the supplemented with constant order but before we move into further i would like to recognize my good friend from the state of georgia for an introduction he was so impressed that he says i got to do it this morning  or am a portion of the budget request from prices of one hundred eighty five point seven billion or thirty five percent of the bottom of the fast five hundred thirty three point eight billion base line request for the army leaders including me to do everything we can to help alleviate some of the soldiers and family members particular we are committed to improving and expanding available behavioral health and mental health services equally force committed to preserving the security and prosperity of the nation but today forty five percent of the navy is underway our sailors are operating with us marine corps the u s coast guard maritime coalition partners additionally over thirteen thousand s responsibility the navy's agile it's flexible it's capable competent to do what no other navy in the world can do commander combatant commanders want to full spectrum and response of naval force in the demand for those forces remains high the navy for deployed posture to represent the enduring national interest on the world stage it deters aggression assures allies and fosters cooperative relationships to enhance global security are charge our ability to sustain a four deployed full spectrum force today the risk in war fighting readiness personnel and for structure programs is increasing which requires our focus attention and priority resources while the f y ten budget aligns with the goals of our maritime strategy we are assuming an increasing level of risk because of challenges associated with capacity increasing operational requirements and growing manpower maintenance and infrastructure cos the fleet response plan optimize our ability to provide forces to support the maritime strategy by maximizing availability return on investment and flexibility of missions specifically the plan for f y ten will enable us to deploy three carrier strike group continuously surge in additional carrier strike group in thirty days and if required have another ready for deployment in ninety days this year's budget allows us to maintain continued forward presence but as we balance priorities we've had to adjust the overall  of our forces in reserve and their readiness to surge it is an adjustment from previous force levels but this is just meant demonstrates the flexibility of the fleet response plan because we can tailor our surge response capacity and timing to the levels of risk acceptable to the combatant commanders consistent with the prevailing threat in geopolitical environment a substantial percentage of the future force is in service today sixty nine percent the foundation of the navy's plan for a four deployed surge ready naval force is our ability to reach the expected service life for each of our ships committed to executing the technically determined required maintenance necessary to ensure all platforms reach their expected service life we conduct a board of inspection and survey material inspection of our ships these inspections by design are rigorous critical direct and conducted to determine the health of our f i would be concerned with the rigor of our inspection regime if we did not see discrepancies identified i echo the sandoz commitment to provide this committee the annual report that couple that comes from the board of inspection and serve our people continue to deliver on their commitment to the nation retention rates continue to rise across the force in the officer corps we continue to pay special attention to the medical and naval nuclear propulsion community while incentives and bonuses have contributed to increased retention selected subspecialties continue to require attention in the enlisted force we are exceeding retention goals and continue to see a significant reduction in attrition your navy remains ready and capable of meeting challenges today but the stress on the force our ships and aircraft is increasing while we can meet operational demands today we have pressurized and stretched the respect to resource accounts achieving the right balance of discipline within our resources is essential otherwise we will not be able to meet our responsibilities to respond to now and into the foreseeable future will continue to face a wide range of threats to our nation's security threats require new innovative military capabilities and the unwavering resolve of our a force capable of meeting our commitment for your support we've been able to recruit entertain the individuals necessary to make an emerging mission a collective force that is properly developed and train faced by operating them beyond their normal lives while we continue to extend the service life and work to better understand the implications of these extensions on the groundings of multiple aircraft in recent years illustrate the need for both continued recapitalization and modernization program mr chairman and members of the committee were grateful for your steadfast support of our efforts to organize train and equip the total force we have stood ready throughout our rich history we proudly stand ready today and through the continued support of this committee and the incredible resilience of america's airman we will stand ready in the future to deliver the capabilities in the air and cyberspace that our joint and coalition partners expect and that our nation deserves thank you again for your time this morning and i look forward to your question thank general as we sit in this hearing room today there are more than thirty thousand marines deployed across the globe supporting the cooperation activities and overseas contingency operations within the centcom theater of operations alone there are sixteen thousand marines still left in iraq and another six thousand going up to ten thousand in afghanistan despite high operational tempo your marines are resilient they are motivated the our to our strategic programs and most importantly to our marines and their families for deployed units trained and equipped to accomplish their mission and they report the highest levels right in  training priorities have been necessarily focused on counterinsurgency operations we have experienced degradation in some of our core competence although the court security environment is justified to trade off we must maintain a request the twenty six point five million in baseline request and five point seven billion of which pays for operations and maintenance activities supports equipment repair family support programs and all the day to day activities of your marine corps the three point eight billion a no and m funding in our f y ten zero call request will support both our drawdown in iraq and our increasing operations in afghanistan will support transportation cost repair of equipment and the deploy so the fleet response plan that we've put together since then is one that gives national leadership a construct in which we present forces that are prepared and ready across the full spectrum of capabilities tension that i see is the pressure to drive into the baseline now effectively predictions on something that describes a world that we just can't predict and and so the risk that we have to begin with before i get into the specifics is shooting behind the target before ten ever becomes executed so so the the challenge that we have is now trying to articulate for national leaders what the operating temple of the new normal is for the fleet in earlier remarks we heard references to steaming days and and frankly the steaming days is a construct that we used to have but the fleet response plan really presents to the national leadership and availability of forces that are either deployed or surge ready where you'll see us take risks specifically in the ten budget is how much capacity we hold in reserve what we have looked at when we've reviewed the utilization of that two thousand and three in two thousand and four when we first introduced it is that the predominant use of forces is for deployed forces who are already underway now this doesn't fit into a need accounting scheme in terms of whether or not we're actually operating in support of the war or not so trying to describe routine in this kind of world that we're in since nine eleven becomes especially problematic for those who are trying to exert discipline in the in the baseline as well as trying to define now in the maritime sphere what the wartime overseas contingency operations really involve so can and can sometimes get in the way of actually being responsive as the construct that we presented to national leadership we think when we look at the use of the f r p over time that on several occasions katrina or a new operations in support of lebanon we've relied on a cold start for ships that were in this surge capacity  predominantly we'll use forces that are already underway and extend those forces as required in order to meet new national demand so what you're seeing now is a reflection of cutting back on some of the surge capacity that we had to representative for his comments earlier about concerns about overall maintenance i see this as an opportunity to get time which is not very well articulated and other than that we have an operating capacity of about forty five percent underway today and i do think this will allow us time to do the sort of maintenance work and inspections that are required in order to reassess again where we are today in terms of the overall health  holds specific in the marine corps we have worked hard in the last couple of years to try to push into the baseline and make those hard decisions for instance manpower cost of manpower and those types of things as an institution i think the biggest challenge that we've had is trying to come up with the right balance the right balance across all the core competencies the that we as an institution provide for this nation and as my colleagues have already stated here is not being able to predict what the future's going to hold is to make sure that we stay focused on today and do everything that we can with the capabilities that we have while bringing on new capabilities as we see them evolve bring them into the baseline but we can't take our eye off the future and we don't want to sacrifice the future for today so finding that right balance is something that's very important for us the other thing that i would say is we're finding out more and more about our aircraft as the fleet continues to age and so we've had to do some things that we had not anticipated with our aircraft  as they do get closer to service life extension program establishing a fleet viability board where we can better understand the stresses upon the aircraft that we have and then what is that right balance from a technical standpoint  either go for recapitalization or real or modernization of a particular plea we think there is an opportunity here that we can take a bit of a pause and some additional risk which is why you'll see in our budget we have recommended for combat air forces reduction so that we can utilize those savings both in dollars and in manpower for both emerging nations setting ourselves on what we think is the right path wouldn't pretend to be a lawyer nor could i be able to offer you a legal interpretation i'll give you a commonsense answer that's ok sure small there's a new team on board the new team has in my view placed greater emphasis on a  r that is far sooner than i would have expected with the new administration so in terms of following the secretary's guidance it seems to me one of the challenges that we have in the will set that we're given in terms of presentation of a budget is that we don't have an understanding of what the look like largely because of the unanswered questions and insights derived from the quote quadrennial defense review that's a priority established by our national leadership and we can simply i don't see how we have any room for interpretation on that the challenge with the thirty year shipbuilding plan historically has man the lack of stability and predictability for those in the shipbuilding industry to have some reliable document to refer to so when they make their plans for their labor force with the skills and when they work with what they've got and standing of what the future looks like if we were to go forward with a presentation of a thirty year shipbuilding plan without having an understanding of what f y eleven twelve thirteen fourteen look like then i run the risk of creating further problems for the industry so the stability at the end of it is part of the company that we have in order to be able to come before the committee and i think we would we would do more harm than good to try and submit something without a full understanding of what the administration and the team want to do in the outyears for the department the navy i simply do not have those insights i acknowledge the requirement by law i don't think there's an intent here to work around the law i do think there are some practical implications of where we are today with a new team that's on board that's still trying to find where it wants to go in terms of overall national security strategy quadrennial defense review and other gone with the contractors estimate which was a very conservative estimate that suggested a much more thorough level of maintenance was required for the remaining of p three s affected by a red stripe we got inside the wings and took another look at it we did not find the fatigue level or cracks in the wing box that the contractor had previously recommended that we review so you're seeing a difference of about four hundred sixty five million dollars between the original request that went into the office of the secretary and what actually came out there is an internal memo from us to the secretary that request to delete that and so that was initiated on our part because we can think we can take care of the i don't know that i witnessed any particular conversation that took place between comparing the unfunded list in zero nine to the unfunded list submitting ten nor do i get a sense of a n effort by outside forces to reduce the list from what the service actually asked for instead what i see is a recognition that a substantial amount of the national budget is tight and that the services are really taking very disciplined approach about how to how to sustain themselves the idea that we can go forward and still receive aircraft submarines is critically important to the future of the navy and also recognizes the commitments that this committee and others have given on on behalf of us so i think the effort going in now is to sustain the service life of those accounts particularly in aviation and shipboard maintenance and what you're seeing is an unfunded list that will bring that level of fund supply that and we find out later on that that was driven by budget and not by the actual risk assessment then that's something we all have and that's why we're giving you this opportunity to put that in the record so if we come back  e hope that we have that we're were seeing the troop levels in iraq hopefully start coming down but at the same time we know we've got the challenge and so we're potentially if things go according to plan we're going ask you to address this is it now in the face of these deployments and continuing deployments i think perhaps for the next decade and the dwell time limitations on troops coming out of combat how how do we justify going from forty eight to forty five  army brigade combat teams and then the second part is what are we what are we doing to help because i know this is a personal interest to replace the k c one thirty five hopefully in my lifetime not been looking good so far they're already an average of forty seven year old forty seven years old given the delays in the case and the fact that the k c one thirty  remain in service for maybe thirty more years keeping these airplanes available for combat operations around the world is obviously important objective currently the case the one thirty five program depo maintenance is performed organic well as outside contractors i understand it in if the air force is planning to increase the number of aircraft inducted into p b m organically from forty eight to fifty four and reduce those done by outside contractors from twenty nine to twenty three can you talk a little bit about how you are going to be able to handle that organic increase in work country you know to sort of add to your list of reasons why the reduction in might be reconsidered is the fact that a number of different communities have relied other attendant things that are necessary in order to to to adequately take care of an extra five thousand people and their families significant investment for the communities of the mass to do that fort stewart specifically i think was the community that was going to receive the next simming it does that's fine but if it doesn't so far today the investment is in excess of four hundred fifty million dollars that may not be a lot of money from the department of defense it's a huge sum of money for those communities and governments etc down in the fort stewart area and it's a matter of just sort of abiding by your word i mean if our words not be taken into account as core work for maintenance purposes and that caused a flurry of consternation here because as we've gone through the process year after year after year considering that question you know adjusting to fifty fifty that sort of thing we've always contemplated that modernization was part of the mix what their forces current view of modernization is a part of that and ongoing study for new weapon systems that we're bringing online and where actually that will wind up within the debt so that is ongoing because of this little brush with the secretary suggesting perhaps we might put clarifying language in this year's bill be happy to work with you on on that clarifying language you would like to work with the secretary has proposed actually by agreement between the s modernization i'm convinced we are going to acquire more of these things is not we're not stopping at thirty eight b analysis that was published on march thirteenth says that for a low intensity conflicts like we're engaged in at the as we consider further sales as we prepare to buy a pair more by air force really needs to focus on this long term issue and the deal with the contractor can be modified question is what sort of coordination is going on between air force and army right now on and the needs of the army where the cariboo is concerned some similar was done during the vietnam era it didn't work out very well the air force really wasn't able to meet the needs of the to figure out how we're going to actually meet the army  the program of record that we have on track right now on working with the program office to include the development the testing and everything else that's going to go with that so we are at our people in with the army  meetings already as we provide direction and guidance to that team of individuals that is taking a look at this entire program and we are charged them by the end of the month to  to are you heading in the direction of putting in writing what the army is expectations are air force agreeing to meet those expectations are me going to develop the list and hopefully will be a very thorough list and guidance can be taken from the experience with the frazier general it was good to hear you and albuquerque a couple weeks ago i very much enjoyed i know the audience enjoyed your interest in our city in the last two hearings with secretary gates and secretary donnell spectrum of our combat air forces in trying to find that right balance and where opportunities present themselves for our total force that was one of the areas that we felt like was certainly prime to there which is something that is particular area of great interest as we continue to increase capacity and capability to provide it to the joint there's other opportunities that we've also talked about with other emerging weapon systems as they come on line because we provide other capabilities such as intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance to today we need other units that are willing to participate and want to participate in those total force initiatives and so we've had a great opportunities in a number of the other states too where they have taken on these new missions and so we felt like that that was one area as we modernize and upgraded across the cap and took this particular step with the ca criteria that were used in terms of who is going to be retired where and why and specifically whether or not some of those things were taken into account such as i know ten of the twenty one getting all the losses that we've had on the equipment on the battlefield i always worry about another conflict and if there was to be another to be able to stay in case we have to deploy troops during other conflicts someplace else i mean we've got our hands full but these all always worries me you know one of you would like to respond to that question this is precisely what we're concerned about why we present ourselves as a full spectrum force because in large measure in our history we've been caught by surprise and so when we're forward deployed and  really in many respects alone operating at sea we have to take a very suspect approach in terms of how we approach our concept of operations so that as we approach  traffic in the area we have no idea whether these vessels in distress legitimate traffic or another u s s cole that's about to happen so our experience has taught us and that's one of the reasons why the full spectrum capability has been a red line for my service for many years while we argued before the supreme court how important was to be able to have that full spectrum training to include undersea warfare committee support for our readiness and our ranges is critically important to us and one of the reviews that's underway right now is how valuable and how propre it is simulation training because it cannot replace the hands on execution and experience whether it's in the flight hour program or the actual execution of undersea warfare operations that cannot be simulated to the point that we can do away with the training ranges the continued support in that area is very valuable to us and that's exactly the reason why we approach our business the way we into what else could we do around the world and the answer from the marine corps perspective is we would it would be difficult we would cobble together that we have back at home the last deployment we were all in the twelve to fourteen percent of the force now we're fifty four percent of our deployers are over one hundred twenty days and we have even larger numbers that are picking up the three sixty five naturally that add stress back to those home units to ensure that they maintain the capabilities should something else arise the other thing that that we see that we're able to do is continue to the ploy in other areas where there's nearly forty thousand airmen that are deployed maybe deployed forward but yet we have over two hundred thousand that are engaged in the day to day fight because of the way that we're able to do business back here with our intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance and actually performing the mission today and providing a valuable contribution so it's all of that that is stressed out there that we need to take a look at we also have several specialty codes that are stressed leveling off of the manpower at three hundred thirty thousand three hundred thirty two thousand is going to help us so we have focused that additional manpower into yes some of those stressed career fields but into those added capabilities that we continue to bring came to the congress back in the eighty's i can remember the reduction of the forces and i can remember man and women calling they had been in the military twelve fourteen years down to a lower percentage and we would like to when they go through and build them up over time but the problem you have there is that as we get ready for an exercise in the train and ready for the twenty seven in the coordination between army and air force i was in afghanistan year and a half ago and from my perspective fortunately army couldn't get me out of so i stayed there for about three days and it wound up being a better trip as a result of that the reason army couldn't was because army didn't have the air assets that it needed in order to deal with the tempo also moved some congressmen and so i just said i'm last in line here can't have soldiers be last in line and so i wonder what the range of possible options might be with regard to coordination between air force and army general fraser for example is it conceivable that you could wind up with  e air force simply providing the platform to the army and everything else is relatively the same from the army's perspective army warrant officers army chain of command army complete control although army would not be  the army has to actually go through air force channels in order to access the asset hour by hour day by day and then somehow there's something that's in between that maybe works from army's perspective obviously you'd rather have the asset not all your people chain of command etc and i'm not sure what air force would prefer to have are both of those extremes at this point possible are you much narrower than that that's why we have a  group that involves the guard the active duty army and do your or that are coordinating on this and working with the theater working with everyone involved to ensure that we understand the concept of employment and as we mentioned earlier that we will get that down in writing we see this as we step into this this is not going to be all in all one day turned over  air force there will be a transition period and that's why we're working together with respect to the acquisition program to make sure that there is a smooth friends there's a number of items that are on the table we have a task to do out od would army personnel migrate the army personnel perhaps who would otherwise have been accomplishing the mission would they migrate to the air force some how would air force take army warrant officer