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Captain Robert A. Stone - 8 
September 14, 1948

(8) A benefit earned in World War II does not reduce the annuity payable under the ALPA plan. To take a simple illustration, suppose, after serving in the Army for 5 years a man enters the service of an air line as a pilot at the age of 27. He is disqualified at age 48, having averaged $800 per month in his 20 years as a pilot. If the pilot had not had any military service, his annuity would be $200 a month. The average monthly annuity credit rate is $9.00 for each year of service; there being 20 years of service, the annuity would have been, apart from the minimum, $180 per month. However, with the military service, there would be 25 years of service and, at the $9.00 credit rate per year of service, the total annuity would be $225 a month. 

The bill assumes and provides that the Government will pay for the cost of paying for the increase in annuities arising out of military service. It is further assumed that the Government will not wish to pay twice for the same service. Thus, if the Government fixes a pension for 5 years of World War II service at, say, $75 per month, it will not wish to pay $100 for the same service to those who are air line pilots. Therefore, in any case in which a pilot who receives a military service credit gets a free pension based on the same service, such free pension is off-set against that part of the pilot's annuity based on the same service. Suppose, as is possible, the military service credit under the ALPA plan amounted to $80 per month and the free Government pension to $60; the military service credit would be $20. The pilot never gets less than he would if he had no military service; in the example given above, in which the annuity would be the minimum of $200 without and $225 with military service, the ALPA annuity would be $200 if the free Government pension based on the pilot's military service was $25 or more, no matter how much more. 

I am aware that in Public Law 810, passed at the close of the last regular session of Congress, a different principle was incorporated in the provisions for retirement pay of officers and enlisted personnel of the National Guard and the various components of the armed forces. It may be that the Congress has now decided to abandon the precedents of 150 years and pay twice for the same thing, but I doubt it. 

(9) A division of the 1947 compensation by 12 would penalize those pilots who have lost substantial time in leaves of absence for service in the armed forces (the military service credit would not cure this), for sickness, for negotiating with the air lines, and so on. In the case of a man who, for example, lost two months in 1947 [I would suppose that this should now be made 1948, but the principle is the same], and who normally made $800 a month, and who therefore actually received $8,000 instead of $9,600, division by 12 would cut his prior service pay base from $800 a month to $666.67.