subcommittee me to receive testimony on the status of the army and marine corps equipment reset requirements i thank our distinguished witnesses device chief of staff of the army and the assistant com of the marine corps for appearing before this up for me just today to discuss reset if two thousand and six the congress has authorized more than fifty five billion for the reset army equipment and more than fourteen billion for marine corps with him and reset for fiscal year twenty pand the army has requested another eleven billion dollars and the marine corps is seeking two billion dollars what we would like to hear from our witnesses today is what has almost seventy billion dollars bought and what difference this has in army and marine corps war fighting capability and overall readiness we also need to understand how long the army and the marine corps estimate estimate that they would need to continue to request reset funding and at flight level what is a future reset a supportive reset army and marine corps that both are operating at historically high levels since the start of combat operations in afghanistan in iraq the army has received more than four hundred eighty thousand pieces of equipment and over the past three fiscal years the marine corps has received more than sixty afghanistan we need to know how the depos are preparing to handle dissipated changes in reset workload the redeployment of u s forces and their associated equipment from iraq would be monumental undertaking the army alone has more than thirty one million items a hundred thousand vehicles one hundred twenty thousand containers and then some thousands of pounds of ammunition in iraq down in iraq at the same time we're building up forces in afghanistan for a sense doubting just to call challenges congress cannot ensure the department of the fast and the military services have the resources they need to meet those your leadership in holding this hearing and i'll keep my remarks brave i would like to welcome general corella and general amos back to the committee we thank you for being here today thank you for all that you have done and continue to do for a nation this committee's been actively engaged in the issue that impacts the readiness of our forces in light of the ongoing combat operations the army and marine corps reset programs are a critical part of that although the two thousand and ten overseas contingency operations budget request included thirteen billion dollars for army and marine corps reset efforts very clear that the request was at best a guess despite the agreed to framework for withdrawal in iraq there is much that is not known and many critical decisions are yet to be made and we must not forget that the framework for withdrawal is contingent on conditions on the ground and the capability and capacity of the iraqi security forces this is an important hearing and i really appreciate chairman  to join us today because i think they can help us better understand the dynamics of the situation we face as general corralling notes in his written testimony reset calls for future years will depend on several factors such as responsible drawdown requirements the level of force commitment the activity level of those forces and the amount of destroyed damaged or want to quit we face an enormous challenge as we work to rebuild reset modernize transform and grow our armed forces while actively engaged in combat the redeployment of forces from iraq and increasing forces in afghanistan greatly increase the complexity and the resourcing requirements for reset i look forward to the discussion today and i hope it'll provide us with a better understanding of the army and marine want to make note of your efforts to stay in touch with the cif our committee of letting them know the progress with them wrap program but i think you've gone out of your way to do that i'm very very grateful for that statement for the record interest of th appear here today to discuss an army reset in view of the fiscal year two thousand and ten annual budget and overseas contingency operations supplemental request i submitted a statement for the record i look forward to answering your questions at the conclusion of my opening remarks as you know it's been a busy time for our nation's military we are at war we have been at war for the past seven plus years and that is undeniably put a strain on our people and our equipment in particular the increased wear and tear caused by high usage ra rates and harsh environments on items ranging from individual weapons to helicopters to combat tactical wheeled vehicles has taken a significant toll as such the army's capability and capacity for reset have been critically important since the beginning of combat operations the army is reset over four hundred seventy thousand items including aircraft track vehicles home these trucks trailers small arms and generators as you would expect over the past several years we have become increasingly proficient at resetting our equipment in particularly particular we have steadily improved productivity and capacity of army material command depos to meet our increased maintenance needs red river army depo in texas for example has streamlined its humvee process now the depo is turning out thirty two mission ready humvees per day compared to the previous rate of three per week the commercial bases also serves to meet the requirements we have placed on our partners in industry i am proud of all that has been accomplished however a tremendous amount of work still remains to be done when we are preparing to drawdown operations in iraq we are continuing to expand our efforts in afghanistan this will require that at a minimum we maintain the same capability and capacity for reason as the army has consistently pointed out due to the unprecedented stress placed on our equipment as a result of this war reset funding will also be required for a period of two to three years beyond association of operations in theater our military must always be prepared to respond to contingency operations around the world and a critical part of our reset program will be to rapidly and successfully reconfigure the army's pre position stocks and to fill unit shortages including land defense and homeland security requirements over the past seven plus years with the support of congress the united states army has deployed the best manned equipped trained and led forces in our two hundred thirty four year history and i share the members of this committee that we will continue to coordinate with you and your esteemed colleagues on ways we might further improve our reset process in the future mr chairman of the committee i thank you again for your continued generous support and demonstrated commitment to the outstanding men and women of the united states army and their families i look forward to your questions thank you general and less  ranking members and distinguished members of this committee for the opportunity to report to you today about resetting your marine corps on behalf of the more than two hundred forty one thousand active in reserve marines and their families i'd like to extend my appreciation for the sustained support congress has faithfully provided its core as we begin this hearing i would like to highlight a few points from my written statement as we said in this hearing room today there are more than thirty two thousand marines deployed across the globe supporting exercises security cooperation activities overseas contingency operations for the first time in over five years we have less than fifteen thousand marines in iraq while additional ten thousand six hundred marines are establishing a presence in the helmand province of southern afghanistan combined with our forward deployed marine expeditionary units your course the feeling its role as a nation's premier force and readiness despite high operational tempo your marines are resilient motivated and performing superbly in missions around the globe for the past seven years they have been fully engaged in winning in combat operations as part of a generational struggle against global extremism this sustained effort and performance has not come without costs cost to the institution to our quit to our strategic programs and most importantly to our marines and their families are forward deployed units are man trained and equipped to accomplish their assigned missions and these units are reporting the very highest levels of readiness for those missions to ensure are deployed in next to deploy units have sufficient personnel equipment and training we have taxed our non deploying forces  strategic programs as the as the bill payers although the current security environment has justified the tradeoffs we've made to support the long war we must maintain a balance force capable of responding to responding to crisis across the full range of military operations the goals of our reset in modernization programs are to sustain the current fight by repairing or replacing worn out equipment while in hansing our support for the war fighter by reconstituting our force with newer more capable gear we expect to see reset requirements increase as a result of force reductions in iraq and a growing presence in afghanistan to prepare for the reset of equipment reduce redeploying from iraq right now with equipment flowing from iraq to kuwait and back to the united states for disposition we expect the final phase of our retrograde from iraq to be completed by about this time next year a reset actions will continue beyond next summer as a include not only the retrograde but also depot and feel level maintenance of our retrograded equipment and procurement of replacement equipment as needed the velocity with which we can process and repair our returning equipment is directly related to the handling capacity at our main port of entry into the united state it's blonde island florida this year's unfunded priority list totaling one hundred eighty eight million dollars includes a modest requirements at both blind island and our depot in barstow california that will if funded markedly accelerate our equipment processing abilities i have appeared before you several times discussing reset costs thus far congress has generously supported our reset efforts by appropriating over fourteen billion dollars to ensure that marines have the equipment and maintenance resources that they need continued congressional support a future funding request will be necessary to improve equipment redness levels across the corps it is hard to predict what the marine corps reset costs are going to finally be because it's difficult to estimate the total cost of reconstitution of our gear returning from iraq until that evolution is complete complicating reset estimates is the recent sizable deployment of marine forces into afghanistan all of that said we estimate in the near term that we need an additional six billion dollars in reset funding as your marines continue to serve in combat they need to sustain support of the american people and congress to maintain a readiness to reset the force during an extended war and to modernize such that we can face the challenges of the future on behalf of your marines i extend our appreciation for your faithful support and thank you in advance for your ongoing efforts the corps understands the value of each dollar provided by the american taxpayer and will continue to provide maximum return for every dollar spent today over two hundred two thousand active and thirty nine thousand reserve forces remain ready relevant and capable as a nation's force and readiness and with your help we will stay that way thank you so much you know we we have to respond thought that's paris and of course we have a great comedian members of other subcommittees and two o the standing chairman's reckon members and but some of the questions that we're asking today and one on this flight have to reset funding done and i think you touched on it a little bit to improve readiness rights across the board for the army and marine corps and maybe both of you could specify a little bit with the money that we've given you in the past how has that helped write and if across the board army and marine chairman when i look at reset i it is sustained readiness as you know under the old supplemental rules and the old local rules we were not only allowed to reset but we could recap certain pieces of equipment meaning that we could when we in fact brought them back for reset if we recap the piece of equipment we not only brought it up to ten twenty standards we went beyond that brought it to zero miles is zero hours and added any additional upgrades to that piece of equipment being  ten we will not be able to do that we will only reset equipment equipment brought back from theater and it will be brought up to ten twenty standards ten twenty standards does mean a piece of equipment that is fully mission capable with maybe only minor deficiencies on that piece of equipment as we get further into the drawdown much of the theater provided equipment will be brought back and is that is added to units that are back here in the united states and other right in this is very very high it's it's it's exactly what you would want it to be supporting our efforts there it's the stuff that's back home it's equipment back home and and i don't want to mislead the committee because the equipment that's back home with the exception of that that's actually working its way through the through the depots and through the repair and reconstitution efforts i mean that gear is clearly down but the gear that's back at our bases and stations is  is at a very high state of readiness there's just not enough of it because we have taken the gear that we would normally have back in the rear and we've moved it forward to supply the forces that have been in iraq and now in afghanistan so the gear this forward is very healthy that you're this back is healthy there's just not enough of it what we've received what you've done in helping us with with that with the fourteen billion dollars thus far just to give you a sample for what we've been able to to do first of all one point eight billion of that has gone to depot level maintenance over the last four to five years in other words that's all the gear that's worked its way through albany and barstow one point eight billion we brought six thousand four hundred home these and now the newest version which is the expanded capacity vehicle that's the up armored humvee that you're seeing out is being fielded now in the news four hundred mine rollers one hundred forty thousand tactical radio sets and you might say well why did you need that why didn't you have that before the war started we didn't understand we would be in the dispersed environment that we are in right now where we have put tunes up in the mountains of afghanistan eighty marines and one second lieutenant u there and they need communications gear they need sat satellite come on communications they need to be able to pass digital information so over the last several years the reset has helped us actually be able to fight the kind of fight that we're in right now both in afghanistan and iraq we bought twelve k c one thirty j six m b twenty two four h ones that have been the replacement airplanes in the list goes on so sort of the it's its depot level maintenance is a big chunk of it but it's been to reset airplanes that we've lost equipment that we've lost home bees that have been blown up seven ton trucks that have been blown up and that type of thing so we will see our readiness levels back home now that we are coming out of iraq you will begin to see those readiness levels next year begin to creep up i can't tell you how much they're going to be but intuitively it has to because we will be down we will be out of iraq the marines will be with the exception of just a few by this time next year the equipment will be out of iraq by this time next year being repaired and going to the home stations you will see the readiness and home station begin to increase next year you know the reset of all the equipment back from theat  maybe general coralie can also add to that we this is new guidance coming out for only equipment coming from theater and this is new guidance for two thousand and ten the new  policy change the new guidance that we get a new guidance now or at the same or the overseas contingency operation rules have changed and my understanding that in f y ten except for very few systems and  nothing is certain in this business there are different definitions but as a general rule we will not be able to bring back and recap and that means add upgrades to equipment in two thousand and ten we are still doing it in two thousand  nine and will continue to do it throughout this year but when we start executing the f y ten program the new oco rules do not allow the recap of equipment as a general rule sense for for the magnitude we changed marine forces and commanders in march of this last of this year if you took one hundred percent of what we call the equipment density list on the ground in iraq we have brought out over fifty one percent of that since march of this year just since march we've moved out all fifty one percent of what we've had on the ground there for the last five to six years so that was a call by the local commander and by  allen and then once those numbers are put into the system we know what's coming back that actually the decision is to worst distributed is done at headquarters marine corps by that what we call the strategic quit working group and it's all done by virtue of the competence priorities so that's handled internally to the marine corps and just to give you a sense for what i'm talking about we took twenty seven percent of the gear we had twenty percent twenty seven percent of the forty four thousand and items that went into afghanistan this year to support the operations that are underway right now twenty seven percent of that actually came from iraq and that was gear that was new gear that had been refurbished gear that was kind of sitting up what we call in stores up against a fence recently received a list from theater that i have not seen but is currently being evaluated by the army staff and the kind of things we would have to evaluate is first is the equipment access to our tables and organizational and and equipment if it is access and not in the united states if it becomes a much more difficult issue and should be given the authorization to direct that we leave that equipment beyond we will of course have to ask that we be reimbursed for whatever equipment  leave behind that will affect our readiness level and if we're not it will by definition show up in readiness levels we will not be as ready and all our units as we were before if we can't replace that quitman and we are required to leave it  but we'll work very very closely with the o t to ensure that as much as possible we can avoid those kinds of situations one last question is two parts really what was the process to develop the budget reset funding line and have the current rules for determining the budget reset requests for reset adequately resourced the army's reset requirements we believe they have given the rules have changed  recap that portion of the budget that would normally be used to do that is smaller but we expect in f y ten to have to reset a total of twenty seven brigade combat teams and we believe even with the drawdown  that will occur sometime in f y ten we will not see the effects of that drawdown in iraq as quickly as the marine corps will see that we believe we have the necessary money for reset to handle those brigades coming but in order to feel the m raps as quickly as we could are if my memory is we had five different jacey's three different engines on different jacey's which considering the part of the world operating and had to be a logistic nightmare keeping up with the parts i'm have to spread the workload and the engines and chassis like we did before there's no doubt sir that that created problems for us but i have to tell you hats off go to the low just additions who have kept the m rap or rates even with five different jacey's had over ninety percent both in iraq and afghanistan dipping possibly below ninety percent percent for very short periods of time but they've just done an amazing job even with those five different  you know the amref a t v as i understand it is sole source of b one m rap a t v the good news is is you know we don't have the all terrain capability and those five different models you talk about but both the army and the marine corps are exploring in right now adding an upgrade to some of those m raps a certain models that will give them all terrain capability so in my opinion the decision was the right decision we got five different variants down range if we've gone to a single variant we would not have gotten as much protection down range we have saved lives arms and legs with that decision creates logistics issues but we're working through him and hats off to the  keeping the o r rates up so high my second question for both of you gentlemen is you do have a monumental task to buy these things keep things running fixing things and i realize it's someone else's job to get them to theatre and get them out of here but it wasn't that long ago that the folks who maersk made me aware that they've lost about one hundred thirty drivers just transferred in pakistan to get their equipment into afghanistan the other  one of the other contractors i think has lost about twenty drivers i'm curious to what extent the recent events in pakistan the recent up tick in violence there has affected your ability to get equipment into or out of afghanistan what are in there is a purpose for all this is not to put you on the spot is if we are going to face a situation at some point where we're going to need an enormous amount of additional airlift because of the problems on the roads that this is this is that's where this question is leading are you able to get things through pakistan in volume sufficient to do your you a rundown of where we are today as opposed to where we were in january my understanding is things have improved significantly and we are able to get equipment in and out of country with force levels and predicted force levels we're going to have in afghanistan and i have all the confidence that they will be able to do that as for the amount of improvement that we've had in the last six to seven months if i could get that to easy to get it's my understanding having gone over there recently and talked to the j for the head logistics guy for us after that the southern route is almost it's very very little interdiction going on in the southern i think both of you gentlemen for what you do for our nation for yield to my good friend mr barnett i understand that at the g eight summit there was an agreement between our president and the russian president to allow us to fly over russia know about that is what i've read in the paper we have not seen anything specifics within the department of defense on it i did read of it which is encouraging that the group was signed to keep mannus open and mannus is a port of exit for a whole lot of our young marines  it's interesting how many of those young kids down in the helmand province understood the value of man assume they will make sure it stays open so they can go home someday but that's that's very encouraging and i hope we can work on that because it would be a  menders asset for us to utilize a dream an agreement can be worked further thank you mr barnett thank you very much i want to follow up with a question asked by mr forbes the army's twenty ten request for reset is about eleven billion dollars of which nearly eight billion seven point nine billion is for operations and maintenance and three point one billion for germany now from two zero zero seven to two zero zero ten the o at just the time when we need more money because of all this reset now we have less money and if we're going to justify that on the basis of this new rule that says that you can't upgrade when you're repairing the equipment then i have a problem with that because what an opportunity we have when it's in there for for maintenance repair why can't we upgrade that seems to me to be very shortsighted and i'm wondering why the money wasn't there that the army asked for more than eleven billion eleven billion was all you could get my understanding is no sir we did not start with the new overseas contingency operation rules were going to be that amount that three billion plus can only print procurement can only be used for washouts or vehicles or aircraft that are destroyed and for the most part although like all these rules they change for the most part the recap for adding on upgrades to equipment is not allowed  y ten and that drove down the amount of money that we needed for procurement but so why not isn't it our goal to have a better and better military to support our people why shouldn't we upgrade and isn't this a very shortsighted program i have to ask the folks who wrote the new rules i think that it makes a lot of sense to upgrade when we can it's kind of like paving the road you know it's better to put the sewer system in before you pave the road it's not a good idea to in fact pave the road and then decide to dig it up to put the sewer system in so when we have equipment in iran able to do that that was a plus and allowed us allowed us to recap equipment but the  rules are that we cannot do that and i think article one section eight the constitution says that the congress makes the rules and the mr chairman i think we need to take a look at that thank you very much  i want to follow up general on what mr bartlett just was dealing with when he says that the congress makes a real i'm not clear from your answer to mr bartlett what what what part of what the congress wants you to do is being thwarted by whoever is making these rule who made this rule my understanding is they come out of  bill i can only tell you what i know right now sir is the rules and and i don't question who makes rules the rules that well maybe rules is the wrong way i'm not trying to be argumentative here at all but this is serious business because the questions i have have to do with inventory and our capacity actually do an accurate inventory so that i make from mr bartlett and i should say because we do this  and if you're telling me that telling mr bartlett that someone in the office of management and budget is able to countermand i guess what we're doing how on earth are we supposed to make an accurate assessment let alone recommendation to follow up on the requests that you're making today let alone what has been made in the past they're not quite sure about your answer are you saying that your president your present course of action when you make decisions with regard to the context to establish by mr bartlett that you're not paying any attention to the defense bill i'm not saying that i'm right i really need to know what it is that we're dealing with here i can only tell you what the people that i trust to put together our requests to congress have indicated to us in f y ten as a general rule we are not allowed to recap equipment and that is that is dropped down the amount of money that we requested  procurement as part of reset so you don't need additional funds is that right tell me because we can reallocate funds believe me i've got requests mr brierly has requests right  now if your answer is that you don't need this money and that which was ripped presented to us when there i was in the minority or the majority because we've been on the subcommittee for for some period of time now so those estimates from before were inaccurate but let me be perfectly clear i hope so clear and me believe me i make some recommendations for reallocations absolutely i will we are in fact able with the budget we have and what we request to you to do what you asked me to come here and talk about today and that is reset our equipment that is bring our equipment up to ten twenty standards and ten twenty standards meaning that it is fully capable to do its mission with minor deficiencies at at best we do not bring it to a recap situation but we are able to reset our equipment exactly as defined with the money that we've been given by congress ok if that's the case then what do what is system is in place then where there's from the only or you or yourself to accurately assess inventory the reason that i asked this question and following up on mr bartlett's observations and inquiry is that just and shipping containers alone you read the g a o reports shipping containers and we can't get it i am i sub committee staff is unable to get an accurate answer as to what we need even from containers for equipment because we can't get a handle on your inventory what inventory process is in place right now and do you have confidence in it i have confidence in our inventory of confidence not only that commanders down range like i was twice are maintaining inventory of both their team on the equipment they bring over with and plus the true provided equipment we have had many looks at our equipment down range to ensure that accountability standards are high and they are and we feel very very good that we know what we've got down range and what we will inventories and correct eyeballs send it to you sir and i would appreciate your response it's a serious question because again this is a this involves numbers including billions of dollars believe me we are looking right now for billions of dollars possibly for reallocation because of of other demands so if if you don't need this money and you are satisfied that your  your inventory assessment is absolutely correct it seems to me i'm going to have a hell of a lot more flexibility and i thought i had to understand the tremendous tremendous fiscal crisis that our country is going through the economic situation and one of the reasons why there is no question as long as we can reset our equipment we understand that because of fiscal requirements it may be in the best interest of our country as a whole to cut back on the amount of recap we're doing so it did not seem odd to me ok here's me in the fiscal interests is that the basis if you have the secretary of defense is saying that you need at least from my calculations here approximately two billion dollars less than you said you  careful with the dollars that we spent and people have made a decision that we will not recap equipment you know why ten and that seems to me to be understandable ok do you think that's good policy if if if i had the ability to recap equipment if we had the money to recap equipment i think it would make sense not be a question i ask do you think you need the money to recap in your professional judgment that's what we're asking for today not from a politician appointed in and the only be i'm asking for your professional judgment today with regard do you need money to recap if i had the ability to recap i would recap for all the reasons i've stated you think the policy then of not being able to do that which is reflected in your in the in the numbers that are given to us is not good policy i can't say that and i won't say that i won't say that because i understand the people that make those rules and make those decisions have to take many other things into consideration and that is why i do not yes they have to take into consideration what we say is in the defense bill because we're reflecting we are trying to reflect i'm trying to help you here because believe me if you give me this answer i admonitions that you've been given the direction that that you were operating under reflects your professional judgment as to what the necessities for the army are right now if i had the authority and the ability to recap i would  you if this congress gives you the authority under the defense bill then that would reflect your professional position that you could use at least thirteen billion dollars per year rather than eleven billion dollars i can't give you those numbers i quote ok you don't have to well those are the numbers we've been given previously the previous years yes i'd have to go back numbers and put them forward for everybody to consider now we have to make a decision whether o m b does this because we don't know what the hell we don't need a committee or if if if if somebody's down and on b is a political appointment it's all political appointments and if we're going to do it on the basis of what somebody else decides in the executive is is is is is a budget number as opposed to what our obligation is which is to provide for you and the people who serve under you and under your command then then we have a real dilemma here i have a real dilemma because i can't accurately  i cannot in good conscience say to chairman ortiz or to the other members that we're giving a number that adequately responds to what you believe to be in your professional judgment and necessity understand my motivation here i hope you understand mine i understand also that you have to take many many things into consideration when putting together our budget and that's all i'm saying to you thank you we have the money we need to reset the equipment and that's what i'm here to talk about today thank you and sometimes you know we have to we're all a team working together at something we have to depend on other agencies to help out and  kind of a check and balance system but mr abercrombie right it's as long as we can try our best to get the best information because our concern and the bottom line is that we want to be in a position where we can help our warrior are there and now but i'm also dependent on other agencies to help me put this thing together but i think that he has a very very valid question and now let me go to my good friend mr wilson thank you mr chairman and general corelli thank you for being here i'm so grateful to represent for jackson train there at thirty one years and three my son serve had the privilege and opportunity of spending a lot of time in for jackson in training just a great facility in general amos i'm so grateful i also represent parris island marine corps air station here for naval hospital and i know that you have spent significant time in our community next weekend is the water festival and that is a time to celebrate the great affection the people in the low country have for the marine corps and so next weekend you're invited to come back home won't want to let you know as we talk about reset i'm thinking of a incredible success story to me and i know as a parent who had two sons served in iraq i always felt like i knew they could get the equipment because of what i had seen and that is that in visiting kuwait i visited the theater distribution center and i saw firsthand and i wish the american people knew about this and that is that the down to the smallest part using a bar code that the parts the different  with berm spaces so that they can be secure yet they can be easily recovered in sent straight to the war fighter so that they can be protected and so as we look now at returning the equipment i'm counting on the same level of professionalism and the legislation signed i just truly wish the american people knew how extraordinary it was what they did but as we look to the future i'm particularly interested in any preference given to the national guard given to the reserves can the adjutant general's an army and marine reserve generals in the load stations develop a list of equipment for their missions in training is that being done is a small slice of what they would need if they had the full plane if you were never tired first of all they're not all co located so they're spread out across some cases many many states so they have a slice of equipment that they can train within that and they can they can adequately maintain but we holistically as a marine corps and we start taking a look at deploying reserve forces and we've got a reserve battalion right now that's great that's in iraq and we're cranking another one up to go to afghanistan we will they will come together at twenty nine palms and we will they will fall in on gear that we have there and then we will ensure that they have the right equipment overseas we look at it holistically it's not a it's not a this is reserve equipment and this is that so i don't want to answer your question but but are all proud of what has happened and i just need to give this one comment i think it's absolutely amazing after seven and a half years of war we have operational readiness rates down range that are in excess of ninety percent and it's in no small part due to what you have done for us  allowing us to reset that quitman throughout this seven and a half years of war we bring that equipment back we put it in a reset for one hundred eighty days and we issued out to our soldiers now when it comes to reserve components reserve components have the same priority as active components whoever has the highest priority for a homeland defense mission or for a mission overseas regardless of whether it's an active component unit or reserve component unit is that gets the equipment currently we're at eighty three percent in for national guard units for critical dual use equipment that's not that's not only needed here for homeland defense types issues but down range some of that dual use equipment is deployed with some reserve units which brings down that that percentage of phil when you look across the entire force however most states have compacts with other it's where they can get at that equipment should it be need here needed here at home but we've made great progress in filling up the reserve component equipment needs across a force particularly in a critical dual use equipment category that which is used both downrange in theater and back home for homeland defense type missions the hurricane season approaching the southeastern part of the united states and we want the best equipment for evacuation recovery relief a final question is that general there's really this been a reset pilot program that's been implemented what's have there been any lessons learned we have had four different periods where we have taken lessons learned from reset reset pilot to continue to improve the system is you know based on the army's army force generation model as we bring units back we reset their equipment both their ground tactical vehicles and aviation equipment in that first hundred eighty days the goal here was to give our soldiers and families a predictability that in that hundred eighty days we would bring all that it back reset it and have it a bailable for those soldiers as they move in out of reset that one hundred eighty day period immediately after they return back home and into their training and ready phase where they train up for their next deployment we've learned a lot from the reset pilot program and instituted that into the force and in fact we just recently conducted a very very successful reset draw rock drill under the auspices of the for commander general campbell over two hundred fifty general officers got together to look at the entire reset process and how we could make it more efficient and provide a quick back to the forces quickly as we possibly can commend and think both of you for your professionalism thank you very much for your chairman ray s i understand that we're going to have around fifteen votes in the next which means that we might be on the house floor for the next two hours and i know that both of you have very important jobs very sparse important responsibilities so we don't want to keep you here i would suggest to the members of this three su seal budget requests were submitted my question is did these request include adequate funding for both the with withdrawal and the reset of the forces and the equipment that goes along with with that that's number one and number two is if in fact it wasn't do you foresee requesting additional funding for the drawdown in f  necessary reset will have to do with an understanding that the elections will take place sometime in the january time period if everything goes that maybe thirty to ninety days after that before we start to see  large amount of additional units coming out of iraq army units coming out of iraq and given the time it takes to get to the depos we feel will be in good shape to continue  the necessary reset work even with those forces coming back and make the adjustments in eleven days you know the key to reset is is timely funding because timely funding gives us the capability and our depos it takes about ninety days to bring on additional workers but it can take us as long as twelve to fourteen months for some critical long lead parts so the key for us is the timely receipt of funding in the vale ability to go ahead and forecast and look forward and get those critical long lead parts we think we're going to be in good shape in ten with the money that you have so generously we hope you will so generously give us day to complete that reset w well thank you mr chairman and thank you gentlemen very much you know there's never a way to express to you the gratitude that all of us feel for the lifetime commitment that you've shown for the cause of human freedom and i don't think i can repeat that often enough general clearly and general endless how many years do you expect to have to fund a reset costs as a result of the iraq war and that as it's been discussed with the current administration's facials in terms of long term funding i mean the point is i'm concerned that that we may have to to continue this process for a significant length of time and perhaps we're not thinking far enough ahead directed to general  seven and a half years of this war through the it will take between two to three years just to if everything came to all stop and you brought started moving all the equipment to  back to america it will take two to three years to get the stuff through the depots that doesn't include procurement with replacement equipment that may be in competition and assembly line somewhere and where we've fallen behind somebody else's priority so those things could take three or four years for all the procurement timeline but two to three years to get the equipment fixed at the depots and then and then whatever else time piles on top of that as a result  chairman for a part of the reason for the question is to just to remind the committee that you know this drawdown in iraq should not be considered a bill payer for everything else because we do have some ongoing responsibilities there  especially in terms of the reset in the future let me just quickly ask one other question because i want to give someone else a chance here son i'm not going to go through the others both of you have discussed  this posen replacement of quitman this beyond repair is part of your reset strategy and i guess this percentage could be fairly high can you discuss for a moment how you planned to dispose of unserviceable equipment i mean for example will it be disposed of in the  operations or will it be shipped somewhere else disposed of to tell us what the process is there in the policy on have to get back to it my understanding is a majority of it would even if it is a washout would be that's the plan it may not have a cabinet it may not have a motor in it but we're going to bring it home and our plan is to get it to go away get it on ships bring about the blonde island and then process it through the depots we have a figure of roughly sixty five percent of the value of the vehicle if it costs more than that place then we'll discard it back here in america and go to our depots and they're taking pieces off a different vehicles that have been discarded to build one so they're pretty good stewards of the money well again gentlemen thank you for your gallant service mr chairman i yield back hopefully giving someone else another shot at it here thank you so much both of you for your testimony and i think that we have a lot to learn and i