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i 

99–631 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–100] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS HEARING 

ON

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY 2017 

OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE 

BUDGET REQUEST AND 

READINESS POSTURE 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 26, 2016 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York, Vice Chair 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

CRAIG COLLIER, Professional Staff Member 

VICKIE PLUNKETT, Professional Staff Member 

KATHERINE REMBER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate from Guam, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Readiness ...................................................................................... 2 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness ...................................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Allyn, GEN Daniel B., USA, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; LTG Joseph 

Anderson, USA, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (G–3/ 

5/7), U.S. Army; and LTG Gustave F. Perna, USA, Deputy Chief of Staff, 

G–4, U.S. Army .................................................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Allyn, GEN Daniel B. ....................................................................................... 34 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J. .................................................................................. 33 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Ms. Duckworth .................................................................................................. 49 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Ms. Bordallo ...................................................................................................... 53 

(1) 

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY 2017 OPERATIONS AND 

MAINTENANCE BUDGET REQUEST AND READINESS 

POSTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, 

Washington, DC, Friday, February 26, 2016. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 8:03 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert J. Wittman 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON READINESS 

Mr. WITTMAN. I am going to call to order the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Readiness. I want to welcome everybody this morning. 

I want to thank you all for being here for this Readiness Subcommittee hearing on the Department of the Army’s 2017 operations and maintenance [O&M] budget request and readiness posture. This is the second of four hearings on the service budget request and readiness postures, and today I look forward to hearing 

how the Army’s budget request enables a readiness recovery plan 

and where we continue to take risks, calculated in terms of both 

risk to the force and risk to the mission. 

I would like to welcome all of our members and the distinguished 

panel of senior Army leaders present with us today. This morning 

we have with us General Daniel B. Allyn, U.S. Army Vice Chief of 

Staff; Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, U.S. Army Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans; Lieutenant General Gustave F. Perna, U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff. 

Thank you all for testifying today, and we look forward to your 

thoughts and insights on these important issues. 

The purpose of this hearing is to clarify the Army’s choices for 

its budget request, to address funding priorities and mitigation 

strategies, and to gather more detail on the current and future impacts of these decisions on operations, maintenance, training, and 

modernization. Most importantly, does the Army have the resources it requires in order to improve its state of readiness? 

Once again, I want to thank our witnesses for participating in 

our hearing this morning and I look forward to discussing these 

important topics. 

And now I would like to turn to our ranking member, Madeleine 

Bordallo, for any remarks that she may have. 
2 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for convening this important hearing. 

General Allyn, General Anderson, General Perna, it is good to 

see you all again. And thank you, gentlemen, for your service and 

your leadership and for being here today. 

This is the second fiscal year 2017 budget posture hearing we 

have held in the Readiness Subcommittee this year. As we heard 

from the Air Force earlier this month, one significant difference I 

see between the challenges and opportunities facing the Army and 

the Air Force relates to end strength. While the Air Force is growing, the Army is being asked to accommodate fiscal constraints by 

reducing manpower. 

To partially address this, as we have heard at several hearings 

this year, the Army places importance on total force integration, 

and we have heard about what opportunities the Army has to leverage the capabilities of the National Guard as an operational reserve to enable Active Component forces to sustain their readiness 

and ensure it can meet critical requirements. 

I will be very interested this morning to hear about specific opportunities you see as you look at the future Army and about the 

challenges the Army has in getting access to the Guard and the Reserve. 

We have heard General Milley speak on the need to rebuild and 

sustain readiness as a top priority. Your testimony echoes that and 

I am interested to hear about where the President’s fiscal year 

2017 budget request contributes to the operational readiness of our 

soldiers, but also where training, infrastructure support, and other 

gaps exist. 

Because of the rate that we used our Army over the past decade 

and a half, we know readiness has degraded. But looking forward, 

we need to understand what resources it will take to build it back. 

I recognize that we have asked you to make do with unpredictable 

and unsteady funding resulting from sequestration and years of 

continuing resolutions [CRs], and so I look forward to hearing 

about how Congress can provide the resources for our Army to return to full-spectrum readiness. 

Through our discussion today I hope we can gain a better understanding of the Army’s plan to maintain readiness through personnel training and infrastructure improvement. 

So gentlemen, thank you again for your service and I do look forward to hearing your testimonies. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you so much for your opening statement. 

General Allyn, I have been told that you will be making one 

opening statement on behalf of all the witnesses, and please proceed. And as reminder, your written testimony has already been 
3 

made available to our members and will become an official part of 

our record. 

STATEMENT OF GEN DANIEL B. ALLYN, USA, VICE CHIEF OF 

STAFF, U.S. ARMY; LTG JOSEPH ANDERSON, USA, DEPUTY 

CHIEF OF STAFF FOR OPERATIONS AND PLANS (G–3/5/7), U.S. 

ARMY; AND LTG GUSTAVE F. PERNA, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF 

STAFF, G–4, U.S. ARMY 

General ALLYN. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting 

us to testify on the readiness of your United States Army. On behalf of our Acting Secretary, the Honorable Patrick Murphy, and 

our Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, we would also like to 

thank you for your demonstrated commitment to our soldiers, 

Army civilians, families, and veterans. 

We live in a dangerous world, and after more than 14 years of 

continuous combat, it is tempting to hope that a respite lies just 

over the horizon. Instead, the global security environment remains 

unstable and continues to place a high demand on our Army. This 

is why readiness is and must remain the Army’s number one priority. 

Today the Army is globally engaged, with more than 186,000 soldiers supporting combatant commanders in over 140 countries. In 

Afghanistan and Iraq we build partner capacity to fight violent extremists; in Africa and throughout the Americas we partner to prevent conflict and shape the security environment; in the Pacific 

more than 75,000 soldiers remain committed; and in Europe and 

Asia, Army forces reassure allies and deter Russian aggression. 

At home and in every region of the world the Army remains 

ready. 

To maintain readiness and meet the demands of today’s security 

environment, the Army requires sustained, long-term, and predictable funding. And while the current budget provides a modicum of 

predictability, it is insufficient to simultaneously rebuild decisive 

action readiness and modernize for the future. 

To ensure sufficient readiness today, the Army assumes risk by 

reducing end strength, delaying modernization, and deferring infrastructure recapitalization and investment. These tradeoffs mortgage future readiness. 

We request congressional support to rebuild readiness, maintain 

end strength, equip our soldiers with the best systems now and in 

the future, and provide soldiers and their families with quality of 

life commensurate with their unconditional service and sacrifice. 

With your assistance, the Army will continue to resource the besttrained, best-equipped, and best-led fighting force in the world. 

We thank Congress for the steadfast support of our outstanding 

men and women in uniform, our Army civilians, families, and veterans. They deserve our best effort. 

Thank you again for allowing us to join you today and we look 

forward to your questions. 

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

Appendix on page 34.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, General Allyn. I appreciate 

your perspective there. 
4 

As we look at rebuilding readiness there are a couple of things 

that you lay out in your plan, and that is setting the conditions for 

readiness, or kind of setting the foundation upon which you will reattain readiness. 

Give us your perspective on where you will prioritize recovering 

readiness. What are the timeframes? 

And give us a perspective on where we are taking risks. You 

spoke about risk, but I really want to have some definition of that. 

So if you could give us those three perspectives, that would be 

very helpful to us. 

General ALLYN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First and foremost, as you look at our President’s budget submission you will clearly see the prioritization that General Milley has 

applied in terms of resourcing readiness: 60 percent of our budget 

is committed to our people, both military and civilian—44 percent 

for our military members, 16 percent for Army civilians. That 40 

percent that is left, the Chief of Staff of the Army has rightfully 

prioritized readiness for our Army specifically to meet the current 

demands, as I highlighted in terms of where our force is arrayed. 

Specifically within getting after training readiness, which is one 

of the most quickly eroded and hardest to regain over time, we 

have fully funded our combat training centers to provide the decisive action combined arms maneuver training that is essential to 

ensure that we can defeat a peer competitor. We are approaching 

by the end of this year a point at which our brigade combat teams 

[BCTs] will have about 50 percent of our brigades having more 

than one decisive action rotation under their belt. 

That is how we build the repetitions essential to ensure that our 

leaders can continue to dominate on the battlefields of the future. 

Specifically, where are we accepting risk in readiness? We do not 

have sufficient funds to fully fund home station training and the 

installations, which are the power projection platforms and the 

deliverers of readiness each and every day. 

We have had to fund those below the required level, about 67 

percent in terms of our sustainment, restoration, and modernization of our installations, which are critical to readiness, and we 

have had to marginalize our modernization. Our modernization 

budget is $23 billion of a $125 billion program. It is less than half 

of any other service in the Department of Defense, and it is inadequate to ensure that in the future—the near future—that we will 

continue to have the best possible equipment. 

And so we are having to prioritize specific gaps against our peer 

competitors in the near term. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, General Allyn. I think that is extraordinarily important. 

We had the opportunity last week, Ms. Bordallo and I, to travel 

to the Asia-Pacific to visit with the General Scaparrotti there at 

U.S. Forces Korea, also there in the Pacific Command [PACOM], 

to get the laydown on what is happening throughout that particular area, looking at some of the transitions that are taking 

place there, taking the Stryker battalion out of Korea, bringing 

back in an infantry brigade. 

All those elements of rotating forces, trying to get the force structure right, are the pieces you talk about trying to prioritize, and 
5 

then making sure that those brigade combat teams get the necessary cycle time at the National Training Centers and make sure 

that they jointly train, too, at the JRTC [Joint Readiness Training 

Center]. 

Give me your perspective, too. The Army has, I think, a couple 

of different things in place. You talk about modernization, which I 

think is spot on. But another element that I think folks need to 

know about, and that is the manning provision. 

We are on track for Army to go to 450,000. Does that track to 

450,000 allow the Army to accomplish its mission, to meet—and I 

understand the COCOMs [combatant commands] are always going 

to request more than that is there, but to meet even the basic requirements of issues that we face in places like Korea and other 

areas, where the demand signal seems to grow stronger, and 

stronger, and stronger, because of uncertainty around the world? 

Give me your perspective on that as you look at the total force 

structure puzzle in where we are regaining readiness. 

General ALLYN. Thank you, Chairman. And I know General Anderson will illuminate this a bit more from his perspective as our 

Chief of Operations, but you have put your finger on the pulse of 

the most critical issue for us in readiness in the near term. 

From now through at least 2020, the primary limiting factor for 

us achieving full-spectrum readiness is our personnel manning. 

The turbulence that we are undergoing as we reorganize our Army 

as a smaller, more capable force has created additional turbulence 

on top of that which is driven by our drawdown, okay? And it is 

being borne by lower manning levels across our formations. 

As you know, during the war we were able to man our units 

above 100 percent in order to ensure they deployed as fully manned 

as possible. 

With a 10 percent non-ready force across the total force today, 

we cannot sustain that in a force that is headed toward 980,000 as 

a total force. So manning is a critical limiting factor for us, and it 

is exacerbated by the growth in current operations demands for our 

Army. 

Today, across the joint force, for all combatant commanders we 

provide 46 percent of the annual allocation of forces to combatant 

commanders—more than the rest of all services combined. In addition, we provide 64 percent of the emerging demand, the year-ofexecution unexpected surprises that come up that require immediate response. So we are providing trained and ready forces to 

meet both known and unexpected demands, and it is coming at the 

expense of our surge capacity for situations like Korea. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes. 

General ALLYN. So we place at great risk our ability to respond 

with sufficient capacity for the types of fights that very, very, very 

difficult environments such as Korea will require. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Right. 

General ALLYN. So from my perspective, it is absolutely critical 

that we take a very, very hard look at our manning level. And I 

don’t see a reduction in current operations demands occurring anytime in the near future. It hasn’t for the last 3 years. It has actually been on the rise, and we believe that is placing excessive stress 

on the United States Army to meet the requirements. 
6 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

General Anderson. 

General ANDERSON. Thanks, Chairman. So the issue we have 

right now with the Pacific, it is a 74,000-ish, based on assigned 

forces out there, and the way we accommodate folks like General 

Scaparrotti is through our rotational forces, so we have a continual 

heel-to-toe, as we like to say in the Army, from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood that keeps going back in to rotate to give them 

that presence on the peninsula. 

But the challenges that the Vice is talk about, you are talking 

about, manning levels right now at about 90 percent of what the 

authorized strength is for these units. And of course, we are hovering around a 10 percent availability issue in each of our formations based on medical and admin [administrative] legal type 

things. 

So when you are talking about getting an 80 to 85 percent of a 

structure that actually is deployable, that continues to drain what 

we have in our readiness available pool to keep getting through 

things like that Korea rotation. And then I think you were all 

briefed on Pacific Pathways while you were out there, so you are— 

you know, so a phenomenal thing that General Brooks and crew 

have put together. 

But again, you are taking soldiers now and leaping them as they 

do a Foal Eagle in Korea, they do a Cobra Gold in Thailand, and 

they do a Balikatan in the Philippines. And that is a continual rotational, and a—and how that does—it is a great venue for our 

leaders to get training and development, but again, they are away 

from home and that continues to—as we build the readiness we 

burn the readiness as we leapfrog around each of those exercises 

over the course of 3 to 4 months. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. Well, it was great to get the laydown when 

were there. We met with a number of folks there, 2nd Infantry, 

and got their perspective on things. And one of the things we 

talked about was, as you talked about, manning and availabilities. 

And as you know, when you are trying to put together a brigade 

combat team to go into theater and you have got to updraw from 

other brigades for augmentees, you know, all of a sudden you start 

to see how thin the force is because you are moving there and obviously you would like to be at 95 percent available to deploy, but 

many times you are below that. 

And when that is the case then you take away from other brigades, and then when it is time for them to go they are scrambling 

to try to put folks together. So it really starts to show the openings 

in the fabric, so to speak, when you have to do those things. 

So it was good to get that perspective as we were over at 

USARPAC [U.S. Army Pacific] so that they could give us their perspective. 

General ANDERSON. It does, sir. You know, the challenge is, as 

we try to streamline how we focus units on particular parts of the 

globe, unfortunately we can’t do that. 

So, you know, we would like to say like our 4th Infantry Division 

at Carson is all things Europe. Well, the reality is the 1st Brigade 

is the rapid reaction force for NORTHCOM [U.S. Northern Command], the 2nd Brigade is going to Afghanistan, the 3rd Brigade 
7 

is going to be the rotational unit into Europe, and the CAB [Combat Aviation Brigade] is in Afghanistan. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes. 

General ANDERSON. So you are taking that one—that one division has to cover down all those requirements. And like you said, 

typically—and this is more applicable to Iraq and Afghanistan, but 

by force management levels, typically by grades and skill sets, you 

have to cherry-pick multiple units. 

When you look at readiness across the Army, so you say, okay, 

Brigade X is doing this mission—well, the problem is what did you 

have to draw from this unit, this unit, this unit, be it a fires brigade, a sustainment brigade, a division headquarters? What does 

it take to fill those requirements to deploy? And when you apply 

that peanut butter across the formation, that degrades readiness. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. 

Gentlemen, thank you. 

I now go to Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Allyn, as I mentioned in my opening statement, I know 

that you have been working diligently to advocate the total force 

concept, which, as you know, existed before the commission reported. So what challenges have you experienced in accessing the 

Reserve Component, and what tools do you need to ensure it can 

be done in an effective, efficient, and responsible manner? 

General ALLYN. Thank you, ma’am. It is a commitment that we 

have made for the last 3 to 4 years to truly get after the end state 

of the Army total force policy, which enables an integrated approach to how we train at home station with the same rigor that 

we employ our total force in current operations around the globe. 

I mentioned the 186,000 soldiers that are deployed in 140 countries today; 25,000 of those are Guard and Reserve soldiers, so they 

are absolutely integrated into the fabric of every mission that we 

execute. 

Specifically where you can help, you will note in the President’s 

budget submission we have increased our request for 12304-bravo 

funding to enable us to have more flexible access to the Reserve 

Component specifically for emerging missions. 

Where the stress starts to really press down on our active formations is in meeting those emerging requirements for which the time 

constraint that we have does not enable us to prepare and deploy 

a Reserve Component unit to meet the requirement. 

The 12304-bravo funding would have us with greater flexibility 

to leverage that great Reserve Component capacity for missions beyond just those in OCO [overseas contingency operations]-funded 

areas of operation—for instance, Pacific Pathway exercises, where 

there is a perfect match—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

General ALLYN [continuing]. But we do not have the manning or 

authorizations and funding to match the requirements. So that is 

an area where you could give us great assistance, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, thank you, General. We will take note of 

that. 

And I thank you and your colleagues for working to ensure that 

the THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] on Guam is 
8 

made a permanent fixture. Thank you for that. As the front line 

against persistent threats emanating from neighbors in the region, 

having a continuous capability to deter and, if necessary, neutralize 

these threats is very reassuring to the people of Guam. 

Moving forward, do you see cost-saving opportunities for this 

mission while, of course, ensuring the necessary requirements are 

met? 

General ALLYN. Well, ma’am, I think we are in the environment 

of finding the most efficient and effective way to execute every mission that we have and make the best use of every dollar that you 

appropriate or you authorize to us. So yes, we will review that mission just as we do every other and ensure that we are getting best 

value for the missions that we have. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

General Anderson, you have spoken about the need to leverage 

the National Guard as an operational force. What opportunities do 

you see to do this? In other words, how can the National Guard 

gain training and operational experiences while also enabling the 

Active Component to fill its mission requirements? 

General ANDERSON. Thanks, ma’am. There are tons of opportunities. 

So what the Vice talked about first of all, as we talked about previously, number one is in the year of execution. So based on the 

12304-bravo—and we are getting up to about 1,800 man-years now, 

which is good, so we thank you for that. That has gone from about 

1,636 to about 1,840 which is—that is what we need so when in 

time of crisis we can very easily use them based on who is in the 

top tier, like the 116th Brigade right now, and the 234 in Minnesota, and 116th from Idaho. That is our top two tier Guard BCT, 

so how are we able to grab them and use them in terms of crisis? 

The bigger issue we are dealing with right now is how do we program Guard units for known requirements across the COCOMS, 

like we are doing with the 36th Division going into Kandahar to 

be the TAAC [Train, Advise and Assist Command] South for Afghanistan, and how we are going to put the 29th potentially into 

Jordan to be the Combined Joint Task Force headquarters there. 

We need Guard divisions and Guard BCTs to lessen the slack because right now we—our BCTs are at a—on or about a 1:1.6 bootson-the-ground time deployed to dwell back home, and we need to 

get that reduced. And the only way we are going to do that, assuming that our emergent and our continuing requirements stay about 

the same, the only way we are going to lessen that burden on the 

Active Component is to use the National Guard. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I also have another question for you, General. 

The $1.3 billion request for installation support is a historic low 

and indicates that the Army is continuing to accept risk especially 

in the FSRM [facilities, sustainment, restoration, and modernization] account. Though the budget overview states that it funds activities that contribute to unit readiness and quality of life, it also 

notes assumed risk in the sustainment and modernization of our 

facilities. 

So can you speak to the primary, secondary, or other impacts 

that reduced FSRM spending and how it will have an effect on our 
9 

soldiers and facilities? How long will it take to build back this lost 

infrastructure readiness? 

General ANDERSON. I don’t know how long it will take to build 

it back. The problem is this is a continuum, and again, you are 

talking to guys here that have been commanders of installations for 

years. We have a huge backlog. So as the guy that commanded 

Fort Bragg after him, if you are talking about an installation that 

has been 50 percent funded to that sustainment, restoration, modernization account for 3 years in a row and now we are on year 

number 4, when you look at the backlog of infrastructure—so again 

it runs the whole gamut. 

You mentioned quality of life, and that is all things that affect 

soldiers, families, and civilians. But from a training and readiness 

perspective, as you are watching runways crumble, ranges fall 

apart, training system support issues, the backlog of that is starting to have, again, a—that has a direct impact on readiness as it 

affects units’ ability to go out and train based on what the facilities 

enable them to do. 

And so that—I am going to use the word—that crumbling infrastructure, I think as you go and visit these installations and watch, 

it is the same at Schofield as it is at Fort Bragg as it is at Fort 

Carson, Colorado. 

And when you watch what that effect is having on us and the 

catch-up rate, it is hard to predict what the catch-up rate is going 

to be. But the direct impact on the ability to go out when targetry 

simulators—we have a huge problem with all of our simulators and 

a way that we train out, because of the—how we manage that 

home—as the Vice talked about, that home station training, one of 

the ways you mitigate what it takes to go out and shoot live rounds 

or fly live helicopters or drive live tanks is you go in the simulators. 

Well, our software and the modernization—we are three generations behind on the software in those simulators. So it is a wide 

open question, ma’am, and it affects every single piece—part of 

that, from how do you physically outload at an airfield, to how do 

you go shoot something at a range, to how do you go into a simulator to make sure that you are reducing the time it requires to go 

out in the field based on what you can do back on the installation. 

But our home station, our simulation centers, and our mission command centers are all woefully inadequate in terms of capability to 

keep us up to the levels we would like to be at. 

General ALLYN. I will just give you a couple of data points on 

that. Our overall infrastructure backlog is $7 billion, and that is 

about 20 percent of our facilities are in poor or failing condition, 

alright? 

And you ask yourself, well, why—how could you as a senior commander allow that to happen? Again, it is the best of poor choices. 

And if your choice is to send a soldier trained and ready to defeat 

the enemies of our country in a known mission and the only way 

you can pay—fully pay for that is to reduce infrastructure restoration, that is the choice that we are faced with. 

And we are making what we believe is the right choice to, you 

know, protect and preserve the lives of our soldiers for known missions. And it is not a good choice, but it is the best that we have. 
10 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, and I thank you, Generals, for your very direct answers. 

General Perna, I have a quick question for you. How critical are 

the Army’s organic depot maintenance facilities and capabilities to 

restoring readiness? 

General PERNA. Ma’am, thank you. I think they are integral to 

our readiness—our equipment readiness. They are very important. 

As you know that before the war we were at a certain level, and 

because of the great support by you and many others we were able 

to double that capability to meet the requirements on the battlefield—two battlefields—and, in fact, sustain over a reset 3.9 million 

pieces of equipment for the entire portion of the war. 

I think it is intricate in our future readiness as we require to 

reset the equipment that might be currently in Iraq, Afghanistan, 

we used in Africa. So the importance of maintaining this capability 

is essential to our readiness. Thank you. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

We will now go to Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony today and for your 

service to our Nation. 

I am interested to hear any updates or impacts the fiscal year 

2017 budget request has had on decision-making regarding ARI 

[Aviation Restructure Initiative]. The fiscal year 2016 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] specifies that the transfer of 24 

Apaches to Fort Drum will occur from July to August of this year. 

And based on the fiscal year 2017 budget request, is it the 

Army’s position that all pending fiscal year 2016 Apache transfers 

will take place as planned? And is there anything in the budget 

that suggests there will be a delay or a change based on readiness 

issues? 

General ALLYN. Vice Chair Stefanik, the answer is no. We will 

execute those transfers on time, on schedule. General Kadavy has 

got that plan laid out and that transfer will occur. 

And I appreciate you bringing up ARI. It is important to update 

you that the divestiture of our oldest airframes has continued on 

schedule and enabled us to take very constrained resources in our 

aviation modernization program and ensure that they are going 

into our most modern, most capable aircraft. 

So it is vital that we do that, but the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade will receive its Apaches on schedule. And we appreciate your 

support for us continuing to do that. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Great. Thank you for answering that on record. 

Broadly, I recognize the Army has not taken a position on recommendations from the National Commission for the Future of the 

Army. But if their recommendation that the National Guard maintain 72 Apaches were to be considered, how would that impact current plans for ARI? 

General ALLYN. Obviously we are very appreciative of the 63 recommendations that address 62 specific issues and areas of focus for 

the future of our Army. A very detailed report, an incredible 

amount of analysis and assessment, and our team of National 
11 

Guard, Army Reserve, and Active Army brigadier generals are currently reviewing every one of those recommendations. 

And we have prioritized the aviation-specific recommendations 

because, first of all, they are the most costly, and they have the 

longest-term implications to the future of our fighting capability. So 

we will be bringing those forward to the Chief of Staff of the Army 

and the Secretary of the Army for the—for a decision in the very 

near future. 

Suffice it to say there were no resources provided for these recommendations, and many of them are very high-dollar—in the billions—cost, you know, impactful. And so we are analyzing both 

within our program and with additional dollars where we will need 

help to achieve the end state that has been prescribed. 

We will continue to divest our old airframes, as prescribed by 

ARI. We will continue to ensure that all of our combat aviation brigades are as capable and modern as possible. 

In the near term the retention of Apaches in the National Guard, 

absent additional funding, will slow our modernization program for 

Black Hawks and Apaches. There is no other way internal to our 

program to fund it. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, General Allyn. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Stefanik. 

We will now go to Mr. Peters. 

Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today—excuse me. 

General Allyn, in your testimony you state that less than a third 

of Army forces are at acceptable levels of readiness to conduct sustained ground combat in a full-spectrum environment. One of my 

colleagues who is not on this committee often, you know, directs 

questions to folks and say, ‘‘Is this decision made because of budget 

or because of security?’’ 

We recognize that all decisions are made both because of budget 

and because of security and that is appropriate, but this number 

does—this level of readiness does seem alarming to us. Can you 

comment from a historical perspective kind of what you would see 

as the acceptable level of readiness? And then I have a follow-up 

question for you. 

General ALLYN. Well, thanks, Congressman Peters. 

It is not acceptable, not given the global environment that we operate in. And I appreciate your recognition that it goes beyond just 

manning, training, equipping, and leading. All of those are critical, 

but our ability to build surge capacity and remain globally responsive means that we must be able to build sufficient readiness over 

and above the commitments to current operations. And for the past 

6 to 8 months we have been consuming readiness as rapidly as we 

are generating it. 

So our commanders in the field are absolutely attacking this as 

job one, in accordance with General Milley’s number one priority 

of readiness. But absent a reduction in global demand or an increase in capacity, it will be very, very difficult for us to make the 

type of headway we must make to have sufficient readiness for the 

smaller Army that we are headed toward. 
12 

Mr. PETERS. Can you also imagine that we plussed up the Army’s budget from—by 10 percent, or extra $15 billion available to you 

to spend on readiness, which we heard in the retreat this week was 

the number one priority, at least for the Army. What would be the 

specific places where you would like to see that applied right away? 

General ALLYN. Well, Congressman Peters, I would go through 

quite a laundry list here to walk all the way through that, but suffice to say we do have prioritized unfunded requirements specifically addressing both readiness, installation support, personnel, 

and manning. And so, given that delivering readiness requires a 

balance across all aspects of man, train, equip, and lead, that is 

where we would apply that. 

But were we to receive additional funding, we would clearly raise 

to a very rapid discussion specifically getting at the National Commission’s recommendations, which do require additional capabilities not currently resident in our program, that growth would have 

to be a point of discussion in that increased budget were you able 

to find it for us. 

Mr. PETERS. Alright. Well, really appreciate it. I think we have 

learned a lot this week, both at the retreat and here, and we appreciate your service and your being here today. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Peters. 

We will now go to Mr. LoBiondo. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Generals, for being here. 

Just very quickly, can you shed any light on what Army Guard 

cyber teams may be doing or how they are approaching the problem? 

General ALLYN. Well, I appreciate you giving us an opportunity 

to talk about where the Army is in developing our cyber capability. 

We are well on the path toward achieving the minimum capability 

that Admiral Rogers has prescribed for each of the services. 

In fact, by the end of fiscal year 2017, the end of this budget we 

are talking about, all of our 41 cyber mission teams will be fully 

operational. We have 31 at initial operating capability [IOC] 

today—or 33, I am sorry—and we will be fully operational by the 

end of 2017, which is his prescribed requirement. 

Specifically for the National Guard and the Army Reserve, we 

have—we are building 21 cyber protection teams to provide critical 

cyber defense for critical infrastructure and for our systems here in 

the homeland. We have just begun that process. 

You will note in the President’s budget submission that there are 

procurement dollars applied to those cyber protection teams to enable us to properly equip as we begin to train those teams. But we 

will be on a path toward initial operating capability as we move 

forward here in providing both a cyber offense and cyber defense 

capability to ensure that our Nation can both be decisive and protect our capabilities here in the homeland. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. So with all the pain and suffering that the budget is causing, is it causing the same sort of degree of pain and suffering in the cyber security area? 

General ALLYN. Well, if you will note, Congressman, in the budget submission cyber is one of the only growth areas in our budget. 
13 

It is absolutely a critical capability that we must continue to develop. 

It is a long-term commitment that we are making. We are standing up a cyber center of excellence at Fort Gordon, Georgia, despite 

having a MILCON [military construction] budget that is the lowest 

since 1999. We are focused on fully developing that capability to 

ensure that we can train and sustain a trained and ready cyber 

mission force and build the cyber protection teams that are needed 

by the Guard. 

But is the dollar allocation sufficient to get there as fast as we 

want to get there? No. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. LoBiondo. 

We will now go to Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Allyn, I don’t want to speak for anyone else on the committee but I have taken your comments today and in previous 

meetings to heart and feel very strongly that we need to have a 

much larger force size than the one that we are currently on a trajectory to achieve, and we need to fund those areas in modernization and readiness that you describe at risk today at some point 

in the future. 

I think the challenge for me—you are giving us your best professional advice, which is critically important; we now have the task 

of convincing our colleagues and explaining to constituents why 

this is important. And so a problem at some point in the future is 

a little bit more difficult to bring home than something that is 

today at risk or a consequence that we can point to. 

And I don’t know if this is something that we could answer in 

this hearing, but to the degree that you can provide us with those 

scenarios or anecdotes or facts, I think that is going to make our 

job easier in terms of getting the resources to you and the Department of Defense to ensure that we don’t run into these problems 

in the future. 

One of the points that you have made in your testimony and before is that within the Army we are at $500 million over in excess 

and underutilized capacity. Where would you apply those dollars 

if—and I know BRACs [base realignment and closures] don’t work 

this easily or cleanly, but if that money could be transferred to 

some other use, where would you put it? 

General ALLYN. Well, thanks, Congressman, and thanks for your 

support of our Army. It is very much appreciated. We understand 

our responsibility to better describe the impact of underfunding our 

Army for today and the future threats that we face. 

Specifically to your question of the $500 million being wasted on 

excess infrastructure, that $500 million would go a long way toward helping increase the sustainment, restoration, and modernization divot that is currently programmed into our budget. We 

have only funded at 67 percent of known requirements. And, of 

course, nature has a way of causing things unexpectedly, like the 

leaking front window in my own house during this recent rainstorm. 
14 

So we have to take very hard decisions about where we spend 

our money. And for the Army we have 21 percent more capacity 

than the program force will ever require. We are doing everything 

we can to tighten our belt internally, but we really must make very 

good decisions rather than waste $500 million for facilities that are 

not being used in our Army today. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Makes a lot of sense, and I hope that the political 

will and political collaboration exists or will develop to allow us to 

do that because I think you have made the case why it is so important that we transfer that money to where it can be better and 

more effectively utilized. 

In your testimony you talk about selective modernization efforts 

and you mention Army warfighting experiments. Could you go into 

a little bit more depth and detail about what that entails? 

General ALLYN. Well, both our network integration exercises or 

evaluations and our Army warfighting assessments, as you know, 

leverage the great capacity at both Fort Bliss and White Sands 

Missile Range from New Mexico, and they are absolutely at the 

center of how we build the future force. We are specifically focused 

in our Army warfighting assessments on exercising new concepts, 

new ways of employing our force, leveraging our current capabilities and emerging capabilities that are being developed in industry. 

We have learned some incredibly valuable lessons just in this 

past year on the exercises that we have done at Fort Bliss, Texas, 

and we are applying those both in the development of our future 

force and the operational concept to defeat peer competitors. 

And I think what is also very important is every one of those exercises have been joint. We have often had the United States Marine Corps participating with us; we have always had the Air Force 

participating with us; and they have all been multinational with 

our closest allies. And that has enabled us to tackle the really difficult problem of interoperability. 

We know, given a smaller force, to win in the future it will be 

with our allies and partners, and they must be able to interoperate 

with us. We must share a common operating picture, and all of 

those are being exercised routinely at our Army warfighting assessments. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, General. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. 

I just want to remind folks the $500 million figure that you 

spoke of—we asked for a report on infrastructure analysis from the 

service branches. It was supposed to come to us with the President’s budget. We have not received it yet; we understand that we 

will get it from the Pentagon. 

So that should be the reflection on what the capacity numbers 

are. There are a lot of other numbers floating around out there, 

and I know the previous ones have been based on parametric analyses of the 2005 BRAC. 

So that is why we have asked for the most up-to-date numbers 

and we are expecting to get them from the Pentagon. So I want to 

make sure we are not too fast and loose with numbers. 
15 

I understand what you want to get at, but I want to make sure, 

too, that we are going to get that based on information from DOD 

[Department of Defense]. Thanks. Thanks, appreciate it. 

General ALLYN. You will see those numbers reflective in that report for the United States Army, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Good. Very good. Thanks. Thanks, General Allyn. 

We appreciate it. 

Now we are going to go to Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And once again, it is always great to see all of you here. 

And I come from a little different perspective. When we have a 

drawdown in troops and when we have a lower number than what 

we are hearing from all the COCOMs and what is, you know, the 

requirements or needs, it really does put a stress on our Army 

today. 

You know, when you have one son who has been deployed, you 

know, not combat lately, but, you know, bounced from Australia, 

then to South Korea a few weeks later, then to Fort Bliss a few 

weeks later, and that starts adding up, and then, oh, by the way, 

you just got transferred and you are in Africa for a period of time. 

And that is across the board. It is just not my kids, but it is, you 

know, it is all of our soldiers. And I worry about—and you talked 

about it briefly—what it really does to our readiness, because we 

are constantly—particularly, from the family front, it is tough on 

their support mechanisms. 

So, I mean, can we maintain this level of training? Because, hey, 

he just got back from NTC [National Training Center] you know, 

3 weeks ago. So can we honestly keep that level up without really 

degrading our force in total across the spectrum? 

General ALLYN. Well, Congressman Nugent, you have very good 

spot reps [reports] coming from the force. It is an exciting time to 

be a soldier and a junior leader, and I—— 

Mr. NUGENT. And let me explain something. They love it—— 

General ALLYN. I know it. 

Mr. NUGENT [continuing]. You know? But then I also have to 

hear from the girlfriend and wife and, you know, I mean, so they 

are loving it. 

General ALLYN. And that is why I say it is an exciting time to 

be a junior leader and a soldier in the United States Army, because 

you are out there globally responsive. The brigade that is taking 

over the mission this morning in the Republic of Korea last year 

at this time was operating in Eastern Europe, in Lithuania, Latvia, 

and helping General Hodges deter Russia. 

Mr. NUGENT. Right. 

General ALLYN. So those leaders have become quite expert in the 

potential battlefields of Eastern Europe and now they are in the 

Republic of Korea. 

What we are hearing from our soldiers is exciting for our young 

soldiers. This is why they joined. They joined to make a difference 

for our country. 

But you raise the point that we are we are bearing the burden 

of this high OPTEMPO [operations tempo] on the backs of our soldiers and our families. And it is a burden they bear, and they are 

extraordinarily resilient, but there is a cost. 
16 

And we are concerned about that. We are hearing from our midgrade noncommissioned officers [NCOs] and from our mid-grade officers that, ‘‘I don’t know how long I can keep this going,’’ alright? 

So that is a very huge part of our discussion about the stress on 

our force and what we have to do as we continue to support the 

great demands as our Nation leads around the globe. 

Mr. NUGENT. Well, you know, one of things that my wife and I, 

you know, relied upon when we had, you know, sons deployed to 

Afghanistan and Iraq is the fact that they are the best-equipped, 

best-led. But, you know, we saw the stress that on some initial deployments to Afghanistan where they were there for 15 months and 

16 months. And obviously, that is a cycle you shouldn’t be in. 

And I worry that people think of the Army as this machine. In 

a lot of ways it is. But the parts of the—the non-machine parts are 

the parts that are most important to all the services, and that is 

the people that actually, you know, put the uniform on and go out 

to do the fight. 

And I worry that, you know, we are going to lose some of our 

best and brightest. Now, I know some of the—you know, my sons’ 

friends, you know, that have left because of that kind of stress. 

And I hate to see us lose that kind of talent, because Members 

of Congress and the general public do not see the person that 

wears the uniform as a person. And I think we need to start talking about that, because that is what makes the Army great—are 

the people that you have out there—and you talked about it—the 

men and women that actually put uniform on to go out to fight. 

General ALLYN. Well, thanks, Congressman. And, I mean, I have 

difficulty adding to what you have just professed. 

We are the best Army on the globe because we have the best soldiers and the best leaders. And frankly, we had the greatest bench 

of combat-seasoned leaders our Army has ever had, and it is why 

I remain confident about our ability to sustain our readiness for 

current operations. 

I share your concern for the long-term implications. I will tell 

you, though, that the vast majority of our leaders want to remain 

on this great professional team that we have in the United States 

Army. 

Mr. NUGENT. Absolutely. I—— 

General ALLYN. Our retention rates are really quite high. And 

frankly, it is our retention rates that, in some cases for some of our 

components, that are offsetting some of the recruiting challenges 

that we are facing today. 

So the soldiers that are on this team, they want to stay on this 

team. 

Mr. NUGENT. Right. 

General ALLYN. And that is why they deserve our best support. 

Mr. NUGENT. Absolutely. 

Now I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Nugent. 

And we will now go to Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I certainly appreciate your being here. Thank you so much 

for your dedicated leadership. 
17 

I am going to ask you to cheerlead a little bit more here perhaps, 

then, because I think that looking at the four pillars of readiness, 

leaders leading has got to be the most critical. And it is a source 

of concern and a source of worry. 

Are we doing anything different—do you think we should be 

doing anything different in terms of personnel management, so 

that we do have leaders who are able to stay and lead at home stations in addition to their deployments? 

We also have a kind of fracturing of people going and coming 

back, and having to break up the unit from time to time. Does that 

require something different in this time and making sure we have 

that kind of sustainable leadership? 

General ALLYN. Well, Congresswoman, I will highlight the fact 

that leadership is absolutely a core focus for our Army. It is an integral component of delivering readiness. You will see in our budget that we have prioritized the professional military education, 

both for our noncommissioned officers and for our officers across 

the total force. 

We have implemented a Select, Train, Educate, and Promote program for our noncommissioned officers so that they must go to a 

professional military education before they can be promoted, so 

that we remain the most professional force that we can possibly be. 

And the talent management initiatives that we have underway, 

we have a—one of our rising three-stars has been leading our talent management task force to specifically identify those policies, 

programs, and procedures that we must adapt to continue to develop the types of leaders we need for the future. 

So it is absolutely a precision focus for the Chief of Staff of the 

Army and the Acting Secretary of the Army and will remain so as 

we move forward, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. General Anderson, you look like you wanted to—— 

General ANDERSON. I always like talking to you, ma’am. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

I think it is a cultural shift. So what the Vice is talking about 

over these last 15 years, as we watch us in the organization that 

I lead, is people taking shortcuts. We truncated courses; we 

stopped making people get certified for the position before they assumed it. We always say we couldn’t afford to take you out of the 

formation; we prioritize the needs of the unit above the needs of 

the individual, which contributed to that leader’s development. 

So now what you see, based on the Select, Train, Educate, Promote system, now we see a—going back to the way we used to do 

this, where you cannot assume a position before you get—go to the 

appropriate school for that position. But we don’t necessarily jeopardize individuals’ training over the—the unit taking precedence 

over the individual now. 

Where we do break them out of the formation is to make sure 

they go into these programs so we take the time to develop them 

both from an officer and a noncommissioned officer perspective, 

and even the warrant officers now. The warrant officers didn’t have 

until this year a program that replicated what we do with the officer and noncommissioned officer corps. 

So in the training domain, and what Bob Brown is doing out 

there at our—at Fort Leavenworth, we are taking the time now to 
18 

refocus and make sure that you have the prerequisites before you 

go into the position, which was not—has not been the case these 

past 15 years. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. Do you think we are going to see some differences as well in terms of, you know, really acknowledging the 

life balance issues that our men and women need in order to stay 

in the service and to be able to engage for the long haul? 

General ANDERSON. As we go out and talk to our pre-command 

course at Leavenworth, it is all the incoming battalion commanders, battalion command sergeant majors, brigade commanders, brigade command sergeant majors, and a big focus of 

that discussion is restoring balance, and how do you put—so back 

what Congressman Nugent is talking about, that strain and demand, but how do you as leaders figure out what the appropriate 

balance is between allowing people time for their development, for 

their well-being, their resiliency, and contributing to the collective 

training of a unit, whatever particular level you are talking about? 

But how do you manage that and balance that? And it cannot be 

one-size-fits-all, and how do you implement that based on what 

type of an outfit you are? Because it does vary based on what type 

of a unit you are and what your missions—assigned missions are, 

and how you train and develop that force. 

So it is something we try to inculcate and have a discussion 

about because it can’t—you know, the old ARFORGEN [Army 

Force Generation] model everybody was on a rote model, where you 

knew what your preparations were going to be prior to deployment, 

what your gates were going to be, how you kind of march through 

all of those over the course of 12 months, and then deploy. 

That is not the Army we have today. 

General ALLYN. And I will highlight, ma’am, that Sergeant Major 

of the Army has a fingertip pulse on our force. He is around the 

Army virtually 4 to 5 days a week, touching the Army at all components in all locations to get the feedback of their concerns in this 

specific area as well as the touchpoints that we have at the precommand courses. We are listening and we are trying to adapt 

within the constraints that we have. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Great. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. 

We will now go to Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. 

I want to go back to something you brought up earlier about 10 

percent across the military being non-ready. Now, are you talking 

about training-wise or health-wise? What is that 10 percent? 

General ALLYN. It is about 80 percent medical, so medical nonreadiness, predominantly in lower extremity injuries, but it runs 

the gamut of medical deployability. In some cases it is physical limitations. 

There is a very small fraction of it that is administrative. There 

is a small fraction of it that is legal. But the vast majority of it is 

medical. 

And in fact, we have about 15,000 soldiers on average each year 

in our disability evaluation system, and we are—we have driven 
19 

that timeline to transition somebody to the VA [Department of Veterans Affairs] for care for the long term down significantly, but it 

is still right now on average for the active force it is about 7 

months that it takes to transition someone out of the Army. And 

those who enter the disability evaluation system, the vast majority 

of them, in the range of 90 percent, do not return to active service. 

And so we need to continue to streamline that process because 

the bottom line is in the squads, platoons, and companies of our 

Army, until that soldier transitions out we cannot put a replacement in there. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Yes. And I was doing some work with OTSG [Office of the Surgeon General] this past summer, and for the Army 

I think it may even be higher than the 10 percent, which is a concern. And I don’t think people recognize that necessarily up here 

that when we talk about a certain number, well, when you take 10 

or up to 20 percent off of that number it is even lower than we 

think, and I think it is important for us to recognize that. And 

then, of course, on the medical side it is our job to try and reduce 

that number any way that we can. 

And the other thing, I was glad we talked a little bit about 

BRAC today because we are putting money out there basically for 

nothing, in a lot of ways, and whether it is a partial reduction of 

a base or a complete closure. But we talked a little bit before and 

I would like you to comment, too, on possibilities of streamlining. 

For example, when we recognize a capability gap and there is a 

problem here in modernization or just out-and-out equipping, the 

process that you have to go through to get to that, how much of 

that can we cut out? 

And I know it is hard to—I am almost speaking anecdotally here, 

but there has got to be simpler ways and cut through some of this 

infrastructure of non-combatant personnel to help us on the other 

end. 

General ALLYN. I think you are asking me about how do we 

streamline acquisition. Is that the—— 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, basically, you know, from—— 

General ALLYN. Right. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. I am using this example here of, you know, you 

recognize a capability gap and how long it takes to get to a total 

Army analysis, right? So—— 

General ALLYN. Well, the bottom line is that all of our processes 

need to be streamlined. We are tackling them with rigor. We are 

tackling them by putting commanders back into the process that 

was largely staff-driven during the height of the war. 

Commanders are pretty good at driving outcomes in a reasonable 

amount of time. But as you look at acquisition reform, quite frankly, it is the most complex problem I have tried to wrap my head 

around in 35 years, and it has taken a number of years for us to 

bureaucratize it to the point that it is today, and it will take us 

a few years to streamline it to become as responsive as it must be. 

I will tell you that we have absolute focus from our Army acquisition executive throughout our uniformed side of the service to get 

at—to tackle this problem. And one of the specific areas that I am 

optimistic about is standing up the Army Rapid Capabilities Office 

to enable us, once we identify a capability gap and we know of an 
20 

off-the-shelf capability that will address that gap, to enable us to 

put those two together in matters of months, not years, to deliver 

that capability to our soldiers in combat. 

Frankly, as a commander in combat I watched us do that with 

modernizations to the MRAP [mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle]. As enemy adapted their tactics and we needed to modify systems, we literally turned capability around in 6 months, and never 

lost another soldier to that enemy tactic. That is what we have got 

to be aware of. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. I saw that in theater, and that just amazed me, 

compared to how most things go, that we were able to get that 

done in that short a time. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Ms. STEFANIK [presiding]. Ms. Duckworth. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Allyn, in your written testimony you explained that in 

order to prioritize readiness the Army has assumed risk in installation modernization and infrastructure improvements, that many 

MILCON sustainment and restoration efforts have been delayed or 

canceled. You also estimated that you are carrying an estimated 

burden of around $500 million. 

And I know that a lot of savings could come from a BRAC, but 

back in December we had a hearing with General Halverson on infrastructure investment and the readiness implications. I asked 

him about carrying costs and how the service is managing excess 

capacity, and how Congress could help put—be helpful legislatively 

as you try to manage these facilities outside of a BRAC. 

So one of the things that he said was that it would be helpful 

for the Army would be to be given additional flexibility for converting facilities to new uses with O&M funds. And my understanding is that you can use O&M funds for renovations, but depending on the type of work conducted you may trigger a cost cap. 

And this encourages installations to make smaller, less efficient 

modifications that may not fully meet their needs, and that sort of 

strikes me as throwing good money after bad. 

And so the alternative to MILCON funds—is to use MILCON 

funds, which don’t come with the cost caps but do take a lot longer 

for approval and, as you point out in your testimony, may be canceled or delayed. And I recognized that the Army as well as other 

services have excess and unused facilities. I know this from my 

work at VA, how much unused installations there are in the Federal Government. 

I think everyone here would agree that it is critical we maximize 

a return on our investment we are making. So I want some actionable items. 

And I don’t know if this is a question for you or maybe for General Perna, because I think it might be more G–4. Could you walk 

us through the impact the current statute has on the Army’s ability 

to manage its facilities? What specific statutory changes would 

allow you to better manage that infrastructure? And most importantly, what are the projected cost savings achieved by treating 

conversion projects as repair projects in statute? 

General ALLYN. Well, I will let Gus back me up here because this 

is very much a—in his shot group. Having read the EXSUM [execu-
21 

tive summary] of your session with General Halverson earlier this 

year, we absolutely would benefit from more flexibility in how we 

apply the limited resources that we have to make best use of the 

facilities that we have. 

For those that are confused about what we are talking about, for 

instance, if a barracks facility is no longer needed because our 

Army has gotten smaller, in order for us to use that for another 

purpose we are very restricted under the current legislation. And 

so you end up leaving a newer facility vacant and use an older facility that is not meeting the needs, and you are dumping restoration dollars into it and in large cases you are using energy inefficient facilities because you don’t have the authorities necessary to 

modify. 

So I will offer that as a top level, and let General Perna reinforce. 

General PERNA. Ma’am, acknowledge all that the Vice just said 

to you, and we do think that it is very restrictive. In fact, we believe we have to come back to you to get permission to execute 

those funds in some type of barracks-to-office transition. 

And then we go back to MILCON, and the problem with 

MILCON is the list is very long. And then we have to prioritize to 

that end, and so things that might be very powerful at one installation, would have great advantage to doing so, does not compete 

well with the total Army requirements. 

So the flexibility that General Halverson talked about, where 

leaders are involved, to make those decisions would be very helpful. 

Agree with you that we should not be throwing pennies to do 

light changes. We should have leadership involvement and make 

the difficult choices for the things we want to add. 

That is all I have. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 

So I would like the Chair to know that I plan on working legislation to deal with this issue. 

And, General Perna, is there any way that you could get—not 

necessarily today; perhaps a later time—some projected cost savings that would be—that might be achieved by treating conversion 

projects as repair projects in statutes? 

General PERNA. Absolutely, ma’am. I will work with General 

Halverson and his team and we will get that for you. 

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

page 49.] 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

I yield back. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Mr. Russell. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

And good morning. I guess the biggest thing I am trying to wrap 

my head around with the budget constraints that we have placed 

on the Army is how, if we force the size of our force down to 

450,000, what that will do for our most experienced officers and 

noncommissioned officers. 

As we all know, it takes a long time to train the mid-level NCO, 

the mid-level officer. We can cut troops, but we can’t create—we 

can create privates rather quickly; we can’t create the experience 

level. And as we see very experienced headquarters, units, and 
22 

flags fold due to a reduction in the size of the force, we are losing 

capacity that will not be built perhaps in 4 to 6 years, depending 

upon the circumstance. 

My colleague, Mr. O’Rourke, I applaud him for saying that we 

have reached a point where we have cut way too much. And I hope 

that all of us on the Armed Services Committee will unite around 

this issue. I know my colleague, Mr. Gibson, and I know he is going 

to speak to this. 

We are wanting to hold the baseline where it is at now and like 

to even see it increase. My own personal view is that when we 

crossed the threshold of 550,000 troops we began to put the Nation 

at risk for the hardest things that it may ask us to do. 

Now we are well below that. By terms of comparison in 1940 to 

today, our Army today as a per capita percent of the population is 

30 percent smaller than we were in 1940. No one with a right mind 

would think we were prepared for anything that faced us in the future in 1940. 

And yet, here we are. We are making decisions and you guys 

have to put a clean face on it. And I just think we have to stop. 

If we don’t and are unable to do that and hold the line at 

480,000, how do we retain the mid-level folks that we cannot readily replace even in a drastic emergency? A draft is not going to help 

it or a mobilization. Nothing will help it. 

Nothing will recreate this mid-level experience that we are now 

diminishing, and 30,000 more troops cut—we won’t replace that. It 

will take absolute years. 

Has the Army looked at anything, and do we have any constraints on you to retain these soldiers in some type of force structure, where there is reduced troops in units, but yet the structure 

and the experience is manned? 

General ALLYN. Thanks, Congressman Russell. I will highlight a 

couple points, and obviously if General Anderson wants to reinforce 

he will do so. 

But two key areas that we are focused on as we try to retain critical leadership capacity. As you know, our generating force is normally the place you go to get the cadre that enables you to stand 

up a new organization. 

The challenge we face today is we cut that generating force to 

the bone to retain as much combat power as we could. Today in the 

United States Army, the total force, 24 percent of our force is in 

the generating force. It is the smallest of any service in the Department of Defense. So we don’t have the cadre available in the generating force. 

As we go through the analysis process annually we are looking 

at ways to thicken the generating force by replacing some of the 

civilians that replaced our military during the surge to enable us 

to get more soldiers into our growing formations as one of the ways 

to restore a little bit of regeneration capacity. 

But frankly, we are talking very small numbers. It might be 

enough to build a single formation back. So it will not get us much. 

The second area that the Chief of Staff of the Army has us looking at is train, advise, and assist brigades so that we have brigades 

and battalions of leaders in formations who are performing the 

train, advise, and assist missions on a day-to-day basis in support 
23 

of current operations, and also then provide you some regeneration 

capacity that you can fill it with soldiers and the specialty capabilities that you don’t need for the train, advise, and assist mission but 

that you need for a warfighting formation. 

Again, this will provide us some—and again, there is no free 

chicken in our budget. So if we are going to stand up a train, advise, and assist brigade, something else is coming out unless we get 

an increase in our end strength. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, and I appreciate that. I am out of time, but 

we stand committed to hold that line. Congressman Gibson and I 

and others stand committed to hold that line if we got to do anything that we can to convince people. 

And there is money out there on stupid things that we are 

spending right now that we can find and resource and reshift so 

that we no longer place our Nation beyond risk. 

And with that, thank you for your indulgence, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Mr. Gibson. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thanks, Madam Chair. 

And I want to welcome the witnesses. Thank you for your leadership, sacrifices of your family. 

I am encouraged to hear what General Milley has—some of this 

latest guidance. For some time I have been thinking that that 

would probably be a smart move, and also a way, I think, of pulling 

in the Guard to manage risk. So I look forward to hearing more 

on that. 

As you know and as Mr. Russell just mentioned, Mr. O’Rourke 

previous to that, is we do have a bill and, you know, it does indeed 

stop the drawdown. We are building bipartisan momentum on it 

and we have spent the last couple months building the public 

record to explain. And today is another opportunity of that, a 

chance to speak to the American people of the criticality of stopping 

this drawdown. 

So I know that there has been a lot already said on the record, 

so if you feel that you have already captured that there is no need 

to amplify any further. But in terms of the risk to the combatant 

commanders and the requirements we have, how long it would take 

to reconstitute formations in the event that we deactivate them, 

and we just talked about some of the details here moments ago; the 

risk to OPTEMPO, PERSTEMPO [personnel tempo], to troops and 

families; and the criticality that, if we are successful in stopping 

the drawdown, that we don’t hollow out the force, that we make 

sure that we get that all right. 

So I just wanted to say that this is an—if you felt like you needed to add anything else to the public record you could do that. 

And then let me pivot to my question, which is on the Global Response Force. I am interested in knowing in this budget in 2017 

how many JFEXs [joint forcible entry exercises] have been budgeted for? What about echelons above BCT and even division in 

terms of joint training and simulation? 

And if you care to make any comments about the 440th, too, in 

terms of jumper proficiency. 

So I guess the first thing is anything you want to add on posture 

act, and then a question on joint training. 
24 

General ALLYN. Thanks, Congressman. I will first of all say, because I don’t think I have reinforced it enough—many of you have 

spoken to it—but it must come with a topline increase in dollars, 

all right? 

Stopping the drawdown without funding those personnel and the 

training and readiness required to deliver them as something other 

than a hollow force, it has got to be a package. If you just stop the 

drawdown and you don’t increase our funding, you just add to the 

burden of the imbalance that exists in our force. 

So it must come together, and I know you appreciate that. 

To your point about the Global Response Force I will first talk 

to what we have done and will do for the rest of this year. We had 

a major exercise that went from the corps level down through BCT 

to special forces group, fully integrated joint forcible entry exercise 

out of the National Training Center this past August that absolutely exercised the no-notice deployment capacity, the full joint integration, the integration of close air support provided by the 

United States Air Force. It was a full-spectrum no-notice joint forcible entry exercise and really provided great feedback to us of 

where we stand and where we still need to build on capability. 

Just this past—well, actually earlier this month we did a simultaneous EDRE [emergency deployment readiness exercise] for the 

Global Response Force of a Patriot battery to the Republic of Korea 

and a brigade combat team command node with the lead task force 

of the current Global Response Force from the 82nd into Fort Hood, 

Texas. Both of those no notice, both of them providing immediate 

demands on responsiveness and assessing the current readiness of 

our force, fully supported by TRANSCOM [Transportation Command] and the United States Air Force to very, very good results. 

We have programmed in the President’s budget four EDREs for 

this coming fiscal year. I won’t tell you what they will look like or 

else it wouldn’t be an EDRE anymore, but they will stress us in 

a no-notice way and give us feedback on just how ready we are and 

what we need to do to improve. 

In support of General Hodges, an upcoming exercise will incorporate a joint forcible entry component that will involve an EDRE 

of that capability from units you would be familiar with, and it will 

provide us not only all that I have talked about previously but also 

interoperability opportunities as well as mission command integration with our partners in Eastern Europe. 

And, Joe, I don’t know if you want to add—— 

General ANDERSON. You hit all those. 

And, Congressman, I will finish up with our other favorite topic, 

the 440th. 

But the issue as we work with the North Carolina delegation is 

we have an agreement with the Air Force through the JAAT [joint 

air attack team] process that we will track what support the 82nd 

and all core Bragg units receive via that process, and we will track 

the delta between what the 440th used to provide kind of ad hoc, 

because it really wasn’t tracked, and all things from jumpmaster 

proficiency to exercise augmentation, to static load training. But we 

have a tracker now; we follow every month what they are doing, 

and that will be the course of the year to see what the differences 

are or are not, based on the lack of the 440th. 
25 

Mr. GIBSON. Well, thank you gentlemen. My time is expired. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I have a question for General Allyn. What does rebalancing to 

the Pacific mean specifically to the Army? Do you have enough assets to carry out your mission in the Pacific? 

And what impact, if any, has the rebalancing to the Pacific had 

on missions elsewhere, such as the continuing requirement to train 

and equip anti-ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] forces in 

Southwest Asia and the requirement to increase our presence in 

Europe? So what impact has all this had? 

General ALLYN. Thank you ma’am. I will highlight, first of all, 

rebalance to the Pacific for the Army I think just put a spotlight 

on how committed we have remained in the Pacific. As stated earlier, we have 75,000 soldiers assigned to the Pacific today. They 

have not only continued to be present and heavily involved in the 

Pacific Pathways exercises, but we have also reinforced them with 

total force capability aligned to specific exercises in each of those 

series of exercises that General Brooks executes. 

So we have a strong commitment to the Pacific and we have protected the vast majority of our formations in the Pacific from the 

global demands that are being supported from the rest of our 

Army. So they are not only in the Pacific, but they are prioritized 

to support the needs of the Pacific. 

And what that has done actually is placed increased stress on 

the rest of our Army to meet the global demands elsewhere, so it 

doesn’t come without an impact. 

I do believe we have been able to meet the vast majority of the 

needs that Admiral Harris and General Brooks have for the Army 

in the Pacific, and we remain responsive to any capability gaps 

that surface. 

Joe, did you want to add—— 

General ANDERSON. Ma’am, the issue is going to be down the 

road how long we can preserve what the Vice just talked about. So 

as you talk about, for example, three-star headquarters requirements in Iraq, right now we have a corps headquarters there, the 

3rd Corps from Fort Hood; we have the 18th Airborne Corps from 

Bragg getting ready to go. And on that three-to-one model that 

would mean the 1st Corps, which is assigned to the Pacific, would 

potentially have to be a solution the year after the 18th Airborne 

Corps to become the three-star Combined Joint Task Force headquarters in Baghdad. 

So the question becomes at what point can we—do we have to 

not preserve what is in the Pacific to meet requirements? And that 

could apply to brigade combat teams and other enablers as well, 

depending on how long these operations continue. 

Ms. BORDALLO. So what you are saying then, Generals, is that 

the requirements are met in both areas. 

General ANDERSON. They are, but the issue will be at what point 

do you have to break the glass. Right now all requirements that 

the Pacific is asking us for, between exercise requirements on the 

Korean Peninsula and all points elsewhere, are fine, but the issue 

will be how long can we sustain based on the recurring demand 
26 

that we continue to have in the Mideast. That is going to be the 

tradeoff here, potentially at some point. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

And I have two quick questions for General Perna. To what extent has the Army been able to ensure that prepositioned projects 

needed to support force projection are ready and available to meet 

requirements. And does the Army expect to address any such concerns as part of its readiness recovery efforts? And how? 

General PERNA. Yes ma’am. So we have done quite a bit of work 

on putting our prepositioned stock, making sure that the equipment is ready. 

As you know we have five sets located around the world with different types of equipment by different types of units. The emphasis 

we are putting on that is: one, maintaining the equipment on-hand 

to full capability; and then second, ensuring its readiness for use. 

Our ability to be able to take it off the ship and use it immediately 

is been a big priority for us. 

We have increased this emphasis over the last couple years and 

we will continue to do so in the near future, as I see it. And the 

support inside the budget will allow us to do that. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Very good. To what extent does the Army’s 

prepositioning strategy have the flexibility to meet potential requirements in other theaters or locations over particular time-sensitive missions? And if so, how does this flexibility affect the 

Army’s readiness recovery efforts? 

General Anderson. 

General ANDERSON. Ma’am, I thought you were picking on Perna. 

How did it come over here? 

We do have the flexibility. So we are balancing—the issue right 

now is Europe. I think that is what you are probably referring to. 

So how do we preserve requirements in the Pacific, how do we 

make sure we preserve the Mideast, and how do we build? And the 

National Commission, of course, gave us some recommendations on 

this. But right now the answer is we do have the flexibility and 

we—with the Vice here we just—we had an old strategy; we had 

to reprioritize that based on Russia because all the assumptions 

have proven to be wrong based on defense planning guidance, so 

we have to recalculate. 

So part of the total Army analysis process has led us to figure 

out how do we recoup equipment to regenerate equipment to build 

capacity in Europe. And that is how we are going to do it. 

So you referenced the 225 conversion in Hawaii as we move 

those Strykers from the island to the West Coast, how we recoup 

from the West Coast Guard—principally the 81st between Washington, Oregon, and California—but how do we recoup that equipment to modernize it and send it forward? And based on doing 

heel-to-toe rotations now in Europe with armored brigade combat 

team versus the European activity set that we had been following 

on top of, we will now take that European activity set and build 

a base of APS–2 [Army Prepositioned Stock 2], which is the Europe 

set, and that is how that will reconstitute. 

So right now we are shuffling, but we do have—to answer your 

question, we do have flexibility and options in there to make that 

happen. 
27 

General ALLYN. And your support of ERI [European Reassurance 

Initiative] in this President’s budget is absolutely essential for us 

to meet the timeline that has been prescribed to us by the Secretary of Defense. If we are funded fully with ERI we will have the 

armored brigade combat team APS set established by the end of 

2017. So it is critical that we receive that funding, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, General. You took the words out of 

my mouth. 

I want to thank you, the three of you and other leadership in the 

Army, for doing a great job. As long as the funding is there, we will 

be able to carry on. 

Thank you and I yield back. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Mr. Russell? 

Thank you, General Allyn, General Anderson, and General 

Perna, for your testimony today and for your leadership and service 

to our Nation. We appreciate your feedback and we look forward 

to continuing to work with you to make sure that we are fully supporting Army readiness. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 9:28 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 26, 2016 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 26, 2016 

(33) 

Statement of the Honorable Robert J. Wittman 

Chairman, Readiness Subcommittee 

"The Department of the Army 2017 Operation and Maintenance Budget Request 

and Readiness Posture" 

February 26, 2016 

Good morning. Thank you all for being here today for our Readiness 

subcommittee hearing on the "Department of the Army's 2017 Operations and 

Maintenance Budget Request and Readiness Posture." This is the second of four hearings 

on the services budget requests and readiness postures. Today, I look forward to hearing 

how the Anny's budget request enables a readiness recovery plan and where we continue 

to take risks; calculated in terms of both risk to the force and risk to the mission. 

I would like to welcome all of our members and the distinguished panel of senior 

Army leaders present with us today. 

This morning we have with us: 

• General Daniel B. Allyn, USA 

Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army 

• Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, USA 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (G3/5/7), U.S. Army 

• Lieutenant General Gustave F. Perna, USA 

Deputy Chief of Staff (G-4), U.S. Army 

Thank you all for testifYing today and we look forward to your thoughts and 

insights on these important issues. 

The purpose of this hearing is to clarify the Army's choices for its budget requests, 

to address funding priorities and mitigation strategies, and to gather more detail on the 

current and future impacts of these decisions on operations, maintenance, training, and 

modernization. Most importantly, does the Army have the resources it requires in order 

to improve its state of readiness. 

Once again, l want to thank our witnesses for participating in our hearing this 

morning and I look forward to discussing these important topics. 
34 

RECORD VERSION 

STATEMENT BY 

GENERAL DANIEL ALLYN 

VICE CHIEF OF STAFF UNITED STATES ARMY 

BEFORE THE 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

SECOND SESSION, 114TH CONGRESS 

ON THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY 2017 BUDGET REQUEST AND READINESS 

FEBRUARY 26,2016 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL RELEASED BY THE 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 
35 

INTRODUCTION 

Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, distinguished Members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the readiness of your United 

States Army. On behalf of our Acting Secretary, the Honorable Patrick Murphy, and our 

Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, I would also like to thank you for your support and 

demonstrated commitment to our Soldiers, Army Civilians, Families, and Veterans. 

We live in a dangerous world, and after more than 14 years of continuous 

combat, it is tempting to hope that a respite lies just over the horizon. Instead, the global 

security environment remains unstable and continues to place a high demand on the 

Army. Instability across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific, coupled with 

continued threats to the homeland, demand our Army remain an indispensable 

foundation of the Joint Force while we simultaneously build the Army for the future. 

Today, the Army is globally engaged with more than 186,000 Soldiers supporting 

Combatant Commanders in over 140 countries. These Soldiers conduct combat 

operations, deter aggression, and assure our Allies and partners. In Afghanistan, the 

Army continues to engage the enemy as we work with Allies and partners to train, 

advise, and assist Afghan National Security Forces. In Iraq, we build partner capacity to 

fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant In Africa, and throughout the Americas, 

we partner to prevent conflict and shape the security environment In the Pacific, more 

than 75,000 Soldiers remain committed, including 20,000 who stand ready in the 

Republic of Korea. In Europe and Asia, Army forces reassure Allies and deter Russian 

aggression. At home and supporting every region of the world, the Army stands ready. 

In this unstable and unpredictable world, the Army is called to lead. We are 

called to lead because the Army delivers the essential backbone that provides 

foundational capabilities to Joint, interagency, and multi-national teams. America's Army 

remains capable of compelling the Nation's enemies through decisive action and our 

Army is called to lead because we are trusted professionals. It is the character, 

competence, and commitment of our Soldiers that makes our Army the greatest land 

force in the world today. 

To meet the demands of today's security environment and maintain the trust 

placed in us by the American people, our Army requires sustained, long term, and 

1 
36 

predictable funding. Although the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2015 provided shortterm relief, funding levels have not kept pace with the realities of the strategic 

environment. The Army's FY16 base funding program is $126.2 billion and the BBA 

provides $121.1 billion in FY17. While the budget provides a modicum of predictability, it 

is insufficient to simultaneously rebuild decisive action readiness and modernize. To 

ensure sufficient readiness for the demands of today's operating environment, the Army 

must assume risk by reducing end-strength, delaying modernization, and deferring 

infrastructure recapitalization and investment. These trade-offs mortgage future 

readiness. 

Absent additional legislation, Budget Control Act funding levels return in FY18, 

and this will force the Army to reduce readiness and increase the risk of sending undertrained and poorly equipped Soldiers into harm's way - a preventable risk our Nation 

must not accept. We request Congressional support of the FY 2017 President's budget 

request that will fund readiness, maintain end-strength, equip our Soldiers with the best 

systems now and in the future, and provide Soldiers and their families with quality of life 

commensurate with their unconditional service and sacrifice. 

Readiness: Manning, Training, Equipping/Sustaining and Leader Development 

Readiness is the Army's number one priority. The Army's primary focus on 

counterinsurgency operations for the last decade shaped a generation of leaders and 

imparted invaluable skills and experience across the force. This mission focus forced us 

to accept developmental trade-offs. Fourteen years of sustained counter-insurgency 

operations degraded the Army's ability to conduct operations across the entire spectrum 

of conflict and narrowed the experience base of our leaders. The global security 

environment now demands a shift in focus to support Joint operations against a wide 

range of threats in diverse environments. The ability to conduct combined arms 

maneuver in support of the Joint Force to deter, deny, compel, and defeat the threat of 

hybrid warfare represents the benchmark by which we will measure our future 

readiness. 

A ready Army is a fully manned, well trained, well equipped, and competently led 

force able to conduct Joint missions to deter and defeat a wide range of adversaries. A 

ready Army enables the Joint Force to protect our Nation and win decisively in combat. 

2 
37 

Manning: 

At today's end-strength, the Army risks consuming readiness as fast as we build 

it. Today, the Army has one third fewer Brigade Combat Teams (BCT) than it did in 

2012, yet emergent demand for Army forces across Combatant Commands has 

increased by 23 percent during the same period. Further reductions to end-strength will 

stress the Army's ability to meet emerging global requirements, affecting Combatant 

Commanders' efforts to prevent conflict and shape their security environments. 

Demand for Army forces, combined with current end-strength limitations, will 

reduce the Army's capacity to support the National Military Strategy. Of the Army's 20 

Ready or Fully Ready BCTs, 11 are already committed to Combatant Command 

missions around the globe, leaving only nine to provide strategic flexibility for 

unforecasted contingencies. To address this reality, manage risk, and maximize 

readiness of our fighting formations, we reorganized our BCTs, implemented the 

Sustainable Readiness Model (SRM), and optimized the contributions from all 

components of our Total Army. 

In FY15, the Brigade Combat Team reorganization enhanced the combat 

effectiveness of our fighting units by adding a third maneuver battalion to CONUS BCTs 

while reducing the total number of BCTs from 73 to 60 (32 Active Army and 28 Army 

National Guard) in the Total Force. Although we cut 13 BCTs, we retained 93 of our 

original 100 maneuver battalions, decreased the number of headquarters and 

personnel, and retained combat power with our operational battalions. 

To ensure the highest level of readiness throughout the Army, we initiated a Total 

Force effort to generate, assess, and monitor readiness through the Sustainable 

Readiness Model. SRM is an enduring process that enables the Army to clearly analyze 

and evaluate readiness, optimize resources and unit activity, and minimize risk. The end 

state of the SRM is to build and sustain the highest possible readiness levels across the 

Total Force. 

Optimizing readiness requires an appropriate mix of forces across Active, 

National Guard and Reserve units. Given increasing global demand, a smaller Active 

Army requires all components to increase deployment frequency. To support Joint 

Force requirements worldwide over the last 14 years, the Army increased operational 

3 
38 

use of the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. We will continue this trend. With 

the support of Congress, the Army can maintain the appropriate force mix capable of 

conducting sustained operations worldwide. 

To this end, the Army appreciates the insights of the National Commission on the 

Future of the Army. We are carefully assessing their recommendations for potential 

implementation to increase Army readiness, consistent with statute, policy, and 

available resources. Implementation of recommendations will require a coordinated 

effort across the Army's three components. The Army's ongoing analysis will determine 

if implementation requires additional funding. 

Training: 

Training is the bedrock of readiness. To provide trained and ready forces, the 

Army must conduct realistic and rigorous training across multiple echelons. Realistic 

training demands predictable and sustained resources, in time and money. To ensure a 

trained and ready Army today, the Army accepts considerable risk by reducing endstrength while deferring modernization programs and infrastructure investments. These 

trade-offs are reflections of constrained resources, not strategic insight. But, given endstrength reductions, budget constraints, and global demand, the Army prioritized 

building decisive action proficiency to rebuild readiness across the force and assure a 

predictable flow of trained and ready forces for Combatant Command requirements. 

Today, less than one-third of Army forces are at acceptable levels of readiness to 

conduct sustained ground combat in a full spectrum environment against a highly lethal 

hybrid threat or near-peer adversary. To mitigate this risk, the Army will continue to 

prioritize readiness. In addition to fully funding CTC rotations, the Army is establishing 

objective training standards, reducing non-essential training requirements, and 

protecting home station training to increase training rigor and readiness in our 

formations. We will build decisive action proficiency through repeated, high quality 

training iterations at home station before units attend CTC rotations, while sustaining 

the readiness of our remaining forces. This strategy enables the most effective and 

efficient use of training resources and focuses our leaders to optimize readiness across 

the Army. 

4 
39 

A ready Army requires highly trained units across all components. To build 

sufficient operational and strategic depth, the Army is exploring a number of initiatives to 

build increased readiness in our Reserve Component units. This includes increasing the 

number of annual training days to provide sufficient repetition in core tasks; building 

multi-component and round-out units to enhance Total Force integration; and expanding 

CTC rotations for National Guard BCTs from two to four annually. These initiatives 

would provide readiness for current operations and ensure strategic depth required for 

future campaigns, and will require increased funding. 

Equipping/Sustaining: 

A trained and ready Army requires modernized equipment to win decisively. This 

includes the equipment Soldiers use in combat and the infrastructure that supports them 

as they prepare, deploy, and return from battle. Technological overmatch against our 

adversaries is a hallmark of America's Army and as leaders, we have an obligation to 

deploy our Soldiers into combat with the best equipment our Nation can provide. 

However, an unintended consequence of current fiscal constraints is that the 

Army can no longer afford the most modern equipment, and we risk falling behind nearpeers in critical capabilities. Decreases to the Army budget over the past several years 

significantly impacted Army modernization. Since 2011, the Army ended 20 programs, 

delayed 125 and restructured 124. Between 2011 and 2015, Research and 

Development and Acquisition accounts plunged 35 percent. Procurement alone 

dropped from $21.3 billion to $13.9 billion. Given these trends, and to preserve 

readiness in the short term, the Army has been forced to selectively modernize 

equipment to counter our adversary's most pressing technological advances and 

capabilities. These decisions increase the time necessary to defeat an adversary, 

increase risk to mission, and potentially increase casualty rates. It reflects the best of 

bad options, given current fiscal constraints. 

The Army developed the Army Equipment Modernization Strategy to preserve 

readiness in the short term and manage risk in the mid to long term. The strategy 

reflects those areas in which the Army will focus its limited investments for future Army 

readiness. We request the support of Congress to provide flexibility in current 

procurement methods and to fund the five capability areas-Aviation, the Network, 

5 
40 

Integrated Air Missile Defense, Combat Vehicles, and Emerging Threats-to provide the 

equipment the Army requires to fight and win our Nation's wars. 

To provide greater Aviation combat capability at lower cost, the Army continues 

to execute the Aviation Restructuring Initiative (ARI). Today, ARI is fully underway and 

the benefits of our hard choices are starting to show. The Army has already inactivated 

one Combat Aviation Brigade, converted the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, inactivated 

seven Air Cavalry Squadrons, divested nearly all of the OH58D fleet, stopped all 

TRADOC OH-58D training, transferred 66 LUH aircraft to Fort Rucker, and transferred 

28 UH-60Ls to the National Guard and eight MEDEVAC UH-60s to the Army Reserve. 

Additionally, the Army is examining the recommendations of the National Commission 

on the Future of the Army as we work to ensure the most modern Aviation capabilities 

are ready now while underwriting critical modernization efforts to build the future 

Aviation force. 

The Army Network provides foundational capabilities to the Joint Force, requiring 

the Army to maintain a robust Network hardened against cyber-attacks. Key 

investments in the Army Network are Warfighter Information Network-Tactical; assured 

position, navigation, and timing; communications security; and defensive and offensive 

cyberspace operations. Given the rapid advances in the cyber warfare capabilities of 

our adversaries, these investments ensure access to reliable, timely, and secure 

information, enabling our Joint Force to sustain a decisive advantage. 

The Army is investing in Integrated Air Missile Defense to defeat a wide array of 

threats, from micro unmanned aerial vehicles to cruise missiles and medium range 

ballistic missiles. The Army will continue to upgrade the Integrated Air and Missile 

Defense Battle Command System, Indirect Fire Protection Capability, and Patriot 

missile system. These investments ensure the Joint Force remains capable and ready 

to defeat the most advanced adversaries in an array of contested environments. 

Army improvements to Combat Vehicles focus on the Ground Mobility Vehicle, 

Stryker lethality upgrades, Mobile Protected Firepower, and the Armored Multi-Purpose 

Vehicle. These investments ensure future Army maneuver forces retain the optimal 

capability in expeditionary maneuver, air-ground reconnaissance, joint combined arms 

maneuver, and wide area security. 

6 
41 

Finally, the Army addresses emerging threats by focusing Science and 

Technology investments on mature technologies with the greatest potential for future 

use. We are investing in innovative technologies to protect mission-critical systems from 

cyber-attacks, enhance active protection systems for both ground and air weapons 

systems, improve aircraft survivability, expand future vertical lift, and employ cuttingedge directed energy, cyber, and integrated electronic warfare weapons. 

To prioritize readiness, a second area in which the Army assumes risk is in 

installation modernization and infrastructure improvement. Installations are the Army's 

power projection platforms and a key component in generating readiness. To build 

readiness, however, the Army has been forced to cancel or delay military construction, 

sustainment, restoration and modernization across our posts, camps and stations. 

Additionally, the Army reduced key installation services, individual training programs, 

and modernization to a level that impacts future readiness and quality of life. In addition 

to effects on Soldier quality of life, these cuts force Commanders to divert Soldiers from 

training to perform life-support tasks. We estimate an annual burden of at least $500 

million to operate excess or underutilized facilities-an amount that would fund an 

Armored BCT European Activity Set for an entire year. 

The deliberate decision to prioritize readiness over Army modernization and 

installation improvement is an unfavorable choice. To meet current operational 

requirements, however, Combatant Commanders employ almost one-third of the active 

Army and regularly require access to critical reserve component capabilities. If in the 

midst of these current operations the Army is directed to support a major war plan, the 

additional requirements will consume the rest of the Army-all three components-for 

the duration of the conflict. This imperative requires the Army to maximize the readiness 

of our remaining forces while managing future risk as best we can. 

Leader Development: 

The single most important factor in delivering Army readiness, both now and in 

the future, is the development of decisive leaders of character at every echelon. In a 

complex and uncertain world, the Army will cultivate leaders who thrive in uncertainty 

and chaos. Our creative, adaptive, and agile leaders deliver success on the battlefield 

and sustain our All Volunteer Force. 

7 
42 

To ensure the Army retains this decisive advantage, we are increasing funding 

for leader development across the force; from the individual, unit, and institution level. 

This year, the Army will train approximately 130,000 leaders from all three components 

in its Professional Military Education programs. We instituted the Select, Train, Educate 

and Promote process to improve leader development of non-commissioned officers and 

we continue to enhance the strategic development of our officers through broadening 

assignments in graduate school, inter-agency fellowships, and training with industry. 

Despite budget constraints, we will continue to fund these priority programs, targeted to 

develop leaders who demonstrate the necessary competence, commitment and 

character to win in a complex world. 

Decisive leaders also strengthen the bond between our Army and the Nation 

and preserve our All-Volunteer Force. Empowered leaders instill the Army values in our 

Soldiers and uphold the high standards that our Nation expects. As Army leaders, we 

continue to express our enduring commitment to those who serve, recognizing that 

attracting and retaining highly-qualified individuals in all three components is critical to 

readiness. This is why our FY17 budget request includes key initiatives that support 

leaders of character in mitigating the unique challenges of military life, fostering life 

skills, strengthening resilience, and promoting a strong and ready Army. 

The Army is expanding our Soldier for Life program to drive cultural change. Our 

Soldiers will receive the tools to succeed across the continuum of their Service to our 

country, in or out of uniform. As they return to civilian life, Soldiers will continue to 

influence the most talented young people to join the Army and, along with retired 

Soldiers and Veterans, retain the vital link with our Nation's communities. As we reduce 

the Army's end-strength, we owe it to our Soldiers and their Families to ensure our 

veterans strengthen the prosperity of our Nation through rewarding and meaningful 

civilian careers and service to their communities. 

Committed and engaged leadership is the focal point of our SHARP prevention 

efforts. The Army's "Not in My Squad" program is a grass roots initiative to develop a 

unit culture that prevents sexual harassment and sexual assault. The Army instituted a 

SHARP Resource Center pilot program; a "one-stop shop" to coordinate and support all 

SHARP services on an installation. Cadet Command has 232 Reserve Officer Training 

8 
43 

Corps programs that have signed partnership charters with civilian academic 

institutions, and cadets serve as peer mentors, bystander intervention trainers, and 

sexual assault prevention advocates. Future Army initiatives will continue to focus on 

prevention through the use of "1. A.M. Strong" and "Not In My Squad" campaigns. These 

holistic prevention efforts will shape Army culture and enrich Army readiness. 

Army leaders remain committed to building diverse teams. Opening the Army to 

all qualified citizens of our Nation builds upon the best the United States has to offer. 

Diversity of thought strengthens our bonds with America and builds readiness by 

contributing diverse solutions to complex problems. The Army is in full compliance with 

the Department's Women in Service Review and is prepared to fully integrate women in 

all occupational specialties. The Army's deliberate process validated standards, 

grounded in real-world operational requirements, and will provide our integrated 

professional force the highest level of readiness and potential for mission success. 

Decisive leaders are essential to maintaining a ready Army, composed of 

resilient individuals and cohesive teams, capable of accomplishing a range of 

operations in environments of uncertainty and persistent danger. 

Closing 

Today, our Army stands ready to defend the United States and its interests. This 

requires sustained, predictable funding. To rebuild readiness today and prepare for 

tomorrow's challenges, the Army has prioritized decisive action readiness required to 

respond to current security challenges. The difficult trade-offs in modernization and 

installation improvements reflect the hard realities of today's fiscal constraints. 

The strength of the All Volunteer Force is our Soldiers, Civilians and their 

Families, and we must do all we can to ensure they stay ready. History provides 

recurring testimony to past failures to heed this harsh reality, which ultimately falls on 

the backs of our Soldiers. With your assistance, the Army will continue to resource the 

best-trained, best-equipped and best-led fighting force in the world. We thank Congress 

for the steadfast support of our outstanding men and women in uniform, our Army 

Civilians, Families, and Veterans. They deserve our best effort. 

9 
44 

General Daniel B. Allyn 

35th Vice Chief of Staff of the Army 

United States Army 

General Daniel B. Allyn assumed duties as the 35th Vice ChicfofStaffofthe Army, August 15,2014. 

General Allyn is a native of Berwick, Maine, and a graduate of the United States Military Academy at 

West Point, New York. He previously served as the Commander of the United States Army Forces 

Command, Fort Bragg, NC. 

He also served as the Commanding General, XV Ill Airborne Corps and Commanding General, 1st 

Cavalry Division, "America's First Team," including duty as Commanding General, Combined Joint 

Task Force-! and Regional Command East in Afghanistan. General Allyn has also served as the Chief 

of Staff, and later, Deputy Commanding General of XV Ill Airborne Corps, including duty as Chief of 

Staff, Multi-National Corps Iraq. His joint assignments include the Joint Improvised Explosive Device 

Defeat Organization and the Joint Operations Directorate, J-3. Prior to his Joint assignments, he served 

as Commander, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), culminating with 

service during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Prior to serving in the "Marne Division," General Allyn served 

two tours of duty with the 82nd Airborne Division, two years with the 2nd Infantry Division, and three 

tours of duty with the 75th Ranger Regiment. 

General Allyn's previous duties include command at the platoon through division level and staff 

assignments at the battalion through Joint Staff level. He served an overseas assignment in Korea and 

operational deployments for Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada, two peacekeeping deployments to the 

Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia, and 

Operations Desert Spring and Enduring Freedom in Kuwait, two tours in support of Operation Iraqi 

Freedom, and most recently was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom 

XII. 

He is a graduate of the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, where he earned a Master of A1is 

degree in Strategic and National Security Studies. 

General Allyn's awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, three 

Defense Superior Service Medals, three Legions of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, two Defense 

Meritorious Service Medals, six Meritorious Service Medals, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, 

four Army Commendation Medals, three Army Achievement Medals, the Combat Infantryman Badge 

(with Star), the Expert lnticmtryman Badge, Master Parachutist Badge (with Bronze Star), the Ranger 

Tab, the Pathfinder Badge, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge. 
45 

Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson 

Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7 

United States Army 

Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson assumed the duties as the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, 

Headquarters, Department of the Army, on ll May 2015. His most recent assignment was as the 

Commanding General, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Commander, 

International Security Assistance Force Joint Command (lJC) and Deputy Commanding General, US 

Forces Afghanistan. 

Lieutenant General Anderson received his commission in the Infantry Branch from the United States 

Military Academy at West Point in 1981. He holds Masters Degree in Administration from Central 

Michigan University and National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College. 

During more than 34 years of service, Lieutenant General Anderson has been afforded many unique 

professional experiences and opportunities. He has commanded units from platoon to corps. Command 

assignments include: C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), !87th Infantry Regiment, l93d Infantry 

Brigade, Fort Kobbe, Republic of Panama; 2d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Lewis, 

Washington; 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, 

North Carolina; 2d Brigade and 502d Infantry Regiment, I 0 1st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort 

Campbell, Kentucky; and 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson, Colorado. 

Other significant assignments include Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General, United States Army 

Pacific, F011 Shafter, Hawaii; Professor, Joint Military Operations Department, College of Naval 

Warfare, Newport, Rhode Island; Chief of Staff; I 0 I st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, 

Kentucky; Executive Officer, Secretary of the Army, Department of the Army, Washington, DC; Chief 

of Staff, III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas; Chief of Staff, Multinational Corps-Iraq; Deputy Commanding 

General, U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Fort Knox, Kentucky; Chief of Staff, Multinational 

Force/United States Forces-Iraq; and Director, Operations, Readiness and Mobilization, Department of 

the Army; Washington, DC. 

Lieutenant General Anderson's operational deployments and combat tours include Operation Just Cause, 

Task Force Hawk-Albania, Task Force Falcon-Kosovo, Operation Joint Guardian, Operation Iraqi 

Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. 

His military education includes the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Combined Anns 

Staff Service School, United States Army Command and Staff College, the Armed Forces Staff College, 

and the United States Naval War College. 

Lieutenant General Anderson and his wife, Beth, have two sons: Marc and Michael. 
46 

Lieutenant General Gustave F. Perna 

U.S. Army, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4 

Lieutenant General Gustave F. Perna assumed duties as the U.S. Army's Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4, on 

18 September 2014. He oversees policies and procedures used by 270,000 Army logisticians throughout 

the world. Prior to joining the Army staff he served for two years as Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/4, U.S. 

Army Materiel Command, one of the Army's largest commands with 70,000 employees impacting all 50 

states and 155 countries. 

LTG Perna's other command assignments include: Commander, Joint Munitions Command and Joint 

Munitions and Lethality Lifecycle Management Command, responsible for the lifccycle management of 

$40 billion of conventional ammunition; Commander, Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, Defense 

Logistics Agency, responsible for the procurement of more than $14.5 billion worth of food, clothing, 

textiles, medicines, medical supplies, construction and equipment items for America's Warfighters and 

other customers worldwide; Commander, 4th Sustainment Brigade, where he deployed the brigade to 

combat operations during OIF 05-07; Commander, 64th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 4th 

Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado, where he deployed the battalion to combat operations during 

OIF I; Deputy Commanding Officer, 64th Corps Support Group, 13th Corps Support Command, Fort 

Hood, Texas; and Commander, B Company, 143rd Ordnance Battalion, Aberdeen Proving Ground, 

Maryland. 

LTG Perna's key staff assignments include: Director of Logistics, J4, U.S. Forces-Iraq, responsible for 

sustainment plans and policies for strategic and operational logistics to sustain coalition and joint forces; 

Executive Officer to the Director of the Defense Logistics Agency, supporting the Director's mission of 

providing Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and other federal agencies with logistics, acquisitions 

and technical services support; Ordnance Branch Chief, Human Resources Command; DISCOM 

Executive Officer and G4, 1st Cavalry Division, where he deployed to Bosnia; 544th Maintenance 

Battalion Support Operations Officer and Battalion Executive Officer, 13th COSCOM; and G4 

Maintenance Officer, 13th COSCOM, where he deployed to Somalia as a member of Joint Task Force 

Support Command. 

He graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy with an Associate's degree in Business 

Administration. Graduating as a Distinguished Military Graduate, he was commissioned as a Second 

Lieutenant, Infantry Offlcer. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Management from the 

University of Maryland and a Master's degree in Logistics Management from Florida Institute of 

Technology. His military education includes: Infantry Officer Basic Course, Ordnance Officer Advance 

Course, Logistics Executive Development Course, Support Operations Course, Command and General 

Staff College and Senior Service College. 

His awards and decorations include: Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Defense 

Superior Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf 

Cluster, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, 

and the Parachutist and Air Assault Badges. 

LTG Perna is married to the former Susan L. Pollack. They have two sons, Cody (married to Ashley) 

and Ryan; and two granddaughters, Adryiana and Priscilla. 
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

FEBRUARY 26, 2016 

(49) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. DUCKWORTH 

General ALLYN. The Army is aware of several projects at Fort Gordon, GA, Fort 

Hood, TX, and Schofield Barracks, HI with the potential to be conversion candidates. For this subset of potential conversion/repair projects, the Army estimates 

the savings and/or cost avoidances from pursuing the potential conversion candidates as repairs would be 20 percent or more, when compared to a new ‘‘green 

grass’’ military construction (MILCON) project. 

The Army continues to refine this estimate and will provide further updates as 

more due-diligence is performed. The estimate is anecdotal, based on feedback from 

installations known to be interested in pursuing conversion projects. Garrison staff 

are well aware of the statutory limits and therefore do not prepare detailed conversion project candidates not awardable or executable under current law. If the law 

were changed, the Army anticipates more conversion projects would be developed. 

One of the sources for savings and/or cost avoidances is the fact that existing facilities are often smaller in size than the current new construction replacement 

standard. This is especially true for Company Operations Facilities. Converting an 

existing facility into a functional solution today is significantly less expensive than 

an optimal MILCON facility solution that would be significantly larger in square 

footage. Another factor is new ‘‘green grass’’ MILCON projects require utility line 

extensions from the main grid to the new site. A conversion conducted as a repair 

avoids most utility extensions, which can add 15 to 30 percent to the MILCON cost. 

The existing building typically is in the cantonment area, and/or is already served 

by utilities. [See page 21.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 26, 2016 

(53) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO 

Ms. BORDALLO. ‘‘Sustainable Readiness’’ is replacing Army Force Generation 

(ARFORGEN) as the Army’s force-generation concept. Under development for more 

than a year, Sustainable Readiness is intended to shift the Army from a regimented, 

event-driven force-generation strategy to one that is synchronized and fluid to maximize readiness across the total force. The Chief of Staff of the Army has directed 

that Sustainable Readiness will be implemented by fiscal year 2017. 

1. Please summarize the key differences between ARFORGEN and Sustainable 

Readiness. What problem is Sustainable Readiness attempting to solve? Why was 

ARFORGEN unable to solve it? 

2. What have been the chief obstacles over the past year to developing the concept? What obstacles remain? 

3. What key decisions need to be made, or actions taken, to implement Sustainable Readiness by fiscal year 2017? 

4. Has the Army established specific goals that are to be met through Sustainable 

Readiness? How are these goals related to the overarching objective of sustaining 

66 percent of the active component force in a combat-ready status? 

5. To what extent is the FY17 budget submission consistent with the resource requirements needed to support Sustainable Readiness? 

General ALLYN. 1. ARFORGEN and Sustainable Readiness (SR) are fundamentally different because each model was designed to optimize readiness production for 

two dramatically different operational environments. While ARFORGEN policy was 

designed to optimize readiness for a sustained wartime environment, SR was designed to optimize readiness for an anticipated dynamic operational environment. 

In practice, SR is different than ARFORGEN in four distinct ways: First, SR 

seeks to sustain optimized levels of readiness throughout the Total Force by normalizing manning and synchronizing both equipping and modernization milestones with 

operational requirements. Conversely, ARFORGEN maximized readiness for comparatively shorter, discrete periods by surging resources to satisfy near-term manning, equipping, and modernization efforts in support of a unit Latest Available 

Date for a specified deployment mission. This surge quality delivered just-in-time 

readiness at the expense of those units just returning from Iraq and Afghanistan 

whose personnel and equipment were harvested and redistributed to deploying 

units. 

Second, SR focuses Reserve Component (RC) readiness generation on meeting the 

requirements of combatant commanders as designated by existing Army War Plans. 

Conversely, ARFORGEN focused on meeting the demands of known requirements 

(Afghanistan, Iraq, etc) with selected RC capabilities. 

Third, SR assesses the Army’s ability to meet combatant commander requirements, in both Global Force Management Allocation Plans (GFMAP) as well as War 

Plans. SR then provides Army leaders with appropriate mitigation strategies for 

identified shortfalls, consistent with available resources. ARFORGEN was designed 

to maximize unit readiness to meet GFMAP requirements, accepting risk in the 

Service’s ability to generate surge capacity to meet War Plan requirements. 

Finally, SR extends the Army’s operational planning timeline by analyzing the 

Army’s ability to meet requirements four years into the future. This will allow the 

Army’s leadership to synchronize resource decisions with the development of our 

Program Objective Memorandum (POM). ARFORGEN considered a more narrow 

scope of requirements two years in advance of execution; these often conflicted with 

timely resource decision timelines tied to POM build. 

2. There have been three challenges with operationalizing Sustainable Readiness 

as an enduring Army concept. 

The current operating environment is the first challenge to operationalizing sustainable readiness. The Army adapted its readiness concept as the world grew increasingly complex, threats to the U.S. changed dynamically, and resource allocation 

decreased. The very factors that make sustainable readiness necessary therefore 

also make its implementation difficult. To overcome this challenge, the Army elected 

to leverage existing processes wherever possible, thus minimizing operational im-
54 

pacts, and modify these processes as needed to meet the needs of this new dynamic 

operating environment. 

Second, the analytical demands of the Sustainable Readiness model required a detailed analysis of existing War Plan requirements at the Standardized Readiness 

Code (SRC) level. Doing this was both manpower intensive and time consuming. An 

automated approach to this process, currently being developed and on-track for implementation later this year, will allow us to complete a comprehensive assessment 

of all Army units that will fully inform our resource decisions for the Fiscal Years 

2019–2023 Program Objective Memorandum. 

A third critical obstacle is the down-sizing of our Force. Personnel shortfalls, exacerbated by our medical non-readiness challenges cause personnel readiness to be the 

limiting factor in achieving the optimal readiness sought with a sustainable readiness program. 

3. With publication of Army Directive 2016–05, the Army formally adopted Sustainable Readiness as the Army’s new force generation process. Implementation is 

on track for Fiscal Year 2017. 

The Army is now adjusting existing policies to align with and support the Sustainable Readiness process. The most significant of these policies is Army Regulation AR 525–29, Army Force Generation. This regulation is currently under revision 

and is on-track for publication in the fall of 2016. 

The Army is transforming the Medical Readiness systems to improve the access, 

visibility, and transparency of medical readiness information for commanders at all 

levels and streamline the processes by which they make deployability determinations. As part of this transformation, the Army is simplifying the Medical Readiness 

Classification codes, which are used to identify Soldier deployability; making enhancements to the Commander’s portal and other IT systems; making revisions to 

major medical and administration policies and regulations; and conducting training 

across the force on the new policies and enhanced systems. 

4. Yes. The Army’s Sustainable Readiness goals are based on combatant command 

and war plan requirements. The Sustainable Readiness goal for individual unit 

readiness is to maintain C1 readiness of Active Component units for at least 9 

months after first C1 report. The two-thirds (66 percent) goal for Regular Army 

readiness is predicated on keeping as much-as-possible of a smaller Army ready to 

meet those requirements. At current demands and force structure, it will be difficult 

to meet the two-thirds readiness goal. 

5. The FY2017 budget submission is consistent with the priorities of sustainable 

readiness, but does not fully fund its requirements, as the Army is only able to fund 

80 percent of home station training/ground OPTEMPO and 86 percent of aviation 

flying hours. Despite our prioritization of readiness, this shortfall will impact our 

ability to optimize total force readiness. This budget request reflects the Army’s best 

effort to balance manpower, readiness, and modernization within available funding. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Army units are required to maintain a minimum level of personnel in order to sustain readiness. With the Army downsizing its overall end 

strength, the ability to fill units above authorized end strength (in order to cover 

medically non-deployable personnel, for example) will no longer exist. Additionally, 

under Sustainable Readiness, the individual units will need to sustain high levels 

of authorized personnel over longer periods, potentially impacting opportunities for 

leadership development and professional military education (PME). 

1. To what extent has the Army examined its personnel management policies in 

light of the plans to implement Sustainable Readiness? 

2. How does the Army plan to adjust its policies for classifying deployable and 

non-deployable personnel? 

3. What changes, if any, are required to ensure that units returning from a deployment no longer have a large fraction of their personnel leave for another unit 

assignment? 

4. The Army Chief of Staff’s readiness guidance stresses the importance of leadership development and reforms to the Army’s system of PME. What are the challenges of balancing the need for consistent and sustained levels of personnel at the 

unit level, with the need to provide future Army leaders with the time they require 

to develop their leadership skills? 

General ALLYN. 1. To enable Commanders to more effectively manage forces and 

maximize unit deployability, the Army is adapting its personnel readiness reporting. 

Army Directive 2016–07 integrates redefined administrative and medical deployment determinations with a new readiness reporting process. This new integrated 

process allows commanders to more efficiently manage, communicate, and report the 

readiness of their Soldiers, thus maximizing the deployability of their units. 

Due to the scope and pace of Army downsizing, personnel readiness is more critical than ever to a unit’s worldwide mission accomplishment. The Army is 
55 

transitioning its cultural mindset to emphasize the importance of individual readiness and deployability standards. Tools will be provided to the lowest level in order 

to more accurately capture readiness. These tools include the Commander’s portal, 

which includes access to e-Profile, Medical Protection System, Individual Disability 

Evaluation System Dashboard, and Medical Readiness Assessment Tool. All of this 

will allow real-time management of medical and personnel readiness in authoritative databases. 

2. The recently approved Army Directive 2016–07 integrates redefined administrative and medical deployment determinations with a new readiness reporting 

process. This new integrated process will allow commanders to more efficiently manage, communicate, and report the readiness of their Soldiers, thus maximizing the 

deployability of their units. 

3. Our intent is to reduce personnel turbulence and contribute to better steadystate personnel readiness over time. This will require Commanders to support leader attendance at PME throughout the unit life cycle. This balanced approach will 

help limit the peaks and valleys of unit manning often experienced under the 

ARFORGEN model. 

4. Our intent is to reduce personnel turbulence and contribute to better steadystate personnel readiness over time. This will require Commanders to support leader attendance at PME throughout the unit life cycle. This balanced approach will 

help limit the peaks and valleys of unity manning often experienced under the 

ARFORGEN model. 

Ms. BORDALLO. The Army Chief of Staff has noted that the ability to conduct Decisive Action in support of Unified Land Operations to deter, deny, compel, and/or 

defeat the threat of hybrid warfare posed by nation-states represents the most demanding challenge on Army forces and is the benchmark by which Army readiness 

will be measured. Further, the Army has stated that it will develop standardized 

mission essential task lists (METLs) for Decisive Action for types of units and echelons down through the company level. However, combatant commander requirements for Army forces do not always require that Army units meet these training 

and readiness standards. 

1. What is the balance between Decisive Action/Unified Land Operations training, 

and training for other competencies? 

2. What methodology will be used to optimize resources for units under Sustainable Readiness in order to balance the demands for units that need to meet Decisive 

Action-level training, with those that don’t? How will this methodology differ from 

the Army’s previous force generation model? 

3. How, if at all, will the Army adjust training proficiency goals for units, particularly as they progress through Sustainable Readiness? 

4. What changes, if any, is the Army considering improving the linkage of its 

training funds with the anticipated readiness delivered from the training? 

5. To what extent does the Army intend to rely on live, virtual, and constructive 

to supplement live-fire training in support of achieving readiness goals? 

General ALLYN. 1. The Army balances Decisive Action/Unified Land Operations 

(DA/ULO) training with training for all other competencies in line with Combatant 

Commander requests for forces. If a Combatant Commander request for forces indicates specified training requirements other than DA/ULO, the Army will adapt the 

training program appropriately. Our objective is to prepare units for full spectrum 

readiness in a DA/ULO training environment, and validate unit readiness for specific Combatant Commander missions, as we have successfully done for the past 15 

years. 

2. The Army will prioritize resources for units in Sustainable Readiness with first 

priority of resources to meet Combatant Commander requirements. Commanders 

will optimize resources to train to Decisive Action level proficiency focused on core 

mission essential tasks for both known and contingency requirements. This progression is different from ARFORGEN in that resource allocation previously focused on 

combatant commander requirements to a very specific mission, location, and point 

in time. 

3. Training proficiency goals for units will remain in line with current Army 

Training Strategy. Units will train to full spectrum readiness on their core mission 

essential task list tasks, and we will optimize resources to sustain this high level 

of readiness throughout each unit’s available year. 

4. The Army is developing an objective process that more definitively links training resource expenditures with training activities and their associated readiness 

outcomes. Ongoing efforts to standardize unit mission essential tasks and to revise 

readiness reporting with improved fidelity and greater objectivity will support this 

effort and comply with requirements for a fully auditable program. 
56 

5. The Army has, and will continue to, rely on live, virtual and constructive simulations, simulators, and training devices to enhance training. In the live training 

environment, systems such as the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System, 

provide realism and a ‘‘fair fight’’ during force-on-force training. Range systems, 

such as the Digital Range Training System, provide objective data during live fire 

events, helping commanders assess proficiency. Constructive simulations, such as 

the Joint Land Component Constructive Training Capability, ‘‘construct’’ blue and 

red forces, indigenous populations and real-world terrain to enable mission command training without live maneuvering of large formations. Virtual simulators, 

such as the Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer, provide low-cost maneuver 

training opportunities prior to units expending operating tempos—units gain proficiency prior to training live. In recent years the Army has also introduced Games 

for Training using a variety of commercial off-the-shelf games. These provide a very 

low overhead virtual capability on which Individual Soldiers through company size 

units can hone skills, again, prior to maneuvering live. The Army continues to explore new technologies that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our simulations to provide optimal training readiness for our Soldiers and units at best 

value. 

Ms. BORDALLO. The Army has identified the need to restore the capability of units 

and leaders to exercise Decisive Action/Combined Arms Maneuver operations. Training for such missions has atrophied after more than a decade of counterinsurgency 

operations. 

1. What is the annual requirement of Combined Army Maneuver Training Center 

Rotations needed to restore Army combat forces’ readiness for Decisive Action operations? Is the throughput capacity at the two, U.S.-based combined training centers 

sufficient to handle this requirement? If not, what alternatives has the Army considered to augment or supplement this throughput? 

2. How are collective training rotations supplemented by home-station training 

under the Army’s plan? To what extent does the FY17 budget submission sufficiently fund Decisive Action training progression at home station in between combined training center rotations? 

3. Has the Army determined that particular core tasks needed to conduct Decisive 

Action operations are more at risk than others? To what extent has the Army established priority areas to train forces to be able to conduct Decisive Action operations? 

4. What challenges, if any, does the Army anticipate in synchronizing the collective training of core combat brigades, combat aviation, artillery, and enabler units 

in support of restoring Decisive Action competencies across the total force? 

General ALLYN. 1. Throughput at the Army’s three CTCs—two US-based and one 

Europe-based—is sufficient to meet decisive action readiness requirements over 

time. Our current structure requires 19 to 20 CTC rotations annually. The requirement in FY17 is 19 rotations—17 Regular Army and 2 Army National Guard. GEN 

Milley has expressed a desire to increase CTC rotations for Army National Guard 

BCTs in future years to increase Total Force readiness. 

2. Home-station training is the critical foundation for demanding and rigorous exercises conducted at Combat Training Centers. It also provides vital training opportunities for units to tailor their training program in order to address specific training shortfalls identified during CTC exercises. As an integral part of our installations as readiness platforms, home station enables units to sustain requisite readiness levels over time. While home-station training is better resourced in FY2017 

than in FY2016, it is only funded at 80 percent of training-model requirements due 

to current fiscal constraints. We will do our best to optimize every dollar to deliver 

the best trained units and Soldiers to meet mission requirements. 

3. The Army identifies/publishes the fundamental core tasks each unit is designed 

to perform for decisive action during unified land operations. This standard Mission 

Essential Task List (METL) serves as the basis for the unit’s training to build and 

report readiness. Army training strategies and training support systems are designed to allow units to build readiness on standard METL tasks. 

The Army utilizes observed trends in core task proficiency to assess risk as part 

of their existing readiness assessment processes. Using these risk assessments, 

units tailor training plans to objectively address core tasks that are identified as at 

risk. The Army’s task evaluation procedures further enable objective identification 

of ‘at risk’ core tasks by requiring standardized, objective Army-wide reporting of 

all Decisive Action tasks. Specific locations that the Army has prioritized for training forces include the Regional Collective Training Capability (RCTC) priority training areas to train forces for Decisive Action operations and achieve unit proficiency 

levels for maneuver, live fire and mission command. There are 27 installations and 

training sites designated as a part of the RCTC. Eleven are RA CONUS. Four are 

Active Component OCONUS (one in Europe and four in the Pacific). There are nine 
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Army National Guard and three U.S. Army Reserve locations. Decision Action training proficiency is achieved for Brigade Combat Teams at the Combat Training Centers (CTC). CTCs are the National Training Center at Ft Irwin, CA; the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft Polk, LA; and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center 

at Hohenfels, Germany. 

4. The Army constantly adapts its training scenarios to prepare units for the full 

spectrum of conflict from counterinsurgency, to hybrid warfare, to Unified Land Operations against a near-peer competitor. We also align regional scenarios to unit’s 

known or likely employment areas. The Army remains committed to synchronizing 

collective training efforts while restoring Decisive Action competencies across the 

total force. Current focus areas include collective training integration for cyber 

forces, Electronic Warfare (EW) units, integration of Special Operations Forces 

(SOF), and enabling reach back capabilities at Decisive Action training events for 

Division Headquarters. 

The Army’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget submission supports these anticipated challenges by programming additional funds for the Combat Training Centers to integrate collective training across the total force. Examples include funding for additional mission command fire coordination exercises, further integration of Army 

Space Training Initiative events, cyber, SOF, and EW assets, and additional opportunities for Information Assurance Support training. 

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