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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PERSONNEL REFORM 

AND STRENGTHENING THE ALL-VOLUNTEER 

FORCE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 2, 2015 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

CHRISTIAN D. BROSE, Staff Director 

ELIZABETH L. KING, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Page 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PERSONNEL REFORM AND STRENGTHENING THE ALLVOLUNTEER FORCE ............................................................................................... 1 

Chu, Hon. David S.C., President and Chief Executive Officer, Institute for 

Defense Analysis .................................................................................................. 5 

Rostker, Hon. Bernard, Senior Fellow, Rand Corporation ................................... 11 

Hale, Hon. Robert F., Fellow, Booz Allen Hamilton ............................................. 19 

Roughead, Admiral Gary, USN [Ret.], Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution ........................................................................................ 26 

(III) 

(1) 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PERSONNEL 

REFORM AND STRENGTHENING THE ALLVOLUNTEER FORCE 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:29 a.m. in Room SDG50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John McCain (chairman) presiding. 

Committee members present: Senators McCain, Inhofe, Ayotte, 

Fischer, Cotton, Rounds, Ernst, Tillis, Sullivan, Lee, Reed, McCaskill, Manchin, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Donnelly, Hirono, Kaine, and 

King. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, CHAIRMAN 

Chairman MCCAIN. Good morning. The committee meets this 

morning to continue our series of hearings focused on defense reform. Today, we will focus on military and civilian personnel reform and how to strengthen the All-Volunteer Force in the 21st 

century. 

We’re fortunate to have a distinguished group of witnesses joining us today: The Honorable David Chu, President and CEO [Chief 

Executive Officer] of the Institute for Defense Analysis and former 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. 

David, we have a long a relationship, and we appreciate all the 

great work that you have done. 

The Honorable Bernard Rostker, who is a RAND Corporation 

Senior Fellow, also a former Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. The Honorable Robert Hale, Booz Allen 

Hamilton Fellow and former Under Secretary of Department of Defense Comptroller. And Admiral Gary Roughead, USN [United 

States Navy] [Retired], Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at 

the Hoover Institution and former Chief of Naval Operation. 

Put simply, our All-Volunteer Force is the greatest fighting force 

in human history. Any consideration of personnel reform must 

begin from that basis. And all of us, the Congress and the Department of Defense, must take great care as we consider what changes 

are needed to ensure that our force can respond to the needs of a 

new generation of warfighters and meet our future challenges. Our 

efforts must proceed from rigorous factfinding and analysis. We 

must always ask what problems we are trying to solve. We must 

always measure any reform against the military’s unique mission 

2 

of combat effectiveness. And we must always remember that what 

works for the private sector or society at large may not always 

work best for our military. 

We’ve all heard the stories of the many excellent servicemembers 

who are choosing, or being forced, to leave the military for ridiculous personnel reasons. This is a real problem. But, it’s made more 

complicated by the fact that so many talented officers and enlisted 

continue to fill the ranks of our force. All of us meet them every 

day across the country and around the world. 

The question is whether our military is able to recruit and retain 

so many excellent Americans because of its personnel system or in 

spite of it. I’m concerned that all too often it is the latter, as in the 

acquisition system and other parts of our defense organization. Too 

often, our military is losing and misusing talent because of an archaic military personnel system. Promotions are handed out according to predictable schedules with only secondary consideration 

of merit. That’s why, even after more than a decade of service, 

there is necessarily no difference in rank among officers of the 

same age. Is it really because they all perform the same or deserve 

the same rank? Jobs in the military are assigned rather than chosen. To some extent, that is necessary. After all, the mission must 

always come first. But, we should ask whether we can better support this mission by giving servicemembers more of a say in their 

assignments. 

At the Reagan Defense Forum last month, for example, the Chief 

of Staff of the Army, General Milley, described how he had met a 

soldier who spoke six languages but had been assigned as a truck 

driver. We need truck drivers, of course, but we also need first-rate 

linguists and intelligence analysts, and we need a personnel system 

that can manage our people’s talent accordingly. We should ask 

whether we should give commanders greater discretion to build a 

staff with the specialists and experts they need in the right positions. Commanders are better able to assess their needs than bureaucrats in the personnel system. 

Our military has always had an entrepreneurial culture that encourages individuals to innovate, but the military personnel system 

undermines that spirit when it mistakes upholding professionalism 

with enforcing conformity. And when high standards give way to 

a zero-defect mentality in performance evaluations, this discourages risk taking, truth-telling, and cultivation of entrepreneurial 

leaders. 

To strengthen the All-Volunteer Force, we must also review the 

promotion system, especially the requirements of the Defense Officers Personnel Management Act and the Goldwater-Nichols reforms. Previous witnesses have expressed concern that the joint 

duty requirements that a military officer must meet have contributed to the growth in headquarters staff that we have seen in recent decades as the personnel system seeks to check a series of 

boxes that may be of little value for actual career development. We 

need to review whether this requirement is meaningfully enhancing the joint capabilities of the force, and how it can be better tailored for our 21st century force. The personnel system cannot be 

and end in itself. Similarly, we must ensure that our civilian perVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:35 Aug 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\20957 WILDA
3 

sonnel system is equally capable of recruiting and retaining the 

best leaders. 

Unfortunately, there is much work to do. The USAJob system, 

for example, is an abysmal failure. We are repeatedly told by managers that they can’t hire the employees they need to fill missioncritical roles because they cannot hire qualified individuals through 

the USAJob system or because they cannot make job offers in a 

reasonable timeframe. The Department of Defense needs to devote 

more energy to resolving these hiring stalemates, not developing 

more—many bureaucracies that have so often failed before. 

Finally, a key pillar of personnel reform will continue to pertain 

to compensation. This committee has made great strides this year 

with the most sweeping reforms of our military retirement system 

in seven decades. We must bring the same rigorous bipartisan approach to the task of reforming the military health system next 

year. If we do nothing, the Congressional Budget Office projects 

that defense healthcare costs will devour about 11 percent of the 

defense budget in 2028. This is staggering. Every dollar that the 

Department of Defense spends on healthcare is a dollar that can’t 

be spent on training and equipping our warfighters. 

While we need to slow the growth of defense health spending, the 

primary focus of our reform efforts must be to create a better 

healthcare system for servicemembers, military families, and retirees by improving access to care, quality of care, and health outcomes. We must identify and eliminate waste in the military 

healthcare system and evaluate the organizational structure of the 

services’ medical departments, with an eye toward making them 

flatter, more efficient, and more responsive. In some cases, we may 

need to eliminate some organizations where infrastructure—while 

ensuring that we maintain and improve medical readiness. 

With these and other reforms, we can make the military health 

system perform better for beneficiaries and more sustainable for 

the Department of Defense. It’s often said that America’s greatest 

military advantage is its people. That is not a talking point, it’s a 

reality. We will consider input from all sides throughout this process, starting with our witnesses today. 

I thank you for your willingness to appear before the committee, 

and I look forward to your testimony. 

Senator Reed. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED 

Senator REED. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me join you in thanking the witnesses for being here today, 

but, more importantly, for your extraordinary service to the Nation. 

You have come with great expertise and insights to address a very 

important topic. 

The committee has held a series of hearings to review the organizational structure of the Department. Experts have testified the 

importance of streamlining our defense acquisition process, reevaluating the roles and missions of the services, ensuring effective 

management of the Department, and in the formulation of our defense strategy and future force structure. But, I believe today’s 

hearing may be among the most important this committee will convene during our review. 

4 

The men and women who make up the All-Volunteer Force remain this committee’s top concern. Any changes we recommend to 

the processes, structure, and organization of the Department of Defense, or to the benefits structure, will not matter if we don’t provide the Nation with a sufficiently sized, trained, and equipped 

military of the necessary quality, of the character and talent to 

meet national defense requirements. 

To that end, Congress has, for several years, considered various 

proposals for changes in compensation and healthcare to slow the 

growth of personnel costs so that those savings could be redirected 

to buy back readiness and modernization shortfalls. The Department has consistently, over the past several decades, proposed a 

budget in which military personnel costs comprise roughly 33 percent, or a third, of that budget. In 1980, this third devoted to military personnel bought an Active Duty strength of over 2.1 million. 

Today, with the total DOD [Department of Defense] budget that is 

hundreds of billions of dollars higher, that third only buys 1.2 million Active Duty members. And that figure continues to fall, and 

will likely drop further if rising personnel costs are not constrained. 

In my view, hard choices will need to be made, especially in the 

budget environment we find ourselves. We made some difficult 

choices this year, as the Chairman pointed out, through his bipartisan leadership. They included the enactment of a retirement benefit for tomorrow’s force. But, we need to do more. I am concerned, 

frankly, that we are pricing ourselves out of a military that is sufficiently sized and trained to accomplish national defense objectives. 

I look forward to any recommendations the witnesses may have for 

addressing the increasing personnel costs. 

With regard to the management of military personnel, it is time 

to reevaluate whether the Defense Officer Personnel Management 

System, commonly referred to as DOPMA, continues to meet the 

needs of our military services. The ‘‘up or out’’ promotion system 

is 70 years old, and, in many respects, it has worked, and continues 

to work, well. It ensures promotion opportunity for talented young 

servicemembers as they progress in their careers. But, it also has 

its weaknesses. In some circumstances, it requires divestiture of 

talent at its peak. It may not be the right system for highly technical occupations, such as cyberexperts, pilots, doctors, or special 

operators in whom we may have invested millions of dollars in 

training. It relies on a cohort- based system that may be outdated. 

Joint professional education requirements, a signature element of 

the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, may, in some cases, be so substantial that servicemembers have difficulty fitting in all the required training, joint assignments, and command assignments 

needed for professional development. I hope that our witnesses can, 

first and foremost, identify what problems exist within the military 

personnel management system and compensation system, and offer 

proposed solutions to these problems that Congress and the Department of Defense should consider to bring our military personnel up to date. 

I thank you all for your time, your expertise, and, most importantly, your great service to the Nation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

5 

Chairman MCCAIN. Welcome, Dr. Chu. Thank you for appearing 

again before the committee. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID S.C. CHU, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSIS 

Dr. CHU. Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is a privilege, indeed, to 

be part of the panel this morning. 

I do have a prepared statement that I hope can be made part of 

the record. 

Chairman MCCAIN. All prepared statements will be made part of 

the record. 

Dr. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I should emphasize that the comments I make are entirely my 

own views, not necessarily the position of the institution that I currently serve. 

It’s my belief that decisions about the issues that you and Senator Reed have outlined and the committee is confronting ultimately should be rooted in a set of choices about the kind of military force we want for the future 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. And 

the characteristics of that force will ultimately, in my estimation, 

determine what kinds of personnel we need and how we should 

prepare those personnel for their responsibilities. 

In my estimation, one of the high-payoff, high-leverage opportunities lies, from both a performance and a cost perspective, in the 

decision about the mix of personnel types for the future. To what 

degree do we want to rely on Active Duty military personnel? 

What’s the role of the Reserve components? What should be the 

proper level of Federal civilian staffing? And to what extent do we 

want to use civilians engaged through contractor arrangements of 

one sort or another? I might emphasize that those arrangements 

exhibit a great variety of characteristics, and, in some ways, we 

might usefully experiment with additional varieties of contractor 

arrangements, going forward. 

The Department today, institutionally, does not make this decision in a holistic manner. It decides each of—it decides how much 

of each community it desires separately. So, military end strength 

is considered at one point, civilians are a decentralized hiring decision left largely to the field, and so on and so forth. So, it does not 

examine the trade-offs among these personnel, which I think 

present extraordinary opportunities for the country. 

Looking at the likely effect of budget constraints, it’s my—that 

the Department will probably choose to rely more heavily on Reserve components of one fashion or another, and perhaps look at 

a different role for civilians, especially Federal civilians. 

In managing these communities, it would be my plea that we 

move away from the implicit premise of the current systems, which 

is one-size-fits-all, as you pointed out in your opening statement. 

It’s particularly true of other officer management system, DOPMA. 

My urging would be to encourage experimentation within the waiver authority the Department already possess under a declaration of 

national emergency and 2 years thereafter, although Congress 

could grant an additional waiver authority, if it so chose, and encourage its actual use. In fact, the Department could begin with exVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:35 Aug 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\20957 WILDA
6 

periments on the enlisted force side, because most of the enlisted 

force rules are a product of policy, not a product of statute. 

Now, as you look at the civilian management issue, in my estimation—and you pointed out this issue, Mr. Chairman, in your 

statements about USAJobs—most important—one of the most important issues is appointing authority. Department does not have, 

under Title 5 of the various Federal Civil Service systems, operates 

the latter two to appoint, and to appoint properly, that I think is 

needed in today’s environment. 

In fact, Secretary Carter is fond of pointing out that, except for 

the fact that the office in which he got his first DOD job had extraordinary appointing authority, special appointing authority, he 

could not have been hired by the Department of Defense as a 

young academic. 

I also believe that we ought to look at investing more energetically in our civilian workforce. It’s quite ironic, in the Department of Defense, on the military side, we have a well-established 

and much-admired training education system on the civilian side. 

We leave the employees’ department largely to their own devices. 

I endorse what you underlined, Mr. Chairman, and that Secretary Carter has opened the door upon with his Force of the Future speech, and that is, a greater us of volunteers in self-selection. 

Give the individual greater voice in his or her future assignments, 

further training, education, et cetera. 

On the compensation front, the Congressional Budget Office has 

long pointed out that the military system puts too much in deferred 

compensation and pays too much in kind. And we know that compensation is much more effective if it’s in cash and it’s up front. 

And the changes made by the Congress this year to the retirement 

system move in that constructive direction. In fact, in my estimation, they open the possibility of a much wider range of experience targets for the Department by skill area that’s much more responsive to issues like the need for cyber personnel that Senator 

Reed—to which Senator Reed pointed. 

I do think further—a further look should be taken at how we 

treat single personnel in the military. They make up just under 

half the force. Much of their compensation is really in kind, because, at the junior level, especially, about one-third of the package 

is the housing allowance, and they must surrender that housing allowance in order to live in the barracks. Because we tell them to 

live in the barracks, we know from similar results that living in the 

barracks is not one of the great attractions of military service. 

On the civilian front, in compensation, I plead for a return to the 

use of pay bands to give the Department greater flexibility in civilian compensation so that in areas of high cost, high demand for 

certain skills, it can pay more competitively; in areas where there 

isn’t the same situation, it could be more austere in its compensation choices. 

Whatever compensation system we select, I would urge that we 

set and honor the expectations that’s established. I’m very concerned about the actions of the last several years in which, often, 

changes the compensation have a flavor of being arbitrary and 

driven by budget considerations. And I think it’s important that we 

set a standard and keep to that standard so that the young people 

7 

who join the American military establishment understand the future that they have selected, and are enthusiastic about that 

choice. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Chu follows:] 

THE PREPARED STATEMENT BY DR. DAVID S. C. CHU

CREATING 21ST CENTURY PERSONNEL AND COMPENSATION SYSTEMS FOR THE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: It is a privilege to participate in 

this morning’s panel. The views I express are entirely my own, and should not be 

interpreted as reflecting any position on the part of the Institute for Defense Analyses. 

In my judgment, ‘‘human capital’’—people, their skills and esprit—lie at the heart 

of any successful military endeavor. Deciding whom you want to serve in your military establishment, how you wish to develop their ‘‘capital’’, and how you expect 

them to perform, are essential elements in meeting the nation’s security needs. The 

answers to these questions, in turn, should derive from the future military at which 

you wish to aim, the capabilities you wish it to possess, and the challenges you believe it must be ready to confront. 

Those answers include basic decisions about how many actually wear a uniform 

(and are therefore governed by the laws of war), how many will be civilian employees of the national military establishment (therefore performing with the authority 

of the government), and how the private sector might provide key services on which 

both military and civilian functions depend, perhaps in a partnership arrangement. 

For each community, you will want to specify the characteristics of the personnel 

you wish to recruit, the preparation and ongoing education and training they should 

receive, and the service trajectory you expect them to follow. 

Grounding the human capital debate in the force you desire also implies it is the 

force characteristics that should drive personnel policies, not the other way around. 

This is especially true as today’s evolving technology and international security environments alter US needs. It is the responsibility of the compensation system, 

broadly defined, to produce these desired force characteristics. A key element is the 

competitiveness of compensation, both military and civilian, with non-government 

opportunities. And from the enterprise perspective, there is an appropriate concern 

with costs. 

The ultimate cost issue, of course, is not military compensation alone, but what 

is required overall to operate the Department. Operating costs dominate the Department’s budget requirements. They are driven by military equipment decisions (including the reliability of that equipment); by business practices (including, for example, the statutory floor for government depot work, and the impediments to A–76 

competitions); and by choices on the mix of active military, Reserve Component military, federal civilian, and contractor personnel. 

CHOOSING THE MIX

On the last set of issues (the staffing mix), Secretary Carter recently called for 

more ‘‘permeability’’—if I understand correctly, to attract a wider variety of experience and backgrounds in both military and federal civilian personnel. He announced 

a series of initiatives to address this issue. Some of those confront what his Acting 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness has identified, the difficulties created by the federal civilian personnel system, including those involving appointing authority. 

The Department faces two obstacles in considering the optimal mix of personnel, 

one a planning challenge, one institutional. The planning challenge is defining the 

structure—the nature—of the force of the future. The Department has struggled to 

meet this challenge since the end of the Cold War, with its initial responses a 

scaled-down version of its prior choices (Base Force, Bottom-Up Review). Besides the 

growth of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance force elements (including 

cyber), that remains, as a generalization, the case today. Much of the structure is 

aimed at high-end, state-on-state conflict, for which we must be prepared, but with 

little devoted to the challenges we face immediately. The structure emphasizes the 

ability to destroy targets, not necessarily the ability to secure the political or political-military outcomes we desire. Securing a broader range of capabilities within 

8 

likely budget limits may require accepting hedges vice full-up solutions, perhaps involving greater use of Reserve Component authorities (conceivably new authorities), 

and of civilians. 

The second obstacle is institutional. The Department’s planning processes, as long 

constituted, do not adequately consider the ‘‘total force’’ solution space in arriving 

at the mix. Military personnel are decided and budgeted for in terms of a central 

account (end strength), and once the strength level is established, military personnel 

are ‘‘free’’ to the using elements of DOD. (Conversely, they cannot easily trade military personnel for federal civilians or contractors.) In this situation, it is not surprising that in most Military Departments the demand for military personnel, as 

substantiated in various manning documents, exceeds the planned supply, especially 

for active duty forces. 

At the other extreme sit federal civilians. Their numbers are decided on a largely 

decentralized basis, but often restrained to produce budgetary savings through ceilings (notwithstanding the statutory provision barring such a practice outside of 

management headquarters). That leaves contracted services as the safety valve, as 

organizations strive to meet their needs with the funds available. 

Repeated analyses demonstrate that there are significant gains possible from a 

more systematic approach to deciding on the total force mix. 

It would be easy to paint too discouraging a picture about the tradeoff process, 

and only fair to note some of the exceptions. One interesting development is the Air 

Force’s pursuit of composite units, staffed with a mix of active, National Guard and 

Reserve personnel, benefitting from the differing levels of service that can reasonably be expected from each community. Another is the long-standing Inherently 

Governmental/Commercial Activity database maintained by DOD, which allows you 

to examine military-civil tradeoffs (and whose results have long argued DOD could 

make greater use of civilians). Particular Secretaries of Defense have taken an interest in this issue, whether Secretary Rumsfeld in military-civilian trades (to conserve military personnel for the Long War) and in competitive sourcing (an initiative of the George W. Bush administration), or the in-sourcing initiative launched 

by Secretary Gates. The last two, of course, are now restricted by statutory restraints. 

Staffing mix issues extend beyond broad categories of personnel to include structural issues within each community. For example, the Army has long solved the conundrum of ‘‘up or out’’ in the context of a pilot force (high training costs, substantial payoff to experience, implying long cockpit tours) by staffing extensively with 

warrant officers, reserving just a few billets for (classically) commissioned officers 

who are groomed for leadership positions. Presumably, as the military becomes 

more highly technical this mechanism—or its analog, the Navy’s Limited Duty Officer—could be used more extensively. Mechanisms like these might be used to 

strengthen the cyber force, and other areas such as intelligence, language and cultural expertise, science and technology, and acquisition. 

Indeed, as one opens the aperture on personnel types it’s quite possible that some 

duties that are now thought to require officers could be performed by enlisted personnel, given the high aptitude and performance standards of the All-Volunteer 

Force. The current Air Force Chief of Staff, as you know, has speculated about their 

possible utilization to meet some piloting needs. Indeed, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps already use enlisted personnel to operate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. 

MANAGING THE MIX

The Committee has expressed its interest in possibly reconsidering provisions of 

the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), or the Act in its entirety. 

I would urge that we first focus on the different results that are desired, and analyze the degree to which it is the statutory provisions that make it difficult to 

achieve those results, versus the manner in which the Act is implemented. If alternate regimes appear attractive, the Department might experiment with those regimes (through existing or new waiver authority, or pilot programs), to understand 

their possible unintended consequences, before making them permanent. 

While key elements of enlisted management parallel that for officers, the rules are 

largely driven by policy, not statute. Enlisted personnel, of course, constitute the 

vast majority of the force. Perhaps the management paradigm for this element 

should receive our attention first. 

The challenges of the last fifteen years have demonstrated the value of agility— 

agility at the individual level, and agility on the part of defense institutions. American military personnel, starting with the Battle of Bunker Hill, have been known 

for their agility. Could we do even better, whether via the standards we set for recruiting, or the manner in which we prepare the force? 

9 

In thinking about managing the mix in a more agile fashion, the Department 

should be willing to consider hybrid vehicles—vehicles that embrace the strengths 

of the different personnel communities. Secretary Carter points in this direction 

with his emphasis on Intergovernmental Personnel Act appointments, but more ambitious models might also be considered. These include the British notion of sponsored reserves (contractor operations in which all personnel hold Reserve Component appointments, and can be shifted to a military status as theater circumstances 

require), and Government Sponsored Enterprises, where the government retains 

control but creates an entity that can operate like a private sector actor (the Saint 

Lawrence Seaway is viewed as one of the more successful examples, I believe). 

One issue that has not received the attention it deserves is strengthening the 

skills of existing federal civilians over the course of their careers. The contrast in 

DOD could not be more striking: Significant investments in further education and 

training for military personnel, very limited opportunities for civilians. Some of this 

result derives from the strictures of civil service rules, some from the lack of budgetary allocations to support the necessary costs. Greater investment in federal civilian ‘‘human capital’’ should pay handsome dividends in long-term performance, and 

in the ability to recruit and retain the talent that Secretary Carter is properly seeking. 

MILITARY AND CIVIL COMPENSATION

Economic principles and actual experience highlight six characteristics of an effective compensation system: 

—Cash compensation is more attractive than compensation in kind 

—Compensation now is more attractive than compensation later 

—Incentives for special situations (e.g., certain skills, or hard-to-till positions) are 

more efficient than across-the-board solutions—especially if implemented through a 

flexible versus a ‘‘hard-wired’’ system 

—Clarity about the incentives you’re offering (and the compensation system as a 

whole) is critical 

—Expectations about future compensation importantly drive current results 

—Recognizing individual preferences (‘‘volunteerism’’) can produce a much more 

satisfied team, and lower long-run compensation costs 

As the Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, the military compensation 

system does not score well on these criteria. The civilian compensation system may 

be better—but not much, in my judgment. 

The current military pay system does offer the Department some flexibility, 

thanks to the considerable leeway Title 10 gives the Department in deciding the 

amounts and application of various special and incentive pays. But the same is not 

as true for federal civilians, because of the reliance on the General Schedule structure. 

It is also important to acknowledge that compensation includes more—sometimes 

much more—than pecuniary rewards. One of the most important, of course, is pride 

and satisfaction in serving the country. Recognition of such service is critical—and 

it is also critical to keep in mind the effect of all conditions of service on the willingness to join, the willingness to continue serving, and the enthusiasm with which 

that service is rendered. ‘‘Conditions of service’’ embraces a wide range of personnel 

and non-personnel decisions, ranging from how assignments are made, to the frequency of change and the length of less desirable or more difficult assignments, to 

education and training opportunities, to the quality (and quantity) of equipment 

provided, and to the excellence of leadership. 

An important condition of service is the individual’s ability to influence his or her 

future—to choose, rather than be ‘‘assigned’’. Civilians enjoy considerable latitude 

in this regard (even if civil service realities can make it difficult), military personnel 

less so. The Navy’s administration of 

Assignment Incentive Pay is a notable exception to this generalization, as are 

some long-standing de facto processes of the Reserve Components. Secretary Carter 

points the way to increased reliance on the volunteer spirit, endorsing the concept 

pioneered by the Army with its ‘‘Green Pages’’ experiment. 

For military personnel, one of the most important conditions of service involves 

the post-service transition. In our system, the principal responsibility for that transition lies with the Department of Veterans Affairs; thus its substantial resources 

(over $160 billion in fiscal year 2015) and their most effective employment should 

not be ignored in any reform agenda. (The Dole-Shalala Commission, for example, 

urged major changes that the Congress declined to adopt.) Within the Department 

of Defense’s set of responsibilities, the recent decision to strengthen the Transition 

Assistance Program is worth noting—encouraging uniformed personnel to start 

10 

thinking about their post-service interests early in the military career. Such early 

reflection presumably will help guide their education and training choices. 

The ‘‘force of the future’’ may look different from today’s, reflecting both changing 

needs (think cyber), and the changing nature of our society (think opportunities for 

women, and changing views of what constitutes a career). As we contemplate 

change, however, it is worth reiterating that the current system sustained a successful all-volunteer force in the concluding stage of the Cold War, in its immediate 

aftermath (including the First Persian Gulf War), and in the long period of armed 

conflict that followed the attacks of 9/11. There are clearly elements that have 

worked well, or that have adapted effectively. 

Perhaps the most important success was recognizing that the compensation ’’package’’ must remain competitive. Since we anticipate that real compensation in the 

private sector will grow over time, so will federal compensation. Those joining need 

to know that the political system will act consistently with that reality (e.g., for 

military compensation, sustaining the competitive standards set out by the Ninth 

Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation), and forbear from making what appear to be arbitrary changes to the trajectory of compensation as a source of nearterm budget savings. 

A focus on the competitive status of compensation also implies that adjustments 

to military and federal civil pay packages (e.g., the pay tables) will not necessarily 

be identical. That is in sharp contrast to the practice of recent and earlier years, 

in which across-the-board adjustments are matched. 

Competitive compensation will not be the same for all skill areas. The American 

military system confronts this reality using its bonus authority. While there are 

bonus authorities for civilians, they are not widely employed by most federal agencies, and may not provide the same flexibility of response. Hence proposals to replace the General Schedule with broad pay bands for federal civilians, allowing civilian compensation to adjust for local and skill realities. 

Much recent attention has focused on the cost of military personnel. The reform 

of military retirement you’ve just adopted moves more of the reward ‘‘up front’’, creating not only a more efficient program (with some cost savings), but one that allows the Department to vary career length by skill area, as operational needs argue 

should be the case. The prior system encouraged a ‘‘one size fits all’’ mentality, with 

the result that some skill areas had a more senior force than might be optimal, 

while others suffered from a lack of needed experience, despite the Department’s efforts to rebalance through the use of retention incentives. 

The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission, whose 

recommendations Congress considered in making its changes, also proposed a revised military medical benefit. While the proposed change would give military 

households more choice, and promised some potentially substantial savings, it would 

also move modestly more compensation to immediate cash (in the health expenditure accounts created), whereas the current benefit is paid entirely in kind—a compensation mechanism we know is less efficient. 

One issue the Commission did not address is the disparity between the compensation for single personnel, versus those with dependents—perhaps five to ten percent 

for junior personnel, measured by Regular Military Compensation (RMC). Moreover, 

RMC imputes the ‘‘value’’ of living in the barracks as equal to the housing allowance 

foregone (about one third of the total); we know from survey results that required 

living in barracks housing is actually a detriment to military recruiting. Would overall costs increase if single personnel were paid at the same rate as those with dependents? Not necessarily, since there would be offsetting cost reductions in other 

elements of compensation (e.g., health care). Indeed, over the long run it might well 

reduce costs. Such equilibration, coupled with a revised barracks residency policy, 

amounts to a targeted (i.e., more efficient) pay change, likely to ease the Army’s current recruiting difficulty. 

CONCLUSIONS

The time is long past for a fundamental re-examination of the appropriate mix 

of personnel types in the military establishment, as a prelude to deciding what personnel management reforms may be needed for the future military establishment. 

It is the nature of the future military establishment that should be the starting 

point, guiding the discussion on personnel types. Perhaps this debate could unfold 

in the context of whatever national security transition plan a new administration 

adopts, particularly as it conducts its Quadrennial Defense Review. 

With the caveat that those choices have not been made, it may be useful to advance some hypotheses that could be explored in the interim as a basis for any immediate decisions the Committee wishes to consider. On the mix issue: 

11 

• It is likely that more Reserve Component and federal civilians will be desired, 

the latter requiring more flexible appointing and pay authorities. • It is possible that more use of ‘‘intermediate’’ personnel—i.e., senior enlisted, 

warrants, LDOs [Limited Duty Officer]—will be attractive in staffing certain 

military needs, creating a viable approach to ‘‘up or stay’’ while preserving 

the best features of ‘‘up or out’’ for those being considered for senior leadership positions. • It is conceivable that hybrid staffing arrangements will be sometimes be attractive, e.g., composite units, or Government Sponsored Enterprises (e.g, for 

the DOD overseas Kindergarten–12 school system). 

On compensation: 

• Moving more military compensation to cash vice in kind should improve recruiting and retention. Likewise making more cash available earlier in a career would be meritorious, as the retirement reform just enacted permits the 

Department to do. • Harnessing individual preferences to the needs of the organization, consistent 

with the spirit of Secretary Carter’s demarche, will help restrain long-term 

compensation costs. • Creating greater flexibility in setting civilian pay levels would allow DOD to 

respond better to local market conditions (with savings in some areas financing increases in others). 

• Stabilizing expectations by adopting and honoring a long-run compensation 

strategy for both military and civilian personnel should help recruiting and 

retention—and morale. 

As these hypotheses imply, much of what’s needed lies in the province of the Executive Branch of our government, above all to organize the institutional mechanisms within which good decisions can be made, including recommendations for 

statutory action where needed. There is no more important set of decisions, if the 

United States is to enjoy in the future as fine a military as defends us today. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Rostker. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BERNARD ROSTKER, SENIOR FELLOW, 

RAND CORPORATION 

Dr. ROSTKER. Thank you, Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Reed and members of this distinguished committee. 

It’s my pleasure and honor to be asked to testify today on this 

very important issue. As you know, I’ve spent my whole professional life working in this area, and have often written about our 

need to reform the system, so I welcome this opportunity to further 

discuss this today. 

In many ways, the need for reform has been obscured because, 

by and large, the system we have today has produced a superb professional military. The problem as I see it is that we could have 

done it better, perhaps at less cost, but certainly, in terms of meeting the needs of our servicemembers and their families. Moreover, 

as the threat and our needed capabilities evolve, the only way to— 

of doing business in the future is likely to be less effective as we 

move—as it has been in the past. The trick here is to understand 

the current system, how it operates, what needs to be changed. To 

use an old cliche, we must not throw the baby out with the bath 

water. 

Rethinking the kind of military we want, and how to achieve 

that what some have called ‘‘the force of the future’’ is needed, and 

your hearing today is very timely. 

I’ve prepared a longer statement, but I want to highlight for you 

here six points that I think are critical as you move forward. 

The first imperative is that you look at changing the system. You 

ask what will be the impact of the experience profile of the force 

12 

10 and 20 years in the future. For the vast majority of our military 

workforce, the people we recruit today will be the journeymen we 

need 10 years from now and the leaders we need 20 years from 

now. While in some specific areas, new programs of lateral entry 

may provide added flexibility, the vast majority of military skills 

will still be in at the bottom and up through the rank. 

Second, the plain fact is that the military we build today must 

be capable of winning wars in the future. But, we don’t know when 

that might be. In the aggregate, the year of service profile is the 

best indicator of the readiness of the force to go to war at any point 

of time in the future. Maintaining the appropriate experience profile is critical. 

Third, the key to achieving the needed experience profile over 

time is maintaining an adequate flow of people into and through 

the force over time. We have done this with the so-called ‘‘up or 

out’’ promotion system. While there are many ways such a system 

can be managed, there must be a way of ensuring sufficient turnover to constantly revitalize the force. The flow out of the force 

should not be just at the end of a career. Our enlisted and officer 

personnel need to progress or leave. They must not be allowed to 

stagnate in place. 

Fourth, the one thing that distinguishes the military personnel 

system from our private sector or our government civilian personnel system is we have the tools needed to maintain the required 

personnel profile over time. Some have argued that we should institute a system that allows people to stay in place as long as they 

adequately perform in their jobs. The ultimate example of such a 

system is our current civilian personnel system, but I don’t know 

anyone who thinks that that system has been so successful it 

should be the model for the military. For our military, if 

servicemembers do not advance, they must be sent home to make 

room for the next generation, because it is the next generation and 

the one that comes after that that will carry the fight in the future. 

Fifth, many of today’s critics warn of a brain drain, projecting 

that some may claim—and they—some claim many bright young 

people will leave the military frustrated because of the service are 

not making the appropriate use of their talents. However, the more 

significant issue is the larger drain that is the systematic expulsion 

of talented officers who, regardless of experience and skills, who 

are forced out at 30 years of service or those who leave earlier than 

30 years of service, anticipating that they will be forced out at 30— 

at the 30-year mark, which generally equates to a chronicle— 

chronological age at about 52 or in the early 50s. I’ve written extensively about this problem and, even when I was Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, tried to address 

this, but to no avail. 

Sixth, and lastly, it might seem strange to you for me to be arguing that we must maintain the flow of personnel through the military just as I’m saying that in select areas we should extend careers. But, I assure you that there is nothing contradictory in what 

I am proposing. Today, DOPMA gives us a one-size-fits-all personnel system for officers. While we can manage different occupational groups separately in what is called ‘‘competitive categories,’’ 

the career structure for each category is the same. To me, that 

13 

1The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author’s alone and should 

not be interpreted as representing those of RAND or any of the sponsors of its research. This 

product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND testimonies record testimony 

presented by RAND associates to federal, state, or local legislative committees; government-appointed commissions and panels; and private review and oversight bodies. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that 

address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. 2This testimony is available for free download at http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/ 

CT446.html. 

makes no sense. Without arguing the merits of longer careers for 

the combat arms, I am certain that our specialty corps, such as intelligence, medical, chaplain, acquisition, and many more, including, in the future, cyber, do not need to adhere to the standard 

DOPMA structure of promotion timing, opportunity, and tenure, 

which reflects our thinking about youth and vigor in the 1940s. 

To summarize this quick overview of reforming the military personnel system, here are a few points that I think this committee 

should keep in mind: keep your eye on the future, particularly 

what changes will do to the experience profile of the force; maintain the desired experience profile over time; ensure adequate flow 

of personnel; maintain the basic concept of ‘‘up or out′′; be as flexible and permissive as possible to allow the services to better manage the assignment of people; and then lengthen careers beyond 30 

years of service, particularly for specialty corps. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify before you today, and I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rostker follows:] 

THE PREPARED STATEMENT BY BERNARD D. ROSTKER 1

REFORMING THE AMERICAN MILITARY OFFICER PERSONNEL SYSTEM 2

The military personnel system in place today is fundamentally the same one put 

into place after World War II, with minor modifications for officers provided by the 

passage of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980, or DOPMA. 

Many, including myself, have argued that this system is outdated—reflecting industrial-age thinking in the information age—and point to what they see as a drain 

of talent. The fundamental problem that most can agree on is that a one-size-fitsall system cannot provide the range of competencies that will be needed in the future. However, what a new system might look like is far from settled. 

Recent books and magazine articles include critiques of the current system that 

call for a new regime. These publications are replete with stories of frustrated 

bright young people leaving the military because the services both force them into 

assignments that they do not think make appropriate use of their talents and require them to adhere to a rigid path of advancement that is inflexible. The favorite 

villain in this story is the so-called up-or-out promotion system. While these stories 

are individually compelling and collectively paint a bleak picture of the future of the 

American military, they generally come up short in describing how an alternative 

system might operate or how eliminating up-or-out might produce the desired force 

of the future—or, for that matter, what the desired force of the future should even 

look like. What is needed is an understanding of the current system, how it operates, and what needs to be changed. To use an old clich ̋, we must not throw the 

baby out with the bath water. 

It is important to recognize that there are at least two places where talented individuals are leaving the military: There is the oft-cited exodus of junior officers (although many talented individuals choose to stay), but there is also the less-cited 

systematic exodus of officers—not only those who are forced out at 30 years of commissioned service regardless of experience and skills, but also those who leave before that, anticipating that they will be forced out at 30 years of service. Given the 

way officers are commissioned through the military academies or through ROTC 

[Reserve Officer Training Corps], this generally equates to forcing out officers who 

are in their early fifties. It is important to note that the way we lose junior officers 

14 

is largely because of the way the assignment system is managed, but the way we 

lose talented senior officers largely has to do with the way the personnel system is 

designed. The ability to address the retention problem among junior officers is largely in the hands of the services and the way they manage assignment; addressing 

the retention of senior officers means Congress would have to consider whether it 

would change the way careers are structured. 

PROCEDURAL CHANGES IN THE ASSIGNMENT SYSTEM

Today’s critics charge that the services’ central personnel assignment system is 

a failure because it neither adequately recognizes the special attributes an individual can bring to a job nor takes individual preferences into account; further, it 

does not provide all candidates an equal chance of being assigned to the positions 

most important to advancement. Critics maintain that a decentralized system where 

each candidate could self-nominate for any job and is eligible for all jobs would better foster the principles of talent management. Let’s look at these claims in some 

detail. 

KNOWING WHAT’S NEEDED

The military’s human resource management system is actually made up of two 

complementary systems most often managed by two different organizations: one 

that focuses on job or billet requirements (most often referred to as the manpower 

system), and another that focuses on providing qualified people who meet the specifications laid out by the manpower system (most often referred to as the personnel 

system). The assignment system is the bridge between the two as it tries to put the 

right face in the right space. Any special attributes possessed by an individual service member—often referred to as his/her knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) or 

competencies—may make little difference in his/her assignment unless these attributes are recognized in the job or billet description. In a small number of cases, 

information about a service member that is not on the record but is known to senior 

personnel may be taken into account, but for the vast majority of officers, the match 

is made based upon the stated job description. Therefore, the first requirement for 

better matching the unique qualities of young officers is for the services to expand 

the range and improve the specificity of attributes that are included as part of a 

job description. 

Expanding job descriptions, however, is problematic, with the Army’s recent 

Green-Pages proof-of-concept pilot test serving as a clear example. The pilot tested 

a largely decentralized assignment system, where individuals presented themselves 

for reassignment and units advertised their opening to improve matches. That was 

the way it was supposed to operate, at least. In actuality, the pilot test showed that 

units required ‘‘a great deal of follow-up encouragement,’’ and even with all the encouragement that resulted from this being a pilot test, half of the officers who participated thought that the job information was ‘‘too sparse.’’ There are many reasons 

that units fail to differentiate jobs adequately, but little progress can be made until 

the services better articulate what is required and what skills will be needed in the 

future. Two examples may illustrate this point. A former Air Force personnel chief 

recently recounted how he was told that the Air Force needed more officers with 

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) backgrounds, at a time when 

there were more STEM qualified officers then there were billets to which they could 

be assigned. Assuming that that Air Force did, in fact, need more officers with 

STEM backgrounds, this need must be reflected in the descriptions of Air Force jobs 

to have any validity for recruiting new personnel. Similarly, the Army’s senior commander in Europe recently discussed his need for more soldiers who could speak 

Russian and other eastern European languages. The system can only respond, however, if such a need is translated into job requirements. 

ACCOMMODATING INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES

Meeting the assignment preferences of individual service members can be challenging, and all too often, the process appears to force people into assignments that 

they don’t want. One often hears that there are less-desirable jobs that must be 

filled and the assignment systems must fair-share them among the entire force. But 

this fair-sharing approach doesn’t take service member preferences into account. 

The Navy, for example, has found a way to compensate volunteers for such jobs by 

allowing qualified sailors to bid for these jobs, with the winning bidder being the 

one willing to take the smallest cash bonus to fill the position. Recent research at 

15 

3 Craig A. Bond, Jennifer Lamping Lewis, Henry Leonard, Julia Pollak, Christopher Guo and 

Bernard Rostker, Tour Lengths, Permanent Changes of Station, and Alternatives for Savings 

and Improved Stability, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR–1034–OSD, 2015. 

RAND 3 has shown that a similar auction system could be used to induce members 

to extend in place in overseas assignments. Nevertheless, the services have been 

slow in taking up such incentives and ideas to help them sort out the assignment 

system and gain the potential to satisfy assignment requirements while making 

service members better off by aligning assignments with preferences. More can be 

done. 

OPENING UP ASSIGNMENTS FOR ALL?

Another often-heard complaint is that the current system does not consider all 

qualified service members for all jobs, including the most critical and career-enhancing jobs. But one can challenge whether the assignment system should do this. 

While I am sure there are ways to improve the visibility of the talents of all members of the force, the plain fact is there are fewer positions at the top than there 

are at the bottom. Moreover, in order to ensure that future leaders gain the experience they will need later in their careers, the services must assign critical jobs to 

those judged to have the best chance for advancement. This is done today in both 

a formal and informal way. 

Formally, there are critical gateway selection boards for schools, or for qualifying 

for certain positions, such as command of a ship. More important, however, is an 

informal system of mentorships where senior leaders (generally from a particular 

occupational group or community) ‘‘sponsor’’ junior officers, who then are given specific assignments to help shape their careers for advancement. I am most familiar 

with the way it works in the Navy, where leaders identify those young members 

considered among the most promising and guide their careers so they gain experience that will facilitate their performance if and when they become senior leaders. 

The system works well for those who find a sponsor, but some will be left behind. 

Getting into this group usually requires impressing a senior officer so that he will 

work the system to give his prot ̋g ̋ the best assignments, but falling out of this group 

is easy if a junior officer fails to perform as expected. 

The Army, on the other hand, traditionally has been more egalitarian in managing assignments. Some have argued that this better allows the talent to rise to 

the top, and is fairer about giving everyone a chance at critical assignments. However, research going back to the 1960s suggests that some very talented people leave 

under such a system because they cannot see a clear path for advancement and do 

not want to leave their careers to chance. They believe they are special and expect 

to have their careers managed accordingly. 

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE DESIGN OF MILITARY CAREERS

For a long time, I have argued and written about the need to reform the career 

military structure by increasing the maximum years of service an officer might 

serve to 40, for the reasons I will discuss here. That said, I first want to sound a 

cautionary note by endorsing the fundamental principle of the up-or-out system and 

explaining why such a system is critical to ensuring the vitality and viability of our 

military personnel system for the future. 

THE THIRTY-YEARS-OF-SERVICE CAREER LIMITATION

A key feature of the officer military personnel system as laid out in law under 

the DOPMA is the 30-years-of-service cap for all officers who are not promoted to 

General or Flag rank, O–7. I am aware that under DOPMA, the service Secretaries 

can establish special continuation boards to extend the service of O–5 and O–6 officers beyond mandatory retirement for up to five years or until age 62, but this is 

almost never done. For all intents and purposes, we operate under a career cap of 

30 years of commissioned service. 

Given that most officers come from the service academies or ROTC, entering college at 18 years of age and commissioned at 22 years of age, this means that, with 

the exception of those promoted to O–7, most career officers have left the service 

before age 52. This is true regardless of an officer’s specialty because DOPMA is a 

one-size-fits-all personnel system for officers. While DOPMA allows for the promotion of different occupational groups separately in what are called ‘‘competitive 

categories,’’ the career structure for each category is the same. To me, this makes 

no sense. Without arguing the merits of longer careers for the combat arms, I am 

certain that our specialty corps—such as intelligence, medical, chaplains, acquisition, and many more, including any future cyber corps—would benefit if they were 

16 

4Dwight Eisenhower, et al., ‘‘Officer Personnel Act of 1947,’’ testimony before Senate Armed 

Services Committee, 1947. 

not compelled to adhere to the standard DOPMA structure of promotion timing, opportunity, and tenure. The case of intelligence corps, described here, illustrates why 

the 30-year limitation should be changed. 

Aside from the needs of specific occupational groups where experience is particularly important, a general case can be made that limiting careers to 30 years of commissioned service is out of line with efforts to broaden the experiences of officers 

as they progress through their careers. In 1987, Congress passed the GoldwaterNicholas Act, which recognized the expeditionary and inherently joint nature of how 

military forces operate and established the requirement that officers complete the 

requisite joint professional military education and joint assignments before they 

could be considered for promotion to general or flag rank. Accordingly, officers start 

to be ‘‘jointed’’ after their tenth year of service, when they are promoted to O–4, and 

usually try to complete this over the next ten to 12 years. These are also the years 

that officers destined for leadership positions have their command assignments. In 

effect, the Goldwater-Nicholas Act added between four and five years of additional 

must-have assignments to an already full career and squeezed out the time officers 

would have spent on their service staffs learning how to manage the enterprise. I 

am particularly sensitive to this unexpected cost of Goldwater-Nicholas, having 

served for many years at a senior level in the Navy and Army secretariats. While 

we may have made better joint warriors, it came at the cost of having less-experienced uniformed managers of the services. This was a cost that could have been 

avoided if career length had been extended commensurate with the expanded career 

content resulting from Goldwater-Nicholas. 

This situation I describe is only going to get worse with the new programs recently announced by the Secretary of Defense designed to increase the opportunities 

for assignments with industry and expanded opportunities for advanced education. 

We need to ask, ‘‘What sense does it make to broaden the experiences of our officer 

corps and then provide little opportunity to reap the benefits of that broadening by 

truncating careers at 30 years of commissioned service?’’ In my judgment, it is imperative to lengthen careers to accommodate all these career-broadening opportunities. 

I note that the issue of career length is not new, as the following review of the 

legislative history on this issue will show. The 30-year career has been in place 

since 1947, but even back then, members of Congress were not comfortable with 

limiting careers to 30 years of commissioned service. Finally, knowing the Committee’s concern about the cost of personnel, I would like to review how extending the 

career length limit might have a positive impact on reducing the overall cost of personnel. 

A HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE THIRTY-YEARS-OF-SERVICE CAREER LIMIT

As the Senate considered the passage of the Military Personnel Act of 1947, some 

in Congress expressed concern that the new system would ‘‘force the retirement of 

officers at the height of their usefulness,’’ and would be ‘‘very detrimental to the 

best interests of the country.’’ Sen. Guy Cordon, R–Texas, did the math and figured 

that ‘‘the retirement of colonels after they have completed five years of service . . . 

or 30 years of service, whichever is the later . . . would mean that the average officer, figuring that he received his commission at age 22, would be forced to retire 

at 52 years of age.’’ The record shows that Sen. Wayne Morse, R–Ore., concluded 

that he could ‘‘not vote for the bill unless those objections are taken care of,’’ and 

Sen. Harry Flood Byrd, D–Va., commented that this ‘‘seems to me mighty early to 

retire a man, at 52.’’ The Army countered the concerns of the three senators by arguing that Sen. Cordon had gotten the math wrong because 

The statement that the average officer receives his commission at 22 and 

would be retired at 52 is in error. The average age at appointment of Army 

officers is 25. For years to come, the average officer will not reach the grade 

of colonel before he has had 28 years of service . . . Therefore, the average 

age of colonels will be 58 . . . The question of proper retirement ages must 

be a compromise between the desires of the individuals for longer service 

and the needs of the Nation for a vital Army . . . Without a flow of promotions, there must be stagnation. There cannot be a flow of promotions 

without forced attrition at the top. 4

Of course, it was the Army that got it wrong, but how wrong did not become clear 

until the system was in operation for some time and it became obvious that it was 

the rare officer who waited until 30 years of service to retire. The incentive in the 

17 

5 ‘‘Officer Grade Limitation Act of 1954 (H.R. 7103),’’ Senate Committee on Armed Services 

hearing transcript, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1954, p. 8. 6 Charles Nemfakos, Bernard D. Rostker, Raymond E. Conley, Stephanie Young, William A. 

Williams, Jeffrey Engstrom, Barbara Bicksler, Sara Beth Elson, Joseph Jenkins, Lianne Kennedy-Boudali, and Donald Temple, Workforce Planning in the Intelligence Community, Santa 

Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR–114–ODNI, 2013, pp.51–73. 

new system was to take advantage of the reduced pension that paid immediately 

for voluntary retirements after 20 years of service and move on to start a second 

career before it was too late to do so. 

In 1954, the question of early voluntary retirements so alarmed Congress that an 

amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of that year, the so-called Van Zandt 

amendment, limited voluntary retirements. It was repealed when the Officer Grade 

Limitation Act was passed, but only after Congress received assurances from the 

military services that ‘‘the privilege of voluntary retirement after completion of 20 

or more years of service will be exercised little’’ because ‘‘the services have long accepted 30 years of faithful service as being the normal tour of duty.’’ 5 The force reductions after the Korean War saw extensive use of the 20-year option to draw down 

the force. By 1980, when DOPMA passed Congress, the 20-year volunteer retirement had become so common that it was no longer considered to be at the discretion 

of the Secretary of the Military Department, but had become a ‘‘right’’ and was so 

reflected in the new legislation. 

THE NEED FOR LONGER CAREERS FOR INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS

The career area of military intelligence is a prime example of how today’s onesize-fit-all system is not serving us well. The requirements for intelligence professionals, particularly the intelligence officers who serve in the National Intelligence 

Program, are well articulated by the Army in its description of the ‘‘unique functions’’ performed by the Strategic Intelligence Functional Area officers, attached at 

the end of my statement. 

Our study of the current state of military intelligence shows that today’s military 

personnel system is ill-suited to produce the kind and number of officers needed by 

the intelligence community. 6

Today’s system is built on the paradigm of youth and vigor. It is not designed to 

produce the personnel with the kind of training and experiences that are required 

of today’s intelligence professionals. The grade table that drives the system reflects 

the needs of combat units, not the needs of the interagency intelligence community. 

The DOPMA tenure and retirement rules truncate and terminate military careers 

just when intelligence officers have gained the experience necessary to make them 

truly productive. The best that can be said is that many former intelligence personnel continue to serve as government employees and contractors. Changing this 

system will require statutory relief to allow the services to retain personnel with 

demonstrated professional intelligence expertise and experience beyond current 

mandatory retirement dates. The best way to address this problem is to build a career profile based on the paradigm of ‘‘experience and performance.’’ Given the general structure of DOPMA and working within the constructs of a competitive category, this could be accomplished by providing grade relief, ceiling relief, and endstrength relief. Grade relief would allow the services to better match the service 

member with the positions that need to be filled; ceiling relief would allow officers 

who are not promoted to the grade of O–7 to serve longer than the current limit 

of 30 years of service; and end-strength relief would mean that if the overall requirements for intelligence officers exceeded those authorized today, there would be 

no need to reduce the number of officers serving in other occupations to accommodate any increase in the number of intelligence officers serving. All this, however, 

must be done within (and adhering to) the basic concept of up-or-out. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING THE UP-OR-OUT SYSTEM

The first imperative when considering changes to today’s personnel system is to 

examine the impact on the experience profile of the force ten and 20 years in the 

future. For the vast majority of our military workforce, the people we recruit today 

will be the journeymen we need ten years from now and the leaders we have 20 

years from now. In some specialty areas, new programs of lateral entry may provide 

added flexibilities, but the vast majority of military skills will still be acquired along 

the path of in-at-the-bottom-up-through-the ranks. 

The plain fact is that the military we build today must be capable of winning 

wars in the future, but we don’t know when those wars might come. In the aggregate, the year-of-service profile is the best indicator of the readiness of the force to 

18 

go to war at any point in the future. Maintaining the appropriate experience profile 

is critical. 

The key to achieving the desired experience profile is maintaining an adequate 

flow of people into and through the force over time. We have done this with the socalled up-or-out promotion system. While there are many ways that such a system 

can be managed, there must be a way of ensuring sufficient turnover to constantly 

revitalize the force. The flow out of the force should not be just at the end of a career. Our officers need to progress or leave. They must not be allowed to stagnate 

in place. 

The one thing that distinguishes a military personnel system from our private 

sector or our government civilian personnel system is we have had the tools and 

use them to maintain the required experience profile over time. Some have argued 

that we should institute a system that allows people to stay in place as long as they 

perform their job adequately. In fact, we have done this in the past, specifically during the drawdown during the early 1990s, and the result was that when we went 

to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, there were shortages of critical midgrade personnel; 

the same personnel we failed to recruit a decade earlier. I appreciate how hard it 

is to tell a young service member who is doing a good job today and wants nothing 

more than to be left alone to continue doing that job that he or she must advance 

or leave the service, but that is exactly what we must do to ensure that our force 

is always ready. If service members do not advance, they must be sent home to 

make room for the next generation because it is the next generation, and the ones 

that come after it, that will carry the fight in the future. 

Some might think it strange for me to be arguing that we must maintain the flow 

of personnel through the military just as I am arguing that in selected areas we 

should extend careers, but I assure you that there is nothing contradictory in what 

I am proposing. Extending careers does not negate the need to move people along 

in their careers; it means having different points in time when people move up or 

out. It means more time for people to learn their craft, less turnover, longer tour 

assignments and more ability to take advantage of career-broadening opportunities, 

including those gained from joint assignments, as well as outside of the military at 

school and in assignments with industry. 

CONTROLLING THE COST OF MILITARY PERSONNEL

Finally, I would like to comment on the cost of military personnel. Military personnel cost more today than in the past because we are paying them better—and 

by the way, they have fewer complaints. I don’t believe that we think our military 

personnel are being underpaid today, which was a concern when I last served at 

the Pentagon. In my judgment, the best way to reduce overall personnel cost in general is to increase the average years of service we get out of every new recruit or 

officer, even as we maintain the appropriate years-of-service experience profile. I do 

recognize that, as always, the devil is in the details and the general argument may 

not hold for all occupations. It depends on the costs of accession and training, and 

on the structure of pay. In general, however, selectively extending the length of careers to 40 years of service is likely to be cost-effective. Remember, while we might 

pay individual officers more in current military compensation, there are relatively 

few of them. Also, as was true when Congress voted to increase the pay of senior 

enlisted personnel in 2002, there is a very positive message sent through the force 

and we would expect to see increased retention as service members look forward to 

the possibilities of serving for a full career. 

SUMMARIZING

To summarize this quick overview of reforming the military personnel system, 

here are a few points to that I think this committee should keep in mind: 

• Keep your eye on the future, particularly what any change will do to the experience profile of the force in the future. 

• Maintain the desired experience profile over time. 

• Ensure adequate flow of personnel; i.e., maintain the basic up-or-out concept. 

• Be as flexible and permissive as possible in allowing the services to manage the 

assignment of personnel. 

• Lengthen careers beyond 30 years of service, particularly for the specialty corps. 

[END OF TESTIMONY] 

[NEXT IS A DESCRIPTION OF ARMY STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE] 

19 

7Department of the Army, Commissioned Officer Professional Development and Career Management, Washington, D.C., Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-3, 2007. P. 251. 

ARMY STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE 7

Strategic Intelligence functional area provides a focused, trained corps of 

strategic intelligence professionals to Army organizations, combatant commands, DOD, the Joint Staff, and interagency communities with tailored intelligence required for the development of national security policy and theater strategic plans and operations. The Strategic Intelligence officer acts 

as the premier expert on strategic and global intelligence activities that accomplish U.S. strategic objectives developed through unique training, education, and recurring assignments at theater, national, Joint, DOD, and 

interagency communities. The Strategic Intelligence officer translates national security strategy into intelligence strategies. Providing premier intelligence in a strategic context, the Strategic Intelligence officer enables decisionmakers and warfighters to dominate the battlespace. The Strategic Intelligence officer represents Army interests at the Joint and interagency 

communities. Strategic Intelligence officers work primarily at echelons 

above corps worldwide. [They fill positions] in intelligence units, headquarters, national agencies, and unified commands. Strategic Intelligence 

officers . . . participate in all phases of the intelligence cycle. The Strategic 

Intelligence officer is an agile, national- and theater-level and interagency 

expert—who leads, plans, and directs all-source analysis, intelligence systems, and intelligence policy and programs—supporting key decisionmakers, policymakers, and warfighters in an interagency, joint, coalition, 

and combined environment. Exercising broad responsibility and authority, 

the Strategic Intelligence officer is capable of integrating interagency activities and interacting with the foreign intelligence services to produce predictive strategic intelligence to advise policymakers and combatant commanders to deliver overwhelming advantage to our warfighters, defense 

planners, and national security policymakers. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Hale. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT F. HALE, FELLOW, BOOZ ALLEN 

HAMILTON 

Dr. HALE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, members of the committee. 

I’ll focus today on two broad issues: military compensation, or 

slowing its growth as free money for readiness, and also some selected personnel issues. 

Let me just say, I appear here as a former Comptroller and as 

an individual, not necessarily representing my current organization. 

Let me turn first to compensation. As a share of the total DOD 

budget, military compensation has stayed roughly constant since 

2000. It’s up a couple of percentage points, but not much. But, 

those constant percentages mask important shifts. As the DOD 

budget grew sharply after 9/11, compensation costs grew with it, 

fueled by increases in healthcare costs and also pay raises. As the 

budgets then turned down in 2010, the Department sought to slow 

the growth in military compensation. It made this decision not to 

alter, not to shoot for any particular percentage, but, rather, to free 

up funds to sustain readiness and modernization, but particularly 

readiness. And the proposed compensation reforms also sought to 

modernize the compensation system and make it more effective. 

Now, conventional wisdom holds that the Congress turned the 

Department down almost all of its—with regard to almost all of its 

requests. In fact, Congress approved a number of DOD proposals, 

20 

including initiatives to slow growth and payments to healthcare 

providers, to raise care—TRICARE fees modestly, to reform pharmaceutical copays, and others. Congress even took the lead on 

some issues, principally military retirement reform. Taken together, these changes reduced DOD costs by about $6 

billion a year, freeing up substantial funds to help the Department 

return toward full-spectrum readiness. I think the Congress deserves more credit than it gets, and principal credit—or significant 

credit certainly goes to this committee. 

But, the job’s not done. Further efforts to reform compensation 

and slow the growth to free up funds need to take into account the 

recruiting and retention climate, which obviously is tightened. But, 

the key candidate for future reform is the military healthcare system, as the Chairman said in his opening remarks. The current 

system often requires copays that are zero, or nearly so, which can 

lead to overuse of care. And the system’s costly to administer. And 

also, despite some overuse of care, there’s substantial underutilization in military healthcare facilities, which results in wasteful 

spending. And finally, there are access and quality issues. 

Congress has before it two proposals, a DOD proposal for several 

years, and then the one from the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission. The DOD proposal would certainly be the easiest to implement. It would result in some modernization and savings. And, I might add, more than three-quarters 

of the savings in DOD proposals—in the DOD proposal comes not 

from the pockets of the beneficiaries, but from more selective use 

of care and from the reductions in the cost to administer the system. 

The Commission version offers beneficiaries a choice, and that is 

certainly a substantial advantage and, I think, warrants a careful 

look, but it isn’t clear, at least to me, how the system—how the 

Commission proposal would maintain the system of military treatment facilities, which must remain in place, in some degree, to 

train future healthcare providers for war. And so, I think significant further work would be needed before you could enact the Commission proposal. 

In sum, the military personnel system has received substantial 

attention in recent years, and needs continued attention, but I am 

more concerned about the system that DOD manage—uses to manage its career civilian employees. Listening to debates over civilians, I sometimes feel like critics believe that the 775,000 DOD civilians mostly work at the Pentagon, maybe making PowerPoint 

slides or testimony. In fact, about 80 percent of them work outside 

the Washington, D.C., area, they perform many necessary support functions, they fix some DOD weapons, they teach military 

kids, they provide military healthcare, they manage bases. 

The system that recruits, retains, and manages these civilians 

has major problems. I’m not in a position to offer a comprehensive 

assessment or reforms, but let me use my experience in DOD to 

offer a couple of ideas: 

First, it takes too long to hire civilians. The Chairman mentioned 

this in his opening remarks. This committee made a start by granting expedited hiring authority for acquisition professionals. You 

might want to consider expanding that. One group that would come 

21 

to my mind is professionals with expertise in the—and experience 

in the audit of financial statements. 

Poor performers are another issue. DOD has a small proportion 

of career civilian employees who do not perform well. Executives 

working for me spent way too long disciplining and, when needed, 

attempting to terminate members of this relatively small group. 

Most recent authorization legislation makes a start here, allowing 

performance to be considered in RIF [Reduction in Force] actions 

and expanding the probationary employment to 2 year—period of 

employment to 2 years. It is a good start. But, DOD and Congress 

might consider establishing review points throughout a career 

when poor performance can lead to termination. Some safeguards 

would be needed, but they have to be more streamlined than the 

onerous safeguards and lengthy proceedings that are required 

today. 

Let me also briefly address the requirements for civilians. Civilian personnel needs, in my experience, tend to be established job 

by job, making it hard to debate what numbers and types of civilian employees are needed in the aggregate as warfighting and support needs change. We have much better information to debate the 

numbers needed of the military. 

Even in the—so, I think Congress should challenge DOD to provide a better basis for determining, in the aggregate, the number 

and types of civilians that are needed to meet warfighting requirements—but, even in the absence of improved requirement tools, it’s 

clear that DOD needs to reduce the size of its civilian workforce, 

but it needs to do so in a way that allows it to continue to meet 

support needs. Some key steps that would permit that require congressional support, including contentious ones, like permission to 

close unneeded military facilities where a lot of civilians work, and 

to downsize or close some military treatment facilities. 

Finally, in my view, we employ too many sticks and not enough 

carrots in dealing with our career civilians. In recent years, we’ve 

furloughed civilians twice, we’ve frozen their pay three times. Some 

in Congress criticize career civilians, seemingly treating them not 

as valued employees, but, rather, as symbols of a government that 

they believe is too large. 

DOD and Congress need to provide more rewards for good performance—a few more carrots, if you will. Let me suggest a couple 

of actions: 

Today, many career civil servants who are selected as members 

of the Senior Executive Service [SES] receive little or no increase 

in salary, even though their responsibilities grow sharply. And I 

might add, in my experience, it discourages good people from considering taking SES roles. 

Press support or reports suggest the administration is considering trying to increase SES pay, at least to the minimum level of 

GS-15 [General Schedule]. That would be an incremental step, but 

one I like better as an incremental step would be for DOD and 

Congress to expand the proportion of SES performers who are eligible for presidential rank awards, perhaps focusing on the awards 

at the meritorious level. These rank awards are made competitively 

through board selections. They offer both prestige and some substantial financial rewards. And what I like about them is that they 

22 

direct the rewards to the SES members who are performing exceptionally well. 

Finally, DOD and Congress need to harness the power of praise 

as a way to recognize the importance of DOD’s career civilian employees. We’re very good at recognizing the accomplishments of the 

military. And that should continue. 

While I served as Comptroller, I always tried to thank the men 

and women in uniform and the civilians who support them. I hope 

more senior leaders will do that regularly. And DOD, along with 

this committee and others in Congress, could help by seeking opportunities to recognize the successes of civilian employees. Greater 

recognition would acknowledge the important role that DOD civilians play in maintaining our Nation’s security, and it would help 

civilians feel that they are, indeed, valued employees. 

Throughout my government career, I have been privileged to 

serve with many highly capable DOD personnel, civilian and military. I hope the thoughts I’ve offered today can play a small role 

in helping these men and women who do so much to support our 

national security. 

With that, I’ll stop, Mr. Chairman, and join in questions at the 

right time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hale follows:] 

THE PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. ROBERT F. HALE

I appreciate the opportunity to testify on Department of Defense (DOD) personnel 

issues. DOD is one of the largest employers in the United States, and the military 

compensation system is one of the most complex. Given this size and complexity, 

I cannot address all of the issues related to DOD personnel. Instead I will focus on 

two issues: efforts to reform and slow growth in the costs of military compensation 

and selected civilian personnel issues. 

REFORMING AND SLOWING GROWTH IN COSTS OF MILITARY COMPENSATION

As a share of the total DOD budget, military compensation costs have remained 

roughly constant since 2000. But the constant percentages mask important shifts. 

As DOD budgets grew sharply after 9/11, compensation costs also grew sharply. 

Health care costs, especially for the new TRICARE for Life program, caused much 

of this growth. But substantial increases in basic pay, along with increases in basic 

allowance for housing to eliminate out-of-pocket costs, also fueled growth. 

Past Success in Reform and Slowing Growth. After 2010 total defense budgets 

began to decline, and DOD faced legal limits on its total funding put in place in 

2011. In response, the Department sought to slow the growth in the costs of military 

compensation. It made that decision, not to alter the percentage of funding devoted 

to compensation, but rather to maintain recruiting and retention while freeing up 

funds to sustain modernization and, importantly, readiness. As the military ended 

most of its large-scale combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, regaining fullspectrum readiness required added funds. Proposed compensation reforms sought to 

help meet readiness needs while also modernizing the compensation system and 

making it more effective. 

Conventional wisdom holds that Congress refused most of DOD’s requests for 

changes in laws needed to alter the military compensation system. While Congress 

did turn down some DOD requests, it approved a number of them and even took 

the lead on key issues. Examples of key enacted changes over the past five years 

include: 

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] 

• Health care changes. The Administration permitted DOD to use the federal ceiling price for pharmaceuticals, which substantially reduced DOD costs. Congress 

permitted DOD to use Medicare rates to reimburse for outpatient care and care 

at small hospitals. It also agreed to modest increases in fees for retirees who 

use TRICARE. Finally, Congress permitted DOD to restructure and increase 

pharmaceutical co-pays in ways that steered beneficiaries toward more cost efVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:35 Aug 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\20957 WILDA
23 

fective approaches such as generics and mail order delivery. Congress even 

went beyond DOD requests and mandated use of mail-order delivery for followon pharmaceuticals. • Pay raise limits. For the past three years the President has exercised his existing authority to limit military basic pay raises below the levels that would have 

been mandated by the private-sector formula. Because basic pay makes up a 

large share of compensation, these limits contributed significantly to freeing up 

funding for rediness and, to date, have permitted the military to recruit and retain needed personnel. • Military retirement. This year Congress took the lead in reforming the military 

retirement system to provide military members with a new 401(k)-like fund 

that includes matching government contributions while also reducing the size 

of pensions for future retirees who serve 20 or more years. The changes will reduce DOD accrual costs for military retirement. 

Taken together, these changes reduced the DOD costs for military compensation by more than $6 billion a year. These savings, which will continue in perpetuity unless they have to be reversed to meet recruiting and retention needs, did not come 

close to offsetting the large reductions in DOD funding mandated by the Budget 

Control Act of 2011 and other decisions. However, the compensation changes made 

available significant funds for readiness and achieved some needed modernization, 

especially for the military retirement system. Importantly, even after slowing 

growth in compensation, DOD has so far been able to recruit and retain needed personnel—the key goal for the military compensation system. 

Job Not Done. Despite these notable successes, further efforts to reform compensation and slow the growth of costs should be undertaken. DOD and Congress 

must proceed carefully to ensure that, in the face of improvements in the economy, 

the Department can still recruit and retain needed personnel. So long as that goal 

is met, further reform efforts can lead to a more effective compensation system and 

free up funds to support readiness and modernization. 

As part of these efforts, continued limits on the size of basic pay raises may be 

appropriate if the recruiting and retention climate permits. Limits on basic pay 

raises free up substantial funds, some of which could be used to offset the costs the 

compensation proposals that may result from the next version of the Force of the 

Future initiatives. Media reports suggest that, as part of the next tranche of initiatives, DOD is considering changes in the basic pay table to increase incentives for 

retention of mid-grade officers and for persons with specialized skills. These types 

of flexibility almost always make the military pay system more effective and should 

be given careful consideration. Changes in out-of-pocket costs for basic allowance for 

housing and reduction in the commissary subsidy may also be appropriate. 

The key candidate for future reform is the military health care system. The current system often imposes co-pays that are zero or nearly zero, which tends to lead 

to overuse of care. The system is also costly to administer. In the TRICARE portion 

of the system, the share of costs borne by beneficiaries has fallen well below the 

levels Congress mandated when TRICARE was established. Nor are benefit issues 

the only problem. Despite some overuse of care, there is substantial underutilization 

in military health care facilities, which results in wasteful spending. 

For the past several years, DOD has proposed revisions that would modernize the 

TRICARE system and make it more effective. Changes including combining the 

three major TRICARE plans into one plan and imposing modest co-pays when retirees and active-duty dependents seek treatment (care for active-duty personnel would 

remain free). The co-pays are designed to reduce overuse of health care and to provide more incentives for use of military treatment facilities in order to improve utilization. Once fully implemented, the reforms proposed by DOD would save roughly 

a billion dollars a year. More than three quarters of these savings would result, not 

from greater payments by beneficiaries, but rather from reductions in administrative costs and more selective use of health care. Imposing fees for new entrants into 

the TRICARE for Life plan, along with additional changes in pharmaceutical co 

pays designed in part to steer beneficiaries toward generic medicines, would generate substantial additional savings. 

In its 2015 report, the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization 

Commission recommended a much different approach to reform of the military 

health care system. The Commission approach would provide military personnel 

with an allowance for health care that beneficiaries could use to select from a menu 

of health care plans. The Commission’s proposal offers beneficiaries a choice of 

health care plans, a significant advantage. Also, in part because the Commission 

proposed that retirees pay substantially more for health care, the Commission proposal saves a large amount of money—more than $6 billion a year once it is fully 

implemented, according to estimates in the Commission report. 

24 

While the Commission proposal offers substantial advantages, it is not clear how 

the system of military treatment facilities, which must remain in place to train 

health care professionals for war, would be maintained. Significant further work is 

needed, perhaps along with a carefully designed pilot program, before the Commission plan could be implemented. 

In addition to some version of these reforms, Congress needs to permit the military services to downsize or close underutilized military treatment facilities so long 

as reasonable patient care can be maintained and training needs met. For their 

part, the military services need to propose appropriate downsizing as part of the 

overall effort to maintain quality health care while holding down costs. Finally, as 

it reviews the health care system, Congress needs to address other issues such as 

access to care. 

In sum, DOD and Congress have made important progress in reforming military 

compensation. This progress has freed up substantial funds that have been used to 

maintain readiness and modernization in the military while still allowing the services to meet recruiting and retention needs. Further reforms are needed, including 

consideration of changes proposed by the Force of the Future Initiatives and—importantly—reform of the military health care system. 

SELECTED CIVILIAN PERSONNEL ISSUES

The military personnel system needs continued attention. But I am more concerned about problems in the system DOD uses to manage its career civilian employees. DOD employs about 775,000 civilians who provide support that is critical 

to the Department’s ability to maintain national security. Listening to debates over 

civilians, I sometimes feel that critics believe that most DOD civilians work at the 

Pentagon. In fact about 80 percent of DOD civilians work outside of the Washington 

DC area. They fix some DOD weapons, run the Department’s training ranges, and 

manage DOD bases. They provide health care for military personnel and teach their 

children. They also perform many other necessary support functions. 

The system that recruits, retains, and manages these civilian employees has 

major problems. However, compared to the military system, it gets much less attention in DOD and Congress. This relative inattention occurs in part because career 

civilians work in agencies throughout government. DOD tends to defer to the Office 

of Personnel Management and other government-wide organizations when civilian 

issues arise. DOD, however, employs about half of all career civilians in the federal 

government. Because of their numbers and their importance in maintaining an effective warfighting force, I believe that the Department needs to take a leading role 

in improving the civil service system, as does this Committee and other defense 

committees. 

I have neither the time nor the expertise to provide a comprehensive assessment 

of DOD’s civilian personnel system and its problems. However, during my 12 years 

of service as a senior DOD leader, I supervised many DOD civilian employees. 

Based on that experience, several problems stand out: 

• Hiring problems. It takes too long to hire career civilian employees. Organizations that I oversaw as DOD comptroller (including the Defense Contract Audit 

Agency and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service) hired numerous civilian employees—many of whom were just beginning their careers. These organizations lost qualified candidates because private-sector firms could hire much 

more quickly. 

• Problems handling poor performers. DOD has a small proportion of career civilian employees who do not perform well. Executives working for me spent too 

much time disciplining and, when needed, attempting to terminate members of 

this relatively small group. 

• Lack of tools to set requirements and manage pay. We have reasonable tools to 

help determine the numbers and types of military personnel needed to meet 

warfighting needs, or at least to generate information needed for an informed 

debate. We also have good tools to ascertain how military personnel will react 

to changes in compensation. Civilian personnel needs, however, tend to be established job by job, making it hard to debate what numbers and types of civilian employees are needed in the aggregate as warfighting and support requirements change. Also, we have almost no tools that permit us to judge how civilians will react to compensation changes. 

• Too many sticks, too few carrots. In recent years we have furloughed civilian 

employees twice and frozen their pay three times. Some in Congress criticize 

career civilians, seemingly treating them not as valued employees but rather as 

symbols of a government they feel is too large. We also often fail to recognize 

25 

the contributions that civilians make to meeting DOD’s warfighting needs. In 

contrast, we regularly recognize the accomplishments of our military personnel. 

Because of these various problems, morale has fallen sharply among career civilians. Each year the Partnership for Public Service creates a morale index for career 

civilians using questions administered by the Office of Personnel Management during an annual survey. Between 2010 and 2014, the index suggests that morale for 

the government’s civilian employees declined by about 12 percent, even while recent 

improvements in the economy led to morale improvements among all U.S. workers. 

Employees perform best when they believe that their employer values their services and will treat them fairly. Today, unfortunately, I believe that many career civilians in DOD, and probably in other federal agencies, wonder whether their employer really values their services. 

I am not able to offer a comprehensive package of solutions to these and other 

problems affecting DOD’s career civilian employees (and in many cases, civilian employees throughout government). I am hopeful that in future releases, Secretary 

Carter’s Force of the Future Initiatives will include recommendations for improvements in the civilian personnel system. I trust that any proposals that are submitted to Congress will receive careful consideration. 

While I can’t offer comprehensive reform, I have found during my government 

service that progress often has to occur in increments. So I will conclude my statement by proposing some incremental improvements that seem practical to me and 

should help improve the civilian personnel system. 

Congress should challenge DOD to provide a better basis for determining, in the 

aggregate, the number and types of civilians needed to support warfighting requirements. Requiring a one-year study by DOD’s personnel experts, perhaps coupled 

with an analytic organization within DOD, seems to me a good place to start. In 

return for better tools, Congress should stop requiring cuts in civilian personnel that 

are proportional to military reductions. Proportional cuts rarely permit DOD to meet 

its support needs. 

Even in the absence of better tools to establish requirements, it is clear that DOD 

needs to take steps to reduce the size of its civilian workforce while continuing to 

meet support needs. Some key steps require Congressional support. Permitting DOD 

to close unneeded military bases, and to downsize or close some military medical 

facilities, would help DOD begin to achieve needed civilian personnel reductions 

without harming needed support activities. 

It is also clear that DOD needs to hire more younger employees. Today DOD civilian employees under age 35 represent less than one-fifth of the Department’s career 

civilian workforce. Media and other reports suggest that future Force of the Future 

Initiatives will include specific initiatives to attract more millennials into the Department. I hope that is true and that the Department (and other agencies) can 

move in that direction. In this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, Congress 

also sought to help by providing expedited hiring authority for civilian acquisition 

professionals. As I mentioned earlier, slow hiring is a key problem in meeting civilian personnel needs. Making this expedited authority available for other skilled personnel—for example, for those with skills and experience in the audit of financial 

statements—makes sense to me. 

Congress and DOD need to work together to help the Department deal with the 

relatively small number of poor performing civilians. The most recent authorization 

legislation, which permits DOD to take into account performance during employment cutbacks resulting from reduction-in-force (RIF) actions, represents a start. 

Extending the probationary period for new employees to two years also helps. But 

broader authority is needed. DOD and Congress might consider establishing periodic 

review points during a career when poor performance can lead to termination. Some 

safeguards would of course be needed to avoid politically motivated or inappropriate 

separations, but the safeguards must be sufficiently streamlined to permit terminations without the impossibly lengthy proceedings that are required today. I recognize the difficulty of making this change, but I also know it is needed. 

DOD and Congress also need to provide more rewards for good performance—a 

few more carrots, if you will. Let me suggest a couple of actions. Today many career 

civil servants who are selected as members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) 

receive little or no increase in salary, even though their responsibilities grow sharply. Comprehensive civilian pay reform, including pay increases for senior civil servants, would provide the best solution to this problem of pay compression. But comprehensive pay changes for senior civilians seem highly unlikely in the current 

budgetary and political climate. Press reports suggest that the President is considering an executive order that would urge increases in SES pay within existing limits. That action could represent an incremental step toward fixing pay compression. 

As another incremental step, DOD and Congress could expand the proportion of 

26 

SES performers who are eligible for Presidential rank awards, perhaps focusing on 

awards at the meritorious level. These rank awards, which are made competitively 

through a process of board reviews, offer both prestige and substantial financial rewards to SES members who perform exceptionally well. The expansion should apply 

to all federal agencies, not just to DOD. 

Along with expansion, the Administration should be strongly encouraged to remove recent limits on the number of SES members who are eligible for Presidential 

rank awards. The Administration imposed these limits because of concerns about 

providing awards in tight budget times, but the limits have the unfortunate effect 

of reducing recognition and compensation for the most capable SES members. 

Finally, DOD and Congress need to harness the power of praise as a way to recognize the importance of DOD’s career civilian employees. DOD and Congress are both 

very good at recognizing the contributions of military personnel at all ranks, but 

less good for career civilians. While I served as DOD Comptroller, I always tried 

to thank the men and women in the military, and the civilians who support them. 

I hope more senior leaders will do that regularly. DOD, along with this Committee 

and others in Congress, could help by seeking opportunities to recognize the successes of career civilian employees. Greater recognition would acknowledge the important role that DOD civilians play in maintaining our nation’s security, and it 

would help civilians feel that they are valued employees. 

Throughout my government career, I have been privileged to serve with many 

highly capable DOD personnel—both civilian and military. I hope the thoughts I 

have offered today can play a small role in helping these men and women who do 

so much to support our national security. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Admiral Roughead. 

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL GARY ROUGHEAD, USN [RET.], 

ANNENBERG DISTINGUISHED VISITING FELLOW, HOOVER 

INSTITUTION 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, members of 

the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts 

on what I consider to be the most important issue that needs to 

be confronted going into the future, and that’s designing the total 

force and putting in place the policies that enable us to attract, recruit, and retain the talent that’s going to be so important. 

My perspectives are based on command at sea, commanding both 

the Atlantic and the Pacific Fleets, serving as a Service Chief and 

a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving on combatant commander staffs and on service staffs, commanding a NATO striking 

force in the Atlantic, which is a multinational joint task force, and 

commanding a joint task force in the Pacific. 

Nothing that I say should be construed as criticism of the great 

young men and women who serve in our Nation’s defense in uniform and in civilian clothes. But, I think that we’re at a different 

time, when many of the policies and rules that we administer of 

this force, they were derived at a different time, and the times 

have changed, and it’s time to relook at what those changes should 

be, because I believe that we’re rapidly approaching the point of an 

unsustainable mix of cost, force balance, and lethality. And that 

will only get worse as we continue to feed the personnel costs that 

have been described by my colleagues here. 

I think it’s safe to assume that significant top-line relief is not 

going to bail this out. And so, we have to look at what are the ways 

what we can adjust that. And because many of these policies have 

been implemented over time and they have interwoven with one 

another, layered on top of one another, it has to be looked at in its 

27 

totality. Pull one lever, and you might get second- and third-order 

effects that are unintended. 

I think the real issues that I see is that, as we try to adjust the 

size of those who serve in the broad Department of Defense, the solution is always to go to the Active Force and reduce that. We, as 

has been mentioned, have a compensation system for the All-Volunteer Force that is really not tuned to that force. And I thank the 

committee for the work that they’ve done, particularly this year, to 

crack the door and begin the reform process there. 

We have a uniform promotion paradigm that tends to bleed expertise away from the force to fill a hierarchical promotion model 

that has been in place for decades. We are bound to a well-intentioned Goldwater-Nichols legislation that achieved the joint imperative, but has caused a bloating of our joint headquarters staffs in 

Washington and around the world. We have a government employee and civilian contractor ratio that is significantly out of balance with the fighting force that we field today. And our civilian 

personnel system values longevity over merit. And we have become 

extraordinarily disposed to filling our service headquarters with 

contractors without a means of really determining the number of 

contractors that we have working at any given time in these headquarters facilities, and whether or not that’s the optimum solution. 

So, I think, as I look at it, some of the things, as we debate the 

size of the force, I believe the going-in position should be to hold 

constant the number of Active- Duty personnel, and work the other 

variables first of civilian employees, Guard, Reserve, and contractors. 

We should reform DOPMA and tune it in a way that we can adjust the time-and-service requirements and the time-and- gradepromotion requirements for the force, but I think it has to be tuned 

in such a way that give the services, and even specialties within 

each service, the latitude to be able to make the decisions to best 

incentivize the people that we want to keep. And clearly, we have 

to change the ‘‘up or out’’ policy, particularly in some of the technical areas that are going to only increase in competitiveness in future years. And the one that has been mentioned and most frequently comes to mind is cyber. But, if we do that, I think we’ll 

have to put in place some longevity pay raises so that we can keep 

that talent, and they’ll still be able to take care of their personal 

obligations that they have. 

With respect to Goldwater-Nichols, I really do believe that we 

have to maintain a legislative hammer on the Department of Defense with that joint forcing function, because if we don’t, the services will likely retreat back into more tribal behavior. But, clearly, 

we have to adjust Goldwater-Nichols so that we cannot use it as 

a personnel management system, but really what it was intended 

for, and that’s to improve the jointness of the force. 

And I do think, when we get to the general and flag officer 

ranks, we should maintain the current requirements, but I do believe that we can lift some of the mandated requirements on some 

of the more junior ranks within the services. 

I also believe, and jumping more to the organizational construct, 

that as we look at the role of joint commanders and command—and 

I know it’s been discussed before the committee, the idea of the 

28 

Chairman being moved from an advisory to a more command position—I really do believe that civilian control of the military is fundamental to who we are, and I maintain that the best approach to 

that is to maintain the advisory role of the Chairman. Nor do I believe that we should move to a general staff, because it is important that we have current operational, technical, and geopolitical 

experience moving in and out of the headquarters so that we can 

make better decisions. 

With regard to DOD civilian personnel management, returning 

to a scheme similar to the NSPS, or National Security Personnel 

System, I think is very important. I had the opportunity, when it 

was in effect, when NSPS was in effect, to implement it in several 

commands, and, within months, you could see the change: young 

people enthused, eager; where merit mattered, and not longevity; 

where they didn’t have the concern about, ‘‘If I’m the last one to 

be hired, I’m going to be the first one to leave, should there be any 

force cutbacks.’’ I think that we really need to look at putting that 

back in place. 

And we have to get our arms around the contractor numbers 

within our headquarters. Right now, we can’t do that. If we do get 

a number, it’s normally time late. And it’s a very amorphous thing 

to work with. Similar to what we have with headquarters authorizations for uniformed personnel, for old-time equivalent for government civilians, I think we should set numbers of contractors for 

the headquarters, and not let that float, because if we go after 

headquarters numbers, and we drop uniformed government civilians, the headquarters, in my view, will not change in size; we’ll 

just add more contractors into the mix. And the problem with that 

is, when a headquarters gets big, it makes more work for other 

people and for themselves, and it justifies its existence that way. 

So, those are some thoughts, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Roughead follows:] 

THE PREPARED STATEMENT BY ADMIRAL GARY ROUGHEAD, U.S. NAVY (RETIRED) 

Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, members of the Committee thank you 

for the opportunity to offer my thoughts on Department of Defense (DOD) personnel 

reform and strengthening the All Volunteer Force. I applaud and welcome the more 

strategic view this Committee has taken in assessing global security challenges and 

the efficacy of our Armed Forces today and in the future. Nothing is more important 

to our nation’s security strategy than getting the force design right and optimizing 

the total personnel strategy to that design. 

In addition to command at sea I have had the privilege of being a Service Chief 

and a member of the Joint Chiefs, serving on Combatant Command (COCOM) and 

Service staffs, and commanding a NATO Striking Force in the Atlantic and a Joint 

Task Force in the Pacific. But I spent my life in the U.S. Navy because of the extraordinary young men and women who serve in it. It was my pleasure, every day, 

to sail and serve with them and there was no higher honor than to have been afforded the opportunity to lead them. Any comments and recommendations I make 

are not criticisms of their dedication, commitment and contribution to the hard and 

important work they do around the world. 

The fundamental question I inferred from your letter of invitation was: is the total 

DOD force optimally organized, sized and compensated for the security demands of 

today and those we will likely face in the future? The answer is—no. The organization and processes under which we operate, fight and manage the force were derived 

in different times. The world has changed. We have not and do not lack for recommended solutions. Numerous studies over the years have examined organization 

and processes. Many recommendations have been implemented, many have not. The 

29 

solutions are organizationally and mechanically simple, but the personal impact on 

those who serve and have served is largely distasteful and the political will, in the 

information environment in which we live, more doubtful. The work you are doing 

at this time is critical because we are at a point where the current force is approaching an unsustainable mix of cost, force balance and lethality. We continue to sacrifice procurement and the necessary maintenance and training funds of a shrinking 

fighting force to feed the current personnel structure. One credible estimate projects 

that with personnel and operation and maintenance costs growing, as they have 

been at four and two percent respectively, those two accounts will consume 86 percent of the allowed DOD budget by 2021 and all of it by 2024, the last year of the 

second term of the next president. As much as we all desire, significant topline relief 

is not likely. Piecemeal solutions will not work. A total examination and comprehensive revision of the manpower organization and governing personnel legislation and 

policies of the DOD is required. 

We continue to attempt to reduce manpower costs by cutting the number of those 

who are on point—active duty uniformed personnel. We have an all volunteer force 

with a compensation and benefit system that is not tuned to that force and a uniformed promotion paradigm that bleeds needed technical expertise to fulfill a one 

size fits all hierarchical promotion model. We are bound to well-intentioned and 

needed joint forcing legislation (Goldwater-Nichols) that has achieved the joint imperative but has ballooned headquarters’ overhead. We have a uniformed, government service civilian and service contractor ratio conspicuously out of balance to our 

fighting force. We attempt to attract and retain quality new generations of government civilian employees with a civilian personnel system that values longevity over 

merit. We have become exceedingly disposed to headquarters service contractor support without knowing how many service contractors we are paying for and whether 

they are the optimum solution. 

Sizing the Force. The number of active duty uniformed personnel has fluctuated 

since 9/11. Ground force numbers appropriately increased during the high demand 

years in Iraq in Afghanistan. Active duty Navy and Air Force personnel declined, 

but in the aggregate the total number of active duty personnel has not increased 

that much. The civilian workforce, after early post 9/11 growth, has remained illogically stable with some growth occurring within the acquisition community at a time 

when we are buying less. Reserve and Guard numbers are rarely in question; and, 

while public debates rage over reductions in active uniformed personnel, there is relative silence regarding the other components of the force. Further force reductions 

should begin with holding active uniformed numbers constant and reducing the 

other components, primarily civilian numbers. 

Compensation and Officer Promotion. The changes to compensation begun by 

this Committee are positive and relevant to new generations who will serve in our 

military. Regarding officer promotion and retention, it is time to reform the Defense 

Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA). Time in service and time in grade 

promotion milestones should be tuned to the needs of each Service and to specialties 

within each Service. This will be key to incentivizing service and can make a difference in retaining quality and skill. Similarly, the ‘up or out of DOPMA’ should 

be eliminated in skill areas determined by the Services. This will be particularly important in areas such as cyber where broad competition for talent will be intense. 

Retaining experience and skill in a niche area will be more important than promotion opportunity. This change will require a longevity and skill pay scale for 

those who do not promote but are committed for the long haul to their area of technical expertise. 

Goldwater-Nichols Legislative Reform. Without the forcing function of the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986 we would not be the unmatched 

fighting force we are today. The joint imperative must be sustained; however, adherence to Goldwater-Nichols today is more synonymous with promotion requirements 

than war-fighting skill and experience. Those promotion requirements have caused 

the size of joint staffs (COCOM and JCS Staff) to increase in size based on assignment throughput rather than necessary and appropriate work. Concomitantly, it has 

reduced the attractiveness of Service staff assignments where expertise, experience 

in and the responsibility for manning, training and equipping of our forces reside. 

Joint promotion requirements for Flag and General officers should be retained, and 

Services should manage joint assignment strategies and incentive strategies to support senior leader requirements. Mandated numbers and promotion ratios between 

Service and the Joint Staff should be relaxed to best spread skill, talent and relevant experience among Joint and Service staffs. This more limited approach is consistent with addressing and tailoring to that which Service and joint organizations 

need rather than incentivizing all. 

30 

Recent testimony before this committee addressed the responsibilities of Combatant Commanders, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nature of their 

staffs. In the case of the former, the trend to Joint Task Forces leading the fight 

has called into question the role of the Combatant Commander. That is a behavioral 

not an organizational problem because senior headquarters and leaders tend to bypass the chain of command. Combatant Commanders must command and be accountable for operations across the spectrum of operations, including combat. Their 

authority and accountability must be seen in their respective region or function as 

absolute and continuous. Joint Task Forces will remain the optimum organization 

for focused operations but the COCOM must be accountable for effects and outcomes. The tasks and functions of COCOM staffs should not replicate those of subordinate Joint Task Force or functional staffs and COCOM staffs must be sized for 

oversight not redundancy. 

Nothing speaks more to our nation’s principle of civilian control of the military 

than the advisory role of our most senior uniformed leaders, particularly the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff—that should not change. With regard to recent musings 

and proposals regarding creating a ‘General Staff,’ this could potentially create an 

elite military entity that could generate outsize influence while limiting the infusion 

of recent operational, war-fighting, and technical experience into joint staffs in our 

rapidly evolving world. 

DOD Civilian Personnel Management. Our nation is fortunate indeed to have 

dedicated men and women who are drawn to and take great pride in public service. 

As previously mentioned, the number of civilian personnel in the DOD must be 

rationalized with the number serving in uniform. Additionally, the management of 

that force should value merit over longevity. It was my duty and pleasure to have 

implemented the National Security Personnel System in several commands when it 

was in effect in a previous administration. The effects were quickly apparent—increased interest in government service, greater optimism regarding being rewarded 

more rapidly for hard work and innovation, and less concern for being the first to 

be let go if the last to come aboard—quality and hard work mattered. 

Staff Size and Service Contractor Accounting. The number of people in an organization should be a function of work to be performed. We account for and control 

uniformed personnel and government civilian personnel through end strength and 

Full Time Equivalent (FTE) authorization. There is no method to account for service 

contractors on staffs; accordingly, staff size can float based on money available rather than work to be performed. Any count of contractors on a staff is vague and time 

late, and staffs can grow with limited control and awareness. Without more disciplined control in this area right-sizing organizations and staffs will be a mirage. 

While not perfect, creating a contractor personnel authorization at the service and 

joint staff level, i.e. CPN [contractor personnel Navy] (in the case of Navy) or CPA 

[contractor personnel Army] (Army), etc. is a way to stabilize, monitor and control 

the size of headquarters. Once stabilized and controlled the work of debating and 

defining the appropriate roles and mix of government civilian versus contractor can 

take place. Absent that we will continue to attempt to design an optimal total force 

using nebulous variables. 

Personnel management, especially reforming compensation and right-sizing overhead, is hard, complex and politically challenging. My comments and recommendations touch on what I consider to be the major areas of needed reform. I am hopeful 

they are helpful, and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Well, thank you, Admiral. 

And, Admiral, I was just—not long ago, read a wonderful book 

called ‘‘The Admirals’’ about five-star admirals in the Navy in 

World War II. And I noticed with some interest that Admiral Nimitz, at one point in command, ran a ship aground. Do you think 

that’s possible today? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Senator, I think we have some recent cases 

where we’ve done that, but I will tell you that the fitness report 

that was written on Admiral Nimitz after he ran a ship aground 

was on the door of my office as I walked out every night. And to 

me, I think it’s important that we still give people the latitude to 

make mistakes and move on. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Do you think that’s the case? 

31 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I know that we have, in recent years, allowed some people who have made some significant mistakes or errors in judgment to move on. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Dr. Rostker, you bring up a really fascinating—there’s many aspects of this issue. I mean, it’s really a— 

this is a aspect where there are many different facets of it, but 

you’re advocating a—changing the current 30-year retirement in— 

to 40 years, which, I think, given longevity and capabilities and experience and knowledge, is something that ought to be considered. 

But, what about the fact that there are specialties that put a premium on physical strength and fitness? How does this work? And 

I’d be interested in the other witnesses’ view of this. This would be 

a huge change. 

Dr. ROSTKER. And I—I agree with you, and I think that we have 

to address the needs for each. In my state—in my oral statement, 

I made the point about not taking on the issue of youth and vigor 

in the combat arms, but I would also point out that all of the storied admirals of World War II would not have been around, they 

would all have been retired under our current personnel system. 

The issue becomes how we manage the specialty force. And we’ve 

heard here about Goldwater-Nichols. Goldwater- Nichols has, basically, added 5 years of career content to an already jammed career. 

And it has deprived the services of the talents of many officers who 

are being jointed at the time in previous years they would have 

learned how to manage the corporate entity. We send people to 

school. The Secretary is out, talking about new initiatives for time 

with industry. And yet, we’re going to send people home when 

they’re 52 years old in the acquisition corps and planning and 

things that don’t require youth and vigor? Can you imagine being 

a corporation and saying to the majority of your acquisition executives, ‘‘You’ve reached 52. Go home’’? That’s when they’ve learned 

their craft. We do that with FAOs [foreign area officers], we do that 

with the intelligence community. The hardest fill jobs in cyber are 

not the hackers, but the people who are managing hackers. But, 

we’ll send them home when they reach 52—52, of course, being 30 

years from the time of commission. 

So, I think we have to break the one-size-fits-all paradigm, and 

address your concern for youth and vigor, and address my concern 

for the specialty corps as we build career structures that make 

sense for the individual skills that are needed for the future. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Sometimes that could be as short—early age 

as 48—— 

Dr. ROSTKER. It could be. 

Chairman MCCAIN.—in some cases. 

Dr. Chu. 

Dr. CHU. I couldn’t agree more with the notion that we ought to 

look at variable career lengths. And I think the retirement reform 

you enacted this last—in this current authorization act opens the 

door for the Department to begin moving that direction. 

DOPMA’s current 30-year ceiling is an issue. There is some latitude in the statute to extend in order to recall people from retired 

status. But, that’s not really a panacea as an option. Congress, in 

the last decade, moved to loosen some of the age restrictions, which 

is another problem. Some people join the military late, and so they 

32 

might be the 60-year-old acquisition executive, and we’d still like 

to keep them. And I think those—that greater latitude is very helpful. 

But, I think, fundamentally, it—it’s not about a particular constraint, it’s about—the paradigm the Department follows, that everybody should look—as you said—more or less the same. And I 

think that Admiral Roughead touched on this in his remarks, that 

we’re grooming all officers to be Chief of Staff. That’s not true. 

Most officers are not going to be Chief of Staff, as is obvious from 

an arithmetic perspective. Many are wanting a fulfilling career, 

where they move to a middle management or a middle level of expertise, and they continue to serve in that level for a longer period 

of time. 

And so, my play would be to encourage variability. First, the Department needs to be focused on what experience mix it wants, by 

skill area, both officer and enlisted, as a guide to what that variability should look like. So, in some areas, where youth and vigor 

is essential, you might actually want somewhat shorter careers. 

You already have a problem with some people hanging on, so to 

speak, as we all know, as they get to 15, 16, 17 years? service. Congress honors that with a sanctuary. Eighteen years of service, you 

get there, you have to really commit a crime not to get to 20 years. 

That’s a mistake. The new retirement system allows you to say, 

‘‘It’s time to leave.’’ And you can take a significant prize home with 

you. But, some other people ought to stay for much longer periods 

of time, as Dr. Rostker argued. It—senior command, senior experience in various specialized fields—medicine is an example of that 

career track, as well. And we ought to retain people for longer periods of time. So, I think it’s the issue of variability in career length 

that ought to receive attention, not necessarily just extending everyone. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Mr. Hale, your view. 

Dr. HALE. I think it’s a good idea to look carefully at this. I 

mean, it would be a far-reaching change, and it could have significant effects on costs and other things. But, the longevity trends, 

and, as Dr. Rostker pointed out, the idea of sending home experienced acquisition or financial professionals or others, at that matter, at ages 52 doesn’t make much sense. And so, I think it is definitely worth looking at. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Reed. 

Senator REED. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. 

It strikes me—and it is a point Dr. Rostker made, but I think 

everyone echoed it—is that anything we do will have an effect 

about 20 years from now, when you work through the system, 

which begs the question, What will the military look like 20 years 

from now?—which leads another question, Who’s going to tell us 

what it should look like? And how do we get that information from 

the Department of Defense. 

Then, to go Dr. Chu’s point, this is right now very much fragmented and culturally distinct. You know, the Army employed copious numbers of warrant officers to fly helicopters in Vietnam because they needed them. Today, we have drone operations, but they 

have to be Air Force culture, qualified pilots and in the career path 

33 

to move up in command squadrons of F-16s, et cetera. So, I think 

this just—I want—we’ll start with Dr. Chu and go down—comments about, How do we, the Congress, get the Department to 

focus on the force 20 years from now in a coherent way across all 

the different services and components of the services? 

And, Dr. Chu? 

Dr. CHU. My suggestion would be to ask the Department, in its 

annual presentation of the President’s budget request, to speak to 

why they chose the personnel mix and their cultural norms that 

are embodied in that document. So, I would start the conversation 

with, Where are you today? And why did you make those choices? 

And do you think those—and, to the Department, the challenge 

would be, Why do you think those choices are good for the—what 

the force is going to mature to look like in 5 years, 10 years, 15 

years, 20 years, et cetera? I would acknowledge, no one can foresee 

exactly what the force characteristics are going to be 20 years from 

now. And, in fact, I think where that conversation leads is encouragement, particularly under current circumstances. So, it’s not like 

the Cold War, where you had known opponent and a view of how 

a conflict might unfold. We don’t know. And therefore, I think the 

real issue in looking forward is, Have—Has the Department offered 

for the Congress’ consideration, a reasonably rich set of hedging 

choices so that if we’re wrong, as we’re likely to be, as Secretary 

Gates has testified repeatedly, we have some backup plan, some 

foundation, particularly from a personnel perspective, which we 

can build? 

But, I’d start by challenging the Department to explain, How did 

you get this Active Duty figure? How did you decide the Reservecomponent number? Is it something other than just history of what 

you did last year? What about Federal civilians? All right? That 

will set up a scramble in the Department, because civilian manning 

is largely a decentralized decision. There’ll be some preparation 

time needed for people to give you a reasonable answer. And what 

about the contractor force, which I think, as my colleagues this 

morning have testified, is largely a safety valve for the Department. So, you constrain Active Duty, you constrain Reserve numbers, you constrain Federal civilians. What pops out, as long as 

people have money, is they hire contractors instead. 

Senator REED. Dr. Rostker, please. 

Dr. ROSTKER. Well, I’d like to invoke the great American philosopher Yogi Berra. Yogi said, ‘‘The future ain’t want it used to be.’’ 

And I think that’s right. 

First, we need to put the ‘‘p’’ of planning back into PPP [Program 

Protection Plan]. We’re not doing that. We’re just programming. 

We have a good idea of what our capabilities will be, to a fair 

amount of the force, the majority of the force, because it’s tied up 

in our capital stock. So, the first thing we need to be able to do 

is man our squadrons and our aircraft carriers and our bomber 

force that we’re building. We know the mechanic needs, the pilot 

needs. Those projections are fairly straightforward. And when I 

talk about the experience profile, I’m talking about that. 

The unknown is the flexibility for dealing with ISIS [Islamic 

State of Iraq and Syria], the growth in Special Ops [Operations], 

and their flexibility is the most important thing. I once did a paper 

34 

for the Guggenheim Institute about thinking about the last—the 

next war. And I—and everybody else who did papers had very specific notions about the next war. And I used the Yogi Berra quote. 

The thing that distinguishes the Defense Department is that we 

bet on a lot of horses. We didn’t close down the cavalry until we 

knew that tanks were—we have a long history in the Navy of battleships and aircraft carriers fighting it out until we knew what 

was going on. And that redundancy in our services and within our 

service has proven to give us the flexibility to be able to adjust to 

the future. And flexibility is the key. 

Senator REED. I have very little, if no, time, Dr.—Mr. Hale and 

Admiral Roughead. Any comments? 

Dr. HALE. No, I don’t have anything. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Admiral? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I would take a little different tack. I think 

that the ability for the Department to reform itself—I question 

that. The most significant change that’s taken place in the U.S. 

military in the last 50-60 years was the creation of the All-Volunteer Force. It’s not the technology or anything. It’s All-Volunteer 

Force. That was produced by the Gates Commission. Thomas Gates 

was an opponent of the All-Volunteer Force. He was the chairman 

of it. But, yet, it created the military we have today, which I submit is one heck of a military. And so, I think what we really need 

to do is to bring the same flavor of people together to really look 

at this in its totality. And there’s going to have to be some china 

broken, and that normally does not happen within a bureaucracy. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Admiral. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Fischer. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As we’re looking ahead 10, 15, 20 years, and trying to do this 

planning, and comparing it to where we were when GoldwaterNichols reforms were put into place, how can we—carry on with 

this conversation—how can we achieve the flexibility without 

throwing out a lot of the reforms that were made under GoldwaterNichols? If we look at joint duty, for example, and if that is needed 

in the future, if it’s appropriate in the future, or does it just add 

on to more headquarters staff? How—do we form the commission, 

Admiral, to get into the weeds on every reform that’s in there, and 

then figure out a way to be flexible? 

You had mentioned we need to change that ‘‘up and out’’ policy. 

And, Dr. Rostker, you had mentioned that the force must not be 

allowed to stagnate in place. But, yet, I think we’re going to need 

people to remain in place longer to achieve the skills that they 

need to give them the flexibility for the challenges that we face in 

the future. You know, you can look at cyber. A few of you mentioned that. That’s going to take experts, it’s going to take people 

who can respond quickly to change as that environment changes. 

So, I would just ask your opinions on that, if we could start with 

you, Admiral. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, ma’am. And I would say that, one, I 

don’t think a commission similar to the Gates Commission gets into 

the aegis. I think that they can generate the design of the total 

force that will be required going into the future. I—but, I also beVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:35 Aug 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\20957 WILDA
35 

lieve that—particularly in Goldwater-Nichols, that we’ve constrained ourselves with some of the requirements that are there. 

By forcing the joint requirement down onto the major, lieutenant, 

commander level, what we have done is, we have basically said— 

sent the signal that staff duty is more important than honing your 

warfighting craft. 

We have also, by putting in the requirement that the service 

staffs can’t promote at a rate higher than the joint staff, we’ve 

disincentivized people from serving on service staffs, where we 

man, train, and equip, and where most of the money of the Department is spent. And so, we’ve lost that talent pool and experience 

and expertise. 

So, I think that, in Goldwater-Nichols, we can float that requirement higher. But, it also, as I said, has to be done in conjunction 

with some of the other policies. The fact that we have may have 

a good cyberwarrior who is not a qualified joint officer, and allow 

that person to stay in the Navy longer, or in the military longer, 

that’s okay. So, I think we have to look at how all of these things 

work together. But, I think that we’ve forced the joint requirement 

down too low, and we have disincentivized some of other priorities 

that I think are going to be important for a fighting force of the 

future. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Mr. Hale? 

Dr. HALE. So, I’d like to ask that you broaden your thoughts on 

Goldwater-Nichols and think about whether we need something 

analogous to that for our civilian workforce. We are at the other 

extreme with regard to the civilians. That is, there’s not a lot of, 

often, moving around, especially at the senior levels. And I wonder 

if, as we think about Goldwater-Nichols, and fixing it for the military, we want to think about how we engender some more rotational experience among those who will ultimately be our civilian 

leaders. Maybe, as I say, we need some version of Goldwater-Nichols for civilians. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Dr.—— 

Dr. ROSTKER. The first would be to extend the career, so we can 

accommodate requirements like Goldwater-Nichols within the career structure. But, the notion of stagnation in place is not to imply 

that everyone needs to—that people need to advance. And in certain technical areas, that might be fine to stay in relatively the 

same job, but it tends to be in a particular technical area. We are 

often told of the young officer who says, ‘‘I’m a great captain, and 

leave me to be a captain.’’ Well, he may be a great captain when 

he’s 30. I’m not sure he’ll be a great captain when he’s 40. Again, 

youth and vigor comes. So, he needs to either advance in his profession or leave. It’s very hard to say to somebody who’s doing well, 

‘‘You have to go home, because we’re worried about the next generation.’’ We can’t do that in the civilian world. We don’t do that 

in the private sector. We must do that in the military. 

Senator FISCHER. Dr. Chu. 

Dr. CHU. I’d urge we think about how we get the same outcomes 

that we like of our Goldwater-Nichols, but at a lower price, in 

terms of career content. The current—because I—as your question, 

36 

I think, implied, there are some good points to what has been produced from Goldwater- Nichols. More joint orientation by the senior 

officer corps, specifically. But, our mechanism, as we all know, is 

an input-oriented one, ‘‘You will take this course, you will have this 

assignment for a certain length of time, and such is the way to get 

there,’’ which, of course, adds to the career content issue Dr. 

Rostker has raised. 

And so, just as a personal example, in my judgment, one of the 

most joint-oriented Army officers I encountered in my career in the 

Department was Jack Keane. General Keane would not qualify, 

under the rules. Until he was Deputy Commander of Joint Forces 

Command, he had never had a joint assignment. Of course, the 

issue is, you can’t look inside the person’s mind easily. But, I do 

think, if I may be presumptuous, that the confirmation power of 

the Senate is one tool to use. In other words, part of the examination really ought to be, what is the outlook of this officer on joint 

matters, and how has he or she achieved that outlook? As opposed 

to prescribing so much how the person gets there. I recognize 

there’s the risk of confirmation conversion, as people have unkindly 

labeled some people’s stance over the years, but I do think that 

might be one small step to try to move away from the prescriptive 

approach we use now, that you will take certain courses, you will 

have certain experiences in order to achieve this orientation, and 

to ask, in some fashion, that both the Department and the Congress look at people more holistically. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Manchin. 

Senator MANCHIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank all of you. I appreciate very being here. 

It’s—someone coming from the civilian ranks and not being 

blessed enough to be in the military service, but now sitting back 

and watching this and trying to make sense of it, how we run the 

operations, is unbelievable. And it doesn’t make any sense that we 

talk about—now we’ve got sequestration, we’ve had budget caps, all 

the different things. And you would think that the system, the Department of Defense being our largest Department in Federal Government, would be able to make adjustments and changes. But, it 

doesn’t seem to come unless there’s congressional mandates for 

that to happen. 

I can’t get a handle on the contractors. I’ve tried. I’ve been here 

for 5 years, and I’m trying to get a handle on the strength of contract. The contracting forces, which we should look at, because I 

know the reduction of force. And every time we run into budget 

problems, it’s always a reduction of the people that we depend to 

defend the country. And I know the size of the staff doesn’t seem 

to change proportionally, when we should be changing. Staff seems 

to be constant, if not growing. But, contractors is just an absolutely 

misnomer, here. We’ve had as high—I mean, our report—I know 

this is not accurate, but in 2014 it was showing 641,000 full-timeequivalent contractors at a cost of $131 billion. I can never get— 

I can’t get that answer. I don’t know why it’s so hard for the Department of Defense to be able to tell us how many contractors 

37 

we’re paying and kind of filling slots and substituting and playing 

a kind of a movement game, here. 

And maybe—Admiral Roughead, I know you’ve been on the front 

line of this thing, but give me some insight on this. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, thank you, Senator. And my observations are exactly the same as yours, because there’s no structure 

that defines the particular work, position, person that applies to a 

contractor. We have that with our uniformed and our government 

civilians. And I think that, as we look at our headquarters structures, that there should be an apportionment by billet, if you will, 

to use military speak, for those contractor positions that get done. 

Otherwise, what you find is that the money buys as many contractors as it can afford. And so, I think we need to do that. 

I would also say that all contractors are not created equal. I 

mean, we have some—— 

Senator MANCHIN. Sure. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD.—contractors that are maintaining airplanes, 

and we’ve made the decision that that approach is best. 

Senator MANCHIN. Why can’t that scenario be accomplished? 

Does it have to be a direction from Congress, legislated? Or can Department of Defense do that? The accountability of contractors. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I would leave whether Department of Defense can do that to some of my colleagues who have been in the 

Department, but—— 

Senator MANCHIN. Okay. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD.—but, I really do think that that would be 

one way to get our arms around that. 

Senator MANCHIN. Dr. Rostker, if you could comment on that. 

And, Mr. Hale, I’ll come right back to you. 

Dr. ROSTKER. The reason we have the contractors is because we 

don’t account for them. We buy service. It’s in the O&M [Operations and Maintenance] budget. It’s just dollars. And it purely 

comes back to the Comptroller’s shop, in terms of controlling those 

contracts that are used to purchase the services of people. 

The Congress, it—has said we want to have a limit on the size 

of headquarters. We want to have a limit on the number of civilians. 

Senator MANCHIN. Yeah. 

Dr. ROSTKER. And then, the headquarters go out and hire contractors, and they sit behind the same desk that a civilian sat behind. I would suggest they have loyalties that are not necessarily 

in line with those of the government, like maintaining the contract. 

And so, we can go to the American people—you can go to the American people and say, ‘‘We’re controlling government. We’ve limited 

the number of civilians.’’ 

Senator MANCHIN. Yeah. 

Dr. ROSTKER. But—— 

Senator MANCHIN. Mr. Hale. 

Dr. ROSTKER.—we haven’t. 

Dr. HALE. So, it’s harder than it—than you’ll think to count contractors. If you do a firm fixed-price contract—many of them are 

now—there is no responsibility on the part of the contractor to tell 

you how many people are doing it. They just have a job, they get 

the job done. 

38 

In response to congressional requirements, DOD is inserting 

clauses in many of its contracts, directing the contractor to estimate the number of full-time-equivalent people. But, it takes time, 

and that’s why you’re not seeing this data. 

The way to control it, in my view, is, you control military and 

Federal civilians by billets or by FTEs [Full-time Equivalents]. You 

control the contractors by limits on the operation-and- maintenance 

funding. And that allows the Department the flexibility to use firm 

fixed-price contracts, when they make sense and we want to have 

that. 

Senator MANCHIN. The hardest thing that I had—and I’ll finish 

up with this—the hardest that I had is that, basically, we had contractors of—fighting, basically, on the front lines. I know that people said that didn’t happen, but we—I know that happens. And I 

know that they’re hired, and they go in to force. They seem like— 

at 10 years, they come out of the military, they retire from the 

military and take a pay three to four times higher. That didn’t 

make any sense to me. You can’t justify that. You can’t sell it back 

home. And we keep talking about reduction of forces, and we’re 

coming back, paying three to four times more for the same person 

that we reduced—or reducted, and put them back into the private 

sector and on a contract. How do we stop—is there any way to stop 

that from happening? 

Dr. Chu? 

Dr. CHU. I think, ultimately, as my colleagues have implied, the 

contracts are a safety valve. And the real issue is what you’re asking the Department to do. So, let’s take the headquarters issue. 

Without in any way being cheeky here, the office I formerly held, 

a major activity was answering congressional correspondence. 

Many of these letters were—required a significant research project. 

Someone had to do that work. If you place a limit on how many 

Federal civilians can be employed, the solution, as Dr. Rostker 

says, is the office uses the funds at its disposal to hire contractors 

to help with that task. 

So, I think the ultimate break on excessive contractor employment, to the extent it is, indeed, excessive, is the issue of what the 

Department’s being asked to—what function it’s being asked to 

perform and perhaps the too- tight limits on the resource inputs it 

might more usefully employ for that purpose—Active Duty personnel, I think, in the case in point that you were citing. You’re— 

you are going to get situations where people who leave the military 

will have a skill set that’s very valuable in the private sector, perhaps serving the Department of Defense. But, to me, that’s—that’s 

just a signal that there’s an excess demand for that skill and that 

we’ve suppressed meeting that demand with Federal civilians and 

Active Duty or Reserve-com personnel, and it pops out in a contract. The contractor, eager to—service, as Mr. Hale said, offers a 

very significant salary to the—so, it’s the safety-valve issue and the 

question of the burdens of the Department and its business practice, I think, that is ultimately the break on the situation that you 

are—that—with which you are concerned. 

Senator MANCHIN. Thank you very much. 

I’m sorry. 

39 

Dr. HALE. Can I just add, very briefly, one of the wartime problems that you raised occurs because we place limits on the number 

of troops that can be in—and that causes the Department to turn 

to contractors. 

Senator MANCHIN. That doesn’t make any sense all, but I appreciate your answers. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Ernst. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. 

Mr.—or, Dr. Rostker, if we could start with you, I know that you 

are well aware of the heavy deployment schedule that we have had 

over the past 14 years or so. Many members have mobilized, they 

have deployed, time after time after time, and we still continue to 

do that with a number of our SOCOM [Special Operations Command] units, as well. What can we do for those that are in more 

of the—well, I’ve met a lot of Active Duty soldiers. Many of them 

have deployed over and over again. But, then we also have that 

group that seems to be in the type of unit that is maybe a training 

environment. They have spent a career in those types of positions 

where they haven’t deployed. How can we make sure that we are 

offering the same opportunities for everyone across the board? Because, of course, when you look at promotions and advancements, 

we want to make sure that everybody has opportunity for that, 

even broadening and strategic-type assignments. What can we do 

about that to even the playing field? 

Dr. ROSTKER. Well, there is a—deployments are by units, obviously, but also by skill sets. And so, there are certain skill sets that 

will not deploy. Generally, it has been to the advantage of 

servicemembers to deploy, because those considerations come into 

promotion boards and through the so-called ‘‘up or out’’ system. 

There are rewards. But, it will not necessarily fall evenly, depending upon the particular occupations that people have. 

I think the broad question is also, what do we do for the 

servicemembers and their families for those who are deploying 

quite often? And this is really a unique and new problem for the 

Department of Defense. 

Senator ERNST. Yes. 

Dr. ROSTKER. We’ve never fought a war with this kind of rotation. And, as you say, the 14 years is the longest in our history. 

And we really do need to come to grips with what our services are, 

not only to the servicemember, but particularly to the family. 

Senator ERNST. We have such a heavy rotation of deployments 

with certain types of MOSs [Military Occupational Specialties] or 

occupational skills, and maybe not others, but we need to make 

sure that there is plenty of opportunity for everyone to take advantage of those types of positions. 

Admiral, of course, as we look at opportunities, there are a lot 

of different thoughts in this area, but I am a little bit concerned 

that the Department is really trying to mold our officers and even 

some of our senior NCOs [Non-Commissioned Offices] to aspire to 

be an intern at Facebook or Google. And those are great organizations, but with these types of assignments, they’re lucrative, but we 

would rather see them being a platoon leader or a company commander or a first sergeant. And what impact will the Department’s 

40 

efforts to place a greater emphasis or priority on these nontraditional broadening assignments—what impact will that have, then, 

to our force readiness, to actually win that next war? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for the question. 

Before I get to it, I’d like to just comment on the deployment 

piece. As—— 

Senator ERNST. Thank you. Please. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. As you know, the Navy has been deploying 

for centuries. And I think it’s important that, as we look to the future employment of the force, that the model that’s used take into 

account the types of deployments. And not everyone will be going, 

because—as Dr. Rostker said, because of specialties and other considerations. But, I think that the—that, you know, it took the Navy 

awhile to define the deployment and readiness models. And I think 

we have to look at that in that particular service. 

With regard to some of the fellowship opportunities that have 

been announced recently, my sense is that those are in very small 

numbers. And I do think that there may be some value in certain 

areas where people can go off, see how things are done differently 

than within the Department of Defense, and then come back in. 

But, again, I—you know, is this something that will stack on top 

of the joint requirement, the operational requirement, the educational requirement? And so, my sense would be, you know, would 

that be something that you would consider as a joint credit and 

then someone who would come back in? 

Senator ERNST. And definitely something that we should keep an 

eye on. So—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. In limited numbers. 

Senator ERNST. In limited numbers, that’s absolutely correct. 

Thank you, Admiral. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just to underline some of the concerns of my colleagues. Senator 

Manchin, on contractors. I have obviously spent a lot of time, as 

Mr. Hale knows, on this subject in the time I’ve been here. And one 

of the most surreal experiences was when I discovered, one day, 

that the person testifying in front of me about contracting had 

hired a contractor to prepare them for the hearing. And that’s 

when I realized, okay, this has gotten a little out of control. 

It’s not that contractors are bad. It’s not that contractors aren’t 

needed. As you indicated, Admiral Roughead, there are many 

places that we’re using contractors that it’s saving us money. 

They’re performing functions well at a lower cost. But, the problem 

is, there’s so little transparency that oversight is nearly impossible 

unless you have the tenacity of a bulldog that’s very, very rabid. 

And—because you can’t find them. You can’t—it’s amorphous. You 

can’t figure out whether the contracting activity is justified or 

whether it’s a safety valve. I mean, I think Dr. Chu just admitted 

they hired contractors to answer congressional letters. You know, 

I’m not sure that—we need to know this. We need to understand 

when contractors are being utilized. So, I think your idea for an authorization level on contractors is a valid one, and I would like to 

41 

see any response that any of you have for the record on that, going 

forward. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Dr. Robert HALE. It is reasonable to consider a cap on contractors in the authorization legislation. The cap should be in dollar terms since some contracts, especially 

fixed-price contracts, do not specify the number of contractors. Importantly, before 

establishing a cap, the Committee should discuss with the Department of Defense 

what data can be made available. A cap would only be meaningful if the Department can supply data that are consistent and accurate, both for use in setting the 

cap and in measuring compliance. 

More broadly, the Committee should consider changes that would reduce the use 

of contractors in cases where government employees (especially civilian employees) 

should be used. Contractors are sometimes employed because they can be put in 

place more quickly than government civilians. OPM is working to speed up hiring, 

an effort that the Committee should support and monitor. Contractors are also 

sometimes used because, compared with a government civilian employee, a contractor can be terminated much more quickly. As I indicated in my testimony, DOD 

needs authority to terminate poorly performing government civilians more quickly 

while still preserving protections against misuse of the civil service. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Just to underline some of the concerns of my colleagues, Senator Manchin on contractors. I have obviously spent a lot of time as Mr. Hill knows, 

on the subject from the time I have been here. And one of the most surreal experiences was when I discovered one day that the person testifying in front of me about 

contracting had hired a contractor to prepare them for the hearing. And that is 

when I realized okay, this has gotten a little out of control. It is not that contractors 

are bad. It is not the contractors aren’t needed as you indicated Admiral Roughead, 

they’re many places that were using contractors that it’s saving us money. They are 

performing functions well at a lower cost. But the problem is, there is so little transparency that oversight is nearly impossible unless you have the tenacity of a bulldog 

that’s very, very rabid. And because you cannot find them. You can’t—it’s amorphous. You cannot figure out whether the contracting activity is justified or whether 

it’s a safety valve. I mean, Dr. Chu just admitted they hired contractors to answer 

congressional letters. I’m not sure that—we need to know this. We need to understand when contractors are being utilized. So I think your idea for an authorization 

level on contractors is a valid one and I would like to see any response that any 

of you have for the record on that going forward. 

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Senator MCCASKILL. I want to talk a little bit about what we 

have come to refer in this committee in the last several hearings 

as the deputy deputy dog syndrome. That is, in the civilian force, 

the springing up like mushrooms at a certain time of year of a new 

deputy to the deputy to the deputy. And where is that coming 

from? Why is there this seem-to-be growth of people with titles? Is 

it just the need for titles, in terms of, you know, how you’re viewed 

within the civilian force—the civilian workforce at the Pentagon? 

Is there really a need for all these many, many layers of personnel 

that seemingly have some kind of authority over someone else? Has 

this thing gotten too layered? I mean, it appears to me it’s gotten 

too layered, but I would love your take on that. 


15-90-RAND2-28.eps
81 

Dr. Rostker? 

Dr. ROSTKER. We have a whole layer in the Defense Department 

that never existed when I came to town. We had Assistant Secretaries reporting to the Secretary of Defense. Today, we have Assistant Secretaries reporting to Deputy Secretaries to Under Secretaries who report to the Secretary of Defense. So, the whole Department has grown at least one layer. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And why? 

Dr. ROSTKER. The desire to do coordination. So, in the area of 

personnel, we have an Under Secretary and then we have a series 

of Assistant Secretaries. At one point in time, those Assistant Secretaries were all Deputy Assistant Secretaries, and the Assistant 

Secretary have—we’ve just mushroomed the whole—my judgment, 

the whole Department up one layer. And it just grew out of hand. 

Senator MCCASKILL. How can you—how can we crank that back? 

Do you have any ideas, Mr. Hale? How could we, from—as overseers, as—in an oversight capacity, trying to get a handle on the 

way we’re using resources, how do we stop that? 

Dr. HALE. Well, let me just start by saying, for the record, that 

the organization I ran, I think, was, by Pentagon standards, relatively flat. There were no Assistant Secretaries in that Comptroller’s shop. But, I understand your concern. I mean, you’ve tried to 

put limits on headquarters. That makes sense to me. I think, in the 

end, you’re going to have to let the Department decide how to organize that more limited numbers, that what I would appeal to you 

when you’re trying to do this, too, is to try to reduce the workload, 

the sunsetting of reports, is an excellent idea. We—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Dr. ROSTKER.—spent a lot of time preparing reports. But, if we’re 

going to reduce the size of the headquarters, at least in my experience, people over there were working hard, for the most part. There 

were a few slackers, but, for the most part. We’ve got to reduce the 

demand on them. Some of that’s Congress, but some of it is internal, as well. 

In the end, Senator McCaskill, I think you’ve got to let the Department figure out how to organize itself within those more limited numbers. Hopefully, the more limited numbers will engender 

some reduction in the concerns that you’re expressing—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Okay. 

Dr. ROSTKER.—about hierarchy. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Okay. 

I’m out of time. I would, at some point, like to have some input 

from this expertise that’s presented here today on acquisition force, 

the notion that the folks that rotate out of there every year and a 

half are really—were being outgunned by the people who are buying—who are selling stuff to us. Big time, we’re being outgunned, 

because there’s not the buildup of expertise in acquisitions that 

you’re going to have to have at the leadership level. And it’s like 

the special corps you talked about, Dr. Rostker. There are certain 

functions within the military that we need not put one-size-fits-all. 

Because I think acquisitions is a great example of where we’ve 

wasted a lot of money because we didn’t have the expertise there 

we needed. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

82 

Chairman MCCAIN. Isn’t it also true that every time there is a 

crisis or a problem, we create another bureaucracy and, in some 

cases, an entire command that—as a solution? And I don’t think 

that’s necessarily the long- term solution. 

Senator Lee. 

Senator LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks, to all of you, for the insightful testimony that you’ve 

offered this morning. 

As we’ve already discussed, there are a lot of benefits to our 

country that come from having an All-Volunteer Force. We also 

know that it’s not a perfect system. And I’d like to take a few minutes to address some of the criticisms and some of—what some 

have characterized as the unintended consequences of having an 

All-Volunteer Force, and perhaps ask some of our witnesses about 

possible drawbacks to the All-Volunteer Force and what can be 

done to address those. 

Now, some have argued that the All-Volunteer Force creates a 

circumstance in which the burdens—the risks and the real-world 

consequences of war disproportionately affect members of the military and their families, while the vast majority of the public is 

largely shielded from the really awful effects of war. General Stanley McChrystal has made this point with respect to the wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Now, some critics take the argument even a step further than 

this and say that if these burdens were extended more evenly 

across the population, the United States would be far more cautious in determining when, whether, and how to engage in any type 

of armed conflict overseas. 

So, Secretary Chu and Secretary Rostker, let’s start with you. 

Can you comment on these criticisms and on the long-term conflicts, or consequences, rather, of an All- Volunteer Force? And 

then, Admiral Roughead, can you comment on the potential negative impacts of having our military actions being initiated and executed by roughly 1 percent of the United States population, a population that consists of decisionmakers in Washington, D.C., and 

servicemembers, who tend to be stationed at our Nation’s military 

bases? 

Dr. CHU. Senator, thank you. It’s an important issue. 

I do think that we should keep in mind that the 1 percent, the 

small fraction of the country that serves, is really a function of two 

key elements. First, what’s the size of the military, Active Duty especially, that we maintain? Much smaller now, relative to our population base, than was true 20, 40, 60, 80 years ago. Second, what’s 

the size of the population cohort that would ordinarily be looked at 

for military service? 

One reason the draft was needed, I would argue, in the ’50s, is, 

in fact, the United States, given it was an all—essentially an allmale force, needed almost every able- bodied young male to serve. 

It’s just a function of the small birth cohorts in the 1930s during 

the Great Depression. So, I would observe that it’s—for the size 

military maintained today, given the size of our population, it’s always going to be true that only a small fraction see military service. 

83 

To the question you raise about ‘‘Should the country be more involved with that serve as an important element in the national discussion of whether we should or should not commit forces?’’—I’d observe that we did involve the country, in the last 15 years, in a significant way, because we mobilized the Reserves. The Reserves 

really are a cross- section of the United States, and touch every 

community in the country, every State in the Union. And so, while 

it’s not quite the same as the old draft model that some put up, 

it does involve the country in that. And I think it’s a great tribute 

to the people who volunteered for the service, that they answered 

that call. The Reserves served with extraordinary performance levels in this last long conflict, which continues to this day. 

Senator LEE. And so, for that reason, in the future, continuing 

to rely, or perhaps expanding our reliance, upon Guard and Reserve units could have that effect, that—the effect of distributing 

more broadly the people who were involved. 

Dr. CHU. In my judgment, yes, sir. 

Senator LEE. Okay. 

Dr. ROSTKER. I don’t know whether you know, Senator, but I’m 

a former Director of the Selective Service System, and have dealt 

with the questions you’ve asked, literally for decades. 

The fundamental question that led to the reform of Selective 

Service in 1970 is, ‘‘Who serves when not all serve?’’ And that deals 

with the issues that Dr. Chu talked about, the size of the military 

and the cohorts that support it. The notion that a sizable portion 

of the country will be involved in the military, given the size of the 

military and the technology of the military, is just not realistic. 

The second is the nature of today’s military. It’s not a matter of 

giving a soldier a rifle and 6 weeks of training, and shipping him 

over—or her—now her—overseas, but a very technical force that 

requires a great deal of schooling and skill and knowledge. And 

we’ve talked about preserving and managing that talent. Are we to 

turn that talent off and throw that talent away just to create the 

opportunity to bring more unskilled people into sharing in the experience of the military? I think the use of the Reserves talks to 

the involvement of the community. But, the fundamental issue is 

the size of the population and the size of the military that we have 

today. 

Senator LEE. Admiral? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. I echo some of what’s been said 

here. And I think that what we’ll find as we go into the future, particularly with the force levels that are deployed now, especially on 

our ground forces, the—that number of Guard and Reserve will 

come down significantly, so we’re going to lose that connectivity 

into society. 

I think the other thing that’s happening is that we’re, in a way, 

moving from an All-Volunteer Force to what I would call an AllProfessional Force, that the number of people serving in the military today who have relatives who have been in the military is 

going up. And so, are we going to end up with a military that is 

more removed from society? 

I—on the broader issue of voluntarism, I’m a proponent of a national service, but how do you devise a plan that’s equitable and 

that some people get to go in the military and go in harm’s way, 

84 

and other people go off and do things in the homeland that are perhaps a little more benign? And I don’t know how you get to that. 

But, I do think that there’s a need for a commitment to national 

service. 

Senator LEE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Hirono. 

Senator HIRONO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’d like to paraphrase something you said, Admiral, the—when 

you acknowledged that the All-Voluntary—-Volunteer Army was, I 

think, the single biggest change to the military. Can you think of 

another change that could have this kind of a profound impact on 

the military? Could it be the number of women who are serving in 

the military, or some other example of something coming down the 

pike that would result in a profound change to the military? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I think that the example that you cited, 

women serving in the military, will transform the military, but it 

will not be the change in the total model that we’re using. I really 

do think that there may be an opportunity, however, as was mentioned here—How do you fuse and how do you design the government civilian force and the military force that can better share in 

responsibilities, particularly in the headquarters areas? And I 

think a redesign in the aggregate may approach the monumental 

change that occurred with the All-Volunteer Force. And I think it’s 

time to take a look at that. 

Senator HIRONO. Mr. Rostker, you noted that flexibility was of— 

I think you used the words ‘‘the most critical’’ or a key component 

to what we ought to be instilling in the military. Can you give an 

example, perhaps, of where you see flexibility not existing? And 

how would we ensure flexibility in a system, a department that is 

massive and is still operating under old paradigms in many, if not 

in most, cases? 

Dr. ROSTKER. I think the most important issue in flexibility is to 

manage the individual skill sets, the careers, in ways that make 

sense for that career. And I would do that by removing the statutory limit of 30 years of commissioned service and let that be determined by the needs of the individual service. We heard about the 

acquisition corps. And we have the same issues in the intelligence 

area. We have the same issues in the chaplains corps and the like. 

And that would give us the flexibility to use people to the maximum extent. 

Senator HIRONO. I think this panel has made a really strong case 

for looking at DOPMA and the fact that it really doesn’t make 

sense to use a one-size-fits-all and everybody leaves at age 52, 

where—but, actually, people make decisions to leave much sooner 

than at age 52. Don’t they make decisions earlier and—when they 

see that, if they’re going to have to leave at 52, they’re going to decide at a much earlier age to leave. 

Dr. ROSTKER. Absolutely. I can remember a young JAG [Judge 

Advocate General] officer who was—came to me at 20 years of service. He had a wonderful career. He was looking forward. Was in the 

congressional legislation—legislative office and said he was given 

the opportunity to lead one of the military service organizations, 

but he really wanted to stay in the Navy. And I said, ‘‘You can’t 

85 

stay in the Navy. The—we cannot offer you more than the possibility of 10 more years of service, and then you will not be in your 

early 40s, you’ll be in your 50s.’’ Chances of making admiral—there 

are two admirals—were not—you couldn’t take that to the bank. 

And so, I had to counsel him to leave. He would not have left if 

he saw the full career that he could have aspired to, even if he did 

not make flag. 

Senator HIRONO. So, the changes to DOPMA should be made at 

the congressional level? Is that—— 

Dr. ROSTKER. That provision would have to be made at the congressional level. There is a provision today that the Secretaries in 

military departments could institute special boards and the like. 

But, I think we need to tell the managers of the Department that 

each of the competitive categories, each of these occupational 

groups, should have a career structure that makes sense for that 

group. We allow them to compete against each other in the competitive category, but within the limits of the DOPMA career structure. We should open up that career structure. 

Senator HIRONO. As I said, I think you all have made such a 

strong case for making those kinds of appropriate changes to 

DOPMA that I certainly hope that this committee will follow 

through. 

Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Rounds. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service, and thank you for being 

here with us today. 

Just a real quick down-the-line response, please, on this. Do you 

see Goldwater-Nichols jointness requirements as an aid or an obstacle to the system itself right now? And if it’s an obstacle, how 

would you make it better? 

Dr. Chu? 

Dr. CHU. I think it is both, unfortunately, so it has a very good 

feature, which is to encourage a joint experience, especially for 

those who aspire to more senior positions. It has improved the 

quality of headquarters staffs. I saw that when I served in the Department in the late 1980s and it was first instituted. At the same 

time, as I suggested, it’s a bit too mechanistic and too much oriented through the inputs that we think will provide a joint orientation, and not concerned enough with whether the outcomes are the 

ones that we want. 

And I think I would move to more flexibility about how you can 

decide that someone has achieved the experience level that you’d 

like to see that produces the kind of joint orientation we’d like to 

have. 

Senator ROUNDS. Dr. Rostker? 

Dr. ROSTKER. I think Dr. Chu is probably right, but I saw the 

negative sides of Goldwater-Nichols. I spent most of the ’90s on— 

in service secretariat as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 6 

years and then as Under Secretary of the Army. And I saw officers 

coming into senior ranks who had never served on the service 

staffs. And the model before that was to, in fact, serve on the service staff so that great admirals, like Carl Trost or Mike Boorda had 

served to learn their craft of managing the enterprise. And manVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:35 Aug 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\20957 WILDA
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aging the business of the Navy is not going to be done in the joint 

arena, it’s going to be done in the Navy. And the—that next generation spent their time being jointed. And then, when it came 

back to serve on the service staffs, they largely did not have that 

experience. 

I could adjust that, if you give me that 5 more years of career 

content, so they could do both. But, the impact of Goldwater-Nichols, because of its statutory requirements, was to force out this very 

valuable time that was spent on the service staffs. They still did 

their sea time, but they did not do their service management time, 

which was so critical for the future. 

Senator ROUNDS. Mr. Hale? 

Dr. HALE. So, I would not get rid of Goldwater-Nichols or the 

joint requirement. I fear, as Admiral Roughead said, a return to 

the tribal approach. But, more flexibility does sound like it is appropriate. 

I’ll reiterate what I said earlier. I think the civilian system worries me more, and we may need some analog to the GoldwaterNichols approach to demand some more rotational experience for 

those who will be our civilian leaders. Perhaps we can learn from 

the experience of the military and avoid the adverse consequences. 

But, it did change behavior, and I think some kind of effort on the 

civilian side would change behavior, also, and it needs to happen. 

Senator ROUNDS. Admiral? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. As I’ve mentioned, I really do believe that we have to keep the joint imperative on the force. It 

needs to be reinforced at a more senior level. And by lifting some 

of the mandated requirements in the junior ranks, I think that we 

can rebalance the competencies in the service staffs. 

You know, we talk a lot about acquisition reform, but a lot of 

how we enter into the acquisition process deals with setting requirements and budget decisions and things like that. And by forcing in more people earlier into the joint structure, we’re not building those repetitive tours that give the people the experience and 

the knowledge to really take on some of the hard things of acquisition and man training and equipping. 

And so, I think there are some levers that can be pulled to adjust 

the Goldwater-Nichols requirements, but then it also needs to be 

done in conjunction with DOPMA. Because if you don’t adjust some 

of these other constraints that you have in DOPMA, then I think 

you’re going to impose some new problems that you have. 

So, as this is looked at, my recommendation is: look at Goldwater-Nichols, look at DOPMA, look at the civilian force, and how 

do you blend them together to get the design that will be good for 

the next couple of decades. And I would submit, after 20 or 30 

years, it’s probably going to be time to take a relook again, because 

times will change. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator King. 

Senator KING. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I’d like to follow up on that exact point, Admiral, thank you. 

That was a very succinct statement. 

Tour lengths. A mundane question. I had the opportunity to 

interview or to chat with General Dunford as he was leaving AfVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:35 Aug 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\20957 WILDA
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ghanistan a couple of years ago, and I was overwhelmed by his 

level of expertise and knowledge. He knew everything about Afghanistan, and yet he was leaving after 18 months. And I thought, 

nowhere in the public sector would you do something like this, take 

this amount of expertise and knowledge and say, ‘‘Okay, time’s up, 

you’ve got to go up to Sheboygan.’’ 

Talk to me, Mr. Rostker, about tour lengths. Could we—and how 

much money could we save if we just made tours 4 years instead 

of 3 years? I mean, the cost of moving people, is it—are we—is this 

a remnant of a prior manner of thinking? Is there—are there ways 

to adjust this, both to save money and also to maintain expertise? 

Dr. ROSTKER. If you made that change, you’d get an immediate 

savings, and it would set back into a steady- state, and you really 

would not get that much savings, because the force is still built on 

some notion of rotation. 

Tour lengths should be handled in the same way that Dr. Chu’s 

talked about, as increasing the opportunity for people to volunteer. 

We just finished a study for the Defense Department in which we 

posed the question, Would people be willing to extend their tours 

overseas? And only about 40 percent of the population said they 

would. And then we asked the next question, If you had a financial 

incentive, would you be willing? And we varied the financial incentive so we could understand what was going on. And, for very little—relatively little money, we could get up to 60 to 70 percent of 

the people to extend their tours. 

So, we can use tools to better manage the Department and have 

people make voluntary decisions rather than force them to say, 

‘‘Well, now you’re here and we’re going to give you another 4—another year, even if it’s a bad place.’’ Let people have the opportunity to stay, and let’s use reasonable financial incentives to encourage them, where that makes sense. And I call your attention 

to the Navy’s outstanding program to allow this, in initial assignments, to fill hard-to-fill areas. We’re not making use of those kinds 

of incentives. 

Senator KING. Dr. Chu, slightly changing the focus: force structure in the 21st century. And we’ve—been a lot of talk about contractors and civilians. But, it seems to me that the—what we ought 

to be doing is having warfighters be warfighters. And if that’s what 

they’re trained for, and it’s very expensive to train them, then the 

other functions, whether it’s maintaining the aircraft or serving the 

meals, should be done by somebody other than uniformed personnel 

who have that expensive and extensive training. 

Dr. CHU. Sir, I couldn’t agree with you more. And that actually 

was an initiative of the—one of the Secretaries I had the privilege 

of serving was Secretary Rumsfeld—worked hard on looking at 

which functions should be carried by military personnel, which are 

our most expensive asset, pure dollars-and-cents perspective, and 

which ought to be performed by civilians. And interesting, the Department made—and, in fact, he succeeded in converting about 

50,000 slots. So, the military numbers weren’t up because of these 

in the war, but he did convert about 50,000 billets from military 

to civilian status, which could be either Federal civilians or contractors, depending upon the nature of the task. 

88 

Interestingly, the government does—Department does maintain a 

database on this matter. This—inherently a governmental commercial activity database, which can serve as a guide and does argue 

that there’s a number of positions to which we could use civilian 

personnel, whether those are Federal civilians or contractors. So, I 

think there’s more to be had, there. And I think that’s an important—as I argue in my testimony, it’s important source of both performance improvement and cost savings for the Department. 

Choose the right mix of personnel for the task at hand. 

Senator KING. And as long as the contractors are managed properly, that’s one—one of the long-term bears in the room here longterm personnel costs and the tail costs, in terms of healthcare and 

pensions. If you manage contractors properly, they bear that risk, 

and not the taxpayers. 

Dr. CHU. Yes, sir. And I think that’s one of the issues in thinking 

about Federal civilians versus contractors—and back to the issue 

of low performers on the Federal Civil Service. One of the reason 

entities within DOD and other government agencies find contractors so attractive, in my judgment, is they can turn the contract on 

and off. If the need diminishes, you can stop the activity. It’s much 

harder to do that under the U.S. Federal Civil Service practices, 

not necessarily the statutes, but the way they are implemented. 

And I think that’s one of the issues that the committee might usefully address. 

Senator KING. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Kaine. 

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thanks, to the witnesses. 

I have a—one question about recruiting and one kind of about 

structural issues during the tenure of someone’s service. 

On the recruiting side, there was an Economist article in late October, and the title was ‘‘Who Will Fight the Next War?’’ And it 

was about difficulties in recruiting young people into military careers. You know, even with only 1 percent serving, so the number 

may be small relative to the general population, there’s been some 

challenges recently—I think mostly—most of the publicity has been 

around the Army. But, you know, you take the cohort of young people you’re trying to recruit, and you put out anybody who is, you 

know, barred either because of academic misperformance or a felony or poor physical conditioning, then you really whittle down the 

available core. And then that available core has other opportunities, too. 

Obviously, better pay is one recruiting mechanism. But, as you 

think about the recruiting needs, you know, the—we want to continue to bring in the best and the brightest for the very long term. 

What advice would you have for us as we think about things to do, 

separate from the salary side? Because we can figure that out. But, 

what are things that make the career an attractive one that, from 

that available component of young people, would get more to say, 

‘‘I want to make a military career’’? 

Dr. CHU. I’ll be delighted to start. I think I’d come back to something that Mr. Hale emphasized, which is how the country values 

the service of the individual. One of the things I thought was very 

89 

interesting in the surveys—the Department does those surveys of 

young people’s attitudes, as you know, the surveys in the early part 

of the century—is that the reasons cited for being interested in the 

military changed from what had been true 10-20 years earlier, 

which had focused, in that earlier period, on learning a skill. And 

it may sound a little bit old- fashioned, but a good deal of the responses focused on patriotic values of one sort or another. And so, 

I think the way the country honors the service of the individual 

and speaks to service as being a calling that is part of your duty 

as a citizen, as opposed to something that is something somebody 

else does, which is too much, I think, part of the current American 

conversation, I think that is of enormous help to the Department’s 

recruiting apparatus. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Senator, I—— 

Senator KAINE. Admiral Roughead. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD.—as I looked at the future, the thing I 

watched most were the economic predictions, because that’s what’s 

really going to drive your recruiting. And compensation is important, but it really is the total compensation. And how do you deal, 

particularly with the force now that is more married than when I 

came in—that’s a significant component that has to be taken into 

account. 

But, with regard to the positive experience, the one thing that we 

discount—and I’ve been through this cycle in my career—that 

when you take away the means for a young professional to properly 

maintain their equipment, to have the resources to go out and do 

the things that they enjoy doing, whether it’s flying or being out 

on a submarine, or whatever, that is huge. And, as we struggle 

with the departmental costs, and as we come down on those operation and maintenance funds that allow for proper maintenance 

and pride in what they do, the opportunity to do what they love 

to do, cutting those funds is going to have a significant impact. 

When those go up, you can see the attitude of the force change, because they’re given the tools and the means to do that which they 

came in the military to do. 

Senator KAINE. Just to close the circle on that, I want to make 

sure I understand your point. So, if we’re dealing with budget caps 

or a tough budget environment, we’ve tended to—while we can’t 

take it all out of personnel, and if we did, we’d have to grandfather 

it, and we’d only see the savings way down the road. And we can’t 

cancel weapons acquisitions midstream, so we tend to take it out 

of readiness and O&M expenses and, you know, decrease the number of flying hours that are available to people who want to be aviators or decreasing the training that’s available for people who 

want to do that, and then that becomes kind of a demoralization 

factor that either will make people not come in or maybe more likely, when they’re in, make then decide to hasten their departure. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. And I go back in my earlier days 

in the Navy when I had young sailors bringing their own tools from 

home to maintain the equipment that they were responsible for. 

When that changed, things changed dramatically. And I—and so, 

this O&M dimension is more than just how many ships you have 

deployed or how many airplanes you’re flying. It’s much, much 

more substantial than that. 

90 

Dr. HALE. Senator—— 

Senator KAINE. Please, Mr. Hale. 

Dr. HALE.—Kaine, at least in the last 5 years, we’ve actually cut 

back primarily in the procurement areas to meet the budget caps, 

in that services have tended to try to maintain the operation and 

maintenance funding, I think, because of the readiness concerns. 

Moreover, as I said in my testimony, I mean, the Congress has 

made some changes, or allowed changes to be made, in compensation that have freed up funding, and, depending on the recruiting 

climate, some modest additions to that may be appropriate. Because, as Admiral Roughead said, it’s not just the money, it’s 

whether or not you are trained, you feel you can actually operate. 

That’s maybe particularly true with the Reserves. Ironically, I 

think we used the Reserves heavily—and I take my hat off to 

them—over the last 14 years. I worry that we’ll use them a lot less 

now, and they want to be used in militarily meaningful ways—not 

all the time, but occasionally. So, the services, I think, are pushing 

hard to keep the O&M budgets up, and the Congress needs to help 

them, where that’s appropriate. 

Senator KAINE. Thank you. I had a second question dealing with 

the use of kind of a specialist designation, which I know services 

have used to try to provide non-career—non-traditional, non-up-orout career paths, but I think I’ll ask that one for the record, since 

I’m over time. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Go ahead. 

Senator KAINE. Well, I just—if I could on that, several of the 

military services have had a fairly extensive rank structure known 

as ‘‘specialists’’ that went beyond the current system, not so much 

‘‘up or out,’’ for the recruiting of specific technical skills. Is that 

something that’s still done? Should it be done more? Does that provide some of the flexibility that a number of you have talked about 

in your testimony? 

Dr. CHU. Yes, absolutely. The classic case, in my judgment, is the 

Army use of warrants for helicopter pilots. So, you can aspire to a 

long career at the flight controls. It has a small cadre of what we 

call—classically have called ‘‘commissioned officers’’ who are prepared for the more senior responsibilities in the enterprise. The 

Navy has used limited duty officers for some elements of that. We 

have that in the professions. So, the judge advocate generals corps, 

although—except for what Dr. Rostker said about promotion opportunities—career limits—but, for doctors, chaplains, health professional service kinds, we have carved out somewhat different paradigms over time. The Navy’s supply corps is another example of 

that approach. 

So, there are other ways to do this. They may not be used as aggressively and as immediately when a new issue like cyber comes 

up. So, cyber comes up, we immediately turn to the line structure 

as our model, not to these other opportunities as a way to proceed, 

including, I might emphasize, back to Senator King’s question, Federal civilians who could hold Reserve appointments if that becomes 

an important issue from a Law of War perspective. 

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Thanks, to the witnesses. 

91 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Gillibrand. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On January 24th, 2013, the Secretary—then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the repeal of the Combat Exclusion 

Policy. The Secretary gave the three services and Special Operations Command until January 1, 2016, to open all positions to 

women or formally request an exception to keep certain positions 

closed. 

Admiral Roughead, can—what can the other branches learn 

about the Navy—or learn from the Navy about integrating women 

once these positions are open? And we know that women attain advanced degrees at a higher rate than men, suggesting they may 

well be positioned to offer expertise to the DOD, yet about half the 

women separate from the service after their first commitment. 

What are the reasons women do not remain in the military? Why 

do they make up such a small percentage of the services? And how 

could the military better recruit and retain women? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Thank you very much for the question. 

I think that what the Navy has done is open certain specialties, 

early on, which one would classify in a combat category. And only 

now are we beginning to see women rise to positions of leadership, 

where young women who are coming in the Navy today can look 

up and see themselves, and also having in place the types of programs that allow family considerations to be emphasized. And so, 

now we have young women coming in the Navy that can see themselves, can see having a professional fulfilling career, and also see 

their personal life fulfilled. And it’s going to take a little bit of 

time, but I think we have to open up those opportunities and look 

at supporting both professionally and personally as young women 

progress through the ranks. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. So, one of the supports that you’ve put in 

place is a very good paid leave policy. Do you think that’s relevant 

for your ability to retain women? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I think that that is important. One of the 

things that we did during the time that I was on Active Duty, with 

the help of Congress, was to put in a pilot sabbatical program. I 

think that’s helpful. But, it—I think it’s also important to recognize 

that it’s not always the young woman that will take advantage of 

the sabbatical. It may be that, in a dual-service family, that the 

male spouse takes over that responsibility. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. And we’ve seen, in the civilian world, that 

that really makes a difference. When men and women both take 

paid leave, it enhances people’s values to support families overall. 

And it doesn’t marginalize the woman because she’s the only one 

who ever takes time off for the dying mother or the sick child or 

the new infant. So, it makes a difference that you do encourage it 

to be gender- neutral, because then you become a family-friendly 

place, and it’s not just the women who are being sidelined. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Exactly. And the family will decide what career they want to prioritize over the other. And that’s—— 

Senator GILLIBRAND. At a given time. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD.—a decision that they have to make, and—— 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Right. 

92 

Admiral ROUGHEAD.—not one that should be made by the service. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Yeah. I think that’s wonderful. Thank you. 

Do any of you have anything you want to say on these topics before I move to the next topic? 

[No response.] 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Okay. 

Traditionally, military training has followed a generalist or a 

one-size-fits-all approach. However, technology is becoming increasingly complex, requiring a specialized set of skills. We have also 

seen emerging threats in new areas, such as cyberwarfare. The private sector offers more money and no requirements, like boot camp. 

All together, these trends suggest that there might be a benefit for 

the military to consider different models that would allow at least 

some of our servicemembers to be recruited and retained in a different way. What changes do you think would be needed, in terms 

of recruiting and training personnel, to better position the military 

to develop cyberwarriors? How might we better leverage our Reserve components to address recruitment and retention of 

cyberwarriors? And are there ways the military can collaborate 

with the private sector to improve cybersecurity specialties and capabilities? 

Dr. CHU. Senator, I think you raised an important issue, and it 

does open the door on a conversation about one matter we have not 

discussed today, and that is the opportunity for lateral entry. We 

do allow it for the professions—so, the chaplains, health professionals, lawyers, that’s okay. But, we don’t for the rest of the structure, as a generalization. The Reserves are better at it, for a variety of reasons. And I think this notion of encouraging people who 

are mid-career in the civil sector to think about a period of military 

service under rules that are available to the Department, or could 

be made available to the Department, would be an important step 

for the future. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Would you, for the record, give me a letter 

on that describing what you would envision for lateral service and 

what type of accommodations you would make. Because I envision 

someone who’s brilliant behind a computer that’s never going to be 

brilliant behind a rifle. So, I can imagine that, when you can designate someone to be a cyberwarrior, to be a cyberdefender, necessarily—being in the field is not necessary, because they can be 

behind a computer anywhere in the world at any given time. So, 

I’d like you to be specific about what that would look like, because 

I’d like to have that for the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

93 


15-90_1a.eps
94 

Dr. CHU. Delighted to do so. Thank you, ma’am. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Just briefly, would the witnesses agree that, although it’s a beginning, this change in the retirement system is the right thing to 

do? 


15-90_1b.eps
95 

Dr. CHU. Yes, sir. 

Dr. ROSTKER. Yes. 

Dr. HALE. Yes. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

On the issue of tours, very briefly, Dr. Rostker, there’s a—different kinds of tours, as you know. There’s the overseas tour at a 

base in Germany, where we have the school and the hospital, et 

cetera, and then we have the rotational through our joint base in 

Australia. I mean, there—when we talk about ‘‘tours,’’ it’s—I think 

we ought to define it a little bit. 

And, Admiral Roughead, I’m informed that the carriers are now 

on 10-month deployments. I think that’s too long. And I think it’s 

harmful. Do you agree? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I agree completely. We’ve been through this 

before, and, when we talk about retention, the longer you stretch 

those deployments out, the—you’ll see the effect in retention. And 

I would submit that the model of getting to 6-month deployments 

worked out very well for us. It seemed to strike the right balance 

between familiarity with the region in which you’re operating and 

retention. 

Chairman MCCAIN. And time in different ports is drastically reduced, as well. It’s too tough on these people and their families, 

this kind of separation. And maybe I have some bias, but clearly 

I’d—I’m even—I understand that our obligations are expanded, but 

to keep people at sea for that long a period of time, I’d be interested—maybe we can get a readout from the Navy on what it does 

to retention. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Finally, could I say—I thank the witnesses— 

the complexities of these issues, I’m aware of. And I know that 

Jack and I appreciate it. But, this testimony today, I think, emphasizes to me that we really have scratched the surface, to start with; 

and, second of all, the—none of these issues are simple. None of 

them are—that there’s just a easy solution to them. And I think 

your testimony today, with the benefit of probably a century of experience on personnel issues, has highlighted the complexities of 

many of these challenges we face, and the need for us to act. But, 

we want to remember the old adage about ‘‘First, do no harm.’’ 

So, I appreciate the witnesses here today. I appreciate your long, 

many years? service to the Nation. And, unfortunately, we will be 

interrogating you again in the future. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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