**Sen. Ben Nelson Holds A Hearing On The Fiscal Year 2008 Budgets For
Department Of Defense Personnel Programs**

TRANSCRIPT

March 28, 2007

COMMITTEE HEARING

SEN. BEN NELSON

CHAIRMAN

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

SEN. BEN NELSON HOLDS A HEARING ON THE FISCAL YEAR 2008 BUDGETS

FOR DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PERSONNEL PROGRAMS

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U.S. SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

PERSONNEL HOLDS A HEARING ON THE FISCAL YEAR 2008 BUDGETS

FOR DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PERSONNEL PROGRAMS

MARCH 28, 2007

SPEAKERS:

SEN. BEN NELSON, D-NEB.

CHAIRMAN

SEN. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, D-MASS.

SEN. JIM WEBB, D-VA.

SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, D-MO.

SEN. CARL LEVIN, D-MICH.

EX OFFICIO

SEN. JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, I-CONN.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.

RANKING MEMBER

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, R-MAINE

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, R-GA.

SEN. ELIZABETH DOLE, R-N.C.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.

EX OFFICIO

WITNESSES:

DAVID CHU,

UNDERSECRETARY,

PERSONNEL AND READINESS,

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

THOMAS F. HALL,

ASSISTANT SECRETARY,

RESERVE AFFAIRS,

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL ROCHELLE (USA),

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF (G-1),

UNITED STATES ARMY

VICE ADMIRAL JOHN HARVEY JR. (USN),

CHIEF OF NAVAL PERSONNEL

LIEUTENANT GENERAL RONALD COLEMAN (USMC),

DEPUTY COMMANDANT,

MANPOWER AND RESERVE AFFAIRS,

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

LIEUTENANT GENERAL ROGER BRADY (USAF),

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF,

MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL,

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

STEPHEN JONES,

PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY,

HEALTH AFFAIRS,

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

NELSON: I\'ll call the subcommittee to order. And I\'d like to

say, these votes do get in the way of our business, but we have to

engage in them anyway.

The subcommittee today meets to receive testimony on the active,

Guard, Reserve and civilian personnel programs in review of the

defense authorization request for fiscal year 2008, and the future

years\' defense program. I\'d like to begin by stating how honored I am

to chair the Subcommittee on Personnel. It\'s a great honor. And I\'ll

look forward to my time as chairman.

I\'m especially grateful to have Senator Graham as the ranking

member. I\'m sorry he\'s not here to hear all these nice things I\'m

going to say about him, but we\'re going to say them about him in any

event. He and I have worked together for several years. While he was

chairman, I was the ranking member.

We\'ve always worked well together. Whatever the political

divisions of the larger Senate or the Congress, I\'ve found it quite

easy to cross the aisle during my time on the Armed Services

Committee, and particularly this subcommittee. And we all want to do

what\'s right by our service members and their families. So I look

forward to continuing the relationship with Senator Graham.

I welcome back Senators Kennedy, Lieberman, and Collins,

Chambliss and Dole to the subcommittee. I thank them for their

continued service. This year, we welcome two new senators to the

subcommittee, Senators Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill. They\'ll bring

unique insights and ideas to the subcommittee, and I look forward to

working with them.

And of course, to our witnesses, welcome.

Secretary Chu, by my account, this will be at least your ninth

appearance before this subcommittee, and you probably have not been

counting, but you should be. We appreciate your service and

dedication to our service members and their families. You\'ve provided

continuity and steady leadership in your time with the department, and

I thank you for that.

We also welcome today Dr. Stephen Jones, who hails from the great

state of South Carolina. And Senator Graham is well aware of your

presence here today, and I know that he will be joining us shortly.

Dr. Jones is the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for

health affairs.

And of course, rounding out our first panel is Secretary Thomas

F. Hall, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs.

So welcome to all of you.

The second panel will consist of the personnel chiefs from each

of the services, and I\'ll introduce them when the second panel is

seated.

We meet today as the fourth year of the war in Iraq continues to

a close, and we enter a fifth. Since the institution of the all-

volunteer force in 1973, the nation has not faced as protracted a

conflict as the one it now faces.

The force is stressed. Both the active and reserve components

are stretched thin.

It is all the services can do to ensure the readiness and mission

capability of forces deploying, redeploying, and redeploying again to

Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of this stress, soldiers and Marines are

not getting the training they would normally get to ensure their

readiness for missions outside of the current conflict.

The stress is not limited to our service members. We must not

forget their families.

The stress on the modern military family is unprecedented.

According to a recent report by the American Psychological Association

Presidential Task Force on Military Deployment Services for Youth,

Families, and Service Members, 700,000 children in this country have

at least one parent deployed away from home.

And that\'s mind-boggling to consider. In addition to those

children, there are the spouses, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and

siblings left to raise the children in the absence of their parent or

parents.

We must never lose sight of the families as we consider what

measures to take to enhance the safety and well-being of our service

members. Their family is our family.

We also face issues with the physical disability evaluation

system. Between the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, two

disparate systems exist that rate disabled veterans differently.

Moreover, the DOD system is so weighed down with bureaucracy that our

wounded soldiers have difficulty navigating the system, as the recent

hearings on the issues at Walter Reed have revealed.

Meanwhile, we\'re trying to increase the size of the Army and

Marine Corps. The administration has belatedly recognized that a

larger force was and is needed. Growing the force raises obvious

questions about recruiting and retention, as well as the right mix of

pay, bonuses and benefits to attract and retain America\'s best young

men and women.

Also, as we go down this road of increasing the Army and Marine

Corps end strength, we must be sure it\'s not growth just for the sake

of growth. The growth in our ground forces must be tied to a

strategic analysis of the global threat in the short term as well as

the long term. The growth must be directly tied to the force that is

needed to combat those threats.

Increased end strength doesn\'t come without a cost. While not

exactly a zero-sum game, there are budgetary trade-offs to growing the

force.

All of this reflects the reality that we face today. Our service

members shoulder more responsibility and are increasingly asked to do

more, and with the increased requirements comes a cost that is

difficult to bear.

We absolutely must take care of our soldiers, especially our

wounded soldiers and their families. We cannot have another Walter

Reed. We must ensure that our soldiers are properly trained and

equipped to perform the tasks we ask them to perform as well.

So on these issues, there can be no compromise. The issues we

face going forward are difficult, but not insurmountable.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on the

programs and priorities the department has identified to overcome

these challenges. When Senator Graham arrives, we\'ll ask him for his

opening statement. But for the sake of the time factor, we would ask

you if you would proceed with your opening statements.

Dr. Chu?

CHU: Delighted to do so, sir, and thank you for your very

generous comments in your introductory statement.

I am privileged to be here today to explain the programs proposed

by the Department of Defense to sustain its people in this long

conflict. I think you\'ve correctly noted the challenge we face. This

is a long-distance effort, and the fact that the nation is pursuing it

with a volunteer force is a historic decision.

We do have a joint statement for the record, which I hope you

would accept for this hearing.

NELSON: It will be accepted without objection.

CHU: Thank you, sir. It is a lengthy statement, and one might

ask, why is it so lengthy? It is lengthy because it illustrates the

complexity of sustaining a volunteer force in a long conflict, the

many different programs that we need to pursue and support in order to

be successful.

And we are very grateful for the support the Congress has given

us. It has been critical to the success we have enjoyed to date.

I can report, sir, that your all-volunteer force is in good

health today. You can see that good health in the excellent retention

statistics. The people who have joined us are staying with us, and

staying with us at high levels, despite the stress and the burdens

that they and their families bear that you so correctly identified.

You can see it also, I think, in the success in recruiting. The

four active services are meeting their recruiting goals.

I do underscore the importance of broad public support for

service in the military of the United States. It\'s a subject we

discussed before, a subject on which we can all be advocates, so that

when the young man or young woman comes home and discusses this

prospect, he or she is met with enthusiasm and interest and not with

skepticism and doubt. And I do think that is a challenge in terms of

national attitudes.

As you noted, sir, the department is expanding its capabilities.

The Air Force and the Navy are doing so with a reduction in the number

of people they think they will need in order to carry out their

responsibilities. They are importantly using the funds freed by those

reductions in order to bolster the investment accounts to buy the new

generation of equipment that\'s so essential to our long-term success.

The Army and the Marine Corps, in contrast, are increasing their

end strength at the same time the department is proposing increases in

their investment accounts, and that does mean that the Army

specifically does receive a larger share of the overall Department of

Defense budget.

We are creating additional manpower capacity through one other

route, and that is the conversion of military billets in nonmilitary

occupational areas to civil status. Through the end of this fiscal

year, we anticipate the conversion department-wide of approximately

31,000 billets, and by the end of fiscal year 2013, we think that

total will reach 55,000 on a cumulative basis.

We do need some new authority, sir, and let me highlight, if I

may, in the fiscal 2008 effort, three areas in particular that enjoy

high priority in the department\'s proposals.

First, some modest relief in terms of grade restrictions for mid-

career officers and for E-9s, refined with the advent of additional

joint headquarters, joint efforts, combined efforts, integrated

efforts, as some would describe them, where we work with nongovernment

organizations that we need more of those who are equipped to deal with

these complex issues that we face today.

Second, we would very much like to seek from the Congress broad

demonstration authority to manage officer communities in a manner

different from that which is constrained by the Defense Officer

Personnel Management Act. We would restrict that authority in terms

of its scope, so that we can try out on a limited basis what might be

promising ideas for the long term for a wider section of the force.

The third area in which we would seek new authorities has to do

with how special pays in the military are constructed, the variety of

pays and bonuses that we offer in order to provide incentive or

recompense for the duties that individuals undertake. There are now

approximately 60 different sections of statute on this point, and it\'s

often confusing to the individual member of why he or she is paid this

way in this circumstance, and a different way in another circumstance.

It\'s also a significant administrative challenge for the

department. My hope would be that we can bring these separate pay

authorities under a small number of broader headings that would make

them more efficient, make them more easily understood by our people,

and that would, at the same time, make them more effective in carrying

out our responsibility to sustain this all-volunteer force.

If I may, sir, I will turn to my colleagues, Secretary Hall and

Dr. Jones, and ask them very briefly to say a word about their areas

of responsibility. Thank you, sir.

NELSON: Secretary Hall?

HALL: Chairman Nelson, thank you for the opportunity to appear.

I appreciate what you and the other members of the committee have done

and continue to do for our young men and women serving today.

I\'m not up to Dr. Chu\'s record of nine appearances, but I believe

this is my fifth, since I\'m into my fifth year. And I believe what I

have seen is considerable progress on the way in which we train,

compensate, mobilize, and utilize our Guard and Reserve. And I\'m very

encouraged by the progress that we have made.

I served for 38 years of active duty, and I\'ve served in a draft

military. And I can tell you that the young men and women today is all

volunteers, are absolutely superb.

We\'ve mobilized almost 550,000 since the beginning of the war.

We have 74,000 guardsmen and reservists mobilized as of today. But

most significantly, that\'s 120,000 less than we had at the high-water

mark, almost five or six Army divisions less. So we are reducing the

stress on the force.

We have also published a new \-- the Secretary of Defense has a

new mobilization memo on the 19th of January. Soon after coming

aboard, he received advice and counsel, and as a result, we are

limiting our total mobilizations to one year.

We are setting metrics for both our active and our Guard and

Reserve for how and when they should deploy. We\'re looking at

mobilizing by units. We are looking at reducing, if not eliminating,

the stop-loss policy.

And for those people that might go over more frequently, we\'re

looking at a compensation policy. And I might add, I just returned

from a speaking engagement this weekend, one of many, and I have yet

to find, throughout the United States, any guardsmen, reservists,

family, or employers that don\'t support the new mobilization policy.

They think it is a move in the right direction.

Finally, I would say that I have recently chaired the working

group appointed by the secretary of defense to analyze Mr. Punaro\'s

Commission on the Guard and Reserve, and in particular, their 23

recommendations. Tomorrow, I will deliver my report to the secretary

of defense on that commission. We were given 30 days, but we finished

in 14.

And the import of that is that I know that the secretary of

defense is anxious to quickly implement in policy the changes that he

agrees with, and quickly work with you on legislation to change the

things that he needs.

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear.

NELSON: Thank you.

Dr. Jones?

JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would also like to thank

you for the opportunity to be here and discuss the nation\'s military

health system.

America\'s military health system is unquestionably the finest in

the world. Our medical professionals have performed superbly on the

battlefield, and their efforts have given us the lowest death-to-

wounded ratio and the lowest disease nonbattle injury rate that we

have witnessed in history. Once our medics are on the scene, a

remarkable 98 percent of those treated survive.

Today, I\'d like to touch basically on three areas.

One is our FY \'08 budget critical and near-term financial issues.

Secondly, the long-term plans to strengthen our health care system.

And three, our efforts to provide even a more integrated joint health

care delivery system.

Earlier this month, as you mentioned in your statement, Mr.

Chairman, Dr. Chu and Dr. Winkenwerder appeared before the full Armed

Services Committee to address the shortcomings in the outpatient

housing and care coordination for our wounded service members at

Walter Reed.

Due to a swift action by Secretary Gates in the establishment of

an independent review group combined with the DOD V.A. Commission led

by former Senator Dole and Secretary Shalala, we are already focusing

on major bureaucratic impediments we must remove to provide our

service members and their families with the responsive, well-

coordinated and professional health care services that they expect and

they deserve.

We are not confining our review to just Walter Reed, but are

conducting a broad review of all medical facilities across all

services. We are examining closely the disability determination

process with a goal of ensuring fair, consistent, and timely

adjudication of disability reviews combined with clear, regular

communications with service members and their families.

Although our reviews require additional time to develop solutions

in the long term, I do want to iterate my belief about what has not

caused the problem. The BRAC decision to close Walter Reed remains a

correct one. Our service members and all of our beneficiaries need a

modern medical facility designed for health care delivery for the 21st

century.

The decision to integrate clinical operations of both the

Bethesda and Walter Reed medical centers on the campus at Bethesda is

based on a number of compelling factors. One, better quality. A

merged medical campus will allow us to sustain leading graduate

medical education and more easily integrate and share staff with the

National Institutes of Health, which is just across the street.

Patient access: in studying the demographics of the region, the

new Fort Belvoir and the new Walter Reed National Military Medical

Center will place our facilities based on where our population lives.

And from patient satisfaction, there\'s no empty space on Walter Reed.

And if we were to have to conduct major renovations in that

medical center, we would have to go wing by wing and renovate while

patients were being treated there, which would be disruptive to

patient care and also very costly, because it\'s a very old chassis.

Secretary Gates, in a recent statement, had the request of

Senator Warner, of course, has asked us to look at accelerating the

new Walter Reed National Military Center, and those evaluations are

underway at this time, Mr. Chairman.

In addition to addressing the critical issues that have surfaced

the last two months, we must still attend to operating the rest of our

health care system. With our fiscal year 2008 health care budget

estimated at \$40 billion, we need to bring our rapidly growing costs

under control.

And as we discussed earlier, Mr. Chairman, you are aware that

left unchanged, the cost to our taxpayers by 2015 will be \$64 billion

rather than the \$40 billion that we have today. This would approach

12 percent of the DOD budget, versus the present 6 percent which was

in 2001, and we\'re at about 8 percent at our present funding level.

In the meantime, we are doing everything we can to control our

cost growth internally. We are executing our new track-year regional

contracts more efficiently. We are demanding greater efficiency

within our own medical facilities.

However, one area, pharmacy, is particularly noteworthy. Nearly

6.7 million beneficiaries use our pharmacy benefit, and in FY \'06, our

total pharmacy cost was more than \$6 billion. If we did nothing to

control our pharmacy cost, we project that those costs alone would

reach \$15 billion by 2015.

We are taking every action for which we have authority, promoting

our mandatory generic substitution policy, joint-contracting with the

Veterans Affairs, launching a mail-order promotion campaign, and

receiving utilization rebates from pharmaceutical manufacturers to

lower costs.

These efforts are working. Recent legislation passed by Congress

and other regulations limit our ability to control costs in the

fastest-growing area of pharmacy \-- the retail sector. In retail, our

products cost us 50 percent more than the same drugs as spent through

our military treatment facilities or mail-order venues.

You can help us by allowing the department to make appropriate

changes in the structure of our pharmacy benefit. These changes will

accelerate use of our new home-care delivery program, enhance the use

of generics, and give us greater leverage when negotiating with

pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Another area I want to touch on is better integration of our

health care system, and the BRAC legislation is helping us drive and

encouraging that integration.

The medical infrastructure we are creating through the BRAC will

better serve our beneficiaries through the following: improved access

to care, allow for enhanced graduate medical education, allow for

joint medical training for enlisted personnel, co-locate our medical

health headquarter elements, and through the creation of the medical

center which we talked about earlier, create a Walter Reed National

Military Medical Center.

Senator, it\'s an honor for me to work with the military medical

staff members who I associate with daily. They are exceptional and

provide superb, high-quality medical care. And we are pleased that we

believe we are serving our mission of our service members while they

are at war.

Thank you, sir.

NELSON: Thank you, Dr. Jones.

Senator Collins, do you have an opening statement you\'d like to

make?

COLLINS: No, I don\'t. Thank you.

NELSON: Thank you to the panel.

My first question will go to Dr. Chu, relating to the physical

disability evaluation system. Service members with a disability rate

of 30 percent or higher qualify for medical retirement. Those

requests are separated with severance pay.

The Center for Naval Analysis reviewed the disability ratings of

all services, and reports that 26.7 percent of airmen determined to be

unfit for duty received disability ratings of 30 percent or higher.

The other services\' award ratings are 30 percent or more to far fewer

service members.

The Army awards is 4.3 percent of the time, the Navy 4.1 percent

of the time, and the Marines 2.7 percent. Have you gone through a

review of each of the services\' disability evaluation systems to see

why there is such a disparity in disability ratings of 30 percent or

more between the Air Force and the other services?

CHU: We have looked at this issue. This system is decentralized

under broad policy guidance from the Office of the Secretary of

Defense. Let me start with that guidance.

We are about to issue revised guidance that I think will bring

greater uniformity of results and improved process from perspective of

all stakeholders in this important set of decisions. Yes, it is

decentralized. Therefore, you would expect to see some variation by

service.

I\'m not sure I would necessarily agree with the specific figures

that CNA has there. I do know that it is interesting, and this is in

contrast to a recent GAO report that there is a fair amount of

stability within any one service in the pattern of decisions year over

year, plus the fact that the bulk of decisions accrue from nonwar

issues, that they are there in peacetime.

A significant factor, of course, is decisions about persons who

have reached 20 years of service retiring by virtue of longevity, not

by virtue of disability. And that is one reason that you will see

some differences in service figures, because the fraction of each

cohort that reaches retirement eligibility does differ across the

services. There is in the department a presumption of fitness to

serve if you have served for 20 years, in terms of offering a

disability rating.

NELSON: In regard to that, if someone came with a 30 percent

disability, and they\'re not retiring, would they receive a 30 percent

disability from the Army? But what might they receive from the V.A.

if they were unable to continue to serve?

CHU: That\'s an important question, sir. As you are suggesting,

as you appreciate, the statutes governing disability ratings for the

two departments differ. Our statute emphasizes fitness to serve. The

V.A. statute emphasizes loss of civilian earnings power for which

physical condition is a proxy.

So it is not surprising that you will get different ratings out

of the two systems, particularly for those individuals being evaluated

at the normal retirement, where there are those people who have served

20 years or more and who are retiring by virtue of years of service.

A further reason for differences between the two agencies, as you

appreciate, is that ours is a one-time evaluation, a snapshot at the

time of departure. The V.A. evaluation, however, is properly

continuous, and so if the condition worsens, or if the effects of age

exacerbate a condition, the V.A. does change the rating \-- generally

in an upward direction, over time.

I do think there\'s a fundamental question here, as we testified

earlier to the full committee, as I know you appreciate. And that is,

why does the country have three different systems to compensate for

disability in military service?

Social Security pays in some instances. There\'s one set of

constraints about what that benefit can look like. V.A. pays in many

other circumstances, and DOD pays in many of those same circumstances.

And I understand from the recipient\'s perspective, this is confusing.

Should we be looking long-term after the various review panels

have reported at whether some unification of these three systems and

some clarity about the principles that together they should follow, as

opposed to separate and different principles? Is that a meritorious

step? I think that\'s one big question out there for us to consider.

NELSON: What do you think the likelihood is that you could get a

single system, given the differences?

CHU: I think this goes fundamentally to the responsibilities on

Capitol Hill and on Pennsylvania Avenue, and that is, can we agree on

the set of principles under which the systems should run? In other

words, is there a single cohesive set of principles that they are to

follow?

And if we can get that agreement, I think we can devise a set of

mechanisms that would be effective, and perhaps much less confusing,

and one would hope less frustrating to the beneficiary population.

NELSON: Is it possible to go ahead and begin some sort of

preliminary work to see what might be developed with principles first,

and then an effort toward smoothing out the differences to the extent

possible?

CHU: Yes, sir, and I think we have three important sources of

findings that can help us. In 2003, if I recall the date correctly,

Congress required there be constituted a Commission on Veterans

Disability.

It has been working under the chairmanship of retired Lieutenant

General Terry Scott these last several years. It has a reporting date

of October of this year, and I think that will be an important set of

evidentiary findings from a group that has been working this problem

for some time.

Second, of course, we have the two more recently appointed

groups, the group that is the commission created by the president, co-

chaired by Senator Dole and Secretary Shalala, and then the group

appointed by the Department of Defense, with former Army Secretaries

Marsh and West as the co-chairmen. They report much more rapidly.

In addition, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs chairs a task

force for the president on what can we do within existing law, and we

are likewise conducting similar reviews inside the Department of

Defense. But the short answer is yes, sir. I think we can begin that

task sooner rather than later.

NELSON: All right. And would we be able to get the seamless

transition in the process as well? In other words, if you get a

nearly single system, will that carry over, so that when somebody

becomes a veteran through retirement as opposed to being wounded and

unable to continue in that position?

CHU: Sir, my personal belief is that almost by definition, if we

have a single system, many of the current seams disappear. There will

still be record-transfer issues. There will still be issues how to

manage cases as you move from one status to another. I think some of

those can be solved with existing administrative authority.

We have already been working, as I know you appreciate, with the

Veterans Affairs Department for several years now on how we can make

the existing system more seamless in character. I think we basically

are making progress in that regard with the Benefits Delivery at

Discharge Program, for example, in trying to create a single

examination as the standard going forward, with memoranda of agreement

at every location in the United States now. There is more to be done

on that front.

NELSON: Dr. Jones, the department has been working hard to

implement a reliable, effective electronic health records system

called AHLTA. In your joint written testimony, you stated that the

military health system has \"successfully completed worldwide

deployment of AHLTA.\"

If this system is so good, why is it so difficult for the

department to provide military medical records to the V.A. in a timely

manner? Is the AHLTA system ready to be merged with the V.A.\'s

electronic records system to create a joint records system? If not,

what needs to be done to get this accomplished?

JONES: Senator, as of November \'06, we did complete AHLTA

worldwide, which means that presently, in all of our 138 facilities,

AHLTA \-- traditionally, the first phase is an outpatient module, which

of course allows us to operate on the battlefield and get that

information back to the providers in Lonsdale, and of course back at

Walter Reed or Bethesda.

The V.A. system traditionally has been an inpatient system, and

again, they are inpatient-based historically. If you look at our

priorities at the military health system, our next priority is an

inpatient system, an inpatient module that would be placed into AHLTA.

The V.A. \-- their VistA system, I understand, is based on an

older operating system called MUMPS, and they will have to replace and

rejuvenate that system. So our two secretaries have asked that we

look, between the V.A. and DOD, do a study to see if we can\'t possibly

draw up requirements where we could use the same system. And we are

presently doing that.

And then our third challenge, Senator, would be, how do we

communicate with those private physicians and private hospitals?

Because, as you know, many of our beneficiaries use TRICARE, and we

would like to be able to get those medical records back into AHLTA

from the private sector. And of course, that\'s a longer-term

solution.

In the interim, our information technology folks in both the V.A.

and DOD have been working very hard to transfer data. We\'ve presently

transferred 3.6 million records, which V.A. has access to those who

have retired or separated from service. We have a number of projects

ongoing which provide real-time data back and forth in a number of

facilities, and we\'re giving that great priority, Senator.

NELSON: Well, with the effort underway to merge, what\'s the

timeline \-- if you get a hard timeline \-- to anticipate the merger?

JONES: Well, the study that we are presently doing, we hope that

will be completed by this summer. And of course, if we get the green

light, that those requirements are like enough for us to have one

inpatient record, then we would begin implementing that, doing the

necessary development work and RFPs to make that happen, sir.

NELSON: Secretary Hall, in your capacity as assistant secretary

of defense for Reserve Affairs, I\'m going to read you the

recommendation from the Commission on the National Guard \-- some of

the recommendations. \"The Commission on the National Guard and

Reserves recently submitted its second report to Congress. In the

report, the Commission recommended that the grade of the Chief of the

National Guard Bureau should be increased to four stars, but that the

chief should not be made a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.\" Now,

in your views, and in your position, are these your views as well?

HALL: As I mentioned, I chaired the working group on not only

these two, but the other 21 recommendations, and I will submit my

report tomorrow with my thoughts and comments on those to the

secretary of defense. And I think it would be premature for me to

discuss those.

But I will tell you what the secretary of defense has said on the

record on both of those issues, and he\'s said that, I think, in

testimony and before two public forums. So these were what he said,

and I think I can correctly indicate.

He said that if the position of the chief of the National Guard

Bureau has the responsibilities attached to it that rises to the four-

star rank, he would support that. On the second one, he said he did

not support membership of the chief of the National Guard Bureau on

the Joint Staff.

And that\'s his two public statements on that. The rest of them

we will have to see after the report goes in.

NELSON: So your views are consistent with that conclusion?

HALL: I support the secretary\'s views on that, certainly.

(LAUGHTER)

NELSON: Just wanted to see if we could get you to stumble.

HALL: But this is my fifth hearing, so I certainly support

those.

(LAUGHTER)

NELSON: You\'ve been learning.

Senator Collins?

COLLINS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Jones, I want to ask you about an issue that some Guard

members in Maine have raised to me about what they believe is a gap in

our system of military health care. And I\'m not certain their

understanding is correct, but if it is, it suggests there are

situations where those who serve and have been injured fall through

the cracks, so I want to describe what these Guard members told a

member of my staff.

They pointed out that when an active-duty service member returns

from overseas and requires either physical or mental health care, he

or she goes to the military medicine system and relies upon that

structure. Similarly, when a reservist or a National Guard member who

has suffered injuries, whether they\'re physical injuries or mental

injuries while on active duty while they were deployed, and those are

serious enough that the Guard member or reservist is separated from

the military, he or she can turn to the V.A. system for treatment.

But these Guard members who talked to my staff believe that

there\'s a gap that occurs when a reservist or a National Guard member

returns who has suffered physical or mental injuries, but goes back to

the civilian job, and continues to drill and participate with the

Reserves or Guard \-- they believe that that individual falls through

the cracks, that they\'re not eligible for the active-duty military

system, they\'re not eligible for the V.A. system. Are they correct in

telling me that?

JONES: Well, I would say that because of what Congress passed \--

the Guard and Reserve \-- the TRICARE Select last year, made available

to all members of the Guard and Reserve. TRICARE Select is for them

and their families, regardless of whether they are drilling, on active

duty, whatever the status.

And for a pay of 28 percent, you can enroll either yourself or

your family, so you may go into that system. Prior to that, we did

not have that. But that will allow, and that\'s to be implemented \--

it\'s being worked on now, it\'ll be implemented in the fall \-- by
which

they can remain in the TRICARE system for this pay, even if they are

in a drilling status or active duty.

COLLINS: I was aware of that, but that\'s if they buy into the

TRICARE system. I\'m talking about a Guard member who has post-

traumatic stress syndrome, has come back, is now re-employed in the

civilian sector, does not participate in TRICARE \-- let\'s say it\'s

uninsured in the civilian job. How does that person get treatment for

injuries that were suffered while that person was on active duty \--

the lingering impact?

CHU: Senator, as I suspect you are aware, they are on a lifetime

basis, whether drilling or not, eligible for V.A. care for any

service-connected disabilities.

COLLINS: Even though they haven\'t separated?

CHU: V.A. care is based upon the fact that you were injured on

active service. In addition, you have a two-year window after release

from active duty in which you do not have to have demonstrated the

ailment was service-connected. You only have to say, \"I think it

was.\" You can show up at the V.A. The V.A. opens generously its

services to you.

In further addition, on the TRICARE front, Congress within the

last few years changed the statute so that you have six months

coverage of TRICARE after release from active duty. So taking it from

the other way around, there\'s six months TRICARE coverage after

release from active duty.

There\'s two years, essentially no questions asked, if it is even

believed to be service-connected V.A. And once it\'s established as

service-connected, then you have a lifetime entitlement to V.A. care.

So if you have Maine Guards personnel who are complaining, I

think the challenge is about, how do we communicate better? Where

else can we take that back for action? How do we communicate better?

Here\'s how you deal with the issue, and maybe we should start

with that. You have a problem, and you\'re in this status, here\'s what

you do. Because there is recourse.

JONES: And Senator, we\'ll be glad to get with your staff and get

the particulars, and if there\'s some way that we can be of assistance

that we aren\'t providing, we will do so.

COLLINS: That would be helpful. This came to us, as I said,

from the Veterans Coordinating Committee in Maine, and it sounds like

there\'s not a full understanding of what\'s available.

JONES: And Senator, I might mention one other thing. Congress

last year, of course, mandated that we set up a mental health task

force, and that mental health task force has been meeting now and will

be reporting, I think in June or July, to the secretary.

We believe that we are, of course, still providing adequate

mental health care and coverage. However, this task force has been

out there, been on 30 bases and facilities. So we will look forward

to that report, and of course again, it might bring up gaps that we

need to look at, and we will do so.

COLLINS: Thank you.

Another issue that I\'m hearing more and more about from my

constituents is the prevalence of traumatic brain injuries from

explosions in Iraq that have been misdiagnosed as post-traumatic

stress syndrome. A neurologist from Maine met with me a couple of

weeks ago who personally had caught a case where there was a physical

injury that had not been caught, and therefore was not being

appropriately treated.

That\'s very disturbing, obviously, and because of the number of

IEDs in Iraq, I suspect we\'re seeing more and more traumatic brain

injuries. What plans do you have to either do better screening for

traumatic brain injury or have some other way to make sure that we\'re

screening for this? Because it\'s been called the silent killer \--

it\'s difficult to detect and diagnose \-- and I\'m very concerned about

this, based on the conversations that I\'ve had with this neurologist.

JONES: Senator, we too are concerned, and as you say, with the

number of IEDs, this is getting to be a number of our wounded warriors

are impacted by that. The Department of Defense and the Veterans

Affairs have invested considerable resources over the last 10 to 15

years looking at TBI, but much more needs to be done. And we have

added screening questions now on our post-deployment and our post-

redeployment reassessment and application program.

We\'ve also charged the Army, along with our deputy assistant

secretary for force protection, to look at all of their programs that

we have in the TBI area, and to look at a comprehensive approach, and

again, the way ahead, as you suggest. And in fact, we had a discussion

with the surgeon generals this morning about that. And Don Arthur \--

of course, the surgeon general of the Navy \-- he had TBI, so he has a

personal professional interest in this, and he also will be working

with us to develop a plan, hopefully which we will have ready by

August.

COLLINS: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I know that you\'ve got a whole another panel, so

I\'ll submit my other questions for the record. But just so you know

what I would have asked, it has to do with the disparity between

benefits for Guard members and reservists versus active-duty, now that

we\'re treating them so much more alike than ever before. And I will

submit that one to the record, because I know we\'re going to have more

votes.

Thank you, and I\'m very pleased to hear about the screening

questions for post-deployment. That is exactly what this physician

suggested needed to be done, and I think that\'s really going to help.

Thank you.

NELSON: Thank you, Senator. And your other questions will be

recorded for the record.

I\'ve gotten a message that Senator Graham is unable to be with

us, but we have received a statement from Ms. B. Stephens regarding

funding for Department of Defense schools, and if there\'s no

objection, it will be included in the record as well.

Thank you.

I think there\'s one further question pertaining to cost leveling.

Secretary Chu, you were quoted in the commission report explaining the

cross-leveling issue as, quote, \"a difference in perspective between

the operational chain of authority in the military service and the

personnel community.\" Maybe you can help explain what you mean by

that statement.

CHU: Yes, sir. But let me preface it by saying that the

secretary has made a decision that going forward for reserve units, we

will aim at mobilizing point by a unit basis, in other words, that we

should end cross-leveling as a practice as far as Reserve complements

are concerned.

The origin of my statement to the commission is the reality that

at any moment in time, a unit has a certain number of people who are

either missing, so those are not filled, or unable to deploy for

whatever reason. The Army standard is that active units should have

less than 4 percent in the last category, so that the personnel

community often does have to move people from another unit to the

deploying unit, whether it\'s active or Reserve.

So from the personnel community\'s perspective, cross-leveling is

a natural phenomenon, done all the time to put the unit in the right

shape. In fact, many Army units are deploying at more than 100

percent strength, increased \-- by definition, you have to move extra

people into the unit.

The operational community tends to see the unit as a single

entity, and it is somewhat opaque to that community how that came to

be, in other words, how did those people show up, why are they there,

why when I have a formation in the morning, is 100 percent strength

standing in front of me?

And that was a difference in perspective I was trying to

describe. The operational community would like to see it treated as a

unit, does not like to see movement in and out, because of course that

presents leadership and training challenges. But the reality within

the personnel community is that we move people all the time.

NELSON: Do you think that the security of the unit is at risk in

part because of the fact that it\'s a synthetic unit as opposed to one

that has been training and deployed, maybe on other occasions, or

having at least trained together and have operated together?

CHU: The cross-leveling, to the extent it was done in the past,

was typically done before the unit training, and I\'m speaking now

specifically of Reserve units \-- importantly Reserve units \-- before

the unit training began. So it should be completed before the

training occurs. The training by itself provides an opportunity for

the unit to come together and to understand how it\'s going to work as

an effective single body.

Further, and again, this is the personnel community\'s

perspective, it depends obviously on the practice and the issues that

occur on the battlefield. But we do send replacements to units in

order to bring them back to the strength at which they need to be in

order to operate effectively. So again, there\'s always integration

and leadership challenges when that occurs.

HALL: Could I comment just a second on that?

CHU: Yes, please.

HALL: From my personal experience, in my active-duty time, I

commanded a lot of units and a lot of squadrons and deployed

frequently, and I never deployed with the same unit the next year that

I had the year before. And I found that the single most important

factor in success of a unit and cohesion is leadership. You were

given new people, you were expected to exert leadership, and so I

think that is the single most important fact, not that you had new

people.

Thank you.

NELSON: Do you feel that our troops being deployed have adequate

training, equipment, and preparation to be deployed now?

CHU: Yes, sir, that is our standard, that they should have the

gear they need when they are in theater. That doesn\'t always mean

they have that same gear back in the United States, so there may be a

few items to train on in the training status. They do completely,

typically, training in Kuwait before they go into Iraq.

And so again, how they leave the United States is not quite the

status that they achieve when they arrive in the actual area of

operations. But yes, sir, that is our standard.

HALL: And I might mention, I went to Kuwait up on the Udairi

Range just before our troops pass over into Iraq. And I went out and

asked each and every one of them, \"Do you feel you have the equipment,

do you feel you have the training?\"

And then what we do is visit the units after they come back and

ask them, \"What training did we give you that was not so useful? What

was the most useful training?\" So we use that as a measure, and I\'m

confident that we are very close in what we need to do based upon

their answers that they have the right equipment and the right

training, both before and after they go.

NELSON: OK, thank you.

Secretary Jones, in terms of what we\'re attempting to do to

smooth the relationships between the Department of Defense and

Veterans Affairs agencies, do you think we\'re on the right road to

getting that smooth, so that all those differences can be either

corrected or modified to some extent so that they\'re not as burdensome

to our forces?

JONES: Mr. Chairman, I think with the JEC, which is Joint

Executive Council, the HEC, which is Health Executive Council, and the

BEC, which is the Benefits Executive Council, we have a closer working

relationship with the V.A.

We have a strategic plan which has over 20 elements and goals in

it, which we monitor every day. If you look on the ground as well as

in headquarters, the local folks in the markets and the local folks

here in town want to make it work. And I believe we\'re making

significant progress.

NELSON: We all understand that Dr. Chu\'s been here nine times,

and I suspect it\'ll be 10. And we\'ll be asking you for an update at

that time, expecting to hear that all these things have been resolved.

Thank you.

CHU: All right, sir. Thank you.

NELSON: Well, at this time I\'d like to welcome our second panel,

consisting of the military personnel chiefs of each of the military

branches. Lieutenant General Michael D. Rochelle, the United States

Army; Vice Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr., United States Navy; Lieutenant

General Ronald S. Coleman, United States Marine Corps; and Lieutenant

General Roger A. Brady, United States Air Force.

We salute your dedicated service to your respective services and

to the men and women of the armed services and their families, and I

say welcome and thank you for being here today. And at this point, we

would accept your oral comments, and if you have written comments that

you want to be submitted, please let us know and we will submit them

for the record unless you state otherwise.

General Rochelle, please let us know what\'s happening in your

branch.

ROCHELLE: Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for the opportunity,

and I respectfully submit for the record my written comments.

Chairman Nelson and distinguished members of the committee, thank

you for the opportunity to appear before you today representing the

more than 1 million young men and women who are proudly serving in

this great Army of yours. I am indeed privileged and honored to

represent them today.

This all-volunteer force is proving itself each and every day,

and I say that for my comrades sitting here and their Coast Guardsmen,

Marines, airmen, and sailors who are serving as well. But as I speak

to you today, nearly 600,000 soldiers are serving on active duty in 80

countries, soldiers from every state and territory, soldiers from

every corner of this great nation and country, proudly serving the

people of the United States and doing so with honor and distinction.

We are one Army, with active and reserve forces serving together

around the globe, and we are truly Army strong. Success of the all-

volunteer Army starts with recruiting, Mr. Chairman. And we compete

today for very high-quality human resources in a tough market, a

robust economy, and with pressures from both industry and an improving

economy, and very low unemployment rates.

In 2006, the Army achieved great success, with more than 175,000

qualified men and women answering the call to duty. The active Army

enlisted more qualified personnel, men and women, than any previous

year since 1997. This year, the total Army recruiting mission is over

171,000 recruits, as always, exceeding the combined recruiting

missions of all the other services.

The Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are applying several

innovative measures to bring fully-qualified men and women into the

reserve component. Last year, the Army National Guard achieved its

best recruiting effort in the last 14 years.

And we will closely monitor reserve-component Army Reserve

recruiting as well as National Guard recruiting, and ensure that they

are a resource for success, employing a number of best practices of

the Army National Guard to bolster Army Reserve recruiting efforts.

With over half the year remaining, I remain very optimistic that we

will exceed our goals in the active component and the National Guard.

Fiscal year 2006 presented challenges in health care recruiting,

and I would be delighted to address those, subject to your questions.

Any recruiting program is most effective when equipped with the

right mix of incentives, and the Army\'s program is no different.

Thanks to this body, sir, many new incentives enacted include the

increased enlistment age, which brought nearly 600 new soldiers into

the Army, the expansion of the \$1,000 referral bonus to \$2,000, which

gained us nearly 2,500 qualified soldiers in uniform, and the increase

in the bonuses above \$20,000 cash bonus, which resulted in over 5,000

soldiers enlisted.

Additionally, the Army implemented the first pilot program

granted us under the 2006 NDAA \-- National Defense Authorization Act

\-- recruiting incentive authority, called the Recruiter Incentive Pay

Program. This year, we will implement the next, and that is the

Officer Accession Bonus Program. With congressional support for the

required incentive trust fund this year, the Army expects the Army

Advantage Fund to be a large market impact for Army recruiting.

Finally, I\'d like to assure you of the quality of our soldiers,

and without exception, each soldier who enlists in the Army is

qualified for his or her military occupational specialty. Since the

inception of the all-volunteer force, we have maintained the OD

quality standards, which are much more stringent than in statute. We

do not and will not seek different standards.

Thanks to your assistance with recruiting incentives, and thanks

to the patriotism of the next greatest generation, we are meeting our

recruiting goals, and will grow the force to 547,000 by fiscal year

2012\. Our efforts to maintain your all-volunteer Army require your

continued support, Mr. Chairman, for the appropriate levels of

authorities and resources.

We need full support for the funding requested in the FY \'07

supplemental, and the FY \'08 president\'s budget to support the Army

manning requirements. I ask for your continued commitment to

encourage all who are qualified to answer this nation\'s call to duty.

Once again, sir, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before

you today.

NELSON: Thank you, General.

Admiral Harvey?

HARVEY: Thank you, sir. I have submitted a statement, and

request that it be entered in the record.

NELSON: It will be.

HARVEY: Sir, again, thank you for the opportunity to appear

before you today. We are extremely grateful for your sustained

support for the United States Navy, which enables us to get the job

done for this nation every day around the globe.

The men and women of our Navy continue to perform exceptionally

well, helping to bring certainty to an uncertain world. Our Navy

total force continues to perform its traditional at-sea role, as we

see today with the dual battle group operations being carried out in

the Persian Gulf at a particularly sensitive time, while increasing

our support in nontraditional missions, as we see today with over

12,000 sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan contributing to

operations there.

Our challenge is clear: sustain our core capabilities and

readiness while building a future fleet increasingly capable of

applying influence from the sea, in the littorals, and ashore. For

the past five years, our focus has been on sizing the force, ensuring

we had the right number of billets and filling every billet with a

sailor.

Today, we are focusing on shaping and stabilizing the force,

ensuring we have the right fit between the knowledge, skills, and

abilities required by a billet and those possessed by the sailor

filling that billet, ensuring that we can easily adjust both based on

changes in future war-fighting requirements. This shift in focus from

fill to fit requires profound changes in the way we do business, in

our recruiting, personnel management, distribution, training, and

compensation processes, in order to meet the challenge of delivering

tomorrow\'s force.

It is one of my core beliefs that Cold War-era recruiting and

retention strategies will not sustain us into our future. Given a

shrinking talent pool with decreased propensity for military service,

changing demographics reflecting significant growth in immigrant and

minority populations present both challenges and great opportunities

to capitalize on America\'s growing diversity, and will yield a

stronger, more cohesive, and more capable fighting force.

Low unemployment and sustained economic growth are increasing the

competition for the best and brightest talent in our nation. Meeting

our recruiting goals for a high-quality force that we must have in the

future is becoming increasingly challenging, particularly in specific

critical skill areas.

Retention dynamics are also changing, as a new generation of

sailors influenced by a variety of career choices offering portable

incentive packages and exceptional training and education

opportunities are less likely to remain with a single employer for a

long career. They will opt instead for frequent job changes over that

career.

While our existing pay and compensation, personnel management and

retirement systems have served us extraordinarily well over many

generations, it is now time to consider comprehensive reform. It is

imperative that we establish a competitive, fair, and flexible

construct responsive to today\'s rapidly changing operational and

market-based environment.

We seek your support for military pay reforms essential to

keeping faith with our troops and responding to changing

circumstances. Consolidating more than 60 existing special incentive

pays into roughly eight pays with a sufficient expenditure ceiling

would offer a host of advantages in efficiency, flexibility, and

effectiveness.

Improved agility is also needed in our personnel management

authorities, policies, and practices. For example, existing DOPMA

grade limitations inhibit our flexibility to align our personnel to

current and projected force structure requirements.

We have become a far more joint and senior force, reduced in size

but with a vastly increased war-fighting capability. As our end

strength stabilizes, our need for more senior and experienced sailors

to serve in this joint force continues to increase.

We are currently operating at the very limits of our statutory

control grade limits. Consequently, we are suppressing billet grades

to comply with our statutory constraints.

Similarly, adjustments to military grade authorities are

important in recognizing the contemporary responsibilities of our

senior enlisted force, particularly those in the top two enlisted

ranks. A modest increase in authorization would address emerging

requirements for senior enlisted leadership for an increasing number

of high-tech, less manpower-intensive units between robust

capabilities.

Limited military personnel demonstration authority, similar to

that authorized for civilian personnel, would allow us to try

different approaches to contemporary problems, identify the best of

breed, and present the solution to you in the Congress in the course

of seeking new legislation. Such pilot authority can accelerate

productive change in shaping and developing our military force.

As we build the future Navy, and prepare our people to meet the

demands of this very dynamic and dangerous world, we will continue to

improve total force readiness, stabilize our force, and increase our

capability to respond whenever and wherever called upon.

Thank you again, sir, for your unwavering support for our

sailors, and I am now prepared to answer any questions you may have,

sir.

NELSON: Thank you, Admiral.

General Coleman?

COLEMAN: Good afternoon, sir, and I have submitted a \...

NELSON: It will be received.

COLEMAN: Thank you, sir.

Chairman Nelson, Senator Graham, and distinguished members of the

subcommittee, it is a privilege to appear before you today to discuss

the Marine Corps policy and program. I want to first thank you for

all your continued support of our Marines and their families. The

commitment of Congress to increase in the war fighting and crisis

response capabilities of our nation\'s armed forces, and to improve the

quality of life for Marines, is central to the strength that your

Marine Corps enjoys today.

I would like to make three points. First, in FY \'06, the Marine

Corps exceeded its mission in both recruiting and retention. In doing

so, we continue to exceed DOD quality standards in recruiting. We

also achieved over 90 percent military occupational specialty match in

first-term enlistments, and over 94 percent in career force.

Second, in FY \'07, the Marine Corps is off to a strong start in

both recruiting and retention. We were initially on pace to meet or

exceed our FY \'06 results. As part of the plan to increase our end

strength to 200,200 by FY \'11, we\'re now planning to increase our end

strength to 184,000 by the end of FY \'07.

Consequently, we recently increased both our recruiting and

retention missions significantly. These new missions will present

challenges for our recruiters, commanders, and career retention

specialists, but we believe we will meet the challenge. Key to our

success will be the additional funding that we have applied to both

our enlisted bonus and selectively in bonus programs.

Third, the increased Marine Corps end strength will enable your

Marine Corps to better train across the war-fighting spectrum, respond

to other conflicts and crises, and reduce the strains on our Marines

and units. Meeting the end-strength growth requirements will require

us to continue to increase our recruiting and retention goals. The

Marine Corps will also increase the number of recruiters, expand

marketing and advertising efforts, and increase enlistment and re-

enlistment incentives.

We ask for your support in authorizing funding these programs.

With these important tools, we will be able to continue to attract and

retain the best and brightest.

Thank you. Your Marine Corps remains the nation\'s force in

readiness, and will continue to fill its mission of being the most

ready when the nation is least ready. I look forward to answering

your questions.

NELSON: Thank you, General Coleman.

General Brady?

BRADY: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be here

today to talk with you about your Air Force. Let me begin by thanking

you and the committee for the tremendous support you have provided for

our airmen over many years.

As you know, the Air Force has been compelled to make difficult

decisions to optimize the dollars available in our budget. Our need

to recapitalize an aging fleet, coupled with the continued high

operations tempo, led to a lesser-of-evils decision to manage the risk

of significantly reducing our end strength.

While we\'re not totally comfortable with this draw-down, we

cannot compromise on recapitalization. Our modernization effort

remains critical to providing combatant commanders with the war

fighting capabilities required to prevail in the operating domains of

air, space, and cyberspace.

The Air Force has been very successful in meeting the ever-

increasing demands of the Global War on Terror while also transforming

into a more agile and capable force. This success can be attributed

in large measure to our Air Force Expeditionary Force rotation

construct that operates on a 20-month life cycle. Despite a very high

operations tempo, through the AEF construct, we have met all combatant

commander requirements, maximized quality of life by introducing

predictability, integrated Air Reserve component forces to meet

requirements, and avoided the use of stop-loss.

As the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps plan for significant

increases to bolster combat capability, we should be aware that there

will be a commensurate requirement for an increase in Air Force

manpower to ensure the effectiveness of the interdependent joint team.

Our air mobility units are intrinsically tied to supporting ground

forces, with the mobility required to deploy and be supplied anywhere

in the world.

Our weather teams, tactical air controllers, and other forces are

embedded with or closely tied to ground forces. The Air Force

provides the full range of air assets as part of the interdependent

joint fight, including special forces and intelligence, surveillance,

and reconnaissance assets.

Critically important since inception of the GWOT has been care of

our wounded in action, seriously injured, and ill airmen and their

families. Palace HART, which stands for Helping Airmen Recover

Together, is our Air Force program for taking care of wounded

warriors.

Immediately upon learning of injury to an airman, a family

liaison officer from the airman\'s unit is assigned to the airman\'s

family. This airman maintains close contact with the family and helps

them with whatever they need, and serves as a personal contact to

ensure the family and the airman can access all the support they need.

This individual is the wingman who remains with the airman and the

family from initial notification to recovery.

Palace HART follows airmen and their families for up to five

years beyond separation from the service to assist with extended

transition assistance, employment applications, civilian job searches,

financial planning and assistance, relocation, and integration back

into the civilian community.

Today\'s airmen are performing at the high standards that have

been our hallmark for as long as there have been American airmen. Our

airmen are fully prepared and engaged today, and we must continue to

invest in the tools they need to ensure tomorrow\'s airspace and

cyberspace dominance.

The Air Force has taken prudent actions to ensure we remain the

most respected air and space force in the world. We appreciate your

unfailing support to the men and women of our Air Force, and I look

forward to your questions.

NELSON: Thank you, General.

General Rochelle, what is the Army\'s actual end strength today?

ROCHELLE: The Army\'s actual end strength today, sir, is 507,000.

NELSON: Can we reach 518,000 by the end of this fiscal year?

ROCHELLE: Sir, we can reach 518,000, and we plan to reach

518,000 by the end of this fiscal year.

NELSON: Well, if we scale down the presence in Iraq in the next

year, I think as the American people expect, would you believe that

547,000 will be the right number for our end strength at that time?

ROCHELLE: Sir, I wish I could predict the future that

accurately, but I\'m afraid I cannot. My commitment is to get us to

547,400, and then see where we are strategically, see where our nation

stands with respect to the Global War on Terror, and then take it from

there.

NELSON: With respect to the recruiting goals, as of January, the

Army\'s end strength is, say, about 502,000, going to 518,000. But how

can the Army increase its end strength by 7,000 per year without

increasing the recruiting goals?

ROCHELLE: I\'m glad you asked that question, Mr. Chairman. It\'s

a combination of three things.

First of all, what we anticipate to be very successful recruiting

above the 80,000 regular Army mission that U.S. Army Recruiting

Command has, extraordinarily successful retention rates \-- and most

especially those retention rates are highest across our deployed and

recently deployed forces \-- and extraordinary success in lowering

attrition in initial entry training, down from 2004, about 18.4

percent, to 7 percent today.

NELSON: I heard you say that you\'re not lowering your standards.

Several of my colleagues have raised questions about whether or not

that is the case, raising questions in the sense that saying I hope

that changing the admission requirements doesn\'t actually lower the

standards. Can you assure me and my colleagues that we\'re not dumbing

down just to try to make the goals?

ROCHELLE: Sir, one can make a case depending on your point of

departure. I had the good fortune of commanding U.S. Army Recruiting

Command in 2004, when based upon market conditions, based upon

unemployment rates, based upon how close we were at that point to

September 11th, if you will, it was easy to bring our quality marks

extraordinarily high.

We are in a different climate today. Admiral Harvey spoke to it

quite well. Propensity is declining.

Now let me go back to the point of departure. The point of

departure should be from the Department of Defense standards with

respect to high school degree completion rates, 1A to 3A upper mental

category rates, and Cat IV rates. And we will meet all of those, as I

said, in my oral statement.

NELSON: OK, thank you. And continuing, General Rochelle,

Secretary Gates ordered the services to report to him by the end of

February their plan for, I think his word was, \"minimizing\" the use of

stop-loss. Does the Army have a plan to minimize its use of stop-

loss, and can you tell me where we are in that process right now?

ROCHELLE: Sir, we have submitted a proposal to the Office of the

Secretary of Defense laying out our plan to minimize stop-loss. There

is no mandate to eliminate stop-loss. I\'d like to make that a matter

of the record. Nor is there a mandate, as I said.

But we have submitted that plan to the secretary of defense. It

includes many things, such as attempting to ensure that we are not

assigning individuals to a unit that is in the ready phase. And as

you know, Mr. Chairman, that becomes a challenge, however, given the

fact that we are now accelerating many of our units.

But those are the types of things that we are proposing. We

believe we can minimize stop-loss.

NELSON: And what would \"minimize\" consist of? Using it less for

a shorter period of time, or what does minimizing consist of?

ROCHELLE: Excellent question, Mr. Chairman.

Let me give you my definition. At any given time between our

active component and our reserve component \-- both elements of the

reserve component \-- the Army has roughly 10,000 soldiers who are

stop-lossed. Seven thousand of those are active, 3,000 are Reserve

and National Guard. Minimizing, in my definition, means that we

reduce those numbers across both components to the optimum levels

possible.

NELSON: Thank you.

Admiral Harvey and General Brady, as you are reducing your end

strength, are you of the opinion that you\'re not reducing or drawing

down too fast? Start with you, General Brady.

BRADY: Well, I think that our draw-down plan has been driven in

large measure by our need to recapitalize a rapidly aging fleet. And

we have accelerated our draw-down to accommodate that reality. What

we have done is to make sure that as we draw down, we are focusing on

retaining those skills and the appropriate numbers to make sure that

we support the AEF, in other words, the support of the war fighter

forward is our primary responsibility, and we\'ve not compromised any

in that regard, nor in the training of the people that are going

forward to do that.

So as I mentioned in my oral statement, this is a challenge, and

we shouldn\'t fool ourselves. We think we are managing some risk in

doing this, but it is the budgetary situation that we find ourselves

in.

NELSON: But you do believe you\'re managing the risk that this

presents?

BRADY: Yes, sir, we do.

NELSON: Admiral Harvey, the same question, I guess.

HARVEY: Yes, sir. Well, we started down this road about four

years ago, and to the point you made in your statement about the war

being with us for four years, at that time, we had five carrier battle

groups, four deployed, with a sixth coming out the gate, 80,000

sailors deployed to support the opening first months of OIF. We had

300,000 sailors ashore in that force, about 385,000 total.

Today, we have 342,000 on the active component. We have five

carrier battle groups underway, three for deployed, two in training.

We have the requisite number of sailors ashore to do the work ashore.

So the draw-down has been carefully mapped out, and we\'ve

followed that path pretty religiously for the last four years. And

its focused first on the work, what is it we have to do.

We now have the BRAC, so our infrastructure is known. We have a

fleet target of about 313 ships, about 3,800 tactical aircraft. So we

know the operational structure we have to maintain, and we\'ve got our

evolution and training that we\'ve been working through for four years

that significantly reduced the amount of support structure, support

sailors we had to have to sustain the combat capabilities we are

deploying.

So sir, we\'ll never be comfortable, but I am confident that I can

look you and our sailors in the eye and say we are proceeding with

dispatch, but we are also proceeding carefully. We measure this out

before we go, we know where we\'re going, and we\'re confident we\'re

going to reach our end state of about 322,000 sailors and still be

able to deliver the combat capability this nation demands and give our

sailors a quality of service that they deserve.

NELSON: Managing the risk is what this is going to be about, and

I wish you well, and I certainly am hopeful that you\'ll be able to do

so, because we have so much depending on it.

General Rochelle and General Coleman, we\'re concerned about the

continuing reports of sexual assault on our service members,

especially those who are assaulted by fellow service members while

deployed. The victims of sexual assault frequently suffer long-term

effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder from the assault.

An article in the March 18, 2007 New York Times Magazine describes the

impact of sexual assaults in service and combat zones on female

service members.

Are the Army and Marine Corps aware of these sexual assaults

occurring in the combat zones \-- as I\'m sure you are \-- but at the

level that there seem to be occurring, and are you aware of the many

reports made by the female service members stating that they suffer

from PTSD as a result? And finally, what is being done to help stop

the sexual assaults to the extent it\'s possible to reduce them, and to

help female service members who have been victims of such sexual

assaults?

I\'ll start with you, General Coleman, give General Rochelle a

break here for a little bit.

COLEMAN: Thank you, sir.

Unfortunately, the numbers are up. I would venture to say that

part of the reason is because we have encouraged our Marines to come

forward.

I would say that the good news is that they are coming forward.

The bad news is that they\'re coming forward, because one sexual

harassment case is one too many. We are holding our service members

accountable for every case that is substantiated, and we will continue

to do all that we can to ensure that it does not happen again.

NELSON: Well, without being naive, is additional training one of

the ways to at least curb or reduce the number of assaults?

COLEMAN: Yes, sir, that\'s absolutely right. We are training. I

just think that you could never train too much in those instances.

I\'m a father with five daughters. I don\'t think that you could

ever justify a sexual assault or sexual harassment, but I can tell you

that your Marine Corps is doing all that they can to continue training

and also continue to encourage victims to come forward.

NELSON: General?

ROCHELLE: Chairman Nelson, the Army is absolutely committed to

making sure that we do not only everything we can to prevent sexual

assault and sexual harassment, but equally, that we are providing

victims of sexual assault with every remedy possible to make them

whole. You mentioned training, and I think that\'s where the Army is

perhaps in the forefront, and I make no comparison to my sister

services and my brothers sitting here.

But we have recently prepared a very, very good training video,

the opening comments of which are given by our vice chief of staff of

the Army, General Dick Cody, and the closing comments are given by the

sergeant major of the Army, Sergeant Major Kenneth Preston. That is

going to be incorporated in our existing training vehicles that will

be Army-wide, and we are integrating those with a review of all of our

sexual harassment and sexual assault training vehicles.

NELSON: And are you pursuing vigorously reporting and

prosecution wherever appropriate?

ROCHELLE: Sir, we are. We are investigating with our Criminal

Investigation Division all unrestricted reports. Those are reports

that go into our criminal systems and come up through command

channels. And I\'m pleased to say that the restricted reporting

procedure that went into effect in 2005 appears to have given not only

greater awareness, which is what General Coleman spoke to, a greater

awareness to what sexual assault is, what it looks like, and

certainly, what sexual harassment looks like.

COLEMAN: Sir, if I could add, in every case in the Marine Corps

where it was a case of sexual assault was substantiated, disciplinary

action was taken in every case, and most frequently courts-martial.

NELSON: What about follow-up care to the victims of such

assaults? Is that being pursued as well?

ROCHELLE: Sir, it is, to include counseling, as well as,

obviously, any physiological care that\'s required, but most

especially, counseling, and by case managers, a little bit like the

case manager model that we use for our wounded warriors. That is

being provided as well.

COLEMAN: Same thing, sir. We do have follow-up.

NELSON: Well, I have a few other questions, but I think we could

submit them for the record. And is there anything else that you\'d

like to tell the committee on the record regarding preparation, other

requirements that you might think we should be considering?

ROCHELLE: Mr. Chairman, I\'d like to take an opportunity, since

you\'ve opened the floor, and I appreciate it.

First of all, I\'d just like to simply say for the record that the

Army is doing everything possible we can do to make our wounded

warriors whole in every sense of the word. The earlier panel, you

addressed some questions to those distinguished gentlemen regarding

the medical evaluation board, physical evaluation board.

I wish to assure you, I wish to assure our soldiers, family

members, and the American people that we are absolutely committed,

through compassion for our soldiers. We value what they bring to the

table for the American people, and we certainly respect their

sacrifices.

As General Cody has said, as the chief of staff for the Army has

said, as Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren has said, we will get

this right. We\'re committed to doing that. And thank you for the

opportunity to add that.

NELSON: Thank you, General.

Any other comments?

HARVEY: Just two points, sir, now that you\'ve offered the

opportunity.

I would just ask that we continue to receive not only the support

of this committee, but also the support of wherever we can for the

concept of service. This is an all-volunteer force and all-recruited

force, and the propensity to enlist in every demographic group in this

nation has never been lower since we started measuring for that

propensity. And the propensity of those who influence these young men

and women to consider military service has also never been lower.

It is a daunting situation that we face each day, and certainly

on my own part, the first thing I think about in the morning when I

get going is recruiting, and it\'s the last thing I think about in the

night when we\'re done. So it is a very, very difficult environment

we\'re in, and we\'re going to need the support, not just of this

Congress, sir, but we need the understanding of this nation for what

an all-volunteer force is about and what it takes to sustain that

force.

On one smaller point, sir, I know we\'re going to be going into

great detail on the processes that you mentioned in an earlier panel

about medical evaluation boards, physical evaluation boards. As we go

through that, and seek to streamline, make it easier for the

individual who is faced with that process to navigate that process and

get to the right result, we can get it fast, and we can get it wrong.

The existing process provides an awful lot of opportunities for

each sailor to contest a finding at every point along the way. And as

we seek to gain efficiency, I don\'t want to place at risk that ability

for every step in that tough process sometimes, that our sailor can

stand up and say, \"no, I disagree,\" and we provide that individual

counsel and counseling in how to make that disagreement public. So

those rights need to be protected as we seek to make this process

smoother and more efficient overall, sir.

COLEMAN: I would agree.

Sir, I\'d like to jump on the bandwagon of the recruiting. As the

Army and the Marine Corps increase in strength, and the four of us, or

our services, are all after the same great young men and women, it\'s

important that all folks know that it\'s a noble thing to serve your

country. So if we could continue to have your support in that line,

I\'d certainly appreciate it.

And then there\'s nothing more important than the ability of the

Congress to provide the funds available to ensure that our men and

women have the right equipment at the right time at the right place.

And if we can continue that, that\'s all we can ask, sir.

Thank you.

NELSON: Thank you, General. There\'s no question that what

preparation, training and equipping the men and women that we ask to

serve has to be one of the highest priorities that this committee can

ever consider.

BRADY: Sir, two quick points, and it gets to care of the

wounded.

We don\'t have as many wounded as the ground forces do have, but

we do have what we consider a significant number. We are aware also

that despite our best efforts, there will be a horror story out there,

and we are proactively looking for that horror story, and we are

having our own audit agency look at our process in terms of medical

evaluation boards, physical evaluation boards, to make sure that we\'re

doing that in the best interest of the member.

I\'d like to also make a final statement that picks up on the

point that you just made. And that is, we talk a lot about quality of

life. And that\'s important.

But an important aspect of quality of life is making sure that

our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have the

equipment and the training that allows them to prevail in the

battlespace. And that means the best equipment we can give them. So

recapitalization and providing that equipment cannot be overstated.

NELSON: Thank you very much, all of you, and to all the men and

women that you\'re recruiting, and all those who are serving abroad and

at home, we appreciate very much that service. And important as

compensation and all the things that you have to deal with in order to

attract the right men and women to join the services, there is nothing

more important than patriotism, and what we really have to do is

continue to encourage people to think of what public service is, but

also what serving their country is when it comes to the military.

So I thank you for what you\'re doing, and I wish you the best of

luck. We\'re all counting on you to be able to make the military as

strong as it can possibly be with the right men and women.

Thank you.

END

Mar 30, 2007 15:07 ET

.EOF