hearing will come to order good morning and welcome to the sub the oversight investigation third formal hearing on in residence officer from a professional military education in our previous session we look at the role of the senior schools that is the war colleges and the industrial college  the armed forces and educating strategists today we have the confidence and directors of the intermediate schools representing the individual services command staff colleges and the joint forces staff college the schools are focused on taking competent tacticians and raising their thinking to the next higher level that of the quote operational article in our next hearing when we will hear from the commandant and directors of the service academies and career schools and at a subsequent hearing we will also invite those responsible for setting overarching department of defen joint service guidance on professional military education mr whitman any comment you'd like to make with us mr chairman thank you so much chairman snyder and good morning to our witnesses and we appreciate you being here today especially is here making a second appearance and you're logging some frequent flyer miles with us we appreciate that today's hearing focuses on the first level of joint professional officer education which comes after an officer is well grounded in his or her service selected for field grade rank and is ready for broader responsibilities the importantly completion of the intermediate level of education or j p m e one is expected of all majors and lieutenant commanders therefore unlike the work colleges the schools are the only schools which educate all officers attaining the rank of four and are thus an important touchstone for the joint professional education system and by concentrating on operational matters of their respective services the schools provide an important early joint education through more than the subjects taught the use of other service faculty in attendance by other service internationally interagency students in the seminar based courses provide a broadening perspective witnesses will understand there are interesting questions of faculty quality and diversity of experience and the ability of the services to support each other with excellent bakaly and students without a solid mix of other services agency faculty and students none of your institutions can provide a credible joint education i would appreciate hearing both your success stories and your obstacles in obtaining these goals as you testified today our preliminary research indicates that the army and navy programs are in transitional periods in fact it seems that the army may believe it overreached in its stated goal of sending all majors to an in residence intermediate education at fort leavenworth and may scale back these plans it would be useful to have on record the reasons the army determined to educate all majors and residents in the difficulties it has faced in reaching the goal i'm less concerned with service differences in school organization and placement in the service bureaucracy what's important is getting the right people both faculty and students and funding to do the job mr chairman since i'd like to hear from our witnesses i'm mindful that our defense our national defense authorization bill is being debated on the floor i will stop here and thank you for your time and leadership reset your service to thank you we'll start with general casey and we're going to put the five minute clock on but it's more just to be kind of a speed bump for you if you decide to go rapidly over the speed bump that's your business too if you have thank you mr chairman members of the committee thank you for your the opportunity to come before you join professional military education at the joint forces staff college a joint forces staff college is a unique institution championed by general eisenhower abdomen over sixty years ago in one hundred forty six general eisenhower emphasized that our college was the only institution in the military educational system where the basic mission will be of instruction on the theater and major joint task force level despite many changes in the world since then a statement still holds true ending enduring mission is to educate national security professionals to plan and execute joint  national interagency operation we accomplish this important mission through four major schools and a host of short courses today i will discuss or points concerning our two primary schools which provide resident j p m e r intermediate level ten week joint combined warfighting school and our eleven month intermediate and senior level joint advance warfighting school for the first point allow me to re are a joint institution which focuses on joint planning at the operational level of war our military faculty is almost equally divided between the army air force and navy with representatives number of marines our student body is also divided proportionately among the services since one thousand nine hundred three when the congressional review of the scope panel's recommendation was conducted at j s c the two schools have graduated approximately thirty five hundred army officers or four hundred air force officers and thirty four hundred navy and marine corps officers numbers which illustrate our true joint nature all to a f s c students study in a joint learning environment j c w s students are also required to share housing with officers from other services during their ten weeks on campus our curriculum assumes the officers arrive with a solid understanding of their service competencies from their service staff colleges we build upon the service expertise  create planners who are strategically minded critical thinkers and skilled joint war fighters the second point that i wish to make is how our curriculum academic methodology is expel and supporting the joint multi national interagency planning communities both j c w s and jaws immerse our students in academically rigorous program using active and collaborative learning technique students engage in active learning in over ninety percent of their classroom time and a hard to demonstrate their skills by practical application case studies research writing and examination the joint combined warfighting school conducts for graduate level j p classes a year they focus on joint planning at the operational level ensuring that graduates are prepared for duty in a joint environment and can quickly become a productive leader of a joint planning group we have agreements with fifteen colleges which grant r j c w as graduates anywhere from three to one thousand graduate level credit jointed by joint advance warfighting school jah's continues to build the vision of an advanced joint program is first recommended by congressman skelton and they have panels in one nine hundred eighty nine just didn't earn thirty six graduate level credits while completing completing a rigorous eleven month curriculum designed to create master joint planners the comprehensive examination and the awarding of a master of science degree in joint campaign planning and strategy both curricula are designed to be relevant and current with continuous updates that include compelling planning issues and other special areas of emphasis such as bitter campaign planning irregular warfare building partnership capacity for teaching communications and defense support to civil authorities our faculty and curriculum developers maintain constant communication with subject matter experts in the joint multi national interagency commands and staff in order to evolve the curricula to meet the most pressing these of the planning community our methodology and techniques have been validated over the years the middle state j c ws was reaffirmed for the third time and met all accreditation standards with the exception of the required student to faculty ratio since then national defense university funded an additional civilian title ten billets to alleviate that situation although gaps in the military billets continue to be a problem i would like to close this second point by noting that we routinely hear suggestions that the j c w s course could be shorter however the increasing complexity of modern warfare is such that we have actively used the entire ten weeks to execute a very rigorous academic program with very little white space left on the calendar given that joint warfare has grown more complex and the operational environment is more challenging than ever before we fully support the skill panel's conclusion that we must resist pressures to shorten the length of the school any further my third point involves educating the right student at the right time ideally c ws students should arrive to the college too or within twelve months of being assigned to a joint command unfortunately only about one third of the j c ws students meet this criteria moreover if other office officers do not come in joint commands are frequently unwilling to lose their officers for ten weeks based on surveys of former students and their supervisors those officers who attend our course are more productive earlier in their join assignments if they are able to attend j c w was on route to earlier in the tour for jobs having the right didn't means having one who can fill a joint planning billet immediately following graduation however we have noticed that the service struggle to ensure that over half of our graduates go to join assignments immediately following the grat their graduation annual selection decisions and assignments policies limit the number of graduates reaching jobs coated joint billets to date jobs graduates have billed less than twenty percent of available coded billets and some villages have never received one of our graduates as a combatant commanders become more familiar with the skills of our graduates we are convinced the demands of our graduates will grow exponentially my fourth and final point concerns with the mr chairman while we are successful in attracting international students efforts to increase the number of interagency students remain a challenge we need to increase the number of inner agency students exposed more mid level government professionals to an effective role of government approach to solving complex problems we must also increase the number of reserve and national guard students attending j c w the need to educate the reserve component in joint matters is essential since they are deploying as individual augmented and populating joint staff with increasing frequency finally we must continue to encourage services to provide the right education to the right person at the right time mr chairman i'm very proud of our college the quality of our faculty and staff and students are unsurpassed jointness permeates everything we do we play a vital role in preparing the military to this system breaks we've never actually had a one hundred percent work before your lucky day general good morning karen snyder representative wittman sting which ladies and gentlemen of the oversight and investigation subcommittee president of the naval war college and i thank you for the opportunity to speak with you again let me begin by assuring you the navy now has a distinct curriculum for the intermediate level course as recommended by the panel military education of the one hundred congress headed by representative ike skelton today are intermediate courses focus on building operational level expertise a key emphasis of admiral gary ruff head the chief of naval operations the colleges intermediate level graduates are skilled in applying operational art through the navy and joint planning processes and are critically thinking leaders with operational level perspectives they are familiar with the range of challenges of operating in the maritime domain and are competent in employing naval capabilities in conjunction with other services other agencies partner nations to achieve strategic objectives in war crisis and peace further unrestricted line navy officers integrated commander must have completed an intermediate level professional military education course with embed a j p m e phase one before assuming command likewise most staff and restricted line officers must have also completed that level of p m e before assuming command equivalent positions this scieno decision requires nearly all navy officers to complete intermediate level pm me and ensures those with the greatest potential will completed the intermediate level course resident and nonresident consist of three academic programs the national security decision making course instructs in theater strategic planning the economic political organization and behavior factors affecting selection command and the use of military forces and the operational level critical thinking skills essential to the work of complex security organization the course is capstone exercise requires each seminar to produce an executive level strategic estimate of the future security environment a theater strategic vision that advances u s national interests and a prioritized list of new or improved concepts capabilities necessary to advance a strategy the strategy and war course as opposed to the senior corps which is strategy and policy is designed to develop a deeper understanding of the interaction of strategy and the operational use of military force the course sharpens the student's ability to assess how alternative operational courses of action best served to achieve overall strategic objectives after reviewing the classical theorists the eleven week course explores a different war weekly each with a discrete political purpose normally examined through the lens theater of operations for this academic year for example the maritime domain dominated five of the ten cases irregular warfare was the focus of three cases and a substantive part of three others the longest course of study is the seventeen week joint maritime operations course in it students study the operational level of war throughout the range of military operations with an emphasis on the maritime environment once firmly grounded in operational art students use navy and joint planning processes to develop alternatives for applying naval us and partner nation capabilities for strategic objectives major planning exercise requires each seminar to develop alternative courses of action supporting operational orders including the joint force maritime commanders the courses capstone wargame involves a crisis the development and deployment planning phase a humanitarian assistance phase and a transition phase all using collaborative technology tools in a distributed environment together these courses develop an operational mode base and perspective required to contribute on a major staff the resident curriculum is the basis for the four nonresident programs we're confident our educational protrude uses an executive perspective in a seminar centered environment requiring an appreciation of alternative viewpoints and the synthesis of complex ideas using multidisciplinary tools remains on target we expect application of principles we expect application of principles to case studies of real events and issues and require our students to provide written analysis of complex open ended issues grading clearly sustains the academic rigor through such endeavors we believe we can well judge if our students are cheating the required educational outcomes as president i found the college to be a place where morale is high faculty and staff members  satisfied they are doing meaningful work that makes a difference students are highly motivated professionals many coming right off the frontlines who take their duties seriously they continue to challenge themselves and me every day on behalf of the students faculty and staff representing each of our armed services many of our international partners and numerous department of defense and other federal activities we thank you for your continued support within congress and your commitment to professional military education thank you the army's commander general staff college i came to the position of deputy common five years of service and third of our division with twenty nine months in iraq twenty two thousand and three in two thousand and eight this experience directly influences how i view my job today first from my personal experience and observation our graduates are doing well in supporting operations around the world especially in afghanistan and iraq i recognize that state of readiness is a combination of their experience training education but it's clear that the college contributing to this the sestet these majors second there's more we can do to prepare this next generation of leaders we often say we train for certainty but we educate for uncertainty this concept is more important than ever given the unknowns of the future environment  broaden our focus planning and executing operations in environments that include extended operations over time we need a richer joint interagency intergovernmental multinational brand and we need to continue to focus on ill structured problems and we need to educate our officers on comprehensive soldier fitness to preserve the force a considerable amount of the current success of military education directly attributed to the implementation of recommendations on the report of the panel military education we strive and will continue to strive to meet your intent a rigorous quality education that prepares our officers to operate in an ever changing environment to teach it leaders develop over time we are an important stop in this journey as our students are already co tactics will understand operational are and will be educationally prepared to start or build on strategic studies numerous thoughtful questions have been raised we attempted address in a written statement so i just want to highlight a few points education we believe leaders are developed through education training and experience training is great if it is the right training range is great if it is the right experience and education provides and aleck to see the difference educating for uncertainty allows us to operate in these complex environments to work on the hill structure problem and to operate in a more decentralized environment with increasing interactions the fullest nonmilitary part of for our students the army adopted the concept of universal resident intermediate level education for all active duty and select reserve component majors which continues to be an interesting debate for army this concept is under stress today did the operational them bands of the force army need all of its majors  increasing complex city the environment makes education even more important one of the greatest size to resonate education by student's education is the interaction between army officers just their service officers international officers and a growing number of interagency officer for curriculum we have any grade a curriculum based on educational outcomes using an adult education model that includes time to reflect we provide rigor and upholding graduate standards and by waiting to do the work it is possible to fail we incorporate history  history studies in the curriculum students in the precision for examining the past or for the future our tests provide the best education we can offer to every officer attending the college and we're very fortunate to have a select number of students attend a second year study in operational our with advanced study the faculties change predominately aging from a military fact current fact that consist of approximately sixty five percent civilian with more than ninety five percent of the provide context in our current military environment the challenges balancing the needs of college with the personnel pressures on all our formation organizations and we need our sister service officer to receive joint credit as a current system negatively influence o service is in their interest service and instructor at fort leavenworth for the future i want to highlight three initiative story clee interagency participation in education has been minimal whether they were civilians in the army or best to market this program stories uniformly to these agencies understand it support the initiative the lack of education and training around the people to support the effort we have developed in term program for army officers help mitigate the manning  is a great start but there's more to be done this is an area we can also work our current policy set standards for joint representation within the body we feel a similar system to support inner agency participation at the intermediate level is appropriate the second initiative i want to showcase is the student health program which has been added to the college life three years ago the leadership began to see signs and symptoms of stress and student population and upon further investigation we discovered that the majors were in worse because of conditions that our colonels program was developed on resource we have a complete wellness program for our major but the next step is to implement the comm principles or fitness program building resiliency programs to help our deal with the stress s of today's and tomorrow's environment and the final initiative i want to highlight is our emphasis on preparing our major information every student must write for publication must be interviewed by the media complete a public speaking engagement touch the blogosphere early results having our students engage with the public or inspiring our great stories to tell an important message is a barrack and this is having an immediate impact on our army inclosing were unbelievably proud of the men and strong and will remain strong will continue to evolve and adjust to be a teacher we have a sacred trust to ensure our education prepares our officers our leaders to lead our soldiers information thank you thank you  to this level of success i want to emphasize that we consider our faculty as our center of gravity back to the make or break our institution i believe in student feedback supports and has a well prepared motivated faculty air force officer professional military education school are colocated within the correlates that center for observation therefore we were able to draw upon the synergies of the seven colleges schools their civilian and military faculty members inter student papers are read by senior military leaders generating ideas affecting operations and military strategy we've already had reports that academic year two thousand and nine student research is being used to change the way d o d handles fuel distribution congress may integration and the use of jointness as our primary language process changes mandate in the goldwater nichols by the panel have now been institutionalized our students are receiving the education necessary to critically reflect upon today's issues chairman snyder ranking member women committee members good morning on behalf of general garner marine corps university president thank you for allowing me to tell you about the accomplishments of your marine corps command staff because informed by the study of history and culture the colleges present mission to educate and train its joint multinational and interagency professionals to overcome diverse twenty first century security challenges we teach war fighting and the context in which that war fighting  occurs we rely heavily on a combination of seminars practical applications case studies and student self direction as its director my intention is to create an atmosphere of professional excellence by employing a world class faculty and staff working with energetic motivated students in a supportive challenging and forward looking educational environment the graduates requested by operating commanders are outstanding planners accomplished communicators orally and writing innovative thinkers and sound decision makers who have raised their thinking above the tactical level they should be adept at solving the complex problems of an inherently and big us and dangerous world and to perform effectively at the operational level of war in short we seek to reduce graduates who can think creatively reason critically and act decisively our students are accomplished professionals aggressive right savvy and in this year class what an eighty percent combat veterans knowing they will soon return to the fight to learn our task is to continue to challenge them professionally and intellectually to do this requires a first class faculty and a challenging and relevant curriculum the college is blessed with both let me talk about our faculty for a few moments the faculty is the college's center of gravity unique combination of military officers and civilian academics paired statically teams creates a learning environment and the college congressman skelton panel over twenty years ago found much about which to be concerned our faculty of only twenty four had just a single ph d we had limited operational and academic credentials among the military faculty that has changed just this month we said goodbye to twelve of our one thousand military faculty more than half departed because of promotion to colonel or to take command all of our military faculty have advanced degrees our civilian faculty including the one ph d resident at the time of the scouting panel are mix a variety of specialties and backgrounds some are former military others have nobilis military background  security environment and looks at interagency operations as ways to employ all the instruments of national power electives program provides additional depth of the curriculum and response to student interest among our elect courses on our group's insurgency from an insurgency perspective and religion and violence the defense language institute supports our survival level language instruction and our negotiations practical exercise next year we will offer five languages arabic french chinese and two afghan dialects and pass to students examine matters of professional significance through the college's accredited master of military studies program also noteworthy is a college's exercise program designed both to enhance the playing skills of our students as well as to increase their cultural awareness our vision for the college is to remain closely at turn to the needs of the operating forces to retain and higher quality faculty without sacrificing that quality and to increase of sophistication of the technologies that support our curriculum our graduates face enormous challenges in the operating environment that awaits them once they leave us the college is committed to doing all we can to assist them in their professional and intellectual development to become more skilled at their craft and mentally agile to adapt to an anticipated situation as attorney general john deputy commanding general centcom thought our graduating class earlier this month you may have thirty five year old bodies but education is about having a five thousand year old brain thank you mr chairman for the chance to speak with you today thank you all for your for your opening statements and thank you for your services this subcommittee greatly values what you do and that's why we're spending as much time on this topic as we have a you all know  feels very strongly about the work that you do we're not trying to replicate the work the skeleton panel did twenty years ago we're not it is not that extensively that we don't have that level of staffing and the situation is different now but it is very important that we provide the kind of oversight and struck that you know that the country wants and what you all want and so we appreciate your your presence here today i go back to the days of easter egg hunts and they use a metaphor here you know you get that they hide because of plastic eggs and so when june comes to you still find a plastic egg the dollar bill inside is still good i'm old enough when you actually on it's a little bit challenging to find those places where you're actually knowledge and you've got some problems and challenges so i'm going to run through these quickly and tell me if i want you to respond and amplify on and then any other issues that you have  facility brought the issue of of the majors how many majors are being educated and what that does to the long term goals of your mission in page eleven  i think the one thing i picked up from your same account on was that although it's not necessarily problem the fact the high turnover which both the good the bad those are the kind of the easter eggs i picked up from your statements and and i'm sorry  to do this very succinctly bringing the students in at the right time i mentioned a couple of times that the difficulty we only have about a third of the students that show up for j c ws are ten week program that are on their way to joint assignment fifty percent of them are on the back side of their joint assignment so when they come to our school at that point they're on their way to another service finance or a regular command within the twelve months have gained a lot more and it's truly an investment in our officers education twenty percent of jobs students we have about forty one students that come through the year thirty six of them are military they're based on the one third one third one third air land and sea forces that come through that is an even balance of over four sixes however only twenty percent of them planners master planners but they're not actually going into planning building and again sir i would suggest that communication working with the services and trying to put that in front when they are assigned  that is correct and one other point on that specifically where both an intermediate and a senior level college i mean senior level course there so we have the zero four zero six predominately  zero five but there are of sixes and because it can be either i only or s l e which was an agreement made when jobs started five years ago and that was in order to provide l e are my point with that is that it is an advance warfighting school equivalent to our services and i believe that the over fours and fives actually making them master campaign planners is much more useful i see a point where there's zero six is coming through but they're more on the high side of the position rather than the actual workers there you ask about the eight i mentioned about the aging buildings we have buildings that have been there actually since the forty's but the majority of the ones that we have are about forty seven almost fifty years old and it costs over a million dollars a year for maintenance and upkeep for refurbishing the extra of the bill existing buildings to support more classes and we have some issues with post nine eleven security we're putting a gate in and corresponding we're still working on getting funding have just enough faculty actually we're just a few short basically were just enough faculty sir to be able to teach those students over and over and over and there's about a week and a half in between white space for the faculty our human capital we have some outstanding faculty we have two thirds military and one third civilian but there's no time to do any research and we're working on getting another manpower but again it's going to have to be built in to make sure that that is authorized because currently right now or the ratio the three point five one not sure which student gets half a leg but the ratio of three point five to one of students faculty were about four to one right now but the faculty is working all the time outreach we actually have  our faculty have gone down range since two thousand and three we've had eighteen faculty and staff that have deployed in support of a variety of outreach operational missions in the fall in the areas of the horn of africa iraq afghanistan ethiopia saudi arabia and we also have other faculty members working specifically on teams to help develop lyrical and military policy in bulgaria the ukraine and georgia we have frequent opportunities still out working for the cocoa and that is one of my mission or one of my visions that i plan to continue that but again that's taking faculty out of the class when they need to do the research when they do come back when the faculty come back whether they are the title ten or the military they bring that new freshness to the student our student population  agency attendance i don't know sir if you mention that but i know i did it it's difficult at best i know that the ten week course makes it very difficult to sell to the inner agency my in awful with a great deal of experience we have all the different services the operational level but for the ten week course we have some difficulty attracting inner agency because the inner agency looks at it as a and weak but they look at it when they come to the job of course eleven months course they get a master's degree and it's an investment i find that both courses are an investment in their people you asked about the issue about attracting the very best navy officers to join the faculty since you're not credited with joint duty this is an issue that i see now as i as i enter seven months and this is one of those things that i'm becoming aware of we did have one of our officers screened to be carrying a group commander which i thought was a very good development but the the a doubt the joint duty assignment list issue is is a policy issue i probably need to work on as i have not yet really made the case on the the quality versus the joint assignment to what happens is naval officers look at the broad range of duties they can go to come into the naval war college and navy guy you don't see the jointness you don't see the joint experience so but i could say i can probably make the case and i need to do that ok that that they're actually getting a joint experience there and we have for example thirty five faculty members from other agencies and other services of course an army officer coming to the naval war college will very easily get joint credit on the jay dal the joint duty assignment list but it's it's probably harder to make the case for a naval officer to get joint duty assignment come out of the naval war college with that's something that all i worked to try to make that a problem with that is it is a quality that is you have to be qualified to dance officers know that and because that's not seen as a automatic qualification it's not seen as desirable  we used to have a fifty percent on the majors so fifty percent went to the residence or in the box of the challenges that the fifty percent that did not go to themselves as disadvantaged not been to any form of intermediate level education not half of those are probably our best serving and as operations officers that give officers in both our  so the army is trying to address how to do that but the complexity of the environment i think almost demands that we have to have officers need more education not last as you look to this doesn't look like anything's becoming more clear it's more but we we need help and and they haven't as as i said in my statement by the agencies do not have a pool of officers from which they can choose so we try to give them interagency officers but every every major we give them in exchange for major to come back that is a reasonable level but to grow to the ninety's you want to have ninety six military fact there is no floor on military fact and what i mean by that is as the numbers of the demands of the war increased the number of military officers in college have continued to drop and caldwell and i are trying to hold the line at about thirty percent there's nothing written and i'm not sure anything has to be written but the challenge is how do you sizes we run wireless throughout the system but right now with an m c i that can't work all the time now our students can go over to our great research center facility and they are much better at their digital connecting and then we are in college itself mr whitman as much as the right things chairman may begin i'm going to ask some specific questions and then go into a suite of general questions for each of you i'll begin with the general case  and the joint forces staff college obviously as this is your view but i want to ask are you adequately being resource for the joint advanced warfare school and if not is there a plan for that to happen or how do you think that should happen secondly when you talk about aging facilities is there currently a mill county in place or is this on the unmet needs list i'm just wondering where that is in the in the process if we are dental find that as something that needs to be addressed where are we in that in that process and then what i loue is just put some general questions out there for the rest of the panel members want a sense from you about how you survey students and graduates to assess quality and how you use that to manage and adjust your programs secondly as we talked about keeping t and i think it goes to not only actually in two areas recruiting and retaining and i wanted to get your ideas about how you think we should recruit and retain top tier civilian faculty i want to focus a little bit on that you talked about uniform faculty there but civilian faculty and and what do you have in mind as the definition of top tier and one of the things that go into that effort to attract those folks and then  lastly we've heard a lot about this and some of our avi's hearings about how do we this level identify promising officers with the potential for high level strategic thinking at this particular point in their career and how do we do that and then how do we take that information and use that to develop these officers to their full potential and is there something after the intermediate schools where these officers can be tracked and monitored to make sure that we have the best and brightest making their way into these key critical leadership positions and i know that's a lot but i want to try to try to go ahead and get at that adequately being resourced that's a good question sir i believe that at this point we have or our forty one forty two students  we have just enough we have come back ok and so we have three seminars currently we're going to get another faculty member and we have intent to increase the four seminars but that's not another twelve people because right now we have fourteen in each we're dropping it down so it's really about seven or eight additional students again my my intent would be to increase the jaws to approximately sixty if that was going to be possible you know we were looking for master master campaign planners out in the field at coke and the joint great writer because very well we have them all over but they're not in the right billet so if we determine to do that then i would suggest that we expand it like i said again it's on the equation of the other advance for fighting schools so i believe that it would be a good point to see if we can do that that would take more funding more resources both faculty as well as  in the in the classrooms as well our aging facilities we do not we're working on a milk on right now because we have our air conditioning system in the buildings they're very antiquated we're looking at getting them refurbished we had funding it's now been bumped we have to make a determination if we need to build new buildings by putting in a new air conditioning system because there's still the best  issue that is something yes sir that i believe that we could look at and probably could utilize your help and i'm sure sure one of the questions was directed to me i missed it entirely i do we use the process to identify those high level strategic thinkers and make sure that that follows them through their career so that each each branch is getting the best and putting them into positions where they can succeed  and i think in those terms the only difficulty is the fact that we are a war college which is a little off putting but we're working on that we are reaching out we're coming more online we're we're we're shining a light on ourselves so that others understand we also use our network i mean we have a very very good network with pleasure school others who people who are faculty know and we use that network hard on the civilian side with respect to the survey system frankly our students actually complain that there are over surveyed the each course a graduation graduates alumni at the two year mark and five years post graduation and then the what we call our academic policy council reviews those results i feel confident that you know we were getting the kind of feedback that we need to keep the curriculum current and and fresh and then i can remember the last point the last one is just how do we have data file how little strategic thinkers and then what do we do to nurture them to make sure that they get further advancement and get tracked and monitored to make sure we're getting the best out of them and putting them  skelton that that is one of the places i want to zero in because trying to identify these people early is really the challenge and sometimes you know even before they come to the war college is part of getting the right people also do the work college but but in the end what i find is that our faculty who actually touches the students are in very very good position to be tapped and so what i'm shooting for is george marshall's little black book students and we assess those once they leave and we just finished another survey a stack of data is about the thinking that goes back into our curriculum pretty good that we got a assessment that needs money and we're trying to do that with our foundation the second way that we attract faculty is to try and get niche areas such as history dziedzic studies or ethics or fort level which is a lot different than many of them living around the top university or we are doing a lot more with the university  all of our faculty have to teach and that's the other thing that goes against top tier faculty because a lot of them want to write as well and we're not set up that way right now it's something that doctors will have to look at here  of the last thing for to find promising officer i think there's three ways we're doing that one is they self selected we have school events military studies to celebrate his twenty fifth anniversary well known but that's a cell select program but it's  very demanding to get a second is there's an elective program that gives you what we call and six who identify or which again if i was us a strategy we're looking for two parts we actually have a functional area in the army for strategies but they don't man and then we have commanders that we want to strategies i think we need both and so both programs work in those directions now are we getting absolutely the best officers to be our strategist the army now has what they call leader development panel which is as captains trying to identify those officers that have specific skills that in certain areas that we want to further develop i don't think that's working as well as it could be because of the man's and the force that we have a lot of opportunities out there but we have a lot of requirements have to be filled by the  and about six months after they've been out and that's kind of important for us because i talked about our cultural interagency operations course they hated it last year it was one of the newer courses and then six months after out there on the fleet they  we also surveyed the commanders it's very important for us to know whether the commanders are getting the graduate that they want and that's where we come up with the fact that they want them to be able to read write speak and make decisions are civilian faculty when we went to the title ten hiring process it made it a much better process for us because we can hire and pay world class faculty and we believe we've gotten that opportunity we were looking for for for the next year we had thirty one applicants those applicants came from reputations as applicants came from personal networking of our own faculty that we had and then also  electronic system that the request goes out how do we retain and i think some of our faculty will come and tell us that while beer for four or five years and i'd like to move on some of our faculty come because they get tired of academia some of our faculty are former military they and they come for the reputation of the school and where we are thirty miles south of d c and then some cap just because they love marines and they would they love and it's one of the nice things is we have recently opened it up about three years ago to nonresident courses because not every marine can get to a resident course but they still have to interview and get themselves and we also tag them with a military occup the college itself we've had a wonderful thing as you know general garner today i will head back down south and attend his retirement ceremony but he's been there for five years fifty four years of service in the marine corps and the nice thing about having him there was he as for the surveying the students we actually do queries as well we do the surveys during the during the school time but afterwards we send out surveys to both the students as well as the graduates as well as their supervisors to find out if they are just like some others are getting what they want and we have been getting very very good feedback as long as the students came to them already educated or if they've gone and let them go to come back if they've actually invested i use that word because i believe it's investing in education and the people if they've invested their time to let it go let that person go for a bit then they are very very happy with the quality and what they're getting however many of our surveys that go out they go out to the supervisors and they're the service supervisors and it's thank you very much but he's the commander doing a great job or as a planner if they're on staff they're not necessarily a planner but yes he understands joint she understands joint but that's that's how that works on the flip side with our jaws graduates everybody is extremely happy when they have a job as graduate on their staff no matter where they're at again we prefer to put them in the planning position where they're supposed to be or a jaws coated billet but they're very satisfied with the education that they're getting through the jobs and the students the graduates are very happy with all of the for the most for the most part the senior officers that are coming through all of zero six is that are coming through certainly because now there are no more waivers most of them have been joint on joint billets and joint staff many times so when they're coming by to get their education way back after the backside of their of their careers it's ok they say yes good good good training good education really and faculty how do we recruit and retain we actually advertise in every possible venue to make sure that everybody across the board has the opportunity and then we go through a very rigorous matrix and a hiring process so i feel that we do get the highest quality and we can attract them there in the norfolk area only three and a half hours away from the big city our main their main concern any faculty that we do hire on the civilian side is that there's very little white space for them to do any thinking outside the box any stopping and working on research and publishing however we have had many published papers from some of our faculty but they're doing it on their own time is truly there is no there is no whitespace there we're looking to fund and and establish a writing program we have found through the j c w s and the jobs that the students need a writing refresher and that's through the thesis as well as the papers that they're writing people aren't doing that well so that's what we need to look forward we're looking to for a couple of additional people of course that's going to build out the need for some space in time or space and equipment but we're looking to hopefully pull on to more people to get that set up identifying the high level strategic thinkers the services we have to defer to our service our brothers and sisters in the services to actually choose the planners they're the ones who actually send the students to our college as a joint college we don't choose who comes they choose who comes how they're vetted how they get there to the jobs and there's not always the same boarding as they are sent to the war colleges and i find that just a little bit disconcerting because i feel that we do need just as strong a vetting process for the placement again the services choose where they are place so it would be great if we can get that kind of fixed up and online but it's not much different than the service schools when they  choose to go to these schools and specifically the sams and saws and the advance we're fighting for the chance for fighting schools they have a they have a plan but the services each as i understand it tag their like you have some similar issues at least get a chance to poach each other's faculty i would think is it something is it something you find helpful or do you mean on a formal bases the sit down with each other or is it more kind of random i would say that it would be selected i'm probably a little bit of a different case because at this point i'm just past my twenty ninth year so i will retire out of this job next year what what happens in the schools as a school is actually it's  requisition that goes up for the common not to take some some folks and then the commandant will choose choose that person but i think the lead up to me coming to be the director of the school was i was at that our training program just before i came which goes around and that's another model after the army's about a man training program which i also had the pleasure of spending two years on they go out and they train staff train staff before they went out right i know the secretary and the chief at some to do with this i'm not exactly sure how i was selected i was told three months before i arrived back from my fifteen month tour there in iraq i'm not retiring  plan to stay in army a while longer and i think the army did look pretty hard because the three previous deputy comments before me have retired and that is not the trend that has been in this position which if you look at the wall of previous deputy commandant they've all gone on to much more senior positions in the army students and the wargaming piece of the naval war college but but as you look down our our court or which you know now has portraits of presidents over one hundred twenty five years  it's mixed so in the end i come into this job and i tell everyone i'm i'm on a day to day contract and i'm just going to work as hard as i can and i don't know what the future holds but but if you look over time many of these presidents have gone on to other positions after our stansfield turner for example in the seventy's went on to be director of the cia those kinds of things but but in terms of navy i can't answer that question so i have a somewhat unique background i was the deputy commanding general of the intelligence committee command at fort belvoir as an individual mobilization and t as a reserve officer i was called up and said that my name is being put into the hat as the nominee for the army reserve to be the commandant for the joint forces staff college that was sometime in june in august i was somewhere over australia on the capstone and i got an e mail saying that you are now the chair of the commandant of the joint forces staff college and so about one month later i took the oath the staff and thrilled to be there i believe that i am at the right place at the right time for my future sir i mean a two star billet i'm very honored to be there it's up to the chairman as well as my chief of the army reserve what happens  do you look for potential ph d candidates and if so what mechanisms do you have for considering you know calling the somebodies attention or shepherding them into a program has been thrown down start with time time to come to school that time has already passed or they're going to go to a job that requires it for example you're going to go to west point and the decision is that they want you to a ph d program i think once you get past major there's little opportunity for field grade officer to attend school for that amount of time without going into a very  fletcher those types of things but i think that there's definitely we have the possibility to keep our eye open for good talent and like one of the gentleman said the faculty is very helpful in identifying those people and i talked to a lot of students to you can tell when you talk to some of these folks that not only are they bring an operational experience and they're going to be the big thinkers ok but when you read some of their papers at all you know immediately that these are the kind of guys you want to keep our eye on but it's for me personally it's right now it's an informal feedback network to talk to people who are actually trying to keep their eyes out in the next step is for the joint forces staff college we just went through a very large surge and not all of them were p h d s so we're not going out exclusively for them but however within the actual  hiring contract they have to enroll within a p h d program within the three years there are eight universities local universities that have doctorate courses that they can actually enroll in or of course there's others so yes or we need it for the jobs as well as for our accreditation but the fact that you don't have just one specific question for you you all have been perhaps more aggressive about language formal language training and what kind of feedback do you get from your graduates as far as whether that language training look we've looked at a couple different things sir we've looked at a full year program we found that that's really not cost effective what we should probably do for language we truly want marines to have that language skill is to start s at the basic school and then have them they're already doing some tagging with ornary officer stuff where they actually get tested on that language and use it and have some cultural program that they're part of what got out of it we if we give them a year at school it doesn't work very well so what we've gone to is a negotiation exercise where last year was the first year we did it this way we used to do it all in one block this year year and next year as i tell you we're going to switch to the afghan dialect then we give them rosetta stone we have and have them practice that throughout the year and in the spring we come to the negotiation exercise where we we just want them to have survival level language training where they do the niceties of the cultural you know how are you there's a big guy around here that type of thing and then turn it over to a negotiator so  by i hope you will feel free to share with us any thoughts you have if you think of something if you leave here and just send us something or call us up we are going to continue to look at this over the next several months and we continue to value your input joe jackson seeing as how you like eighteen and a half days to go is your last chance to say anything you want to say to the congress i just appreciate the opportunity to serve and what