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i 

94–233 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–31] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS HEARING 

ON

THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE’S 

READINESS POSTURE 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 26, 2015 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

RYAN CRUMPLER, Professional Staff Member 

VICKIE PLUNKETT, Professional Staff Member 

KATHERINE REMBER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Allyn, GEN Daniel B., USA, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army ............................... 6 

Howard, ADM Michelle, USN, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy ....... 7 

Paxton, Gen John, USMC, Assistant Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps ............ 8 

Spencer, Gen Larry O., USAF, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force ..................... 10 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Allyn, GEN Daniel B. ....................................................................................... 42 

Howard, ADM Michelle .................................................................................... 63 

Paxton, Gen John ............................................................................................. 76 

Spencer, Gen Larry O. ..................................................................................... 92 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J. .................................................................................. 41 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Ms. Bordallo ...................................................................................................... 103 

Mr. Nugent ........................................................................................................ 103 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 104 

(1) 

THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE’S READINESS POSTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 26, 2015. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 7:59 a.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert J. Wittman 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

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

ON READINESS 

Mr. WITTMAN. We call to order the Subcommittee on Readiness 

of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Crumpler said he will 

blow reveille for us this morning. 

I would like to thank our witnesses for joining us this morning. 

I would like to thank our committee members. I want to thank all 

of our witnesses again for taking time to join us today. This is an 

important hearing determining where we are currently with the 

state of readiness and the challenges that we have before us. 

This morning we have with us General Daniel Allyn, Vice Chief 

of Staff, U.S. Army; Admiral Michelle Howard, Vice Chief of Naval 

Operations; General Larry Spencer, Vice Chief of the United States 

Air Force, Vice Chief of Staff; General John Paxton, Assistant Commandant, United States Marine Corps. Folks, thank you so much 

for being here with us this morning. Thanks for your perspective 

and for your service to our Nation. 

As we know, for the past 3 years the Readiness Subcommittee 

has held a number of briefings and hearings on the state of readiness in our Armed Forces. Without exception, we have heard time 

and time again of our witnesses, both here with us this morning 

and from others that our readiness is in peril. We are also challenged in our ability to meet combatant commander demands and 

to restore readiness to any level that any of us believe is acceptable. 

We have also heard about the self-inflicted damage that we have 

placed upon this Nation’s capacity to deal with potential adversaries done by the sequester. 

Chairman Dempsey characterized our situation at our Armed 

Services Committee retreat as being on the ragged edge. And he 

even stated that the President’s budget still puts us just at that 

ragged edge. He warned that we are moving toward a military that 

is challenged to execute the most basic strategic requirement of the 

U.S. military, defeating an enemy in a single major theater operation. And this, to all of us, is unacceptable. 
2 

I believe, as I am sure you do, that we are critically challenged 

today in our ability to perform steady-state missions and simultaneously respond to an unforeseen contingency. 

I also remain concerned that, even at the President’s budget levels of funding, we accept too much risk. I believe that there is a 

lack of understanding of what risk entails, being able to bring to 

bear too little, too late, and with increased casualties and possibly 

even the inability to accomplish the mission. That is a place where 

we do not want to be. We have seen ourselves in that place at other 

times in this Nation’s history. And by any measure, it is unacceptable. 

I do look forward to this morning’s briefing in learning where we 

are today, in terms of overall readiness. And I hope that our witnesses can touch on the risk inherent in the fiscal year 2016 budget and provide some specific examples of challenges in matching 

ready and available forces to what the Department referred to in 

the budget materials as ‘‘severe deployment demands.’’ 

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

Bordallo, for her opening comments. Madeleine, thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 41.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the witnesses, too. And we were briefed in our 

offices. And I appreciate your coming to see me and, of course, the 

chairman as well. 

We all appreciate the great sacrifices that every service member 

makes when joining the Armed Forces. At today’s hearing, we are 

making sure that Congress is providing the right resources to support our service members, especially in regard to their overall readiness. However, we hold this hearing on the day after we voted for 

a budget resolution that undermines defense and uses gimmicks to 

act like we are truly—have boasted defense spending. 

The budget resolution that this House passed effectively continues sequestration. The budget resolution will inhibit the Department of Defense’s ability to effectively plan and program for future 

years, a shortcoming that numerous defense officials have lambasted before the committee these past years. 

We have neglected to do our very basic job of providing adequate 

funding for our military. We convene this hearing at a time when 

the world and this country face seemingly countless challenges to 

our very way of life. We face challenges in the Asia-Pacific, with 

an erratic dictator in North Korea, whose every move seems to 

challenge our status quo and has been quite provocative at times. 

The Chinese continue to foster instability in the South China 

seas, with development of manmade islands and continue to challenge Japan’s sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands. Russia continues to foster instability in Ukraine and may be trying to provoke 

problems in other Baltic and Scandinavian nations. Most visible 

are the atrocities of the ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] 
3 

and their barbaric actions against all people, including fellow Moslems. 

And I mention all this, knowing there are also challenges in Africa and other regions of the world. Although we ramp down from 

more than a decade of war, we find ourselves in a world that remains dynamic and challenging. U.S. leadership is needed across 

the globe and we cannot neglect our obligation and commitments 

to our allies. 

Unfortunately, I fear that the budget resolution this House 

passed yesterday undermines our ability to project power and 

maintain commitments to our allies. We all know that when sequestration hit in 2013, most of the cuts were taken from the operation and maintenance accounts. The effect of these cuts is still 

being felt today. And in the fiscal year 2016 budget request, we 

know that only about 50 percent of the Air Force’s fighter squadrons are ready to meet their operational requirements. 

General Odierno has indicated that the Army’s readiness is at its 

lowest level in 20 years. That is just a small sampling of the very 

real readiness challenges that we face today, due, in great part, to 

sequestration and the lack of predictable budgets that would allow 

the Department to plan and program for the rest of the years. 

And I hope that our witnesses today can comment on the impact 

of having a sequestration-level base budget with increases in the 

OCO [overseas contingency operations] account. What impact will 

this have on the readiness of our forces? Will we be able to executive that funding within the constraints that exist on the obligation 

of funds in that account? How does cementing sequestration levels 

in the base budget impact planning for the future years? 

Further, I hope that our witnesses can speak out on what would 

happen to future budgets’ additional OCO funding—were not provided to offset a sequestration-based budget. What impact would 

this have on the readiness of our forces and can you provide specific examples of where we would take significant risk and what capabilities would we simply lose? 

Today’s hearing is an important opportunity to educate this subcommittee, but more importantly, our colleagues on other committees, about the very real readiness challenges that we face. And I 

hope that our witnesses will help us understand the problems that 

we have created in funding the base budget at sequestration levels 

and providing additional funds in OCO. 

Unfortunately, I fear this testimony will fall on deaf ears, and we 

will continue to allow ideology to drive our military’s funding and 

undermine our military’s readiness. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. I am going to go now to 

Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

I will pass. I didn’t realize I had an opening statement. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Oh, no. Well, we are going to go right into questions. 

Ms. STEFANIK. We are going to questions. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. And pass by my questions. I am going to defer to 

the committee members and I will go ahead and ask last, just so 

that we can make sure we get to our committee members. 
4 

Ms. STEFANIK. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thanks for clarification. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you to all of the witnesses who are here 

today. Thank you for your service. I wanted to ask about the longterm impacts of severe deployment demands. I represent the 10th 

Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum. And especially as we continue to draw down end strength, what are we doing to enable 

units more time to train and regain full-spectrum readiness, and 

how does the fiscal year 2016 budget support that effort? 

General ALLYN. ‘‘Climb to Glory,’’ ma’am. General Allyn here. 

And I will speak partly to the 10th Mountain Division that I know 

you know very well from your visits there at Fort Drum, but more 

broadly to the United States Army as a whole. Quite frankly, as 

we reduce our end strength on the current ramp toward 450,000, 

it does increase the demands on our trained and ready forces. 

And so, our goal is to get to a point where we are at a dwellto-deployment ratio of 1:2. Right now, if you do not factor in our 

Pacific-based forces that we have protected from global deployments, by and large, so that they can stay focused in that critical 

region of the world, our dwell-to-deployment ratio for the rest of 

our brigade combat teams, like the 10th Mountain Division, is at 

1:1.6. 

And so, we are well below the—what we consider to be the sustainable level. And you highlighted exactly why it is so important. 

We need time to restore full-spectrum readiness as we come back 

from these important missions that we are supporting for the Nation around the globe. 

And I know that you are aware that we have about 140,000 U.S. 

Army soldiers forward deployed, forward stationed and performing 

missions in about 140 countries, as we speak this morning. And so, 

I hope that addresses your specific question in terms of why it is 

so important that we fund the budget, at a minimum, to the President’s budget, because it is absolutely the minimum that we can 

continue to meet the current demands. 

And quite frankly, we are consuming readiness as fast as we are 

generating it today. And so, we are not building surge capacity, we 

are not building a continuous response capability like you spoke to. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Admiral Howard. 

Admiral HOWARD. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

For the Navy, the core piece to our readiness is our capital ships. 

And we have had extended deployments over the last 15 years. We 

are trying to go back to a normalized deployment of 7 months. But 

for the last 15 years, they have been 8, 9, 10 months. So we have 

to reset those ships. We had to stretch out and sometimes not do 

the maintenance avails [availabilities], which is the very first 

phase of getting a capital ship ready to bring—upload the crew or 

to bring onboard the Marines. 

With this particular budget, we are still in reset, taking those 

ships through drydocking, through overhauls, all the way up 

through fiscal year 2018 for our carrier strike groups. And then we 

don’t reset and recover the maintenance on our amphibious ships 

until fiscal year 2020. 
5 

So for us, these platforms are the way we project power and they 

have got to be—go through overhaul and to recover from the high 

OPTEMPO [operations tempo] that we placed them under during 

the last 15 years. 

Thank you. 

Ms. STEFANIK. General Paxton. 

General PAXTON. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

And for the Marine Corps, this story is almost identical. We are 

consuming readiness faster than we can generate it. To your specific question, ma’am, we—in the Marine Corps, we believe we are 

the Nation’s 911 force, the crisis response force. We have every expectation that we will be forward deployed. But right now our depto-dwell [deployment-to-dwell] is less than 1:2. It is at 1:2, overall. 

That is the way we advertise, that is the way we testify. 

We have certain critical communities, right now some of our infantry battalions, our refueling squadrons, some of our fixed-wing 

squadrons, that are less than a 1:2, as General Allyn just mentioned. 

In an optimal world, we would like to get to 1:3. The challenge 

with being at a 1:2 over a sustained period is exactly what you 

said. We will be ready for the crisis. You will have ready Marine 

units on ships with aircraft ready to go into harm’s way to fight 

tonight to do exactly what the Nation needs. 

The challenge is that the next to deploy will be in a degraded 

state of readiness. Right now we have over 50 percent of our home 

station units in what we call degraded readiness, C3 or C4. They 

don’t have their proper equipment, they don’t have the right skilled 

leadership at the small unit level, they don’t have the right training opportunities. And this is dependent on O&M [operations and 

maintenance] dollars, on TOA [total obligation authority], on fixed 

allocation of resources. 

Right now under a BCA [Budget Control Act] cap that will continue to get worse. It has been bad since 2013. We are still feeling 

the effects of our fixed-wing depot maintenance and our flight 

rehab [rehabilitation] facilities, and in our shipyards, in our Federal shipyards, where the artisans left, the people were furloughed, 

the equipment was not being maintained, and we are still in the 

downward spiral from that, from 2013 right now. 

So if the BCA caps continue, you can expect that to get exacerbated. 

Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. STEFANIK. General Spencer. 

General SPENCER. Good morning, Congresswoman. 

Yes, this—so the crux of your question is really a good one, and 

that is, what are we doing to reduce our dwell so that our folks can 

come back and become full-spectrum trained? The problem is we 

are not and because the OPSTEMPO has not dropped. And like the 

other services, the reason that really puts us in such a bind is because if you think about the capacity we have and the age of the 

systems that we have, that is really where all the stress is. 

To give you some specifics, you know, during Operation Desert 

Storm, in the Air Force we had 134 combat fighter squadrons. 

Today we have 55. We are on our way to 49. To give you some additional perspective, and during Desert Storm when we had that 
6 

134 fighter squadrons, we deployed 33 of those to Desert Storm. So 

think about now, we have—today we have 54, if we had Desert 

Storm today what the impact would be. 

We have—our tankers are 52 years old, bombers 50 years old. 

Our fourth-generation fighters are on average 25 years old. 

My colleagues here sometimes accuse me of being a pilot back 

during the B–17, but the reason they do that is because of this 

statement, which is true, and think about this, though. In 1999, if 

we had used the B–17 bomber to strike targets in Baghdad during 

the first Gulf War, it would have been younger than the B–52, the 

KC–135, and the U–2 are today. 

So that is—if you couple the stress of deployments, the stress— 

the OPSTEMPO, deploy-to-dwell, with the reduced capacity and 

the age of our fleets, that in essence is where we are. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you very much. I am over my time. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for the flexibility. 

Mr. WITTMAN. No problem. Thank you. I want to remind our witnesses that your full statements are going to be entered into the 

record, and if you would like at this time you can make a brief 

opening statement in the summary of that, and then we will go to 

Ms. Bordallo. 

General Allyn. 

General ALLYN. We are very flexible, Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes, indeed. 

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

STAFF, U.S. ARMY 

General ALLYN. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the readiness of your United States Army. 

On behalf of our Secretary, the Honorable John McHugh, and 

our Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno, I thank you for your support and demonstrated commitment to our soldiers, Army civilians, 

families, and veterans. There are over 140,000 soldiers committed 

around the globe, partnered with our allies in response to increasing instability across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific, continuing the mission in Afghanistan, and reacting to humanitarian crises. 

The velocity of instability is increasing, and now is not the time 

to drastically reduce our capability and capacity. The Army needs 

Congress to provide adequate, consistent, and predictable funding. 

Today only 33 percent of our brigades are ready, when our sustained readiness rate should be closer to 70 percent. The fiscal year 

2015 enacted funding for our Army is $5.1 billion less than last 

year’s budget and challenges our commanders and leaders across 

our Army to sustain our hard-fought gains in readiness. 

We are funded to achieve just enough readiness for immediate 

consumption and are unable to generate the readiness required to 

respond to an emerging contingency. 

While the fiscal year 2015 budget constrains training, we remain 

committed to our combat training center rotations to develop leaders and build unit readiness. We accept risk in home station training to conserve resources for the combat training centers. The result of this approach is that units arrive at our combat training 
7 

centers not fully trained and ready for these complex training scenarios, and therefore unable to derive the full benefit of the training that is provided. 

Under the President’s budget in fiscal year 2016, our goal is to 

increase regular Army brigade combat team readiness to 70 percent, allowing us to balance force requirements while maintaining 

some surge capacity. But we need consistent resources to get there. 

Sequestration will undermine readiness, ultimately putting soldiers’ lives at risk and will increase significantly the involuntary 

separation of officer and noncommissioned officer leaders who have 

steadfastly served their country through the last 13 years of war. 

Sequestration will also severely impact our ability to maintain 

our installation readiness and protect the industrial base, both key 

components to maintaining a ready force. It will cut essential funds 

from military construction, sustainment, restoration, and modernization on our installations. 

Sequestration will degrade the industrial base’s ability to sustain 

the lifecycle readiness of warfighting equipment, while also maintaining the capability to surge to meet future demands. 

To achieve our required readiness level in fiscal year 2016, we 

need Congress to support all of the cost-saving measures the Army 

has proposed. These include compensation reform, a new round of 

base realignment and closure, and the aviation restructure initiative [ARI]. 

Aviation restructure eliminates 700 aircraft from the Active 

Component and 111 from the Guard and Reserve, but increases 

readiness and saves $12 billion. If the Army does not execute ARI, 

we will incur additional costs buying aircraft and performing maintenance at the expense of modernizing our systems and maintaining readiness for a heroic total force aviators. 

The Army remains committed to protecting our most important 

resource, our soldiers, civilians, and families. We build leaders of 

character and trusted professionals who provide an environment 

where every member of our great Army is treated with dignity and 

respect, supported by essential soldier and family programs. We 

will protect our most vital programs, but sequestration-driven 

budget cuts affect every facet of our Army. 

I thank you again for your steadfast support of the outstanding 

men and women of the United States Army and I look forward to 

your questions. 

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

Appendix on page 42.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, General Allyn. 

Admiral Howard. 

STATEMENT OF ADM MICHELLE HOWARD, USN, VICE CHIEF 

OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, U.S. NAVY 

Admiral HOWARD. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member 

Bordallo, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you 

for the opportunity to testify today. It is my honor to represent the 

Navy’s Active and Reserve sailors and civilians, and particularly 

the 41,000 sailors who are underway and deployed around the 

world today. They are standing the watch right now and ready to 

meet today’s security challenges. 
8 

The citizens of this Nation can take great pride in the daily contributions of their sons and daughters who fulfill our Navy’s longstanding mandate to be where it matters when it matters. And recent events exemplify the benefit of forward presence. Last August, 

the George Herbert Walker Bush Carrier Strike Group relocated 

750 nautical miles from the Arabian Sea to the Arabian Gulf in 

less than 30 hours to respond to ISIL attacks in Iraq. They executed 20 to 30 combat sorties per day, and for 54 days they were 

the only coalition strike option to project power against ISIL. 

I want to make it clear, the fiscal year budget—the fiscal year 

2016 budget is the minimum funding required to execute the Nation’s defense strategy. In other words, if we return to a sequestered budget, we will not be able to execute the Defense Strategic 

Guidance. 

Past budget shortfalls have forced us to accept significant risk in 

two important mission areas. The first mission at risk is deter and 

defeat aggression, which means to win a war in one theater, while 

deterring another adversary in a different theater. Assuming risk 

in this mission leads to a loss of credibility in the ability to assure 

our allies of our support. 

The second mission at risk is to project power despite anti-access/ 

area denial challenges. This brings risk in our ability to win in 

war. Some of our people and platforms will arrive late to the fight 

and inadequately prepared. They will arrive with insufficient ordnance and without the modern combat system sensors and networks required to win. Ultimately this means more ships and aircraft out of action, more sailors, marines, and merchant marines 

killed. 

Our Navy will continue to ensure the security of the maritime 

domain by sustaining its forward presence, warfighting focus, and 

readiness preparations to continue operating where it matters and 

when it matters. Since there is no foreseeable reduction to global 

maritime requirements, we have focused our fiscal year 2016 Navy 

budget to address the challenges to achieving the necessary readiness to execute our missions. Any funding below this submission 

requires a revision of the defense strategy. 

So to put it simply, sequestration will gravely damage the national security of our country. 

Despite these challenges, we are fortunate to have the highest 

quality, most diverse force in my Navy history. These outstanding 

men and women who serve our Nation at sea make us the finest 

navy in the world. So on behalf of all those Active and Reserve sailors, and our civilians and their families, I extend our appreciation 

to this committee for your efforts and your continued support to 

keep our Navy ready to defend this Nation. 

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

Appendix on page 63.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Admiral Howard, thank you. 

General Paxton. 

STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN PAXTON, USMC, ASSISTANT 

COMMANDANT, U.S. MARINE CORPS 

General PAXTON. Good morning and thank you, Chairman 

Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, and distinguished members of 
9 

the subcommittee. I appreciate having the opportunity to appear 

before you today and to report on the readiness of your United 

States Marine Corps. 

Today, as always, your Marine Corps is committed to remaining 

our Nation’s ready force, a force that is truly capable of responding 

to a crisis anywhere around the globe, at a moment’s notice. 

I know that this committee and the American people have high 

expectations of your marines. You expect your marines to operate 

forward, to stay engaged with our partners, to deter potential adversaries, and to respond to crises. And when we fight, you always 

expect us to win. You expect a lot of your marines, and you should. 

As we gather today, more than 31,000 marines are forwarddeployed and forward-engaged. They are doing just what you and 

we expect them to be doing. Our role as our Nation’s ready force 

continues to inform how we man, train, and equip the Marine 

Corps. It also prioritizes the allocation of the resources that we receive from Congress. And I can assure you that your forward-deployed marines are indeed well-trained, well-led, and wellequipped. 

In fact, our readiness was proven last year as your Marine Corps 

supported recent evacuations of American citizens in South Sudan, 

in Libya, and in Yemen. Those ready forces are also currently engaged in the Middle East in conducting strike operations against 

ISIL in Syria and Iraq, through training the Iraqi Army units, and 

through protecting our embassy compound in Baghdad. 

They also routinely deploy and exercise across the Asia-Pacific 

region where over 21,000 are currently west of the International 

Date Line. All of these events demonstrate the reality and the necessity of maintaining a combat ready force that is capable of handling today’s crisis today. Such an investment is essential to maintaining our Nation’s security and our prosperity for the future. 

While we work hard with you, in order to maintain the readiness 

of all our forward-deployed forces, we have not sufficiently invested 

in our home station readiness and our next-to-deploy forces. We 

have also underfunded or delayed full funding for modernization, 

for infrastructure sustainment, and for some of our quality-of-life 

programs. 

As a result, approximately half of our non-deployed units are suffering personnel, equipment, or training shortfalls. Ultimately, this 

has created an imbalance in our overall institutional readiness. 

At the foundation of our readiness, we will emphasize and we do 

emphasize that all marines and all units are physically and mentally ready, are fully equipped, and have sufficient time to train at 

home station with quality small-unit leaders at the helm. They are, 

thus, ready to go anywhere when they are called. 

As we continue to face the possibility of full implementation of 

the Budget Control Act, our future capacity for crisis response, as 

well as major contingency response is likely to be significantly reduced. Quite simply, if our home station units are not ready, due 

to a lack of training, manning, or equipment, it could mean a delayed response to resolve that contingency or to execute an operational plan. Both of which would consider and create unacceptable 

risks for our national defense strategy, as well as risks to the limits 
10 

of mission accomplishment or perhaps physical risk to the force 

itself. 

The readiness challenges we already see today provide context 

for our messages this morning. Your United States Marine Corps 

can, indeed, meet the requirements of the Defense Strategic Guidance with the President’s budget [PB]. But there is no margin. 

As the Chairman stated, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, several 

weeks ago, even under PB16 [2016], we are already at the ragged 

lower edge for overall readiness. I thank each of you for your faithfulness to our Nation, your support for the Department and our 

services. I request that the written statement be submitted for the 

record and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir. 

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

Appendix on page 76.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, General Paxton. 

General Spencer. 

STATEMENT OF GEN LARRY O. SPENCER, USAF, VICE CHIEF 

OF STAFF, U.S. AIR FORCE 

General SPENCER. Good morning, Chairman Wittman and Ranking Member Bordallo and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for your continued support of America’s airmen and their families and for the opportunity to share the Air 

Force’s current readiness posture. 

The United States Air Force is the most globally engaged air 

force on the planet, and our airmen are defending the Nation 

through a wide spectrum of activities, from dropping bombs and 

flying space assets, to delivering humanitarian relief and protecting 

the homeland. We remain the best air force in the world. But with 

recent budget cuts, coupled with 24 years of combat operations, it 

has taken its toll. 

Our airmen have always been and will always be the cornerstone 

of the Air Force and the combatant commanders tell us that our 

airmen continue to perform exceptionally well across the entire 

globe. However, we are the smallest and oldest Air Force we have 

ever been, while the demand for airpower continues to climb. This 

is not a complaint. We are happy that what we bring to the table 

is recognized as indispensable, when it comes to meeting the Nation’s objectives. 

But, I am concerned. I am more concerned today than I was at 

my last testimony. We have to modernize to maintain our technological advantage and this is something we have set aside over the 

last few years. Our potential enemies or adversaries have been 

watching us and now know what it takes to create the best air 

force in the world. 

They are investing in technologies and doing everything they can 

to reduce our current airpower advantage. Because we have the 

smallest and oldest Air Force in history, we need all of our airmen 

to be proficient in every aspect of their mission. Unfortunately our 

high operations tempo has caused our airmen to only be proficient 

in the jobs they do when they deploy. We simply do not have the 

time and resources to train airmen across the full spectrum of Air 

Force missions. 
11 

I am confident that, with your help, we can reverse this trend 

and regain our readiness. But, we will have to make some difficult 

choices to balance capacity, capability, and readiness, all of which 

have been already cut to the bone. 

Our fiscal year 2016 President’s budget submission aims to balance critical operational training and modernization commitments. 

But even at this level, it will take years to recover lost readiness. 

We have already delayed major modernization efforts, cut manpower, and reduced training dollars. 

One final point, the capability gap that separates us from the 

other air forces is narrowing. That gap will close even faster under 

BCA levels of funding. When sequestration first hit in 2013, we 

saw the domino effect it had on our pilots, maintainers, weapons 

loaders, air traffic controllers, and our fighter and bomber squadrons. Readiness levels of those central combat operations plummeted. In short, we were not fully ready, and we cannot afford to 

let that happen again. 

To quote a young C–17 instructor pilot, ‘‘I am committed to defending this Nation any time and any place. But I need the training and equipment to be ready to perform at my best.’’ This is critical to answering the Nation’s call to fly, fight, and win. 

I would like to thank all of you for the opportunity to be here 

today and your continued support of your Air Force. I am now 

happy to take your questions. 

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

Appendix on page 92.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Spencer, thank you. And thank the members of the panel here. Before I go to Ms. Bordallo, I do want to 

make a comment. Obviously, yesterday’s budget that passed does 

put money back into the Nation’s military. Much of it in the overseas contingency operation funds. The good new is that it does 

allow the HASC [House Armed Services Committee] to authorize to 

$613 billion. And it allows the appropriators to appropriate to that 

number. It puts no restrictions on how the OCO dollars are then 

used to do that. 

Now there are internal OMB [Office of Management and Budget] 

restrictions that we are going to have to address, I believe, in that 

particular effort. It is not the best way to run the military, to do 

funding that is base mission through contingency funding. The definition of contingency is something that is unusual or unexpected. 

Obviously, funding this Nation’s military is not unusual or unexpected. So it does create, again, a gap next year. 

I think, though, if used properly, it can be a forcing mechanism 

to make Congress come to grips with the tough decisions it has to 

make and it is not just there in the spending on the military side. 

It is the most immediate. The Congress has to address all the different parts of the budget. And if it doesn’t address the biggest 

ticket items, the autopilot spending programs in an adult way, 

without thrashing each other here, and I am talking about Members of Congress thrashing each other about what it does or does 

not do to the individuals involved, instead, making sure that it is 

viable, then we can get this fixed. 

But our immediate challenge is to make sure the dollars are 

there for the military today. The budget that passed yesterday, 
12 

while not the most desirable mechanism, does allow the appropriators and the authorizers to get to the $613 billion number. So it 

does allow at least some relief. But as with everything else, you 

want to be able to look in the window past this year, too, to determine the long-term needs. That is where our effort has to come in. 

So with that, I will go to Ms. Bordallo. 

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

thank the witnesses for their very frank opening statements and 

the real challenges that you have to face in the future. I appreciate 

your being very forward in that. 

I have two questions, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to ask of 

each. So if you could kind of put your answers together in a quick 

way, because we do have quite a few members that I know want 

to ask questions. I will start with General Allyn. How does OCO 

funding affect execution of your current baseline funding? 

General ALLYN. Yes. Congresswoman Bordallo, the OCO funding, 

while it is better than not receiving the increased funding that is 

essential to achieve the outcomes that the President’s budget set 

forth, the restrictions that are inherent in OCO funding, as the 

chairman highlighted, with regard to OMB’s current rules, do not 

allow us to have the flexibility required to get at home station 

readiness for units that are not deploying in support of a contingency operation. It also does not allow multiyear funding, which 

means we cannot use it for critical modernization programs in acquisition and procurement. 

And so, the restrictions truly create challenges and hard decisions under the current rule set. So as we discussed yesterday with 

the Senate committee, we would need significantly greater flexibility. What is built into the current President’s budget is a $3 billion to $6 billion OCO-to-base transfer requirement per year. And 

so what we are doing is increasing that through funding base requirements through OCO funding. And this is a year-to-year drill 

and we need predictable, consistent funding to get at the readiness 

that we are talking about here today, ma’am. 

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

Admiral. 

Admiral HOWARD. Ma’am, very similar to the Army, it is the 

multiyear constraints that is toughest for the Navy, particularly 

when you look at shipbuilding and ship contracting. And then for— 

and then in the past there have been restraints on OCO where it 

could not be used to buy individual platforms such as aircraft. 

And so when you look at procurement and you look at our ability 

to modernize, OCO, the way it is currently set up, is not available 

for us. And clearly for a capital ship intensive force, multiyear 

funding is essential for us to continue to grow the Navy. Thank 

you. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

General. 

General PAXTON. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman Bordallo. 

Same thing my two counterparts said. The other issue is—to remind is that all the services probably spend well over 50 percent 

of their TOA dollar on people. They are our most important resource, our most important weapon. But in order to recruit, retain, 
13 

PCS [permanent change of station] move, we spend most of the 

money on people. 

The largest chunk for most of the rest of us is in operations and 

maintenance. So the things that we need and the reason our readiness is degraded is because of inability to put sufficient money into 

modernization, inability to put sufficient money into sustainment. 

Modernization in the Marine Corps is only 9 percent of our dollar 

right now. 

And the OCO money addresses the O&M and the direct linkages 

to the current place we are in—it doesn’t give us the help we need 

to continue to modernize and to buy those big platforms we need. 

So thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

Next? 

General SPENCER. Again, ma’am, similar story. A couple of 

things—the Air Force is very capital-intensive, so as General Allyn 

mentioned, the ability to plan to buy weapon systems, you know, 

F–35 bomber, tanker that we are trying to procure, C–130, 

multiyear contracts, that multiyear allows us to have a really good 

deal, funding-wise. Those type of things, it is hard to really plan 

for if you get one year’s worth of money. 

The other thing is there are some issues with OCO. For example, 

one of the OCO rules allows us to buy replacement munitions that 

we have expended in the war. So we can buy smart munitions that 

can get pretty expensive, that we expended last year. We can’t 

budget for projected weapons that we are going to use. So it puts 

us behind by a year. So that is something that would concern me. 

I haven’t read the details, but I don’t know what the timing of 

the OCO budget would be. Would it be simultaneous or would it 

come later? If it came later, like it does in a lot of cases, again, 

there are problems inherent with that. What is the total going to 

be, finally? How are we going to know how much we are going to 

get? What is in there between O&M and procurement? 

There are rules, for example, you have to execute 80 percent of 

your O&M by July. If we get a late OCO, is that going to be a problem? 

OCO to base has been touched on. That is something we are all 

worried about. If we wake up one day and OCO is gone, what do 

we do? And you know, in the Air Force’s case, we have got several 

bases in the Middle East that were stood up and are paid for today 

with OCO funding that we are told will probably endure, will probably stay for the long term. That is fine. But then we will have to 

figure out where does that money come from that is now in OCO 

that we will have to put into the base. 

As my colleagues already mentioned, that is now exacerbating 

this sort of OCO-to-base transfer, at some point. It just further 

mixes and blurs the lines between the base and emergency contingency, essentially. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you. 

Now I have one quick question here, also, if you could answer. 

Current defense planning guidance says the United States military 

should be prepared to do three things: one, win a big war; two, prevail in a smaller contingency; and three, protect the homeland, all 
14 

at the same time. Can your service do that now? And how will the 

fiscal year 2016 budget request change all of that? 

General. 

General ALLYN. Yes, Congresswoman. I think we have touched 

on this already and the fact of the matter is that we are on the 

lower ragged edge of our capacity to do that with the President’s 

budget. 

And the highlight that I made about our consuming readiness as 

rapidly as we are generating it means that our ability to respond 

to the unknown contingencies, to reinforce either the major fight or 

the deterrence fight is significantly strained. And we know what 

that—it is very easy to say constrain. That sounds clean. It is not 

clean. 

It means we are late to the fight in one or both locations with 

sufficient capacity and we either fail in our mission or we increase 

the loss of life to those committed forward from the joint force, as 

well as innocent civilians that we are charged to protect in accordance with our national security interests. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

Admiral HOWARD. Ma’am, so within those major missions you 

talked about, the Navy has some very specific responsibilities. One 

is strategic deterrence. And no matter what happens, we will maintain zero risk in strategic deterrence. 

But when you talk about projecting power despite anti-access/ 

area-denial circumstances and then this deterring and defeating an 

aggressor, winning the war, with the PB16 budget, those are still 

at risk. But if you talk BCA, then we will not be able to project 

power and we would not be able to deter and defeat aggression. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

General. 

General PAXTON. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

Your Marine Corps, of course, is—we consider ourselves to be the 

911 force, the crisis response force. And that is our focus. So as I 

said in the opening statement, we guarantee that we will have 

ready forces for the fight-tonight mission. But to your question, 

ma’am, the contingency mission or the deliberate operations plan, 

that is when we have to go to our home station units who are already at lower than 50 percent readiness and are degraded. 

So the answer, then, would be yes, but. They are coming. Yes, 

they will be there, but they will be later, but they will not have 

the right leaders in the right positions, but they won’t be fully 

trained. So we are going to accept risk in our ability to respond and 

to win in a contingency and in a war. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

General. 

General SPENCER. Yes, ma’am. To answer your question directly, 

could we meet the Defense Strategic Guidance at the President’s 

budget level? Yes. Just barely. Could we execute the Defense Strategic Guidance under sequestration? No. 

One of the ways we describe the Air Force sometimes, and I 

think all my colleagues could probably describe their services similar, it is almost like a light switch. I mean, you cut on a light 

switch and if we go into a contingency, we expect air superiority 
15 

to just happen. We expect if someone launches a weapon, a GPS 

[Global Positioning System] will just guide it to where it needs to 

go. You know, we expect our nuclear deterrent to work so we don’t 

get a nuclear attack. 

We expect those things to happen. That is what the American 

people expect of us, and that is what we want to provide. I get concerned in sequestration that we are going to cut that light switch 

on and some things are not going to work. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. We will now go to Mr. 

Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I guess most of my questions will be for you, General Spencer. 

I want to talk a little bit about the civilian workforce, but I would 

ask a favor of you, all of you, and that maybe you go back and review some of the testimony from a few years ago when the reductions in your force were being referred to as rightsizing by your 

own leadership and it was the Armed Services Committee that was 

trying to stop those reductions in force size. And quite honestly the 

leadership at the Pentagon was supporting the President’s position 

in reducing them. 

I would just ask that you go back and read the testimony of your 

leaders from just a few years ago when they felt like those cuts 

were acceptable and we were trying to stop some of them. 

But I represent Robins Air Force Base, a tremendous civilian 

workforce, crucial role in generating readiness for our Air Force. 

And one of my concerns is that there continue to be proposals to 

cut the civilian defense workforce. They go well beyond any of the 

Department proposals. Existing law already mandates cuts in the 

civilian workforce similar to those of uniformed personnel. 

And my concern is in two forms. It would have a direct impact 

on the ability to deliver weapon systems on time and on budget for 

our depots, or from our depots, I should say. And secondly, if you 

arbitrarily reduce the civilian workforce, would that not add stress 

to the uniformed personnel and soldiers and airmen, who would be 

forced to spend less time training for the missions and more time 

performing non-mission-related tasks? 

So General Spencer, could you speak to the arbitrary cuts to the 

civilian workforce and what impact they have on Air Force readiness? 

General SPENCER. Congressman, first of all, maybe—we are in 

violent agreement. I agree with everything you said. As you know, 

I was stationed at Robins, I have been stationed at all the Air 

Force depots. I love it. Robins is a great community, great workforce, great work ethic. If you could clarify for me the arbitrary reductions you are talking about. We have had some headquarters 

reductions, 20 percent headquarters reduction that was mandated 

by the SECDEF [Secretary of Defense]. 

I am sorry. 

Mr. SCOTT. I am sorry, General. These are legislative proposals 

from other Members of Congress. 

General SPENCER. Okay, okay, I am sorry. Yes, no, that would 

not work for us. It would not work. I am not sure if everyone has 
16 

the sort of right perspective on civilian employees. You know, first 

of all, 96 percent of our civilian employees don’t work in the National Capital Region. They are out in the field, getting our mission 

done, turning wrenches, making—launching airplanes, launching 

satellites. These are critical to the mission of the Air Force, no 

doubt about it. 

And so any—we cannot afford to impact our civilian workforce 

with an arbitrary cut. Period, dot. 

Mr. SCOTT. They are extremely skilled and when we break faith 

with them we run the risk of losing some of the most talented people with regard to rebuilding our airplanes and the weapon systems that our warfighters need. And I am extremely concerned 

about the lack of knowledge with regard to their value to national 

security with some of our members. Not with you or with the people at the Department of Defense, but with some of my colleagues. 

And just one other thing with regard to that, the trends and the 

costs of weapons and the system sustainment, the increases there. 

Can you give any assessment of what the drivers of that and what 

we can do to help reverse that trend? 

General SPENCER. Yes, Congressman. One of the primary drivers 

of weapon systems sustainment cost increase is the aging of our 

systems. So as our systems get older or the parts break faster, a 

lot of the manufacturers go out of business, we have to manufacture the parts, it just becomes an expensive proposition to maintain 

old weapon systems. 

So we could certainly use your help not only to sustain the weapon systems costs that we have now, but to help us with our modernization so we can get new systems into our inventory. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you for that. 

And one of the things that you mentioned that I caught on was 

when manufacturers go out of business. And that is where I think 

it is extremely important for national security for us to maintain 

organic capabilities. And while we can, through 50/50 and other 

things, share that workload with the private sector, from a national 

security standpoint, we have to have the ability as a country to deliver those weapons systems to the men and women in the fight. 

Again, I want to thank all of you for being here, and, you know, 

just hope again that you will take time to go back and look at the 

testimony from just a couple of years ago, where members of the 

Armed Services Committee were trying to stop the reductions. And 

it is hard for us to keep you fully funded if the leadership of the 

DOD [Department of Defense] isn’t standing with us. 

General PAXTON. Congressman Scott, if I may, sir—and this is 

the third I have been—had the honor and the privilege to testify 

before this subcommittee. And we will certainly take your guidance 

there and go back and review testimony. But I would just like to 

be clear for the record that when the leadership comes over to testify, we talk about the POM [Program Objective Memorandum] as 

submitted. And we talk about the ability to execute the defense 

guidance with the POM as submitted. When we get the marks, and 

then particularly, when we are very clear for 3 or 4 years in a row 

about the devastating effects of the Budget Control Act, we are now 

4 years into POMs that have been adjusted, and 2 years after a 

BCA. 
17 

I think we are all pretty clear that we are at the lower ragged 

edge. And we are in hopes that through the good offices of this 

committee and subcommittee back to the larger House, we can 

send the message that this is devastating to the ability of the Department of Defense to safeguard the Nation. 

Mr. SCOTT. General, I didn’t support those cuts. And I was concerned when I first heard about the reductions in personnel that 

it was taking this away from a primary goal of 1:3 in dwell time 

for Active Duty and 1:5 for Guard and Reserve. 

So, with that, I am past my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. O’Rourke. 

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

For General Allyn, I would like to get your thoughts on a recent 

decision made to keep us at near 10,000 in Afghanistan through 

the rest of this year, first. And then along the same line, I would 

like you to discuss the Army’s preparations for potentially having 

to use ground forces in Iraq and Syria. 

I know nobody wants to do that, and it is not part of the President’s request for this authorization for use of military force. But 

I think it is within reason to assume that if we want to achieve 

the President’s stated goals, with the current forces that are on the 

ground, we have to seriously consider this. 

I am assuming you have planned for that. And what I want to 

know is, within this budget, do we have the resources to meet our 

commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to every other 

potential threat that has been outlined earlier. 

General ALLYN. Thank you, Congressman O’Rourke. I appreciate 

both of your questions. And to Afghanistan first—I believe this is 

a very good outcome for accomplishing the mission that was established in what we were set forth to do with our Resolute Support 

mission. 

I was fortunate to be in Afghanistan in early February. And I 

was able to get out and meet with all of our leaders, and particularly with our two divisions that are deployed over there providing 

both essential mission command and advise and assist support to 

our Afghan security forces, from the 1st Calvary Division in Texas 

and from the 3rd Infantry Division in Georgia. 

And both of these missions were being accomplished with great 

leadership, with great focus, with great precision, but with significant risk, as we were drawing down the forces while still trying to 

maintain touch with the capabilities when the Afghan security 

forces that needed to be finished. So, I—— 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And I don’t want to interrupt you, but I have got 

limited time. 

General ALLYN. Okay. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. The two scenarios I just described are new over 

the course of this year. We weren’t necessarily anticipating them 

a year ago. How has that changed how we are prepared to fund 

those in this budget? 

General ALLYN. Yes. Well, we do appreciate the increase in OCO 

because the increased numbers in Afghanistan are greater than 

what was programmed. We did, however, program to train the 

forces to backfill the forces that are there now, and to continue that 
18 

in case it was required. So, we will be trained and ready to continue this mission. And I believe the OCO funding increase will enable us to meet that to include the increase in ISR [intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance] that is above what was originally 

programmed for this year. And we will meet that. 

In terms of our ability to meet the response that may be required 

in Iraq—just as we were capable of deploying the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division in response to the initial 

advise and assist increase, we will have forces prepared when 

called. 

Now, clearly—— 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And those forces are funded within this budget? 

General ALLYN. Yes. The President’s budget fully funds our combat training center rotations, where we prepare all of our units for 

full-spectrum mission readiness. 

Sequestration will put that at risk because units will not arrive 

at the combat training centers as ready as they should be. And 

that will potentially put us at risk. So, the President’s budget does 

enable us to do that. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. If I am reading this correctly, the Army’s total 

O&M, which funds our readiness, is down a little from last year. 

Is that reflecting the reduction in force size, and will that continue 

to track if we stay under current caps to 2020, when the total force 

size is down to 420,000? 

General ALLYN. Well, first of all, all of our current end strength 

above 490,000 is funded in OCO. So, it is not a reflection for this 

year of a drawdown in our force. It is really a reflection of we got 

5 billion less dollars this year, and we had to take some cuts. And, 

as General Spencer highlighted, we really only have two places to 

draw it from. We are going to pay for our people, because that is 

a sacred trust and we are going to meet that requirement. So it either comes out of O&M or modernization. And we have had to 

make very hard choices in both of those. We reduced our modernization 25 percent, even in the President’s budget submission. 

And so, we are facing a very tough balancing act. And the reflection of the reduced O&M reflects that—those hard choices. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. In conclusion, you know, couldn’t agree more with 

General Paxton that our people are going to be our greatest resource and our greatest weapon. And with your conclusion that unless we do some difficult things, make some tough decisions like a 

BRAC [base realignment and closure], like rethinking compensation, pension, and health—you mentioned restructuring aviation— 

then we are going to have cut people. And for me, that is not acceptable. 

So, I appreciate your testimony today. 

I yield back. 

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

Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate, once 

again, other comments that were made in regards to your candor. 

You know, I am obviously concerned about how we move forward. 

You know, we have been struggling as a Congress to figure out 

what do we do about sequestration. And that is not your problem. 

That is our problem. But I do—or I am concerned, though, as we 
19 

move forward. I think that—I think we have learned some things 

about our withdrawal from Iraq that put us in the position that we 

are today, with trying to figure out, ‘‘Now, what do we do with the 

downfall, what is going on within Iraq?’’ And so, you know, I was 

happy to see the President didn’t draw down more troops in Afghanistan. I worry about what he wants to do next year, obviously, 

at the end of 2016, to draw out all of our forces. I think that we 

put ourselves in the same predicament that we are today in Iraq, 

where we are not quite ready. And I think that President Ghani 

made that pretty clear. 

While he wants to do as much as he can, that country, obviously, 

is in a tough spot. Because of their ability to raise money, to, you 

know, get employment within their own country. So, I worry that 

if we were to actually follow what the President wants to do, and 

withdraw our forces at the end of 2016, we would be in a comparable situation that we find ourselves in today in Iraq, figuring 

out, what do we do? And I agree with Mr. O’Rourke that, you 

know, I don’t want my sons going back to Iraq and Afghanistan in 

the fight. But I also believe that without Americans leading from 

the front, that we will not get to the end state that we want to see 

ourselves in for those countries in question. 

So, my question is on—is obviously on readiness. And, General 

Allyn, I worry that when we hear the Army is at 33 percent readiness, that should cause a lot of pause amongst all of our colleagues 

within the House of Representatives. 

And, you know, our constitutional requirement is to defend this 

Nation, number one—is the number one constitutional requirement. We kind of forgot that in the myriad of all the other requests 

and wants, and nice to have things that, you know, are good to 

have. But we forgot that we need to actually worry about you all 

in regards to providing for the common defense. 

I do worry when we start talking about balancing a budget on 

the backs of the men and women that are out there, that are—that 

have volunteered to serve this country. And I get really upset and 

worried that the Pentagon is—and I understand where you are 

coming from—but the Pentagon is willing to sacrifice some of that, 

you know, to meet the mission, while instead of saying, You know 

what? We need to start talking about keeping compensation. Now 

for future compensation, that is not an issue, I think, but you can 

talk about that. But I worry that, you know, we want to balance 

a budget on the backs of these men and women that have given 

everything, and are willing to give everything in the defense of this 

country. 

So, General Allyn, how do we actually—how do we keep the people that we are talking about, that we don’t want to lose; those 

great NCOs [noncommissioned officers] and officers that are at 

risk? How do we actually keep them in service of their country, if 

we start cutting compensation? 

General ALLYN. Well, thank you, Congressman Nugent. I will 

say, first and foremost, our great soldiers and leaders are meeting 

the demands that are placed before them, and are volunteering to 

stay. Our retention rate remains very, very high—over 113 percent 

last year of the goal. 

Mr. NUGENT. Great. 
20 

General ALLYN. So, our leaders want to serve on this great—— 

Mr. NUGENT. I know they do. I know they do, but—— 

General ALLYN [continuing]. Army—and I believe that the most 

important thing that we must do is sustain their trust. And their 

trust is sustained through predictable funding that is consistently 

delivered, and enables us to have them trained and ready for the 

missions that are required of them. That is the first and foremost 

responsibility that we have. 

Because as you said, defending our Nation is job one. And they 

are committed to that and we must be committed to them. I will 

highlight that the cost of a soldier has doubled since 2001. Okay. 

So it is important to keep that in mind and, you know, we believe that some of the compensation reform that we are proposing 

is reasonable, without putting the balancing the budget on the back 

of the soldier. We would never put forth something that puts the 

burden on the soldier who has volunteered to serve his country. 

Mr. NUGENT. Well, I just know that, you know, from a family 

perspective, when—typically it is the wife who does the budget, 

who does the checks, makes sure everything gets paid. And when 

they see a reduction in their BAH [basic allowance for housing], 

that creates a stress. 

And I know we haven’t actually had to deal with that yet, but 

that will create a stress on the force that may not be apparent 

today, but, you know, when you have got the wife back home nipping at your heels because she is the one that is doing the budget 

and writing the checks, that is a big issue. And I think that is one 

of those things that compounds in the future and it is not in your 

face today. 

And so I just—I worry from that standpoint. We need—and you 

talk about it, families are so important in keeping our soldiers and 

airmen and marines and sailors out there in the fight. So I appreciate all your comments. 

Anything else that anybody would like to ask? 

General PAXTON. Thanks, Congressman. We are keenly aware 

that your soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines represent somewhere between one-half and one percent of the American population. I mean, one-half of one percent, right. So our goal is to 

make sure, as General Allyn said, when they go into a fight, (a) we 

never want them to go into a fair fight. They ought to have all the 

tools at their behest to win. And we want them to have confidence. 

We want to have confidence in their gear, confidence in their training, and confidence in their leadership. 

So every time we submit the budget, every time we articulate the 

budget, every time we defend the budget, it is with that in mind— 

to take care of that one-half of one percent to accomplish the difficult missions our Nation gives us and to ensure that every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine has that confidence. 

And as you said a minute ago, we may enlist a soldier, sailor, 

airman, and marine, but we are going to reenlist a family. 

General SPENCER. And Congressman, I certainly appreciate your 

comments. I am actually—I am prior enlisted. I spent 7 years enlisted. Back then, I know what it was like to live from paycheck 

to paycheck. And my wife was nipping at my heels. Actually she 

still does. But that is a different—— 
21 

Mr. NUGENT. I have been married 40 years. I understand. 

General SPENCER. That is for a different hearing. But the—what 

we wrestle with, I think, is balance. And so clearly we need to provide, I think, General Allyn used the term reasonable amount of 

compensation. But we all owe our men and women in uniform the 

equipment and the training they need if we have to send them in 

harm’s way. 

And so as budgets draw down, particularly if you get into a sequestration environment, yes, you have to focus on compensation, 

but we have to send our folks forward in harm’s way with the right 

equipment and the right training. And so, that is what we are 

wrestling with—finding out what the reasonable amount of compensation is in the context of balancing the other things that they 

need. 

Admiral HOWARD. I would like to add, their compensation for 

what we ask them to do is extremely important. But there are immediate impacts to the quality of their service when we sequester. 

I was the Deputy for Fleet Forces Commander when we sequestered in 2013. 

It is a bad day for a commander when you have to go down to 

the waterfront, go on a cruiser and tell those folks they are not deploying, they are not getting underway. The commanding officer, 

the chiefs, the sailors, that is how they qualify. That is their core 

profession. And they are going to be tied up next to a pier. 

We will lose people because they will not have satisfaction because they will not be able to do their jobs, as well as if we have 

to impact compensation. 

Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the indulgence. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Nugent. 

We will go now to Mr. Gibson. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the panelists here today. Thank you for your service, achievements, and sacrifices, and for the sacrifices of your families. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know, put significant emphasis on restoring deterrence principles of peace through strength by reasserting 

the ability of the Global Response Force. I acknowledge the comments here this morning with regard to sequester and the need for 

steady and consistent funding. And that is really a point for my 

colleagues here. We have to work together on that and have the 

temperament to solve these problems. 

We had an opportunity in 2012 with the bipartisan budget that 

was inspired by Simpson-Bowles; it only got 38 votes. Whatever it 

is, if we are going to do something big like that or if we are going 

to do something like Ryan-Murray, now is the time. We have got 

to start assembling the coalition to get that done. 

That being said, Mr. Chairman, what I think our committee 

should do is document the risk as it relates to the Global Response 

Force. So I have a specific question here today, recognizing we are 

in an unclassified setting, so you may not be able to specifically respond to it. You can maybe generally respond to it, but for the 

record, if you could specifically to respond to it, and the staff will 

assemble. 

And it has to do with the war plans now with regard to the Global Response Force, your specific requirements and where you stand 
22 

today in terms of readiness to meet those requirements. And you 

use two categories, please, the President’s budget and sequester. So 

we can document that here in the committee and that will allow 

us, as myself, I will own this, and then perhaps the committee, 

that we communicate with our colleagues that we can address this. 

So I would like to begin actually with the Air Force and then 

work our way on the panel. 

General SPENCER. Yes, Congressman. Again, to answer your 

question directly, with the President’s budget we could respond just 

barely. On sequestration, we could not. Probably any deeper than 

that getting into war plans I would like to come back and brief you 

in a classified session, if we could. 

[On 15 April, General Welsh gave a classified readiness briefing 

to the House Armed Services Committee in which Congressman 

Gibson was in attendance.] 

General PAXTON. Yes, thank you, Congressman. And I can in the 

unclassified setting give you two fairly good illustrative examples. 

And the subject for us is amphibious ships. And we work very 

closely with my counterpart, VCNO [Vice Chief of Naval Operations], and with the Navy. We have probably one of the best working relationships we have had in years. 

But we have a problem with amphibious ships. And we have a 

problem with inventory. And we have a problem with availability. 

And there are two different metrics for doing this. One is the 

steady state, when all the combatant commands would like to have 

sailors and marines forward-deployed around the world to be there 

when it most matters and to respond at a crisis tonight. 

The CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] and the Commandant are 

on record as saying we need somewhere north of 50 ships to be able 

to answer all the current crisis and contingency combat and command requirements. 

To your specific question about war plans and contingency response, we know that under the two most stressing war plans, we 

would need 38 amphibious ships. That is a matter of record. That 

is a matter before Congress. 

We have agreed under our budget-constrained environment the 

better part of two decades ago that we would do it with 33. But 

that 33 was predicated on having 33 available, having the money 

for the 33, or being willing to put them in the yard for a required 

maintenance with the expectation that 90 percent of them will be 

operationally available and be able to get underway within the 

timelines to meet the war plans. 

Right now we don’t have 33 ships. We don’t even have 30 on the 

waterfront. We are not going to get to 33 for another year, and we 

are not going to get the right 33 until 2024, until the end of the 

decade. So we have an inventory problem. 

And then because of furlough and sequestration in the shipyards, 

we have an availability problem where we can’t get them out and 

get them on their way. 

So the Navy-Marine team, in general, and the Marine Corps in 

specific, we think amphibious ships are very, very challenged under 

the current budget, let alone sequestration. 

Thank you, sir. 

Admiral HOWARD. Thank you, Congressman. 
23 

As we consumed readiness and as I have mentioned earlier, we 

are in the process of resetting—doing the maintenance on a lot of 

these ships. Today we can—we keep deployed two carrier striker 

groups. So that is a carrier with a cruiser and associated destroyers. And we have enough readiness to have one that we can surge. 

And then for an Amphibious Readiness Group [ARG], which is 

normally a large amphib with two smallers, an LSD [Dock Landing 

Ship] and LPD [Landing Platform Dock], we are keeping two deployed with a third that we can surge. This is the lowest we have 

been probably since I have been in the Navy. And we, as General 

Paxton pointed out, we are on a path, with this budget, to reset 

and get us back to having two carriers deployed and three in surge 

capacity, and having two ARGs deployed with three in a standby 

capacity. 

For the carrier strike groups, that is about fiscal year 2018, and 

then for the Amphibious Ready Groups that is about fiscal year 

2020. But that presumes we have a budget, we have multiyear, we 

can continue to buy the ships we are buying and that we can continue to do the money to do the maintenance, and then the money 

to do the training for our people. Thank you. 

General ALLYN. Thank you, Congressman Gibson. And it is appropriate for you to ask this question from a joint force perspective 

because, as you know, and thank God I have never deployed to war 

with anything less than a joint force, in our Army contingent of the 

Global Response Force is a relatively small component that is capable of forced entry, early entry operations, but absolutely dependent upon the readiness of follow-on forces to accomplish the missions that are likely to be required of it. 

And that depends upon all of us having the forces ready. As you 

know from your time in the 82nd Airborne Division, we don’t get 

anywhere without the Air Force, all right. They put the air in airborne and the capacity to get the global reach. And we depend 

upon the forces of the Marine Corps and the Navy to enable us to 

have the joint capabilities that are required. 

So we require that. It is at risk, for sure, with sequestration. And 

we have prioritized the Army contingent, but we have done so by 

going to tier readiness and sequestration. So we will have a Global 

Response Force capability, but the follow-on forces will have insufficient training and insufficient readiness to reinforce, if required. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thank you. I thank the panelists for their responses. 

And Mr. Chairman, as I yield back, I reiterate, I think we should 

take this on. We have—we generally have one slide that shows top 

line numbers and I think that has been effective in talking to our 

colleagues. But I think if we had a finer point, if we had fidelity, 

as it would, relates to this, and even if it has to go at the classified 

level, I think it would be something that very resonates among our 

colleagues. 

Pat, I would ask you to take this on, Pat McGuigan, with the 

staff that we can pull this together, because we are going to get 

this for the record. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Gibson. I couldn’t agree with you 

more. What we have tried to do is to make sure that these types 
24 

of bundles of information are available to everyone, but specifically 

non-HASC members to be able to sit down in a secure setting, because you have to be able to talk about these things at the topsecret level. So we will work with the staff to make sure that those 

are available. We have done those in the past. 

And Mr. Gibson, we will work with you and the vice chiefs and 

the chiefs and make sure we have that information available. And 

we will schedule another round of briefings for members to come 

in, so they can get the details on this. 

At this point, I ask unanimous consent that non-subcommittee 

members be allowed to participate in today’s hearing, after all subcommittee members have had an opportunity to ask questions. Is 

there objections? Without objection, non-subcommittee members 

will be recognized at the appropriate time for 5 minutes. 

With that, Mr. Russell. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me join the 

committee this morning. I guess, the big concern that I see, and 

General Allyn, you pointed it out in your testimony, about in terms 

of brigades, 36 brigades will be reduced to individual and crewlevel training. The last time that we saw any combination of effort 

among our services in—you know, with formations of vehicles, 

paratroopers, air strikes, in combination with all of the service 

forces and the harder things that we do, was in 2003. 

The company commanders at that time with 4 to 6 years service 

would now be battalion commanders. The battalion commanders at 

the time if they are still around, would be major generals. And so, 

we have seen a migration of leadership at both the NCO level and 

the officer level where, even knowing how to do these things is 

being lost, our core capabilities. And then we see a foreign policy 

shift with statements from the White House, talking about a shift 

to the Pacific with all of the difficulties that jungle warfare and 

long logistic lines would create for our armed services. 

I have to say, I can’t think of a time in our history, except maybe 

1940, where we stand a greater risk. And at that time, we saw 

160,000 Americans surrender because we couldn’t get to them in 

the Philippines. It wasn’t for lack of fighting spirit. It wasn’t for 

lack of training. It was just for lack of resources to be able to get 

to them. And so, with that, we all know that we can fight with 

whatever insufficient implements we have, if we have good, strong 

leaders. 

As I look at the training base and see some of that, the focus now 

is being reduced as you had mentioned, General Allyn, it reduced 

to individual and crew level with our combat brigades. I am sure 

this can be extended to fleets, airframes, all kinds of things. How 

do we survive that? 

General ALLYN. Thanks, Congressman Russell. And as you know, 

the Chief of Staff of the Army’s top priority for our Army for the 

last 2 years has been developing the leaders that will thrive in the 

uncertain and ambiguous world that we live in today. That commitment has remained and concurrent with our demand to restore our 

full-spectrum capability, the kind of force you talked about that 

fought and marched to Baghdad, that fought so effectively in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, is under way at our combat training centers. 
25 

So our combat training centers deliver both the leaders required 

for the future, with the skills required to dominate in this uncertain world that we live in, and the agility to respond to the unexpected and to thrive under adversity. That is happening each and 

every day, each and every rotation at our combat training centers. 

We will do 14 decisive action rotations at the National Training 

Center. Fourteen brigade combat teams will receive that training 

this year, building to 17 over the course of the next 3 years. And 

so, we are getting after that, but it depends upon predictable funding. And it really depends upon enabling us to increase the funding 

for our home station training so we arrive at those training centers 

ready to fully take advantage of the complexity of the training environment we deliver and the challenges that occur there. And 

frankly, as some of our members have seen, our leaders respond 

with amazing, amazing results. And you can be very, very proud 

of how committed they are to being ready for the next conflict. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you. 

Admiral HOWARD. Thank you, Congressman. In terms of the rebalance to the Pacific, there may be a different perspective for 

those of us in the maritime domain. When you look at the countries 

that live in the Pacific or the Pacific Rim, they are investing in 

their militaries and they are investing in their navies. This is a different perspective than the countries of the Western nations which, 

some of them are struggling to meet 2 percent of their GDP [gross 

domestic product] despite commitments. 

And in addition, I think sometimes we forget the Pacific not only 

holds countries with significant capability, like China, but Russia 

is in the Pacific. And our relationship with Russia, clearly, is 

changing. In addition, there are many countries that either have 

nuclear weapons or are attempting to get nuclear weapons and 

they, too, are in the Pacific. 

So from our perspective, when you look at who is investing in 

their navies, where there are potential fault lines of conflict, there 

is a potential it could be in the maritime domain. And it is our responsibility to be ready for that. 

That said, with this budget, even with the President’s budget, we 

have had to slow down a modernization for both ballistic missile 

defense and then to be able to fight in an anti-access/area denial. 

And so, then under sequestration, we would probably lose all of our 

modernization. And it has generally been our technological edge as 

a Navy that has allowed us to maintain maritime superiority. 

Thank you. 

General PAXTON. Thank you, Congressman Russell, nice to see 

you again. Appreciate your time. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Good to see you, General. 

General PAXTON. A little bit from both what General Allyn just 

offered and what Admiral Howard just offered. We, as a groundcentric force, if you will, in the Marine Corps, and as a Marine AirGround Task Force, we have aviation assets, so not to be confused. 

But when we look at a protracted ground campaign, we need to 

have leaders who are ready at home station, so we suffer from the 

same sacrifices we have had to make through budgetary constraints at home station ranges and training areas. So we have 

qualified leaders, we have qualified training. And we are going to 
26 

guarantee—and this testimony was before you came today. Well, 

we will guarantee that the crisis response force, the fight-tonight 

force is ready to go. The issue is who is back at home station and 

have we crimped our modernization and our sustainment costs 

where we are unable to train them at home station. 

The second piece—back to both what Admiral Howard said about 

the Asia-Pacific region and to an earlier comment from General 

Allyn—it is a joint force. We depend on the capabilities of other 

services. If we can’t train with ISR and get the feeds that we need, 

the intel [intelligence] feeds, which come from—a lot of them from 

other services, then our training is reduced. 

For our aviation arm and we can have all the best pilots in the 

world and we can work hard to get our aircraft through the maintenance pipeline, but if the ships aren’t out there, then we don’t get 

deck bounces, and we don’t get night-vision qualifications. And 

then consequently, the unit that goes will get them and the unit 

at home station will go into the fight having untrained pilots. So 

we are at risk for that, certainly. 

General SPENCER. And thank you also for your question, Congressman. I think the example you used in—with the Philippines 

was a good one because not much keeps me up at night. But the 

fact—I mean, the Air Force was born and it has its foundation in 

innovation and technology. And I am really concerned that the 

gap—and we have enjoyed a technological edge—I am really concerned that that is closing and it is closing pretty fast. 

And you know, we have always been in a position where our potential adversaries would wake up and say, where in the world did 

they get that technology from, how did they do that? I am afraid 

we are going to wake up and say, where in the world did they get 

that from and now what are we going to do about it? That bothers 

me. And I just see that walking away from us, and I don’t—I am 

concerned I don’t see a hue and cry as to what do—we need to stop 

this. 

And so, I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, we need the resources. This is not about just getting more money. I mean, we 

want to—I think the American people—I mean, this is not, you 

know, a Super Bowl game where if you lose, you come back and 

play next year. The expectation of us is we go in and we win and 

we win every time and we win decisively. And I get worried about 

that, as we continue to draw down the DOD budget, are we going 

to be to deliver that? 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Russell. We will now go to Ms. 

Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have just 

a simple question and maybe a statement. General Allyn, I was 

well-pleased to hear that recruitment is up to par. And you were 

the one that commented on that, were you not, the recruitment? 

General ALLYN. Ma’am, I actually commented on retention. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Retention, yes. 

General ALLYN. But the recruitment this year is okay, as well. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Good. 

General ALLYN. In the future year, it is at risk. 
27 

Ms. BORDALLO. Let me—yes, let me say I am looking to the future. And if we continue to draw down on funding, certainly, we 

are putting our young men and women at risk. How anxious will 

they be to join the military and how will their families feel about 

this? So I think this is another situation that we have got to look 

at. 

I mean, certainly if—you know, and this is widely known, if sequestration continues, we have to continue to draw down on funding. They know that our military may weaken them, that you are 

putting their young men and women in harm’s way when they are 

out there, you know, trying to win a war. So I think that the recruitment numbers will be probably going down as well. That is 

just a statement, and I was just thinking about it. 

But I do have a question for you, General Allyn. What is the status of the Army Sustainable Readiness Model? What assumptions 

are being made in the development of the model and how is the 

National Guard being incorporated into the model? 

General ALLYN. Well, thank you, ma’am. 

First of all, let me hit the recruiting, because it is important to 

highlight the fact that, of our 17- to 24-year-old young Americans, 

about 360,000 of them across all of America meet the prerequisites 

to become a member of the Armed Forces. Okay. That is the starting point. But they are also the same population that the colleges 

are attracting and that businesses are attracting. And so, we are 

all competing for that—what I—we like to refer to as the top 1 percent or less of America. 

The Army requires 120,000 of that 360,000 just to sustain our 

current force level, okay. So we are absolutely laser-focused on the 

challenges of recruiting going forward. We are putting additional 

resources at it in terms of people and money. But at the end of the 

day, we believe that our young Americans still want to serve on 

this championship Armed Forces team that we field. 

And sustaining trust with our people is absolutely essential in 

accomplishing that. 

To the Sustainable Readiness Model question, it is a total force 

model. Everything that we do is about the total force. We fight as 

a total force. We train as a total force. We recruit as a total force. 

We retain as a total force. And so it is absolutely a component of 

our effort. 

And specifically what we are working with the National Guard 

Bureau on is how can we better sustain the readiness that we generate when we send our two National Guard brigades to our annual combat training center rotations? Because what the Active 

Force is able to do is within weeks of returning from a combat 

training center rotation, they are back in the field fixing the shortfalls that were identified to get at that peak level of readiness. 

For the Guard, as you know, they don’t have that ability to do 

so. So we are working with them on how do we sustain that readiness longer, which ultimately is what we owe the American people? 

Once we train and develop readiness, we want to sustain it as long 

as we can so that we have increased surge capacity. 

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

And just one quick question, Mr. Chairman, to General Spencer. 

The Air Force today is responding to greater operational demands 
28 

from—with the 35 percent fewer forces and aging aircraft. If smaller and more ready are mutually exclusive, what are the consequences—if smaller and more ready are mutually exclusive, what 

are the consequences of this? 

And in particular, how does the shortage of maintenance affect 

the Air Force’s ability to generate requested forces? 

General SPENCER. Yes, ma’am. Well, first, you have to—I would 

ask myself ready for what? So if we—to be—we are right now as 

small as we can get to support what the country has asked us to 

do. We really—in terms of our overall ceiling for manpower and our 

equipment, we are at the bottom right now. We can’t go any lower, 

or we will have to rewrite the strategy and do something different. 

So getting smaller than we are now and, ‘‘more ready,’’ again is 

going to—capacity has the capability in all of it—in and of itself. 

So you have to have enough stuff to move around, you can’t get so 

small and say, well, I am smaller but I am more ready. Ready to 

go do what? If you have a wide variety of demands and you don’t 

have enough to go around, that formula won’t work. 

In terms of maintenance, we are short. One of the reasons we 

drew a red line this year on drawing down the force was a lot of 

our maintenance folks, we have drawn them down too far. So we 

have got—we aren’t able to generate the sorties that we need at 

our bases to make sure our pilots are trained, to make sure our airplanes are ready to go. 

So we have not only drawn down but we are starting to reallocate, if you will, folks that we have more out into our flight line 

maintenance areas. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, General. 

And Mr. Chairman, I yield back but I do have a few more questions that I would like to enter into the record. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure, yes. Yes, we will make sure those questions 

get entered into the record and get the service branches to provide 

answers for you. 

I would like to thank the members of the panel for joining us 

today. I do have a couple of questions as we end, and want to get 

your direction. As you know, readiness includes not just training 

and equipping, but also the modernization element. And you all 

talked in brief about that. 

But I think it is one of the more important things that we have 

to speak about. And you all alluded to the fact that our adversaries 

are pursuing technology upgrades at light speed. And when we 

mark time and they are traveling at light speed, even though we 

have an advantage, when we are static and they are traveling at 

light speed, it doesn’t take long for them to catch up. 

And I think by any measure, we are looking at in a fairly short 

window to be looking at their tailpipe when it comes to technology 

and maintaining that overwhelming superiority that General 

Paxton spoke about. And I think that is an obligation this Nation 

has to every man and woman that serves in the military. 

And that is to make sure that when they sign up, when we attract the best and brightest, that we also tell them we are going 

to be committed to making sure that you are properly compensated, 

but also that you have the tools necessary to be successful in the 

job that you do. And that is, we are going to give you overwhelming 
29 

superiority so when we ask you to go into harm’s way, you are 

going to have the highest probability of fighting to victory and coming home safe. 

We all know it is a dangerous business, but we owe it to our men 

and women to do that. If we don’t commit to modernizing our 

forces, or we are stagnant in keeping up, then we do our men and 

women in the military a disservice. And we can do great things on 

the compensation side and make sure that compensation and benefits stay where it is. 

But as you said, the young men and women that come to the 

military come there for a variety of different purposes. Obviously 

we need to properly compensate them and to provide them benefits, 

but they come there for the challenge and they come there knowing 

that they are there to serve their country and they want to defend 

this Nation when we ask them to go into harm’s way. 

But they also want to go there knowing that they have the best 

of what is available to do that. And doing anything less than that, 

I think is an abdication of our responsibility as Members of Congress under Article I, Section A of the Constitution, and we have 

to make sure that that happens. 

With that being said, we also have an obligation under this new 

budget scenario of—with a lot of what is happening being pursued 

under OCO, to make sure that we are directive in the budget languages. We know the way things have existed up to this point is 

OCO has been used, again, for a fairly specific and limited sets of 

operational aspects of the military. 

This budget opens it up and says we are going to allow the authorizers and the appropriators to appropriate and authorize to 

$613 billion. But there are still the internal OMB controls on what 

OCO is. And if the House Armed Services Committee and the 

House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense are not 

directive in the language to say this is what you will do with those 

OCO dollars, then the default position is for OMB to say, here are 

the limits and this is what you can and cannot spend it on. 

So I think it is incumbent upon us and I say us, both appropriators and authorizers, to get that right. The branches have told us 

where the needs are from the standpoint of training and equipping. 

But one of those areas that I think has to be emphasized in this 

and becomes a forcing mechanism for Congress next year to make 

sure we continue with this effort to modernize is to get your direction on the most pressing needs on modernization. And I would like 

for all of you to just give us your overview about where you believe 

your most pressing needs are in modernization, so that we have 

some perspective as authorization and appropriations take place, to 

understand what do we need to do not just on the training side and 

the equipping side—you all have given us a good perspective on 

that about where we need to go with our national training centers, 

where we need to go with getting our pilots sea time, to make sure 

that our sailors are at sea, to make sure our marines are also 

there, with the ARG to use, understanding how they are trained 

up, ready to go. 

But the place I think we haven’t given the attention that needs 

to be given is on the side of modernization. 
30 

So General Allyn, I give you the opportunity to start and we will 

move to each of the other members from there. 

General ALLYN. Thanks, Chairman Wittman. 

First of all, I appreciate the highlight of the tough balancing act 

and the hard choices that we have had to make even with the 

President’s budget submission. And that President’s budget submission reflects a 25 percent cut to our modernization program because of the hard choices that we have had to make to sustain 

readiness, even to deliver 33 percent of our brigade combat teams 

ready to deploy globally as they are today. 

There are—basically a snowplow effect has gone into our modernization program across every program. Now we are underway 

with a critical effort in divestiture to ensure that every resource 

dollar that we put into our modernization program delivers the 

best effect to offer the best possible equipment to our deploying soldiers, which as you highlight, is what we owe to our soldiers. 

No adversary deserves a fair fight. And if we fail to increase our 

modernization efforts, as has been highlighted by each of my teammates, that gap is closing and we cannot allow that to happen. 

So for the Army, there are at least a dozen priority programs 

that require more funding, but I will highlight just a couple. I highlighted in my opening statement that our aviation restructure initiative was a budget-driven effort to increase readiness, increase 

modernization, and increase the capacity and capability of our aviation across the total force. 

It accelerates the UH–60M modernization for our National 

Guard by 3 to 5 years, which is really, really important for defense 

of the homeland. It is the most critical capability that our governors need in response to crises in the homeland. 

We have to modernize for cyber. As we have talked about previously, we are vulnerable to cyber attack and right now we are on 

a path for a multiyear plan to address those vulnerabilities. We 

ought not be forced to take a multiyear approach. We ought to be 

modernizing our network as rapidly as we possibly can, recognizing 

that there are always going to be budget constraints. 

Under sequestration, our network modernization would take a 

$400 million cut. And so, a multiyear plan would become, you 

know, exceeding beyond the POM. And that is absolutely unacceptable. 

The other area that we require—really a more accelerated approach is ensuring the installation readiness, which is a critical 

component of our training and readiness as we have previously 

talked, and specifically protecting against insider threat attacks. 

Right now, because of budget constraints, we have put soldiers 

at many missions, which means they are not training and preparing for their core combat mission. We need increased funding to 

enable us to address the insider threat to ensure that our installations are ready and ensure our soldiers are in the units training 

to deploy to war. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, General Allyn. 

Admiral Howard. 

Admiral HOWARD. So when we talk about modernization, you can 

see from our fiscal year 2015 budget submission to fiscal year 2016 

where we took risk. And we took some risks by slowing down or 
31 

deferring modernization specifically at that future fight in antiaccess/area denial. Specifically, we took risk in munitions, we took 

risk in electronic warfare, particularly associated with our surface 

ships, and we took risk in ballistic missile defense. 

And then in another area where we could actually use some assistance, we appreciate the work we have done with Congress on 

the cruiser modification. And if we could re-look at that SMOSF 

[Ship Modernization, Operations and Sustainment Fund] fund and 

then lift restrictions, that would also help us get to a better modernization package. Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thanks, Admiral Howard. 

General Paxton. 

General PAXTON. Thank you, Chairman. Sir, we had discussed 

several times before, all of the services, when we talk about fiscal 

predictability in that top line, all of the services make very deliberate, very conscious, very thoughtful decisions about the way we 

are going to modernize. And when the budget gets sequestered, 

those decisions are imperiled. 

So for the Marine Corps right now, we are in the midst of an 

aviation bathtub. We made a decision several years ago that at 

least three of our fixed-wing platforms were at age limits, had high 

maintenance costs and, indeed, were not comparable to the cuttingedge technology and the unfair fight that we want to have. So we 

bought into the B–22 on the rotary wing and, more importantly 

today, the F–35 JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] on the fixed wing. 

We are in the bathtub, where we are having to retire old aircraft 

or because of other issues on sequestration, they are not ready 

basic aircraft. It takes too much to maintain them and get them 

off the line. An example with our V–22 was almost as soon as that 

rotary-wing aircraft went IOC [initial operational capability], it had 

to go FOC [full operational capability] and we put it in the fight 

in Iraq. And we are delighted we did it because it proved the technology, twice the lift, twice the payload, twice the range. 

We are convinced that the F–35 at IOC will be better than the 

AV–8 or the F–18 team at FOC or as it is today. But we are in 

the middle of that bathtub. Sequestration puts constraints on us 

with the number of aircraft we can buy. It is a joint service program. It is an international program. It imperils the issues of cost 

benefits and the value of quantity. So that is point number one, sir, 

on modernization. 

Point number two is you can become a hollow force, as you well 

know, sir. You can become a hollow force in many ways. You can 

become a hollow force because of insufficient people. You can be a 

hollow force because of aged equipment. So we need to strike a balance, all of the services, between our people, our equipment, and 

our modernization. 

The one thing we don’t want to have is—in the Marine Corps, 

for example, is we don’t want to have now with the V–22 and the 

F–35, we don’t have to have a 21st century aviation capability and 

then we don’t have our ACVs [Armored Command Vehicles] in our 

ship-to-shore. We can’t work with the Army on the JLTV [Joint 

Light Tactical Vehicle] and we have a 20th century ground capability. And then because we have done all of those, the maintainers 

are not there and we have a 19th century logistics capability. We 
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have to modernize all of them together. And the predictability of 

the budget is essential for that, sir. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thanks, General Paxton. 

General Spencer. 

General SPENCER. Mr. Chairman, I will start off answering your 

question with a statement. We have 12 fleets of aircraft in the Air 

Force that qualify for an antique license plate in the State of Virginia. 

[Laughter.] 

General SPENCER. That is a fact. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes. 

General SPENCER. So for us, specifically, we are—as you know, 

we are trying to field the F–35. That is crucial to both—many of 

here at the table. And some folks will say, well, why. Well, the majority of our fleet are fourth generation. And our adversaries are 

rolling what they could call or some would call a 4.5 generation. 

Now training, you know, we have the best trained pilots in the 

world. But if you put them in an airplane that has less capabilities 

than another, I mean, that is a real issue. So we have got to get 

to that fifth-generation fighter. 

We then need a long-range strike bomber, which is—will help us 

penetrate into anti-access/anti-denial areas around the globe. And 

then third—our third priority is a tanker. You know, I was going 

to say our tanker is as old as General Paxton, but it is not quite 

that old. 

[Laughter.] 

General SPENCER. But it is, but they are, on average, about 52 

years old. And we have got to get those tankers in and rolling. As 

you know, we don’t go very far without tankers to get folks across 

the globe. So those are our top three not to mention, I mean, 

JSTARS [Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System], AWACs 

[airborne warning and control system], our ICBM [intercontinental 

ballistic missile] fleet is going to have to be upgraded. I mean, I 

could go on and on—space. I could go on and on, but those are our 

top three. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thanks, General Spencer. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your indulgence. I regret that I wasn’t able to be here earlier, but you all 

know how sometimes many commitments at the same time. I just 

wanted to follow up quickly, because I think we all know that we 

have to translate all of this for not just our colleagues, but certainly for our constituents. And you have just talked about modernization and cited a few examples. And we know that these are 

funding requirements that are not part of OCO. They need to be 

sustaining over some time. 

And people sometimes think that, well, you are putting all this 

money in OCO, well, surely, you will be able to do everything that 

you need to do. And I think you have made the case very well this 

morning, I am sure. And I appreciate the question, particularly, 

that the chairman just asked. 
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But could you—and you may have already done this. I am thinking about skill sets, I am thinking about the risks that we have to 

the men and women who serve our country. 

What is it about those skill sets, about the needs that we have— 

whether, you know, mental health to cyber, what have you—that 

puts our men and women at such risk that we need to really sound 

the alarm on this and exclaim that that is not something covered 

by OCO? How would you do that? And it is an elevator speech, obviously. You got about, you know, two sentences’ worth. 

General PAXTON. Congresswoman Davis, great to see you again, 

ma’am. Thanks. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, General. Good to see all of you. 

General PAXTON. One of the things we did not discuss earlier, so 

this is really a topical question is we talk about the cohesion of a 

unit and the leader-to-led ratio. And both of those are critically important. The world is a much faster place than it has been, and it 

is a much more complex place than it has been. And I think all of 

us have in other testimonies talked about the skill sets that our 

small unit leaders indeed. 

And consequently, not only the skill sets that those leaders need, 

but the stability that the unit and the other soldier, sailor, airmen, 

marine deserves from having a skilled, trained leader at the helm. 

So with the OCO dollars, when we are paying for the current fight, 

the current reset, as opposed to reconstituting new gear, we mortgage the modernization and we also mortgage—when we talk about 

home station, training and we talk about modernized equipment, 

we reduce the capability to take that skilled leader and to train 

him or her on the equipment that we need in the conditions that 

we need with a number of what we call sets and reps we need, so 

that that leader is confident in his or her capabilities. And so that 

unit is confident in that leader. 

So I think in the future what we may see is services that are already kind of high-demand, low-density. But you may see a continued need to better train our leaders and perhaps age our force a 

little bit because you have to get those skills sets. 

Thank you, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

General ALLYN. Yes, ma’am. I will highlight another approach to 

this that we are working and that is, in order for us to ensure that 

the modernization programs that we have underway are better delivering the capability that our soldiers need, we are better linking 

our users with our developers and with our requirement’s writers, 

so that we get the reps with that equipment and, more importantly, we get the feedback on what that equipment can do and 

cannot do. And what it shows us is that some of our new equipment is very complex. And it does require increased training for 

our incredibly bright and energetic young soldiers. 

And we require a—I would say a—just enough technological 

edge. We don’t have to make it so hard to train that the limited 

training time that we get creates challenges for our ability to integrate new capabilities. So we are trying to tighten that linkage. Because at the end of the day, a soldier that is confident and competent with the equipment that they would provide them, because 

of the decisive edge of our leadership, they will dominate on the fu-
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ture battlefield. But we have got to give them the right equipment 

and the time to train on it to master. 

Admiral HOWARD. With the budget with OCO, you still have not 

removed the threat of sequestration. We have people who have 

lived through sequestration and it is a dissatisfying experience. 

And there are a couple of cohorts that are very important to readiness. 

One, we don’t often talk about them, but we have got these wonderful public servants who are repair workers, shipyard workers, 

aviation depot artisans, engineers, IT [information technology] people. They are intrinsic to us maintaining readiness. And when we 

sequestered before, we furloughed those great public workers. And 

then when you—and so some of them retire early. You lose those 

skill sets. It could take years to go to for someone to go from apprentice to journeyman in order to be able to fix our ships or our 

aircraft. 

And then when we want to hire them back, they are deeply suspicious. These folks have to be able to earn a living and know that 

they can take care of their families and pay their mortgages, just 

like anybody else. And for some of our engineers, it is their patriotism that lets them serve. They could have much greater rewards 

in the outside world. So there is that cohort. So if you don’t take 

away the suspicion that we might sequester again, we create angst 

in that workforce, that civilian workforce. 

Then the impact of that sequester, we are still dealing with an 

aviation depot backlog. That impacts the aircraft that we need to 

operate, but also for our officers to—our pilots to be able to train 

in. 

So our folks have knowledge of what it is like to sequester. So 

OCO will help us in the immediate, but it won’t take away the 

threat and the angst that comes with that law looming over our 

head. 

Thank you. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes, thank you. 

General SPENCER. And Congresswoman, I guess, if I was in an 

elevator and I only had a few seconds, I would probably make it 

personal. And so, I would describe it this way. I mean, I used to 

coach Little League football. And so, our job is to organize, train 

and equip, to provide forces to combatant commanders. 

So, as a football coach, I trained the kids how to play. I would 

not send anyone into the game without a helmet or shoulder pads 

or knowing how to tackle or how to protect themselves. That is 

what we do. But if you look at that sort of in the military, that is 

not—OCO doesn’t fund any of that. It is—that is part of our base 

budget. If we have to get into the game, or we have to go to war, 

that is when OCO kicks in, because we have extra over-and-above 

expenses to our base. 

I think it is important to keep that difference—the differentiation, so we understand what the differences are, and make sure we 

don’t mix what goes into base and what OCO is for. I just get worried when we do that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. 
35 

General SPENCER. How do we—and then what happens when 

OCO goes away? And what happens to predictability and all the 

other things you have heard about here? I really worry about that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that time. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. 

We will go to Mr. O’Rourke. And knowing that we have votes 

have been called at 9:48. So, you go ahead and ask your questions. 

We will try to do it as quickly as we can so we can wrap up. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Sure. Let me just start by thanking each of you 

for your testimony today. I think you made an excellent case for 

the folly of our current budget trajectory and how that is going to 

impact readiness. And I think you have given us some facts that 

we need to help our colleagues make the right decision to ensure 

that we don’t cut any further, and that we support our greatest 

asset. And our greatest weapon, again, as General Paxton said, are 

the men and women who serve this country in uniform. 

General Allyn, you mentioned a 25 percent cut—I think that you 

said that—to modernization in the fiscal year 2016 budget. Tell me 

what kind of impact that is going to have to, say, the Brigade Modernization Command at Fort Bliss under General Charlton, the 

NIE—the Network Integration Evaluation exercises and the upcoming Army Warfighting Assessment that will take place there. 

Will we be able to continue to do those things? Or will we have to 

change those schedules and push those further out? 

General ALLYN. Thanks, Congressman O’Rourke. We will—we 

have fully funded our Army Warfighting Assessment and our Network Integration exercise program. They are vital to us testing new 

capabilities. And, more importantly, getting it into the hands of our 

brigade combat team that trains out there. 

And, as you know, those are joint exercises and those are multinational exercises. We have had a battalion of the Marines participate in the last two exercises. We have had our teammates from 

Canada, from Australia, from the United Kingdom train with us 

there, and they will train with us there in the future. 

So, not only do we work on developing the modern capabilities 

we need, but we work on the concepts that will enable us to fight 

as a ‘‘Force 2025 and Beyond’’ force that the future will require of 

us. And we are able to get a lot of interoperability work with our 

most critical allies. 

So, it is fully funded. And General Charlton’s leadership will remain critical to us achieving the objectives of that program. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. So, just a quick follow-up question; 25 percent 

cut—what does that affect? 

General ALLYN. It primarily delays the procurement and acquisition of virtually every program that we have. So, you know, we 

won’t achieve balance under the President’s budget until fiscal year 

2023. If sequestration comes back, it will be 3 to 5 years longer 

than that. And that balance is people, modernization, and readiness. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. 
36 

I just want to close by thanking all of our witnesses today. 

Thank you so much. 

I do want to end with a question. Just a simple yes or no answer. 

Obviously, where we are today with the budget that passed—we 

have 96 billion additional dollars in OCO. In your perspective, understanding the long-term perspectives and the challenges that 

that creates in funding that way—none us like to do it that way. 

But if you put that in perspective of having that number now at 

$613 billion to authorize to and appropriate to, versus the BCA levels, which of those is more preferable to each of you? 

General Allyn. 

General ALLYN. Well, clearly, Congressman Wittman, increased 

money delivers increased capability and provides better training, 

readiness, and modernization. So, you know, give us a choice of increased OCO or BCA, it is a simple answer. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Gotcha. 

Admiral Howard. 

Admiral HOWARD. A bird in the hand is always worth more than 

the bush, Congressman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes, that is right. 

Admiral HOWARD. But it is—for the long term, it is not a good 

solution. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Correct. Yes. 

General Paxton. 

General PAXTON. Yes, absolutely. So, the OCO dollars help in the 

short term. I continue to worry about the long term, our modernization, our training, and our exercises. We want to fight and 

win tonight and tomorrow, but we also want to make sure we don’t 

do that at the expense of not being able to do it the day after tomorrow. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Exactly. 

General PAXTON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Spencer. 

General SPENCER. Same answer, Mr. Chairman. It is a patchwork. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes. 

General SPENCER. And would hope going forward, we could come 

up with a better solution, but the same. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Absolutely. 

Well, thank you all so much. Thanks for your service. Thanks for 

coming in today. Thanks for your candidness. We have our work 

cut out for us to not only look at what we are doing with the shortterm budget perspective, but I agree with you all. We have to create some long-term certainty here. And that is up to all of us here 

to make sure that we are working together to get that done. 

Thank you for what you do. Please thank your soldiers, sailors, 

marines, and airmen for the spectacular job they do for our Nation. 

And thank their families, too, for the sacrifice that they have made. 

Thank you so much. 

With that, the subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 9:53 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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MARCH 26, 2015 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO 

Ms. BORDALLO. Describe the series of events that led to the backlog in maintenance for legacy F–18 Hornet aircraft and the steps the Navy is taking to alleviate 

this backlog which is leading to a higher T-rating, and therefore lower readiness, 

in the FY16 budget. 

Admiral HOWARD. The Department’s legacy F/A–18A–D depot throughput challenge is attributed to a series of events beginning with delays in JSF procurement, 

which has translated to unplanned maintenance to extend the service life of legacy 

Hornet aircraft beyond the 6,000 hour design life. Additionally, COCOM-driven operations and Fleet Response Training Plan (FRTP) training and readiness requirements are driving an increased strike fighter utilization rate thereby adding to the 

current depot workload. In an effort to meet strike fighter inventory requirements, 

depot throughput of planned service life extension work has been complicated by the 

discovery of unexpected corrosion induced work, leading to longer repair times for 

inducted airframes. 

Furthermore, the constraints of sequestration, and multiple continuing resolutions, have limited the Navy’s ability to replenish artisans and engineers to keep 

pace with personnel attrition and the increased breadth and depth of depot repair 

requirements associated with extending the service life of legacy Hornets. As a result of the 2013 Budget Control Act, the Department imposed a nine month hiring 

freeze, which prevented the replenishment of some 400 artisans who voluntarily left 

the workforce. Additionally, budget reductions imposed as a result of sequestration 

limited the hiring capacity for engineers who support depot planning and inspection 

and repair disposition. Furthermore, the depots experienced an increased requirement for personnel to address new requirements, an increase in depot facility repair 

events, and an increase in scope of current work associated with aging legacy airframes. This increase in workload coupled with a decreased workforce has created 

a complex challenge at the organic depot facilities. 

To improve F/A–18 depot capacity, the Department is attacking the major barriers 

to production—manpower and material. This includes an aggressive hiring and 

training plan for artisans and engineers, and improved parts availability and staging for high flight hour (HFH) maintenance events based on common repair requirements. Additionally, the Navy has collaborated with Boeing in identifying several 

areas to improve overall depot throughput, such as employing Boeing Engineering 

Support and incorporating Super Hornet modifications at its Cecil Field facility. The 

strategy is proving successful as depot production levels are improving, but requires 

time to fully mature. With the requested funding, and under this plan, the Department anticipates continued improvement in depot throughput to meet annual production requirements by FY17 and full recovery by FY19. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NUGENT 

Mr. NUGENT. In this year’s NDAA I will be submitting language asking the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) for a plan to reform the Defense Personal Property System (DPS). As you know, this is a system that thousands of military families use each year to organize and facilitate service member 

change of stations. In 2013, the Army entered into a contract to improve the 

functionality and ease of use for the system. 

Would you mind identifying the progress towards improving this system? Is the 

build out of the DPS system moving as scheduled or has it fallen behind? 

General ALLYN. In 2013, USTRANSCOM entered into a 5-year contract to implement Increment III of DPS. Increment III’s primary goal is to develop and implement for DPS the remaining three major capabilities, Non-Temporary Storage, 

Intra-country Moves, and Direct Procurement Moves, so that the legacy Transportation Operational Personal Property Standard System (TOPS) can be retired in 

2018. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2014, DPS supported over 550,000 shipments for military 

families worldwide and implemented eight maintenance releases, most of which remediated software defects from the previous developer or enhanced system security. 

The DPS Program Management Office also completed several major requirements 
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refinement efforts with the Services, which allowed the developer to begin the requirements analysis phase for several Increment III capabilities. Website improvements were accelerated to meet the needs of our service members in 2015, which 

required a reprioritization of other tasks on contract. These improvements include 

customer ease-of-use updates for the Self-counseling, Claims, and move.mil web 

pages and are scheduled to be completed in FY15. Additional improvements on contract for FY16–18 include support for document management and imaging and digital signature capability, as well as server and software modernization to improve 

performance and stability. The implementation timeline has slipped approximately 

4 months. 

Mr. NUGENT. After more than a decade in Afghanistan, there have been a number 

of lessons learned not least of which have been in the functionality and reliability 

of our communications networks and equipment. Millions of Americans carry cell 

phones that are extremely user friendly and capable of texting, searching the Web 

and geo-locating while soldiers on the battlefield have cumbersome and difficult to 

use systems. 

Currently, the Army is working towards improving the network under the Simplified Tactical Army Reliable Network (STARNet) program. 

Would you mind discussing the milestone progress of that plan? 

General ALLYN. As our adversaries continue to invest in network and cyber capabilities, we must do so as well to keep our decisive edge. The Simplified Tactical 

Army Reliable Network (STARNet) is an overarching strategy to provide incremental network enhancements between 2016 and 2021; it is not a formal acquisition 

program. The Army is resourcing individual existing programs that align with the 

enhancements to simplify and harden the network. The endstate goals of the roadmap include: fielding modernized network capabilities across formations from Infantry, Stryker and Armored brigades to Aviation and enabling forces; delivering the 

Common Operating Environment to give Soldiers a familiar look and feel for their 

mission command applications from garrison to foxhole; simplifying and protecting 

the network to increase commanders’ operational agility; improving tactical communications with joint, interagency, intergovernmental and multinational partners; 

creating smaller, lighter command posts for rapid deployment; and improving home 

station training and readiness to deliver uninterrupted mission command. 

Some examples of promising capability include small expeditionary satellite terminals, en route airborne mission command planning tools, air/ground radios, implementation of the Command Post and Mounted Computing Environment applications 

and hardware, and network monitoring tools. By inserting these capabilities into the 

current network, we achieve faster, economic benefits to military operations. We will 

see these improvements in the network as they are integrated between FY16–21. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

Mr. SHUSTER. Pennsylvania has the third largest National Guard in the nation, 

and in the 4 counties of the Pennsylvania 6th district, there are about 5,947 Guard 

members. The experience of all forces in combat and the high up-tempo of the post 

9/11 military is an important and perishable capability. When Active Component 

members separate from service, DOD should work to keep those capabilities and experiences through the Guard or Reserves Components. How do you plan to 

incentivize our separating Active Component soldiers to join the Guard or Reserves? 

General ALLYN. So far in FY 2015, we are exceeding established transition retention goals for active duty Soldiers to Army Reserve and National Guard Service. 

Both the Army Reserve (USAR) and Army National Guard (ARNG) offer incentives 

for transitioning Active Duty Soldiers to join the Selected Reserve. 

Among those incentives are the Officers Affiliation Bonus (OAB) and the Enlisted 

Affiliation Bonus (EAB), both of which may not exceed $20,000. Soldiers can apply 

for the OAB/EAB through a Reserve Component Career Counselor and/or an Active 

Component Career Counselor only while on Active Duty. Soldiers may execute the 

OAB/EAB addendum up to 180 days prior to their scheduled Expiration of Term in 

Service date. 

In order to be eligible, Soldiers must: be serving on active duty or have served 

on active duty and are discharged under honorable conditions; have less than 20 

years of total military service; have completed any term of service or period of obligated service; meet the re-entry and separation program designer code requirements 

for affiliation; affiliate as Duty Military Occupational Specialty Qualified directly 

into a USAR or ARNG critical skill vacancy from the Active Army; and agree to 

serve a minimum of three years in the Selected Reserve. 
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Other incentives for service in units of the ARNG and USAR for both officers and 

enlisted include Drill/Battle Assembly pay; promotion and advanced training opportunities; life, health and dental insurance at very competitive rates; two-year 

deferment from mobilization in the USAR; and Reserve and veterans benefits authorized and administered by each state Government. 

Both components also offer educational benefits such as Federal Tuition Assistance, Student Loan Repayment, and GI Bill under certain conditions. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Pennsylvania has the third largest National Guard in the nation, 

and in the 4 counties of the Pennsylvania 6th district, there are about 5,947 Guard 

members. The experience of all forces in combat and the high up-tempo of the post 

9/11 military is an important and perishable capability. When Active Component 

members separate from service, DOD should work to keep those capabilities and experiences through the Guard or Reserves Components. How do you plan to 

incentivize our separating Active Component soldiers to join the Guard or Reserves? 

Admiral HOWARD. There are 1,929 Navy Reserve Sailors who are based in Pennsylvania. They are supported by five Navy Operational Support Centers (Avoca, Lehigh Valley, Erie, Pittsburgh, Ebensburg, and Harrisonburg). 

In the Navy, we use a Continuum of Service (CoS) approach that provides opportunities for seamless transition between active and reserve components, and service 

status categories, to meet mission requirements and encourage a lifetime of service. 

Through our Navy Personnel Command Career Transition Office, monetary and 

non-monetary incentives, and options for continued service, are discussed with officer and enlisted Sailors prior to leaving active duty, to present options best suited 

to each individual transitioning Sailor. 

Affiliation bonuses may be used to attract transitioning Sailors with certain desired skill sets into the Navy Reserve. Non-monetary benefits of transitioning from 

active duty directly into the Selected Reserve include a 2-year involuntary mobilization deferment, continued access to TRICARE healthcare coverage and long-term 

care and life insurance, transferability of Post-9/11 GI-Bill benefits and other education opportunities, and the prospect for eventual non-regular retirement. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Pennsylvania has the third largest National Guard in the nation, 

and in the 4 counties of the Pennsylvania 6th district, there are about 5,947 Guard 

members. The experience of all forces in combat and the high up-tempo of the post 

9/11 military is an important and perishable capability. When Active Component 

members separate from service, DOD should work to keep those capabilities and experiences through the Guard or Reserves Components. How do you plan to 

incentivize our separating Active Component soldiers to join the Guard or Reserves? 

General PAXTON. The Marine Corps has multiple incentives to help retain talented Marines in the Reserve Component. First, the direct affiliation program (DAP) 

affords highly qualified active component (AC) Marines the opportunity to affiliate 

with a Selected Marine Corps Reserve (SMCR) unit following their end of active 

service (EAS). The DAP provides transitioning AC Marines a seamless transition 

into the SMCR with a guaranteed reserve billet prior to reaching their EAS. It also 

provides Marines with a no-cost six month extension of their existing Tricare benefits. 

Second, affiliation bonuses are also available for Marine officers, noncommissioned 

officers with critical skills and staff sergeants. The Marine Corps also offers inactive 

duty for training (IDT) travel reimbursement for staff noncommissioned officers and 

officers. This incentive pays up to $300 per month to more senior Marines who live 

greater than 300 miles from their reserve unit. This program has been very successful. In fact, the Center for Naval Analyses found that the IDT travel reimbursement 

program is associated with an estimated 10-percentage point increase in manpower 

levels and a 24-percentage-point increase in regular drill attendance. 

Finally, most Marines leaving the active component are eligible to retrain to another military occupational specialty (MOS) if their local reserve unit does not have 

a requirement for the current MOS. This program has been critical to keeping the 

Marine Corps Reserve ready and relevant. Overall, the Marine Corps Reserve retrains approximately 400 Marines per year. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Pennsylvania has the third largest National Guard in the nation, 

and in the 4 counties of the Pennsylvania 6th district, there are about 5,947 Guard 

members. The experience of all forces in combat and the high up-tempo of the post 

9/11 military is an important and perishable capability. When Active Component 

members separate from service, DOD should work to keep those capabilities and experiences through the Guard or Reserves Components. How do you plan to 

incentivize our separating Active Component soldiers to join the Guard or Reserves? 

General SPENCER. The Air Reserve Components are employing a number of tools, 

initiatives, and educational benefits to attract prior service members. Both the Air 

Force Reserve and Air National Guard leverage the access provided by In-Service 
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Recruiters to capture departing service members. These Recruiters track separating 

Airmen and contact each one of them to ensure they are aware of the opportunities 

in the reserve component. They employ affiliation bonuses and incentives to attract 

members with critical skills and specialties. 

We are working on a Total Force awareness initiative sponsored by the Chief 

Master Sergeant of the Air Force which aims to educate Airmen of the opportunities 

within the reserve components at the earliest stages and throughout their Air Force 

service commitment. The initiative involves an awareness campaign as well as a 

cultural change via socialization of reserve component opportunities throughout 

leadership and supervisory channels. 

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