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i 

87–861 2014

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–98] 

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE 

WITHOUT OCO FUNDS: WHAT NOW? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 27, 2014 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois 

PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas 

RYAN CRUMPLER, Professional Staff Member 

VICKIE PLUNKETT, Professional Staff Member 

NICHOLAS RODMAN, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2014 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, March 27, 2014, Operation and Maintenance Without OCO Funds: 

What Now? ........................................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, March 27, 2014 ...................................................................................... 29 

THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2014 

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE WITHOUT OCO FUNDS: WHAT NOW? 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Field, Lt Gen Burton M., USAF, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans 

and Requirements, United States Air Force ...................................................... 7 

Huggins, LTG James L., Jr., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, 

United States Army ............................................................................................. 3 

Mulloy, VADM Joseph P., USN, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Integration of Capabilities and Resources (N–8), United States Navy .................. 5 

Walters, LtGen Glenn M., USMC, Deputy Commandant for Programs and 

Resources, United States Marine Corps ............................................................. 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

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

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Scott ............................................................................................................ 37 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 41 

(1) 

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE WITHOUT OCO FUNDS: 

WHAT NOW? 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 27, 2014. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Rob Wittman (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

READINESS 

Mr. WITTMAN. I call to order the Subcommittee on Readiness of 

the House Armed Services Committee. And I want to welcome all 

of our members and our distinguished panel to today’s hearing focused on ‘‘Operations and Maintenance Without OCO [Overseas 

Contingency Operations] Funds: What Now?’’ 

This morning we have with us Lieutenant General James L. 

Huggins, Jr., Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Operations; 

Vice Admiral Joseph P. Mulloy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations 

of Integration of Capabilities and Resources; Lieutenant General 

Glenn M. Walters, Deputy Commander of the Marine Corps for 

Program and Resources; Lieutenant General Burton M. Field, Air 

Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. 

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for 

your service to our nation. It really means a lot to us. Thank you. 

Since the terrorist attacks on 9/11 the U.S. military has deployed 

thousands of U.S. service members, Federal civilian employees, and 

contractors around the world in support of operations focused on 

counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, ballistic missile defense, and 

security assistance. The military services have also dedicated immense resources to repairing war-torn equipment, developing new 

technologies, modernizing the force, training units, and shoring up 

homeland defenses. 

The bulk of these activities have been paid for outside the normal Defense Department budget process through a yearly wartime 

Overseas Contingency Operations supplemental budget. OCO funding, as it is called, has played and will continue to play an essential 

role in military readiness. 

Most importantly, it supports our combat operations and our 

men and women in harm’s way. It remains critical to protecting 

our forces as we draw down in Afghanistan and allowing them to 

successfully conduct their mission. 
2 

OCO is essential for the retrograde of equipment from theater 

and the transition of security responsibility to Afghan national security forces. This need will be especially acute if a bilateral security agreement is signed with the government of Afghanistan. 

Some would characterize OCO as unnecessary after 2014. However, the fact of the matter is that the rapidly broadening scope of 

challenges now facing our military has led to the Department to become increasingly dependent on OCO to support enduring activities, activities beyond Afghanistan’s borders that must continue 

after combat operations have ended. 

OCO funds a multitude of enduring, high-priority activities like 

building partner capacity, providing humanitarian assistance, conducting training exercises, and performing intelligence functions. 

We must find a way to migrate the billions of dollars in funding 

for these essential and enduring activities from the OCO to the 

base budget, which presents an enormous challenge that only becomes more difficult if sequestration continues to squeeze the base 

budget. 

Until we are able to do so, we have a responsibility to provide 

the necessary OCO resources to allow our troops to do the job we 

have asked them to do. However, that does not mean we will stop 

providing vigorous oversight of the OCO budget or that hard 

choices will not have to be made. 

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

Bordallo, for any remarks that you may have. 

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

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And thank you for 

convening this hearing on a very important topic that will have significant impacts on the readiness of our forces as we wind down in 

Afghanistan. 

To all of our witnesses here today, thank you for your testimony 

and for your service to our great nation. 

Admiral Mulloy, I want to welcome you here today. Here we have 

another top leader in the Navy who got some early training out on 

Guam. And I know that our Guam Chamber of Commerce has appreciated your leadership on a number of issues and says hello. 

Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland on September 

11, 2001, the Department of Defense has relied upon supplemental 

appropriations to pay for counterterrorism operations through the 

Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO, budget. Since 2001 the 

Department has received nearly $1 trillion in OCO funds to pay operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in combating terror 

threats across the globe. 

OCO funds have been critical to funding current operations, but 

as the war in Afghanistan winds down we need to begin preparing 

for what the world will look like without OCO funds. OCO funds 

have been particularly used to fund certain readiness needs such 

as flying hours and steaming days, specialized training, and equipping service members for the counterinsurgency mission. The Army 
3 

and the Marine Corps are particularly reliant upon these funds to 

pay for reset of equipment that is retrograding from theater. 

I hope that our witnesses will discuss how and when each of the 

services would move these readiness activities into their base budgets in the out-years and the extent to which the specter of sequestration complicates that effort. As the services begin to program for 

activities that have been paid for under OCO during the past decade, where do you take risk if they are not covered in the base 

budget? 

I also hope that our witnesses from the Army and the Marine 

Corps will talk about the risk to resetting their equipment if OCO 

funds dry out. And I would like to hear a good discussion on what 

equipment the Navy and Air Force have on resetting, as we rarely 

hear about their reset challenges. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

We will now go to our witnesses. 

Lieutenant General Huggins, we will begin with you. 

STATEMENT OF LTG JAMES L. HUGGINS, JR., USA, DEPUTY 

CHIEF OF STAFF FOR OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES ARMY 

General HUGGINS. [Off mike.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. If you could go ahead and get you to turn your 

microphone on? Thank you. 

General HUGGINS. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member 

Bordallo, members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for 

the opportunity to come testify this morning here on the importance of the contingency funding along with my joint service partners. I am here to really emphasize the fact that the investment 

in your Army over the past 13 years, provided in large part by 

OCO, has ensured our success in both Afghanistan and Iraq as well 

as other contingencies around the world. 

Your support of the fiscal year 2014 Consolidated Appropriation 

Act and the Bipartisan Budget Act has also allowed the Army to 

begin to regenerate readiness, and these funds are critical for our 

training in the future; for contingency operations; as you both mentioned, the reset of our equipment; and to rebuild the readiness of 

the global contingency force, which we need to keep ready every 

day. 

Finally, on behalf of the Army and the over 155,000 soldiers that 

are either forward-deployed or forward-stationed today, many of 

whom whose missions and training were funded by OCO, I would 

like to say thank you for your support. 

The OCO funding has been essential in enabling the Army to 

surge its manning, its equipping, and its training in a time of war, 

as well as sustaining the force in extended operations and then resetting that force after redeployment in order to, again, rapidly rebuild readiness for the nation, which will be also very critical to rebuild that readiness in the future as we become smaller. 

It has also permitted the Army to support our deployed joint 

force partners here at the table with us, as the Army serves as the 

executive agent for many title 10 logistics and support functions. 

And in my role as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Readiness, and Mobilization I can tell you I am concerned with the col-
4 

lective impact that a lack of Overseas Contingency Operations 

funding would have on our ability to rebuild readiness and then 

move towards a balance of the force as we restructure it in the future between readiness, modernization, and end strength or force 

structure. But I am also concerned, as we are doing missions 

around the world today, that it will impact our ability to support 

our sister services who are deployed alongside of us in many of the 

AORs [areas of responsibility] which you visited. 

The implications of not receiving OCO in a timely manner would 

force the Army to reprioritize its remaining base funds for the 

readiness of our deployed and deploying units only. The Army 

would be forced, similarly, as we did in fiscal year 2013, to absorb 

the reductions by reducing collective training of all units that don’t 

have that deployed or—deployed mission. 

The Army has three specific concerns as we look at the future 

of OCO funding. The first is that, as leaders have testified many 

times both last year and this year, the Army will require overseas 

contingency funding for years to come—approximately 3 years, by 

our estimate—to finish the reset of equipment when the last piece 

comes out of Afghanistan. 

The cost is estimated at about $9.8 billion and we have been 

given a little over 3 [billion] for funding for that this year. And 

again, that is going to go a long ways to, again, help rebuild our 

readiness down the road. 

And again, I just would say that this equipment that we are trying to retrograde to reset from Afghanistan in many cases is our 

most modern equipment, because we have had our best equipment 

forward. And it will be vital to the improvement of not just the active Army in the future, but all of our components, both the National Guard and Army Reserve. 

And the second concern is that OCO is the source of funding not 

only for our operations in Enduring Freedom, but also for many 

other operations and contingencies around the world: on the continent of Africa, missions such Observant Compass, Juniper Micron; in the CENTCOM AOR [United States Central Command 

area of responsibility], in addition to OEF [Operation Enduring 

Freedom] we have funded parts of Operation Spartan Shield in Kuwait as well as JTF [joint task force] Jordan. So it is more than 

just Afghanistan for many, as you both pointed out. 

If there is not an OCO appropriation the funding for these contingency operations, just as I said previously, will have to be absorbed into the base—and this is especially problematic during the 

times of a declining budget. 

And the last concern we have is the temporary end strength, 

which was agreed to by Congress and funded through OCO, allowed the Army to support the demands precipitated by two surges 

in Iraq and one surge in Afghanistan. It enabled us to maintain 

some level of dwell for our soldiers between many multiple backto-back deployments. 

It has always been clear we would reduce that end strength, but 

it is going to take a little bit of time. As the chief just testified, we 

have accelerated our reductions so a move towards that 490,000 in 

the active force by 2015. 
5 

The readiness in the Army for ongoing operations around the 

world and contingencies is critically dependent upon receiving 

Overseas Contingency Operations funding appropriations. The absence of that OCO would severely underman the Army readiness 

initiatives we have taken this year, thanks to the 2014 appropriations, to start to rebuild that. It would, in my opinion, move us towards hollowness. And it would increase the risk both to our soldiers and to our mission for this nation. 

And I look forward to working with Congress to find a solution 

that will help the Army ensure that we remain the best Army in 

the world and be able to fully respond when the nation calls. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thanks, Lieutenant General Huggins. Thank you. 

Vice Admiral Mulloy. 

STATEMENT OF VADM JOSEPH P. MULLOY, USN, DEPUTY 

CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FOR INTEGRATION OF CAPABILITIES AND RESOURCES (N–8), UNITED STATES NAVY 

Admiral MULLOY. Chairman Wittman, Representative Bordallo, 

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for this 

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Navy’s use 

of Overseas Contingency Operation funds, or OCO, and the Navy’s 

also enduring need for supplemental funds as you support the end 

of the war in Afghanistan and continue to support critical national 

security needs around the world in the Middle East area. 

OCO funding, in addition to our base budget, continues to play 

a critical role in maintaining the capability, capacity, and readiness 

of our Navy to support our combatant commanders in addition to 

meeting the missions of defense planning guidance. On any given 

day there are approximately 6,000 sailors ashore and another 

10,000 afloat throughout the CENTCOM area of operations. These 

sailors are conducting maritime infrastructure protection, explosive 

ordinance disposal, counter IED [improvised explosive device], contingency construction, cargo handling, cargo logistics, maritime security, civil affairs, base operations, and other forward-presence activities—supporting special forces, among—and many other forces. 

For over 10 years OCO funding has allowed the Navy to operate 

at a wartime operational tempo throughout the Middle East. As the 

land war draws down, the Navy is uniquely challenged because our 

forces will continue to serve and provide presence in the 

CENTCOM region as boots on the ground actually move out of 

some countries. 

As we reduce our ground combat forces, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance requirements will remain steady or even 

increase. Transportation and retrograde requirements are increasing as we prepare to ship cargo and equipment to come back home. 

Sustaining this long war fight has worn upon the material conditions of our ships and OCO funding has become a critical component of our ship maintenance program. 

Our afloat and expeditionary forces in the Middle East remain 

forward to defeat aggression. However, the demand for naval presence in the theater will remain high for the foreseeable future. 

As the Navy’s resource officer, I am concerned that if the Navy 

remains at our current level of operations that it will not be sus-
6 

tainable within our baseline budget. We use OCO funding to reset 

our ships and equipment. Timing is based on when—timing is 

based upon when does the operations end, but equally important 

for our ships is the availability of the platforms and dry docks to 

actually reset them when they come back, so there is a critical timing element here as well as, in our reset we find for—that I will 

define later in terms of years. 

The capital nature of our assets of our ships make long-term supplemental reset more critical to the Navy, as in the current fiscal 

environment, any transition from OCO to base at the current base 

top line, or worse, under sequester laws, would drive all of our 

bases down, and our limited budget will pressurize our already difficult decisions as we work to balance our force structure, modernization, and readiness. Without additional supplemental funding I am concerned that all three of these areas will suffer. 

We support the transition from OCO to base funding and will 

work with the administration and the Department of Defense as 

they develop transition options. However, it must be done in a progressive and responsible way to prevent destabilization of operations in the Middle East, an acceptable risk in our ability to fulfill 

our global missions, and have no dramatic impact upon our critical 

force structure and procurement accounts. 

I ask for Congress’ continued support in sustaining OCO funding 

while we gradually and responsibly transition from OCO to base in 

our future years. Thank you again for this opportunity. I look forward to answering your questions. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Vice Admiral Mulloy. 

Lieutenant General Walters. 

STATEMENT OF LTGEN GLENN M. WALTERS, USMC, DEPUTY 

COMMANDANT FOR PROGRAMS AND RESOURCES, UNITED 

STATES MARINE CORPS 

General WALTERS. Good morning, sir. 

Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, and esteemed 

members, thank you for the invitation to appear before the subcommittee to discuss Overseas Contingency Operations budget and 

readiness. 

Can I borrow your speak slowly slide? Thanks. 

As the Marine Corps—inside joke, sir. Sorry. As Marine Corps 

Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources it is my job to 

obtain the resources to ensure we remain America’s crisis response 

force. That means marines deployed overseas, whether in Afghanistan, providing steady state presence, or training with our international allies, are ready. They will have the right equipment and 

the right training to accomplish their mission. 

My Commandant has tasked me with prioritizing our resources 

to support readiness as our top priority. We generate readiness 

through our operation and maintenance accounts. 

For operations supported by OCO, operations and maintenance 

supports of the Marine Corps—support the Marine Corps’ incremental cost of combat operations to include training and equipment 

repair. The remaining OCO request covers infrastructure repair, 

equipment replacement, and temporary end strength above the 

baseline Active Duty force. 
7 

However, as we wind down our operations in Afghanistan the 

size of our OCO budget will decrease. We will no longer need our 

temporary end strength but we will still need some funds to support our enduring activities and to complete the reset of our equipment for several years. Without an OCO budget we will be forced 

to take further risk in our equipment modernization and infrastructure sustainment programs in order to maintain near-term 

readiness. 

I look forward to answering any questions you have. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Lieutenant General Walters. 

We will now go to Lieutenant General Field. 

STATEMENT OF LT GEN BURTON M. FIELD, USAF, DEPUTY 

CHIEF OF STAFF FOR OPERATIONS, PLANS AND REQUIREMENTS, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE 

General FIELD. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, 

thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update on 

your Air Force and how we use OCO funding. 

Today your Air Force is engaged globally, supporting combatant 

commander requirements and executing national strategy as prescribed by the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance. Much of our engagement is supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, and that is 

all funded by OCO. 

In fiscal year 2014 the Air Force is executing about $16.6 billion 

in OCO funding. OCO represents 13 percent of the total Air Force 

discretionary budget, and that means we are heavily reliant on 

OCO. 

In general we apply OCO to three different appropriations: operations and maintenance, or O&M; procurement; and military personnel. Most of the funding goes to O&M so I am going to start 

there. 

In fiscal year 2014 our OCO appropriation exceeded $10 billion. 

In addition, with the BBA, thank you for providing us with an additional $2.8 billion that we are allowed to put toward flying hours, 

readiness, and weapon system sustainment. 

Overall, that OCO funding O&M funding is about 20 percent of 

our total O&M budget. And again, it indicates a heavy reliance on 

OCO funding for readiness and day-to-day operations in the United 

States Air Force. 

Within the $10 billion of OCO O&M, $2.8 billion is funding 

321,000 flying hours in support of OEF. Now, unlike most of our 

colleagues, most of our airmen are not stationed inside of Afghanistan. 

While we do have 5,000 airmen and multiple hundreds of airplanes in that region, most of them are in bases surrounding Afghanistan, which provides a great advantage to the commander 

there. But bases like Ali Al Salem, Al Udeid, Al Dhafra, Thumrait, 

and Manas are all funded by OCO. 

This leads to a second major O&M expense, which is the $2.7 billion in base operating support for these bases. This includes the 

housing, dining, sanitation, utilities, operation and maintaining of 

vehicles and support equipment, as well as the comm [communications] and security required to operate a base. 
8 

We also fund with OCO the airlift transportation required for 

OEF. In fiscal year 2014 $2.2 billion was allocated to inter- and 

intra-theater airlift, air medical evacuation, and commercial 

tenders. 

Finally, all of our weapon systems supporting OEF have to be 

maintained. In fiscal year 2014 we used $1.8 billion in weapon system sustainment cost, and that primarily consists of aircraft and 

engine depot inductions driven by increased aircraft utilization 

rates. 

And it also includes contract logistic support needed for assets in 

theater. For example, two-thirds of our RPA, remotely piloted aircraft, requirement is funded by OCO. 

In addition, fiscal year OCO—2014—fiscal year 2014 OCO funds 

fund nearly $3 billion in procurement, which includes replenishment of the aircraft, missiles, ammunition, and other equipment 

that need to be reset. 

Finally, we use about $860 million in personnel cost, which includes the man-days we use to leverage our Guard and Reserve 

forces. As you know, the Air Force heavily relies on our Guard and 

Reserve forces, and without their participation we couldn’t do what 

we do today. 

We are still formulating the fiscal year 2015 OCO request but it 

is going to basically be categorized as reset, retrograde, and enduring requirements. Like all services, the Air Force anticipates OCO 

funding will be needed for a couple years to reset both in procurement for asset recapitalization and O&M funding for equipment 

repair. 

In addition, we are carefully planning retrograde, which is going 

to include conducting detailed cost-benefit analysis to determine 

what should and should not be retrograded. And that planning is 

ongoing, just like the other services. 

So you are familiar with retrograde and reset but you may not 

be familiar with the potential for enduring requirements. These requirements are a particular concern to the Air Force because we 

have indications that both Air Force airmen and platforms will be 

in high demand in CENTCOM and in other theaters even when 

combat operations end, regardless of how many boots are on the 

ground in Afghanistan. 

For example, I recently polled all of the COCOM [combatant 

command] J3s [joint staff operations] and asked them what their 

future requirements for Air Force airmen will be. Every one of 

them said their requirements were going up, not down—to include 

CENTCOM. 

So what does that mean? It obviously always means ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaisance], it always means fighters, 

and it always means bombers. Those come with a requirement for 

airlift; they come with a requirement for refueling; they come with 

a requirement for command and control; and they also come with 

a requirement for personnel recovery. 

In CENTCOM those bases I mentioned earlier that aren’t in Afghanistan but are OCO-funded will be the enduring presence that 

CENTCOM will rely on to—in the future. It is likely they will remain regardless of the outcome of operations in Afghanistan. 
9 

So we may label the continued deployment or associated base operation support as a baseline requirement, an OCO requirement, or 

whatever requirement, but if required, we need to resource it. 

We have already in fiscal year—in this current President’s budget proposal shown how dire we are in the baseline budget. We are 

going to cut over 20,000 airmen and 500 aircraft without moving 

any base—any OCO into the baseline. 

With the funds required for operating those bases in the region— 

again, Ali Al Salem, Al Udeid, Al Dhafra, Thumrait, any other residual requirement in Afghanistan—we would have a very difficult 

challenge moving that into the baseline. 

So despite these challenges, we emphasized readiness with your 

BBA [Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013] funding and we do appreciate 

that, and that will help reverse the long downward trend of readiness and our ability to meet the strategy. That recovery will take 

a while, though. 

If we don’t receive appropriate OCO or baseline funding we will 

be forced off that recovery path and the readiness will likely get 

worse. The reason is OCO reset, retrograde, and enduring requirements are mostly O&M bills. We will have to tap into our baseline 

O&M funds to pay those bills. 

Now, what happens then? We hit our flying hour program; we hit 

our readiness; we hit our weapon system sustainment. 

We saw in fiscal year 2013 what happens when sequestration 

and basically budget cuts forced us into steep and sudden cuts. We 

stood down 31 fighter squadrons, for example, and those fighter 

squadrons didn’t fly for—fighter and bomber and C–2 squadrons 

didn’t fly for 3 months and we are still trying to recover from that 

3-month non-flying period. 

If we are forced to put the OCO into our baseline budget we are 

going to have to make similar cuts for an extended period of time 

in the future. That means that we will be basically—do our best 

to be ready for requirements now and have little to no reserve for 

anything that might come up suddenly that we hadn’t anticipated. 

So thank you again for the opportunity to talk to you today and 

I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you so much, Lieutenant General Field. 

I am going to defer my questions and go to the ranking member, 

Ms. Bordallo, for her questions. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My first question would be, I guess, for each of our service representatives here today. 

Please describe your service’s efforts to migrate enduring requirements into the base budget, and how does your service’s fiscal year 

2015 base budget request reflect efforts to return to a non-OCO 

budgetary world? What specific functions have you moved from 

OCO to base and how challenging has sequestration made that 

task? And what is most at risk? 

We will start with you, General. 

General HUGGINS. Thank you, Ranking Member Bordallo. I 

would have to start out that probably the biggest challenge is the 

unknown of the future fiscal environment, in terms of whether 

2016 will be full sequestration or where are we at. We understand 
10 

that is the law of the land and that is where we are looking, but 

it does make it programmatically difficult for us to project how we 

will migrate those funds. 

We have done some of that already, most specifically in the area 

of equipment that we reset. Many of the items that have come to 

the Army as a result of the war in terms of mine-resistant ambushprotected vehicles, the MRAPs, and our critical ISR assets, which 

are invaluable on the battlefield, those have migrated into the base 

in terms of reset and ability to project or sustain their—in our inventory. So we are holding on to the best of those pieces of equipment, moving them into the base. 

We will follow a very similar model as we look at, as General 

Odierno has mentioned, as we look at the targets based upon the 

future environment that we will shrink the Army to, following the 

same methodology in terms of migration of funds into this. We do 

see it as the way of the future; it is just a matter of the fiscal uncertainty in terms of how quickly or how much we can do year by 

year, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I understand. 

General HUGGINS. Thank you. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Admiral. 

Admiral MULLOY. Yes, ma’am. Having been the budget officer for 

41⁄2 years, I have seen this develop. I would say to you in this 

budget right now the Navy has moved, working with the Office of 

Secretary of Defense, a couple areas—one has been flying hours, 

but only the baseline. The Navy operates at a readiness model of— 

we do a cycle readiness model of what is called 2.5, so pilots are 

ready, they get ready, they deploy, and they move up and down in 

the cycle. 

And we fund the Marine Corps, which all the Marine Corps aviation is funded in the Navy budget—everything from procurement 

of airplanes through flying hours. They pay for the people. They 

are funded at 2.0 because of their readiness model. The Commandant is always ready as that middle fighting face. 

So they are funded that and they are funded what we call 80 percent of training and readiness matrix. When they deploy the MEUs 

[Marine Expeditionary Units], the ARG [Amphibious Readiness 

Group], and the carriers are funded at a baseline flying to where 

they are maintain ready. But that is not what is expected forward. 

So we fund the base to be able to go forward but the moment 

they get in the Middle East there is an operation of—they are at 

125 percent of flying when they are anywhere in the Middle East, 

but if they are in Afghanistan it is 188 percent of this—they are 

not getting a lot more training but they are doing a lot more flying, 

so none of that has migrated to the base. What we find is that the 

CENTCOM and the Joint Staff and the National Command Authority expects aircraft carriers and ARGs to fly at higher levels 

when they go forward than what we are funded for in the base. 

But we have bought 80 percent back in the base that 10 years 

ago, because of peacetime training offsets between OSD [Office of 

the Secretary of Defense] and the Hill, they said, ‘‘Hey, when you 

go forward, you cross the date line, you go through Straits of Malacca, almost everything is in OCO.’’ Well, we walked that back to 

baseline and then flying. 
11 

But there is a substantial amount—more than $1 billion of flying—that is still going on, which the Chairman of the Joint Staff 

will tell you is enduring and the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] 

will tell you is—it is enduring but who is going to help me pay for 

it? 

In steaming we have basically moved also—we operate in what 

we call steaming days per quarter. When you are deployed, 51 to 

90 days is paid under way of the base budget; and when you are 

homeported it is 24 days. Well, we have been basically able to go 

from 45 and 20 to—from fiscal year 2016 and out—to 51–24. Once 

again, we set the baseline to be ready to be around the world at 

a level. 

Right now we operate 58 to 63 days a quarter. You know, the 

steaming of the ships for the ARGs, the steaming of the carriers, 

and extra ships are all in—those extra days are OCO, once again. 

It is a supplemental, and the—as the Air Force general pointed 

out, what is the new order out there? What is the expectation? 

When we go to CENTCOM, we go to EUCOM [United States European Command], we go to AFRICOM [United States Africa Command], well they could go down but I am going to still demand 58 

or 63 days out of my ships and I am funded at 51–24. And that 

difference is the support of Congress to give me that extra money, 

and so there is that. 

And of these overseas bases, the one base is Djibouti. We have 

moved the baseline money for that base as an enduring Navy EA 

[executive agent] that we fund that and that is now in our base. 

However, all the operations out of Djibouti, whether it is the Marine Corps operations, all the ships you see in the Middle East, 

once again, 51–24—anything beyond that, any flying beyond that, 

the Army guards that maintain the security over there, that is all 

in OCO. 

So HOA operations—Horn of Africa operations—are in OCO. The 

base itself in Djibouti is in my base because we have said that is 

an enduring. 

But the support I provide at Al Eisa, the base support for the 

Marine Corps aviation, the Navy EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal], and teams in part of Bahrain, that is in OCO. Fujir and 

some other places that we support special forces are in OCO also, 

because we have to have that determination what is the enduring 

presence. 

So those are the big risk areas. And the other one is in reset. We 

get tremendous support for ship maintenance and aviation maintenance but we get about 80 percent of our baseline is for ships, but 

ships actually wear—on a model, they wear out just being at sea. 

So we are dependent upon OCO and it is about $1.4 billion. I 

need to get it back in the base. 

But there are other areas of—we have—and we appreciate the 

support of Congress. Our reset of our ships—for the ships that deployed from 2006 to 2011 that did extra steaming we never—and 

we cut short their availabilities, we have had to go in and say, ‘‘The 

next time that boat comes due we need to go a dry dock avail. We 

need to open up all the tanks and fix things.’’ And for the last 2 

years we had great support from Congress. 
12 

When the 2015 comes you will see there is a ship reset, and that 

is somewhat unique. This will be the third year. And that needs 

to go for about 5 more years because it takes 8 years to work 

through the fleet. 

All the ships come due. Their next what we call ‘‘selected restricted availability’’ needs to be a docking restricted availability 

because I have to go in and do the maintenance on the ship that 

was cut short because it was in Norfolk, it was in Guam, somewhere it had to go. So therefore, underway now, we never did all 

that completion. It is about $1.4 billion—pardon me, $1.8 billion, 

but it needs to be over a number of years to be able to add that 

to the ship maintenance account. 

So those are the risks we take. It is the enduring, the present, 

and we have done some OCO to base, but I will tell you, the specter of the BCA [Budget Control Act] of the lower caps would dramatically—even without that it would be hard to bring all this in 

base. 

But what ties the hands, I believe, of DOD [Department of Defense] and it somewhat ties the hands of Congress unless you take 

action is if the caps don’t come up we will always be up against 

that ceiling. So if I bring OCO into base, what comes out of the 

base then? Because there isn’t the flexibility for the Secretary of 

Defense to ask for more, and without concerted action on the Hill, 

if you don’t raise the top line you are going to drive potentially all 

of us further into our base accounts, which would be procurement 

and readiness. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Admiral, for making that very clear. 

General. 

General WALTERS. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for the question. 

We follow the Navy on the depots. Our aircraft are done in Navy 

depots. 

We also have our own depots. We have tried to fund our base 

budget to an enduring requirement, or what we think our enduring 

requirement will be. We think we have done that in 2014 and we 

think that we have done that in 2015. 

Just to scope it for you, our O&M account in 2014 is slightly less 

than $9 billion. About 40 percent of that is in OCO. So if we have 

to move all that in the base—and I know all of that doesn’t need 

to be moved into the base because we will draw down operations 

as we drive on—but we are still going to need the OCO for the 

reset 2, 3 years. 

It is a matter of phasing. Even if you brought all the equipment 

out today, if you put it on a ship today and 2 months later it got 

here, I still don’t have the capacity in the depots to push it all 

through, so it is a phasing issue there. 

We have tried to migrate our training in there. Our field maintenance we have tried to put in our budget. 

But as with all the other services, as we look at a sequestered 

level in 2016 and out, what comes out is either our modernization 

accounts or our force structure. I think we have taken all the risk 

we can in the force structure end of the business. We don’t want 

to get any smaller. I don’t think the nation, as a steady state requirement for us, can afford to have us any smaller. 
13 

Our budgets, as we moved some of these enduring requirements 

in the POM [program objective memorandum] process we have, in 

our budget at least, reduced our procurement accounts by at least 

30 percent. What does that mean? That means we are a ready force 

now but we see a time in the future when a future Commandant 

will have a—hard choice of either having a fully trained or a fully 

equipped marine on the battlefield, and that is what we are facing, 

and sequestration just exacerbates the problem. 

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

General Field. 

General FIELD. Yes, ma’am. That is a great question. 

Over the past couple years the Air Force has done its best to migrate almost all of the flying hours that are not directly related to 

CENTCOM and OEF out into the baseline budget. We had some 

crossing of the beams there for a while and I think we have 

cleaned that up. 

In addition to that, we are funding our weapon system 

sustainment to 80 percent. Now some of that this year is with that 

OCO funding that you all provided, and we are grateful for that. 

But in the out-years we are looking to fund that at 80 percent out 

of our baseline unless BCA comes back, and that will be cut again. 

So that is the primary things that we moved from OCO into the 

baseline. 

I think it is important also to remember that even with the 

BBA—and like all the other services, we are deeply grateful for the 

BBA—but even with the BBA in fiscal year 2014 that is about a 

$5.3 billion cut to the United States Air Force. And we have little 

clarity on what is going to happen after—from 2016 and beyond 

other than the fact remains that BCA is still the law of the land. 

So we have a problem. We are already cutting 20,000 airmen; we 

are already cutting 500 aircraft. We have already seen the effects 

of a severe cut like sequester had on us last year. And as I just 

described, we have enduring requirements over—around the globe 

that are increasing. 

So at the end of the day we are going to have to either cut back 

on those requirements around the globe, which means that our 

ability to assure our allies and partners and deter potential adversaries is going to be at risk, or we are going to have to take that 

exactly as described from before, either out of some procurement 

program, which means our future viability is at risk; or our readiness, which means our airmen are going to be trained less and less 

ready when they arrive in battle; or both most likely. 

So the fact of the matter remains is that without this increased 

funding we will not be able to do anywhere what you are asking 

us to do today. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I thank all of you gentlemen for being very clear 

on this. 

And I do have a couple other questions but right now I yield back 

to you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

And then we will now go to Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
14 

General Field, I represent Robins Air Force Base, and I would 

like to hear your thoughts on the curtailment of the OCO funding 

and the impact that it will have on the depot operations. 

General FIELD. Yes, sir. Again, I think, as everybody has described, we have been using OCO money to reset the equipment 

that we have been using in these operations in Enduring Freedom 

and before that in Iraqi Freedom, and so those are continuing. This 

year we used some of that BBA OCO funding that you allowed us 

to use in weapon system sustainment, which is directly applicable 

to our depot systems, which you have at Robins Air Force Base, 

and we continue—we are committed to maintain as much funding 

as possible to that—the weapon systems sustainment program. 

Right now that is at 80 percent and we are projecting that at— 

to remain at 80 percent and maybe higher as we see how that— 

how that goes. But if the BCA comes back we are going to have 

to reduce that funding below that, and that will be problematic in 

terms of having aircraft available to both operate in areas around 

the globe and to train with. 

Mr. SCOTT. What percentage of the funding for depot maintenance is coming from OCO right now? 

General FIELD. Sir, I will have to get back with you on that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. 

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

page 37.] 

General FIELD. But ultimately we are going to—our intent is to 

move that and WSS [weapon system sustainment] into the baseline. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. Are there any particular areas of sustainment 

that will be hit harder than others? 

General FIELD. Sir, I think with—if we have to move the OCO 

into the base and we have those resources now required from our 

baseline, I think we will have across-the-board problems with every 

major weapon system that we have and in the other equipment 

that we use to equip our airmen to do their job in the battlespace. 

Mr. SCOTT. You talked about the 500 aircraft, 20,000 airmen— 

that is the approximate reduction in the President’s budget. That 

is about a 40 airmen per aircraft. Is that typical across the Air 

Force? 

General FIELD. Sir, what we did was we—when we went into 

this—to this planning effort we decided that we were going to have 

a couple guiding principles, and one of the guiding principles is if 

we were going to cut the tooth we were going to cut the tail. And 

so in the case of like the A–10, when we cut 283 aircraft out of 

our—out of our service, we are going to—we were able to take— 

we were planning on taking the personnel and the sustainment tail 

that goes with that. That allowed us to take cuts that were, while 

nobody likes this decision, gave us the least risk and the most payback. So we are able to get $4.3 billion by taking away the entire 

A–10 fleet using this tooth and tail model. 

And then we were also looking across the board at where we 

were overmanned in personnel and looking to see what the effect 

would be is if we reduced that level. The problem is that part of 

our manning structure is based on what we normally do, and right 

now when you look across the globe both in OEF, in Africa, what 
15 

is going on in Europe, and the requests out of the Pacific, we are 

actually required to do more than we are manned to do, and that 

is how we ended up with overages in personnel areas. But we are 

going to have to look at cutting all of that. 

Mr. SCOTT. I am extremely concerned about the A–10 drawdown 

and the pace at which it is being drawn down and the gap, then, 

between that drawdown and when new aircrafts will be available. 

I recognize it is an older platform. It is also an extremely effective 

platform. 

But no matter how good the F–35 is going to be, we can’t have 

it in one place—in more than one place at one time, and if we draw 

down the A–10 over 24 months and it is 7 to 8 years before the 

F–35 is actually coming off the assembly line in adequate numbers, 

that seems to me to leave a gap in capabilities, but I understand 

there are extremely tough decisions to be made. 

General FIELD. Yes, sir. You want me to explain our rationale on 

the—— 

Mr. SCOTT. Please. 

General FIELD. So the cuts from—to our budget were extremely 

onerous, I guess you would say. We had to take a—figure out exactly what we were going to do to cut billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars out of the budget, and how to do that 

and maintain as much capability for our nation as possible. 

So we looked at what we provide the joint force, because at the 

end of the day it is not the Air Force that does the fighting; it is 

all of us together that do that. And so what we provide to the joint 

force is air superiority; we provide them precision attack; we provide ISR; we provide command and control of our air assets; and 

we provide mobility. 

And so we went through each one of those mission areas. Our 

chief talked to the chiefs—the rest of the Joint Chiefs and other 

COCOMs and he asked them exactly how—where they were—what 

they were expecting of the Air Force in terms of air superiority, 

which enables movement and prevents movement of the enemy, in 

terms of precision attack, in terms of the ability to get to the fight 

fast and to get to move around the battlefield rapidly, in terms of 

ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], to know what 

is going on and what happened in the latest fight. 

And after those discussions we looked throughout our portfolios 

and we looked at where we would provide the most bang for the 

buck in this particular case in precision attack, both in the deep 

fight, in strategic attack, and also in second echelon in areas right 

where we are—our men and women on the ground are joined at 

battle. And so we looked at who provides CAS [close air support]. 

And right now we have over seven platforms that provide CAS. 

We provide CAS with bombers; we provide CAS with fighters; we 

provide CAS with RPAs [remotely piloted aircraft]. And when we 

looked at—we put that into campaign models we found that if we 

replaced the A–10 with F–16s or another platform, that the impact 

of that on the campaign model, for example in Korea, was minimal 

to none. 

And so we made that decision along with that guiding principle 

of tooth-to-tail to take the A–10 out of the inventory. Now we will 
16 

take—we will move that over a 5-year period, and we are—and 

there is a lot of moving pieces behind that. 

But I will tell you that there is nobody—and I am first in line— 

that likes this decision. We do not like this decision. It is just the 

other decisions to come up with that much money are worse, and 

the A–10 can’t do what those other platforms we would have to cut 

can do. 

So, for example, as an example, trying to get that much money 

out of the B–1 would require us to retire the entire fleet, and the 

B–1 is our only airplane that can employ the JASSM [Joint Air to 

Surface Standoff Missile] between now and 2020 or 2019. Or we 

could take 350 F–16s out of the inventory; that is roughly about 

14 squadrons worth of fighters. And those fighters can do CAS, 

they can do second echelon attack, and then they can do deeper 

strikes that can affect the future battlefield and different parts of 

enemy action and will. 

Or we could go into readiness accounts again and then we could 

make our Air Force less ready and less able to respond when 

called, and we are already at that point right now. 

So none of these decisions were palatable. None of them were 

good. All of them were very hard to make. And at the end of the 

day, that is why we decided on the A–10 versus some other area. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

We will now go to Mr. Barber. 

Mr. BARBER. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to, before I begin my questions, thank you for leading us on that CODEL 

[congressional delegation] last week to Afghanistan—very informative. And once again, it reinforced my understanding of how dedicated our troops are in the face of very difficult circumstances in 

Afghanistan. 

Gentlemen, I want to thank you all for being here today, but 

more importantly, I want to thank you for your leadership and the 

many years of service you have given to our nation. I represent 

thousands of men and women in the Air Force at Davis-Monthan 

Air Force Base and at Fort Huachuca down in Cochise County in 

the Army garrison, and I am very proud to have that role. 

Before I ask a question of General Huggins I want to go back to 

what was being discussed just before my turn came, and that is the 

A–10. 

General, I understand this was a tough decision. They are all 

tough decisions, and I think the irresponsible decision that Congress made to impose sequestration and these cuts on our Department of Defense are really the villain of the piece, so we need to 

deal with it. I have opposed sequestration. We will hope that we 

can come back and do something about that. 

But I want to associate myself with my colleague who just asked 

the question about the A–10. I really think that it is putting our 

troops in danger, quite frankly. Yes, I understand other platforms 

are available—the F–16, for example. 

But when I talk to the Army personnel down at Fort Huachuca 

they don’t say, ‘‘I wish the F–16 would show up,’’ they say when 

the ugly warthog shows up they are having a much better day. And 

they understand, as we all do, that that is the best aircraft right 
17 

now to provide close air support, flying low, flying slow, making 

sure that the enemy is running and our troops are protected, and 

I really hope that we can find a way to reconsider this decision 

until we have platforms in place that really will prevent the gap 

that we are going to be seeing as the divestment goes forward. 

We are going to continue to press the Air Force and the Secretary to make sure that we reconsider this decision, because I 

think it really does put our troops in jeopardy. 

I would like to turn now to talking about the Army, and Fort 

Huachuca in particular, General Huggins. Fort Huachuca is a wonderful place. I don’t know if you have visited it, but if you haven’t 

it is a fantastic facility—one of our national assets in terms of national security, I believe. 

The civilians and service personnel who work there I believe 

have and will continue to serve a vital role in the Army’s intelligence and signal operations. Many of those service members work 

at the Army’s Intelligence Center of Excellence, NETCOM [United 

States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command], and the 

9th Army Signal Command headquarters, and they provide an important capability to operational requirements and contingency 

missions around the world. Secretary Hagel has rightly said that 

he wants to identify and pursue cybersecurity and cyber warfare as 

one of the DOD’s top priorities, and I couldn’t agree more. 

General, special missions like the one housed at Fort Huachuca 

have many operational requirements that blend their daily operations and maintenance with overseas contingencies. Could you tell 

us what impact you foresee Army—on Army intelligence and signal 

communities who have relied in the past on OCO funding to cover 

costs of many of its operations and maintenance? 

General HUGGINS. Thank you very much, and thank you for your 

words on Fort Huachuca. I have been there and I would agree with 

you. 

I would tell you that specifically in terms of the intel functions 

first, before the cyber, last year about $54 million in OCO was 

pushed into Fort Huachuca to support multiple operations—you 

know, most importantly the Foundry [Intelligence Training] Program. We provide reach-back capability for the commanders that 

are forward. 

I was fortunate enough to be the regional south commander in 

Afghanistan a few years ago when many of you visited, and we rely 

on not just Huachuca but many other installations where the intel 

center provides this reach-back capability by—what they fondly 

say, they keep no MI [military intelligence] soldier at rest, even in 

reset back at home station. They are training on a forward-deployed mission and looking at real-world intelligence scenarios to 

help the commanders forward on that. 

So we have invested in OCO at Fort Huachuca in the past and 

continue to see the need to do so in the future, really to help our 

commanders, our soldiers that are forward doing the contingency 

missions. 

In terms of the cyber piece, I would only add it is probably the 

one of only two probably growth areas in the Army. As we look forward we are—obviously sequestration is tough. 
18 

We have gone to a majority of the force and said, ‘‘Hey, if you 

can remain neutral you probably have grown,’’ but cyber certainly 

is. I agree that is a critical mission set and we have got a great 

new Army cyber commander who is working with U.S. Cyber Command to try and put our force structure together to meet the realworld requirements. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BARBER. Thank you, General. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Barber. 

We will now go to Mr. Enyart. 

Mr. ENYART. [Off mike.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Thank you. 

We will go ahead and go through a second round of questioning. 

And, Ms. Bordallo. 

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

Admiral Mulloy, you know where—I am very interested in a certain part of the operation here and I want to ask you, how does 

the Navy’s base budget cover the focus on the Pacific region and 

would that focus be jeopardized by losing OCO funding? 

Admiral MULLOY. Ma’am, there are some parts of OCO that supply some of the operations that support the intelligence function 

but generally the Pacific focus, which has been there in the Navy 

for over 80 years, is base-funded. But the risk is—we have is, you 

might say is, rising tides and lowering tides to level all boats. 

The risk to the Pacific would be if the requirements may not go 

away. I mean, we have to maintain our ships and we have to look 

where we are operating steaming, but if we have to swallow some 

further enduring into our base it competes with the entire base, 

and as I think all the witnesses have pointed out was, you have 

to focus your procurement accounts, your modernization accounts, 

and your other readiness accounts. 

So in many cases is, our focus would still be on the Pacific but 

if I have to lower the base for the entire Navy it will have a ripple 

over there. It still is our primary focus; it has been since the—obviously the 1930s when we moved the fleet to the Pacific, and then 

shortly after in 1944 Guam has become a central point out there 

also. And it was before that, but even more so since then. 

Those are areas we don’t want to go but we have to look at trying to bring that enduring requirement for the Navy. If the combatant commanders don’t come down and the top line doesn’t go up 

we will be squeezed, and that will affect everyone. 

And that is obviously very much a tremendous concern, and our 

CNO has always said is, ‘‘Warfighting first, be ready, and operate 

forward,’’ are his three mantras, which is that basis of the Navy. 

We are operating forward and we will continue to do that. 

In the whole discussion we have always maintained our base 

metrics funded. It comes back again as to what do we have to do 

enduring—that is considered enduring—that the COCOMs consider 

enduring but the Navy’s trying to figure out is it really enduring 

in this world, and we think it really is. And the Pacific will always 

be there for us but it is pressure on them indirectly. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral. 
19 

General Huggins and General Walters I guess, if you could just— 

given the recommended changes in force structure in fiscal year 

2015 budget, how confident are you that we are bringing home 

equipment that is really needed by the new force structure? And 

also, in a perfect world how many more years of OCO funding do 

you think is needed to get to the 100 percent reset completion? 

How would you complete reset if OCO funding were curtailed or 

eliminated? 

Just very quickly, either one of you? 

General HUGGINS. Thank you, ma’am. Again, back to the other 

comments, if it were curtailed we would have to absorb it in the 

base because we vitally need that equipment that is forward, as we 

have said, some of our most modern. 

We will prioritize it in that sequence as we bring it back in as 

we look to balance a lot of that equipment as it provides lethality, 

you know, mobility, and then protection for our soldiers in terms 

of our platforms. So what we are trying to do is find the best mix, 

and that is why we have slimmed down our mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles and—to say we are not going to keep all of 

them but we will keep the absolute best of that and sustain that 

in it. 

So we will have to go through some prioritization. Again, the— 

would like to be able to keep more, but we have been given tough 

choices, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. General. 

General WALTERS. Yes, ma’am. To date we just crossed the 80 

percent mark on our equipment in Afghanistan that we have 

retrograded. It has not all been reset; only about half of that has 

been—gone through reset. 

Our intent is to bring it—bring all that equipment out. We don’t 

think we have any excess. There are going to be some disposed-of 

items that have been, through enemy action, rendered not viable 

to reset. 

How long are we going to need reset? Because of the timing, the 

phasing, and how long we can get it back here, our best prediction 

is 2 to 3 years. We are going to need OCO to reset. 

How important is reset? If we can’t get it—if we can’t get the 

equipment reset in the timeframe I just described we will have 

units that don’t have the equipment and won’t be ready to deploy 

at a future date—2017 would be a good date to think about that, 

yes, ma’am. 

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

Before I yield back my time I just want to go on record to thank 

Chairman Wittman for leading a few members here from the 

HASC [House Armed Services] Committee to a CODEL in Afghanistan and parts of Africa. And I was so very proud—we all were— 

to see our American troops who are training the African security 

forces and for the very harsh conditions that they are having to endure, especially the heat. And they did it all with a smile on their 

face, and we were all so very proud of our troops and I just want 

to go on record just saying that. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

Mr. Scott, would you like another round of questions? 
20 

Mr. SCOTT. I will try to be brief out of respect for the witnesses, 

but the Rapid Innovation Fund is one of the other things I had 

questions about, and with the changes in the OCO funding Rapid 

Innovation Fund, if each of you could speak briefly to what type 

of impact that you will have on getting—that will have on getting 

new weapon systems to your troops? 

General HUGGINS. Thank you very much. Obviously I think this 

has been an asymmetric event we developed over the past 13 years 

of this war, and one that we are very interested in terms of how 

we are going to continue that. 

Inside the Army, we continue to leverage two entities. One is 

called the Asymmetric Warfare Group, which is in our TRADOC 

[United States Army Training and Doctrine] Command, and the 

other is the Rapid Equipping Force, which currently works for 

headquarters DA [Department of the Army] but will transition this 

year to TRADOC. It is very hard to program funds for those because whether we are leveraging commercial-off-the-shelf technology or whether we are working through research and development to develop our own niche capability, you just can’t figure out 

when you might hit that breakthrough. 

The chief has us taking a look at how we might look even further 

into the future. I think you spoke together 2 days ago about the 

Army of 2025 and that technological advance we are trying to look 

for as an excursion he has asked our Training and Doctrine Commands, most specifically our Army Research and Capabilities Integration Command, to take forward because we do recognize that as 

a key way forward. 

The bill will have to compete as we look at our RD&T [research, 

development, and test] and our modernization, and is, again, it will 

be impacted by sequestration, but the chief has asked us to hold 

off a portion of it so we can continue to look to the future so we 

don’t outrun our headlights for that matter, sir. 

Admiral MULLOY. Sir, for the Navy the Rapid Innovation Fund 

provides some of funds that we—from OSD that we compete for 

under the G–1 process, or what the Navy calls Speed the Fleet 

also. I would say is that concerns each and one—concerns us is 

about that is one source. 

But the other, I would say, is the more important source is the 

continued from this committee and the other committees is under 

the above-threshold reprogrammings. Many items come in, we are 

trying to say was, ‘‘Hey, I want to put on’’—I will give you an example. 

Just this past week tremendous support last year to put Griffin 

missiles and Mark-38 guns on our patrol combatants in the Middle 

East to provide security for all of our forces going to and from the 

Straits of Hormuz. This past week our LCSs [littoral combat ships] 

over there shot and went I think it was nine for nine on Griffin 

missiles at target barges, which simulate other countries’ ships 

moving through the area. 

The support of the committees to allow us to reprogram in and 

make missiles and guns available on ships over there to continue 

these upgrades are important, so it is two part. We are concerned 

about OCO, but it is also the ability to move funds with—that we 
21 

planned 24 months in advance but we need to say is, ‘‘I really need 

to be here.’’ 

And so I would say is that is even bigger for us is your continued 

support for above-threshold reprogrammings and that omnibus to 

come is really important and is directly documented on the ability 

of our PC [patrol craft] commanders to have better guns, better 

communications and missiles in a high-threat environment in the 

Straits of Hormuz. 

General WALTERS. Sir, I will echo my compadres’ concern. If we 

have learned nothing in the last 12 years of war it is that we do 

need to turn inside the enemy. Even an unsophisticated enemy can 

come up with things that can deter us from accomplishing our mission or harm American citizens. 

We do not have a process that allows us to turn inside in the normal process. We need rapid innovation, whether it is developing 

the TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures] or getting something 

commercial-off-the-shelf or getting something rapidly to the fleet as 

a threat emerges. IEDs are a perfect example of that. You can 

build to protect and then they can adjust, and you have to innovate 

and continue to protect. 

So it is very, very important that we have the flexibility to do 

that inside the normal budgeting process. Having that kind of fund 

available so that we can rapidly get it, I have seen on my time in 

the Joint Staff we have gotten things to the combatant commanders and our commanders and troops in the field in 8 weeks. 

You cannot do that through the normal process, so we need to have 

access to the dollars and the authorities to use those to counter 

what we find in the world today. 

General FIELD. They have pretty much taken it all, Congressman. I will go first next time, yes. Basically, it does provide us an 

opportunity to get things out very quickly, and we have been able 

to take advantage of that over the past few years. The residual, 

though, is turning those programs into programs of record and having the continuing funding to sustain them in the long term. 

Mr. SCOTT. But if OCO goes away and we don’t make an adjustment on the other side of the equation it is going to slow the process, isn’t it? 

Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

Gentlemen, I want to ask a few overarching questions. Looking 

specifically at the current request for OCO in fiscal year 2015, so 

there is no detailed request there, what are your funding level assumptions going forward as to how you would execute the contingency operations overseas after October 1? And do you have in 

mind a fiscal year 2015 OCO number in order to be able to do that? 

And I will like each of your perspectives on that. 

General HUGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This year we went 

with—we were—our top line $46 billion across MILPERS [Military 

Personnel] and across our OMA [Operation and Maintenance, 

Army], in terms of OCO funding. Our projection would be less. We 

can only go off of what historically we have spent in the past. 

As I talked to you we had—our end strength issue, as we continue to draw down, our—this year about $2.5 billion. As we con-
22 

tinue to reduce the force that number should come down for 2015 

in terms of OCO. 

I spoke about the reset. Overall we see about $9.8 billion. I think 

this year we have put in about $3.6 billion, $3.5 billion to work 

that critical reset to rebuild that readiness. I think those are the 

base figures. 

We could go into pretty exhaustive details if I went through the 

operations which you just saw in Africa, which are funded in OCO, 

which our assumption is, and just as General Field and others 

have said, the demand continues to come—go forward. I mean, it 

is pretty unstable and we support the priorities that the Joint Staff 

gives us. 

And I see the continent of Africa very similar if not busier in the 

future. So those fundings at that level between not just Chad but 

many other countries there. 

And then, you know, we still have our deterrence piece in Kuwait, which is also overseas contingency funding. So those are 

there and then, you know, we team with the Navy in terms of 

Guantanamo Bay, which I think those costs are also there. 

And then those are the typical ones most associate with, but we 

have also got Patriots in Turkey with supporting operations, which 

is, you know, vital to building our partnership capacity. And we 

have got a JTF [joint task force] headquarters in Jordan, as I said, 

which is, again, trying to help stabilize a situation which would be 

not in our best interest to go in the other direction. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Vice Admiral Mulloy. 

Admiral MULLOY. Congressman, I would say is if you looked 

ahead you would find is the Navy and all your OCO budgets have 

generally been one of the lower one because we have our base 

budget does a lot of our forward deployment. But I will also tell 

you, if you looked at it we have also had the least change over the 

last couple years because, as I mentioned before, as people come 

out we still have to be out there and operating at the same basic 

levels. 

So in many cases, if you looked in a crystal ball you would find 

that there is maybe a determination of troops on the ground. I 

mean, for us it is 1,000 IAs [Individual Augmentees] of our great 

reservists being mobilized; it is the combat pay for that period; it 

is the SEALs [sea, air, land] and the EOD teams and other people 

and Seabees over there that will be determined on the boots on the 

ground. 

But that is still just a very small percent—less than 10 percent 

of my OCO request. The largest part of it is all those operations 

forward in the Middle East that support everything from Western 

Africa through probably Eastern Africa all the way through to the 

Middle Eastern area, and that will remain largely the same and/ 

or support as we continue to go ahead. 

How we will handle it in October is—the concern would be is if 

there is not a bridge supplemental or some other event invoked 

here is cash flow, where I would have a substantial amount of my 

fleet operations, my fleet commanders would have to do that. It 

would come back to the ones you have seen before—deferred ship 
23 

maintenance, other areas—because I have to fund that presence of 

the 32 ships in the Middle East, the 54 in the Western Pacific. 

Nothing changes on 1 October compared to 30 September. Nothing changes the airplane pilots taking off of the George H.W. Bush 

who is flying over Afghanistan. That plane and the Afghans don’t 

know it is 1 October. I need to fund it, and that is what is going 

to continue on. 

And I have a risk, and I think the Army has the largest risk— 

we all have risk of cash flowing, but ours is substantial; theirs is 

even more because that doesn’t stop. So it is important to think 

about a solution, and I have certainly seen some discussions between the Hill and the White House about perhaps a bridge fund 

or 3 months of it saying, ‘‘Where do we go?’’ 

But I will tell you that my budget will look very much in 2015 

like it did in 2014 when we—when that finally settles, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

Lieutenant General Walters. 

General WALTERS. Yes, sir. It would be perfect if both budgets 

came over simultaneously and we could balance them. We are not 

that. 

I understand the Department’s position of awaiting decisions on 

what our commitment is going to be to Afghanistan. The Commandant’s commitment is that if we have people, much like every 

other service, none of us are going to send people in harm’s way 

without funding them correctly. 

I share the same concerns on cash flowing because I understand 

the risk that we take. We can’t recover from those activities if we 

have to cash flow it because contracts don’t get let, you know, readiness falls off. If you give up $10 of readiness it costs you $20 to 

get it back, and those are all things that we are worried about. 

We are providing Special-Purpose MAGTF–CRs [Marine AirGround Task Force Crisis Response]. Those are in OCO right now. 

The one we have in Moro ́n, if you remember, in December was the 

one that went down to Sudan and evacuated our American citizens 

there. 

We provide some of our embassy reinforcement marines that in 

the last 3 months have been used 8 times, in the last years 30 

times to reinforce our embassies. As we bring this Marine Security 

Guard additional capability on board, all that is in OCO. All that 

is going to have to—we are not going to not do it, so it just puts 

a burden on the people on this side of the table as we try to get 

it right, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Lieutenant General Field. 

General FIELD. Yes, sir. So we ask our combatant commanders 

to do a lot, and what they are primarily concerned with is preventing conflict, and if there is conflict to end it as quickly as possible. 

But a lot of their planning is revolved around the prevention of 

conflict, and whether it is in the Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, 

or now in Europe, that is what they are focused on doing. And the 

Air Force pays for a lot of that out of baseline. Operations in Africa; what we are doing to assure our allies in Europe today; moving 

units into the Pacific on a rotating basis, whether it is continuous 

bomber presence in Guam or F–22s to Kadena in Okinawa, Japan, 
24 

or whether it is F–16 squadron into the Republic of Korea; those 

are all out of our baseline funding. 

As I mentioned earlier, even if we withdraw completely out of Africa, the Middle East remains kind of an interesting region for us. 

Iran looms large for our partners over there and they are worried 

about Iran. 

There is instability across that region right now, as we all know, 

both in Syria, Egypt, and other countries. And those allies we have 

made commitments to and I think our commanders over there 

would like to keep those bases open to assure those allies, provide 

them the support that they need, build those partnerships. Those 

are, you know, a lot of bases that are coming out of OCO funding, 

and if we have to fund those out of our baseline it will be very, very 

difficult to do. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

Gentlemen, I think you have laid out in a very specific way what 

would happen if we don’t have OCO funds going forward into fiscal 

year 2015. And there is a lot that has been said about whether we 

will or will not have a bilateral security agreement [BSA] in Afghanistan, and if we do we know that there will be some level of 

continued operations there; if we don’t then essentially there will 

not be. 

And that then begs the question about what percentage of OCO 

funding in that realm, fiscal year 2015—what percentage of OCO 

funding would you estimate would go toward supporting operations 

in Afghanistan and what percentage would be other enduring missions that would occur regardless of what happens or whether or 

not we have a BSA in Afghanistan post-2014 or not? 

General Huggins. 

General HUGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am looking at the 

crystal ball. I mean, the ‘‘if’’ is very prominent in this discussion. 

Historically, because you look back, probably about 25 percent of 

our top line was OCO. And if you would allow me to continue to 

say, I would—whatever that enduring presence would be, if I could 

reach forward and assume that the reset of that equipment stays 

within that one, which I have spoken about the numbers, I really 

have to take a guess at about somewhere around 10 percent. 

And again, we think we will have the people issue in balance, depending on what that final number goes—depending on full sequestration or not, by 2017 hopefully—by fiscal year 2017. So that really dictates about 3 more years to try and take a hard look at it, 

which matches up with our equipment timeline. 

You know, that said, I just—as you have all seen, I just don’t 

know what the rest of the world is going to look like. But if I just 

isolate it to Afghanistan, as you asked, that would be my best assumption, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Very good. 

Vice Admiral Mulloy. 

Admiral MULLOY. Yes, sir. To the change in Afghanistan, it is 

probably—since I don’t know what the final numbers are I can’t 

give you an exact percent, but for the Navy it is still under 10— 

it would be under 10 percent. We would have to use exact numbers. 

As I said before was, we have been probably for a very large 

service a very small percent of the 13 years of—from DERF [De-
25 

fense Emergency Response Fund] to COW [Cost of War] to OCO. 

It has all moved on. The Navy has been a small percent because 

our baseline has been to operate forward. But it is that edge. 

However, 90 percent of that is still required because we have 

never changed what we use the Navy for, and if we draw down rapidly, as we said before, I very think that it would do nothing but 

actually go up for the Navy for a short period of time as you withdrew, but our presence over there is largely at sea. We do have 

smaller bases and others, but that is why when people count on us 

being there. 

So that is the risk we have is that I may have been the smallest 

OCO but I am the—I am probably the longest affected that it 

doesn’t go away from me unless we stop world operations differently. The Air Force and the Navy do a lot on our base that the 

COCOMs count on, and that, I think, is a long-term issue and I 

greatly support your particular vision, and the entire committee’s 

interest is understanding how the Department of the Navy operates as the symbiotic relationship goes on as he prepares people in 

Pendleton and around the world and to go forward on my ships and 

his aircraft are all joined firmly at the hip, but we are very much 

leveraged in this right now for a long-term solution. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

Lieutenant General Walters. 

General WALTERS. Yes, sir. So you asked specifically on what 

would 2015 look like. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes. 

General WALTERS. Our request, as we are shaping up right now, 

about 35 to 40 percent of that would be for our over end strength 

above our baseline. About 30 percent of that would be for what we 

would—if you make an assumption on our footprint in Afghanistan, 

about 30 percent with that and about another 30 percent would be 

reset. And the last little single-digit percent would be for training 

to prepare to go there. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Lieutenant General Field. 

General FIELD. Yes, sir. Again, I outlined before the basic construct of where to keep those. We are going to need the money for 

that. 

But it all depends on what happens inside of Afghanistan. You 

know, like you said, we only have about 5,000 airmen in there. Obviously that will draw down regardless of what will happen, but 

the support from outside the country going into the country, if it 

has to remain at a base the flying time remains the same so it will 

be a reduction but it just depends on how much effort we are going 

to be putting into Afghanistan in 2015, and we just don’t know that 

answer yet. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

Let me wrap up with this. It sounds like from what you all are 

saying—and I am trying to get a picture here about where we are 

going forward. Obviously we have that indeterminate element of 

what is ultimately going to happen in Afghanistan, but that being 

said, there is a fair portion of OCO that is part of enduring requirements, enduring mission, a percentage of it that is part of the operations there within Afghanistan. 
26 

I know you all have worked to try to get the enduring mission 

elements back into a baseline budget, again keeping in mind, too, 

that there is some flex there because you are not sure about where 

we ultimately end up with in Afghanistan. That being said, I still— 

it still appears to me—and I want you to confirm this—it still appears to me that we are at a point, because we don’t have a figure 

for fiscal year 2015—and again, that is based on trying to gather 

some information—that even if we are out of Afghanistan it doesn’t 

appear to me as though we will be able to fully integrate the needed dollars from OCO back into a baseline budget so there is still 

going to be a gap there. 

Now, I know it is hard to estimate what that gap is, but it appears to me as though there is still going to be a gap—in my mind 

a significant gap—in what you all must be doing as part of your 

requirements, your enduring mission, that we are going to have to 

address in one way or the other as far as that bridge goes. And I 

want to make sure that I am correct in stating that particular situation and I just want to get your comments and a yes or no on 

that. 

General HUGGINS. Mr. Chairman, yes. I agree with your comments. And furthermore, with the appropriation or not, we are still 

funding or we are still resourcing. As we said, whether it will come 

out of the base or not, I mean, as I said, I—no one knows the difference between 30 September and 1 October. I am going to continue to do that. 

I can obviously be more efficient if I can leverage more time in 

that measure, but you are correct, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. 

Vice Admiral Mulloy. 

Admiral MULLOY. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. As you point out, OCO for 

the Navy is in—is in four parts. There is the clearly operating forward OCO-related; there is what I call my baseline—the ship 

maintenance, some aviation depot maintenance, any CC [combat 

control] maintenance, and some operations of Seabees that is in my 

base, I have to get that back; there is the reset. 

But there is this enduring component, which is a substantial 

amount—$2.5 billion to $4 billion a year—of which the combatant 

commanders expect us to operate forward, but that is a new normal for me and that has to be discussed. 

So of those four components, only one goes away with Afghanistan. The other three exist. And the only one that is a temporal is 

about 5 years for ship maintenance to come away for the reset, but 

the base of ship maintenance—the $1.4 billion a year—that has to 

be funded to go back from 80 to 96 percent funding in ship maintenance. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you. 

Lieutenant General Walters. 

General WALTERS. Sir, I will be short. You are spot on. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Very good. Thank you. 

Lieutenant General Field. 

General FIELD. Sir, I agree, you are exactly correct. We don’t 

have enough money in our baseline budget to do what we are asked 

to do now. We don’t have enough money to do what we are asked 
27 

to do now and prepare to do something like it in the future unless 

we have more resources. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Good. 

Gentlemen, thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo, any—Mr. Enyart, any questions? 

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate first of all your service to our nation. Please provide our 

thanks to all the men and women that serve under you and thank 

them for the great service they provided this nation and the sacrifice of their families. We deeply appreciate what you do. 

We have got some challenges ahead. The world around us, as we 

know, is not a safer place and you all do a spectacular job in both 

a strategically challenged environment and a resource-challenged 

environment, so we deeply appreciate that. 

Please continue to stay in touch with us to give us your perspective as we move forward to try to address these critical issues. 

Thanks again, and our subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:34 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 27, 2014 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 27, 2014 

(33) 
34 
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

MARCH 27, 2014 

(37) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT 

General FIELD. In Fiscal Year 2014, approximately 21 percent of the total funding 

for organic and contract depot level maintenance for weapon system sustainment 

comes from OCO. In addition, approximately 26 percent of the Air Force’s Fiscal 

Year 2014 Flying Hour Program (FHP) funding projected to pay for depot level reparables will be funded using OCO dollars. [See page 14.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 27, 2014 

(41) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Mr. WITTMAN. How dependent are you on OCO for day-to-day operations? How 

will the dependence change after the majority of, or possibly all, combat troops are 

out of Afghanistan? 

General HUGGINS. The Army is critically dependent on OCO to support the dayto-day war fighting demands of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). After the departure of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Army must continue to satisfy Combatant Commanders’ operational demands, such as Operation Spartan Shield, Integrated Air and Missile Defense, and other overseas missions. Current U.S. National 

Security Policy dictates a sizeable U.S. troop presence in key regions to support U.S. 

vital interests and those of our allies. Many of these requirements are paid for from 

OCO. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Please describe your service’s efforts to migrate enduring requirements into the base budget? How challenging has sequestration made that task? 

What is most at-risk? 

General HUGGINS. The Army will rely upon Overseas Contingency Operations 

(OCO) funding for any follow on missions in Afghanistan following the conclusion 

of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The scope of other operational missions such 

as Operation Spartan Shield and the on-going Integrated Air and Missile Defense 

(IAMD) mission in the Persian Gulf would cause great pressure on the base budget 

activities that must continue to man, train, and equip a ready force. Efforts have 

been made to partially fund some of these requirements in the base budget; however, the continuing fiscal uncertainty has put the Army in a position of having to 

balance supporting current operations and building readiness. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How does your service’s FY15 base budget request reflect efforts 

to return to a non-OCO budgetary world? What specific functions have you moved 

from OCO to base? 

General HUGGINS. Army’s FY15 base budget reflects efforts to return to a nonOCO budgetary world by an increase in base funding for operational tempo as a result of the reduction of OCO deployed units. In FY15, a reduction in the number 

of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) and Combat Aviation Brigades (CABs) drives a 

base funding request increase of $73.0M and $134.0M, respectively. 

The Army continually reviews our OCO budget/request for enduring capabilities 

that should transition to the base budget and has attempted to allocate base funding for those capabilities. The FY15 funding levels do not allow transitioning capabilities from OCO to base without creating unacceptable risk to current base funded 

programs due to Defense discretionary funding caps established in law. In FY15, we 

will continue to request OCO funding for enduring capabilities currently funded 

through OCO. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How would your overall readiness be affected by the elimination 

of OCO? What training would be curtailed? What infrastructure would be affected? 

How would ability to maintain equipment and fully staff units be affected? 

General HUGGINS. Terminating Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding 

too early would have very serious consequences to the Army’s ability to rebuild and 

sustain readiness. Many of the Army’s enabling capabilities are funded in OCO to 

include such activities as commercial satellite airtime, enduring portions of the 

Criminal Investigation Command’s (CID) Deployable Forensics Labs, contract 

MEDEVAC, and Contractor Logistics Support. The Army is still reliant on OCO 

funding to support portions of forward deployed unit costs, such as those involved 

in Operation Spartan Shield and the on-going Integrated Air and Missile Defense 

(IAMD) mission in the Persian Gulf, as well as significant network operations costs. 

There are enduring capabilities such as comprehensive Soldier and family fitness activities that engender resilience throughout the force. Elimination of OCO funding 

would force the Army to find offsets within base funding to support these actions. 

From the readiness perspective, the training of next deploying units is funded via 

OCO. This training is non-negotiable. If OCO is prematurely removed the Army 

must accept additional risk by curtailing or eliminating decisive action training for 

non Army Contingency Force (ACF) units, and potentially even reducing training for 

units in the ACF as well, to offset the bill. Equipment maintenance would also suf-
42 

fer as the Army would focus all maintenance on the next deploying and deployed 

forces creating additional risk in our other formations and creating a backlog of 

reset and other depot maintenance activities which eventually must be cleared. 

While the elimination of OCO funding would not directly impact Army infrastructure accounts, these accounts would most likely suffer indirectly as a result of the 

need to reduce base accounts in order to offset critical activities formerly supported 

by OCO. This would result in reduced construction of new projects as well as an 

overall degradation of facilities with authorized repairs only addressing base life, 

health and safety concerns. 

Finally, without the 2.5 billion dollars in FY15 OCO for the non-enduring above 

490,000 end strength, the Army would have to take drastic personnel actions, such 

as halting all Permanent Change of Station moves, jeopardizing re-organization and 

unit readiness. The Army would cut contracts for service and support resulting in 

unit manning issues due to borrowed military manpower offsets and a corresponding skills mismatch as a result of the cuts. The impact to our civilian workforce would be particularly painful and would include hiring freezes, continuing the 

talent drain among our workforce of continued presence and readiness support. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Without the support of OCO, at what point in time would the force 

return, in large measure, to full-spectrum readiness? 

General HUGGINS. The Army would be forced to delay the return to full-spectrum 

readiness beyond FY19 if funding for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) were 

reduced below levels necessary to prepare units for deployment. Supplemental funding for OCO is the primary source that provides mission focused resources to our 

deployed and deploying Army units as well as equipment reset following combat operations. The Army uses OCO to ensure that base funding for core readiness activities (full-spectrum and/or Decisive Action in support of Unified Land Operations— 

DA/ULO) remains focused on building contingency response capabilities in support 

of the Combatant Commanders (CCDR). Since 2001, OCO has supplemented some, 

but not all of the costs associated with manning, equipping, sustaining, and training 

Army forces for deployment which forced the Army to mortgage core readiness to 

support Counter-Insurgency (COIN) combat operations. 

Currently, the Army is trying to rebuild core readiness to conduct DA/ULO. This 

multi-year plan began in 2012 with the first DA/ULO training center rotation in 

over 7 years. Based on the current funding plan, the Army anticipates that it will 

regain balance across the force and full-spectrum readiness by between FY19–21. 

If OCO were eliminated, the Army would be forced to revert to mortgaging core 

readiness to support global demand for Army forces, which would delay achieving 

force-wide full-spectrum readiness beyond FY19–21. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How dependent are you on OCO for day-to-day operations? How 

will the dependence change after the majority of, or possibly all, combat troops are 

out of Afghanistan? 

Admiral MULLOY. The Navy’s OCO funding can be split into four parts: increased 

operating tempo for flying and ship operations or operating forward, enduring requirements, reset, and Afghanistan operations. Navy funds the increased operating 

tempo required of our aircraft and ships in the Middle East through OCO. The Combatant Command and the Joint Staff expect increased flying and ship operations 

above baseline levels when deployed to the Middle East. Additionally, Navy funds 

some remaining enduring requirements through the OCO, which include air and 

ship depot maintenance above 80 percent, base support operations for several locations in the Middle East, and operating support for expeditionary units. Lastly, 

Navy funds the reset or repair of equipment, aircraft, and ships returning from theater. Reset of these items, primarily the ships, will take up to five or six years to 

be completed due to the scheduling of maintenance activities. 

Once the Afghanistan operations end, the Navy will have three parts of their OCO 

funding requirements remaining. The enduring requirements, listed above, combined with the increased flying and ship operations above baseline levels when deployed to the Middle East would result in a substantial amount of OCO dependence 

after the majority of combat troops leave Afghanistan. These activities currently require up to ∼$4.0 billion in OCO funding per year. Additionally, the Navy OCO reset 

requirements are currently estimated to total ∼$2.2 billion over the next five to six 

years. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Please describe your service’s efforts to migrate enduring requirements into the base budget? How challenging has sequestration made that task? 

What is most at-risk? 

Admiral MULLOY. Navy has been working to transition OCO funded enduring activities to baseline over the last few years. Enduring aviation and ship depot maintenance baseline requirements have been funded to at least 80% in baseline since 

FY11 and FY12, respectively. 
43 

Navy has funded all enduring flying hour operations in baseline for several years. 

Increased operating tempo required of our aircraft and ships in the Middle East continue to be OCO funded. For the foreseeable future, the Combatant Command and 

Joint Staff expect continued increased flying and ship operations above baseline levels when deployed to the Middle East. 

Navy has also funded enduring Djibouti base operating support costs in baseline 

vice OCO beginning in FY13. 

Navy will require OCO funding for some remaining enduring requirements. This 

includes aviation and ship depot maintenance above 80 percent, ship operations to 

fully support operational requirements, base support operations for several locations 

in the Middle East, and operating support for expeditionary units. Without OCO 

funding, these enduring requirements, combined with the increased flying and ship 

operations above baseline levels when deployed to the Middle East, would result in 

the need for an additional $2.5–4.0 billion per year in baseline funding. 

The Navy continues to work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to 

identify and plan the possible transition of enduring requirements from OCO funding to the baseline. 

If the Navy remains at our current level of operations, it will not be sustainable 

within our base budget alone. The capital asset nature of our ships makes longerterm supplemental reset funding more critical to the Navy. In the current fiscal environment, any transition from OCO to base at the current base topline, or worse 

under sequestration levels, would drive our base down, pressurizing already difficult 

decisions as we work to balance between force structure, modernization, and readiness. Without additional supplemental funding, all three will suffer. For readiness 

specifically, we could be forced to delay maintenance activities for our ships and aircraft, reducing their operational availability and service life. Training could be reduced, preventing ships and aircraft from being ready and available for contingency 

operations. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How does your service’s FY15 base budget request reflect efforts 

to return to a non-OCO budgetary world? What specific functions have you moved 

from OCO to base? 

Admiral MULLOY. Navy has been working to transition OCO funded enduring activities to baseline over the last few years. Enduring aviation and ship depot maintenance baseline requirements have been funded to at least 80% in baseline since 

FY11 and FY12, respectively. 

Navy has funded all enduring flying hour operations in baseline for several years. 

Increased operating tempo required of our aircraft and ships in the Middle East continue to be OCO funded. For the foreseeable future, the Combatant Command and 

Joint Staff expect continued increased flying and ship operations above baseline levels when deployed to the Middle East. 

Navy has also funded enduring Djibouti base operating support costs in baseline 

vice OCO beginning in FY13. 

Navy will require OCO funding for some remaining enduring requirements. This 

includes aviation and ship depot maintenance above 80 percent, ship operations to 

fully support operational requirements, base support operations for several locations 

in the Middle East, and operating support for expeditionary units. Without OCO 

funding, these enduring requirements, combined with the increased flying and ship 

operations above baseline levels when deployed to the Middle East, would result in 

the need for an additional $2.5–4.0 billion per year in baseline funding. 

The Navy continues to work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to 

identify and plan the possible transition of enduring requirements from OCO funding to the baseline. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How would your overall readiness be affected by the elimination 

of OCO? What training would be curtailed? What infrastructure would be affected? 

How would ability to maintain equipment and fully staff units be affected? 

Admiral MULLOY. Navy is committed to providing ready forces forward. OCO currently pays for operations in excess of baseline requirements in support of Operation 

Enduring Freedom (OEF), reset of forces employed in OEF, and for some baseline 

readiness requirements. Sudden elimination of OCO, rather than a progressive reduction that continues to recognize valid supplemental requirements, would pressurize the Navy budget in all three areas: 

• Shifting baseline readiness requirements currently funded by OCO to baseline, 

even with an orderly reduction, will require additional hard choices in procurement, modernization, and readiness impacting the capacity and capability of the 

Fleet. It will extend the risk Navy is currently taking in shore infrastructure 

as well. 

• Continued high demand for Naval forces may require supplemental funding 

above baseline post-OEF. 
44 

• Timeline for reset of Navy ships is dependent upon the requirement to complete 

some of the work in drydock. Drydock maintenance is normally scheduled in 6– 

8 year cycles and is constrained by drydock availability and the time needed 

to conduct this maintenance. Navy requires some reset funding through 2020. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Without the support of OCO, at what point in time would the force 

return, in large measure, to full-spectrum readiness? 

Admiral MULLOY. A significant amount of baseline readiness requirements are 

currently leveraged in OCO. Given the magnitude of OCO funding (e.g., approximately $10B for Navy in FY14), its elimination would require a review of the overall 

Navy portfolio in order to ensure we continue to deliver ready forces forward that 

are properly maintained and trained. Without OCO or other additional funding, 

such a review would likely find that Navy could not return to full spectrum readiness without a significant reduction in the size of the force. Full spectrum readiness 

includes the right capacity and right capability of ready forces. 

In contrast, with PB15 funding, continued OCO and implementation of the Optimized-Fleet Response Plan (O–FRP) across the FYDP, Navy would recover both the 

capability and capacity for full-spectrum readiness, but still face high risk in executing at least two Defense Strategic Guidance mission areas. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How dependent are you on OCO for day-to-day operations? How 

will the dependence change after the majority of, or possibly all, combat troops are 

out of Afghanistan? 

General WALTERS. The majority of Marine Corps OCO funding supports the incremental costs of combat operations, equipment and infrastructure repair, equipment 

replacement, military pay for mobilized reservists, deployed pay and allowances, 

and end-strength above the baseline active duty force (182.7K in FY15). However, 

as the Marine Corps transitions from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan 

to steady state operations, including forward presence and crisis response, some of 

the activities currently funded via OCO will likely migrate to the baseline to support enduring missions and requirements. The Marine Corps currently estimates 

this amount to be between $200 and $450 million. This represents approximately 

8 to 11 percent of our total FY 2014 OCO request of $4.0B. 

The $700 million realigned from baseline to OCO in FY 2014 by the Congress in 

the 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act is also an enduring requirement, and is reflected in the FY15 budget as such. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Please describe your service’s efforts to migrate enduring requirements into the base budget? How challenging has sequestration made that task? 

What is most at-risk? 

General WALTERS. The Marine Corps has made modest gains in its efforts to fund 

enduring requirements in the baseline, but will face challenges to migrate the requirements identified above as sequestration has resulted in reduced top lines for 

all the Services. The ability to continue to fund missions with OCO has enabled the 

Marine Corps to limit further reductions in operation and maintenance and procurement accounts (infrastructure sustainment and equipment modernization) in order 

to support a ready and capable force. 

As the Marine Corps transitions from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to steady state operations, including forward presence and crisis response, 

some of the activities currently funded via OCO will likely migrate to the baseline 

to support enduring missions and requirements. The Marine Corps currently estimates this amount to be between $200 and $450 million. This represents approximately 8 to 11 percent of our total FY 2014 OCO request of $4.0B. Examples of enduring requirements include CENTCOM AOR operations and presence, redeployment of forces post OEF, intermediate and operational maintenance requirements 

as equipment is deployed in support of non-OCO missions, commercial satellite 

bandwidth, and information system requirements. 

The $700 million realigned from baseline to OCO in FY 2014 by the Congress in 

the 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act is also an enduring requirement, and is reflected in the FY15 budget as such. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How does your service’s FY15 base budget request reflect efforts 

to return to a non-OCO budgetary world? What specific functions have you moved 

from OCO to base? 

General WALTERS. The Marine Corps has made modest gains in its efforts to fund 

enduring requirements in the baseline, but will face challenges to migrate the requirements identified above as sequestration has resulted in reduced top lines for 

all the Services. The ability to continue to fund missions with OCO has enabled the 

Marine Corps to limit further reductions in operation and maintenance and procurement accounts (infrastructure sustainment and equipment modernization) in order 

to support a ready and capable force. 
45 

As the Marine Corps transitions from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to steady state operations, including forward presence and crisis response, 

some of the activities currently funded via OCO will likely migrate to the baseline 

to support enduring missions and requirements. The Marine Corps currently estimates this amount to be between $200 and $450 million. This represents approximately 8 to 11 percent of our total FY 2014 OCO request of $4.0B. Examples of enduring requirements include CENTCOM AOR operations and presence, redeployment of forces post OEF, intermediate and operational maintenance requirements 

as equipment is deployed in support of non-OCO missions, commercial satellite 

bandwidth, and information system requirements. 

The $700 million realigned from baseline to OCO in FY 2014 by the Congress in 

the 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act is also an enduring requirement, and is reflected in the FY15 budget as such. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How would your overall readiness be affected by the elimination 

of OCO? What training would be curtailed? What infrastructure would be affected? 

How would ability to maintain equipment and fully staff units be affected? 

General WALTERS. The majority of Marine Corps OCO funding supports the incremental costs for combat operations, pre-deployment training, equipment repair and 

replacement, and manpower above the baseline active duty force (182.7K in FY15). 

As the Marine Corps transitions from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan 

to steady state operations, including forward presence and crisis response, some of 

the activities currently funded via OCO will likely migrate to the baseline to support enduring missions and requirements. The Marine Corps currently estimates 

this amount to be between $200 and $450 million. This represents approximately 

8 to 11 percent of our total FY 2014 OCO request of $4.0B. The $700 million realigned from baseline to OCO in FY 2014 by the Congress in the 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act is also an enduring requirement. 

If OCO funding is eliminated, baseline funding remains at the Bipartisan Budget 

Act (BBA) or Budget Control Act (BCA) levels, and mission requirements remain 

constant, the Marine Corps will be fiscally driven to a 175K force. This will place 

additional stress on the force resulting in a 1:3 dwell for steady state operations and 

posing risk at the Major Combat Operation (MCO) level as it becomes an ‘‘all in’’ 

operating environment. To ensure we maintain the Marine Corps’ number one priority of a ready and capable force, the Marine Corps will take additional risk in 

equipment modernization and infrastructure sustainment which, over the long term, 

will have a detrimental impact to overall institutional readiness. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Without the support of OCO, at what point in time would the force 

return, in large measure, to full-spectrum readiness? 

General WALTERS. The Marine Corps is the Nation’s expeditionary readiness force 

and will continue to prioritize near term readiness to ensure forward deployed forces 

and those Marines poised for crisis remain ready. However, without the support of 

OCO and the compounding effect of the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) or Budget 

Control Act (BCA) funding levels across the FYDP, the Marine Corps will be fiscally 

driven to a 175K force. This will place additional stress on the force resulting in 

a 1:3 dwell for steady state operations and posing risk at the Major Combat Operation (MCO) level as it becomes an ‘‘all in’’ operating environment. To ensure we 

maintain the Marine Corps’ number one priority of a ready and capable force, the 

Marine Corps will take additional risk in equipment modernization and infrastructure sustainment which, over the long term, will have a detrimental impact to overall institutional readiness. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How dependent are you on OCO for day-to-day operations? How 

will the dependence change after the majority of, or possibly all, combat troops are 

out of Afghanistan? 

General FIELD. The Air Force is heavily reliant on Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds for day-to-day operations. In Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14), we anticipate spending over $10 billion in operations and maintenance (O&M) OCO funding, 

primarily for flying hours, transportation, Weapon System Sustainment (WSS), and 

base operating support for Air Force-supported bases in the CENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR). 

The Air Force anticipates significant enduring requirements in the CENTCOM 

AOR, regardless of combat operations or troop levels in Afghanistan. For example, 

the Air Force-funded base operating support is almost entirely for bases outside Afghanistan, which will likely remain a critical element of our future force posture in 

CENTCOM. In addition, we anticipate the Air Force will be required to maintain 

a rotational presence at these bases. The base support, flying hours, and WSS will 

have to be funded by continued OCO (or supplemental) or a baseline increase. If 

this does not occur, aircrew flying training, depot throughput, and weapon system 
46 

repair capabilities would be significantly impacted and jeopardize our ability to 

meet our 2023 readiness goals. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Please describe your service’s efforts to migrate enduring requirements into the base budget? How challenging has sequestration made that task? 

What is most at-risk? 

General FIELD. The Air Force is focused on maximizing our full spectrum readiness requirements. We are currently executing our flying hour and Weapon System 

Sustainment (WSS) programs to maximum capacity to meet mission and training 

requirements (including OCO missions). As OCO missions decline, funding for our 

flying hour and WSS programs will require additional baseline funding to return to 

full spectrum readiness training as we will continue to execute the same number 

of flying hours and depot maintenance levels. We have incrementally increased our 

OCO to base funding request for WSS in our Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15) Future Year 

Defense Program (FYDP) to account for this enduring requirement. Programmed increases start in FY16 by approximately $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year to get to 

80 percent of the WSS requirement. This is the only action the Air Force has made 

to transfer OCO to base. This goes away if we have to maintain Budget Control Act 

funding levels in FY16 and out. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How does your service’s FY15 base budget request reflect efforts 

to return to a non-OCO budgetary world? What specific functions have you moved 

from OCO to base? 

General FIELD. The Air Force is focused on maximizing our full spectrum readiness requirements. We are currently executing our flying hour and Weapon System 

Sustainment (WSS) programs to maximum capacity to meet mission and training 

requirements (including OCO missions). As OCO missions decline, funding for our 

flying hour and WSS programs will require additional baseline funding to return to 

full spectrum readiness training as we will continue to execute the same number 

of flying hours and depot maintenance levels. We have incrementally increased our 

OCO to base funding request for WSS in our Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15) Future Year 

Defense Program (FYDP) to account for this enduring requirement. Programmed increases start in FY16 by approximately $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year to get to 

80 percent of the WSS requirement. This is the only action the Air Force has made 

to transfer OCO to base. This goes away if we have to maintain Budget Control Act 

funding levels FY16 and out. 

The Air Force does not anticipate significant change in the CENTCOM requirement. Operations over the last 20 years (OSW, ONW, Balkans, Libya, Poland, Lithuania, Jordan, plus humanitarian ops) suggest the demand for Air Force capabilities 

will remain high even after combat ops cease. If combatant commander (CCDR) demand does not decrease, the Air Force will need additional top-line funding to the 

baseline budget or supplemental funding to continue operations to support CCDR 

requirements. If the Air Force has to fund these requirements in the baseline budget without additional funding, we will be faced with a sequester-like effect on Air 

Force readiness; the Air Force will likely stand down units, have zero units ready 

for emergent crises, have insufficient units ready for steady state operations (e.g. 

non-support TSP/TSC), and not be able to sustain our airfields and bases. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How would your overall readiness be affected by the elimination 

of OCO? What training would be curtailed? What infrastructure would be affected? 

How would ability to maintain equipment and fully staff units be affected? 

General FIELD. The Air Force relies on Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) 

funds to adequately resource our Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) accounts. 

WSS is a critical component of our overall readiness, encompassing depot maintenance, contract logistics support (CLS), and sustainment engineering. WSS directly 

impacts fleet availability and the ability of our front line units to generate aircraft 

at a rate that can support our flying hour program, and, hence, our ability to train 

for the full spectrum of operations called for in the defense strategy. 

The elimination of OCO funding would significantly impact Air Force full-spectrum readiness. Should OCO funding not be made available in future budgets and 

without an equivalent increase to the Air Force’s topline, depot throughput and 

weapon system repair capabilities would be significantly impacted and jeopardize 

our ability to meet our 2023 readiness goals. 

In addition, the Air Force needs adequate flying hours to generate trained and 

ready aircrew. We anticipate continued deployment requirements in the CENTCOM 

area of responsibility even after combat operations end, and if the Air Force is compelled to resource these flying from its baseline flying hour program (vice OCO or 

supplemental funding), readiness will significantly degrade. 

Finally, operations, sustainment, repair, maintenance, and construction of some 

overseas infrastructure and real property assets are funded through OCO. The 

elimination of OCO funding would greatly reduce the ability of the Air Force to pro-
47 

vide engineering capabilities and services to the combatant commanders and limit 

their ability to generate combat power. An alternate funding source, or migration 

of these costs to the Air Force base budget and an equivalent increase to the Air 

Force topline, will be required. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Without the support of OCO, at what point in time would the force 

return, in large measure, to full-spectrum readiness? 

General FIELD. The recovery time depends on the level of continued Overseas 

Contingency Operations (OCO) mission demand and whether the Air Force is funded at Budget Control Act (BCA) levels in future years. If the Air Force continues 

to deploy for rotational presence missions in CENTCOM, but does not receive associated OCO or supplemental funding for flying hours, readiness will not recover. 

In addition, the Air Force must fund our Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) accounts to at least approximately 80 percent of total requirements to meet our readiness recovery goals by 2023, and we are reliant on OCO funds to meet this 80 percent funding level. Therefore, the recovery of our full-spectrum readiness within a 

reasonable time frame is highly doubtful without OCO funding or some other supplemental funding mechanism or baseline funding increase. 

Under the Bipartisan Budget Act, our WSS accounts are funded to at least 80 percent of the total requirement for Fiscal Years 2014–15 (FY14–15). However, OCO 

funding for WSS is not assumed in FY16–19, meaning if we are held to BCA level 

funding, our WSS accounts will be funded to approximately 70 percent of the total 

requirement through FY19. This equates to a $1.5–2.5 billion shortfall in WSS funding each fiscal year, which significantly jeopardizes our ability to meet our full-spectrum readiness goals within the next decade. 

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