morning today the house armed services committee meets to receive testimony on the fiscal year two thousand and eleven budget request of the united states army needless to say we're very very proud of you and you're off to a great start leading the army jim and i you say i've been here a lot this is the first time we've ever started with a round of applause it was the last line general in your we appreciate a mixed press gratitude to those that you lead active duty reserves national guard as well as a civilian members your team we're grateful for what they do for our country the wars  afghanistan iraq continue to drive a relentless temple although we hope to see some relief soon the pace is not slacken to support the level of activity the ministration requestion two and a half billion dollar increase over last year's base budget level for the army this would support a one point four percent across the board military and civilian pay raise and support the army's continued focus on providing support to military families and that so very important  pleased to see the contingent stane attention paid to the well being of our soldiers as well as to their families their army specs to an f y eleven with an end strength of five hundred sixty two thousand four hundred with the potential growth to five hundred seventy thousand to compensate for the wounded warriors know the soldiers who are not presently deployable this will ensure units that are being deployed of one hundred percent being felt for all goes well the number soldiers deployed in iraq recent seeds in afghanistan maintains a steady state i hope there are milby able to provide units with a reasonable amount of dwell time and we'll discuss that during our questions between deployments to dwell times important as it gives time to recover and to train to a full range of tasks required of them something i fear we've neglected and we will we would like to hear in general we've had several discussions over the full spectrum of training and i hope you would touch on that in your testimony today i remain concerned that the temporary increase in insuring  enough to solve the problem we saw this before when the army began this temporary growth back in two thousand and five in the end we made that temporary growth permanent with regards the army's readiness levels i'm deeply troubled by what i see w units deployed overseas are for the most part probably equipped man train this deployment readiness has come at the expense of the rest of the army despite billions in additional funding provided by congress these elements of the s army that are not deployed overseas remain willfully unprepared should another conflict arise in short notice i've mentioned before that since i've been here in congress since one nine hundred seventy seven with had twelve military conflicts none of which were foreseeable and that's hopefully not the future for us but we must be prepared for it the nation is assuming a great deal of risk while i'm sure the army should eventually be able to deploy the required forces i worry that it may take so long to do so that critical national objectives and future conflict may not be achieved or can only be achieved a much higher human in financial cost just important i'm concerned that the army is on readiness for another conflict reduces our strategic deterrence any leader considering a conflict with the states must be assured of a swift and decisive response yet in terms of land in combat power i fear that a response may not today be what we expected or required so let me be clear that my concerns do not align the area the professionalism of the skill or the devotion to duty of those had never wavered in two hundred thirty five years and they're not wavering now however droops no matter how experienced and dedicated must be properly equipped and must be properly trained nor to carry out the mission improvisation can only take a military unit so far and i do not raise this issue to level criticism of anyone i raise the issue because i want to understand what more can be done to reduce the risk that our nation faces before i turn to the ranking member i wish to speak about a valued friend a great member of congress one who will be leaving us very shortly to pursue another in this house of representatives on our committee the house armed services committee neil's hallmark has been making sure our troops have the equipment they need to protect our country and keep it safe and he's been an outstanding member of the committee an exceptional chairman and a leader in the air and land forces subcommittee i'm really proud of what he has done there is you have helped prompt the pentagon to speed up delivery of lifesaving body  mchugh general casey thank you for being here we're very fortunate to have you serving our country and leading the great men and women in our u s army secretary mchugh we came to congress together and one nine hundred ninety two i appreciate you moving to that seat so i can take this seat i hope you enjoyed the view there as much as you enjoyed it here were all of us on this committee very proud of you and the job you're doing and in your new job there with the army i know you've been a champion in the army your whole career and probably in the state senate before you came here so glad to see you carrying on that  thousand and seven when you first informed this committee that the army was out of balance you stated that balance is a state of continual readiness to provide strategic flexibility and depth while sustaining the all volunteer force and simultaneously meeting the current and future demands of the national security strategy in an area of persistent conflict i look forward to hearing from you in regards to how the army is doing in terms of rebalancing in both t short term and the long term you may have heard that a different kind of balance was discussed during our hearing with the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff a couple of weeks ago i commended the department for its laser focus on the wars in iraq and afghanistan but i believe the secretary of defense is efforts to make balance a fixture in the q t r in the out your budget is short sighted and puts the department on the wrong path for the next twenty years choosing to win in iraq and afghanistan should not mean our country must also choose to assume additional risk in the conventional national defense challenges of today and tomorrow the secretary admitted during the hearing that for the period during from now and fifteen i believe that we can with live within the numbers that we've been given and that our forecast for us without sacrificing force structure but beyond that time the defense department cannot sustain the current force structure without real growth on an annual basis somewhere between two and three percent don't get me wrong for the army there are many good things in this budget this budget request allocates three point two billion for the army's revamped brigade combat team modernization program and provide six billion for army aviation the addition of two aviation brigades as long overdue and i hope the army successful with its efforts to go forward the ground combat vehicle program however i'm concerned about the continued decline in research and development funding from one nine hundred eighty two today our investment in basic defense research as a percentage of g d p has declined by fifty percent for the army alone vance technology and component funding is fifty percent less in this budget than what was enacted in two thousand and eight not only impacts potential future capabilities for our war fighters but also has an industrial base impact with our technical or workforce aging we're in danger of losing our intellectual capital we need to develop the next generation of engineers and scientists that will ensure the world's greatest innovators reside here at home in the defense community as with this year's q t r we focus on what rand went wrong in the last war or the war we're currently fighting who's thinking about the war of two thousand and fifteen and what about the war and twenty thirty is our country doing what it needs to do today to win the wars that we made confront in two thousand and fifteen or twenty thirty finally let me address one controversy a policy initiative that the president has raised in recent months repealing the law prohibiting service by openly gay and lesbian personnel before the president or a special interest force a change in the policy or law congress these are to hear directly from the individual services i'm disappointed that the decision is not has been made not to let the service chiefs testify before the military personnel subcommittees hearing  don't ask don't tell but we'll get a chance to hear from you today and a chance to get the record on that that decision limits the ability of members to fully understand that explore the concerns of the service chiefs about a repeal of current law and i would hope that we could continue discussion mr chairman i would also like to say a little bit about mr abercromby i'm from california he's from hawaii and you know people talk about long flights and i remember we used to fly a lot together and i'd get off the plane after five five and a half hours and he still had five and a half hours to go and we had to be back in a couple of days i can understand why he wants to spend a little more time at home he's been doing that for a long time but the thing that really struck me i served on his subcommittee for a long time and when he was ranking member and chairman and he along with these other chairman of the subcommittees ranking members these committees have really done a great job of keeping this committee bipartisan and neil has been one of the leaders in that effort and i commend you for that you've really bent over backwards to do that as has our chairman with the whole committee that's why it's such a blessing to serve on this committee without mr chairman i yield back thank the gentleman missed more serving on this committee than i do right now but i'm honored to be here and i want to thank you mr chairman and the ranking member my two good friends for your very gracious comments and i don't want to begin by adding if i may my words of best wishes high respect and friendship to neil abercrombie the chief and i had a chance to stop by his office yesterday we weren't sure if he would be with us here today we got the obligatory chocolate covered macadamia nuts and promised when all of this was through we come out and say hi to him and ranking member mccann was absolutely right i never knew what neil was going to say but i knew what he said when he said it he believed it and it was not couched in partisan politics it was caution a belief as to what the right thing was to do for our men and women in uniform that to me is the highest tribute that any member can have attributed to him or her neil we'll miss you god bless you for all you've done and thank you for being such a great friend to our army and indeed all the services i would say mr chairman ranking member distinguished members of this great committee it was just a few short months ago that i paired before the senate armed services committee that was a rather unique experience for me and i appeared of course is president obama's nominee to be the twenty first secretary of the army and at that time i assure those distinguished members of my commitment my dedication to support our men and women in human uniformed army civilians and of course the those great families who stand with them and as i pledge to work with each of them him pursuit of those objectives i also want to promise to work with each and every one of you my former house colleagues my former armed services committee colleagues on behalf of america's greatest about five months now since i first walked into the pentagon and i want to reaffirm that vital commitment that i made just a few short months ago but i do it now having an even greater appreciation of those amazing men and women within within the army who played a vital role  keeping our nation strong and keeping our nation safe and as i know you know one point one million soldiers some two hundred seventy nine thousand civilians and yes those incredible families probably serving in nearly eighty countries dispersed across the planet they continue each and every day to be at the forefront not going counterinsurgency operations against our enemies assisting other nations to build their own security capability supporting homeland defense deterring and defeating high but threats and state actors and as i know all of you have witnessed as we have so proudly in haiti providing humanitarian assistance in response to national disasters and i may be stating the obvious but it is true and i think i can speak with some authority in this regard each and every one of you is key to that success of the vital missions in your capacity as our congressional overseers as i said i know full well from my seventeen years on this state committee that a strategic partnership with congress is absolutely critical essential to the success of the united states army and you have partnered with us you have partnered with our soldiers civilians and families and ensure that they receive the very breast and training equipment health care and vital family programs and i want to say most importantly this morning on behalf of the grateful army thank you for your leadership in your own wavering support if i may mr chairman mr ranking member members of the committee i'd like to share just a few of the priorities that i think we need to pursue and some of the perspectives that i've gained in the last five months and where the army is at this moment where it is heading in fiscal year we're two thousand and eleven and talk a bit about the future as well i've been on a crash course i thought i knew the army and i knew all the great deal about it but it was more broadly spread than deeply spread but in studying our programs and visiting our installations and going overseas into theater and iraq and afghanistan and examining all stages of what we call our four gen army force generation and talking most importantly to those soldiers to those families and civilians i've learned more and by so doing i bill in both impressed by what i've seen but also challenged by what is out there and what you can find first i found an army that clearly clearly fatigued by nearly nine years of combat through it all still remains resilient amazingly so determined and extraordinarily effective today our soldiers have more expertise more education more training and lethal capabilities than ever before and that's due in large part because of the actions of this committee and due to advances in equipment training and doctrine they are more likely than ever before to return safely to their loved ones into a grateful nation those are tremendous gains that we have to be honest with ourselves in spite of those gains the stress on our personnel and their families is all too real for all our efforts as has been recognized here appropriately this morning already the chief has said time and time again we remain out of balance i know all of you clearly understand the all volunteer force is truly a national treasure and i'll tell you what i think you realize is obvious as well if we wish to sustain it supporting critical family and quality of life programs for our soldiers and our families must be a top priority and i want to assure for those of us in the army it is indeed a top priority the propose and eleven budget rightly focuses on those initiatives that support those soldiers and families in submission and and civilians the submission requests one point seven billion dollars in two thousand and eleven to standardize and fund those vital programs and services we are attempting to aggressively address the causes of stress on individuals resulting from the effects of multiple deployments including the essential effort to increase while time as you know twenty continuing deployments and multiple theatres this has been no easy task but i also want to assure you in the strongest terms the army is committed to those objectives and equally committed to our wounded warriors and the programs that support them we fully believe it is our solemn obligation to provide world class care and transition services to our wounded ill and injured through properly led insufficiently resourced warrior transition units your army is committed to ensuring the quality of life for those who have served and those who are serving today in do it in a way that is can measure it with the level and quality of their service to us in this nation on the subject of family programs i've heard from many of you about reductions in base operations support boss budgets and installations around the country and i would say i understand earlier this month general casey and i announced the army's plan to increase boss funding by five hundred million dollars in this fiscal year two thousand and ten the army's insulation management command continues to work with each insulation to guarantee essential base operating support and the need that drive there from are met the army will also conduct a comprehensive mid year review of all loss accounts to ensure that adequate funding is maintained to meet army priorities for the remainder of the fiscal year i want to make it clear as we are installations look for ways to operate more efficiently which they should i would argue which they must family programs will be sa they will not be touched it's not to say we won't ask is this program working is this money well spent or are there better ways to provide necessary care but what changes required will change that more money is best directed will so direct it but through all of that the army families must not army families will not be left behind secondly i found an army with equipment systems and networks in need of reset while simultaneously requiring significant modernization to ensure our soldiers maintain a decisive edge on the battlefield today as well as superiority over threats to more nowhere is this challenge more evident than in the continuous  last eight years to repair replace and recapitalise equipment affected by the harsh environment of war as a responsible drawdown in iraq continues in the flow of forces and equipment to afghanistan grows will confront this reality anew beyond that we have to strive to modernize the fission lee in an era of growing fiscal challenge as such with this year's budget the army is embracing what i believe is an affordable affect modernization strategy designed to revamp our vehicle network aviation and law just the goal system we requested three point seven one billion dollars for research development nachas ition which includes three point two billion for brigade combat team modernization is the chairman mentioned two point seven billion defined army network systems and six point four one billion to fund aviation modern is fully supporting these programs is vital to our soldiers well for this year and beyond thirdly i found an army acquisition system that while improving still lacks the work force and flexibility needed to efficiently and affordably purchased the right weapons services and equipment to our soldiers here to the proposed budget will help us better meet our continued commitment to growing the army's acquisition workforce by thousands of positions over the next few years thereby ensuring that we have the best available clinic for our soldiers while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars but i have to tell you work force improvements are not enough to fix our procurement system i know everyone on this committee understands the entire process has to be retooled we need a more agile system that rapidly develops purchases and field innovative solutions and this process this demand will require more streamlined procedures and flexible rules and for that we need your help you've already set us on the right path remember fairly clearly how distinguished chairman rob andrews  conaway led the effort in this house to bring forward a reform bill that took the weapons acquisition process and put us on the right path it's now time to address how we purchase services and on that front we look forward to partnering with you to develop a better system that achieves that critical objective in the end i would tell you we have an army that is strong in spirit strong in ability and in results we need to recognize too that this is an army after eight years of on or interrupted war that is tired stressed and too often burdened by ends of inefficient bureaucracy this has to change and with your help will make those changes let me just highlight in closing my deep appreciation for those brave men and women and by so doing support this nation and everything and every action they make every day i'm humbled by their dedication and service to our army and to our nation and i am truly blessed every morning to walk into a building to go to work where the word hero truly means something all of you on this great committee and i mean a great committee have so much to do with that thank you again for your support of our men and women in uniform civilians and their families and i i appreciate and i'm humbled by the opportunity to be about secretary mchugh before starting as a chairman i i'd like to do two things i'd like to add my praise to the farewell of neil abercrombie and i'd like to introduce four men and women who are representative of the one point one million soldiers of this great army first of all congressman abercrombie adds it's no secret that you and i differed on fundamentally on some pretty important issues but our conversations were always issues based never personal and always focused on doing what was right for the men and women of the army as rapidly as we could and you can't ask for anything better than that so i never quite thought i'd say this i will miss you good luck good luck to you that's human i'd like to ago in a helicopter crash staff sergeant in the army that at that time and now she's left the army to raise your four children and as you can see she is very active in the gold star wives organization thank you  next to her staff sergeant chris hughes he was wounded in afghanistan last october and he's recovering here at walter reed from his wounds and looking forward to rejoining his unit as quickly as you can program which i will talk about here later in my presentation he's got three tours in iraq thank chairman as you said for the last three years i have said that the army is out of balance that we were so weighed down by the current demands that we couldn't do the things we know we need to do this is staying this force for the long haul and to provide the strategic stability to do other things i can tell you that with the help of this committee we've made progress over the last three years to get back in balance but we're not out of the woods yet that said this eleven budget contains the procurement funding to finish the modular conversion that we began in two thousand and four and the growth that we began in two thousand and seven it also contains the military construction funding funding to complete the realignment so your continued support will allow us to meet the goals we set six years ago to build an army more relevant to twenty first century challenges and to restore balance to this great on you'll recall that we sen our plan to get back and balance on four imperatives we felt we had to sustain our soldiers and families the core of this volunteer force we had to continue to prepare our soldiers for success in a current conflict we had to reset them effectively when they returned and then we had to continue to transform for an uncertain future and let me just give you a quick update that you asked for and how we're doing our first objective was to finish our growth and you'll recall that january two thousand and seven we were instructed to increase the size of the army by seventy four thousand originally we were going to do that by two thousand and twelve was second secretary gates's help and the help of the committee we actually completed that growth last summer and when that didn't prove to be sufficient we received another temporary increase of twenty two thousand soldiers and we intend to revalue evaluate whether we need the full twenty two thousand later this year this growth coupled with the drawdown in iraq allowed us to meet the additional increase of troops in afghanistan without having to go to fifteen month deployments and without having to not come off stop loss our second key objective was to increase the time our soldiers spend and i must tell you after almost three years in the job i am convinced that this is the most important element of getting us back in balance it's important from several perspectives first our soldiers need increased time at home to recover from their repeated combat deployments what we continue to see across the force are the cumulative effects of these repeated deployments we've recently come completed a study that tells us what we intuitively knew that it takes two to three years to completely recover from a one year combat deployment and that's why it's so important for us to achieve the objectives we set three years ago to get to one year out two years back for active soldiers and one year out four years back for guard and reserve soldiers we are on track to meet that for the majority of the force by two thousand and eleven after that as demand increases we plan to move to more sustainable ratios of three years and five years respectively the second reason it's more important it's important to spend more time at home it gives you more stable preparation time to prepare for the current missions and that allows us time to prepare to do other things to restore some of the strategic flexibility that you talked about mr chairman i recently visited a unit that had eighteen months at home and i can tell you that the difference in pace between twelve months at home and eighteen is striking a dish an all time at home will allow us to have more units  trained for the spectrum of operations and we will gradually rekindle some of the skills that have atrophied over the past several years and regain some of the deterrent effect that you talked about m our third objective was to move away from our cold war formations organizations that were more relevant in the twenty first century and two thousand and four we set out to transform all three hundred plus  modular organizations organizations that could be rapidly tailored to fit the situation that existed rather than just sending a unit that was designed to do something else today we're almost ninety percent complete with that conversion and these formations are demonstrating their relevance and their versatility on the ground in iraq and afghanistan every day we also set out to  rebalance the skills within the force to move away from skills that were necessary in the cold war to skills more and more needed today this involves converting retraining and equipping around  hundred fifty thousand soldiers small components to new jobs by way of example in the last six years we have stood down two hundred tank companies artillery batteries air defense batteries and we have stood up a corresponding number of military police engineers civil affairs psychological psychological operation and special forces companies together this rebalancing and the modular reorganization is the largest organizational transformation of the army since world war two and we have done that wild applying one hundred fifty thousand soldiers over and back to iraq and afghanistan fourth we are moving to put the whole army on a rotational cycle much like the navy and marine corps have been operating on for years this model will allow us more effectively and more efficiently to provide a sustained flow over land forces that are trained for the full spectrum of operations so that we can prevail in today's wars but also hedge against unexpected contingencies and we can do both of those things at a temple that is sustainable to this all volunteer force our fifth objective was to complete our restating and we're just over half way in these efforts we're on course to complete the two thousand five hundred by the end of two thousand and eleven these moves will affect over three hundred eighty thousand soldiers family members and civilians and while this is a great deal of turbulence new construction on our military installation is greatly improving the quality of life for our soldiers and families so the bottom line in all this mr chairman is that we have made good progress in the last year toward restoring balance but we're not out of the woods yet i'd like to conclude with three priorities for us that i hope are also priorities for this committee first of all sustaining our people this budget contains money for housing barracks childcare centers warrior transition units and surviving spouse programs all critically important stating our soldiers and families it's important to get them through this period in which our country is asking so much of that in general we are strengthening the programs to add resilience to our force and to help our soldiers and families deal not only with the problems and challenges from the past but to prepare them for the rates increased numbers of soldiers temporarily non deployable from nagging injuries from previous deployments and we've been aggressively moving to give our soldiers and families the skills they need to deal with these challenges in october we began a program that we have been actively working on for eighteen months with some of the best experts in the country the program is called comprehensive soldier fitness and it's designed to give mental fitness the same level of attention that we give to physical fitness we intend to provide our soldiers and families the resiliency skills that they need to succeed in an era of persistent conflict program consist of four components first and online assessment to help them identify their resiliency strengths and weaknesses has already been taken by over a quarter of a million soldiers secondly there are online self help modules that soldiers and family members can take in the privacy of their own home to increase there is a skills third we are training master resilience trainers for every bit tai in the army like sergeant lawson to assist the soldiers in developing their resiliency skills and over six hundred master resilience trainers have already been trained at the university of pennsylvania and finally we will incorporate resiliency training in every army leader development school this program shows great promise and i look forward to discussing it further and the questions and answers second priority the reset of our equipment will become increasingly important as we complete the drawdown in iraq over the next two years for two to three years after the end of combat operations i think it's important to note how key the reset has been to the high operational ready rates that we have sustained over time in iraq and afghanistan this budget provides almost eleven billion dollars to reset our equipment and sustained funding for research it will be essential to the long term health of the fo finally and this budget contains a significant adjustment to our modernization strategy i believe that we are in a period of fundamental and continuous change as we have to adapt to ever evolving  and so in close consultation with the secretary defense we transition from the future combat systems program to what we believe is an achievable affordable manner zation strategy for a brigade combat team this program is leverage is the lessons we've learned at war and from the future combat systems program itself it includes four elements first incrementally modernizing our network to take advantage of rapidly developing changes in technology second incrementally fielding capability packages to put the best equipment into more the force as rapidly as possible third incorporating em wraps into our force and forth rapidly developing and fielding a new ground combat vehicle that meets the requirements of a twenty first century army we intend to make this program a model for the weapon systems acquisition reform act and we look forward to working with the committee on this so i'd like to close by saying how proud i am of what the men and women of this great army have accomplished at home and abroad we have made progress to restoring balance but we still face a tough road ahead and so mr chairman member of the committee we could have done this without you thank you and i look forward to taking your questions with the secretary general thank you for your presentation some time ago general you and i had a  conversation about the attempt by the army to be prepared for a full or a full spectrum combat on the one and force on force in mass and on the other in growing insurgency force and i think i told you that time there are only two problems that you had with it the first was time and the second was money so let me ask you what is the status of the proposal for a full spectrum army and started with february two thousand and eight when we published our first major revision of our doctrine since september eleventh the doctrine lays out an operational concept of spectrum operations as the chairman said and it says that army units will simultaneously simultaneously apply often defense and stability operations to achieve success no matter where they're operating on the spectrum of conflict and as jim suggest this is a tall order it's a tall order from a doctoral perspective it's a tall order from a training perspective and it's a tall order from a leader development perspective and we have since that time continued to develop and  d our doctrine we have continued to develop and evolve our leader development programs and and training and we have continued to evolve our training but as i suggested in my opening comments we won't have units home wrong enough to begin full spectrum operations training against hybrid threats probably until the end of this year first part of next year but we have already begun adapting our training centers to be able to replicate the hybrid threats that we're most most likely to face and to develop the training programs for units  the other piece of this chairman is it has rightly set off a lot of internal discussion and debate within the army about how to do this and i will tell you that we're still working our way through this but i've directed that it be discussed and debated in all our war colleges and staff college so it's a work in progress in general saying the secretary i've been waiting a year to ask the general question thank you difficult to guess what the enemy twenty years or thirty years from now will look like but you need to take into consideration the widest possible range of variables and the chief's comments in his opening comments a means by which our our smart people can look at emerging threats and quickly put together and feel packages of capabilities that can respond more quickly and obviously hopefully more effectively to those emerging threats so this isn't just a matter of what you're doing today it's a matter of putting into place a process by which you can evolve that the the equipment the tool level to provide those soldiers as they go out in the field with whatever they may need that is capable and responds sufficiently to the enemy threat of the moment but thank you let me ask you a tough question you were such an able member of this committee and also serving as ranking member and you saw the army through the eyes of an active member of congress and now you see the army is the leader of the army what surprise or surprise you both good and not so good do you see now that we're not apparent to you as a  member something i it's a great question and just as i'm honored every day to walk into that building i'm surprised every day to walk in the building the biggest surprise is when you say something people actually do it that was never my experience of a number of congress i've i've had to be careful what i say because it has potentially disastrous consequences i don't think the army and it's probably understandable when you're at war has done a good enough job paying attention to the professional development paying attention to the stress and strain that's in place on the civilian side of this war we understandably look at those folks we deploy look at the folks we put into their hands the weapons think as we absolutely must as you heard my opening comments about about their families but there are civilians too that are under enormous stress and whether they're deployed out in forward theater or they're back home working on the bases helping the troops get ready to ship out or whether they're in the pentagon or dispersed along with those military heroes across the eighty countries i mentioned i don't think we've applied well enough stress relief and counseling opportunities and benefit programs that we're making available to or soldiers their families to the civilians as well and i was a little bit surprised by that not so much that i thought it was being done but frankly i didn't think much about it and i think this is this is an army team and we cannot just focus on one part of that team the one point one million in uniform has to be where it starts these are amazing civilians in the acquisition force and elsewhere that are just they've been a war to and surprise would like to associate myself with your comments about secretary from my view you're doing an outstanding job and as i said proud of y general casey in your personal opinion do you believe the current law prohibiting service by openly gay and lesbian personnel should be repealed congressman i've got serious concerns about the impact of the repeal of the law on a force that's fully involved in two wars and been at war for eight half years we just don't know the impacts on readiness and military effectiveness i'm also well aware that i owed the secretary defense the president and this committee my my advice my military advice on that and i'd prefer to be informed military advice so i fully support the program that secretary gates has laid out to look at this and a study that study this and then i'll come back to the committee and give my informed advice on this but the last thing i'd say congressm is that if congress repeal the law the army will implemented in the same professional and disciplined way that is characterize our service for two hundred thirty four years and i don't think there's any question about that given the strain on our forces of fighting two wars as you as you mentioned what a repeal or a moratorium this year in your opinion improve our readiness or have effect on our readiness first on  didn't i did not support a moratorium before the law is actually repeal that would put us in a position of implementing while we're studying the implementation and it's a difficult enough issue and it will only complicate things my as i said i do have concerns i don't know what the impacts on readiness of military effect will be but i am concerned and so i i  would say right now i don't i don't believe that would increase readiness do you care to comment on those questions as as  you know congress in the can i work at the pleasure of the president and thank you for whatever agreement or disagreement may appear in this room with his intentions is intentions were clearly made both during the campaign and early days of his presidency that he feels this policy is fundamentally unfair and is absolutely committed to changing it recognizing of course that it is a law and changes can come only through  an act of congress and signed by the present a united states having said that i entered this job fully recognizing and having discussed that intention with the president and i intend to fulfill my responsibilities and that is to engage you as secretary of defense have as directed us to bring back the information to inform the way forward do it to the best of my ability and then whatever policy decisions are made from the secretary of defense and the commander in chief in the white house tried my best to explain those and to to carry them forward on a  moratorium i'm strongly opposed to a moratorium i would do that as personally very unhelpful and i would tell you having discussed this personally with the secretary of defense it is the policy of the department of defense and the secretary  that that is a place of opposition as well thank you very much general casey a couple of questions about brigade combat teams and his first hearing in front of this committee  general schoomaker your predecessor testified that he thought the army might need seventy seven to eighty two just support the needs of the combat commanders he came back a year later and said the number was the seventy three number first question seventy three b c to use the right number or is that the number because that's what we're resourced for congressman  seventy three organize on a rotational model will give us the number of the c t s that to deploy almost meet current requirements but to meet what we see as disdain requirements over time and do it at a deployment ratio that's sustainable for the force me to explain that a little bit at seventy three brigade combat teams that gives us twenty six heavy brigades forty light brigades and seven strike now that's a pretty versatile capability and we're very much interested in if you take that force and organize it on a rotational model of one year out two years back for the active force one year out four years back for the guard and reserve that allows us to routinely generate twenty gauge combat now in iraq in afghanistan today we have twenty four brigade combat teams deployed so that means the deployment ratio is not exactly what we want to be but with the drawdown in iraq we will not only be able to meet the total number of brigade requirements for iraq and afghanistan but also have brigades available for other combatant commanders to do security assessments and other training so right now given the strategy and given the demands that we foresee i believe that seventy three brigades is the right number but may change a good started in two thousand and four to build to the mix we're almost finished doing that now or assessing are the decisions we made back in two thousand and four is still relevant and i'll tell you right up front i'd like a few more strikers i'd like to be able to put three stryker brigade you know rotation in that that means that we need to get to nine to do that and we're already adding an eight to one and we are debating right now whether to add a nine to one with the twelve seventeen program heavy is our force structure adequate for high end conflict in other words are we too focused on the near term with the with the iraq and afghanistan versus something that could happen elsewhere in the world plus divisions of heavy force and then you have another similar package available in the next so we have quite a lot of combat power still available and i think the mix the way we have it now possibly slightly adjusted in the near term it gives us the versatility that we think we need you mentioned decisions made in two thousand and four now your review i think we're always going to have nobody can even right now as i mentioned in the opening statement and know what things are going to be like in two thousand and fifteen or twenty thirty and so there will be constant evaluation and revaluation and sounds to me like you're right on top of that and doing what needs to be done to keep the army current gen as you know the sar remains one of the top priorities for afghanistan certainly secretary gates has testified to this i see that the budget request includes four hundred fifty nine million for the extended range multi purpose program also understand the program recently conducted a successful milestone decision can you talk about a little bit about how this program is progressing demming the whole unmanned aerial vehicle program is something that we have been working very hard on because of its relevance not only in iraq and afghanistan but but across the spectrum and extended range multipurpose aircraft program is very much on track as you mentioned we're adding two more companies this in this budget and we have explored a new design for combat that incorporates these companies into those aviation brigade and so what we're doing is increasing our capability of manned and unmanned and i think that is going to be the wave of the future we're already doing it to a degree in iraq and afghanistan but i think we're increasingly going to see the potential offered by the unmanned systems and matching them with the man systems is as i said i think is the wave of the future  i don't i don't really have a lot to add except that i know that many of the members here have as i did fifteen times derogative four times to afghanistan where the first things you hear out of any any commander is what do you need  and we are we're attempting to meet that commitment and the ranking member correctly noted the rather substantial investment on the high level we are in pay but we're taking again as the chief said that down to the platoon level this is this is a force multiplier that we are very committed to we have the problem of the technology so quickly and bad thing by the time we're ready to field something it's not out of date necessarily but could be improved so we've got to we've got to get our systems of systems under control with the better but this is this is something that a lot of folks in the pentagon spend a lot of time focusing on as rightly they should i think you've done an outstanding job of getting some of these vehicles into the theater quickly without you know delays with constant testing and i think it saved a lot of lives i want to commend you on that here last week with us he made the point of saying that he had to keep three divisions in iraq until the end because of the capabilities that those divisions bring now  i get this quite a bit from a lot of old retired folks but the division headquarters still remains our highest tactical level headquarters and it is capable of oversee numerous brigade combat teams and enabling brigades like aviation military police and they are the the ones that organize half of iraq they're responsible for organizing the u s efforts and about half of the country the reason we went to brigade combat teams is because in the old division headquarters the supporting enabling forces were part of the division and so if you wanted to send something smaller than division you had to break apart the division base to send it and so now you had a division that you couldn't deploy and what we've done is we've taken enabling forces out of the division and put them in brigades but we've still left the supervisory capability in fact we would increase supervisory capability of the division and so what we're able to do is put a very competent tactical headquarters in and then commanders out there that feel very strongly that they have a significant role to play and what we're doing thank you general been one is that we're going to break tradition a bit today and know this will come as a great surprise and shock to everyone in the room but i think i'll make a statement rather than ask a question as such mr chairman thank you ranking member my good friend buck and thank you general casey and john for your your comments if i had known that i was disrespected this in my yard even be a lot i would have left a lot sooner but mr chairman this is the last time i will have an opportunity to participate in the in the armed services committee hearing process and be with you and the rest of the committee i hadn't realized it's totally a coincidence but a happy one perhaps  that it would involve the united states army as well i've been privileged now to since the democrats became the majority as the chairman of the air and land subcommittee which has a particular responsibility where the army is concerned and as noted by buchan and yourself i've served both as a ranking member as a member ranking member and chairman of the committee and as a result i've i've had the opportunity to to work i don't like to use the word bipartisan i like to use the word nonpartisan i've never thought about it i think we're all partial on the side of trying to serve the strategic interests of this nation with regarding our states military and more particularly to meet our responsibilities and obligations as armed services committee members towards the fighting men and women of this nation i served with a committee staff both from the armed services committee staff and with the air land staff mr chairman and i want to  state as i take my leave my profound deep respect and admiration for the staff of this committee and more particularly for the last couple of years now with the air land staff the subcommittee staff it is without question and i don't think necessarily the public appreciates fully i don't mean appreciates in in the fact being grateful for i meant comprehends and has has knowledge sufficiently as to what services provided to the nation and its interests and most particularly to the members of this committee by the staff i can't name all of them i wouldn't attempt to do it they know how much i appreciate and care for them in that context i've had the privilege of it was his staff the armed services staff that came from people like duncan hunter and then our predecessors that are that are in the portraits here around the room they put together these these steps we took it over hold because they  professionals we don't we don't have a democratic staff and republicans majority and minority staff we have people dedicated to the work in the armed services committee i had nation can serve as a standard and a model and to have your friendship years blocking and and the others on this committee is something that i treasure one i don't want to slight anyone believe me i don't but i  have to make particular mention of my seat me to my left one of the one of the consistent elements of the congress and in the committee is the seniority process and so no matter what i do i'm always going to be seated to the right of of gene taylor and much much and i find myself today mr chairman recognizing what jeanne has reminded me of is that if we i was drawing a parallel we want to garton together now we've gone all the way through elementary school middle school high school college and graduate school and we're still sitting next to one another in that process of becoming the dearest of friends and colleagues and and i have the greatest admiration and respect  for gene for solomon john spratt mr chairman yourself i want to say that that i was sworn in i was the last person sworn in by tip o'neill before he retired and he indicated to me in no uncertain terms of whether whether i was whether you serve for a short time as i did at that time having won a special election and lost a primary in the same day that whether you serve for three weeks three months or thirty years in the in the congress of the united states that as a member of the house of representatives you are a member of the people solved every member here has his or her seat because of the election by constituents in their district we serve here you can be appointed to the senate but you cannot be appointed to the house of representatives this is the people's house and as such we have the  faith and trust of our constituents and i want to indicate to every member here that they have my faith and trust and most particularly mr chairman to you your friendship to has come to you as a result of a long and faithful service to this congress to the nation to your constituents in missouri i'm very very happy to have played a role in seeing that the u s s missouri kno its rightful place next to the arizona memorial the alpha and omega of world war two which i think set the pattern for all of the work of the armed services committee in the congress the united states with had coming to this committee of being able to have an integrated presence at pearl harbor of the arizona memorial visitors center the arm of arizona memorial itself the u s s missouri missouri the the air land museum in the fort island has now been completed and so we will have a not just a monument but a a living object lesson for the united states of america and all the generations to come who visit hawaii and visit pearl harbor as to the direction the nation must take in terms of preparedness and with that i want to conclude mr chairman by by saying that every committee in this congress is important right now the president of the united states and and members of the congress and both parties are conducting a health care summit obviously vital to the to the to the welfare of the nation we have the finance committee we have the judiciary committee we have discussions even in the in the comments this morning by the secretary and and and general casey about policy implications for the army and the military all important but only this committee only the armed services committee deals with life and death issues every day we make has the direct implication of life and the gold star wife that is here today is living three dimensional testimony to that responsibility and obligation that we have and i want to say that as i take my leave that every moment of my service on this committee as men devoted to that obligation and that responsibility as i know every member has when he or she takes his seat on this committee and we try to exercise our best judgment necessities of this nation and that we have first inform our for first and foremost in our hearts and minds the fighting men and women of this nation that mr chairman i bid you the i thank the gentleman from hawaii as we bid an affection for our well to our friends he leaves with  knowledge and the satisfaction of having written a bright page in the history of the united states military we thank you again the mister we're in the five minute rule mr bartlett thank you when i came to the congress seventeen years ago knowing no one and having never served in a legislative body i was here but a few days and i attended a briefing poorly attended then by members as they are now but one of the members there was neil abercrombie and he spoke with such knowledge and wisdom i thought gee this guy must have been here a really long time i learned of it later that hadn't been a really long time and so he brought a lot with him when he came here and he has grown a lot since he's been here neal i value our friendship for the seventeen years thank you thank you so much the secretary and i came together in the class of ninety two and for seventeen years we sat together on this committee and i served for a number of years on his personnel the most challenging committee of this full committee thank you mr secretary for your service and your continued service now i have four brief questions that i will ask as quickly as i can to give time for your for your answers as you know our soldiers today carry more and more weight two and three times the weight they carried in vietnam everything they carry is there to make them more efficient and to protect them but clearly this increased weight and cumbers them and i have no idea how many more casualties we have because of the highway that they carry and one of the weightier things they carry is body armor and we have fought very hard on our subcommittee to make this a dedicated r and d and for german line we thought this would enhance the focus on this and we think this is really needed this didn't happen why didn't it happen and how can we make it happen so that we can have the focus we believe we need to read do see the weight and increase the effectiveness of this body armor a second stuff a third question deals with the future combat systems this was the army's largest program it was cancelled and the tragedy was that many of the things that it broke is done were urgently needed by the army and we understand that you are now developing an r f a for a compact combat ground vehicle and we wonder where is that r f p and when can we see it hit the streets general you mentioned that i know the secretary to mention that we could not see what a future and i mean might look like i will tell you sir that i am sure that one of his characteristics will be a characteristic shared by all of our potential enemies today in all of their open literature and in all of their war games an e m p event is an early use how well are we prepared to continue to fight after a robust e m p lay down thank you out wait for your answers to these four questions i'm going to i'm going to if i may congress and karl i jump around a little bit the chief will come in and tell you actually what's happening but i want to start with the m four there's been a lot of concern about reliability of that weapon and i've received letters from concerned members of this committee based on reports that they've heard things that they've seen and we are in the army concerned about the real i believe everything we put into our soldiers hands and not the least of which is the key weapon when they're forward deployed now out in the field of battle when the m four was first developed it had a requirement of six hundred rounds what we call mean rounds between stoppages m r through those years of fielding and through the improvements that capability has now grown not the requirement the requirement is status initially the same but the capability has grown to over thirty five hundred rounds mean rounds between stoppages that i think is fairly described as a remarkable improvement after wanna there were discussions about the reliability of that weapon and we've looked at it very carefully and we want to ensure that we're doing right by those brave men and women and as you imagine that's a from industry is how they can bring improve it packages immediately to the weapon to continue to improve it and in the long term is the analysis and development of requirements for a new personal carbines so we're we're working very hard i'm not sure mr chairman may we continue or please do is this possible ok wait wait is critical body armor weight is critical we are testing each and every day where the edge exists between reliability and break down and it's a technical question it is something we challenge you're right not to set requirements but through dialogue with the industries each each and every each and every year frankly each and every month those do what can we do with the technology to take weight down and maintain reliability we're working on a set the accept be the means by which we test to ensure that we feel that plate carriers that reduced i believe it's by about six pounds just through how we place the plates on the soldiers and that is one of the most important things that we consider each and every day and we're working hard any suggestions congressman you might just very briefly the r f p for the man grabby ical should be on the street within the next thirty days with respect to the e m p i think two aspects of it training and testing we test all our major systems for it's their ability to operate in an e m p environment as we get more time at home and begin training for the full spectrum operations our training will increasingly include the ability to operate in an e m p environment we see the troops to see what their needs were not only of those of the troops but more of their families as well so congratulations and there's no doubt among the members of this committee that you're going to do an outstanding job thank you so much for joining us arrival army forces in some of these scenarios as she all well know that everything revolves around the readiness of our troops one of the things that comes to mind as we do that we have to worry about this  sustained ability that we're able to be able to leave those troops are there waiting for help that they can sustain themselves and defend themselves and another thing that worries me is the proposition  however given the decline the feta right in the the navy and air force are you still confident of the assessment that was made and if not how can we help what can we give you so that we can be more ready to defend our position when we do they come out and control any one of you that would like to answer the question thank you so force and aviation vehicles and the ten point eight billion dollars in this budget keeps us in the right direction i worry over time that that people  decrease the number soldiers people will think about reset in different ways but it is essential that we sustain that the other thing i'd tell you on the readiness to commit forces for other things that 's why it is so important that we complete the move of the army to this rotational model and in this rotational model readiness will be progressive and when a unit is available they will be fully ready man trained equipped in the next phase when they are in their training phase they will be manned and equipped at a level sufficient for them to come complete the training phase and to deploy rapidly if there is a contingency we don't have that capability now and then lastly when they're in the reset phase we will have no readiness expectations they have six months to basically to recover themselves and their equipment to put themselves in a position where they could begin to train for something else and so that's the whole rotational cycle and readiness model that we're moving to and i do believe that will allow us to meet finish it's about eighty percent we rate the readiness on equipment right now that will begin to build it up into the mid eighty's and it will take time to hard hard to maintain that when you're at war but we think this budget gives us the opportunity to head out in the right i can't tell you how much confidence a gives us sitting over here to know that we have two individuals with the kind of integrity and competence that both of you bring sitting on that side of the table one of the things that often bothers me though is that there are a lot of accolades we're not able to give to people in serving in the army because they're not here i still think some of the unsung heroes that we have are the people that deal with logistics and i just want to compliment both of you for the great work that the army has done logistically across the wars that we have fighting i think with all the smoke clears that's been one of the great stories that we write particularly in fort lee you've done a wonderful job down there in standing up the new logistics university and i just want to compliment you and all the people that serve and in that area one specific question and this is something you may have to get back to me on but the army has a requirement for a lightweight body armor  any account of the military department a separate dedicated program element is assigned to research and development of individual body armor components the p e s far as i know has not yet been established and as you know we've got a lot of these companies that really came to bat for us when we needed them to produce some of these products and so my only question to you and i don't expect you to have an answer today you might have one but if we can just make sure that the army appreciate your allowing us some flexibility there congressman will will certainly check on that i've been up to aberdeen and i know from from maryland the motor of that but i think you're correct the major focus is on the perplexing in the second hearing he used it i found it irritating and being used today i just find it plain wrong and and you know the thousands of men and women gays and lesbians are serving honorably today that want to be able to put down the next of kin to be notified in case their death they're not of special interest their patriotic soldiers or the thousands of men that are serving honorably that all they want to do is to know that they can talk about their personal life the things that go on back home when they're deployed the not of special interest they're patriotic americans serving in the military i think we need to conduct this debate respectfully of all sides and recognize that these thousands of men and women are serving we ought to not try to denigrate them by referring to them as a special think that if you're going to moratorium as well just do the repeal and move ahead i mean that puts you all in a kind of a strange situation that you would have a waiting list for people to be bumped out of somehow it doesn't get repealed but you also have this model of situation i'm sure you're familiar with by now the ninth circuit case which i've talked about here the last show hearings that has convert conferred constitutional protections on gays and lesbians who are in oregon california washington or idaho and it already is a muddled up legal situation for you and we all know you have commanders out there that are looking the other way because they have troops that are gay or lesbian are doing a good job and so that already creates a situation where we know you you have have people in the military  i have two specific questions for you general casey one the topic has come up how are gays and lesbians going to be able to participate in any kind of a study i asked that question yesterday and  that they thought they would come up as being constructed some way where they could participate anonymously and i don't how some kind of anonymous statement from gays or lesbians her full bird colonel is or even general officers would have the same impact as you sitting down with heterosexual folks who can express their views more fully my staff as i was heading out the door this mask in my hand suggested perhaps we could have army issued masks for people i think they were secretly trying to get me on the daily show with jon stewart hoping i would wear it but i just don't see how you can have that kind of discussion you want when when the gays and lesbians in the military are going to not be able to express the kind of views and give you the idea of what it's like so i'd like your comments there i'd also like your comment on the following question as i hear this discussion about readiness and this is about readiness really started in the early ninety's when this policy was put in i'd like to hear response to leadership it seems to me general casey i have more confidence in your leadership skills than you do or admiral mullen has more confidence in your leadership skills than you do because when you have there are thousands of gays and lesbians serving but they are such a small minority of the force such a small minority of the force all they want to do is be able to do their job  twenty years or longer time after that they have the skills and ability it is difficult for me to see how with your leadership skills and the incredible leadership we have in the military today that somehow that group of people having a shift in their legal situation in the military would somehow cause a decrease in readiness unless the leadership skills at the highest levels of military leadership are not what i think they are so we throw out this phrase at this negative impact or potential negative impact on readiness why is that i have more confidence in your leadership skills than you do in the fat black fact of the matter is we haven't looked at this in seventeen years and we don't know the impact and we're in the middle of a war and it is my responsibility to provide sector events president and congress my views on the military effectiveness and readiness of the army i don't know the answer to that the question on readiness and when i do and i have informed myself and inform congress then i will lead but i find it difficult revolver that you should assist that business transformation agency which has the an enviable task of having the responsibility to get this done and no authority to get it done they basically have to control the folks in your teams to make that happen but that every dollar that gets saved  is goes to sustaining families it goes to reset and it goes to modernization as opposed to maintaining archaic electricity out of date systems that because folks are comfortable with them they defend  i'll stick to the army we're at the pentagon that but it is something we are focused on and you mentioned a number of the components of this this congress directed us and i think wisely so to create a chief management officer of the c m o which is by law the undersecretary of the services i have taken the steps necessary to execute the standup of that we're fortunate very fortunate to have a very able under secretary dr  actually been in the building before served as acting secretary and knows knows the building and knows the challenges and we're setting up the office of business transformation i've executed the documents for that so i think that kind of professional on this like the proverbial laser and her principal deputy bob spear brings in an enormous wealth and that is his objective to try to work through and bring audit a bowl systems into the army and we're working with bob systems we're trying to bring an integrated personnel pay system into into effect in just overall internal controls that i would defer to your expertise sir but as i understand it will bring us in line d mindset to get them more involved in thinking about cost in thinking about benefit and in thinking about overall value and we have been in bark on a program to grow an enterprise approach inside the army so that we you're very concerned about the flexibility that's ability that you have in the balance and i hope that we can continue to work through that because as you suggest there are many risks that you're still trying to balance out there and  what i appreciate is that so much of your focus is on the men and women who serve and their families and their role that they play and i continue to want to work with you on that i want to follow up for just a brief moment on the  issue that we're looking at in terms of don't ask don't tell and and that the year or the time that we're going to take to try and look at this issue and particularly general casey what do you hope to learn from that and what is it that you think will most inform you general think the three elements of the of the secretary's program are exactly what we have to inform ourselves about first of all we have to hear from our soldiers and families we need to get a better understanding of where they are on the  so because i think some of the implementation if it can be mitigated how i get it and how do you how do you hope to get to that and i think also in terms of of trying to understand the issues in implementation that will give us a sense of what the impact on readiness motor effect ok thank you i hope that you will have the opportunity to bring whatever tools personnel to make certain that your perspective then others perspectives are part of that discussion has we need to know really what's the most salient issue and in the past when we change policies is that the way that we've gone necessarily and how how compelling is that in terms of the way that information comes back i think we just want to be sure that people have faith in it that they believe that that is the best way to try and obtain that information i appreciate that when i turn to another another issue of controversy if i might and  as you know the d o d recently notified congress that the pentagon is removing the ban on allowing women to serve on submarines and at the same time we have seen a marine stationed at camp pendleton who are receiving training as part of the front line engagement in afghanistan you recently stated general casey that you believe the army should take a look at what women are actually doing in iraq and afghanistan and then take a look at our policies in your opinion how vital are women in the war effort that we have in iraq and afghanistan today and what does the army need from us from the congress to help the department reassess the role that women are playing in today's what the department of defense has said in terms of participating in units that participate in ground combat and we've added restrictions on co location with units who participate in ground combat because of what's going on out that the army did have a more restrictive policy than the recommendations not that we weren't allowed to do it but it was unnecessary and a question we have again as the chief indicated does it work does it match up with the reality of today's battlefield  like to ask a question that we've already had conversations on and that concerns the combat aviation brigade situation in our country and specifically rez relates to fort carson in my district  the fourth id is stationed there the only infantry division without a combat aviation brigade in the army now the army budget request supports the addition of  a twelfth in the fiscal year old eleven budget thirteenth in fiscal year fifteen and the army indicates that the existing assets will be used to create well anyway i'll go on what criteria is the army applying to determine where to locate these new combat aviation brigade and when do you expect to make a decision regarding where they will be located  i'm not aware that we have a specific time line obviously the twelve cab has more immediacy and concern than the thirteenth the twelve is being formed out of vailable army assets of not a new acquisition program so we want to be able to move forward with that fairly quickly that is as you know a very high demand and low density capability that we want to grow the third thirteenth will be further out and we've not even begun the process as far as i'm aware of that the department is reevaluating its force structure requirements particularly in the european theater at this point in time we have not changed our well  anyway there are to be there in the european theater that are going to be transitioning back to the united states how is the status of that looking and what are what are your thoughts as far as going forward on those european  just just for the record that that's not an army decision the basing should they be redeployed back and we are still programming for that return just so we're prepared for whatever decision comes is our decision but the gentlemen before us today once again for your service to our country i had to step out for a while so i'm sure i know that some people have asked some of the questions i have i just wanted to sort of reiterate a couple of things and then ask one particular question we start out with mr bartlett asked about the body armor and i think that's an incredibly important issue i know that i've worked a lot we have several manufacturers in california with respect to body armor we work a lot in fact we're doing a pilot body armor issue with our law enforcement to have them have armor that's carried with the weight across the shoulders as we  do in the military because it's pretty important with respect to health issues that are going on i just wanted to reiterate how important and every time that i've gone out and i've recently visited afghanistan and i've talked to our soldiers out there they talk about the weight of everything that they have to have on them i know the minimum weight for example on a law enforcement officer and believe me it's a minimum there's a lot more that gets attached to that that  person is thirty eight pounds so i'm sure in the military when you start to talk about carrying around rifles and everything it is probably closer to the three possible three figures so again body armor incredibly important and i will admit we have we have factories that were running at three shifts who are now running out one shift because there isn't the type of going on and also do you that the conditions of iraq the heat  exposure septra makes that body armor deteriorate as effective as after a while so please this committee has been very interested in body armor from the very beginning it's one of the lifesavers we have out there and we really want  back and i can't tell you how every other one is about for example and we know we've seen task where there's an effect of this of left by other manufacturers so we really need to off that our that was done five years ago one year ago let's get this our act together and let's look for a weapon that doesn't jam on our show on our soldiers i also spoken to through i know that we have some problems with some of that and i would like to work with you as i said this year to try to ensure that nobody is assaulted in our our our military mostly women of course and i guess my last question for you would be back to this issue about afghanistan and plus up that is going on with troops out there a comment by our president that he thought we would be withdrawing them these new troops the surplus the surge within eighteen months can you speak a little to how you think things are going in afghanistan and whether that eighteen months down the surge or bringing back on the troops could really happen here probably by the end of august also recall that at the time that the policy was changed there was a discussion about when and how many of the troops  would begin withdrawing and it was said that it would be conditions based and it would be appropriate to the conditions on the ground and so i don't think there's an expectation that all of the forces going in in the surge would start coming while there may not be an expectation among you who have been in the room but i'll tell you i think there's an expectation by the american people and i think one of the ways thirty thousand new troops into afghanistan was told was that we would get them in right away within six months as i believe you're telling me in august that's beyond the six month period and then start of withdrawal within eighteen months so i mean it's not the first time i've asked this today and thank you for your service to our nation you know today i think we're all concerned about the capabilities that our war fighters carried to the battlefield with them i know one of the challenges you all have is the transition from the future combat systems to the army brigade combat team modernization and i'm just wondering you look at the technologies that have been developed and my curiosity is the transition that's happening between f c s and the brigade combat team modernization programs and you know an issue many my colleagues and i are concerned about is the impact on the army's operational concept for structure and doctrine and within the within the f c s or the brigade combat team modernization effort i'm also  interested in hearing your thoughts on the unintended ground sensor development program and i want you know i fully support any effort that puts these mature enhanced capabilities into our combat units as soon as possible and i believe the army should pursue the most cost effective methodology prior to making full rate production decisions however i do have some concerns as you know the most recent army field range tests i understand of the program is behind schedule and not performing very well in fact january twenty first and congress daily stated that unintended ground sensors do not meet the army's reliability requirements of fact that could adversely affect operational effectiveness increased lifecycle cost and as you know the f y twenty indeed directs the army to provide a report to this committee by march fifteenth of this year and this report could address the potential business case delivered on time and what do you think will be the results of the business case analysis and also it seems like to me that it would just make good sense for the army to enter great the so called current force unmanned ground sensor into the development program and have a full competition prado reaching any kind of procurement decision and i want to know if you would agree with that that particular scenario  thank you first of all on the transition from the future combat program i think it's important for folks to recognize that that the majority of that program with the exception of the man ground vehicle did transition forward and continues and the network work that was done is a major part of our effort as are the capabilities packages and the things you're talking about the unintended ground sensors are part of those capabilities packages right we've expanded what we put in these capabilities packages to include things that are proving useful to the current force and as i said i'm opening statement it's part  of our attempt to put as much equipment into the force as rapidly as as is ready the unintended ground sensors did have reliability problems during the last test and they're also just they're a bit heavy a bit heavier than than we wanted and so we're looking at them and we're looking at other alternatives i mean one of the things german that i talked about in my testimony was about technology advancing so fast that we have to proceed incrementally we've been developing these sensors for a long time and as we've been doing that others have come along and developed sensors that are that can be smaller and it may be as effective and so we're  we're going to incorporate some of those indoor tests to make sure that we get the best value for the army if i could add you know those were initial unit testing and they were the first around it actually they're intended to in generally be bad news stories so we can learn a way to go forward i was a ranking member when secretary gates pulled the plug on f c s and he called me and frankly i wasn't surprised but i was disappointed but he made a commitment to take in  and refinance and recapitalize the spent outs he promised money and he's been good to his word as as the president and provide as nine hundred thirty four million dollars this year to work on the development of ground combat vehicles so i think this is a lemons to lemonade kind of story if we can continue forward because the army has to have a credible modernization strategy and we have to prove we can do it sixty one question a little bit different issue i know as we transition move units  ten however at the end of the year two thousand and eight that apartment indicated that one point four billion is required to complete their environmental remediation activities they are for bracken i understand the army is making its best effort to conduct  statements to ensure local communities are adversely affected and as you know i represent the district where we have forty hill located in there so i've been the movement of the facility there there are some concerns about folks there in the community about making sure that that environmental impact is well understood and and and well taken into account as far as that movement we all want to make sure we've got that school there that capability because you know as our big issue today we're just wondering  are steps are being taken on a larger scale with the army to amedee concerns about brac moves and environmental impact concerns the local communities and do you know where there be any additional resources to complete your bracket at the statutory completion date of and eleven can you answer very briefly yes we feel we're sufficiently resourced the pull through by september of next year what you rightly described as the largest brac in the history of bracks is bigger than all the others combined but we're on on time and on target the stewardship of communities affected by moving particularly environmental issues something we take very seriously want to make sure working with communities and for not meeting that ex t expectation that something i need to hear about and i promise you will try to try to make it right i thank the gentleman i am told that we will have one vote in the very near future but let's roll one mr taylor tha and congratulations on the new job as well general casey as always thank you for what you do and your willingness to stay in touch with us john two years ago we were in the middle of a crash program to build ask that you give serious consideration as getting as many of those that you don't need in afghanistan to the training installations so that we do as we train that is something in fact the chief and i discussed yesterday with the g three general thurman and we do have a training package about eighty five m wraps in conus that we are utilizing in addition to those available on a base by base basis but we recognize we need to do better as i know you understand sir we're flowing everything in the theater to protect those troops and to build that up but the next absolute essential component of that is to provide sufficient training bases here at home ok secondly recent visit to a particularly honest national guard carnal tells me that he held an amnesty day doesn't care how it got to iraq and the government paid for it you can turn it in no questions asked he had a two mile long line of vehicles generators everything under the sun in fact he cut it off when it got when the law got two miles long evan sat in this room and knowing how difficult it is to get the dollars from our colleagues to those things i would ask you and now in this capacity to do everything we can out to make sure that they all return to good use either inside the united states army the army national guard the army reserve a fellow service or made available to local communities and i'm told general casey he doesn't need to ship anything to afghanistan that's not going to work for at least a year i understand that the cost of getting it there are enormous but for a local communities whether it's a blizzard in new york or hurricane in mississippi they don't need a generator that's going to run for a year a new generator is going to run for three weeks for those three weeks until the power restored they really need  and so i would hope that given the vast amount of expertise that you have in your force people who've held elected office he's a county supervisor or road crew chief or an emergency responder back home that you make every effort to  find just enough people in iraq to go through what is being turned back if the army didn't need it if the military did needed let's let's make every effort to make it available to local communities who could use it and in and we both know they are cash strapped in today's environment as someone who started local government i fully agree and understand we in fact are are working to try to integrate a a local governments and state government disposal program one of the challenges we're facing is working through the association that has been stood up to represent the local and state governments they need to have some this is john the key is just that they need to have somebody in theater there's just too much of a geographic disconnect for them to try to ferret through all of these platforms so we're working with them i'm hopeful i can't promise but i'm hopeful that's going to happen what you will greatly facilitate the flow of the secretary that having laid down that challenge anything i could do on this side of the room to help you let me know i'd appreciate it lastly wounded warriors we have been tried and i'm not so sure successfully to get as many of them who wish to continue to serve a different capacity to our military academies as jim instructors as squad level officers plumbers electricians whatever their skill is if they wish to remain in the force but since you ha the luxury of two of the academies in your home state and most of them tend to be in the north what i would ask you to consider expanding that program in this is the chairman suggestion to the different or to see programs since there are multiple take the intervention of someone like you to see to it that this happens i would ask that you get consideration absolutely will i will tell you who would have lawyers on my personal staff in the pentagon is something we we encourage and we want to try to re general case i've got a question about post traumatic stress disorder and the soldiers that are being discharged with that and i want to thank you for putting an emphasis on it through resiliency training and and i hope that that has a mitigating effect on p t s d but discussions with some mental health professionals tell me that it is a reversible syndrome given the proper treatment and so i think my question to you is if in fact it is reversible why are we still discharging soldiers with p t s d and giving them disability and then number two and this may be beyond your pay grade and the sectors as well disability payments for condition that's reversible general could you answer that sector if you have any comment as well first of all thank you for your interest in this in fact we started out back in two thousand and seven to try to reverse the stigma associated with getting help for post traumatic stress because all our studies said exactly what you say that that is reversible the other thing that our study showed us was that it the more often you deployed especially with small times between deployments the more likely you would become to get post traumatic stress and so we felt it was usually important to get people to the treatment as soon as we could so that's that that's the first one second point we have established resiliency centers on several of our installations the most prominent one being at fort bliss texas just really was the original one and they they take a very small number of soldiers about sixteen to twenty about a platoon size  severe post traumatic stress and they work with them for periods up to six months and they have had very very good success but everyone while it is reversible everyone does not necessarily recover on the same timelines or on an timelines that that makes sense so we recognize the challenge presented by this i think we've attacked it aggressively and the last part about it i would say is the resiliency program that i talked about is designed to give soldiers and family members the skills to prevent them from getting post traumatic stress to begin with and i think that's the only way we're going to succeed here over the long haul one of the principal tenets of this program is the recognition that when pete most people the vast majority of people to bow to combat they have a growth experience and there twenty nine of them and building nine more complexes you'll find soldiers there who have been diagnosed with p t s d and we provide treatment the challenge we have it seems to me is that too often or very often people aren't diagnosed with this and they really don't demonstrate symptoms until months after redeployment and they have by their own their own design process out of the military that's where the critical challenge is what we're trying to do is disease that can be treated but there is a stigma and so we're trying to do that that's not to suggest we're doing it perfectly and i'm sure we've mishandled far too many cases but we're we're getting smarter on it and and i think we're making progress  not expanded the small arms production industrial base to encourage competition and give taxpayers a better deal as you know title ten limits to companies allowed to bid on critical small arms components for small arms companies and one of them is of foreign companies two years ago the national defense authorization act required to report on the small arms production industrial base report is now more than a year overdue last year my language in the  a second review on course to be delivered on time honestly and not in a position to respond to the defense department's position on the report i'll be happy and we'll check for you and  there is a process by which manufacturing firms writ large regardless of what platform they're they're interested in participating in including including personal or can apply for certification and they're after participating whether there is a glitch with respect to that particular segment i can't tell you but again at that and try to get back to i appreciate that and  want to bring up don't ask don't tell and i know that you have heard frequently but i have some concern about how the decisions will be what the questions will be and who will be making these decisions because i believe that when we have a civil rights issue it's something that we we have to adhere to a sense of responsibility to all the men and women all of them including those who are gay and we also have to make sure that we don't in any kind of judgment on anybody guard lists of their affiliation their sexual orientation or or anything else so i just want to say for the record i know that will be s this but i want to with my colleagues comments davis in california and i also wanted to say that i do believe that individuals who love this country serve this country honorably have given their lives to this country should be held in the same regard as everybody else without a sense of judgment from others thank you and i  both of you for your service first issue and i apologize having to go back and forth with other meetings that i was already asked but specifically the rules of engagement issue my visits to iraq i've been there nine times now six times afghanistan i remain concerned that we're asking too much of our men and women in uniform in harm's way and we certainly mourn the loss of every civilian life lost in combat operations but i'm worried that we're going into a point where we're putting our men and women uniform at greater and greater risk and tying their hands and how we expect them to find and defeat the enemy i don't see the details but in my morning paper back home this morning york i saw something quick about maybe prohibiting nighttime raids now in civilian population areas in afghanistan because of the risk to civilians i'm not a veteran myself but there's one thing i appreciate is that american military alanson night and when it goes after the enemy being able to defeat the enemy our advantages at night is huge and so i guess i want to just raise that concern with you and that you know we are in a deadly battle here and those men and women who are out there on this frontlines deserve to have everything available to them you know i think the analogy to war to put the limitations on our military in war to that we now place in our military we want to defeated the nazis as we so successfully did and so a concern and  would ask both of you i guess how do you feel about where we are today with rules and gauge men including what i believe is the most recent announcement about night operations rules concern was out there he knows that concern is there because members share that with him when that when they're there but he feels very strongly and i and i would support this having been a and having worked with the rules of engagement there is no rule in the gauge that prohibits a soldier using all means available to him to protect himself and nothing that general mcchrystal has put in place takes that ability away from any soldier it is i ndeed a complex environment and i know that there are at the lower levels of the force there are concerns with the interpretation but it's it's a concern about interpretation but they have the rules to protect  themselves and general casey i certainly appreciate that and agree with that but i would contend that if we let the bad guy get away because we don't go after him at night when we have the advantage that is putting our guys at risk because he's still out there able to come after our guys because of how we tied the hands in that sense so you know most recently president karzai made the comment and tragic story of a young girl losing many family members  and attack in afghanistan and how holding up the picture of that young girl the equivalent would be to hold up the picture of all the american children who have given their fathers or mothers in afghanistan liberating that country defending that country and our security here at home and i just worry that the politics of afghanistan and president karzai as politics within that country are impacting the security of our courageous men and women in uniform and i preset your conversation with general mcchrystal in that that is part of you know a high priority for you and all leading our nation and i wouldn't want people to leave here thinking that the politics there is here in respect to everything you've done and i know you're going to be doing a great job in this position so good to see you there i do first want to highlight the funding that's included in this budget for upgrades and improvements to the infrastructure of the iowa army ammunition plant islands who work at that plant i think provide a great service to our country and i'm really very gratified that these investments are included in the budget i want to thank you for that first  thing also i want to raise an issue that is very close to all of us in iowa and also folks in minnesota in fact i think if my colleague john klein had been here two days over the white house health care issues if he had been here i think you would have brought up the issue i'm going to bring up before me but i would have reiterated this issue at that point and that is the issue of the m r i benefits for our national guard about seven hundred fifty soldiers  processing of the payments is moving forward after nearly two years but i also believe that we need to make sure that these payments are processed as expeditiously as possible and as accurately as so that no soldiers under paid or i army is doing absolutely everything that they can to process these payments as expeditiously and accurately as possible can you speak to that can indeed and you can assure not just great islands but across country and you mentioned minnesota and you're absolutely right congressman klein has been understandably very forward leaning on this we have a challenge here the army is processing as quickly as we receive these packages as we call them from the various guard bureau is one of the one of the hurdles we have to get over is the workings with the guards in the states to validate the packages to get them to the army i've spoken directly to both the chief of the of the national guard as well as the director of the national guard in fact i was talking to the director last evening and all the tags all the ad is in general we're in and the states and the  territories was it was in town this week and he has reaffirmed our interest in getting those packages as quickly as possible so that you can help us to silicate those transmissions that will get those funds to those soldiers that as you said and you're absolutely right congressman did some hard work there in those benefits and we want to make sure they get a thank you mr secretary another question i have about the equipment for the national guard budget request is not a clue include any funding for the national guard reserve equipment account that's my understanding at least meanwhile the army national guard is not currently slated to all gay combat teams to hundred percent of their requirement until two thousand and fifteen can you please explain to me how this budget supports both the national guard's ability to respond to their homeland and their overseas missions violet you may recall that in two thousand and eight we had a great flood on a lot of those national guard folks that a lot of great work and i was so can you answer that question i'd have to i'd have to get back to you on the details for the for the national guard i would component as i mentioned earlier we do have over the next five years just over  investments are made it will improve to over eighty one percent so eighty one percent is a significant distance from a hundred we all understand that but it is something that we're we're trying to turn the tide on and  as the drawdown in iraq and to news hopefully successfully and we can bring troops home and redirect investments that will be an opportunity for for us not to continue to burn equipment readiness as soon as with your help with we've job and as they become increasingly an operational force i think we need to do everything we can you know to take care of them their families and make sure they get the equipment they need as well so thank you very much to both of you thank you thank the gentleman regarding the national guard i've had the opportunity in the last several weeks to visit with missouri national guardsman and two things are very apparent the first is the very positive attitude that each of and in seventy units nearly every one had been deployed at least once so i hope they get the proper recognition all the way to the top and that's why i'm suggesting that mr owens thank you first i would take umbrage with those who have said they were most happy that the secretary is in that seat i clearly am the most happy  i would like to ask a question that relates to the facilities this year that was a about a five hundred million dollar shortfall in facilities funding and that appears to have been restored which is of great benefit to fort drum and a number of the other installations does the current budget take into account that situation so that it doesn't reoccur this coming year by current you mean a propose budget proposed budget that's correct and by the way it's good to see you there and i appreciate it truly you are one of the first to contact us about about the effects of this so called boss funding  that has has called because these challenges it it resulted as a result of a required migration from the oco from the surplus accounts for these base operations into the base budget and it was inadequately accommodated for so this gives us another year by the time this budget has dropped and put into place to to accommodate that so i think we'll be in a much better position it's important to recognize oh it's not unusual for an underfunding to happen in these in these budget lines in the reason for that is we simply don't know the operations tempo at a base by base  to make a full and complete judgment so what we'll do this year and what we can have always done is to go in mid year see where the shortfalls are make the necessary adjustments as i said my opening statement because these funds go right into caring for our soldiers families and we want to make sure that those are not the fines that are part of the cuts that probably we're going to have to deal with in a broader sense in the years ahead thank the secretary general for being with us and thank you for bringing the four individuals that you did i would like to thank them for their service or nation and sacrifices and wish them well being from north carolina also fort bragg's a great interest to me and be in my district does not include the bases self that includes the majority of the reservation can't mcallen and many of the the soldiers and their families that serve our base we are also very appreciative of brock and what is bringing to fort bragg and fort bragg will have ten percent of all army when all is said and done and but with that brings challenges too especially in some of the areas  surrounding the the base won't talk about education projects the second we talk about our families the children of these families in their education has to be most of concern in india has been and we've done a good job probably on base in getting some new schools built but the surrounding counties don't necessarily have the money where they can just go out and build new schools because populations are coming in recently went to rockfish elementary school  hope county which is outside the base outside cumberland county and i asked i was talking to the fourth graders and asked to have many of them had either one or both parents in the military and i think three fourths of the students raised their hand s we can't have schools designed for five hundred students posting fifteen hundred students without a loss of education this is not so much a question but just we've got to find a way to help some of these poor counties that are benefiting for the new people coming in but also having to do transportation police and fire water and sewage they're being challenged and education is a way we just can't afford to lose out on  compensated for this influx of military students and there's a variety of of programs in that initiative i think there's no question that it has its shortcomings not the least of which in new york for example where the local education aid is on a per capita basis you don't get credit for that student being in the seat until at least a year after here he or she is now in there even though you're providing services and teacher's classroom space for that student from day one that is it's it's set occur in court and can cordons with the law it is a department of education program and while the secretary of defense says as work very hard to try to encourage improvement of all school facilities where our men and women in uniform children are being educated it's been a struggle there's a good substantial amount of investment in this proposed budget for doing d s schools for the defense department schools over which the army and the department of defense has jurisdiction but it is a challenge with the department of education programs and if there's anything we can do to support your efforts to modernize and i would argue make that make that law a little bit more reflective of these basic brac movements we'd be happy to talk to you about that well i appreciate that we will be following up on no times an issue right now i congratulate you i congratulate you on the civil affairs unit with the special forces that's very important and encourage you to look at civil affairs with just regular army too because as we work in afghanistan and other places making sure that we no veteran we thank you so much for your excellent testimony and you're in good hands there with general casey and we thank you carol for your continued service we will be