing the American dream by serving in the American Air Force."

Loman is also worried about certain aspects of his job. "In the last couple of years, we've had to maintain our B-52s on cannibal status -- borrowing parts from some so others could fly. I used to be able to get a certain bolt right away, but now it takes as long as three weeks. Standards are still met, but it's getting harder to meet them." He worries about the new recruits ("They just can't hack it") and thinks the Air Force is losing too many skilled mechanics too fast, thereby burdening those who remain with the task of instructing trainees. The prescription for the whole problem, says Loman, is better pay. "They could cure the retention difficulty and be tougher on whom they let in." And maybe keep Sergeant Loman in a job he is not anxious to give up.

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