# 99030. Hamre: Y2K Won't Stop Your Pay

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By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON -- The Year 2000 computer problem won't affect 
DoD's ability to pay service members, and troops don't need 
to do anything special to protect their personnel or 
medical records, Deputy Defense Secretary John J. Hamre 
said here Jan. 14.

The Year 2000 problem, nicknamed "Y2K" and "millennium 
bug," refers to the computer industry's past practice of 
using the last two digits of years rather than all four -- 
1999 would be written "99." Old hardware and software are 
widely used and no one really knows what they'll do on Jan. 
1, 2000 -- they might treat "00" as "1900." Government and 
industry are scrambling for "compliance" -- assurance their 
systems will handle the year change correctly.

Hamre said all DoD pay systems are already Y2K-compliant, 
and DoD will continue to test the systems in March and 
April to ensure they will work. 

"It's more complicated than just, 'Will our computers 
properly calculate pay?'," Hamre said. "We have to get 
electrons over to the Treasury Department. The Treasury 
Department has to pass on those electrons to the banks. The 
banks have to spread it out all over. We have something 
like 800 banks we do business with on a day-to-day basis." 
He said DoD is working with all concerned to make sure pay 
will continue to flow.

He said personnel and medical computer systems are also 
Y2K-compliant.

Hamre said the Defense Department will be able to defend 
the United States and its vital interests in 2000 despite 
the millennium bug. He stood by his characterization from 
last October that DoD's Y2K problem will be more a 
"nuisance" than a crisis. 

"We will have about 94 percent of our systems fixed as of 
the end of March, and we absolutely will have 100 percent 
done by the end of the year," he said. As of Jan. 1, he 
noted, 1,673 of DoD's 2,304 mission-critical systems had 
been been fixed.

Hamre said Defense Secretary William S. Cohen energized the 
unified commands by declaring Y2K a "warfighter problem" 
and directing them to fix their mission-critical systems. 

Hamre said the North American Aerospace Defense Command in 
Colorado Springs, Colo., for instance, tested the 
aerospace-warning segment of its systems in December. The 
tests were robust and covered all the dates that system 
analysts believe might cause problems, he said. 

"They found there was no degradation in any of the systems, 
whether they were in the virtual Year 2000 environment or 
in the 1998 environment," said Army Lt. Col. Warren 
Patterson, a Joint Staff Year 2000 official. "Systems 
operated as they should as far as the data going into one 
end and out the other, within the prescribed timeframe. [It 
was] accurate, unambiguous, clean data. We are highly 
confident at this point that NORAD can do its early-warning 
mission."

The Atlantic, Southern, Strategic, Transportation and Space 
commands will run Y2K tests in February. Pacific Command 
will begin tests in March. Central and European commands 
and U.S. Forces, Korea, will begin testing in April. 
Commands will test both primary and backup computer 
systems, Hamre said. 

He said DoD is working with NATO allies on millennium bug 
problems. DoD has been in contact with 30 to 40 countries, 
including Russia. He said Y2K doesn't seem so urgent to the 
Russians -- "They have other problems." Still, the United 
States and Russia will cooperate on building a shared early 
warning center. Hamre said a DoD delegation will go to 
Russia to finalize plans for the center.

He said he's "comfortable" that Russia has positive control 
over its nuclear weapons. "The [computer] default for 
failure is not to launch," he said. "The default freezes 
things up. So we're not anxious that there are going to be 
accidental occurrences as a result of Y2K for nuclear 
command and control systems."

DoD also will participate in U.S. consequence support 
planning. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will 
probably be the lead element, Hamre said. DoD will set up 
its own Y2K command center and participate in Y2K 
operations in December; there is no plan now, however, to 
mobilize the Guard or active duty service members for Y2K 
operations. 

"We're not going to know the extent to which and how we 
should best support the civil sector until we go through 
some planning," Hamre said. "People shouldn't be anxious 
about that. We will be ready to support whatever has to 
happen, but we're not going to know the dimension of that 
yet for another couple of weeks. Nobody's going to lose 
their Christmas, I don't believe, worrying about that 
problem."

Hamre said the U.S. telecommunications system is in good 
shape, as is the power grid. "Will we have spot outages? 
Probably," he said. "But we'll be able to handle them."

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