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i 

85–324 2014

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–60] 

RESETTING THE FORCE FOR THE 

FUTURE: RISKS OF SEQUESTRATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

OCTOBER 2, 2013 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois 

PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas 

RYAN CRUMPLER, Professional Staff Member 

VICKIE PLUNKETT, Professional Staff Member 

NICHOLAS RODMAN, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2013 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, October 2, 2013, Resetting the Force for the Future: Risks of 

Sequestration ........................................................................................................ 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, October 2, 2013 ................................................................................... 21 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2013 

RESETTING THE FORCE FOR THE FUTURE: RISKS OF 

SEQUESTRATION 

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 

Faulkner, LtGen William M., USMC, Deputy Commandant, Installations and 

Logistics, U.S. Marine Corps ............................................................................... 5 

Mason, LTG Raymond V., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, U.S. 

Army ...................................................................................................................... 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Faulkner, LtGen William M. ........................................................................... 36 

Mason, LTG Raymond V. ................................................................................. 28 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J. .................................................................................. 25 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mrs. Hartzler .................................................................................................... 45 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Ms. Bordallo ...................................................................................................... 51 

Mr. LoBiondo .................................................................................................... 51 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 49 

(1) 

RESETTING THE FORCE FOR THE FUTURE: 

RISKS OF SEQUESTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 2, 2013. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.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 call to order the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. I want to welcome all of our members and 

welcome back our distinguished panel to today’s hearing focused on 

resetting the force for the future and to look at the risks of sequestration as it relates to that reset. 

This afternoon, we are privileged to have with us Lieutenant 

General Raymond V. Mason, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for 

Logistics, and Lieutenant General William M. Faulkner, Deputy 

Commandant of Installations and Logistics. 

Gentlemen, thank you so much for your service to our Nation. 

Thank you for all of your efforts and leadership during these challenging times. And I thank you for being here with us this morning 

as we look at—or this afternoon, I should say, as we look at—all 

this time runs together—as we look at the challenges that we have 

here before us. 

As we know, gentlemen, no one will dispute that we have the 

most capable and professional military in the world. And our men 

and women in uniform have exemplified the best America has to 

offer during the last 13 years of protracted counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East. Thanks to their tireless efforts, we are 

able to begin shifting our focus from combat operations toward resetting the force for the future. 

However, the challenges will not end as combat operations wind 

down in Afghanistan. Thirteen years of combat have taken their 

toll on every aspect of our military. Today’s hearing focuses on the 

materiel impacts as the Army and Marine Corps face a staggering 

$11.2 million of reductions. 

We are concerned that this bill, this $11.2 million bill, to restore 

readiness to vital military hardware is going to create a challenge. 

And I believe this massive effort to retrograde, repair, replace, and 

upgrade equipment to a level of combat capability commensurate 

with the unit’s future missions is vital to our operational readiness. 
2 

Unfortunately, like everywhere else within the Department of 

Defense, sequestration has left its mark on these efforts, as well. 

Facing smaller and smaller budgets for the replacement of wartorn equipment, critical reset work has been deferred, and the 

focus has shifted more to repair than procuring newer, more capable systems. I am particularly concerned about how limited reset 

funding will impact our Reserve Component, who has and will continue to remain critical as a part of our total force structure. 

However, I fear that this desperately needed repair effort may 

also be in jeopardy if we continue much further down the road with 

sequestration. During my trip to Afghanistan earlier this year, I 

witnessed thousands of containers, hundreds of vehicles, and millions of individual items awaiting shipment home to units that desperately need them. All of these items are at risk as transportation 

costs continue to rise and budgets continue to shrink. 

At the same time the Marine Corps and the Army are working 

through these fiscal challenges, sequestration has caused additional uncertainty by forcing the Army to shed 72,000 soldiers and 

the Marine Corps 20,000 Marines to make ends meet and an unknown number more the longer sequestration persists. 

Undoubtedly, this lack of certainty on the size and composition 

of the future force raises questions about what capabilities will be 

deemed enduring, what equipment should be reset to support those 

enduring requirements, and what resources Congress should provide to meet these requirements. 

Make no mistake about it, failure to properly and fully reset the 

force will invariably lead to placing more and more of our service 

members at risk in future conflicts. I have said it before and I will 

say it again: Increased risk means more men and women will die 

defending this Nation when we ask them to do so. 

This afternoon, I look forward to hearing how the Marine Corps 

and the Army plan to reset the force in this challenging environment and how we are managing the uncertainty and risks we are 

facing in this critical area of readiness. 

We must not let our legacy be one of overseeing the slow dismantlement of the greatest military the world has ever known. We 

all have a responsibility to ensure our men and women in uniform 

are given all the tools necessary for the job we have asked them 

to do. 

And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. 

And I would now like to turn to my dear friend and ranking 

member, Madeleine Bordallo, for any remarks that she may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 25.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

you for holding this hearing in spite of the uncertainty that we are 

experiencing today on the Hill. 

I welcome back to both General Mason and General Faulkner, 

and I know you are both familiar with our subcommittee. And I 

thank you for your visits to my office, and it is good to see you 
3 

again. I appreciate your testimony today and your leadership during these challenging times. 

I appreciate hearing your comments on reset and retrograde during a time of fiscal uncertainty. The only thing that is clear in the 

budget picture is that sequestration is detrimental to our military 

readiness and is completely unnecessary. 

Unfortunately, we meet today during a government shutdown 

that was completely avoidable. While the Affordable Care Act has 

dominated the discussion as the shutdown occurred, the underlying 

issue is really our budget situation and the impact of sequestration. 

Congress has the ability but not the desire to fix sequestration. 

And I continue to urge leadership to seek a comprehensive solution 

that ends sequestration once and for all. And I hope that we will 

come to a compromise in the near term as we discuss how to solve 

these budget issues. 

It is indeed unfortunate that Congress has placed the Department of Defense in the position that you are in today. I fully support having a robust military to defend our great Nation and our 

interests, but it is the responsibility of Congress to ensure the Defense Department has the necessary resources to succeed when 

confronted with current and emerging threats. 

I support ending sequestration immediately and in its entirety, 

not just piecemeal. Finding a comprehensive solution to sequestration will allow the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies to properly plan and prepare for potential conflicts of the 

future. 

Clearly, Congress is not allowing the world’s greatest fighting 

force to effectively and efficiently maintain pace. We in Congress 

are the problem, sorry to say. And I ask that all of my colleagues 

put aside all of the political positioning and understand what is at 

stake here. The time for action is now. 

The discussion today regarding resetting our force given the real 

and immediate implications of sequestration is of high interest to 

this subcommittee. Thousands of U.S. assets have been heavily 

used, often well beyond their service life, throughout the harsh environment in the Middle East in support of operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

It is important for our subcommittee members to understand the 

challenges with returning equipment from Afghanistan to units at 

home and inducted into military depots. I am interested to hear 

your views today on how the Army and the Marine Corps prioritize 

equipment reset among many competing interests and units, from 

home-stationed units to foreign military sales. How are the assets 

that were primarily designed to use in Iraq and Afghanistan 

prioritized during reset, knowing our next conflict may not be 

fought in the same type of environment? What is the underlying 

strategy? 

Moreover, I hope our witnesses will address what impact sequestration will have on your current plans to reset and retrograde. I 

am particularly concerned that if we do not find a comprehensive 

solution to sequestration that it could create complications for retrograde of materials out of Afghanistan and also set back goals for 

reset of equipment. 
4 

Ultimately, I do not want to see a situation where any unit stateside or in the territories, particularly our National Guard, are not 

equipped and ready to respond to any natural disaster or some 

other type of contingency. This would simply be unacceptable, 

given that we can solve sequestration right here in Congress. 

I also hope to hear about the Marine Corps process for reset and 

how you are addressing readiness issues with the III Marine Expeditionary Force. As we pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, it is more 

important than ever that we make the III Marine Expeditionary 

Force whole again and ensure they have the proper equipment to 

meet current and emerging requirements in this theater over the 

coming years. In terms of whether to repair, rebuild, or replace, 

how do you assess what equipment now being used in Afghanistan 

is appropriate for the challenges that exist in the Asia-Pacific 

region? 

So, again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do look forward to 

our witnesses’ testimony and our question and answer period. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Madeleine, thank you very much. 

And we will now go to our witnesses. 

And, Lieutenant General Mason, we will begin with you. 

STATEMENT OF LTG RAYMOND V. MASON, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF 

OF STAFF FOR LOGISTICS, U.S. ARMY 

General MASON. Well, good afternoon, Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

I submitted a longer statement for the record, but I would like 

to touch on a few subjects that are critical to Army retrograde and 

reset, which both of you spoke of in your opening remarks. 

After more than a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 

Nation and our Army are certainly in a period of transition. The 

Army is bringing back soldiers and equipment while finishing operations and training Afghan forces. Our goal is to retrograde all 

nonenduring equipment out of Afghanistan by October 2014. 

To meet future requirements and improve readiness, the Army 

plans to retrograde approximately $17 billion worth of equipment 

that is still in Afghanistan. 

However, the 2014 retrograde timeline assumes generally stable 

conditions. For example, surface lines of communications, such as 

the Pakistan ground line of communication, which we call the 

PAKGLOC, and, to a lesser extent, the Northern Distribution Network, the NDN, are critical to meeting our timelines. And they are 

less expensive than the multimodal and direct air transportation. 

Unfortunately, the PAKGLOC and the NDN are not always viable 

and open. Additionally, other variables, including increased enemy 

activity, potential delays in Afghan elections, would most certainly 

affect our retrograde and drawdown plans. 

Once the equipment is retrograded, it must be reset to a required 

level to support units’ missions and the national military strategy. 

Thanks to the support of Congress and our American citizens, the 

Army to date has invested $55 billion in operations and maintenance funds and $35 billion in procurement funds to recover from 

both Iraq and Afghanistan to date. That investment has enabled 
5 

the Army to maintain operational readiness rates of equipment at 

about 90 percent for ground and about 75 percent in aviation. That 

is for the forces in theater, not back at home; they are much lower 

than that. 

To reset the necessary equipment, OCO [overseas contingency 

operations] funding must continue for 3 years after the last piece 

of equipment comes back from Afghanistan. In fiscal year 2013, the 

Army had expected to reset approximately 100,000 items in its organic industrial facilities and more than 600,000 pieces of equipment onsite where units are stationed. However, fiscal year 2013 

sequestration impacts caused a $1.7 billion cut to reset, and we had 

to defer nearly $800 million of reset to future years—all immediately impacting equipment readiness today. In fact, as the Chief 

of Staff of the Army testified 2 weeks ago, the Army only has one 

brigade combat team that is at C1 [highest readiness rating]. 

Full and predictable funding is critical to the health of our organic industrial base and Army readiness. We must ensure the organic industrial base remains effective, efficient, and capable of 

meeting Army contingency requirements. 

To help address these issues, we published our first Army Organic Industrial Base Strategic Plan. This plan details the strategy 

and management framework needed to ensure that our depots and 

arsenals remain viable, effective, and efficient. The current fiscal 

uncertainty could drastically impact that strategy. 

In conclusion, to protect our Nation’s Army logistics capabilities 

and ensure that our Army’s readiness is maintained, I encourage 

you to reverse sequestration and to ensure that the OCO accounts 

used for retrograde and reset are fully funded for 3 years after the 

last piece of equipment has left Afghanistan. 

I thank you again for your continued support of our soldiers and 

their families, and I look forward to your questions. 

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

Appendix on page 28.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Lieutenant General Mason. 

And we will now go to Lieutenant General Faulkner. 

STATEMENT OF LTGEN WILLIAM M. FAULKNER, USMC, DEPUTY COMMANDANT, INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS, U.S. 

MARINE CORPS 

General FAULKNER. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member 

Bordallo, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity 

to update this committee on the Marine Corps’ Afghanistan equipment retrograde and reset actions. 

Your Marines take seriously our sacred oath to defend our Nation, our Constitution, and the American people. In Afghanistan 

today, Marines continue to support the transition of security and 

responsibility to the Afghan Government and people. 

As my Commandant testified to this committee about 2 weeks 

ago, Marine Corps readiness is directly linked to resources, and the 

enduring impacts of the Budget Control Act of 2011, to include sequestration, will force us to forfeit our long-term priorities to fund 

near-term readiness. 

In my testimony today, I would like to underscore the importance 

of our ground equipment reset strategy and its linkage to enduring 
6 

operational readiness. Completing the full reset of our equipment 

is in line with our fidelity to the taxpayer, and the continued availability of overseas contingency operations, or OCO funds, is critical 

to completing our reset strategy. 

This strategy was built on the recognition of tightening budgets 

and the expeditious use of available OCO funds to achieve a properly equipped and ready force capable of conducting the full range 

of military operations. We are moving with a clear sense of purpose 

to rapidly restore equipment readiness in a fiscally conscientious 

manner, and we need to maintain the tempo that we currently 

have under way. In order to avoid enduring reductions to our overall operational readiness, we need continued OCO funding for 2 to 

3 years after the last Marines leave Afghanistan. 

When I last appeared before this committee 6 months ago, the 

Marine Corps had recently completed its post-surge recovery. In 

the year between December 2011 and December 2012, the Marine 

Corps redeployed its 2009 surge forces and retrograded over 39,000 

associated items of equipment. 

If you had a picture of our major forward operating base, Camp 

Bastion, at the height of our surge and one of the same base today, 

in today’s picture you would see empty lots that were once stacked 

with shipping containers and equipment, you would see empty 

warehouses that were once filled with supplies and repair parts, 

and you would see vacant aircraft parking ramps. 

To put the effort into context, since our first Marine Corps units 

redeployed at the end of 2011, 67 percent of the 72,000 equipment 

items have already been removed from our Marine Corps portion 

of the joint coalition operating area in Afghanistan. Additionally, of 

the over 42,000 total items retrograded to date, 60 percent of those 

are being inducted at our depot maintenance plants in Albany, 

Georgia, and Barstow, California. In total, we have completed reset 

actions on about one-third of the items returned from Afghanistan. 

Not to say that there is not hard work ahead of us. Tomorrow’s 

fiscal environment will certainly impact our ability to complete our 

reset strategy, and we still have much to do. 

In fiscal year 2013, the Marine Corps was fully funded for reset, 

to include an additional $120 million in depot maintenance graciously provided by the Congress in H.R. 933. However, required 

maintenance conducted at our depot production plants was deferred as a result of the 6-day furlough of our civilian Marine workforce. 

It is important to point out that even seemingly nominal cuts 

compound increasing workload requirements as maintenance is deferred to another year. This will have a detrimental effect on our 

readiness if funding limitations extend into fiscal year 2014 and 

beyond. 

As I close, I want to point out that our readiness is preserved 

through a careful balance of high-quality people, well-trained units, 

modernized equipment, well-maintained installations, and a force 

level sufficient to accomplish our missions. The Marine Corps recognizes the realities of the fiscal constraints before us and our responsibility to ensure our reset strategy places the right equipment 

in the right hands at the right cost of the warfighter. 
7 

With the continued support of Congress, the Marine Corps will 

remain to meet the Nation’s next crisis in any clime or place. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to address this committee, 

and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Faulkner can be found in 

the Appendix on page 36.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, Lieutenant General Faulkner. We appreciate it. 

And, gentlemen, thanks again for your service to our Nation and 

for joining us today and for giving us that general overview about 

what the impact of reset will be in the conditions placed on us by 

the sequester. 

I wanted to get you to go a little bit further, though, in characterizing for both of your service branches what would the impact 

be, based on sequestration, either of curtailing or significantly delaying those efforts to reset? 

And then if you could tell us, which areas would be most challenged? Where do you see the biggest immediate impact? And what 

would be the most difficult for you to overcome? And, remember, 

that’s also an element of time. So even if you were to get the resources but they are spread out over a longer period of time, you 

know, what does that mean for your service branches? 

I just wanted to get a little more of a feeling, a characterization 

about how we could tell people this would affect the Army and the 

Marine Corps. 

General Mason. 

General MASON. Yes, Chairman Wittman, I think I will start off 

with describing the workforce, because I think that is the place 

where we are taking an incredible amount of risk. 

We certainly are focused on plant equipment and modernization 

of our industrial base, but it is really the workforce. Based on sequestration in 2013, we can attribute about 2,000 employees that 

were lost through sequestration. Another 2,000 came down because 

of workload reduction. But we didn’t anticipate that sequestration, 

so that was a huge loss in workforce. 

Inside of that are very technical skills. For example, at Corpus 

Christi, our aviation depot, we lost 36 master engineers that went 

off to find jobs someplace else, in the oil industry or wherever, because they saw this furlough in 2013 and they looked out into 2014 

and 2015 and perhaps they predicted where we are at today, which 

is not a good thing. 

So I am very concerned about the workforce in our industrial 

base and its ability to do that. 

Secondly is the equipment piece. So we had planned to, as I said, 

execute about $4 billion worth of reset. We lost about a $1.7 billion 

in that. That equates to about 800 vehicles we weren’t able to 

reset, 2,000 weapons, about 10,000 pieces of communication gear, 

32 helicopters that we had to not do this year. All that got pushed 

into 2014, and now we are in 2014 not able to do that work again 

because of where we are at. 

So I think it is this combination of the people, which are the key 

thing—and it is difficult to grow those people and bring them back. 

And I would say, to conclude, we are eating our seed corn, we 

are eating our future. Those people that would want to join us, that 
8 

would say, this is a great place to serve, I want to work at Anniston Army Depot, I want to work the Corpus Christi, they look at 

our situation, it is very unpredictable. 

So we have this issue of predictability and balance, and we have 

neither of those right now. And that is dramatically impacting our 

workforce and our ability to get this equipment back into the hands 

of our soldiers for whatever is required of the next mission for this 

Nation. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

General Faulkner. 

General FAULKNER. Yes, sir, some similarities, but let me give 

you some little bit of different numbers. 

Primary impact, similar to the Army, was really to our depots 

and to our civilian workforce, specifically at Albany, Georgia, and 

Barstow, California. And so, just as a result of 6 days of furlough, 

which perhaps to the uninformed may seem relatively modest, 

1,200 pieces of equipment we were not able to induct in our maintenance system. And that is stuff, again, that is deferred out to the 

right, and you just can’t catch up on it. And so those are items such 

as radars, communication equipment, vehicles that are already destined for our operating forces. 

One of the things that our Commandant put in place early on is 

we published an Afghanistan equipment reset strategy in a playbook. So every one of these pieces of equipment that is in Afghanistan today, right at 24,000 of them, have a home, and they are part 

of our future. And the challenge with us now is that, if they don’t 

come home on time, as we planned, our focus being those forwarddeployed crisis response forces, they go without or their readiness 

is not as high. And that is a challenge for us. 

The other piece, Chairman, to get to your second piece, are the 

longer-term impacts. The longer-term impacts, quite frankly, is just 

that deferred maintenance and that readiness is just going to be 

like a tsunami over time; it is just going to gain. 

One of our concerns, though, is that the conscious decision that 

our Commandant has made is he is not going to take risk in forward-deployed crisis response forces. They are going to be ready. 

They are going to be ready to support a combatant commander’s requirements. Where he has taken risks and going in with full 

knowledge is on our bases and stations and our installations. And 

those are the areas that are going to really be most impacted over 

a longer period of time. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, Lieutenant General Faulkner. 

I am going to go now to Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

My first question is for you, General Mason. Can you further discuss for the subcommittee how the Army is working to ensure that 

National Guard units back in the United States and territories will 

receive equipment that is coming back from Afghanistan? That is 

the first part of the question. 

And, further, can you elaborate on how the dual-use and specific 

homeland defense mission equipment requirements will be met for 

National Guard units back in the States and the territories? 
9 

General MASON. Yes, ma’am. I personally work with the Chief of 

the Army National Guard, Bill Ingram, and the Director of the 

Army Reserve, Jeff Talley, Lieutenant General Jeff Talley, and we 

look at the requirements they have. I build that into our reset plan. 

So we have a total force policy. And the individual compos [components]—Active, Reserve, and National Guard—each get those 

equipment that is coming out of Afghanistan through our depots to 

those compos appropriately. 

In fact, right now, the Army, total Army, is about at 88 percent. 

After we would complete all the retrograde out of Afghanistan, we 

would be at about 92 percent for equipment on hand, latest equipment that is being reset. That is across all three compos. We continue to focus on the modernization of the National Guard and the 

Reserves, as well. And that is a primary focus for the Secretary 

and the Chief of Staff. 

The dual-purpose equipment is a key issue for me in the G–4, 

and I am watching that very closely. As that equipment comes out, 

we make sure we get those things that the Governors need to use 

for national emergencies or weather incidents in their States and 

territories. And so that is a high priority, to make sure that that 

equipment also—and we have been pretty successful with that. I 

think the Governors would tell you that. A vast majority of that 

equipment that was used in Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of that has 

been returned—we still have more to come—back to the dual use. 

So all of those are critical to—and we have the guidance from the 

leadership of the Army to make sure that we have a total-force 

policy. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, General. 

Now, I realize that the retrograde of equipment from Afghanistan is going to be vastly different than the retrograde equipment 

from Iraq because of the transportation challenges—this is for both 

of you—and the lack of a holding area, such as we had for Iraq 

with Kuwait. Afghanistan is simply a more difficult logistics challenge. 

Could either of you expand on the issues surrounding the Northern Distribution Network and unforeseen logistics challenges? 

And then another part of the question is, we know that it is far 

more expensive to transport equipment through the NDN and that 

the Pakistan ground route is a fragile relationship. Additionally, 

fuel costs continue to consume DOD [Department of Defense] budgets. And we have a significant amount of equipment still in Afghanistan, with some uncertainty about what must remain in the 

country in the absence of a bilateral security agreement. 

So how confident are you with the current retrograde plan to reduce the equipment in Afghanistan? Either one of you. 

General MASON. Yes, ma’am, I will start and then Mark. 

Ma’am, I am cautiously optimistic. Right now, we are on our 

glide slope that we had planned, but that can change overnight. 

One incident at a border, one thing that occurs could cause us challenges in there, so we watch it. What you just described is the update I get every single morning on retrograde. So let me address 

a couple of your specific questions. 

So the Northern Distribution Network, I would describe that as 

a capillary, as opposed to the Pakistan GLOC, which I would de-
10 

scribe as an artery. We need them all. And one of our key solution 

sets in getting out of Afghanistan, the same thing the Marines 

used as they began to get out, is use all available transportation 

modes—ground, air, sea, whatever we can work. So we are using 

all of those multiple routes. 

So, through the NDN, we are bringing mostly supplies in. There’s 

not a lot going out through the NDN. One of the challenges with 

the NDN, it is very long, as you described, four times longer than 

the PAKGLOC; more expensive in time and distance, obviously; 

many countries you have to go through, so all those customs issues. 

And it is also north of a thing called the Salang Tunnel. The 

Salang Tunnel through most of winter months is closed. Most of 

our forces are south of the Salang Tunnel. 

So we use it, but it is not our main route. We really want the 

PAKGLOC to be our main route, and we are getting there. We are 

about 50 percent of what is departing Afghanistan right now is on 

the Pakistan GLOC. 

But a lot of it is flying out. It flies out in two ways. One, it flies 

out of Afghanistan to a local seaport in the Gulf region in the Middle East, and then we put it on ships because it is much cheaper 

to go on a ship than a plane. Some things do fly all the way back 

to the United States, critical items—weapons, things of that nature 

that we want to get right back—and that’s called direct air. It is 

the most expensive, but we are using that very judiciously. 

The fuel issue is a concern, and that is why I have an estimate 

for retrograde, the rest of the Army equipment that is in Afghanistan, which the value of that right now today is about $17 billion. 

Our estimate is, for the transportation cost, is $2 billion to $3 billion. The reason I have such a big range in there, fuel is one of 

those variables. If fuel costs continue to go up, we are going to 

push into the $3 billion range. If the PAKGLOC was to close, we 

could, in fact, go above that $3 billion range and we would have 

to fly more out. So that is why I have that variable in there. 

The BSA [bilateral security agreement], as you describe, the security agreement, basic security agreement, is key. And that allows 

us to work on that timeline that the President has established of 

December 2014. If things happen with that—and I guess I would 

make this final point. The retrograde is driven by the political environment and the training of the Afghans and the drawdown of our 

forces and the closure of bases. And then retrograde follows that. 

So it is in response to whatever the commander on the ground says 

he is doing for base closures and as he works through the BSA. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, General. 

And General Faulkner. 

General FAULKNER. Yes, ma’am. Thanks. Just a couple things to 

add to General Mason’s comment. 

You did a great job of characterizing the fragile nature of both 

the PAKGLOC and the NDN. The success that we have had to 

date, the 67 percent reduction that I commented to in my opening 

statement, was really multimodal. So that was a period of time 

when the PAKGLOC was closed and we flew that equipment out 

that General Mason described. And as you described, it is more expensive. 
11 

But what I would say is that it is going to be more important 

over the course of the next 6 to 9 months that, in fact, we maintain 

every opportunity to use all three of those methods of retrograding 

equipment just because of the uncertainty associated with a couple 

of them. And that may be a cost that, as a Nation, we just might 

have to endure to meet the timelines and based on our larger readiness. 

The other thing I will add, ma’am, is that we recognize our numbers pale in comparison to the Army’s. Certainly, they are just as 

important to us. But just to give you a sense, our equipment cost 

in theater right now is $1.6 billion. And, again, what I commented 

earlier, right now in theater somewhere around 21,000 principal 

end items. And so, of those, somewhere around 2,500 are rolling 

stock. And those are much smaller than our brothers and sisters 

in the Army. 

But the important last thing I will leave you with is going to be 

flexibility in getting multiple modes out. And General Dunford is 

working those in theater to deal with the uncertainty. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you. 

I have just one final question. This is for both of you. Reset and 

retrograde have relied heavily on OCO funding. Now, as this funding dwindles and the Department faces significant cuts as a result 

of the Budget Control Act and sequestration, how will the Army 

and the Marine Corps complete retrograde and reset? 

General FAULKNER. Yes, ma’am, thank you. Let me go first. 

That overseas—the contingency operations or OCO funding that 

you refer to is critical to us completing our reset. And if we don’t 

continue to receive those OCO funds well into fiscal year 2017, 

then, in fact, we are going to have to take from our base budget, 

which is already insufficient to fix our reset. 

So where we will see the impacts is in readiness. And we will see 

the impacts in not only our forward-deployed forces but our ability 

to fight in support of a major contingency operation. That is one. 

The other thing I will tell you is that our equipment will just basically stack up at our maintenance depots. It will be sitting there. 

For example, today at Albany we have almost 20,000 pieces of 

equipment that are waiting to be inducted in the system. So that 

is a problem for us. And that gets at the criticality of OCO funding 

2 to 3 years past December of next year. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And General Mason. 

General MASON. Yes, ma’am. Very similar to General Faulkner. 

I think, take it to a little higher level strategically. 

So, really, the Army has three places where we can decide to 

move money around that we are given: readiness, current readiness; we have modernization; and then people. And so the leadership, again, of the Army has decided to go to 490 by 2015. If we 

do not receive OCO funds, we may have to accelerate that even 

more than planned now. He already accelerated—the Chief and the 

Secretary have already accelerated from 2017 to 2015. We had 

originally planned to go to 490 at 2017. We have pulled that left 

to 2015 just because of the discussion we are having today with 

sequestration. 

So we would have to go to the base. And we would go again into 

readiness, because that is the money that is immediately available. 
12 

It takes you a while to get savings with people. You have to treat 

them right, have them come out of the Army appropriately, not 

give them pink slips and give them 90 days to get out. That is not 

a good way to treat people. 

And then modernization, which is a little deeper and longer dollars, but we would begin to eat away at our modernization, which 

I would call an insurance policy for the future. It allows us to keep 

a technical overmatch to any potential enemy. If we don’t receive 

OCO, we will begin to eat modernization even more than it is now. 

We are risking the future, we are risking the now, and we are 

not taking care of our people. So it is a trifecta of a bad situation 

if we don’t receive the OCO dollars. We must go to the base in that 

kind of a construct. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

We will now go to Mrs. Hartzler. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

Madam Bordallo asked some of the same questions along those 

lines that I was wanting to talk about, but I would like to go a little further. 

When you said that 2 to 3 years of OCO funding would be needed 

when you come back, could you kind of explain about that? So it 

is overseas contingency fund, but yet that would be the pool of 

money you would use basically for the reset, is what I am hearing, 

right, to do the maintenance and to—— 

General MASON. Yes, ma’am, that is exactly right. It is the maintenance dollars, both OMA [Operation and Maintenance, Army] 

dollars in the depots and at unit level, and it is also procurement 

dollars that we buy for battle losses. We are losing equipment on 

the battlefield. For example, to date, between Iraq and Afghanistan, we have lost over 2,500 vehicles, combat-damaged, and almost 3,000 off the books, completely damaged. Helicopters, we repaired about 130 helicopters. We have lost 230 helicopters—gone. 

They were not reparable. So this OCO dollars goes to that. 

We will continue to take battle damage over the next year. So 

part of the dollars of OCO is to replace those battle damages, helicopters and ground vehicles and other equipment such as that, and 

then to do the reset dollars both in the depots and at home station. 

We do some work at home station—weapons, radios, things of that 

nature. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Yes. 

General FAULKNER. The only thing I would add, ma’am, is this 

is in addition to the maintenance on the rest of our equipment. And 

so this is above and beyond. So for the Marine Corps, the rest of 

our equipment set, which is really 95 percent, in general, we are 

still doing that maintenance. And that is what we are relying on 

our baseline budget to do. So it is additive. 

But the fact of the matter is that, of the equipment that we have 

in Afghanistan, over 50 percent of it we brought directly from Iraq. 

We didn’t bring it back to the United States and run it through our 

depots. So, to the chairman’s opening comment, some of that equip-
13 

ment has either been in either Iraq or Afghanistan for going on 12 

or 13 years. So to say it has been rode hard is an understatement. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Do you have those numbers of how much equipment needs to be replaced, that, you know, battle-damaged—— 

General FAULKNER. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. You shared a little bit, General, that—you said, 

of the helicopters, 130 need to be repaired, 230 are totally gone. Do 

you have a breakdown that you could get me—I think that would 

be very interesting—of how many, you know, are totally destroyed 

and we have to replace? 

General FAULKNER. Absolutely, ma’am. We can get you that 

down to the individual end item. We can get that. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Thank you. I would appreciate that. 

General MASON. Yes, ma’am, same here. 

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

page 45.] 

General MASON. Let me just clarify a little bit the description I 

gave to you. Those numbers I gave to you, those were battle losses 

on the battlefield and pieces of equipment that were completely 

gone and out of the space. 

We continue to pull maintenance just from wear and tear on 

the—that come out of Afghanistan, as well. So, literally, we have 

pulled maintenance on hundreds of helicopters. Those are just the 

ones that took significant battle damage and the 230-plus that are 

gone now, that were totally gone. 

So there is a whole level of maintenance above that that takes 

care of desert damage, you know, from that kind of thing, normal 

wear and tear. 

Our equipment, as General Faulkner described it, is used at a 

much higher level, probably five to six times higher, each day in 

Afghanistan than we would back at home station. And then our 

aviation fleet, particularly—high altitudes, high temperatures, conducting combat missions, they do a different profile, carrying heavy 

loads. So our equipment is taking a significant—as General Faulkner says, ‘‘rode hard and put up wet’’ is pretty accurate. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Well, I have the 1–135th over there right now, 

the Apache helicopters. And I talked to them last week via telephone, and they are doing 24/7 operations out there. And so I know 

what you mean about that. 

General, did you want to add something? 

General FAULKNER. Yes, ma’am, just one last comment. 

We are very sensitive to not spending one extra dollar of OCO 

money that we don’t have to. And so every piece of equipment that 

we are bringing back, we have actually done a business case analysis to make sure that it is in our best economical interest. 

For example, if a water buffalo, a big container that holds 400 

gallons of water, if, in fact we are going to incur more costs associated with the transport of bringing it back, we are not going to 

bring it home. We are going to try to give it to another nation 

through foreign military sales or through excess defense articles or 

something like that. We are just not going to incur the cost, because there is no reason to add to the OCO requirement. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Sure. I appreciate that, looking at that from a 

business sense. 
14 

Just quickly, last question: How much equipment will we be 

leaving there and transferring to Afghanistan? Is that dependent 

on the agreement that we come up with them? Or how will that 

be determined? 

General MASON. Yes, ma’am. Let me address that. 

Right now, we have about $24 billion worth of Army equipment on the ground in Afghanistan. We plan to bring back $17 billion. 

And I would add that that is our most modern equipment. It is 

the latest equipment we have fielded. It is our up-armored fleet, it 

is our Strykers, it is our helicopters with all the latest modernization in it. So it is the equipment we really need back. It is our best 

and greatest stuff that we have used. It needs to be reset. So the $7 billion we are going to divest, a lot of that is not vehicles and weapons. A lot of it is equipment we use to run base operations. It is buildings, it is shower units, it is mobile dining facilities, it is some commercial equipment. So there is a lot of that that 

we will donate to the Afghanis through a process that we are 

doing, similar to what we did in Iraq. 

Some equipment we will do our best to do what is called excess 

defense articles, to countries in the region that we are working 

very closely with CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] on. So there 

is an opportunity there for some partnership with local countries. 

Not an easy thing do, but we are working our way through it. 

So there is a variety of different ways—through donation, through sales—to divest the $7 billion. We look at it all the time. And that $17 billion, ma’am—one last point—is built on the 490 

force structure of the Army, the Active Component. If that changes, 

we will re-look at the numbers again. 

And, as General Faulkner said, I would reiterate that, we are not 

going to bring back one thing that we don’t need. This is equipment 

we need, and we watch it very carefully so we are being judicious 

with the OCO dollars we are given. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, Ms. Hartzler. 

And now we will go to Mr. Loebsack. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Thanks, both of you, for your service and for being here today. 

This is an important topic, there is no question. 

You probably know I am the co-chair of the House Depot, Arsenal, Ammunition Plant, and Industrial Facilities Caucus, along 

with Walter Jones, my good friend from North Carolina. And we 

have had a lot of meetings, multiple meetings, to discuss some of 

these specific issues over the course of this particular Congress, as 

well as our overall concern about the health of the organic base 

going forward. 

And I am very proud to represent the Rock Island Arsenal, too. 

I think you are very aware that we have the Joint Manufacturing 

Technology Center there, and also we have the Army Sustainment 

Command and other aspects of logistics located there at the Rock 

Island Arsenal. 

I have been a firm believer all along in the importance of the industrial base, especially maintaining the base, organic industrial 

base, as much as we can in the event of another contingency. And 

I know that, you know, we are talking about a lot of reductions in 
15 

force and other things going forward, but we have obviously got to 

keep our eye on the ball, we have to be prepared in the event that 

we do have another contingency. And I know you two agree with 

that; all of us on this panel do. We just have to make sure that 

our warfighter has what he or she needs in the event that we have 

another contingency. 

But I don’t think anybody asked you yet today—I mean, we are 

now in the middle of the second day of a shutdown, and it may be 

too early for you folks to give us any kind of an assessment of what 

the shutdown means for the issues that we are talking about today. 

But do your best, if you can give us some indication of what this 

shutdown means right now in realtime for what you folks are 

doing. 

General MASON. Yes, sir. 

First off, I would say, as you recall, when the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff were up here several weeks ago, they described where we 

were at at that time with 2013 going into 2014, 2015, and it was 

pretty gloomy. And they talked about the readiness of our force and 

our ability to meet another contingency around the world, that was 

at serious risk. 

So I would say that is where we started 2014 at. And, of course, 

coming right into 2014, we have a government shutdown. So, certainly, readiness isn’t getting better. In fact, I would say it is eroding, and the longer this goes, the more it will erode. 

We are focused on the forces that are in combat today. So we are 

taking risk, just as my brother, General Faulkner, said, in other 

places to make sure that our forces that are in harm’s way this 

very evening have got what they need. And we will continue to do 

that. As well as Korea; that is the other place that we focus us on. 

So those two are where we are putting our resources, and taking 

risks generally everywhere else. 

If you would bear with me for one moment, I think I would just 

tell you a story that occurred yesterday. So at 1100 yesterday, 1100 

hours yesterday, I brought my civilian workforce in, and I looked 

them in the eye, all 236 of them, and I told them I didn’t have good 

news, I had to send them all home without pay. And, worse than 

that, I didn’t know when I would be able to bring them back. 

And I can imagine the scene as they went home and told their 

husband and wife and their children that they were basically furloughed, laid off, and didn’t know when they would go back to work 

again. And would they be able to make rent and mortgage and buy 

groceries and pay for the college fund? And to hear their children 

saying, ‘‘But, Dad, didn’t’’—or Mom—‘‘didn’t just last month the 

same thing happen to you? I didn’t think it was going to happen 

now. You told me we were going to be okay.’’ So this compounding 

of the furlough from last year and now this issue. 

So when I send soldiers into combat, that is a difficult thing to 

do, but at least I know when I send a soldier into combat I am giving them the fuel and the ammunition and the weapons they need. 

I feel like I have abandoned my workforce. And that is not a good 

place to be. And so, in my career, I have really never faced something like this, so this is very difficult. And even though it is only 

day 2, that is where I am coming emotionally. 
16 

One other data point for you on an impact. We had to close all 

of our commissaries in the continental United States. Soldiers and 

their families get about a 30 percent savings from the commissaries. They will not get that savings now until the commissaries are back open. So that is 30 percent out of their pay this 

month when they go buy food and necessities for their family. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Something people don’t even think about. 

General MASON. That is right, sir. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. I appreciate that, General. 

General MASON. We were able to keep the commissaries overseas 

going because they just don’t have a lot of options, and so we had 

to take risks back here in the continental United States. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you. 

General MASON. They have other options. But that is a—you 

know, for our soldiers and their families, it is very difficult. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. General Faulkner, I will be talking to my Marine 

children soon enough about this, but I would like to hear what you 

have to say about this. 

General FAULKNER. Yes, sir. Words like ‘‘disruptive’’ and ‘‘unfortunate’’ don’t even begin to address the impact of this shutdown on 

our Marine civilians. And I think more descriptive words, such as 

‘‘disrespectful,’’ are more appropriate. 

And so the same thing that General Mason talked about, these 

are—these are loyal patriots. The only difference is they don’t wear 

the cloth. But many of them have been serving the Marine Corps 

longer than I have. And so, to treat them like this, send them 

home, sends a pretty—just a poor signal in terms of how much we 

value what they have given to our country. And so that is really 

disconcerting. 

I did the same thing that General Mason did. And I will tell you 

that I had some Senior Executive Service members that have 

enough time to retire, and they may just do that. And so my concern is, especially as this thing becomes even more protracted, we 

are going to lose that expertise. 

And for the Marine Corps, we are a pretty frugal service. We 

don’t have the depth to plug a senior Marine and a general officer 

to fill that. So we will fill that. We won’t see it immediately in 

readiness, but we will see it over the course of time. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. All the more reason why we had damn well better figure out what we are going to do about this shutdown here 

on Capitol Hill. 

Thank you very much. Thanks to both of you. 

And thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Loebsack. 

We will now go to Mr. Enyart. 

Mr. ENYART. I yield my time to Ms. Bordallo. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. 

Any questions, Ms. Bordallo? 

Mr. ENYART. I am yielding my time to you. 

Ms. BORDALLO. You go ahead. Thank you. 

Mr. ENYART. Gentlemen, can you give me an idea—Mr. Loebsack 

questioned you regarding the impact of the current furloughs on 

the morale in your force, in your civilian workforce. But can you 
17 

give me an idea of the number of civilian employees as compared 

to military employees in your respective logistics branches? 

General MASON. Well, I will start just with the headquarters, 

you know, the G–4 of the Army. Three-quarters of my workforce is 

civilian. Great teammates, as General Faulkner mentioned, many 

of them with 40 years of service. So that is generally—and most 

of our headquarters, Army Materiel Command, Forces Command 

that I have served at, TRADOC [U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command], they are significantly civilian employees there. They 

are our teammates. 

Now, when you get out into the operational Army, obviously, 

those are soldiers. But these institutional Army, what we call the 

generating Army, that really is the base that allows these operational forces to train, deploy, be supported in combat, that pushes 

them forward, that is significantly civilian workforce. 

And so they are a key part of the team. We couldn’t survive without them. I certainly couldn’t, as the G–4 of the Army. My deputy 

is Kathy Miller, a magnificent civilian teammate, and I had to send 

her home, as an SES. I had to send all my SESes [Senior Executive 

Service] home. I have five of those. 

So within the Department of the Army and the other services, I 

am sure it is very similar. We depend on our civilian teammates. 

They are many times the continuity. They have this depth of 

knowledge. And so that skill set they have is critical. 

And, right now, what we are doing is the uniformed forces are 

coming to work every day, which is about, again, about a quarter 

of my total workforce, and we are focusing on supporting the troops 

down range. And about everything else we just can’t do right now. 

Mr. ENYART. General Faulkner. 

General FAULKNER. Sir, I would tell you that our number, our 

furlough number, in the Marine Corps is probably somewhere 

around 10,000. 

We were fortunate in that several of them are excepted. That 

means there are exemptions for life, security, and other key factors 

that they—things that they provide at our bases and stations. 

But it is a moving target. It is very unfortunate. And as I talked 

about earlier, I just think that the impacts are really—we are going 

to have a lot of people that are going to walk, because there are 

other opportunities out there, if they are disrespected like this. 

Mr. ENYART. General Mason, about half of the manpower of the 

Army is contained in the Army Reserve and in the Army National 

Guard. And the bulk of the full-time force, the people who make 

sure the Guard and Reserves get paid, get trained, do all of the administrative work, the bulk of those people are dual-service technicians. That is, they are civil service employees during the week and 

wear a uniform on the weekend for drill. 

Are these furloughs adversely impacting those folks on the logistics end as well as the combat power end? 

General MASON. Yes, they are. 

Sir, as you described, the Reserve and National Guard makes up 

about 51 percent of the force and the AAC [Army Active Component] is about 49 percent of the force, that mix. And I will tell you, 

in the logistics community, which I grew up in, about 85 percent 

of our capability resides in the Reserve and National Guard. So you 
18 

can see how critical they are to an ability to conduct any combat 

operation, and early on. 

So, yes. In fact, both the Chief of the Army and the National 

Guard and the Chief of the Army Reserve were both describing this 

morning the impacts. They were having to cancel training, send 

soldiers home, just tell them to stand by. And so what was going 

on at the arsenal—at the Reserve training centers and the National Guard armories all had to be put on hold because they are 

not getting paid. So, yes, it is impacting them immediately. 

Mr. ENYART. General Faulkner, is there a similar proportion in 

the Marine Corps Reserve? I am not as familiar with that as I am 

the Army Reserve and the National Guard. 

General FAULKNER. No, sir, a little different. Certainly, they are 

part of our total force, so it is impactful. But I wouldn’t—a little 

different than the Army in that regard. 

Mr. ENYART. I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Enyart. 

We will now go to the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. 

Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, actually, 

just briefly, and then I want to yield to Mr. Loebsack. 

The military technician issue, which I think all of us who have 

Guard, you know, units and installations in our districts, is just, 

you know, a huge outrage in terms of, you know, who is being sent 

home. I mean, it is all outrageous, but in that particular area it 

is just completely almost incoherent, you know, that that is the impact, although that is, by law, the impact. 

And we are going to be voting soon on another one of these piecemeal measures, which we have actually analyzed with a microscope 

to see whether or not it really solves that problem, and unfortunately it does not. It only is aimed at funding drilling activities, 

you know, by the Guard. 

And it really shows why we just need a comprehensive CR [continuing resolution], clean, get the government open again. Because 

you are just going to constantly be squeezing a balloon, in terms 

of trying to sort of fixing this thing bit by bit. The government is 

too big to do that in any kind of reasonable scope of time. 

So, in any case, I want to now yield the balance of my time to 

my friend from Iowa, Mr. Loebsack. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Congressman Courtney. 

Very quickly, General Mason, as you know, the Army Organic Industrial Base Strategic Plan was released last December, a highlevel plan to support our depots and our arsenals. It kind of fits 

in with some of the other things that we have already been talking 

about, certainly in terms of the workforce. 

Can you provide kind of an update, if you will, on the implementation of that strategy, provide some detail about what efforts are 

being undertaken to ensure that our arsenals and depots have the 

workload necessary to provide an effective and timely response to 

warfighter needs? 

I know it fits in somewhat with the furlough issue, but—this is 

all one big ball of wax, in some ways. But can you comment on that 

plan and its implementation? 

General MASON. Yes, sir. 
19 

If there is any good news here, it is that we do have a strategic 

umbrella plan that can help us deal with some of this uncertainty 

and unpredictability. It is not going to solve it, but at least we have 

a roadmap. And that is helping our arsenal commanders and our 

depot commanders work their way through it. 

As you know, it has four pillars to it. And it is really about modernization, it is capacity, it is the workforce, and also the capital 

investment piece, that fourth piece. So that allows us to plan. 

I chair the depot corporate board. General McQuistion, the Deputy AMC [Army Materiel Command], and I co-host that with a host 

of other people. And we work through the metrics of each one of 

our arsenals and depots, the health of it, what the workforce looks 

like, what our investments—all those things that are in the Organic Industrial Base Strategic Plan. It also allows us to focus on 

comparative advantages at different locations to make sure we are 

not having redundant capabilities. And so that is important, as 

well. 

And you know the work we are doing at Rock Island, partnering. 

We have public-private partnerships. And then, just recently, we 

did some work with the Defense Logistics Agency with some of 

their back orders. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Right. 

General MASON. And so there is a great opportunity there, so 

partnering with the other services, with Defense Logistics Agency, 

with firms and corporations in the Quad City areas. 

So those are all abilities to spread our work out and reduce down 

our rates so we can be competitive in the marketplace. And one of 

my biggest concerns is, if we are not, our rates will continue to go 

up, and we will become not the choice for our customers, they will 

want to go somewhere else. And so that is what that strategic plan 

is really focused on, keeping our rates competitively so we can be 

in the marketplace and provide a great product. And Rock Island 

does that. 

But the workforce, as I started off with in the beginning of this 

testimony, is where I think our biggest risk is, and we are really 

watching that. And I know General Via spends about every waking 

hour focused on the morale of that team and skill sets. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Because, ultimately, when we have to rely on 

those folks in the event of another contingency, we have to make 

it as cost-effective as possible to get that organic base back up and 

working and providing the troops, you know, with what they need. 

Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Courtney, for yielding to me. And I will yield 

back. Although I see he is leaving, so I will have to yield to the 

Chair, probably. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Loebsack. We appreciate it. 

There are no more questions from the committee. Lieutenant 

General Mason, Lieutenant General Faulkner, thank you so much 

for joining us today. Thanks for your commitment to find a path 

through this very challenging time. We have a commitment back 

to you that we will do the same, working here to make sure that 

we provide for what we know is the critical aspects of what this 

Nation’s needs are as it relates to readiness, and, as you pointed 
20 

out, it is our people. And we want to make sure we are keeping 

that first and foremost in our mind. 

So, with all the deliberations we have, both today and the 

months to come, whether it is concerning funding the government 

or concerning the sequestration, we keep in mind your thoughts 

and comments today as to how it affects our Marines and how it 

affects our Army, as well as the other service branches. 

And we thank you for your service to our Nation. And we will 

make sure that we keep in the forefront of our minds the great 

folks that work for you and do a great job for our Nation. 

And, with that, our subcommittee is hereby adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:58 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

OCTOBER 2, 2013 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

OCTOBER 2, 2013 

(25) 

Statement of the Honorable Robert Wittman 

Chairman, Readiness Subcommittee 

"Resetting the Force for the Future: Risks of Sequestration" 

October 2, 2013 

I want to welcome all of our members and welcome back our distinguished panel 

to today's hearing focused on "Resetting the Force for the Future: Risks of 

Sequestrati on." 

This afternoon we have with us Lieutenant General Raymond V. Mason, 

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Logistics, and Lieutenant General William 

M. Faulkner, Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics. Thank you, 

gentlemen, for being here this morning and for your service to our nation. 

No one will dispute that we have the most capable and professional military 

in the world. Our men and women in uniform have exemplified the best America 

has to offer during the last 13 years of protracted counterinsurgency operations in 

Middle East. Thanks to their tireless efforts, we are able to begin shifting our 

focus from combat operations toward resetting the force for the future. 

However, the challenges will not end as combat operations wind down in 

Afghanistan - 13 years of combat have taken their toll in every respect. 

Today's hearing focuses on the materiel impacts as the Army and Marine 

Corps face a staggering $11.2 billion bill to restore readiness to vital military 

hardware. I believe this massive effort to retrograde, repair, replace, and upgrade 
26 

equipment to a level of combat capability commensurate with units' future 

missions is vital for the operational readiness. 

Unfortunately, like everywhere else within the Department of Defense, 

sequestration has left its mark on these efforts as well. 

Facing smaller and smaller budgets for the replacement of war-torn 

equipment, critical reset work has been deferred and the focus has shifted more to 

repair than procuring newer, more capable systems. I am particularly concerned 

about how limited reset funding will impact our Reserve Component who has 

remains critical part of our total force. 

However, I fear that this desperately needed repair effort may also be in 

jeopardy if we continue much further down the road with sequestration. 

During my trip to Afghanistan earlier this year, I witnessed thousands of 

containers, hundreds ofvehic1es, and millions of individual items awaiting 

shipment home to units that desperately need them - all items at risk as 

transportation costs continue to rise and budgets continue to shrink. 

At the same time the Marine Corps and the Army are working through these 

fiscal challenges, sequestration has caused additional uncertainty by forcing the 

Army to shed 72,000 soldiers, the Marine Corps 20,000 Marines, to make ends 

meet and an unknown number more the longer sequestration persists. 
27 

Undoubtedly, this lack of certainty on the size and composition of the future 

force raises questions about what capabilities will be deemed enduring, what 

equipment should be reset to support those enduring requirements, and what 

resources Congress should provide to meet those requirements. 

Make no mistake about it, failure to properly and fully reset the force will 

invariably lead to placing more and more of our service members at risk in future 

conflicts. 

This afternoon, I look forward to hearing how the Marine Corps and the 

Army plan to reset the force in this challenging environment and how we are 

managing the uncertainty and risks we are facing in this critical area of readiness. 

We must not let our legacy be one of overseeing the slow dismantlement of 

the greatest military on earth. We all have a responsibility to ensure our men and 

women in uniform are given all the tools necessary for the job we have asked them 

to do. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. 

I would now like to tum to my friend and Ranking Member, Madeleine 

Bordallo, for any remarks she may have. 
28 

RECORD VERSION 

STATEMENT BY 

LTG RAYMOND V. MASON 

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, G-4 

UNITED STATES ARMY 

BEFORE THE 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

FIRST SESSION, 113TH CONGRESS 

ON RESETTING THE FORCE FOR THE FUTURE: RISKS OF SEQUESTRATION 

SEPTEMBER 20, 2013 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL RELEASED BY THE 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 
29 

Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, and members of the Subcommittee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify today on Retrograde and Reset alongside my 

joint partners. America's Army serves and deploys as part of joint and combined forces, 

serving side by side with Marines, Airmen and Sailors and coalition partners, all working 

to achieve one goal: to fight and win our nation's wars. After more than a decade of 

conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nation and our Army are in a period of transition. 

We are at a turning point characterized by a fiscally constrained environment and a 

global security environment that is more complex and uncertain than at any time since 

the end of World War II. 

Fiscal Uncertainty: 

The Army is faced with difficult challenges due to sequestration reductions in FY 2013, 

reduced discretionary caps and the continued threat of sequestration. Our goal is to 

maintain a strong and more resilient expeditionary Army that is smaller, capable, cost 

effective and agile. We must do this as we balance fiscal realities and responsibly draw 

down our forces, while remaining the Strength of the Nation. I continue to be concerned 

that if the reduced caps are not reversed, a hollow Army is inevitable. 

Retrograde: 

We define successful retrograde as the retrograde of equipment, base 

closures/transfers and materiel reduction not required for the Enduring Presence by 

December 2014. We have the policies, authorities, and processes in place to support 

the retrograde of equipment from Afghanistan and maintain operational flexibility. The 

operational campaign plan drives the pace of retrograde operations. Up to this point, 

the Army is successfully retrograding equipment from Afghanistan while concurrently 

conducting operations and training Afghan forces. Our goal remains to have all nonenduring equipment out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. 

Supporting CENTCOM's drawdown and retrograde goals creates challenges in several 

Army funding accounts. One cost driver is multi-modal transportation. While over the 
30 

past several months muli-modal has been the primary means to move retrograde and 

redeployment cargo out of Afghanistan, projected volumes of cargo along the Pakistan 

Ground Lines of Communication (PAKGLOC) are increasing and are currently trending 

at or near 50%. Surface lines of communication, the Northem Distribution Network 

(NON) and PAKGLOC are critical to achieving the retrograde velocity necessary to meet 

timelines and they are less expensive than multi-modal and direct air transportation. 

The desired scenario for retrograde assumes all routes are viable/open, full use of the 

PAKGLOC capacity, with a mix of multi-modal, NON, and direct air shipments, thereby 

maximizing throughput at the best value. 

The Army, with the support of our Joint and commercial partners, retrograded and 

redistributed equipment from Iraq to satisfy numerous critical requirements; we are 

doing the same thing for equipment from Afghanistan. We use retrograded equipment to 

RESET the broader Army team, Active and Reserve Components. Before we issue that 

equipment to troops that are next to deploy, place it in Army Prepositioned Stocks, or 

use it to fill an Active, Reserve or National Guard shortage, we use the Depot Reset 

program to restore it to the appropriate level of readiness. 

To meet future requirements and improve Equipment on Hand Readiness across the 

Total Army, the Army plans to retrograde approximately $17 Billion worth of Army 

equipment currently in Afghanistan. The combination of equipment that we will retain 

and retrograde, plus depot work and new production will improve Total Army equipment 

on hand (EOH Readiness) to 92%. 

Reset: 

Reset funding must continue as long as we have forces deployed and for three years 

after the last piece of equipment retums from Afghanistan. This funding is necessary to 

ensure readiness for future missions the Nation asks of the Army. 

Equipment Reset is defined as a set of actions to restore equipment to a desired level of 

combat capability commensurate with a unit's future mission; Reset is an essential 
31 

element of readiness and entails restoring balance to the Army for known Combatant 

Command requirements and potential contingencies. It is part of the cost of war, and it 

prepares our Soldiers and their equipment for an unpredictable future and evolving 

threats. 

Reset is funded entirely through Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) 

appropriations. A fully-funded Reset program ensures that equipment destroyed in 

theater is replaced and equipment worn by extended use in harsh environments is 

repaired and returned to a fully ready state. Reset funding is used to repair equipment 

returning from overseas contingency operations by applying maintenance services, 

including fault location/troubleshooting, removal/installation, disassembly/assembly and 

maintenance actions to restore serviceability to an item by correcting specific damage, 

fault, malfunction, or failure in a part, subassembly, module (component or assembly), 

end item or system. 

Reset funding is also used for Recapitalization, a process taking selected equipment to 

near zero hours/zero miles. 

In the forecast for FY13, the Army expects to Reset (repair) approximately 100,000 

items at its industrial facilities, and more than 600,000 pieces of equipment on site 

where units are stationed. However, FY 13 sequestration impacts caused us to defer 

the Reset of equipment to future years, immediately impacting equipment readiness. 

Equipment Reset is a vital means for maintaining Army equipment readiness in order to 

sustain a force that can meet our National Military Strategy. Since its inception, the 

Reset Program has improved the condition and readiness levels of Army ground and air 

systems. A consistently, fully-funded Reset program enabled the Army to maintain 

operational readiness of equipment at more than 90% and 75% for ground and aviation, 

respectively, in theater. 
32 

Due to sequestration the Army deferred FY13 Reset work to future years. For example, 

the Army deferred the repair of Tactical Wheeled Vehicles, communications equipment 

and weapons. 

Army Organic Industrial Base: 

A reasonable, predictable funding program is critical to the health and readiness of our 

Organic Industrial Base. The current fiscal uncertainty threatens the Nation's 

requirement for an Army Organic Industrial Base that is modem, reliable, cost effective, 

and highly responsive to meet both wartime and peacetime requirements, while 

maintaining the ability to surge during rapidly developing contingency operations. 

During times of war, the Army requires the Organic Industrial Base to repair and 

manufacture equipment as quickly and efficiently as possible to ensure it is available to 

train and support next deployers, as well as those deployed. During Operations Iraqi 

Freedom and Enduring Freedom the Army's Organic Industrial Base Depots and 

Arsenals surged to double capacity, and in some case, tripled their pre-war output. As 

the Army's Organic Industrial Base transitions from wartime production to peacetime 

requirements, we must ensure it remains effective, efficient, and capable of meeting 

current and future Army contingency requirements. 

To help address these issues, we published our first Army Organic Industrial Base 

Strategic Plan (AOIBSP) to help make better holistic and optimal decisions. The 

AOIBSP provides the strategy and management framework needed to ensure that our 

Organic Industrial Base remains viable, effective, and efficient. The current fiscal 

uncertainly could drastically impact our strategy and threatens the goal of a continued 

viable Army Organic Industrial Base. 

So far in FY13 we have lost more than 4,000 employees from all Army Working Capital 

Fund Installations, of which nearly 2,600 civilian and contract personnel were due to 

sequestration. To compound the challenges, the implemented Hiring/Overtime 

Restrictions and Furlough have and continue to negatively affect productivity and 

increase Depot Carryover. For example, Corpus Christi Army Depot, the Army's Center 
33 

for Industrial and Technical Excellence for rotary wing aircraft experienced a 40% 

increase (from historical norms) in workforce resignations, many citing financial 

hardship. In addition, it is often difficult for Depots to quickly and internally grow new 

skills. 

To mitigate these challenges, we believe that a viable and relevant industrial base 

requires the Army to identify and maintain core competencies and size the Depot 

workforce to meet and sustain those competencies. Most importantly we must maintain 

the capacity needed to meet future war-time surge requirements. Core competencies, 

expressed in terms of industrial skills, ensure a ready, effective, timely, governmentowned/government-operated source of materiel repair. 

Conclusion: 

In conclusion, we continue to support the goal of having all non-enduring equipment out 

of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Once that equipment comes home, Reset funding 

ensures that our equipment will be ready for the next contingency. To protect these 

logistics capabilities and ensure Army readiness, I encourage you to reverse 

sequestration and ensure that OCO accounts such as Retrograde and Reset are fully 

funded for 3 years after the last piece of equipment has been retrograded from 

Afghanistan. 

Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, members of the Subcommittee, I thank 

you again for your continued support for Soldiers and their Families. I look forward to 

your questions. 

### 
34 

United States Army 

Lieutenant General 

RAYMOND V. MASON 

Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4 

United States Army 

500 Army Pentagon 11<:394 

Washington, DC 20310-0500 

Since: July 2011 

SOURCE OF COMMISSIONED SERVICE ROTC 

EDUCATIONAL DEGREES 

James Madison University - BA - Commercial Marketing and Merchandising 

Florida Institute of Technology - MS --" Procurement/Contract Management 

National Defense University - MS National Resource Strategy 

MILITARY SCHOOLS ATTENDED 

QUat1ennaster Otlicer Basic and Advanced Courses 

United States Army Command and General Staff College 

Industrial College of the Armed Forces 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE(S) None recorded 

PROMOTIONS 

2LT 

ILT 

CPT 

MAl 

LTC 

COL 

BG 

MG 

LTG 

DATE OF APPOINTMENT 

16 Dec 78 

16 Dec 80 

I Oct 82 

I Oct 90 

I Mar 95 

I Jun 00 

I Jan 05 

16 May 08 

I Sep II 

FROM TO ASSIGNMENT 

Jun 79 Sep 80 Supply Platoon Leader, later Executive Officer, Headquarters and A Company, 205th 

Transportation Battalion (A VIM), 3d Corps Support Command, V Corps, United States Army 

Europe and Seventh Anny, Germany 

Sep 80 Jun 81 Supply Platoon Leader, 699th Maintenance Company, 85th Maintenance Battalion, 3d Corps 

Support Command, V Corps, United States AmlY Europe and Seventh Army, Gennany 

Jul 81 Oct 82 Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General, 3d Corps Support Command, V Corps, United 

States Anny Europe and Seventh Anny, Gennany 

Nov82 Jul 83 Student, Quartermaster Officer Advanced Course, United States Army Quartermaster School, 

Fort Lee, Virginia 
35 

Aug83 Jul 86 

Aug86 Dec86 

Dec 86 Jun 87 

Jun 87 Jun 89 

.lui 89 Jun 90 

Jun 901un 91 

Jun 91 May92 

Jun 92 lun 93 

.lui 931un 95 

lui 951un 96 

.lui 961un 98 

Aug 98 Jun 99 

Jun 991un 00 

Jun OOlul 02 

Jul 02 Sep 03 

Sep 03 Sop 05 

Oct 05 Oct 06 

Oct 060ct 07 

Oct 07 Aug 09 

Aug 09 lui 11 

Jul II Present 

Assistant S-3 (Plans and Operations), Division Support Command, later Commander, E 

Company (Rigger), 407th Supply and Services Battalion, later Plans Officer, G-4 (Logistics), 

82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and OPERATION URGENT FURY, 

Grenada 

Student, United States Army Logistics Management College, Fort Lee, Virginia 

Student, Florida Institute of Technology, United States Army Logistics Management Center, 

Fort Lee, Virginia 

Exchange Officer, Australian Army, with duty as Commander, Supply Services Company, 21 st 

Supply Battalion (Australian Anny), Canberra, Australia 

Student, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort LeavenwOlth, Kansas 

Chief, Officer Branch, Office of the Quartennaster General, United States Anny Quartennaster 

Center and School, Fort Lee, Virginia 

Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General, United States Army Materiel Command, 

Alexandria, Virginia 

Support Operations Officer, 702d Main Support Battalion, 2d Infantry Division, Eighth United 

States Army, Korea 

Speechwriter, Omce of the Deputy Chicf of Staff for Logistics, Unitcd States Anny, 

Washington, DC 

Executive Omcer, Division Support Command, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North 

Carolina 

Commander, 407th Forward Support Battalion, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North 

Carolina 

Student, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, FOli Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC 

Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, United States Anny, Washington, 

DC 

Commander, Division Support Command, 25th Infantry Division (Light), Schofield BalTacks, 

Hawaii 

Deputy Director, J-4, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC 

Commander, Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, Defense Logistics Agency, Philadelphia, 

Pennsylvania 

Deputy Commander, United States Army Field Support Command with duty as Commanding 

General, Army Materiel Command Forward-Southwest Asia/C-4, Coalition Forces Land 

Component Command, Kuwait 

Commanding General, 19th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), Eighth United States 

Almy. Korea 

Commanding General, 8th Theater Sustainment Command, Fort Shafter, Hawaii 

Deputy Chief of Staff, GA, United States Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia 

Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4, United States Anny, Washington, DC 

SUMMARY OF JOINT ASSIGNMENTS DATE GRADE 

Colonel 

Colonel/Brigadier 

General 

Deputy Director. J-4, The Joint Staff. Washington, DC Jul 02 - Sep 03 

Commander. Defense Supply Center Philadelphia. Defense Logistics Agency, Sep 03 - Sep 05 

Philadelphia, Pcnnsylvaniu 

SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS ASSIGNMENTS DATE 

Deputy Commander, United States Army Field Support Command \vith duty Oct 05 - Oct 06 

as Commanding General. Army Materiel Command Fonvard-South\vest 

Asia/C-4. Coalition Forces Land Component Command. Kmvait 

GRADE 

Brigadier General 
36 

STATEMENT OF 

Not public until released by the 

House Armed Services Committee 

LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM M. FAULKNER 

DEPUTY COMMANDANT, INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS 

BEFORE THE 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OCTOBER 02,2013 

Not public until released by the 

House Armed Services Committee 
37 

Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, members of the Committee, 

thank you for this opportunity to update this eommittee on the Marine Corps' 

Afghanistan equipment retrograde and reset actions. 

Your Marines take seriously our sacred oath to defend our nation, our 

Constitution and the American people. In Afghanistan, Marines continue to support the 

transition of security and responsibility to the Afghan government and people. As a 

naval force, Marines remain afloat on amphibious warships to provide forward presence, 

while engaging our allies and partners. These naval expeditionary forces are 

maneuverable and self-sustaining, operate without reliance on host country basing or over 

flight pennissions, and present our nation with flexible force options. As my 

Commandant testified to this committee just the other day, Marine Corps readiness is 

directly linked to resources and the enduring impacts of the Budget Control Act of2011 to 

include sequestration will force us to forfeit some of our long-tenn priorities to fund nearterm readiness. 

Tn my testimony today I would like to underscore the importance of our Ground 

Equipment Reset Strategy and its linkage to enduring operational readiness. Reversing 

the accelerated degradation of our ground equipment, worn over a decade of protracted 

combat in the inhospitable climates of Al Anbar and Helmand Provinces, is critical to our 

ability to execute a post-Afghanistan maintenance strategy and posture for tomorrow's 

challenging security environment. Completing the full reset of our equipment is in line 

with our tldelity to the taxpayer, and the continued availability of Overseas Contingency 

Operations or OCO funds is critical to completing our Reset Strategy. The Ground 

Equipment Reset Strategy signed by the Commandant in 2012 is one example of the 

2 
38 

Marine Corps' institutional commitment to remain ready and relevant. It's built on the 

recognition of tightening budgets and expeditious use of available OCO funds to achieve 

a properly equipped and ready force capable of conducting the full range of military 

operations. The Marine Corps is moving with a clear sense of purpose to rapidly restore 

ground equipment readiness in a fiscally conscientious manner, and we need to maintain 

the tempo that we currently have underway. In order to avoid enduring reductions to 

our overall operational readiness, we need continued funding two to three years after the 

last Marines leave the Afghanistan theater. 

When I last appeared before this Committee six months ago, the Marine Corps 

had recently completed its post-surge recovery. In the year between December 2011 and 

December 2012, the Marine Corps redeployed its 2009 surge forces and retrograded over 

39,000 associated items of equipment. Since that time, Major General Walter Miller, the 

commanding general of the Marine Corps Marine Air Ground Task Force that is in 

Afghanistan today, continues to aggressively reduce the Marine Corps equipment and 

supply footprint in Afghanistan while conducting combat operations. If you had pictures 

of our major forward operating base Camp Bastion at the height of our surge, and one of 

the same areas today, in today's picture you would sce empty lots that were once stacked 

with shipping containers and equipment, empty warehouses once filled with supplies and 

repair parts, and vacant aircraft parking ramps. To put the effort in context, since our first 

Marine Corps units redeployed at the end of 20 11, 67% of the 72,000 equipment items 

have already been removed from our Marine Corps portion of the joint and coalition 

Afghanistan battle space. We have reduced 5.35 million square feet of aviation matting to 

150 thousand square feet today. Additionally, of the over 42,000 total items retrograded 

3 
39 

to date, 60% of those are being inducted for reset actions at our depot maintenance plants 

in Albany, Georgia and Barstow, California. This underscores the importance of our 

ability to self-generate readiness through our organic Marine Corps depot maintenance 

capacity and the successful execution of our Reset Strategy in support of our Title 10 

mission. In total, we've completed reset actions on about one third of the items returned 

and these items are improving equipment readiness today. 

Tomorrow's fiscal environment will cetiainly impact our ability to complete our 

Reset strategy and we still have much to do. In FYI3, the Marine Corps was fully funded 

for reset to include an additional $120 million in depot maintenance provided by the 

Congress in HR 933. However, required maintenance conducted at our depot 

maintenance production plants was deferred as a result of the six day civilian furlough. 

It's important to point out that even seemingly nominal cuts compound increasing 

workload requirements as maintenance is deferred year to year. This will have a 

detrimental effect on readiness if funding limitations extend into FY14 and beyond. 

Maintaining near-term readiness and operational commitments will continue to 

come at the expense of investment in our modernization, infrastructure and quality of life 

accounts. For example, our ground materiel modernization investment accounts 

comprise a mere 10 percent of our baseline budget. It is the smallest modernization 

account in the Department of Defense at $2.67 billion in FYI4. Subsequently, the 

Marine Corps leverages its sister service investment plans to generate opportunities that 

promise the most operationally effective payoff. Additionally, the Marine Corps, through 

its investment budget, depends on small businesses to provide critical capabilities to give 

Marines in combat a qualitative edge over the enemy. These small businesses simply do 

4 
40 

not have the t1exibility to survive further budget reductions. Even proportional cuts will 

have disproportionate impacts to already pressurized small investment programs and on 

operational readiness. 

As I close, I want to point out that our readiness is preserved through a careful 

balance of high quality people, well-trained units, modernized equipment, well-maintained 

installations and a force level sufficient to accomplish our many missions. The Marine 

Corps recognizes the realities of the fiscal constraints before us and our responsibility to 

ensure our reset strategy places the right equipment in the right condition and at the right 

cost into the hands of the war fighter. With the continued support of Congress, the 

Marine Corps will remain ready to meet the Nation's next crisis in any clime or place. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to address this Committee. I look forward to 

your questions. 

5 
41 

Lieutenant General William M. Faulkner 

Deputy Commandant for Installations and 

Logistics 

Lieutenant General Faulkner was commissioned in 1982. 

Following completion of the Basic School and the Infantry 

Officer's Course in 1983, he was assigned to First 

Battalion, Sixth Marines where he served as a Rifle and 

Weapons Platoon Commander, Company Executive 

Officer, Battalion Adjutant and Assistant S-4 Officer. He 

was augmented into the regular Marine Corps in 1985 and 

received a directed lateral move to the logistics 

occupational field. 

From 1986-1989 he served with I st Marine Expeditionary 

Brigade as S-4 Officer with Marine Air Base 24 then as 

Assistant S-4 Officer with Marine Aircraft Group 24. 

Lieutenant General Faulkner was a distinguished graduate from the Amphibious Warfare 

School in Quantico, Virginia in 1990. From 1990-1992, he served with Brigade Service 

Support Group 4 as Assistant S-3 Operations Officer, participating in Operation DESERT 

SHIELDIDESERT STORM. Lieutenant General Faulkner later served as the S-3 

Operations Officer and was assigned to the United Nations High Commissioner for 

Refugees in the former Yugoslavia, where he participated in Operation PROVIDE 

PROMISE, coordinating the delivery of humanitarian relief into Bosnia and throughout 

Serbia. 

From 1993-1995 Lieutenant General Faulkner was assigned to Headquarters Marine 

Corps, serving as an action officer in the Logistics Plans, Policies and Strategic Mobility 

Division of the Installations and Logistics Department. Following Headquarters Marine 

Corps, he attended Air Command and Staff College in Montgomery Alabama, graduating 

with distinction in 1997. 

From 1997-1999 Lieutenant General Faulkner was assigned to United States Central 

Command where he worked in the J4/Logistics Directorate. During this tour, he 

participated in Operations SOUTHERN WATCH, DESERT FOX and NOBLE 

RESPONSE. 

From 2000-2002 Lieutenant General Faulkner served with 2d Force Service Support 

Group as the G-3 Current Operations Officer before assuming command of MEU Service 

Support Group 26, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. With the 26th MEU, he deployed to 

Afghanistan and participated in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM as part of Task 
42 

Force 58. Lieutenant General Faulkner graduated from the Industrial College of the 

Armed Forces at National Defense University in 2003. 

From 2003-2005 he was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon in the J4 

Directorate, where he worked as a Logistics Operations Officer in the National Military 

Command Center then as Section Head, Logistics Programs and Policy Division. 

In 2005 he was assigned to 2d Force Service Support Group as the Assistant Chief of 

StaffG-3. In May of 2006 he activated and assumed command of Combat Logistics 

Regiment 27. 

In November 2006 he was assigned duty as the Chief of Staff of 2d Marine Logistics 

Group (Forward) in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM 06-08 in Al Anbar 

Province, Iraq. He returned from Iraq early 2008 and assumed command of2d Marine 

Logistics Group in April. He turned over command of2d Marine Logistics Group in late 

May 2008 and reported to ITI MEF where he commanded 3d Marine Logistics Group 

from May 2008 to June 20 I O. 

From June 2010 until August 2012 Lieutenant General Faulkner served as Vice Director, 

J-4, Joint Staff. He is currently assigned as the Deputy Commandant for Installations and 

Logistics 

Lieutenant General Faulkner graduated from East Carolina University Class of 1982 

receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Business. He holds a Masters degree in 

Business from Chaminade University and a Master of Science in National Resource 

Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. 
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

OCTOBER 2, 2013 

(45) 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. HARTZLER 

General MASON. Ma’am that number represents the total aircraft we have lost 

through attrition due to combat and training losses from 2002 to January of this 

year. We lost the majority of those attritted aircraft due to combat losses. We have 

been able to officially classify the loss of 59 AH–64A/D Apache; 47 UH–60 Black 

Hawk; 44 CH/MH–47 Chinook; and 51 OH–58D Kiowa Warrior due to operations 

in Iraq and Afghanistan or during pre/post-deployment training. Since Fiscal Year 

2005, the Army has received funding to replace 190 of these families of combat loss 

aircraft. Once the Army makes the formal determination that an aircraft is a combat loss, it can take three to five years to receive a replacement aircraft back in 

the Army inventory. [See page 13.] 

General FAULKNER. Quantifying Marine Corps procurement requirements to replace equipment lost in combat in OEF: 

Ground equipment: A significant amount of the Marine Corps OEF equipment set 

has sustained battle damage or has simply been worn-out through years of hard use 

in a combat environment to the point that it is no longer possible or cost effective 

to repair. In support of retrograde and re-deployment, we continue to conduct technical inspections on equipment in Afghanistan to determine if repair is possible and/ 

or economical. Additionally, we still have equipment supporting operations that will 

likely require replacement due to repair costs nearly equaling or exceeding procurement cost. Actions to identify equipment requiring replacement are continuous. We 

have more than 1,500 equipment items (procurement cost of $24M) turned-in by our 

OEF units to date that require replacement. Based on planning factors in our Reset 

strategy for battle damage and wear rates, we estimate more than 3,000 additional 

items (estimated procurement cost of $65M) will require replacement. Ground equipment the Marine Corps is projected to replace include communications equipment, 

generators, logistics vehicle systems (heavy trucks), small arms and mortars. Aircraft: All aircraft undergo scheduled depot maintenance in order to retain air worthiness. For the duration of the war, aviation assets in theater have been continuously rotated back to depot maintenance centers in the U.S. for scheduled maintenance. Replacements have been procured for aircraft losses in OEF from 2001 to 

2013, with the exception of the following: AV–8B and CH–53D aircraft lost in 2012 

have not been replaced do to no replacements being available (the AV–8B production line is closed due to transition to the F–35B, and the CH–53D production line 

is closed due to transition to CH–53E and MV–22B). The following are USMC aircraft losses in support of OEF: 

UH–1N, Huey 2 (Utility Helicopter) 

CH–46E, Sea Knight 2 (Utility Helicopter) 

CH–53D, Super Stallion 1 (Utility Helicopter) 

CH–53E, Super Stallion 1 (Cargo Helicopter) 

AH–1W, Cobra 5 (Attack Helicopter) 

KC–130R, Hercules 1 (Cargo Transport) 

F–18C, Hornet 1 (Attack Aircraft) 

AV8–B, Harrier 7 (Attack Aircraft) 

RQ–7B, Shadow 1 (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) 

K-Max 1 (Unmanned Cargo Helicopter) 

[See page 13.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

OCTOBER 2, 2013 

(49) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Mr. WITTMAN. There has been a lot of discussion about the impacts to the industrial base, both commercial and organic, caused by sequestration. How would you 

describe the current state of the industrial base? 

General MASON. Both the commercial and organic components of the Army’s Industrial Base remain viable elements in the production and repairs of the Army’s 

equipment, while adjusting to a new environment of constrained resources and reduced demand. The decrease in demand has also resulted in excess capacity within 

the Army Organic Industrial Base (AOIB). The current fiscal environment resulted 

in a loss of critical skill sets, loss of suppliers at all tiers, and an increase in the 

number of single points of failure in the supply chain that supports Army logistics 

and AOIB operations. 

The commercial defense industry is reshaping itself to respond to significant 

changes in military missions and requirements. Major defense firms are responding 

by reducing excess capacity, streamlining processes, and revamping supplier relationships. These changes may have negative impacts on certain suppliers within the 

United States. The Army continues to work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense on the Sector by Sector-Tier by Tier analysis to evaluate impacts on all Defense Industrial Base sectors. 

The Army is focused on establishing the right balance within the Commercial and 

Organic Industrial Base to ensure that required skill sets are sustained and sufficient capacity is preserved in times of peace, along with the ability to surge during 

times of war and other emergency operations. The AOIB is developing business 

processes and policies to better align future workload to Centers of Industrial and 

Technical Excellence and effectively leverage Public Private Partnerships, modernize facilities to preserve needed capabilities in the AOIB, maximize support to 

Joint Agency and Service customers, increase efficiencies to reduce costs, and establish a framework to assess risk across the AOIB. 

Mr. WITTMAN. If resources become more limited, how will you prioritize reset 

funds between the Active and Reserve Components? 

General MASON. The Army has established a very deliberate Retrograde, Reset, 

and Redistribution (R3) process to prioritize Reset funds and restore readiness. The 

process identifies retrograde priorities to assist Army Central (ARCENT) in retrograde planning, synchronizes retrograde of equipment out of theater with its repair, 

and subsequent redistribution to support training and equipment readiness Army 

Force Generation requirements. Equipment is returned to the Force in accordance 

with the priority established by the Deputy Chief of Staff, G3 Dynamic Army Priority List which supports the next to deploy formation regardless of whether it is 

active or reserve. The intent is to ensure that those that deploy regardless of component have the most capable and reliable equipment in support of our soldiers and 

the Army mission success. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How have force structure reductions and composition changes impacted your reset plans? What respective end strengths are you using as planning 

factors? How can you be sure your reset plans meet the needs of the Army/USMC 

of the future? 

General MASON. Force structure reductions and composition changes have not significantly impacted our current Reset plans. Current end strength planning guidance requires the use of a 490K planning factor for the active force. We use end 

strength guidance as part of the Retrograde, Reset and Redistribution (R3) process 

to determine the equipment that will be reset to fill shortages. Based on this planning assumption we are adding a 3rd maneuver Battalion to each of the remaining 

Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs); eliminating only BCT headquarters. Consequently, 

the density of major end items is not significantly affected by this force structure 

change. 

The Army assesses Reset requirement annually and adjusts those requirements 

in concert with future force structure needs of the Army. 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Mason, how would recent plans to add an additional maneuver battalion to certain brigade combat teams impact your reset plans? 

General MASON. The addition of a 3rd maneuver battalion to a Brigade Combat 

Team (BCT) will not significantly impact our current Reset plans. The proposed active component force structure changes to 490k primarily affect a small number of 

equipment assigned to a BCT headquarters. The density of critical warfighting 
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equipment remains essentially unchanged. Consequently, BCT Battalion equipment 

currently deployed will still require Reset. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How important are the HASC-provided increases in the FY14 reset 

accounts to your service? What are the impacts if that increase is not realized? 

General MASON. The Army supports the FY14 President’s Budget request. The addition of HASC provided increases help mitigate the deferred maintenance bill 

caused by sequestration. In FY13 we deferred ∼$716M of depot an field-level equipment Reset, postponing the Reset of nearly 700 vehicles, almost 2,000 weapons, over 

10,000 pieces of communications equipment, Army prepositioned stocks, and numerous Soldier equipment and clothing items. 

Mr. WITTMAN. There has been a lot of discussion about the impacts to the industrial base, both commercial and organic, caused by sequestration. How would you 

describe the current state of the industrial base? 

General FAULKNER. Sequestration has had, and will continue to have, a deleterious impact on our Marine Corps industrial base. Under Secretary Hale testified 

in March 2013 that sequestration disrupted as many as 2,500 investment programs—driving up unit costs at the very time the Department is trying to hold 

them down. The persistence of sequestration will cause additional cost increases, 

schedule delays and adverse effects on our piece of the larger defense industrial 

base. 

The Marine Corps relies on the non-Department of Defense base for much of the 

research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) that nets us our advanced 

technology and systems. Sequestration is placing pressure on commercial industry’s 

ability to maintain expertise in critical technologies and core competencies, as well 

as its ability to avoid contraction, which could lead to less cost-effective solutions 

in support of our warfighting capability. The small businesses the Marine Corps relies on, either as prime or sub-prime partners, are hard-pressed to absorb delays in 

receipt of contract awards. In order to stay in business, they will need timely and 

predictable contract award actions. 

At Marine Corps Logistics Command (MCLC), our artisans perform repairs on the 

full spectrum of Marine Corps equipment. The MCLC workforce consists of skilled 

and seasoned artisans not found in commercial industry near our production plants. 

Many of these artisans require highly specialized, technical skill sets and certifications that are low-density in commercial industry and take years to develop. Examples include specialized metals and coatings workers, electro-optic workers, and 

engineers capable of design and fabrication of parts for our legacy systems that are 

no longer manufactured. If the Marine Corps is forced to make precipitous cuts to 

the MCLC workforce, it would take time to regrow the workforce and requisite skill 

sets, putting at risk our capability and capacity to surge in response to unforeseen 

contingencies. 

Mr. WITTMAN. If resources become more limited, how will you prioritize reset 

funds between the Active and Reserve Components? 

General FAULKNER. Reset funds are not prioritized between Active and Reserve 

Components. As a matter of course and based on well-established DOD OCO funding criteria, the Marine Corps annually requests OCO funds for projected war related expenses. The OCO funds provided by Congress support equipment maintenance on OEF equipment or new procurement to replace OEF combat losses. Once 

repairs are made or new procurement is received in the inventory, equipment is distributed to the Active and Reserve Components in accordance with the Commandant’s equipping priorities. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How have force structure reductions and composition changes impacted your reset plans? What respective end strengths are you using as planning 

factors? How can you be sure your reset plans meet the needs of the Army/USMC 

of the future? 

General FAULKNER. The Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration (CD&I) Department, determines the equipment requirements for our future 

force and registers those requirements as the Approved Acquisition Objective (AAO) 

within the Total Force Structure Management System (TFSMS). The Marine Corps 

Strategic Ground Equipment Reset Strategy approved by the Commandant on 1 

Jan, 2012 was based on the future force of 186K. As those requirements change, 

the accompanying FY 17 Strategic Ground Equipment Playbook also changes and 

provides the operating forces and supporting establishment with detailed overview 

of revised Marine Corps requirements and disposition plans for equipment returning 

from Afghanistan. Equipment requirements are reviewed semi-annually by our Systems Command Program Managers and Depot Maintenance planners to ensure our 

planning efforts are consistent with the future direction of the Marine Corps. 

Approved changes to force structure will also generate appropriate changes to associated equipment requirements. Those equipment changes will be reflected in 
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TFSMS and accounted for in the annual review processes mentioned above. This 

continuous review and revalidation process ensures our reset plans meet our future 

equipment requirements. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How important are the HASC-provided increases in the FY14 reset 

accounts to your service? What are the impacts if that increase is not realized? 

General FAULKNER. While the Marine Corps is grateful for Congress’ continued 

support to reset Marine Corps ground equipment, additional funds for reset in FY 

2014 would be difficult to execute in that our requested FY14 funding was carefully 

calculated based on anticipated types and amounts of planned equipment returning 

from Afghanistan. In FY13, the Marine Corps executed more than $620 million for 

depot maintenance, including $455 million for reset. The FY14 President’s budget 

request for depot maintenance is $811 million, including $570 million for reset. This 

request reflects the anticipated reset requirement for FY14. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO 

Ms. BORDALLO. Our lease to utilize the transit center at Manas as part of the 

Northern Distribution Network is slated to end in 2014. I understand from your testimony that the PAK–GLOC ground route is preferable but any closure of the NDN 

would slow our retrograde effort. To that end, are we looking at possibilities of using 

air centers in Azerbaijian? Azerbaijian is an ally and I understand that they have 

expressed an interest in providing support to our retrograde efforts. 

General MASON. Yes, we are currently using Baku, Azerbaijan to support our retrograde efforts. We have used Baku, Azerbaijan, as a multi-modal site for retrograde 

of non-critical/non-sensitive cargo out of Afghanistan since completion of Proofs of 

Principle in May 2013. The U.S. Transportation Command route allocation guidance 

dictates the minimum of 40 pieces of Rolling Stock (RS) transit Baku per month via 

the commercial multi-modal option and 36 pieces of RS transit Baku per month via 

the hybrid multi-modal option (military organic airlift and commercial surface lift). 

In addition, we plan to transition from Manas to a new passenger transit center in 

Mihail Kogalniceanu, Romania early next year in support Operation Enduring Freedom. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LOBIONDO 

Mr. LOBIONDO. I understand that the Army Aviation Fleet has been used very 

extensively during the 10 years of operation in theater . . . some have said that 

they’ve been ‘‘rode hard and put away wet’’ . . . but the Aviation RESET program 

has been very successful in repairing most of the wear on the aircraft once they 

come back from theater. However, regardless of how well the aircraft get reset we 

understand that the lifetime of these aircraft is getting used up faster than originally planned. With that as a backdrop, how long will you have to continue to conduct RESET after we’ve brought back the last of our aviation forces from Afghanistan? And how will sequestration impact this plan? Will we have to fund it for a 

longer period of time? Will our forces have to fly aircraft that have not been 

RESET? And will we continue to request Wartime Replacement Aircraft to backfill 

those that have been irreparably damaged during operations in support of OEF? An 

expedited response would be very much appreciated. 

General MASON. The Army will require OCO Reset funding for three years after 

the last piece of equipment departs Afghanistan. Depending on the Reset scope of 

efforts, Aviation Reset timelines range from 6 months for repair of desert damage 

to 18–24 months for repair of severe combat damage. 

Sequestration resulted in the deferment of 28 aircraft from FY13 to future years. 

We are unable to assess the full impact of sequestration until FY14 funding levels 

are known. This might result in extending the Reset timeline for aircraft beyond 

the original plan. 

In order to meet Reset and training goals, every aircraft is Reset within 48 

months of re-deployment. Thus, the Army will continue to utilize non-Reset aircraft 

to train crews as aircraft await induction; while at the same time, ensuring that 

our forces have the most reliable and capable aircraft. 

We will continue to request wartime replacements for aircraft that have been 

damaged beyond economical repair. 

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