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i 

57–925 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–154] 

SUPPORTING THE RESERVE COMPONENTS AS AN OPERATIONAL RESERVE 

AND KEY RESERVE PERSONNEL LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 15, 2010 
(II) 

MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California, Chairwoman 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

CRAIG GREENE, Professional Staff Member 

JOHN CHAPLA, Professional Staff Member 

JAMES WEISS, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2010 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, April 15, 2010, Supporting the Reserve Components as an Operational Reserve and Key Reserve Personnel Legislative Initiatives ................ 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, April 15, 2010 ........................................................................................ 33 

THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2010 

SUPPORTING THE RESERVE COMPONENTS AS AN OPERATIONAL 

RESERVE AND KEY RESERVE PERSONNEL LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative from California, Chairwoman, Military Personnel Subcommittee ............................................................................. 1 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Ranking Member, 

Military Personnel Subcommittee ...................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Carpenter, Maj. Gen. Raymond W., USA, Acting Director, Army National 

Guard .................................................................................................................... 9 

Debbink, Vice Adm. Dirk J., USN, Chief, Navy Reserve ..................................... 5 

Kelly, Lt. Gen. John F., USMC, Commander, Marine Forces Reserve ............... 6 

McCarthy, Hon. Dennis M., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs ....................................................................................................................... 3 

Stenner, Lt. Gen. Charles E., Jr., USAF, Chief, Air Force Reserve .................... 7 

Stultz, Lt. Gen. Jack, USA, Chief, Army Reserve ................................................. 4 

Wyatt, Lt. Gen. Harry M., III, USAF, Director, Air National Guard ................. 8 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Carpenter, Maj. Gen. Raymond W. ................................................................. 142 

Davis, Hon. Susan A. ....................................................................................... 37 

Debbink, Vice Adm. Dirk J. ............................................................................. 79 

Kelly, Lt. Gen. John F. ..................................................................................... 101 

McCarthy, Hon. Dennis M. .............................................................................. 41 

Stenner, Lt. Gen. Charles E., Jr. .................................................................... 121 

Stultz, Lt. Gen. Jack ........................................................................................ 64 

Wilson, Hon. Joe ............................................................................................... 39 

Wyatt, Lt. Gen. Harry M., III .......................................................................... 135 
Page

IV 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Hare ............................................................................................................ 167 

Ms. Tsongas ...................................................................................................... 167 
(1) 

SUPPORTING THE RESERVE COMPONENTS AS AN OPERATIONAL RESERVE AND KEY RESERVE PERSONNEL 

LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, April 15, 2010. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:10 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Susan A. Davis (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRWOMAN, MILITARY 

PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mrs. DAVIS. Good afternoon. The meeting will come to order. 

Today this subcommittee will turn its attention to the important 

issue of what it means to be an Operational Reserve Force and to 

examine what policies, laws and practices may need to be adjusted 

to ensure a sustainable Reserve Force. 

The attacks on September 11, 2001 set in motion the sustained 

increased use and heavier reliance on the Reserves with over 

761,000 reservists and guardsmen mobilized to date, one-third of 

whom have been activated two times or more. The Department of 

Defense (DOD) and the services have begun a transformation of the 

Guard and Reserve to an operational force with greater strategic 

capability and depth. This includes an equipping strategy to ensure 

the Reserve Components have the same equipment as their respective active component and effective force management strategy to 

ensure the Reserves are not over-utilized. 

In response to the continuing reliance on the Reserves, Congress 

took some key steps to address the concerns that emerged: 

First, it established the Commission on the National Guard and 

Reserves to provide a comprehensive, independent assessment of 

the Guard and Reserves and its potential future roles. 

Secondly, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 

2008, Congress, one, elevated the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to the grade of four-star general; two, made the National 

Guard Bureau a joint organization; and three, required specific actions with regard to equipping the Guard and Reserves. 

Congress also mandated the establishment of the Yellow Ribbon 

Reintegration Program to assist Guard and Reserve members and 

their families’ transition back to communities after deployment. 

Some of the issues of interest to the subcommittee we hope to 

discuss today, in today’s hearing, would include the status of the 

remaining 53 recommendations of the Commission to the Depart-
2 

ment of Defense, the status of the Reserve retirement; the Continuum of Service objective; the promotion system and the integrated pay and personnel systems; the status of individual readiness, medical readiness, and force structure decisions; and the status of support to families and support to employers. 

We have an excellent panel consisting of the Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Reserve Affairs and the Chiefs of the Reserve Components who will help us explore these issues. I will request that 

all witnesses keep their oral statements as close as you can to 

three minutes. And, without objection, all written statements will 

be entered into the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Davis can be found in the Appendix on page 37.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. I ask for unanimous consent to allow Congressman 

Phil Hare to submit a question for the record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 167.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Wilson, do you have opening remarks? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

SOUTH CAROLINA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WILSON. Chairwoman Davis, I join you in welcoming our witnesses, the key civilian and military leaders of this nation’s Reserve Components. Our country is so fortunate to have such dedicated military leaders who truly look out for their troops and military families. I thank them all for their service to the nation. 

We also want to thank you for having this hearing. In my view, 

we are in a period of transition, trying to incorporate the lessons 

learned from strong active and Reserve Component integration and 

interdependence during the past eight years of war, while moving 

towards a future where potential requirements for building and 

sustaining the Reserve Components as an Operational Reserve 

may soon outstrip the resources available. 

To illustrate my concern, let me highlight a point made in Secretary McCarthy’s written statement. Quote: The fiscal year 2011 

budget provides for about $50 billion to pay for training, equipping, 

and facilities to support the Reserve Components. The funds provide about 43 percent of the total military end strength, for 9 percent of the total base budget. 

That statement reiterates an historical fact. The Reserve Components have always been remarkably cost-effective. The statement 

does not address, however, whether the $50 billion adequately 

meets the requirements for today’s and tomorrow’s Reserve Components, nor does it address the resourcing legislative and policy 

changes that would be required to ensure that the Reserve Components continue to be in an Operational Reserve and do not slip 

back into the former resource-dictated roles of being only a Strategic Reserve. 

Our witnesses, as military leaders, know during a time of battle 

that periods of transition, a passage of lines, a relief in place to 

shift from offense to defense are periods of risk. From my perspective during this period of transition, this period of risk, we must 

hear clearly and distinctly from each of the military services and 
3 

from the Department of Defense how they intend to go forward to 

ensure the Reserve Components remain and grow as an Operational Reserve. 

I especially appreciate our Reserves, as a 31-year veteran of the 

Reserves and National Guard myself, with four sons currently serving in the military, with two having service in Iraq and three currently in the National Guard. For that reason I look forward today 

to the testimony of our witnesses with regard to how each of them 

is moving in both the short and long term to make the Reserve 

Components fully effective as an Operational Reserve. 

I yield the balance of my time. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 39.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. I would now like to introduce our panel. The Honorable Dennis M. McCarthy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs; Lieutenant General Jack Stultz, Chief, Army Reserve; Vice Admiral Dirk Debbink, Chief of Naval Reserve; Lieutenant General John F. Kelly, Commander of Marine Forces Reserve; 

Lieutenant General Charles Stenner, Chief of the Air Force Reserve; Lieutenant General Harry Wyatt, Director of the Air National Guard; and Major General Raymond Carpenter, Acting Director, Army National Guard. Thank you so much for being here. 

And I understand, Secretary McCarthy, that this is your first 

time testifying for us in this position, and we certainly want to welcome you, look forward to all of your statements. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And would you please begin, Mr. Secretary. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DENNIS M. MCCARTHY, ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESERVE AFFAIRS 

Secretary MCCARTHY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking 

Member Wilson, and members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to be with you today. It is always an honor to testify before 

the Congress of the United States, and it is a privilege to appear 

and to represent the over 1.1 million men and women who serve 

in the National Guard and Reserve. 

One of the President’s key goals, adopted and fully supported by 

Secretary Gates and all of the leaders of the Department of the Defense, is to sustain the all-volunteer force. We decided as a nation 

in the early 1970s that we wanted all of our military services to 

be made up exclusively of volunteers. We have learned since that 

time, and, as you point out, most specifically since September of 

2001, that our all-volunteer force can never be large enough to 

fight a sustained conflict or to remain decisively engaged in a global struggle without augmentation and reinforcement. 

We can get that augmentation from either one of two sources. We 

can either return to conscription or we can have a strong and effective Reserve Component. To me, it is clear that the latter course 

of a seamlessly integrated force made up of both active and Reserve 

members is the preferable one. 

So it is incumbent on the leaders sitting before you this afternoon to ensure that, with the support of Congress, we train, equip, 

and sustain the Reserve Component of that equation. 
4 

There are three main themes that I believe we must all understand. First is that every man and woman serving in the Reserve 

Components in uniform today has made a conscious choice to serve. 

They have either enlisted or reenlisted since 9/11 with the full understanding of what their decision means to them and to their families. They realize that service in the armed forces at this point in 

history means service in combat. They realize that service means 

repeated deployments that are challenging not just for the service 

members but for their families. And for those in the Reserve and 

Guard, they know that the challenges inherent in their decision affect their employers as well. 

The second point is that, as you point out, since 9/11 over 

750,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, coastguardians, and Marines of 

the Reserve Component have been mobilized. Since I have been in 

office the last few months, the daily average of those mobilized has 

been about 140,000. And that number does not take into account 

the number of reservists who serve on active duty and other types 

and in other statuses around the world every day. We can’t sustain 

this effort without the continued support of our families and our 

employers. 

Lastly, even after the demand for high numbers of forces in both 

Iraq and Afghanistan come down, we should continue to utilize our 

Reserve Components on a rotational basis. The nation has made a 

significant effort and a significant investment in the readiness and 

capability of this force, so it makes good sense from an economic 

standpoint to continue to get return on that investment. 

Even more importantly, the men and women of our Reserve 

Component continue to tell their leaders that this is how they want 

to be used. They do not want to go back to the old one weekend 

a month and one week in the summer paradigm. 

I will turn now to my colleagues who still get to wear their uniforms, but I am anxious to respond to any questions that the subcommittee may have. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary McCarthy can be found in 

the Appendix on page 41.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Go ahead, sir. 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JACK STULTZ, USA, CHIEF, ARMY 

RESERVE 

General STULTZ. Chairwoman Davis, other distinguished members, first it is an honor to be here representing 208,000 great heroes, the men and women that I have in uniform in the Army Reserve. And I can tell you that your Army Reserve is in good spirit. 

I am authorized 205,000, I mentioned I have got 208,000. And as 

Secretary McCarthy indicated, all of those soldiers have either enlisted or reenlisted since 9/11. Morale is high. 

Since January I have been in nine or ten countries now, because 

I just came back from Haiti, visiting Army Reserve soldiers on duty 

around the world doing great things for this nation and great 

things for other nations, with wonderful skills that they have from 

their military, but also wonderful skills they bring from their civilian life and their civilian employment. 
5 

To maintain this Operational Reserve my focus is really on three 

priorities: One, the soldiers. I have got to have the best-trained, 

best-equipped, best-led soldiers. Two, the families. We have got to 

have the support of our families, we have got to support them because they are making sacrifices just like our soldiers are. And 

three, the employers. Without the support of the employers we cannot maintain this Operational Reserve. Without the support of the 

employers, we cannot maintain, because one-weekend-a-month pay 

does not pay the mortgage, it does not send the kids to college. 

They depend on their employers. And their employers depend on us 

to provide them predictability, to provide them some kind of support and compensation, just like the families depend on us. 

But I can tell you morale is high, soldiers appreciate what they 

are doing. Just as Secretary McCarthy indicated, they didn’t sign 

up for one weekend a month, two weekends in the summer, they 

signed up to go somewhere to do something for their nation, and 

we have a national treasure that we cannot afford to lose. 

Thanks for Congress’s support for all you have done for our soldiers and our families, and I look forward to your questions, 

ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Stultz can be found in the 

Appendix on page 64.] 

STATEMENT OF VICE ADM. DIRK J. DEBBINK, USN, CHIEF, 

NAVY RESERVE 

Admiral DEBBINK. Chairwoman Davis, Ranking Member Wilson, 

and distinguished members of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss our vision of 

how we can best support the operational elements of our Navy Reserve. 

I would like to begin by thanking you for your terrific support 

for the 65,551 sailors and their families in our Navy Reserve. As 

the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead has said, 

we are one Navy with an active component and Reserve Component. And as I testify this afternoon, Navy Reserve sailors are operating in every corner of the world, shoulder to shoulder with sailors, soldiers, airmen, Marines, coastguardsmen, and I think, most 

importantly perhaps sometimes, the interagency as well. On any 

given day more than 30 percent of the Navy Reserve is providing 

support to Department of Defense operations. 

The Navy Reserve is ready now anytime, anywhere, as our motto 

and our sailors proudly claim. Just as the Quadrennial Defense Review reflects the Department of Defense priorities of both prevailing in today’s wars while preventing and deterring future conflict, we believe our Reserve Components have both an operational 

mission to provide accessible, ready, and innovative forces for today’s Joint Force requirements and also a core strategic role in our 

National Defense Strategy. 

To best accomplish these dual missions, we are concentrating our 

efforts on three strategic focus areas: First, enabling a true continuum of service. Secondly, delivering a ready and accessible force. 

And finally, providing valued capabilities to the Navy and Marine 

Corps team and Joint Forces. Continuous service initiatives provide 
6 

for a seamless movement between the active component, Reserve 

Component, and civilian service, offering full access to the Navy 

total force, while delivering operational flexibility and strategic 

depth at the best value for the Navy. Delivering a ready and accessible force sustains that reliable inventory of on-demand expertise 

delivered by available trained and equipped individuals in units. 

And providing value capabilities advances the long-term course set 

forth in the Quadrennial Defense Review and the priorities of the 

Chief of Naval Operations by identifying and excelling in those 

missions of the Joint Force that are best accomplished by the Navy 

Reserve. 

Success in these operations, of course, is no accident. It is as a 

result of your sailors’ can-do spirit, combined with the support of 

chain of command, support of families, and support of employers, 

and the proactive work of this Congress in helping us in all its endeavors is greatly appreciated. Together we seek to provide our 

sailors with the training, the equipment and the support that will 

ensure their success. 

It is a privilege to serve during these important and meaningful 

times in our nation’s defense, especially as a Navy Reservist. I 

thank you for your continued support, your dedicated commitment 

to both the Navy Reserve and our Navy, and I look forward to your 

questions. Thank you, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Debbink can be found in the 

Appendix on page 79.] 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JOHN F. KELLY, USMC, COMMANDER, 

MARINE FORCES RESERVE 

General KELLY. Congresswoman Davis, Congressman Wilson, 

distinguished members of the committee, I am certainly happy to 

be here today. This is my first opportunity to testify before the 

committee. 

I will open by simply saying I am an active duty general. I have 

known the Reserves for almost 40 years, but more as a user and 

abuser of Marine Corps Reserves than as someone who knew the 

intricacies of the other 90 percent of how they spend their lives. 

I will cut to the quick. The Marine Corps Reserve today is probably as experienced and is combat-ready like no other time since 

the early 1950s. I had never heard the term ‘‘Operational Reserve’’ 

before I came to this job. The Marine Corps Reserve is in fact, and 

has been since 9/11, a fully functioning Operational Reserve. It is 

very strong, it is very combat-effective. 

As a total force we share all of the difficulties and successes of 

equipment, fielding shortages that the active component—we are 

equal in the way that we receive equipment. Those going to the 

fight get the equipment and the best equipment first. It doesn’t 

matter if they are reservists or active duty. So as I say, we have 

very definitely been an Operational Reserve now for almost 10 

years. 

What is very very interesting to me as I get around and talk to 

reservists, in the last six months that I have had the command— 

and this has been mentioned before—the two things they want to 

do is get back into the fight. Most of them, the vast majority of 
7 

them, have served in the conflict, either in Afghanistan or Iraq, at 

least once, many of them two and three times, and they volunteer 

to do that. They also don’t want to be put back on the shelf. Even 

if this war were to end tomorrow, they still want to stay in the 

fight, so to speak, doing these state-of-cooperation missions that all 

of the combatant commanders (COCOMs) scream for every day. 

And indication of this, frankly, is that our recruiting is good, our 

retention is good, and the families are happy. 

And certainly, as I say, it is an honor to be here, and I look forward to your questions. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Kelly can be found in the 

Appendix on page 101.] 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. CHARLES E. STENNER, JR., USAF, 

CHIEF, AIR FORCE RESERVE 

General STENNER. Chairwoman Davis, Congressman Wilson, 

members of the committee, I am very pleased and proud to be here 

today to answer some questions and give you some perspective on 

what is happening with our Air Force Reserve. I brought with me 

Chief Master Sergeant Dwight Badgett, and he was our Command 

Chief Master Sergeant and helps me with the sustainment and 

maintenance of our strong component force. 

I believe as you opened, Chairwoman Davis, on the discussion on 

sustaining the Strategic Reserve and the operational force, my perspective is we are first and foremost a Strategic Reserve. I believe 

we leverage that on a daily basis to provide that operational force 

that we send around the world on a rotational basis, maintaining 

and sustaining each and every mission set that our Air Force has. 

And we work together as a three-component Air Force to do that, 

and we are integrated seamlessly. We train to the same standards 

and we go wherever and whenever called in this nation’s defense. 

So sustaining that Strategic Reserve keeps the basis of that operational force strong. I think we need to do that, even more so in 

this world, where we are adding new mission sets, where we have 

to rebalance our force to do that, and we have to remember first 

and foremost that we do all of what we do with that citizen airman, 

that citizen warrior, that person that has three parts to their life. 

And they have to balance that life such that they can sustain and 

maintain their civilian career, which I do not want to impact. 

Their employer is a big piece of that. I need to work with that 

employer to make sure that that happens. I want to make sure 

that their families are sustained and maintained as well. And then 

I want to make sure that they have a military career that they can 

grow and broaden in as well. 

That then takes me to how to create the senior leadership for tomorrow, because we aren’t the same Reserve as we were in the 

past. The senior leadership has got to understand the kinds of 

things we do as a joint team, the kinds of things we do as a 

seamlessly integrated Air Force. In order to do that, we have got 

to get them outside of the standard stovepipes and the career paths 

they have been in. That manpower, that personnel, that citizen 

warrior that is balancing those three parts of their lives, has got 

to be able to volunteer and go when they need to go and when they 
8 

can go. I need to sustain that so that they are going to stick with 

us, I need to watch and monitor the dwell, and I want to do that 

with our active component and our Guard compatriots as well. 

The pressures are not going to lessen, the realities are there, the 

budgets are going to be tough, and in those tough times I want to 

preserve that capability and that strategic force. And I believe that 

our Guard counterparts here would join me in saying that in order 

to do that we need all the help that you can give us and that we 

can sustain and maintain this Reserve Component as the nation 

needs. 

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Stenner can be found in the 

Appendix on page 121.] 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. HARRY M. WYATT III, USAF, 

DIRECTOR, AIR NATIONAL GUARD 

General WYATT. Chairwoman Davis, Ranking Member Wilson 

and distinguished members of the committee, thank you very much 

for the opportunity to discuss issues of vital importance that impact the well-being, the lives of our 108,396, as I count them today, 

Air National Guardsmen, their families, and their employers. 

Seated behind me is Chief Master Sergeant Chris Muncy. He is 

the Command Chief of the Air National Guard, representing over 

90,000-plus enlisted members of the Air National Guard. Air National Guard airmen are volunteering at unprecedented rates, risking their lives daily because they strongly believe in what they are 

doing for our country and our communities. 

Since 9/11, 146,000 Air National Guard members have deployed 

overseas, many of them on second and third rotations; 75 percent 

of those in combat zones as volunteers. In the past year alone, we 

have deployed 18,366 service members to 62 countries and every 

continent, including Antarctica. 

The Air National Guard proves day in and day out that we are 

available and that we are accessible, we are there for the federal 

fight and for our communities also. In the past year, Air National 

Guard members have helped their fellow citizens battle floods, 

mitigate the aftermath of ice storms, fight wildfires, and provide 

relief from the devastating effects of a tsunami. 

Earlier in the year, Guard members from Kentucky, Arizona, and 

Missouri responded to debilitating ice storms which resulted in the 

largest National Guard call-up in Kentucky’s history. 

Last spring, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the Minnesota Air 

National Guard members provided rescue relief and manpower in 

response to Midwest flooding. 

In September the Hawaii Air National Guard sent personnel 

from their Chemical, Biological, Radiological High-Yield Explosives 

Enhanced Response Force Package (CERFP), a command and control element, and a mortuary affairs team to American Samoa in 

response to an 8.4 magnitude earthquake-generated tsunami. 

These are just a few of the examples of how Air National Guard 

members provide exceptional expertise, experience, and capabilities 

to mitigate disasters and their consequences. Without the stewardship of your committee, our airmen would have an incredibly dif-
9 

ficult time doing their jobs and taking care of their families and 

their employers taking care of them. We are thankful for everything you have done and continue to do for our members, and we 

know that America cares about them and is grateful for their sacrifices. 

In conclusion, Madam Chairwoman, and to the committee, 

thanks again for inviting me to speak on behalf of our military and 

civilian members, their families, and our employers. I look forward 

to your questions. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Wyatt can be found in the 

Appendix on page 135.] 

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RAYMOND W. CARPENTER, USA, 

ACTING DIRECTOR, ARMY NATIONAL GUARD 

General CARPENTER. Chairwoman Davis, Ranking Member Wilson, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am honored to 

represent more than 361,000 citizen soldiers in the Army National 

Guard. As I speak, 52,355 of those soldiers are mobilized, deployed, 

and on point for this nation. These soldiers joined our force knowing that they would deploy. They are willing to make a difference 

in the world and defend our country. Army National Guard soldiers 

are part of the Operational Reserve. Your Army National Guard is 

accessible and it is important that we fully resource those formations and ensure that they maintain the highest levels of readiness. 

The sacrifice of those soldiers, their families, and employers is 

something we must not only acknowledge but fully appreciate. 

The National Guard today is dramatically different from the one 

I joined over four decades ago. The last eight years have seen the 

Guard transform from a Strategic Reserve to an operational force, 

and the enablers of the Army National Guard have been provided 

and sustained by congressional initiatives, and we thank you for 

your continued support. 

I want to specifically mention our request for increase in nondual status technicians from 1,600 to 2,520. Non-dual status technicians work primarily in personnel administration, contract management, information technology, and similar support functions. 

With the Army National Guard’s frequent mobilizations, we find 

that we need these non-deploying civilian technicians to fill critical 

positions in our generating force. Filling these positions with dualstatus military members who deploy creates a disruptive work 

flow. 

As we talk about the Operational Reserve, among the questions 

we get is, What is a soldier’s perspective? The answer for us can 

be found in our experience over the last eight years. After 9/11 we 

mobilized the first wave in the Army National Guard, and they 

went to war and they did a great job. When they came back, some 

of them realized that that wasn’t what they signed up for, and they 

talked to their employers, they talked to their families, and they 

looked at the outlook and they decided that they would not stay 

with us because it didn’t fit into their future plans. And so we saw 

our end strength go from 350,000 to 330,000. 

We changed our recruiting processes, we directed our efforts at 

a segment of the population who wanted to serve their country and 
10 

go do their patriotic duty. We turned that trend around to where 

we had 368,000 soldiers inside of our formations, a high point in 

February of 2009, and we have since come back to around 358,000. 

We are exceeding our recruiting goals, we are above our end 

strength of 358,000, not below it as of today. Our retention rate is 

over 110 percent. And this would not be true if the soldiers did not 

want to be part of an operational National Guard. 

General Campbell, the force’s command commander responsible 

for training and deploying the Army Guard, has said the Operational Reserve is a national treasure, a treasure which we abandon at our own peril. 

Again, I want to thank you for your support for our operational 

National Guard today, and I look forward to your questions. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Carpenter can be found in 

the Appendix on page 142.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you to all of you, and for keeping in such a 

short time frame. We appreciate that. And we know that you have 

a great deal to say, but this way perhaps we can talk through the 

questions. And I would certainly encourage you—if you feel at the 

end that we haven’t addressed something that is really important 

and critical to you, I will try and get back and ask that question. 

But if I don’t, then please bring it up so we can have that on the 

record, because we know there is a lot that you have been working 

with. 

I wonder, Secretary McCarthy, if you might just speak for a few 

minutes about the recommendations. The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, as you know, released its final report 

on January 31, 2008 with 95 recommendations. And the Secretary 

of Defense determined that there were 82 of the 95 that the Department was required to take action on or continue action that 

had already begun. And he further directed the appropriate services commands and agencies to develop an implementation plan for 

53 of those recommendations. 

I am not going to ask you to go through all 53 of them. But of 

those—and I think there were a few that you called out in your 

statement as well. If you could kind of give us a general assessment and what concerns you the most of those recommendations 

and the ability to really drill down and to make sure that they are 

accomplished, or are there some that you think quite honestly 

weren’t quite realistic in what they were asking? 

Secretary MCCARTHY. Madam Chairwoman, as you say, the Secretary approved the vast majority of the Commission’s recommendations. Some, he felt at the time, and we feel, were already 

accomplished. But there is a long list that needs to be accomplished. And quite frankly, I don’t think we have moved as fast on 

implementing them as I would like, as I suspect some of my colleagues here would like. But we have made some substantial 

progress on some of the more important ones. 

In the opening, both you and Congressman Wilson mentioned 

equipment. And two of the recommendations, number 42 and 43, 

dealt with the transparency and accountability of Reserve equipment. And I think we have made tremendous progress in both of 

those areas. We are not all the way there yet, by any stretch of the 
11 

imagination, but we have a much better handle on what Reserve 

equipment is, where it is, what is needed; and, where there is exchange of equipment between the active component and the Reserve Component, tracking and tracing that and replacing it where 

necessary. So I think that is a sign of real solid progress. 

We have made good progress on the Yellow Ribbon Program. 

Again, we are not done yet, but we have made substantial progress. 

One of the Commission’s recommendations that languished for a 

long time but has now been fully implemented is the creation of the 

Governors Council. The President appointed ten Governors who 

have already had their first meeting with Secretary Gates and Secretary Napolitano, and that is going to be a continuing dialogue between ten Governors drawn from the National Governors Association and the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland 

Security. Others are in process. They are in stages. And a lot of 

them are complex things, personnel kind of issues that are not 

going to be solved overnight. But I do think we are moving forward. And we certainly have that on our plate. We know what we 

need to do and we are not going to stop until we get to the end 

of that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I appreciate your response. 

I wanted to just go back to the equipment for a second, because 

I know that that was certainly a great concern, because the requirements are such that we are dealing both for training in theater, bringing back, and then also in the communities and for 

homeland security as well. 

Would any of you like to comment on that in terms of just some 

direction to us, because through the appropriations process we 

know this is being addressed, but it is that balance that has been 

so critical? And I wonder if you have had some experiences that 

have thrown up some alarms and you want to be sure that we are 

aware of them. 

General STULTZ. I will chime in first from the Army Reserve perspective. As Secretary McCarthy said, we have made great 

progress. We have come up approximately 10 percent or better in 

overall equipment in the Army Reserve, somewhere to the range of 

about 80 percent of equipped, which is the best we have been in 

years. 

The concern I have got is twofold. One is we are still only about 

65 percent modernized. A lot of the equipment we have, while we 

have it on hand, is not the modern equipment, it is still old equipment. And so there is still a lot of work to be done in that capacity. 

Secondly, as we have transformed the Army Reserve from the old 

strategic to an operational force, we are transforming structure inside the Army Reserve. And we are building more capability that 

the Army and the nation has identified they need to fight the future wars; such things as military police, engineers, civil affairs, logistics, medical, those types of capabilities. That comes with a bill, 

because those units are new equipment bills that are still out 

there. 

I could tell you, to get to where we are going to be in fiscal year 

2016, the unfunded equipment requirement that we still have out 

there to meet the new requirements and to modernize the equipment we have got on hand right now is about $11.3 billion. So it 
12 

is significant. But thanks to your support and thanks to the support of Congress, we have made great strides. We are critically dependent upon the National Guard and Reserve Equipping Account, 

the NGREA, because those dollars give us the flexibility to 

prioritize within our force what equipment we think we need immediately; whereas, with the regular appropriations, that falls 

within the Army’s program and it gets lumped in with theirs. Even 

though, as Secretary McCarthy said, we have made great progress 

in terms of transparency, the NGREA really gives us the flexibility 

to meet immediate needs that we can prioritize ourselves, so we appreciate all the support that we get on that account. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. My time is essentially up. We are going 

to try and stick to the five minutes, but would anybody like to 

make a comment specifically on this? 

General KELLY. If I could, on the equipment. As a part of the 

total force we are—as I mentioned in my opening statement—given 

the equipment first if we are going next to the fight, and if not we 

wait, but not at the end of the line, after all of the active duty people are provided equipment. At home station we leave our equipment behind as we go forward, and so we are in good shape. It is 

called a training allowance. We have just enough to train the Marines with and the sailors that serve with us. So we have no problem in that regard. 

But overall, the Marine Corps Commandant has talked in terms 

of about $13 billion required right now to reset the total force, and 

that would include the Marine Corps Reserve. So that is a number 

I would throw out for total force reset, $13 billion and some 

change. Thank you. 

Admiral DEBBINK. And, if I may, I just wanted to emphasize one 

of the points that General Stultz made, in that I think it relates 

to the subject of this hearing as we seek to figure out the roles between the active component, the Reserve Component, and the balance thereof, our goal is that we look to complement, not mirror. 

And one of the advantages we believe the Reserve Component 

brings to our nation is agility and innovation, because our active 

components need to be locked into what they are doing for the defense of our nation. 

And so if we are going to be innovative and agile, this National 

Guard and Reserve Equipment Account is very important, because 

in the year of execution, then, we can direct those dollars to where 

our nation needs them most. 

General CARPENTER. Chairwoman Davis, as you know, the Army 

National Guard is one of the first responders in terms of emergencies and disasters in our responsibility as a dual mission and 

in support of the Governors. And in the last five years the investments that you all have supported in terms of $32 billion worth of 

equipment into the Army National Guard, $5 billion of which came 

from the NGREA account, has raised our equipment fill for what 

we call critical dual-use equipment—that being equipment that can 

be used in emergencies and disasters as well as that equipment 

that is deployed into theater—has gone from a percentage of 

around 40 percent to where it is currently at 83 percent across the 

nation. And so it has turned a dramatic turn to the positive, courtesy of what you all have done. 
13 

General STENNER. Madam Chairwoman, if I could just make a 

very small nuance to the National Guard and Reserve Equipment 

Account not buying anything new, but when we have the three 

component Air Force buying anything, we outfit the entire Air 

Force three components. But the NGREA is very, very critical in 

accelerating some of that where we have excess capacity. Marrying 

that up within our association, as we do in the Air Force, get our 

stuff and our people into the fight much quicker. So it accelerates 

some of the current existing as well. 

General WYATT. I will be very brief. To add onto what General 

Stenner said regarding the NGREA account, but shifting the focus 

to equipment acquisition in the total Air Force, we are fortunate 

in that the Air Force utilizes all three of its components as a total 

force, and we are included in looking at the new weapons systems. 

The Air Force shares with the Air National Guard and the Air 

Force Reserve the situation that we have a lot of aging equipment 

and we are trying to recapitalize. And I think it is essential if we 

are going to keep the Reserve Component, Air Force Reserve and 

Air National Guard, as operational that we consider opportunities 

for concurrent fielding of those new capabilities, those new systems 

across all three components. 

That is the way we fight. And in order for us to be able to continue fighting and provide that ops tempo relief to our active duty 

component brothers and sisters, we need to fly the same equipment, train at the same levels, which we do now, and be fielded 

new equipment at the same time. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. And again, I want 

to thank all of you for your service. 

It is my view that by providing young people the opportunity to 

serve in the Guard and Reserve, you are providing them extraordinary opportunities. It is very fulfilling for the young people, the 

networking of friends, lifelong friends, that they will make. And it 

is wonderful for me to hear the success of recruiting and retention, 

because you are making a difference in people’s lives and protecting our country simultaneously. And I have really enjoyed the 

references to this is no longer the one weekend and two weeks in 

the summer Guard and Reserve. 

And General Carpenter, it is an understatement that what I 

served in is different. But I saw the difference start with the extraordinary service of the Army National Guard and other Guard 

and Reserve Forces to recover from Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina in 1989. Then came the Persian Gulf service. That was extraordinary. 

And then I know from our own family service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so many of my colleagues that I recruited, they are 

so proud of their service and they do want to be operational. 

With that, another fact, Secretary McCarthy, is that it is so difficult to distinguish between Guard, Reserve, active duty, except on 

the issue of retirement. And so I certainly hope that we can make 

some changes. And in particular, current law allows the mobilized 

Reserve Component member to earn three months credit toward 

early retirement for every 90 days of aggregate service on active 

duty. Congress intended for those to be active duty to be counted, 
14 

regardless of whether the active duty period occurred across fiscal 

years. But the Department somehow has implemented this, that if 

it is across the fiscal years, that it doesn’t count at all. 

What is DOD going to do to fix this or what should we do to clarify? But there is no question that we certainly meant to disregard 

fiscal year. 

Secretary MCCARTHY. Congressman Wilson, I am well aware of 

that anomaly. I think everybody understands that it is not what 

the Congress intended, and it is not what is—it is not the right 

thing to do. So it is going to take a fix. I am not sure whether it 

will be a legislative or a directive fix. I suspect it will be the latter—I am sorry—I suspect it will be the former, and that we will 

have to come to Congress on that. But I know that it is on the 

agenda to be resolved. 

Mr. WILSON. And then I hope it will be resolved as quickly as 

possible. 

Additionally, we have a circumstance where we have mobilized 

Reserve Component members who can earn retirement as reservists or Guard members wounded or injured. If they are placed in 

a Wounded Warrior unit under the orders of the Wounded Warrior, 

again, they don’t receive credit for recovering—for the period of 

time recovering from the wounds. And again, I just know my colleagues and I did not mean for that to be. So I hope that is corrected—or please give us advice how we can correct it. 

Secretary MCCARTHY. The change of a Wounded Warrior status 

when they are mobilized, wounded, and then have their status 

changed is purely a directive issue. It is something that was done 

a couple of years ago, and I think that the result that you have described was an unintended consequence, but it has got to be fixed. 

And I know that the people in personnel, in readiness, have that 

for action. 

Mr. WILSON. And I appreciate the effort, because we know that 

these troops are so dedicated they want to be operational, they 

want to serve. But it is also very important for their families that 

there be proper protection. 

General Kelly, I am of course very grateful to represent Parris 

Island Marine Corps Air Station. So whatever I can do to promote 

the Marines. The Marine Inspector and Instructor Program historically has been a key to the success of the readiness of the Marine 

Corps Reserve. Given all the demands on the active duty Marine 

Corps who are assigned to the Inspector and Instructor Program, 

what is your assessment of the health and effectiveness of the Inspector and Instructor Program? 

General KELLY. It is very healthy. And in fact in this very hearing room, about 15 years ago, hearings about why the Marine 

Corps Reserve was very, very strong, the body that sat here at that 

time talked in terms of one of the great strengths of the Marine 

Corps Reserve was in fact our commitment of active duty individuals to INI, Inspector and Instructor, type staffs. It is a command 

billet. They are all combat veterans, they are handpicked, they do 

well in future promotions, selection for attendance at various service schools and whatnot. So my overall assessment is that it is 

hugely healthy, and really is probably the basic foundation of the 

great strength of the Marine Corps Reserve. 
15 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you all very much. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, it is great to 

have you all here. I have probably known you, General Kelly, the 

longest. And I think you have had about as many promotions in 

the time I have been here as I have had babies, so I think it is time 

for me to move on. We have four little boys under the age of four 

at home. 

I also did note, General Kelly, that your obviously very proud 

daughter was watching you testify. We appreciate her service here, 

although she was watching the TV screen rather than you live. I 

don’t know what that means. 

I have two questions that I want to ask and then let you—we 

will just start with Secretary McCarthy and go down, and I am 

sure my time will long pass. 

The first one is our subcommittee has just completed a study 

that is about to go to the printer, I think tomorrow, on professional 

military education (PME). There are, I think, some special considerations for the Reserve Component, and I would like to get each 

of you to make any comments about where you think PME ought 

to be improved with regard to the Reserve Component. 

And then the second question is, if you have any comments. We 

have given the highest ranks of civilian and military leadership an 

opportunity to make any comments they wanted to personally on 

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The Reserve Component also has some particular special dynamic there in which people really can separate 

their lives. They may have a private life 200 or 300 or 400 miles 

away and keep their lives pretty separate. On the other hand, if 

they get mobilized, their partner really doesn’t get any of the support from the community because of the fear of coming forward. So 

if any of you have any comments about that. 

Secretary McCarthy, we will begin with you. 

Secretary MCCARTHY. Congressman, I think the thing I would 

say about PME, Professional Military Education, is that we have 

made great strides over the past ten or more years in distance education, and we need to continue to do that because that is what 

makes a lot of our PME courses more available to Reserve Component members if they can do them on a distance education basis. 

So I think we need to continue along that same path. 

With regard to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I think that the course that 

the Secretary has set out to do a very thorough and very comprehensive review, not to delay it but to move forward and do that, 

it is the right course, and it is going to help us to understand the 

different impacts of a change of law, if there is one, on various 

parts of the force. 

I know that General McKinley is a member of the group that is 

being led by General Counsel Jay Johnson and General Hamm. So 

the equities of the Reserve Component, and especially those of the 

National Guard, will be considered when that study is being done. 

So I think we are moving in the right direction there. 

General STULTZ. Yes, sir. With regard to the professional military education, I think, echoing the remarks that Secretary McCarthy said, the distance education has given us the capability to accomplish a lot of the professional military education that we need 
16 

in the Reserve Components. As much as we can, where we can 

level the playing field so that the education that is being provided 

is the same education across the active and Reserve, because as we 

have operationalized the force, those individuals now are working 

side by side. And so we need the same quality and the same instruction. And so within the distance education, we have got to 

make sure the curriculum matches across the force. 

I think the other thing we have to take into consideration is the 

tendency is with our force generation cycle, the cyclical deployment 

of forces, when the units come back from deployment, that is when 

you would—in that year of reset is when you would get your education done. In the Reserves we have to recognize that that soldier 

has to reset in their civilian job also. And so we can’t be too hasty 

to say, now that you are back, now you have got to get your education, military education done. 

We have got to give them time, because every time I came back 

from a deployment and went back to Procter and Gamble, my civilian employer, I reset at Procter and Gamble. I got into a new position, new training, new learning that I had to do. 

And so I am being very cautious to say we can’t rush the professional military education too soon for a returning soldier. But I 

think the quality of the education is what I am focused on. It has 

got to be at the same level across the force. 

With regard to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I just echo the same 

remarks that Secretary McCarthy did. I think the process that has 

been set forth by the Secretary of Defense is the right thing: to 

take a long, hard look at all the factors involved before we make 

any decisions. 

Admiral DEBBINK. Congressman Snyder, with regard to the professional military education, for the Navy we have an account we 

call ADT, Active Duty Training schools account, a very important 

line item for us and one that we prioritize very carefully every 

year, as we are driving toward something we call Fit as well as Fill 

of our force. So we are not just trying to put any sailor in a spot, 

we are trying to make sure that sailor has the right training. So 

that is a very important line to us. 

The other element of professional military education that is very 

important is the joint professional military education (JPME). And 

at this point we are very pleased with the changes that were made 

in the last year or so that allow our sailors to pursue both the level 

I and level II. And level II is primarily through a distance learning—we call it advanced JPME—and also very important for their 

promotion as they go through their careers. 

General KELLY. Sir, all Marines regardless of component, have a 

requirement in all ranks to participate in PME. Obviously for the 

Reserve Component, time and distance is the issue you deal with 

most. All of the distance learning is exactly the same as what is 

available to an active duty Marine. Not all of our active duty Marines get to go to a resident PME, so they take the very same 

courses. 

For the Reserve Component courses, virtually all of them have 

a one- or a two-week on-site. We bring them to Quantico as an example. We pay for that, of course. Where I would like to see a little 

bit more flexibility is at the Lieutenant Colonel level. There are 
17 

distance learning courses; the Army War College and Navy War 

College, all of them very, very good. I would like to see that expand 

a little bit just because it is—I would like to see some more seminar time added; that is to say, weekends or something like that. 

Again, we would pay for them to come to a location and participate 

in the PME. 

And on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell question, again it is being studied. Again, I would only say that we don’t make a distinction in the 

Marine Corps between active and Reserve Marines; they are Marines all the time. Whatever the rules are, if in fact they are 

changed, whatever the law changes are, whatever comes out of 

that, that will apply to the Marines that are in the Reserve Component just like they will the Marines in the active component. 

Dr. SNYDER. General, that seminar time is something you all can 

do. There is no legislative prohibition. 

General KELLY. Internally we can expand some of our schools, 

but we got it, sir. 

General STENNER. Congressman Snyder, we, like my compatriots, all have opportunities, whether they be distance learning, 

whether they be seminar, whether they be in residence. We covet 

the in-residence courses for not only the book learning that you get, 

but for the relationships that you build, especially in the joint 

arena where you see people you will see again in the senior leadership roles over the years. Those relationships that are built in an 

in-residence PME setting are huge. So the more we can get some 

of those opportunities funded and built and created, the better we 

will be, in my mind, for the future senior leadership, whether that 

be officer or enlisted. 

And the enlisted force is just as busy, if you will, taking care of 

the in-residence pieces and the distance learning pieces that they 

need to do. 

On the margins of PME, there are some things in line with some 

of the fellowships and the other kinds of things that come up here 

that have different nuances as to how you incur a commitment and 

then how you would accomplish that commitment, which doesn’t 

happen in some of the bigger PME schools. So if they are looking 

for just some little on-the-margin kind of things, special considerations, I would take a hard look at the fellowships and how we pay 

back the time on the commitment we incur. 

As far as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I do agree it is part of how we 

do business today. It is in accordance with what we have been 

handed as far as the policy and the law, and it needs to be studied 

in depth, as we are doing, before we make any substantive 

changes. 

General WYATT. Congressman Snyder, regarding PME, there is 

a theory in the Air Force, because we fight as a total force, that 

there should be more shared common experiences in professional 

military education. 

As a result of that, just recently the Air National Guard has 

worked with the area Education and Training Command, General 

Moran is the commander, to move the commissioning program of 

the Air National Guard from McGhee Tyson to Maxwell Air Force 

Base, where now we have all three components in the same location with a commissioning program. We retain different course 
18 

links to accommodate the different needs of the components, but we 

are sharing curricula now and we are learning more about the active component and the Reserve Component and vice versa. So that 

is at the very basic level. 

But as we get to some of the advanced officer and enlisted experiences, I think there is a need for more seats in the residence programs. Chief Muncy working behind, or sitting behind me, has 

some initiatives that he is working with Command Chief Master 

Sergeant of the Air Force Roy, seeking additional residence seats. 

We are seeing very good reception from the active duty component, 

and I think we are making progress. 

In regard to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I share the comments of most 

of my committee members. I would suggest that you know, from 

my perspective, my experiences and where I work and where I live 

are considerably different from first-term airmen who may be serving in Balad or Baghdad. And I am not sure I am educated to the 

point that I need to be to make sure to render any sort of professional opinion at this point in time. 

We have the Commission that the Secretary has mentioned that 

is collecting data, and we have the opportunity to hear from our 

enlisted corps, 90,000-plus in the Air National Guard, and our officer corps as we go forward on this important issue. 

General CARPENTER. Congressman Snyder, I share all the views 

of my colleagues. I would point out one additional area and expand 

on the joint qualification piece that Admiral Debbink talked about. 

And that is that we need to make sure that we provide the opportunities for our young officers to get the joint qualification through 

the PME process, so that later on when they compete for some of 

the jobs, specifically like the job that I am acting in, the Director 

of the Army National Guard, and build a bench for the new fourstar general that we have got inside of the Army National Guard, 

that we do have a bench that can compete for it and does have the 

qualifications. And so that is pretty important as you get to the 

senior levels of our organization. 

The DL, distance learning, piece of PME is incredibly important 

when we have soldiers out there who are trying to balance their 

family requirements as well as their employers’ needs as they get 

back from deployments, and yet try to make sure that they are 

competitive in the ranks in terms of promotions. 

And then finally, we are participating in the study group for 

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and we are awaiting the end of that study 

group, which I believe is a year down the road. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Good afternoon. And thank you all for your testimony. As this hearing is about the operational role of our Reserves, 

I am particularly interested in an issue that concerns our Guard 

and reservists and their readiness for deployment. 

General McCarthy, you mentioned the, quote, trained mobilized, 

deployed model for an Operational Reserve. What do you all know 

about the issues of Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) equipment fielding for Guard and Reserve units during pre-mobilization training? 

And I bring this up because in 2009, the Massachusetts Army 

National Guard trained and mobilized over 1,000 soldiers for de-
19 

ployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. In order to limit the total mobilization time to 12 months, the predominance of mobilization training took place at the unit’s home station in Massachusetts, not at 

the deployment mobilization site. 

The RFI, the Rapid fielding initiative, was designed to streamline the process in distributing equipment to deployed units and 

ensure that all soldiers, regular Army Guard and Reserves are outfitted with the most advanced individual and unit equipment available, providing significant improvements to soldier combat effectiveness, survivability, and operational quality of life. 

The program is commendable. However, there appears to be a 

disconnect. Instead of being issued during pre-mobilization training 

in Massachusetts where soldiers have time to properly train with 

the equipment, they are going to fight with RFI. Items are being 

issued to soldiers after they have reached their mobilization phase. 

Soldiers stay at their mobilization station for a short time before 

going to Iran and Afghanistan. Because of other demands, they 

sometimes have as little as 15 days to train with this new equipment. 

This is unacceptable. Lives are at stake. And in fact, in conversations with a National Guard officer in my district, he really felt he 

lost a soldier because he simply had not had adequate time to 

train. 

So despite the recommendations of the Commission, it appears 

that our National Guard and Reserve soldiers are being given insufficient time to train with the equipment they are going to fight 

with, often to their peril. 

Please tell me what you all are doing to solve this problem. What 

are the obstacles, and are there things that we can do to help alleviate this issue? 

General CARPENTER. Congresswoman Tsongas, thank you for the 

question. As you have eloquently outlined, RFI has been a problem 

inside the Army National Guard and the mobilization process. RFI 

came into our organization about four years ago and it was a rapid 

fielding initiative to ensure that we got the best, most modern 

equipment to our soldiers in advance of the mobilization, so that 

when they deployed they had the best equipment available for the 

mission at hand. 

RFI is a changing kind of equipment list, and we want to ensure 

that our soldiers have the most modern equipment. We have seen 

two versions of helmets come through the process here in the last 

five years. We have seen various other equipment changes. 

The Army’s view of this is that rather than issue one set of 

equipment and then have to go back and reissue another set of 

equipment, the idea was to issue the most modern equipment a 

single time. And because of the limited amount of production of 

these specific pieces of equipment, the effort was to do that in mobilization station. 

We have found that we want to maximize boots-on-the-ground 

time, that being the time that this soldier spends on mission in 

theater, because that reduces the time that—what we call the turn, 

and extends the dwell. 

We have worked with the Army to do the fielding of RFI to the 

extent possible in pre-mobilization to reduce the time at the mobili-
20 

zation station, and we are looking at a year down the road when 

we think that we will have RFI. It won’t be called RFI, but it will 

be equipment that will be issued in pre-mobilization, and we will 

solve the problem that you have just described. 

Beyond that, soldiers that deploy into theater are validated, and 

they meet a standard in training before they can deploy. And so regardless of whether it is issued in pre-mob or whether it is issued 

in post-mob, the training that takes place for those soldiers to be 

able to use that equipment and to be successful in its use is validated by the First Army Commander. So the deployment piece, everybody meets the same standard. There isn’t anybody that goes 

down range that doesn’t get trained. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Do others want to comment? 

Secretary MCCARTHY. I would like to add, and I think General 

Carpenter has really hit the specifics, so I will address it from a 

little broader standpoint, and that is that this transition to an 

Operational Reserve—that is, to a pre-trained, a Reserve that is 

trained, then it mobilizes and then deploys—is a process, and we 

are not going to throw the switch and become a totally Operational 

Reserve overnight. 

And the equipping issues are a significant part of that. The 

training issues are a significant part of that. And so we are going 

to be constantly progressing, and I hope improving in this becoming a pre-trained force, a pre-equipped force, with things like the 

Rapid Fielding Initiative and other ways to get modern frontline 

equipment out to units. But it is not going to happen overnight. 

But I think the concluding comment, if I understood Ray’s comment in conclusion, I don’t think any commander is going to stand 

forces forward who have not had sufficient training time with the 

equipment that they are going to use in combat. And if that means 

less time with boots on the ground, I think that is a price we are 

all willing to pay, because we are not going to send people forward 

who are not both adequately equipped and adequately trained. So 

I know that is the policy of the Department, and everything I have 

seen is that it is being carried out. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you for your testimony. And I think if you 

find it is harder to do than you like to think, that you be forthcoming with us as to ways that we can be more helpful. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Loebsack. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Madam Chair. First I do want to 

thank all of you for being here today, all the witnesses. And I 

would like to thank especially the chairwoman and ranking member for holding this hearing, because I really do believe this is an 

absolutely critical topic. 

General Carpenter, I am glad to see you again. I think the last 

time we chatted it was about the trainees, transients, holdees, and 

students (TTHS) account, and I am glad to see you mentioned its 

creation in your testimony today as well. The President’s budget request includes an increase of 920 non-dual status technicians. 

General Carpenter, you spent quite a bit of space in your testimony discussing the role and importance of non-dual status technicians and why this increase in their authorization level is necessary. 
21 

Can you please explain to us why these particular individuals 

are particularly important to supporting the Army National Guard 

as an Operational Reserve? 

General CARPENTER. Sir, just as one example, one of the things 

that these non-dual status technicians do for us in the National 

Guard is they work inside of our pay sections. And one of the most 

irritating things that you find that soldiers deal with and one of 

the things that we want to avoid the most are pay problems. Those 

non-dual status technicians are the experts in that area and they 

spend a lot of time doing that. If we have a soldier who works in 

that pay section, who is also in the National Guard, and we mobilize and deploy them, we lose that expertise. And if we have a nondual status technician that stays there while the unit deployed, because they are not in the National Guard, it reduces the pay problems, in this particular example, incredibly and it is the right thing 

to do. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. I do appreciate that very much. I hear about this 

all the time, obviously, from the National Guard folks I represent 

in Iowa, so I really appreciate you putting that effort into that program. I think it is critical that we look at the force structure requirements associated with the Operational Reserve and I do appreciate that response. 

My second question, of course, is about dwell time. And the 

President’s budget request cites a planning objective of establishing 

a 5-to-1 ratio for Reserve Components. 

General Carpenter, if you want to speak to that issue too, that 

would be great. Could you tell me if you believe that current end 

strength is, in fact, sufficient to achieve this goal, and what impact 

in particular this cross-leveling has on dwell time? 

General CARPENTER. The effect that cross-leveling has on dwell 

time inside the Army National Guard is evidenced by the statistic 

that on a unit scale inside the Army National Guard, we are deploying units that have a dwell time of 3.3 years. For the soldiers, 

mostly first-termers, who come into our organization, because we 

have to cross level them between units that are deploying and the 

ones that are home, the dwell time on average for deploying soldiers is 2.2 years. That is pretty quick. And so our effort here is 

to reduce the amount of cross-leveling and extend the dwell time. 

The Surgeon General of the Army says that it takes somewhere 

around two years after a one year deployment for soldiers to get 

back to something that looks normal in terms of their emotional 

status and behavioral and all those kinds of things that deployment impacts. And so to the extent that you increase the dwell 

time, you increase the readiness of the soldier, you increase the 

support of the employers and families out there for what we are 

doing with an Operational Reserve. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. I am glad you mentioned the employers and families, too, because this subcommittee under the current leadership, 

and in the past as well, has looked quite a lot at the family. And 

I think it is really, really critical that we never forget about the 

family, these folks, not just spouses but the rest of the family as 

well. So I really appreciate all of you being here today. 

Mr. Secretary, did you want to speak at all to the dwell time 

issue before my time is up? 
22 

Secretary MCCARTHY. I would only add that the Secretary has 

established this 1-in-5 ratio. It is a goal. We are clearly not there 

yet. The application is somewhat different across the services. But 

coming out of the Quadrennial Defense Review, we are directed to 

conduct a study on the future roles of the Reserve Component, and 

I think that may lead us to some further understanding and perhaps even some refinement of some of the things we think now 

about dwell time and other related issues. So I suspect that that 

study will be completed early in 2011. I think there will be some 

additional learning, some knowledge available to the Congress on 

that and a number of other issues. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. I just want to finish by saying as someone who 

represents a district in Iowa where we don’t have, as I always say, 

large bases as such, but we have a heck of a lot of wonderful National Guard and Reserve Components, I appreciate everything 

that the National Guard and Reserve Components are doing. And 

we do have a number of our folks heading to Afghanistan later in 

the year to stand up an agriculture development team and to train 

security forces in Afghanistan. And General Orr is doing a great 

job as our adjutant general, so I am going to do everything I can 

as long as I am on this committee and in Congress to support folks 

like you and those who are under your command. Thank you very 

much. 

Secretary MCCARTHY. Thank you sir. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Madam Chairman, thank you very much. And General Kelly, it is good to see you again. You took me back 15 years. 

I didn’t know you would be here today. When I saw you, I went 

back 15 years just in a matter of seconds. But it is good to see you. 

General Carpenter, I guess you and Mr. McCarthy, this has been 

kind of an ongoing issue with a father of a National Guardsman 

in east North Carolina who was deployed on active duty, fought in 

Iraq, and this father has met me two or three times wanting to 

know why a Guardsman who has fought for this country, active 

duty, called upon, that they do not qualify as an active duty soldier 

or Marine with the GI bill for educational benefits. 

Is this an issue that you hear quite a bit about? I think that Senator Webb at one time was thinking about trying to put legislation 

in on the Senate side that would deal with this. And does this ring 

a bell with you? 

General CARPENTER. I am not aware of the specific case that you 

cite, but I do know that one of the things we hear from National 

Guardsmen and from states out there is the GI bill, what we call 

the new GI bill, applies to soldiers who deploy, but does not necessarily apply to soldiers who are in a Active Duty for Training 

(ADT) status or a Title 32 status, and a lot of the soldiers that I 

talk to see that as an inequity, and so they raise that issue with 

us. 

I am not sure about the specific instance you talk about where 

somebody who was mobilized and deployed to the theater was not 

eligible for the GI bill, but if you will give me the details I will certainly look into it. 

Mr. JONES. That would be extremely helpful. 
23 

Again, I think I am pretty much correct and your explanation 

makes a lot of sense. I might have been a little bit mistaken in my 

speech. But one of my biggest concerns to all of you is that when 

we continue—let’s say that I know the President said we are out 

of Afghanistan in a year and a half, let’s say something changes 

that year and a half, and we cannot confirm that we are out in a 

year and a half, and maybe then we decide, well, we need another 

year and a half or two years. 

What I am hearing from those in the Guard—and this is probably true in the Reserves as well—that they are beginning to feel 

the unbelievable stress that families feel of not being able to plan. 

If by chance—and I know this is a hypothetical—but if by chance 

that in a year and a half that President Obama decides, well, the 

conditions are not right to have significant reduction so therefore 

I am going to continue to call on the Guard and Reserves, can you 

foresee this as a problem to meet and maintain the manpower that 

you need to do the job back home if called upon? 

General CARPENTER. Sir, I would look to the example of North 

Carolina, sir. The 30th Heavy Brigade just had their welcome-home 

ceremony last weekend, and we had people there—I wasn’t there 

personally, but typically it is one of those joyous events and people 

are just taken by the moment and they support the patriotism. 

That is the second rotation for the 30th Heavy Brigade into Iraq, 

and they had a dwell of around three and a half years between 

those two rotations. 

One of the things that the Secretary of Defense did for us in the 

Reserve Component in January 19 of 2007, he limited the mobilization for Reserve Components to one year. And that really has allowed us now to access the Reserve Component and to sustain over 

a longer period of time the 30th Brigade, 30th Brigades we have 

out there, those kinds of scenarios. 

So right now, as I mentioned in my opening statement, although 

we are stressed, we are far from broken. And the soldiers that we 

have inside of our formations look forward to those deployments, 

maybe not at that frequency, but certainly we are able to sustain. 

Mr. JONES. General, thank you. I want to apologize. I missed 

everybody’s opening statement. I didn’t get a chance to read it, 

quite frankly, so if I am being repetitive again I apologize for that. 

But Madam Chairman, I will yield back at this time. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I appreciate your question. 

I wanted to have a chance to talk a little bit about the continuum 

of service and the fact that the authorization bill did allow, and 

particularly in the Navy, for people to serve and then go into the 

Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). And I am just wondering—and 

they did that for up to three years for personal and professional 

reasons—Admiral, how do you see that working? How is it being 

implemented? 

And I think for others, are there other kind of continuum of service plans that we have? What problems have arisen, and is there 

anything legislatively that would give you more flexibility that you 

see is needed, and some thoughts about how that might be done 

differently if that is something that you would recommend? Admiral? 
24 

Admiral DEBBINK. Thank you. The program you refer to we call 

Career Intermission Pilot Program (CIPP) or the—I can’t say the 

exact acronym—allows people to transition from active deployment 

all the way to the IRR, retaining medical benefits, which is really 

important, and then to pay that time back when they come back, 

and it gives them a guaranteed return. It is one program out of 

many that we are developing in the Navy for pursuing our goal of 

being a top 50 employer of choice. 

And as we continue to pursue these different initiatives, one of 

the things we are focusing on is—the vision of where we are going 

is lane changes. So you have a Navy highway, if you will, and the 

active duty maybe is in the left-hand lane and you have a Selected 

Reserve (SelRes) in the middle lane, you have the IRR, and you 

want to be able to seamlessly change lanes back and forth. 

The one thing that is perhaps our biggest barrier right now in 

making all that happen is the pay system that we have currently 

and the need for a single integrated pay and personnel system that 

we feel that as a Department now, we are on a path to head in that 

direction with some of the authorities we have been receiving recently. And we hope that within the next couple of years we will 

get there. And that is what we need most perhaps, and we will continue working towards that direction. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I noticed in the comments that basically spoke about 

progress in moving toward the total force future pay plan. And I 

guess my question would be: What does progress represent? What 

would it take to speed up that process? 

Admiral DEBBINK. As I think you might be aware, we were all 

held back basically for a number of years, over a decade, as the Department pursued a program called DIMHRS, Defense Integrated 

Manpower and Human Resource System. We have, since February 

now, been authorized to pursue service-specific solutions. And I 

know the Navy is going after that very aggressively, and in fact 

there are some meetings again this week to allow us to continue 

pursuing down that path. 

It will be important as we go down that path to continue looking 

towards, we believe, a common database that we will all share, because the combatant commanders will want to have that kind of 

data and we are in full support of that as well. So at this point I 

believe it is just a matter of executing on a new software program 

and pursuing that, but also doing it carefully so we get it right this 

time because it is a very, very important issue for us. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Anybody else want to comment on that? What are 

the lessons learned from that as well? Sometimes we do try and do 

things that are going to be applicable and yet, as you are saying, 

that didn’t work. Where are we, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary MCCARTHY. One of the things—I have been watching 

this stuff for a long, long, long time. And one of the things that we 

have chased for years is trying to find a way to simplify a very 

complex structure of different kinds of duty statuses, different pay 

accounts and so forth. And it has defied successful resolution so 

far, but—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Sometimes I wonder whether we are looking in the 

wrong place for that kind of thing. 
25 

Secretary MCCARTHY. You are absolutely right. I think sometimes we are our own worst enemies, but, frankly, since you asked 

what can the Congress do, some, not all, but some of the duty 

statuses that are engrafted onto our pay and personnel system are 

the result of various laws. And so we may at some point—I hope 

we will come to the Congress and say we have eliminated a number of the duty statuses that we imposed on our self through direction, and we would like the Congress to eliminate some of them 

that are imposed in law, because that will make the integration of 

a pay and personnel system that much easier and that much more 

achievable. And that will be a big step forward. 

That is a Commission on National Guard and Reserve recommendation. They said we should go down to two: either on active 

duty or not active duty. Frankly, that may be oversimplifying it, 

but it certainly can be reduced from the 28, or whatever the number is, that we have now. And we may very well need the 

Congress’s help in making that reduction. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Anybody else want to comment on the continuum of 

service issue? 

General KELLY. Yes, ma’am. Like anything, the devil is in the details. And I am not the expert in the Marine Corps, certainly. I 

don’t think probably most of us up here are real experts in it in 

terms of the level of complications that we get into as we started 

this, down this road of continuum of service. So I would just, in my 

mind at least, hope that as we do that, we don’t do a cookie cutter 

that will apply to each one of the services and the Guard in exactly 

the same way, because I don’t think it is going to apply to the services in the same way. 

We have, as an example, very little interest, certainly in the reservists I talked to, about going into and out of various statuses in 

terms of getting off active duty for a few years. Certainly the active 

duty people, for the most part, don’t express any desire. So a little 

caution about how we try to hammer this. I hope for flexibility. 

In terms of the admin and pay system, for the most part, the Marine Corps does have a single system. In fact, I can remember hearings in this room 15 years ago when we were being chastised about 

not going the DIMHRS road, and we resisted it and we resisted it 

and, lo and behold, we were right. 

So we have this system and it works pretty well for us. We have 

very, very few differences between the way the active duty and the 

Reserve people handle it administratively, so the ease of moving in 

and out of various duty status is not a real problem for us. 

General STENNER. Madam Chairwoman, a continuum of service, 

as articulated between, as the Navy put it, the active, Reserve and 

then the IRR, is one way to look at it. And in the Air Force we are 

looking at how you go between the Reserve Components, the 

Guard, the Reserve, the active force; because some of that is very 

helpful also in just what kind of participation can you do, whether 

it is IRR or SelRes. 

But as far as continuum of service and duty status, some of the 

kind of things that until we get that golden nugget that takes us 

to where the Navy or the Marines are right now, in a macro perspective, if there was a way to articulate some small changes in the 

law that would allow us to take the different statuses in and out 
26 

of positions in headquarters staffs, the kinds of things that by law 

right now are limiting—you can only go in a certain status, you 

have to be assigned to a unit—we need to perhaps look as an interim fix on some of those kinds of things so our force development, 

especially at the senior levels, can happen much more easily. Take 

them into and out of the positions they need to be within their status or allow an ease of status or some head space for active duty 

status that doesn’t count against our active duty force, and that 

would help tremendously in some of the interim fixes we could do 

right there. 

Mrs. DAVIS. General Wyatt. 

General WYATT. Madam Chairwoman, as far as the Air and 

Army National Guard are concerned, there is another complicating 

factor, and that is we are not always on federal status. Sometimes 

we are placed on duty by the Governors under a completely different pay system. And so as we try to streamline the pay systems 

on the different statuses at the federal level, I think it is important 

to recognize that the adjutants general in the 54 jurisdictions have 

the additional problem of a system that sometimes has a soldier or 

an airman who might be on a state pay status for a couple of days 

as we transition into a Presidentially declared disaster or an emergency or a federal status. 

And to make those pay systems link up I think is worth an effort 

to consider not only the service inside the service, federal systems, 

but also a way to link those two, the myriad of pay systems out 

there in our states. It is just an additional problem we need to consider. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Dr. Snyder, any questions. 

Dr. SNYDER. No, thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. And Mr. Wilson? 

I have a few more, then. 

One of the issues, I know, that I think General Stultz, in your 

comments, in talking about the shortages in the midgrade noncommissioned and commissioned officer ranks, how do we address 

that? Where are we? And I know that goes across the board in 

terms of medical, a whole host of different professions. Is that true 

for everyone? Or is that more or less more true for you in the 

Army? 

General STULTZ. Right now, one of the major campaigns that I 

have got one of my deputies developing is to reshape the Reserve, 

the Army Reserve, and the reason for that is to your point. We 

have had phenomenal success in recruiting the last several years, 

and grown our end strength way above what we are authorized 

now. But we are over strength in the lower skills, the lower grades. 

We are over strength in the senior grades. We are short in the middle, both in the captains and majors for the commissioned officers, 

and both for the E6s and E7s for the noncommissioned officers. 

Part of the reason for that is the Army Reserve traditionally has 

relied on soldiers leaving active service, coming into the Army Reserve as a supply of manpower. And so we were getting those soldiers coming off active duty with four, five years of active service, 

and by that time had acceded to the grade of captain or to their 

rank of sergeant. 
27 

With the stop loss that the active Army has had in the last several years, which they are coming off of now, but as well as the incentives to keep people on active duty, we have seen that slow 

down over recent years. So it is a phenomenon of the supply chain 

got broken for a while. 

We are now seeing that turn around. And we are now seeing our 

AC to RC, as we call it, active to Reserve, starting to increase, and 

we are starting to pick up now in those grades. It is going to take 

us a while to get healthy again. 

We are actively going out and looking across the Individual 

Ready Reserve and other databases for soldiers who have left active duty, and, in our terms, have taken a knee—three or four 

years—and we are going back to them now and saying, What about 

coming back into Reserves? We are getting a good take rate on 

that. 

And I think it plays exactly to your point before, that continuum 

of service is the key to success for all of us. That continuum of service that allows an individual with their lifestyle to say, I have been 

on active duty for four or five years, I need a break. Or, I want to 

try something different, let me move into the Reserve Component 

or even move into the IRR and take a knee, but with the confidence 

that if I want to, I can come back the other direction. 

That is what we have got to, I think, get within the Army. And 

we are not there yet. We are still, we have some bureaucracy involved, we have some gray determination—if you leave and stay 

out for a certain amount of time, you are going to have to come 

back on active service at a lower rank. We have to get beyond those 

and level the playing field. But we are working feverishly with a 

campaign plan to reshape the Reserve, but it is going to take us 

a couple of years to get healthy. 

Admiral DEBBINK. Ma’am, we have the same issues. It will take 

us a while to get healthy. But a couple of things that we are working on, we are having success in trying to attract that lieutenant 

commander or senior lieutenant as they are thinking about departing the active duty. We stood up an office called the Career Transition Office, CTO, in Millington, which is our personnel headquarters. And that office contacts individually each active duty officer who has expressed a desire to leave active duty personally. And 

we have seen by that personal contact, our transitions have gone 

from 26 percent up to 54 percent. So, quite successful. We will continue that effort. 

Mrs. DAVIS. One of the questions that I was asking, not relevant 

to that discussion, gets back to the health component, the mental 

health components, whether or not you were aware of—and I am 

just trying to understand the statistics, the differences between active duty, and Reserve, and Guard in our suicide rates—whether 

there was anything that we are looking at. And it looks as if the 

numbers are quite different, actually, and I don’t know whether 

you have anything that you would like to add or suggest regarding 

that. 

General STULTZ. I know for both the Army Reserve and the Army 

Guard—Ray can follow along with their experiences—the major difference we are seeing within the Army Reserve—and we do what 

we call a psychological autopsy on every case. We go in depth to 
28 

try and figure out what was going on. The majority of our suicides 

are not related to deployments. The majority of our suicides are actually soldiers who have never deployed. Some of our suicides are 

soldiers who have just joined the Reserves. 

And so we are trying to find out what is it that is going on in 

their life that makes them make this tragic decision. We know that 

almost in every case there is something, a broken relationship, or 

something that happens that kind of pushes them over the edge. 

My concern is, in some cases as we did the psychological autopsy, 

the soldier indicated, or his family or friends, that his proudest 

thing was being a member of the military; that that was the only 

thing he had going for him in his life. The problem is, for the typical Reserve soldier, we only see them two days out of the month. 

They are back home with their family or friends the other 28. So 

this idea of a battle buddy doesn’t work as well as it does with the 

active component. 

The key to us is we are trying to develop a program that is not 

only targeted at the soldiers and the battle buddy system—look out 

for your battle buddy—it is targeted at the family. We have to educate the family. We have to educate the family as to the warning 

signs; but we also have to educate them that there is no stigma. 

It is okay to ask for help. If you see something happening with 

your son or your husband or wife or whatever, it is okay to ask for 

help. And here is where you can go. 

We have had that happen on a couple of occasions already with 

our suicide training, where family members have come forward 

saying, hey, my son needs some help and he is not willing to ask 

for it. 

That is the challenge. We had one soldier, just as an anecdotal 

case, that after we did the suicide training, came forward and said, 

I need help. We found out he was living in his car in a Walmart 

parking lot. But my first reaction is I am going to go relieve the 

commander and the first sergeant. But when I talked to the commander they said, sir, we never knew. He showed up at drill in 

uniform, did his duty, left on Sunday afternoon, and no one ever 

really knew the situation he was in until he came forward. 

For us that is the challenge. It is, how do we reach that soldier 

and his family the other 28 days of the month that we are not with 

him. But it is not really a deployment-related issue for us. 

Mrs. DAVIS. One of the concerns around compensation and bonuses as well, and help and support, really has to do with the extension of TRICARE Reserve Select. Now is there some—as you are 

speaking of this particular soldier and others, one of the issues I 

understand is, especially with the Guard and Reserve, is helping 

people to actually access TRICARE Select. Is that a problem, and 

do we need to approach it differently? 

Secretary MCCARTHY. When you talk about TRICARE Reserve 

Select, you are talking about a tiny or a relatively small, I guess 

is a better way to put it, a very small percentage of the force. Right 

now, of the eligible members of the Guard and Reserve, only about 

10 percent of them are enrolled in TRICARE Reserve select. So one 

of the things we want to do is to increase, broaden the enrollment. 

For those who are enrolled in TRICARE Reserve Select or those 

who are getting TRICARE benefits because they are either on ac-
29 

tive duty or coming or going from active duty, it is clear that the 

network of providers is not as broad as we would like. It is not only 

a number, but in distribution, so there are pockets of the country 

where there simply aren’t enough TRICARE providers. And that, 

too, is an object of great interest and something that we know we 

need to continue to work on. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Is there anything that you see the role the Congress 

needs to play here? This is more or less an outreach job in a number of communities that needs to be more aggressive, and, as you 

said, you need to provide—find the providers as well. 

Secretary MCCARTHY. Well, one of the things that I think we are 

seeing is that we have got three big TRICARE regions, three big 

TRICARE providers. And in one of the regions, the number and the 

distribution of providers is much better than it is in the other two. 

And I think it is because they have harnessed state agencies, state 

authorities, adjutant generals, Governors, to help spread the word 

and get more health-care providers signed up. 

Whether there is a role, a national role, whether there is a role 

for the Congress nationally or not, I am not sure yet. But I know 

that both the TRICARE Management Agency and the Assistant 

Secretary for Health Affairs are working hard on that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Right. Okay, thank you. Does anybody else want to 

comment? Yes. 

Admiral DEBBINK. Yes, ma’am. Continuity of care is very important as you work through this continuous service construct. And 

TRICARE is an amazing benefit for our reservists and guardsmen 

and, in my case, the sailors. And the Congress helped us out greatly last year by putting into the National Defense Authorization Act 

(NDAA) the ability for reservists and guardsmen to have TRICARE 

continue into what we call the ‘‘gray’’ area. After you retire after 

20 years or 30 years of service, say, in their late thirties to 50, it 

would take them to age 60. 

That was important because I believe the reason we have a very 

low take-up rate with TRICARE is a reservist knows that at some 

point that care, that insurance, is not going to be available to them 

once they retire. 

And so that took care of that problem. And we can get out now 

and start marking this with one more exception, and you mentioned the IRR before. We do find, in my case at least, people 

being, if you will, forced into the IRR occasionally. So let’s say they 

come back from a mobilization and their billet is not available to 

them for another six months or a year, and they fall into this gap, 

if you will. And so I believe that is the last gap that we had. 

And then I think we all as chiefs here can get out and really 

push for our members to join TRICARE. That will be good for the 

member. It will also be very good for us as a force, because it ensures our members keep a higher level of medical readiness, which 

is, of course, very important for their deployability. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And we are making some speculation, of course, 

which may or may not be true, that having that available, particularly in areas where people do need some support, may in fact 

make families and Reserve or Guard officer more likely to get the 

kind of help that they need, if it is available and it is right there 

for them. 
30 

Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Madam Chair, I meant to make a comment, very 

briefly. We have an Army Reserve Master Sergeant in town from 

Arkansas. Master Sergeant Verlean Brown, from Sherwood, Arkansas, spent 34 years in Army Reserve, including a 400-day tour in 

2008–2009 in Iraq, where she worked as an advocate for victims of 

sexual assault. And she is in town because she is one of the ten 

national award winners of the Attorney General’s Office. But that 

all grew out of her work in the Army Reserve. So thank you, 

Madam Chair. 

Mrs. DAVIS. We are going to just wind down and we have some 

votes. But just to end this, because I believe—and you have all 

stated how important families are to your efforts. And a number 

of all the services have begun and are sustaining programs that are 

of great help to families. 

Is there anything else in this regard, whether it is Purple Camps 

or programs for young children? We are learning as we study the 

military family and children today, about what is difficult with deployments. We have had some reports that have come back. 

Have you, in your capacity, learned anything recently, about the 

families that you are serving, that would be helpful to us to know 

about? And is there anything that you see and that you think is 

a particular model, a particular program that we should do more 

with? 

One of the things that surprises me, I almost learn every day 

about another organization out there that is supporting our families, or children, which I think is a very good thing. We know that 

families would still suggest, at least they did last year, that they 

think that Americans generally do not understand or appreciate 

the sacrifices that they make. And yet we see that there are many, 

many very committed individuals that are working hard to be supportive of our families, maybe a relative drop in the bucket in 

terms of public perception, but nevertheless it is there. 

Is there anything else that you think we ought to be doing in this 

regard? Because there is nothing more heartbreaking—and I am always remembering Mr. Jones’s comment about the little boy and 

his concern that his daddy is not dead yet. Our kids are suffering. 

Our families are suffering, despite the tremendous, tremendous resilience that we see in them. And I think we need to applaud them 

and applaud their leadership for that. 

But what else do you see that we really need to have a much 

more aggressive role to play in this regard? General Kelly. 

General KELLY. I think active or Reserve Component, I think if 

you give them, the families, predictability, if you give them sufficient dwell. You have got to watch out, I think in my community, 

our community, you have got to watch out for people that volunteer 

too much to go. They just want to go overseas and do their part 

over and over again. You have to watch out because there is a balance there. 

What has worked very well for us—and this is no comment on 

how other services do it—but the shorter deployments, the seven 

month deployments for most of the marines that go over has 

worked very, very well for us in terms of families. Of course, the 
31 

families love it. So I think those things, predictability and sufficient dwell and tour length is pretty important. 

General STULTZ. I will give you one initiative we are doing—and 

I have to give credit to my wife, not me, because she has lived 

through this as I have put her through these multiple deployments 

that I have been through. But she said we have got to take the installation to the families in the Reserve because we don’t live on 

the installations; we live in the communities. 

And we are doing a couple of pilot tests right now in the Army 

Reserve which we call the Army Strong Community Center—but it 

can morph into anything—but just within the community, putting 

a facility with a couple of people full-time in there, and putting a 

banner out, and say this is where you come if you need help. 

We opened up our first one last year in Rochester, New York, in 

one of my Reserve centers. But we want to get outside the Reserve 

center and get in the community. We have had over 3,000 requests 

for support come through that Rochester center. Surprisingly, over 

500 of those were active duty. A number of them were Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. 

What we are finding that we really hadn’t thought about is in 

those communities across America, when that husband leaves Fort 

Campbell for a 1-year or 15-month deployment, the wife and kids 

go back to Rochester. We have had a number of Gold Star families 

come in and say, We are here in Rochester. One young father said, 

My son was at Fort Hood, Texas, 4th Infantry Division. He was 

killed in action. 

I have never been to Fort Hood. I don’t know anybody in Fort 

Hood. I need somebody here, so we will pilot test. In fact, we are 

looking at California as one of the locations to see how can we get 

out into the community and then hand it to Office of the Secretary 

of Defense (OSD) to make it Purple, not an Army Reserve. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Anyone else? 

General CARPENTER. I think from the Army National Guard perspective, I tell you that the Yellow Ribbon Program has been a 

God-send in this business in terms of reaching out and touching 

the families, especially while the service member is deployed, because the anxiety level for those family members while the service 

member is deployed is through the roof. 

And we are looking at some of the statistics now in terms of impacts on families of deployments, suicide rates for family members, 

in conjunction with those kinds of deployments. And Yellow Ribbon 

has been key to us in terms of establishing that relationship and 

making sure that we know what is going on out there with the 

family, truly a big deal. And we thank the Congress for their support of that particular program. 

Secretary MCCARTHY. One of the things, if I could, on the Yellow 

Ribbon Program and what can Congress do, there is an element or 

item in this year’s Defense Omnibus that would enable us to expand the definition of family member who can attend the Yellow 

Ribbon events beyond simply spouse or parent. And we know that 

that is an important change that needs to be made in the joint 

travel reg, but we need congressional support to do that. If we get 

that changed, we will be able to bring more supportive, more— 

some people, you know, don’t have a spouse, but they have some-
32 

body else who is a very supportive person, who ought to be a part 

of the Yellow Ribbon process. So I ask your consideration for that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Why would anybody object to that? Is it just dollars? 

Why would anyone object? Why haven’t we done that already? 

Secretary MCCARTHY. I am not sure why we haven’t done it already. But when we looked at the joint travel reg, which is the restrictive document, the answer came back, Well, we need to get the 

law changed so we can change the Joint Travel Regulation (JTR), 

so that is what we need to do. It is in the omnibus this year. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. We are going to have to go vote. Any 

last-minute comment from anyone that you are going to walk out 

of here and say, Oh darn, I didn’t say that? Anything? 

Thank you so much to all of you for your tremendous service. We 

appreciate it greatly. We know it has been a long career and we 

appreciate the leadership that you provide. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 15, 2010 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

APRIL 15, 2010 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

APRIL 15, 2010 

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QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. TSONGAS 

Ms. TSONGAS. General McCarthy, SEC. 702. National Defense Authorization Act 

for Fiscal Year 2010, (P.L. 111–84) extended the early eligibility for TRICARE from 

90 days to 180 days before activation for members of the selective Reserve. What 

is the status of the implementation of this statute? 

Secretary MCCARTHY. At the National Guard Bureau, the implementation of the 

expansion of Early TRICARE to 180 days is delayed until revision of applicable Department of Defense Instruction(s) and system changes are implemented at the Defense Manpower Data Center. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. HARE 

Mr. HARE. General Wyatt, since the loss of aircraft due to BRAC 2005, several 

states have received new flying missions (Nashville, TN Lost C–130, gained WC– 

130: Bradley, CT Lost A–10, gained C–27: Meridian, MS Lost KC–135, gained C– 

27: Fargo, ND Lost F–16, gained C–27 and Predator UAV: Mansfield, OH Lost C– 

130, gained C–27: Battle Creek, MI Lost A–10, gained C–21 and C–27) however, the 

183rd FW, Springfield, IL which lost F–16’s is still without a replacement flying 

mission. The morale of the personnel on the base has become increasingly low because the base is sitting there with no air-related mission. While the unit has made 

great strides in recruiting, an operational flying mission would greatly assist in recruiting and retaining highly skilled and trained members and ‘‘home grow’’ personnel to fill some positions. What are the Air Force/Air National Guard’s plans in 

locating a new flying mission at the 183d Fighter Wing, Springfield, IL? When will 

the unit receive a replacement flying mission, and what will that mission be? 

General WYATT. The National Guard Bureau worked aggressively with the Air 

Force and the Adjutants General to identify and bed down enduring missions for 

units affected by the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment decisions. In some cases 

we were successful in identifying viable flying missions; however, there were several 

instances where our options were limited. The 183rd FW at Springfield, IL is one 

of those locations. While we were able to place enduring missions to meet the needs 

of our Air Force and Combatant Commanders, we have been unsuccessful in identifying a flying mission. We will continue to work with the Air Force to identify new 

missions for all of our ANG units who have lost flying missions, but recapitalization 

issues will make it likely some of our ANG units will not receive replacement flying 

missions. The Adjutants General recognized this constrained environment and have 

requested, through an Adjutants General of the United States resolution, that we 

prioritize mission bed down based on retaining a flying mission in every state. Illinois is one of the fortunate states, as it still retains two other flying units – KC– 

135s at Scott AFB and C–130s at Peoria, IL. My staff will continue to evaluate potential missions, which will provide a meaningful and enduring mission for the men 

and women at Springfield, IL. 

Æ