Aspin drills the Army over drill priorities

Rep. Les Aspin (D) of Wisconsin claims the Army has more lieutenant colonels specializing in personnel management - 903 - than in leading infantry drill - 838, Monitor correspondent Stephen Webbe reports.

Representative Aspin maintains that ''the Pentagon bureaucracy has built an Army with lots of managers and few fighters,'' fielding more lieutenant colonels in computer and research management than in commanding tanks. Twice as many specialize in materiel management - 1,148 - as in commanding artillery - 547. There are 294 lieutenant colonel dentists, as against 223 lieutenant colonel air defense specialists, he says.

''If you could shoot down Russian airplanes with dental drills, the Army would be in great shape,'' he says. ''And if Harvard business school methods won battles, we'd have nothing to worry about."