MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, 

AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 

FOR 2010 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, 

AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas, Chairman 

SAM FARR, California 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

ZACH WAMP, Tennessee 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

JOHN CARTER, Texas 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

CAROL MURPHY, TIM PETERSON, WALTER HEARNE, DONNA SHAHBAZ, and MARY C. ARNOLD, 

Subcommittee Staff 

PART 7 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 


hsrobinson on PROD1PC76 with HEARING
Part 7—MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010 


hsrobinson on PROD1PC76 with HEARING
MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, 

AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 

FOR 2010 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, 

AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas, Chairman 

SAM FARR, California 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

ZACH WAMP, Tennessee 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

JOHN CARTER, Texas 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

CAROL MURPHY, TIM PETERSON, WALTER HEARNE, DONNA SHAHBAZ, and MARY C. ARNOLD, 

Subcommittee Staff 

PART 7 

( 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

50–526 WASHINGTON : 2009 


hsrobinson on PROD1PC76 with HEARING
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman 

JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas 

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

SAM FARR, California 

JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois 

CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan 

ALLEN BOYD, Florida 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

ADAM SCHIFF, California 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

JERRY LEWIS, California 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia 

RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New 

Jersey 

TODD TIAHRT, Kansas 

ZACH WAMP, Tennessee 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana 

KEN CALVERT, California 

JO BONNER, Alabama 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

BEVERLY PHETO, Clerk and Staff Director 

(II)


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C O N T E N TS 

Page 

Quality of Life .......................................................................................................... 1 

Review of VA Challenges ........................................................................................ 127 

Family and Troop Housing ..................................................................................... 235 

Pacific Command ..................................................................................................... 315 

European Command ................................................................................................ 373 

DoD/VA Medical Transition .................................................................................... 487 

Base Realignment and Closure .............................................................................. 555 

Outside Witnesses ................................................................................................... 653 

Court of Appeals ...................................................................................................... 917 

American Battle Monuments Commission ............................................................ 930 

Cemeterial Expenses, Army .................................................................................... 941 

Armed Forces Retirement Home ............................................................................ 962 

Central Command .................................................................................................... 985 

Army Budget ............................................................................................................ 1059 

Navy and Marine Corps Budget ............................................................................. 1103 

Veterans Affairs ....................................................................................................... 1185 

Budget Overview ...................................................................................................... 1275 

Air Force Budget ...................................................................................................... 1361 

Testimony Submitted for the Record ..................................................................... 1407 

(III) 


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MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009. 

UNITED STATES ARMY 

WITNESS 

KENNETH O. PRESTON, SERGEANT MAJOR OF THE ARMY 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I would like to call the committee to 

order. I want to welcome everyone here, the witnesses, the members of the committee, and all the others for your attendance here 

today at our first subcommittee meeting of the 111th Congress. 

Our ranking member, Congressman Wamp, is back with us. I 

want to thank you personally, Mr. Wamp, for your tremendous 

leadership and a lot of the very positive accomplishments of this 

subcommittee last year. And as I recall, our last bill passed by— 

that was about 424–4 or something close to that. So I really appreciate the bipartisan manner in which this committee has been dedicated to supporting our veterans and our troops and their families. 

I would like to just start out with a few organizational comments 

and points before we get into the witnesses’ testimony. 

I would like to say at the very beginning here that I think we 

are literally blessed to have one of the finest staffs of any committee or subcommittee in the House. They work on a bipartisan 

basis. They know their business. And I think they are the real reason why we have had such great successes in this committee in the 

last few years, as well as previous years. 

We have Carol Murphy as the clerk, she will be back as the clerk 

for this subcommittee. We also have Mary Arnold. 

And if you could all raise your hand when I introduce you. Tim 

Peterson, Donna Shahbaz, Walter Hearne, all on the majority side. 

And on the minority side, we have Martin Delgado, Liz Dawson, 

and Kelly Shea. 

And while I introduced them as majority and minority side, this 

committee will continue its tradition of working on a bipartisan 

and nonpartisan basis on behalf of our veterans and our troops and 

their families. 

I would like to just very briefly, for the record, since this is the 

first meeting of the subcommittee for the year, review some of our 

efforts and achievements from last year. 


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For the Veterans Administration, we followed up on the largest 

single-year increase for veterans with an additional $4.5 billion increase. We provided funds to hire an additional 2,000 claims processors to reduce the serious V.A. backlog claims. 

We increased veterans’ funding by $16.3 billion during the 110th 

Congress, an unprecedented increase and something that I believe 

the troops and our veterans earned—these were dollars and programs that they earned through their service to the country. 

On the military construction side, we provided over $25 billion 

in new funding for 2009. We were also able to make progress on 

a couple of areas where we identified a great need. 

Between the 2008 and the 2009 supplemental bills, we were able 

to secure nearly $975 million for new military hospital construction, an initiative of this subcommittee and something I think has 

been long overdue. 

And we secured $200 million in additional money for new training barracks, something that hasn’t been the highest of priorities 

coming out of budgets from OMB. 

While our new recruits aren’t expecting to be trained and live in 

Hilton Hotels, we ought to have them living in the kind of housing 

conditions that show respect from our country for their choice to 

sign up and serve our country. 

So I am very proud of our bipartisan effort to make new inroads 

in improving our training barracks. Not many lobbyists out there 

are lobbying for 18-, 19-, 20-year-old recruits to the military forces, 

but this subcommittee intends to continue being a lobbyist for them 

in partnership with you, who has been such an eloquent voice on 

their behalf. 

Before I proceed, I would like to recognize again Mr. Wamp, who 

had such a tremendous impact on the success that I have mentioned. 

The time is yours. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you. Good morning. 

I think it is really appropriate to start here with the top enlisted 

leaders of our combined Armed Forces. Probably the only better 

way we could do this is if we had your family members up here— 

heart is where this committee’s work is. Quality of life is really everything for us. 

And it is still a tough world to serve in out there, and we know 

that, and we want to make sure we do everything we can here at 

this table—I want to thank the chairman, because I think he is exactly right. We have a lot to be grateful for, first and foremost, 

your service and all the men and women that you represent. This 

subcommittee has, in a bipartisan way, really kicked it in and 

stepped it up. 

And I tell people that at home and everywhere I go how committed, in a bipartisan way, we are to your families and to those 

men and women who volunteer to serve at a very difficult time. 

And I think we have made progress, but I think we can still make 

progress. 


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A little housekeeping here. I have Major Juan Alvarez that is 

now on my staff, and Erin Fogleman. I have been through a little 

transition. 

But I want to tell you something that maybe sounds a little 

strange to say, but I am now up to seven on our side in the seniority of the ranking members. And unlike the Democrats, who base 

their seniority on the particular subcommittee that they choose, we 

can move. 

We had three retirements ahead of me on our side, and I could 

have gone to a number of other committees. I said, ‘‘I want to stay 

right here, because this is the most important work that I can be 

engaged in.’’ And I am actually doing two jobs right now. I am running for governor of our state and serving here in Congress. 

But as long as I am here, it is absolutely the highest privilege 

of my professional life to serve those that serve our country in uniform, our Armed Forces in a volunteer capacity, with two wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, and trouble in 25 countries. It is a volatile 

time. It is a tough time. But there is no greater service to our country than the people that you represent. 

And I especially appreciate you four men, because just about 

every one of you has some real, direct connection to the state of 

Tennessee. So I just want to thank you for that. [Laughter.] 

And I know the chairman is going to find all those nexus to 

Texas, but it is undeniable how much they know about where I 

live. And I, too, have been out there. 

I was with President Bush in November on the ground at Fort 

Campbell, listening to our soldiers, many of whom are single. We 

have housing needs for those single troops that are serving us. We 

have a host of needs, still, in the area of childcare centers. And I 

know that the chairman is trying any vehicle passing through town 

here to help us. And that is important, as well. 

But we are so very grateful. And it is such a privilege. Our numbers shrank over here. We had four members of the subcommittee 

besides me. Now we have three. And Mr. Carter will be here, but 

the same team, which is a strong Republican team over here is 

committed to our men and women in uniform. 

We stand ready over the next 2 years to do everything we can 

to help our chairman and to help the majority and the President 

of the United States honor your sacrifice and service. I am really 

looking forward to it. We will do all that we can at a time of great 

challenge and difficulty, both on the budget front and around the 

world, to honor what you’re doing—and I just want you to know 

that going in. 

It is going to be a great year. And thank you for your presence 

here today. I hope that you will tell us what we need to hear and 

not what we want to hear as we go through this process. I know 

you are in charge of doing that to the generals, and I hope you will 

be the same way with us this morning. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you, Zach. 

And let me just say, as a Texan, having studied the Alamo, even 

we Texans are appreciative of Tennesseans—as long as I am chairman of this committee and as long as Chairman Young chooses to 

be on this subcommittee, it is going to be my tradition to recognize 


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him for an opening statement, as well, because he has done as 

much or more than any single member of Congress to support our 

troops and our veterans. 

And the former chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, 

former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee, now 

the partner. 

And, Chairman Young, we are honored to have you again in this 

Congress on our subcommittee. And I would like to recognize you 

for any opening comments you would care to make. 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I 

fought hard to stay on this subcommittee when we were having to 

downsize somewhat. But when it comes to the well-being of the 

men and women who serve in our military, there are no Republicans and no Democrats, especially on this committee, the chairman has conducted this subcommittee in just a tremendous bipartisan way, in the best interests of our country. And Mr. Wamp has 

done the same. 

And we are here—I know you hear this as a joke on occasion— 

but we are here to help, actually. I am not sure whether you have 

seen your specific budget for your service or not, but I don’t think 

we have, have we, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. EDWARDS. No. 

Mr. YOUNG. We haven’t gotten the budget yet. But we know 

that—regardless of what the budget is, there are needs that our 

men and women need. And we are counting on you to tell us what 

those needs are, because I can guarantee you that this subcommittee, the members of this subcommittee are going to do 

whatever we can possibly do to meet the needs to improve the quality of life and to take care of some of those little problems that are 

out there that sometimes we don’t hear about. 

So I am going to ask, Mr. Chairman, that, as they go through 

their testimony, just pretend like we have a magic wand up here 

and tell us some of the things that we might not have read or we 

might not have heard about. Tell us some of the things that we 

need to be doing in the interests of our military personnel. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Young. 

Let me welcome two new members to our subcommittee, Congressman John Salazar and Congressman Steve Israel. We are 

thrilled to have both of you here. 

And let me just give you a brief background. Congressman 

Salazar was first elected in 2004. He is a new member of the Appropriations Committee, but he is not new to defense issues. He 

served in the United States Army, a distinguished career there 

from 1973 to 1976. He also reflects his values by having served on 

the Veterans Affairs Committee. He was born and raised on a 

farm, still an active farmer, and a Blue Dog Democrat. 

John, we are very thrilled to have you. Would you care to make 

any statement in your first subcommittee hearing? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, it is really an honor to be able to serve on this subcommittee. It was one of my first choices. And I want to thank you 

for the opportunity. 


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As many of you know, the Salazar family has had a long history 

of serving this country. My father was a World War II veteran, 

asked that he be buried in his staff sergeant World War II uniform, 

and he was. And many times—we don’t ask much of our country, 

but we ask what we can do for our country. 

Thank you for your service. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is truly an honor for me to 

be able to serve on this committee. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, John. We are honored that you are on 

this subcommittee. 

Steve Israel is a member of Congress from the great state of New 

York. He was first elected in 2000, became a member of the Appropriations Committee in 2007. He is also not new to defense issues 

on several points. 

He previously served on the House Armed Services Committee, 

founded the bipartisan House Center Aisle Caucus, and very importantly, has been chairman of the House Democratic Caucus 

Task Force on Defense and the Military. He is particularly known 

for his leadership on professional military education issues, in addition to other areas of interest to him. 

Welcome to the committee, Steve. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And I would like to recognize you for any comments you would care to make. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and colleagues. I truly am 

honored to be on this subcommittee. 

If there was only one regret in coming to the Appropriations 

Committee, it was that I had to leave the Armed Services Committee. And I told the speaker, my heart remains with the Armed 

Services Committee. My wallet is with the Appropriations Committee. [Laughter.] 

And I have always had a longstanding interest, working with 

Chairman Skelton, on the issue of professional military education 

and how we are equipping our forces with the software that they 

need to become effective and remain effective warriors. I look forward to continuing to work with you—thank you all. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Steve. Welcome back. 

And welcome back—welcome, as a new member of the subcommittee. And welcome back, also, to all the returning members 

today. It is an honor. I think this is a great, great subcommittee. 

Let me make a fairly brief opening statement. This is our first 

hearing of the year. I think it is a reflection on our respect for your 

leadership and the difference that you have made from your previous year’s testimony. 

We felt, as Mr. Young alluded, we felt it wasn’t even important 

to wait until we have an official administration budget request, 

that whatever the needs are that are out there that you have identified—our troops and their families need to be heard now, as we 

begin our—our budgeting process. 

Members, today’s hearing is on the quality of life for enlisted soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and their families. The four witnesses at the table are the senior enlisted members of their respective branches. Members should know—and this is amazing—that 


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these four witnesses represent roughly 124 years of distinguished 

military service and experience. 

This hearing is a great opportunity to identify areas where we 

can do more to serve those who serve us. And as I mentioned to 

some of you I met with yesterday, literally, if you ever wonder all 

the trouble you go to testify on Capitol Hill, does it make a difference? 

Literally, the comments you made about the need for child development centers over the last several years is the reason why we 

have added several hundred million dollars to those programs, and 

particularly the point being that we have a lot of single moms and 

dads, while their spouses are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan on 

a first, second, or third tour that deserve and need that daycare. 

So you have made a difference. And we know you will continue 

to. 

Our witnesses today are, first, Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth Preston. He is no stranger this subcommittee. 

Welcome back, Sergeant Major. 

He was sworn in to his present position on January 15th of 2004 

with over 33 years of service in the United States Army. He was 

command sergeant major for Combined Task Force 7 in Baghdad 

prior to becoming sergeant major in the Army. 

And I anticipate Sergeant Major Preston will introduce him formally, but I also wanted to pay special tribute to Command Sergeant Major John Gipe of the National Guard and also Command 

Sergeant Major Leon Caffie of the Army Reserve. 

Thank you. Thank you both for your leadership and for being 

here today, as well. 

Sergeant major of the Marine Corps is Carlton W. Kent. Sergeant Major Kent is a returning witness and became sergeant 

major of the Marine Corps on April 25th of 2007. He also has 33 

years of military service. 

And we thank you for those distinguished years of service, Sergeant Major. He served as sergeant major of the Marine Forces, 

Europe, and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton prior to his current position. 

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Rick D. West, Master 

Chief West is a first-time witness here. And this is a friendly committee. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Young meant it when he said we are here to help. We are 

not like some of these committees trying to make points with cameras or reporters. We are here to hear from you, and we do welcome you to our subcommittee. 

Master Chief West has about 28 years of service in the Navy, entered the Navy straight from high school in 1981. And he is a submariner. His assignments include service on the staff of the commander, Submarine Force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and chief of the 

boat aboard the USS Portsmouth. 

Most recently, he served as fleet master chief of the U.S. fleet 

forces—and I will let Master Chief West introduce him formally, 

but I want to note that Force Master Chief Ronney Bright from the 

Navy Reserve is also with us. Wright. I am sorry, Wright. He is 

a bright Wright. [Laughter.] 


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Thank you for that. Well, welcome. It is good to have you here, 

also. 

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Rodney J. McKinley. 

Chief McKinley is a returning witness, as well. 

Chief, welcome. Welcome back to our subcommittee in your 

present position since 2006, June 30th. He has served in the Air 

Force for 30 years, beginning in 1974 with a 5-year break. He 

served as Command Chief Master Sergeant at the wing, Numbered 

Air Force, and major command levels and deployed to southwest 

Asia in support of OEF and OIF. 

Thank you again for all being here. And if you can just be patient for 1 or 2 more minutes, I would like to just lay out a couple 

of ground rules as we have agreed to them for this new Congress 

for our subcommittee. 

First, I will do everything I can to begin the committee hearings 

on time. I respect your schedules. We are not going to have you sitting here for 20 minutes waiting for a 10 o’clock hearing to begin 

at 10:30. 

For the members present in the room, when I gavel at the beginning of the hearing to open the hearing, I will recognize the members for questions in order of seniority, alternating between the 

majority and minority. 

For those who arrive after the hearing has started, I will recognize those members solely in order of arrival, not in order of seniority. And then the order will continue through all rounds of questioning. 

I will do my best to try to enforce the 5-minute rule on questions 

and answers. We will do this out of the hope that in this subcommittee, unlike the Armed Services Committee, Steve, we will 

have opportunities to have multiple rounds of questioning. And 

that might work better if we tried to not have our members make 

a 5-minute statement and ask 20 questions in the last 15 seconds 

of that. 

So what I am going to do is I will gavel once when there is a 

minute left. I will gavel twice, and I would ask the witnesses to finish your sentence when I have gaveled follow-up questions for the 

members. 

With that, we would like by tradition to begin with Sergeant 

Major Preston. 

STATEMENT OF SERGEANT MAJOR KENNETH O. PRESTON

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much. 

Congressman Wamp, Congressman Young, all the committee 

members, thanks very much. It is a great honor to be here and to 

testify again before this distinguished committee. I represent all 

the men and women of America’s Army. 

I will start out by saying that your support this past year and 

your continued support today has had a tremendous impact on our 

soldiers and our families. On behalf of all them, I want to thank 

you for all your work and effort. 

I also want to recognize Command Sergeant Major John Gipe, 

who is the command sergeant major for the Army National Guard. 

He is the senior enlisted adviser for Lieutenant General Vaughn 

for the Army National Guard. 


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And then Command Sergeant Major Leon Caffie, who is the command sergeant major for the Army Reserve. He works as the senior 

enlisted adviser for Lieutenant General Jack Stultz. These gentlemen represent 518,000 citizen-soldiers that serve every day. 

Today, the Army has more than 245,000 soldiers forward-deployed to 80 countries around the world. We have more than 

139,600 soldiers currently deployed in support of Operation Iraqi 

Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. 

General Casey, early in his tenure as our Army chief of staff, 

searched for a way to describe the state of the Army. And he uses 

the term ‘‘out of balance,’’ not broken or hollow, but the era of persistent global conflict has strained our Army resources, our soldiers, our Army families, and our equipment, to a point where we 

are consumed by the demands of the current fight. 

The Army has four strategic imperatives to restore this balance. 

We must Sustain our all-volunteer force, our soldiers, our Army civilians, and their families. We must Prepare our forces for success 

in the current conflict. We must Reset our soldiers and their equipment returning from the deployment. And we must Transform to 

meet the demands of the future and provide our soldiers, our Army 

civilians, and their families with the predictability and stability 

that they need. 

With your support, we intend to restore this balance to the 

Army. Our recruiting and retention programs are a success. Last 

year, we recruited over 169,000 young men and women, all great 

soldiers. We re-enlisted 120,000 soldiers to retain in our units. This 

past July, we celebrated the 35th anniversary of the all-volunteer 

force. 

And your support is directly attributed to our success, and it is 

greatly appreciated. 

We are seeing indicators of stress on the force as we enter the 

eighth year of the global war on terror. The Army had an increase 

in suicide rates for the fourth consecutive year. There were 128 suicides last year, with 15 additional cases still pending determination. The total number of suicides is potentially 143. We continue 

to look for initiatives to increase resources and enhance our efforts 

to identify, intervene and prevent suicidal behavior. 

The plan for this year is the implementation of a comprehensive 

soldier fitness program. The vision of this program is an Army 

whose resilience and total fitness enables soldiers to thrive in an 

era of high op-tempo and persistent conflict. 

Child care is a top quality of life issue. Our goal is to achieve the 

OFC standard of providing 80 percent childcare and 35 percent of 

the youth program demand by the end of fiscal year 2009. We currently can provide about 72,500 childcare spaces in support of our 

anticipated need of about 87,500 by fiscal year 2013. 

Our residential communities initiative is a successful tool in our 

efforts to eliminate inadequate family housing. At the end of this 

year, we will complete privatization on 44 of 45 installations, with 

over 89,000 homes. By 2011, we will complete privatization of 

about 98 percent of our stateside family housing inventory. 

Our permanent-party soldier barracks goal is about 170,000 adequate soldier spaces funded by the end of fiscal year 2013. Allowing 


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2 years for construction, we will not complete the barracks building 

plan until fiscal year 2015 for our permanent-party soldiers. 

We have a plan to maintain safe living conditions in our old Korean War-era barracks until enough new facilities are built to 

house our permanent-party soldiers. 

Our training barracks goal to support soldiers attending initial 

entry and professional development schools across the Army is 

115,413 adequate soldier spaces funded by the end of fiscal year 

2013. Allowing 2 years for construction, we will not complete the 

barracks building plan until fiscal year 2017. 

And, of course, when you look at some of our facilities that are 

out there, you know, the soldiers attending the Noncommissioned 

Officer Academy at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, live in World War 

II wooden barracks. 

We completed standing up and manning 36 warrior transition 

units and nine community-based warrior transition units to support 12,000 soldiers. These facilities have a singular focus on warrior healing and support to families. 

We hired 191 of the needed 254 new behavioral health providers 

this past year, which adds about 16,000 additional appointments a 

month. Shortages of medical providers in military treatment facilities is one of the top five issues identified by soldiers and families 

in our most recent Army family action plan conference last week. 

I want to thank the committee for the increased focus on our 

aging health care facilities over this last year. Our medical facilities are well maintained and operated, but many are more than 50 

years old and not configured, nor constructed to provide the range 

of treatments available in modern medical facilities. 

I am proud that this year we will—2009 as the year of the noncommissioned officer. During this year, we will accelerate previously approved strategic noncommissioned officer development 

initiatives that enhance training, education, capability, and utilization of our noncommissioned officers. 

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

[Prepared testimony of Sergeant Major Kenneth O. Preston follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Sergeant Major Preston, thank you very much. 

Sergeant Major Kent. 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009.

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS 

WITNESS 

CARLTON W. KENT, SERGEANT MAJOR OF THE MARINE CORPS 

STATEMENT OF SERGEANT MAJOR CARLTON W. KENT

Sergeant Major KENT. Thank you, Chairman Edwards, Ranking 

Member Wamp, and all of the subcommittee members for an opportunity to testify on all important issues that are affecting our Marines and their families today. 

The well-being of Marines and families is the most important priority for our corps. Your Marines are serving at every U.S. embassy 

throughout the world. They are engaged on several fronts. They are 

serving aboard the U.S. ships with our brothers and sisters in the 

Navy, and they are waiting on the call to go in harm’s way. 

Marines are very proud to serve their country and their Corps. 

I am pleased to report that the Marine Corps is making positive 

changes for Marines and their families that will benefit them for 

generations to come. 

We are making strides—quality of life of our families. We like to 

thank you all, you know, for what you have done for our BEQs, for 

our housing, and, I mean, across the whole spectrum. And we see 

that in our Corps. 

As a matter of fact, I have a quick story that I told Congressman 

Edwards yesterday. I was standing talking to a young corporal on 

a visit recently. And I said, ‘‘Are you planning on staying in the 

Marine Corps?’’ The young corporal was getting ready to answer it. 

Then his wife jumped right in. She said, ‘‘Yes, he is staying in the 

Marine Corps, because I like the housing, I like the commissary, 

I like childcare, I like everything that comes with the Corps.’’ 

So it is the families just keeping these Marines around. So thank 

you very much, you know, for what you do for our Corps. And, 

again, I am available to answer any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Sergeant Major Carlton W. Kent follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you very much, Sergeant Major. 

Master Chief West. 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009. 

UNITED STATES NAVY 

WITNESS 

RICK D. WEST, MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER OF THE NAVY 

STATEMENT OF MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER RICK D. WEST

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Wamp, distinguished members of 

the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before 

you and represent our Sailors and their families in this forum. 

On December 12th, the day I took the job, I told our young men 

and women that nothing would be more important to me than providing them the avenues to succeed as Sailors and as Americans. 

I view this time with you as an unparalleled opportunity to speak 

on behalf and uphold the promise that I made to them. 

Joining me today is Force Master Chief Ronney Wright, who represents our Reserve Force, the finest group of citizen-sailors that 

this nation has ever seen. 

Force Wright and I believe that three traditional pillars are critical to the success of our service: Strong decisive leadership, consistent and clear communications up, down and across the chain of 

command, and education to our fleet and their families regarding 

the quality of life and family support programs that are available 

to them. 

Consistent support from Congress and a continued emphasis on 

these pillars will ensure all of our sailors are ready for any mission 

any time, anywhere. Your commitment to our Sailors and the unconditional support to the families both contribute equally to our 

Navy’s success and our ability to protect America’s strategic interests around the world. 

Over the last few years, cooperation between this subcommittee 

and our Navy leadership has led to impressive progress in health 

care, childcare, family housing, and many other support programs. 

However, we will need your support as we focus on upgrading our 

existing barracks and providing more quarters to support our Sailors. Approximately 9,000 of my sailors today live on board ships. 

Before I took this job, I had the privilege of leading Sailors as 

Master Chief in both the Pacific and the Atlantic fleets. I have met 

and talked with thousands of our great Sailors. They inspire me 

daily, and I am happy to report morale is high and retention is 

strong. 

Our Navy mission is more diverse than ever before. I have seen 

Sailors operate on and below the oceans of the world, in the air, 

or boots on the ground with our expeditionary forces or as individual augmentees as we prosecute the global war on terror. 

And I am continually amazed to see the caliber of these Sailors 

working side by side with our Marine Corps brothers and alongside 

our Army and Air Force counterparts. 


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They may not have joined with that job in mind, but every day 

they are redefining their role as a United States Sailor. Your Sailors stand ready. 

But sadly to say, some of these Sailors never return to their families. They present us with a serious national responsibility. As a 

Navy and through your leadership, we are continually improving 

the support and care that we provide our wounded warriors. Our 

commitment to the heroes and their families will never waver. 

But today I come before you not only as the nation’s senior enlisted Sailor, but also as a Navy dad. I saw my eldest son graduate 

from Navy boot camp, and a few months later, I attended his graduation from Navy dive school. 

In the near future, his younger brother plans to follow. I am 

proud to tell you that these young men elected to follow in my footsteps out of patriotism and sense of selfless service to our nation, 

but I will also tell you another fact is they have chosen to join our 

Navy. The reason they joined our Navy is the lifelong exposure 

that they have had to the Navy way of life and to the military quality of life that this subcommittee is chartered with. 

And they have seen my wife, Bobbi, a former Navy Seabee, who 

doesn’t have to worry too much about my safety, but now she understands firsthand what so many of our American parents have 

discovered, that a child in harm’s way is a kind of stress you can 

never prepare yourself for. 

Mr. Chairman, committee members, it is not lost on me that you 

and I share very similar responsibilities. I know that your dedication to our military is stronger than ever before, and that your loyalty to our families is limitless. You have my most profound respect 

for that and for your continued dedication to each of them. 

I look forward to working with and alongside each of you today 

and in the future. Thank you for the opportunity to address you 

today, and I look forward to your questions. Hooah. 

[Prepared statement of Master Chief Petty Officer Rick West follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Master Chief West, thank you for your 

eloquent first statement before our subcommittee. 

Master Chief WEST. Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And thanks on behalf of all of us for your entire 

family’s service to our country. 

Master Chief WEST. Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Chief McKinley, welcome back to our subcommittee. I would like to recognize you now for your opening 

statement. 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009.

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE 

WITNESS 

RODNEY J. McKINLEY, CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT OF THE AIR FORCE 

STATEMENT OF CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT RODNEY J. MCKINLEY

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Wamp, Congressman Young, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak with 

you today about issues important to America’s Airmen and our Air 

Force. 

I am honored to be here alongside my fellow warriors as we collaborate on quality-of-life issues impacting all of our service members and their families. I want to take this opportunity to thank 

the members of this committee and the entire House of Representatives for your incredible support. 

Your Air Force appreciates greatly the expansion of pay, health 

care, and retirement benefits for service members and veterans and 

visits by the House members to our personnel in the field and to 

our wounded warriors. 

Thank you also, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for recommending additional Air Force infrastructure funding in the 

House Appropriations Committee’s economic stimulus package. 

Quality facilities and services directly impact our mission and retention efforts, so we especially appreciate this recommendation to 

invest in our future. 

Mr. Chairman, we also thank you for your continued sponsorship 

of the Military Child College Affordability Act in which states offer 

resident rate college tuition to our military families. 

Recently, our Air Force has had some challenges in our nuclear 

enterprise. We learned we needed to improve in many areas. But 

under the leadership of our Secretary and Chief of Staff, we have 

met those challenges head-on to ensure we have the right focus. 

We have stood up the Air Force Global Strike Command Provisional to handle our nuclear missions. We now have the right organizational emphasis as we steward this very important national resource. 

America’s Airmen continue to deliver outstanding capabilities to 

the battlefield. In the war on terrorism, more than 208,000 total 

force Airmen are engaged in the joint and coalition fight. We are 


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supporting daily operations in the air, on the ground, in space, and 

in cyberspace. 

We are filling joint expeditionary taskings, formerly known as inlieu-of taskings, where our deployed Airmen work alongside Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen on missions in Iraq, 

Afghanistan, and around the globe. 

We are focused on cyberspace, unmanned aerial systems, and the 

United States African Command. Security of cyberspace is of great 

importance not only to our Air Force, but also to our joint partners 

in our nation. Security of the nation’s net-centric information architecture requires more than Department of Defense (DoD) emphasis, 

so we have committed to working transparently with our interagency partners, as well. 

Our unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are directly supporting 

warfighters on the ground. Air Force Predators, Reapers, and Global Hawks are finding, fixing, tracking, and attacking our enemies. 

The intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance capabilities these 

systems provide are critical to battlefield operations. 

We have increased from 12 UAS combat air patrols in 2007 to 

33 today. To further support United States African Command, we 

have a new numbered Air Force, 17th Air Force. We are gearing 

up to support the extensive airlift requirements of that new command, as well as humanitarian assistance, security operation, improved aero-safety and security, and assisting our African partners 

with their efforts in these areas. 

We are constantly expanding care for our wounded warriors. Our 

warrior and survivor care program cares for Airmen and their families through treatment, recovery, and into the post-separation period. 

We are also working with our joint partners on special monthly 

compensation, which will assist the families that have catastrophically wounded service members toward maintaining financial balance with their loved ones during recovery. This compensation is 

intended to help family caregivers in meeting recurring monthly 

expenses, such as rent, credit card, and car payments while they 

are at the bedside. 

Our recruiting efforts continue to be successful, despite the decreasing eligibility pool due to increases in the nationwide school 

dropout rate, a more obese youth population, and other reasons. 

We met our 2008 recruiting goals and met recruiting goals in all 

three areas of our total force: Active Duty, Air Force Reserve, and 

Air National Guard. 

We have experienced a few decreases in our retention numbers. 

In fiscal year 2008, overall Active-Duty Air Force retention rates 

finished slightly below annual goals, while Guard and Reserve officer enlistment rates met or exceeded their retention goals. 

Although overall Active-Duty retention is trending slightly upward for this fiscal year, 2009, some of our critical and stressed 

specialties continue to experience significant shortfalls. 

We continue to use selective re-enlistment bonuses and quality 

of service initiatives to resolve these shortages. We appreciate continued congressional support for these incentive efforts. 

Childcare continues to be important to our Airmen and our families. With the current economic situation, many of our spouses 


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must work to supplement the family income. We have made good 

progress in providing affordable childcare, and we will continue 

these efforts. Right now, we have need for about 1,900 childcare 

spaces and would like to cut that to zero. 

Thank you all again for your continued support for our Airmen. 

On behalf of America’s Airmen, thank you for this opportunity to 

testify before you today. I look forward to your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Chief Master Sergeant Rodney J. McKinley follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Chief Master Sergeant McKinley, thank you for 

your testimony. And thank you all for beginning this year’s subcommittee hearings in a very positive way. 

Mr. Wamp, I want to personally thank you for choosing to remain as ranking member of this subcommittee. I think that is a 

reflection upon your values and commitment to this committee’s 

work. And I would like to recognize you to begin this year’s meetings. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you for your courtesy and your leadership, Mr. 

Chairman. You are a class act. 

This is an impressive lot here. I have to tell you, it is emotional 

and kind of charges you up about the men and women that you 

represent just to hear your passion and your commitment to them. 

SUICIDE RATES

I would like to start on the troop side. This suicide rate issue is 

the canary in the mine, in a sense. I know this is the toughest 

place to start, but it speaks to the overall health and wellness of 

our men and women. 

Is it just more the tempo, the deployment stress? Is it battle and 

the asymmetrical nature of the battle? From each of your perspectives, representing those men and women who are at risk and that 

take us to this place of looking at 143 potential suicides, what are 

the primary factors? And is the family and our quality-of-life issues 

connected to it? 

This tempo has to be driving a lot of stress, but tell me. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I will start. As I look at it, I say 

it is the tempo. It is the pace, and it is the dynamics of all the 

things that are occurring in young people’s lives. 

We track all the statistics and the analysis behind, why a young 

person felt obligated to commit suicide and what pushed them over 

the edge. A lot of it is failed relationships. 

As I travel around the Army, the biggest question that I get from 

young soldiers and families is, Sergeant Major, ‘‘when are we going 

to start to see something—12 months of dwell time between deployments?’’ It is those who are deployed, those that are coming back 

that ask this question. 

But even those, when you look at the numbers a third of our suicides have never been deployed. It is those units that are left behind, they are also working very hard, as well. 

And it is the pace. It is the tempo. It is society. It is packing up 

and moving from one location to another. It is selling their house, 

trying to get out of an upside-down mortgage. It is moving their 

children from one school to another school. And it is transferring 

the school credits from one school to another school. 

It is all of those dynamics mixed in that add to the stress in a 

young person’s life. You could look at from how many have been 

deployed or not deployed versus the majority of suicides are married, more than 50 percent of those who have deployed that commit 

the suicides have been back from a deployment well over a year. 

So there are a lot of dynamics. And, of course, we look at every 

one of those cases very seriously. It is a tragedy. In each one of 

their families, it is a crisis because their families are directly affected. 


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And we are doing a number of things to get at, impacting that 

this year. 

Mr. WAMP. Before we go down the table, Sergeant Major, you 

have the Guard and Reserve leadership behind you. Is there a differential between the Guard and Reserve and the active component 

in this suicide issue? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. The numbers that I gave you include 

the Guard and Reserve. This is all Guard and Reserve, as well as 

active-duty soldiers, that are serving on active duty. And that is 

how we capture those. 

Mr. WAMP. Right. And, is there an abnormal ratio of active 

versus Guard and Reserve? Or is it just across the board? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Across the board. In fact—— 

Mr. WAMP. It could indicate how much the tempo and the stress 

are is the primary factors, not necessarily the battle or the nature 

of the battle. 

Sergeant Major KENT. We are concerned, also, sir. We went from 

33 fiscal year 2007 to 41, so we increased by eight. What we are 

doing, we think that the small-unit leaders are the one closer to 

these young Marines. So we are educating our corporals and sergeants so they will know the symptoms and they know how to get 

help for these young warriors. 

But we are concerned about it. And we are keeping an eye on it. 

It is a combination of things. And that is why we want to grow 

the force fast, and we are, so we can get the Marines more dwell 

time back in the rear, you know, because right now they are 7 

months deployed and they are 7 months back. 

Mr. WAMP. Just to interrupt you, the Marine Corps is recruiting 

gangbusters. What do you attribute that to right now, sir? 

Sergeant Major KENT. We are not recruiting gangbusters, sir. I 

would tend to say that we are not—excuse me, sir? 

Mr. FARR. You can have all my gang members, if you—— 

[Laughter.] 

RECRUITING

Sergeant Major KENT. Now, sir, let me tell you about the process 

of recruiting. Right now, we are at a 97.8 percent high school graduate average. The way the process works, if they need a waiver, 

you know, if they have a criminal record and they need a waiver, 

it just doesn’t start at the recruiting station. It is forward all the 

way up to the commanding general of the recruiting command. 

And let me give you an example of the waivers we grant. If you 

have a young person, 13 years old, go out and they see a tractor 

and they decide to jump in this tractor, and this tractor is worth 

$20,000, and they get pulled over by the local authorities, when 

they are 18, although they were pulled over when they were 13, 

that is a felony. 

But as they went from 13 to 18, they did great things and they 

graduated. They were a star in football. But it was a felony, and 

they need a waiver for that, you know, and that is the kind of people that we would be recruiting with a felony. 

But as far as gangbangers, sir, you probably saw them maybe 

some slipped through the cracks. 


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Mr. WAMP. I just meant you are meeting your goals—that is 

what I am talking about. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Oh, sorry, I misunderstood sir. I am just 

rattling on when you said ‘‘gang,’’ ‘‘gang’’—okay, okay, sir, yes—— 

Mr. WAMP. But you are meeting your recruitment goals. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Sorry about that, sir. I am just rattling on, 

sir. 

Mr. WAMP. The Marine Corps is at a time of incredible stress. 

And these guys are looking, and they are talking to their peers that 

are already serving, and they know it is hard and tough. 

Sergeant Major KENT. I misunderstood you, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. I know. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Yes, we are, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. There is a lot of pride in being a Marine, and it is 

a good product to sell, right? 

Sergeant Major KENT. Well, actually, sir, we are going to make 

our end-strength of 202,000 2 years early. We are going to hit it 

in 3 years, sir, which is amazing. 

Mr. WAMP. Master Chief. 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. As far as suicides, we had a slight 

increase this year. When we dug into it, financial responsibility 

was an issue. 

What I found out that was I guess an interesting stat was 39 

percent of our suicides were facing disciplinary action already, so 

that gave us another indicator. That is 39 percent of them. 

We had 39 this past year, all of them are serious, but we put 

things in place, such as the Operational Stress Control. We have 

really ramped up the financial counseling for these individuals and 

tried to ease some of the pressure from payday lenders. 

Everything is serious with that, but overall our numbers are fairly steady, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Chief Master Sergeant. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Yes, sir, our Air Force leadership, is very concerned about this. For the last 10 years, our average is 9.7 per 100,000. But right now, it is up to 12.3. So that is 

a significant rise of us. And so we are very concerned. 

If you peel all that back and look at the reasons why, a big percentage of that is these marriage issues, relationship issues that 

lead to suicides. I think the stresses that each one of us are talking 

about, not only with deployments, with mission, but also with the 

financial crisis going on in America that affects every person, not 

only civilians, but also gets into the military families. 

And I think that adds to the stress that is out there, not only 

our military members, but to the spouses and to the children. And 

more stress on the family leads to things like this. 

And so I think that is kind of like I said, our Air Force leadership is very concerned, very committed that we lower this. We 

want it to be zero. That is probably unrealistic, but we are going 

to do everything we can to combat this and take care of our members, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Zach—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have trouble believing there is not a differential 

between the Guard and Reserve and the standing military in terms 


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of the percentage of suicides. At least with the standing military, 

you have embedded support systems, whereas with the Guard and 

Reserve you don’t. 

They are just dumped back after they come back from, a mission, 

and they don’t have—they are spread out. They don’t have their 

colleagues, their counterparts, their peers around them to give 

them the care, support and everything. 

So does that just bear out in the statistics at all? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. In fact, the numbers—talk to that, but 

I think it was—— 

AUDIENCE. None so far this year. Our numbers were up last year, 

sir. They are up a little bit more for the first quarter of this year. 

Mr. DICKS. Is this Guard or Reserve? 

AUDIENCE. Guard, sir. There are other influences on the reserve 

components—active components—like the economy. So—overseas— 

lose their jobs. They lose their jobs while they are back home, 

things like that—active component doesn’t see. 

But, overall, there is not a huge difference between what we see 

and what they see. The rates are up, and we are addressing this. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sergeant Major, could I interrupt and ask the 

transcriber—can you hear the testimony from the first row? 

TRANSCRIBER. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You can pick that okay? If you can’t, you let me 

know. Raise your hand or something. 

Appreciate that. 

GUARD AND RESERVE MORALE AND COHESION

Mr. KENNEDY. Sorry, Mr. Chairman—we have this whole issue 

of whether state commandants could call up their Guard and reservists so as to keep the morale and the cohesion of the unit together when they weren’t off on duty so as to build that—morale, 

which was precluded under the previous law, so when—during 

their mission, they were precluded from calling up there. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. They are doing that when they come 

back from deployment. It is allowing the leadership to put eyes all 

on those soldiers who are deployed to make sure that they are 

doing okay and they are with their battle buddies again. 

But, that is the commander on the ground. That is leadership 

making that—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Let me just say, before I recognize Mr. Farr, Mr. 

Kennedy kind of foreshadowed what I would like to do. 

I am going to wait for my question until the end of the first 

round, but I would like to say to Master Chief Wright and Sergeant 

Major Gipe, Sergeant Major Caffie, if you could be thinking, my 

question will be of each of the three of you is, are there are some 

particular quality-of-life issues that you would like to talk about 

that may not be unique to the Guard and Reserve, but they are a 

little bit different than those quality-of-life issues being faced by 

the active-duty servicemen and women? 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you 

for your leadership and that of Congressman Zach Wamp in increasing last year’s bill. It is the largest in history and I think it 

is having some beneficial effect. 


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You know, it is interesting, this committee not only deals with 

active-duty military, but we deal with the veterans. So if, indeed, 

problems are caused, we are going to end up picking up the pieces. 

And I think what we are trying to do is make sure that the entire 

experience in service of our country is so much better integrated, 

both in uniform and out of uniform, and I think even more work 

needs to be done to include our community support services. 

I echo everybody’s appreciation for your incredible years of service. And I thank everybody in uniform for their service. When you 

join, you build the esprit de corps. 

We provide assistance to the families—community housing, 

childcare, recreational centers—I mean, you build a community of 

support that is second to none. 

It seems to me where we fail in our society in general are our 

the mental health programs. 

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

But we have still not made it very acceptable to get counseling. 

It seems to me there are two cases here of how we try to deal with 

what we think might be PTSD. How do we integrate in the counseling, quality counseling? 

But at the same time, it seems to me what we are forgetting is 

that we need to engage the community, because you have this 

town-gown relationship, but not with the soldier in the mental 

health field. 

That is a real struggle because when military personnel muster 

out they get sent back to their community. And they may be a heck 

of a long way from a veterans clinic or a veterans hospital. And 

there may be mental health services in that community, but nobody in the Veterans Administration or the military knows about 

that. 

It seems to me we need a better integration in our town-gown relationship for mental health services. And I just wondered if you 

could list for us some of the needs you may have along these lines 

of counseling, and PTSD, and continuing support systems? 

ACCESSIBILITY AND AVAILABILITY OF HEALTHCARE

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I will start. We have made a lot 

of progress in this area. And when you talk to soldiers, and especially their families, and their concerns and when you look at the 

medical health care professionals working on an installation, those 

medical professionals deploy along with units and organizations on 

that installation, as well. 

So, their biggest complaint, when it comes to medical health 

care—and that is across the board for all services—is the accessibility and availability to be able to get an appointment. Very satisfied with the quality of care that is being provided, but it is just 

accessibility and availability. 

Now, one of the things that, our medical command and specifically the Army surgeon general, Lieutenant General Schoomaker, 

has done is to expand that, as you were talking about, into the 

communities to partner more with off-the-installation medical facilities to be able to open up and provide more appointments. 


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But the challenges, too, specifically in the area of mental health 

care is—there is just not a lot out there in the community. We have 

been working to increase those numbers in our recruiting efforts, 

but, we still have a long ways to go. 

Mr. FARR. Other services? 

Sergeant Major KENT. Pretty much, yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Are there any needs that aren’t there and we need to 

put some more resources— 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, from the Navy perspective, we have 

come a long way, similar to all the other services, through our Safe 

Harbor Program. It is phenomenal. Last week I looked at the Safe 

Harbor Program and how it integrated with the local, state community governments in the San Diego area. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I know I am going to end up cutting off some good 

answers, but I think, as long as the committee supports this, we 

are going to stick to the 5-minute rule and then that will allow 

each member a second and third round. And if at any point the 

committee wants to talk about doing it differently, I will certainly 

respect that. 

Thank you, Mr. Farr, and for your leadership on mental health 

issues, both for the active duty and—you have been a real leader 

on those issues, among others. 

Our order will be Mr. Young, based on when they came in to the 

meeting after starting, Mr. Young, Mr. Crenshaw, then Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. Young. 

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much—conversation—— 

Mr. DICKS. I want to ask a question. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. 

Mr. DICKS. We are going to not go back and forth? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, what we had said for this first meeting—I 

was just talking to Walter about that, we are going to—after the 

meeting begins, Norm—— 

Mr. DICKS. You always go back and forth from one side to other. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And I think we may go to that in a second meeting, but since I had announced before you came in—— 

Mr. DICKS. I didn’t hear you announce that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes, what I announced might have been before 

you came in. After the meeting—— 

Mr. DICKS. Oh, I listened to what you said. That is not what you 

said. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We will go by seniority first and then, after we go 

by seniority, we will go based on when members come in. I think 

what I may add to the second meeting is, once we get beyond seniority, it is based on who comes in, we will go back and forth, but 

I am going to stick with what our intention was today. 

If I didn’t make that clear, I apologize to you and the other members, as well. 

Mr. Young. 

MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

The conversations have evolved around an issue that is extremely important to our military, to our country. When our oldest 


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son was finished with his time in the military and his deployment 

to the Mideast, he said, ‘‘Dad—our troops need psychological help, 

and there is just not enough professional care available.’’ 

So when he was discharged, he came and he has just—he is 2 

months away from becoming a psychologist. And his intention is to 

re-enlist in the military to be available to help some of these kids, 

because he saw the troubles. 

Now, my question then is, where are we, as it relates to the 

young troop that needs counseling, needs psychological help? 

Where are we on the availability of that type of help in your services? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I will start. This past year, we 

hired 191 of the 254 mental health professionals that we had 

planned for, on our installations. 

But the challenge, is finding medical professionals. There is a 

shortage of medical health care professionals across the nation. It 

is doctors and nurses, across the board. But, we are working very 

hard to recruit medical health care professionals to fill the vacancies that we have. 

The other piece of that is tied in with the other types of counseling that is done within organizations. It is the chaplains and 

those types of community counselors to take care of our families 

that are either at home or through the Army OneSource or Military 

OneSource, to be able to provide an outreach for those soldiers like 

the Guard and Reserve that are serving in remote sites, as well as 

their families. 

Sergeant Major KENT. We are actually doing okay right now, sir. 

We are actually putting specialists in units that are forward deploying right now. And we are doing good, but we still have a 

shortage of them. And we think that is the key, you know, to put 

somebody in there. When they forward deploy, they would have 

somebody for counseling. 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir, we are also doing well overall. This 

is the first year in a while that we have met our medical recruiting. 

We did that through a very aggressive push, but it takes a while, 

as you know, to grow those specialists. 

But we are out there. We are using all available assets. Our 

chaplains play a big part in that. And we include training in different areas of leadership so we can see that, along with those folks 

that are funneling in to go do those missions. 

Mr. YOUNG. You are right about how long it takes to prepare 

them. I know how long it has taken our son to get this degree and 

to become a psychologist. So you are right about that. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Congressman Young, for the 

Air Force, we have 400 mental health professionals that are 

trained by national PTSD experts in advanced PTSD treatment 

techniques. So we have, you know, a good amount out there. 

We also have a lot of other programs, like afterdeployment.org. 

We have Military OneSource. But I really think probably the best 

thing is that—out there—the people that they work with and being 

able to recognize when someone’s behavior has changed and be able 

to take that through the chain of command and get that person 

help. 


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Mr. YOUNG. Well, I am glad to hear that the services are aware 

of the problem and doing something about it. Well, I think we have 

a lot—we do have a lot more to do. And the availability of the professional counseling is really a major problem. 

Mr. Chairman, the Intrepid Foundation—I think most of us 

know about the Intrepid foundation—has volunteered to raise 

money to build a facility in Bethesda to deal with post-traumatic 

stress issues. And the money is going to be—the money to build the 

building is going to come from private donations. 

In fact, I am going to ask the—if I can be excused in about 10 

minutes, because I am going to meet with Mr. Arnold Fisher, who 

is the head of the Intrepid foundation, to get the details on where 

they are on raising the money. And I believe he is about to report 

that all of the money that is necessary for the construction is now 

committed. When I get up and leave, that is where I am going. But 

we appreciate—this is not a pleasant subject, dealing with suicides 

and dealing with these stress issues, but it is real and we can’t— 

I think even Congress has probably overlooked it for too long and 

hoped that it would go away. But it is not going to go away. 

And I am surprised that Sergeant Major Preston—bit of that 

himself, because when my wife finds problems in the Army, he is 

one of the first ones she goes to, to say, ‘‘Hey, here is a problem. 

You fix it.’’ So I am surprised he doesn’t have a lot of grey hair. 

And Beverly gave that message to Sergeant Major Chen last night. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Can you say it in a sentence? 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. I was just down at Balboa. And 

what I was really impressed with, there were Army, Marines and 

Sailors out there at the Balboa hospital. I could not be more impressed with the interaction with all those groups, doing the right 

thing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Good. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Young—— 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. For your meeting with Mr. Fisher. 

So we are clear, members, the order of questioning will be Mr. 

Crenshaw, Mr. Bishop, Mr. Dicks, Mr. Israel, and then Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. Crenshaw, welcome back to the subcommittee. Thank you for 

your past leadership. It is great to have you back. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, 

I have been on the Appropriations Committee for eight—this is my 

eighth year. And I have been on this Subcommittee for 8 years— 

Mr. Young put me on this Committee. It is the only real Subcommittee I have ever been asked to be on. 

So I am glad to be back, Mr. Chairman, working with you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Good to have you. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Wamp, glad you are still the ranking member. As he said, the way the Republicans work, you get to be a 

ranking member based on your seniority on the Full Committee. 

The Democrats, have a pretty good way, because it is based on the 

seniority on your subcommittee. 

And in that case, I would be more encouraging to Mr. Wamp to 

leave. But, unfortunately, I will be sitting here next year under a 

new guy—the ranking member. 


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But I want to welcome you all back. I have not met our Navy 

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy yet. I have two Navy bases 

and a Marine base in my district, so welcome. And great to see you 

all again. 

HOMEOWNERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

I always think of this as a time where we just sit down and talk. 

Mr. Chairman, when I travel around to different naval and military installations around the world, I try to take some time and 

just quietly talk to the men and women and say, ‘‘Look, if you had 

a chance, just between you and me, what would you say to a Member of Congress, if you could talk about what you like and what you 

don’t like?’’ 

And you get mixed reactions sometimes. Sometimes they are very 

straightforward; sometimes they are a little nervous. But I look at 

this meeting as one of those meetings. It is not quite as private as 

those conversations that we have in South Korea or Iraq or wherever. 

But I really appreciate you all’s candor and straightforwardness 

when you come here and talk about the things that are important 

to you and the men and women you represent. 

And so the big issue I wanted to talk about is—and I think it 

affects everybody in our country, and that has to do with this overall economic crisis. You all touched on it in your testimony about 

how that affects the quality of life. 

But in particular, I was just thinking that, in terms of housing, 

because we have the three bases in our communities—and in most 

places, when people buy a house, they think that is a great investment and it is an important investment. 

And if people are in the military, they decide to move, they can 

sell their house. In today’s world, they find out their house probably is not worth as much as when they first bought it. And so 

folks in the private sector can say, ‘‘Maybe I won’t move. Maybe I 

will just stay right here.’’ 

But as you know, the men and women you all represent get a 

new assignment, they have to leave a community. And I just wonder if—Florida and California and Texas, some places where the 

real estate market has been hit pretty hard, and they don’t have 

a luxury of waiting, I would love to hear from you all if you have 

any firsthand experiences of how that has impacted people that you 

represent and how they deal with it. 

Are there foreclosures taking place? Are people walking away 

from their homes? Are they trying to rent their houses? 

And I know we passed legislation dealing with BRAC, if you 

moved—and there was a BRAC impact, and there was an assistance program, Mr. Chairman, that you and the ranking member 

were really helpful with getting that started, is something that is 

needed? Are we getting to that point? 

I would love to hear kind of firsthand what you all are seeing. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I just—and we don’t know the 

exact numbers out there that, you know, with the current economic 

crisis and the impact right now on those homeowners, but what we 

do know is—and this is just from experience from a lot of the solVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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diers out there that I have talked to that have had to pack up families and move. 

In many cases, they are leaving their families in place because 

they can’t afford to sell their house. They can’t afford to move out. 

So now what you end up with is a lot of geographical bachelors. 

You have the soldier moving to the next installation or to the next 

duty station and leaving their families behind. 

We are working to really understand the dynamics. And one of 

the things that we want to do in the Army is to take the homeowners assistance program, which was really designed to help 

those affected by BRAC. 

And because of posts—that are closing down, you have a glut of 

housing that is in that area, to really help them sell their houses 

and move, they are now looking at expanding the homeowners assistance program to take care of our wounded, ill and injured soldiers that potentially have to move and relocate, live at Walter 

Reed or wherever they may be, and also to affect those that are affected by permanent change of station, when they have to move to 

Texas to Colorado or, their next duty station. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I think we have 1 minute left, if others of you 

would like to—— 

Sergeant Major KENT. Well, we are actually keeping an eye on 

this problem. Out in California where—the mortgage crisis is most 

costly. I would tell you right now, sir, what we are looking at is 

not to move someone with a financial hardship every couple of 

years from California. 

But if—actually working with the families to try to keep them on 

base here. 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, I would echo what the Sergeant Major 

says. We are working that real hard. 

Mr. FARR. Is there enough RCI housing to get them on base? 

Sergeant Major KENT. We are working but it is not enough. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. We provide housing for 67 percent of 

those that need housing that live off-post, so it is really 33 percent 

on base, a very small percentage. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Chairman, can I have 15 seconds on this? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Please. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sometimes, sir all branches of 

the service have to make a very difficult decision to maybe even 

separate and leave the military that they love because otherwise 

they would be taking a $200,000 loss on their home. That is real. 

But we don’t have the numbers on exactly how many people there 

are. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I would—I think this is an important problem that I am sure we are going to address. And 

maybe if you have any thoughts about how we could help, we 

would love to hear that, as well. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. I think that is an important issue that we need to talk about. 

Mr. Bishop, with your okay—— 

Mr. BISHOP. I would be happy to—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 


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Mr. BISHOP. I would be happy to yield to Mr. Dicks. He indicated 

he has another—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. 5 minutes, Dicks—— 

Mr. DICKS. No, it is going to be much quicker than that. 

WEB-BASED PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING

Gentlemen, in your opinion, what is the potential utility of Webbased service to assess psychological counseling? We have some 

people that are doing this, where—and I think this would be particularly good for the Guard and Reserve, where they can get online and get counseling from a psychiatrist when they need it. 

And to me, I think this helps us with the problem of people not 

wanting to admit that they have a problem. If they can go online 

and do it confidentially, I think this should be done. We put the 

money in the Defense Subcommittee to do this, and we are still trying to get the Army to do it. 

And we are working with General Chiarelli and others to get this 

thing moving. But why does it—what is your reaction to that? 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Congressman Dicks—great 

opportunity. Any time that we can give more tools out there for our 

military—— 

Mr. DICKS. At least we ought to try it. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Absolutely. 

Mr. DICKS. Sir, you have some people that, no matter what, they 

have this pride factor. They are not going to go to the supervisor 

or first sergeant and say, ‘‘I am having issues.’’ But if they can do 

something privately, we may save somebody. So the more opportunities, the better for all our military. 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, I would just like to echo that. I think 

using the advanced technologies is a great thing. 

Mr. DICKS. Especially these younger kids. They understand this 

stuff. 

Master Chief WEST. That is what they do, sir. You give a young 

Sailor or Marine or a young adult a computer and a connection, 

and they are happy. They are happy there for hours. 

With that said, I think leadership, communications, and education play huge into that. We have to have balance. 

Mr. DICKS. I am not saying that is the only thing, but just as another tool, another way—— 

Sergeant Major KENT. OneSource also has something on the Web 

site. They can actually go onto the OneSource, and they can work 

the counseling through there, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. What about the Guard and Reserve guys back there? 

What do you think? 

AUDIENCE. Yes, sir, we currently have—program—and this is indicative of what they are doing today. It gives that—for soldiers to 

discreetly express their desire. They feel—— 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. There is another question here about the 

Pacific Northwest—special problem up there—I ask you that for 

the record. Well, I didn’t want to take Sanford’s time. But I will 

just do it for the record. I will just do it for the record. 

I have to get back. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Bishop. 


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SUICIDE PREVENTION

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. 

Let me take this opportunity to welcome all of you gentlemen 

and let you know that I appreciate what you do for our enlisted 

men and women. 

I am particularly concerned, though, about the suicide problem, 

particularly in the Army. I represent Fort Benning. And, of course, 

I have a Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany. I don’t think that 

the Marine Corps suicide rate is quite as bad, although it does 

bother me. 

I wanted to share an anecdotal experience that I had just yesterday. I received a call from a family member whose nephew was an 

18-year veteran of Fort Benning, two tours in Iraq, and was in the 

emergency room after having been taken there by a friend who is 

also a sergeant, who went to another state, and retrieved him. He 

had blacked out, been AWOL—found out that this soldier, after his 

two tours, had gone through divorce, had not immediately put in 

the papers for change of the quarters allowance, and as a consequence was disciplined. 

And in the recoupment of the housing allowance that was overpaid, his paycheck was cut in half, which sent him into a financial 

tizzy. Obviously, he was suffering PTSD, but after serious, serious 

discipline, losing rank, as well as losing pay, he ended up being out 

of touch with reality. He didn’t know where he was, and now is 

hospitalized after being in the emergency room yesterday. 

His discipline and the loss of the funds accelerated the onset of 

the stress, which obviously, this sergeant, with whom I spoke yesterday, who is his friend who is looking after him says that PTSD 

is absolutely a factor. 

But this man apparently was not screened and he was disciplined. According to the sergeant, he was probably singled out 

and leaned on very heavily, which could have had the result of a 

suicide. 

How are you getting the word down to the commanders of these 

units that they have to be sensitive to the wounded warriors? What 

will be the scope of the comprehensive soldier fitness program now? 

It is a serious situation. I understand from talking with many of 

the families of Iraqi veterans and Guard and Reserve families that 

they bring a lot home with them in the way of PTSD. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I will start. First, for the immediate future, between 15 February and 15 March, the Army will 

conduct a mandatory stand-down day for every unit and organization across the Army. It is designed to go back in and re-look at 

intervention and identification of those Soldiers potentially on the 

edge of committing suicide. 

We will then follow up with a mandatory chain-teaching program, which, we have had a lot of success with the chain-teaching 

program in October of 2007 on PTSD. It is designed to start at the 

senior level, with the chief of staff of the Army, and allows commanders at the senior level to take their subordinate commanders 

and, from a commander’s perspective, teach the case of PTSD, 

teach what PTSD is, the symptoms, and, of course, how soldiers receive help. 


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And then that permeates all the way down through the organization to every level of command. So down at the company command 

level, for our 3,000 companies across the active, Guard, and Reserve, every one will do a chain teach—their leadership within the 

organization of, what are, the symptoms of suicide and what are 

the things that we should be looking for? 

If you go back 4 years ago, we were doing something right. Chain 

teaching is designed to make sure that we are still doing all the 

right things. 

Sergeant Major KENT. The most important—— 

[The information follows:] 

All Soldiers redeploying from the Theater of Operations are required to complete 

the Post-Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA), either before leaving Theater or 

shortly after redeployment. This policy has been in place since October 1998. The 

PDHA screens for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), major depression, concerns about family issues, and concerns about drug and alcohol abuse. A primary 

care provider reviews the form, interviews the Soldier as required, and refers the 

Soldier to a behavioral health care provider when indicated. 

Since January 2006 (retroactive to March 2005), all Soldiers have been required 

to complete the Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) in the 90-to-180 

day interval after redeployment. If the PDHRA identifies PTSD-related healthcare 

needs, Soldiers are offered care through DoD military treatment facilities, Veterans 

Affairs medical facilities, or by private healthcare providers through the TRICARE 

network. 

The Army Surgeon General directed in August 2007 that all recommendations for 

a personality disorder (PD) discharge be reviewed by the military treatment facility’s Chief of Behavioral Health. The Surgeon General will be issuing additional 

guidance to ensure (1) accuracy of diagnosis and (2) appropriate screening for PTSD 

takes place prior to completion of separate actions. 

All Soldiers pending discharge for selected administrative reasons are required by 

Army Regulation 635–200 to receive a mental status evaluation. A new policy published in May 2008 directs that Soldiers discharged for any reason related to misconduct must be specifically screened for PTSD and mild Traumatic Brain Injury. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I need to continue—second round. This is obviously very important. 

Sergeant Major KENT. The most important thing, sir, is the stigma. And they actually come from the leadership. They have to get 

rid of the stigma that it is a problem if you come forward with 

these issues. And that is the key right there, sir. 

So I know our commandant has been pushing it hard to the leadership that it is not a problem. You know, if they come forward, 

we need to get them help. 

Mr. BISHOP. Sometimes they don’t recognize their need for help 

because they haven’t been screened. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Israel. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

EDUCATION BENEFITS

I want to focus for a moment on educational benefits and opportunities. Each of the witnesses alluded to educational benefits as 

a retention tool, as a recruitment tool, as a quality-of-life enhancement. As I noted earlier, I focused on this as a member of the 

Armed Services Committee with Ike Skelton. 

I don’t really need to explain the importance of it to you, but the 

importance of it was explained to me by a young Marine officer, 

Chris Myers, who was a military fellow serving in my office, several years ago. Chris, who, when I have talked with him about the 


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importance of linguistics and cultural awareness and preparation, 

said to me, ‘‘Congressman, I know exactly what you mean. After 

you kick in the door, you have to know what to say.’’ He was a 

highly decorated Marine who was injured in Fallujah. 

I visited West Point several years ago and talked to a group of 

soldiers who told me that they were deployed in Iraq, fought, and 

came back. During their dwell time, they went to Columbia University, got graduate degrees, then were deployed to Afghanistan, 

where they thought that they were far more effective having gained 

a strategic understanding and those type of skills. 

Chief McKinley talked about the educational mobile program 

that you have, as well as distance learning, and in-state tuition. 

And I would add to that, in terms of the level of importance—talking about the tragedy of suicide rates. When people don’t believe 

that they have a future or broader horizons, they believe there are 

no alternatives. 

So my question to each of you is, what can we be doing to enhance accessibility and educational opportunities, particularly at 

the junior levels? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. And I think I can speak for all of us 

Mr. Chairman, I will leave this for the record, but there are currently 35 states that support in-state tuition for servicemembers in 

other states. And I really would like to see the rest of the states 

also come on board to support, you know, our servicemembers that 

are serving out there in all those states. 

In-state tuition is not only for the servicemember, but also their 

children that are going to school. Education is very important. 

When you look across the Army, there are 450,000 soldiers right 

now going to school. And this is not just brick-and-mortar professional development schools, but it is also online education. It is 

Army correspondence courses. It is amazing how much education 

is a very important part of all of our servicemembers’ careers. So 

you are exactly right. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Education is very important, sir. And— 

spoke with you last weekend—we are actually standing up our 

first—enlisted PME course, which is kicking off the ground. And it 

is going to be speaking on an operational level and—things, so that 

is going to be a good thing for us in the future, sir. So we are really 

pushing on the PME—— 

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you. 

[The information follows:] 

As part of the Year of the Noncommissioned Officer, the Army is accelerating 

changes to how the Army trains, educates and assigns noncommissioned officers 

(NCOs). The NCO Lifelong Learning Strategy is the capstone NCO cohort initiative 

that synchronizes all aspects of development through a holistic/integrated development approach that fosters continuous learning; synchronizes training and education with the requirements of an Army at war. 

Central to this strategy is Warrior University (WU) which affords Soldiers access 

to information through a single interface, the Army Career Tracker (ACT). ACT is 

a portal serving as an information service broker for Soldiers to plan and track their 

own career development. ACT allows every Soldier to view Army training, experiential learning, and education data from a single interface. It provides every Soldier 

with an accurate picture of their completed training and life-long training transcript. Leaders will be able to provide more effective mentoring and develop actionable recommendations for their Soldiers by using ACT to identify training and 

learning opportunities. WU facilitates commonality and currency of learning materials to ensure training and education resources are maximized. ACT’s course cataVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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log helps to synchronize training and education and significantly reduces the time 

and effort that previously went into scheduling and resourcing. 

Another aspect of WU is the College of the American Soldier (CAS). CAS is a partnership between the Army and participating colleges and universities to expand civilian educational opportunities for NCOs. CAS links the NCO Education System 

(NCOES) course evaluations with specific degree requirements and allows Soldiers 

to determine which NCOES courses will transfer as equivalent college credit. When 

fully implemented, CAS will provide a specific map Soldiers can follow in order to 

pursue and attain a college degree. The Army is also working with partner colleges 

and universities to create an advanced degree program for career NCOs. 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir, I would say the same. We are pushing hard in the Navy too. Naval Education and Training, is looking 

for all opportunities and all venues to get to our Sailors out there. 

We even take, as you probably know, sir, courses which go afloat 

with our ships when we go. Education onboard our bigger ships has 

been a huge success for us. 

We are making headway. Do we have room to go? Yes, sir, we 

do. But we are making a lot of headway. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, we have the Community 

College of the Air Force since about 1974. We have graduated over 

350,000 Airmen. The last two years, we have graduated the most 

we have ever had per year. We just started last summer the associate to bachelor program where you take your Community College 

of the Air Force degree, and we can apply that toward a bachelor’s 

degree. We have now 35 colleges on board that you can take all 64 

credit hours from the Air Force degree, and apply that toward a 

bachelor’s degree. 

We believe education is very important to keep our people pointed in the right direction. And when they do choose to leave our Air 

Force, they are going to be better citizens. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Chairman, one of the most fascinating things I 

was involved in as a member of the Armed Services Committee was 

doing an all-day conference on professional military education that 

General Petraeus attended—and, after—this conference, the conclusion was everybody understands the value of education, but we 

may be too busy to learn, and operation tempo really is the obstacle 

to that. 

And so it is important that we put value into this, but we also 

have to put budgets in and we have to put scheduling in. And I 

hope—each of our witnesses and—all interested parties—figure out 

ways we can make this happen—— 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is right. Thank you, Mr. Israel. 

And I am glad we took a step in the right direction. I think I 

had asked Mr. Miller, and he agreed, to put into an amendment 

in the higher education bill last year to say, if you have a son or 

daughter who started school in, say, Tennessee and your country 

has asked the family to move to Fort Hood in Texas, in Mr. 

Carter’s district, then that son or daughter will continue their instate tuition until they finish. 

I know there are other steps to take, but I think that was an important step forward to stop punishing military families, because 

our country asks them to move from one state to another. 

And, Mr. Israel, your leadership on this subcommittee and working with the Defense Appropriations Committee will make a real 

difference on that issue. 


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Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

GUARD AND RESERVE QUALITY OF LIFE ISSUES

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Let me just finish the first round of questioning. Let me ask 

Master Chief Wright and Sergeant Major Gipe and Sergeant Major 

Caffie if each of you—and I am going to stick to the 5 minutes 

here—if each of you could just add any additional points on quality-of-life issues that you think perhaps maybe need special attention for members of the Guard and Reserve. 

Sergeant Major. 

DEMOBILIZATION PROCESS

Sergeant Major CAFFIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is 

Leon Caffie. I am the command sergeant major for the U.S. Army 

Reserve. Let me please address something that was said earlier 

about our Reserve and National Guard soldiers, that once they return home, they are left pretty much alone. We have changed that, 

Mr. Chairman. 

The Warrior and Family Assistance program is where the Army 

Reserve starts counseling families—once the soldier receives a letter of intent that they will be mobilized and deployed, we start 

counseling at that stage. This consists of counseling when they return from the theater. 

We continue to work closely with the families. We have hired 127 

family readiness assistants throughout the Army Reserve in all 50 

states and four territories. I have Army Reserve soldiers in—issues 

that we are dealing with that—when we passed the bill last year 

that—for our National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers still 

capped at age 60. 

One component of that, if you were deployed for 90 days, you 

could—so many days from that particular year. What we failed to 

do is make it—soldiers that were deployed in 2001 and 2002. It is 

one of the major concerns that I am getting pushback from my soldiers. 

As we continue to transform the Army Reserve, we still run into 

difficulty with—we will work our way through that. I think last 

year I brought to your attention about IDT travel, some forms—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Sergeant Major CAFFIE. But other than that, I think we have 

made tremendous progress since last year. And thank you for what 

this committee have done to support my organization. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you, Sergeant Major. 

Sergeant Major Gipe. 

Sergeant Major GIPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you could just—out of the respect for the Navy, 

take about a minute-and-a-half. We will give the Navy—— 

Sergeant Major GIPE. I will do that, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Sergeant Major GIPE. I am from Kentucky, but I can speak fast 

when I need to. I do want to correct one error. I said we had nine 

suicides the first quarter. It was only six. So that is an improvement. It is still way too many. 


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A couple of things that we need. I appreciate all of this committee’s support. Some of the things that we need to continue to work 

is the funding for the yellow ribbon legislation that was passed last 

year. It is critical to support our soldiers’ pre-deployment, during 

deployment, and on return with regards to some of the issues we 

have been dealing with here today, as well as their families. 

TRICARE providers is where we end up having the biggest issue 

when our soldiers come back home. For instance my daughter attended college in Bowling Green, Kentucky, she had to go 48 miles 

to find a gynecologist that would accept TRICARE. So we have to 

work that. 

EMPLOYER SUPPORT FOR THE GUARD AND RESERVE

One thing that I think we really need to work—it is not really 

the committee thing here, it is more of a congressional thing—is 

employer support. We don’t do enough to support the employers out 

there that support our troops. 

And 50 percent of the Army has employers outside of their active-duty time. And we have to do something that rewards those 

employers who do support us for—because it is extremely critical. 

MILCON

And then the last thing I would suggest is military construction. 

Over 69 percent of our buildings are 50 years or older. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sixty-nine percent are 50 years or older? 

Sergeant Major GIPE. Yes, sir. So we have a lot of opportunities 

out there and things that would go well with an economic stimulus. 

So I will turn it over to my—— 

Mr. FARR. Can I follow up on that question? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sure. 

Mr. FARR. What is happening—we have a big RCI project, but 

now that the community housing prices have dropped so much, 

even though these houses are primo houses, a lot of the families 

will opt to live in a community where they never would have before 

because the rents were too high. 

So it is more than just building new housing on base. It is sort 

of getting that culture of living back on base—to think about. Why 

are you are not using the housing we have built? You can’t complain about it. It has everything, childcare—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is an interesting—I hadn’t thought about 

people moving off-base because of lower housing. So we will look 

into that. 

Master Chief Wright. 

Master Chief WRIGHT. Chairman Edwards, thank you for the opportunity, gentlemen. 

Really, I just want to say that the Sailors that are coming back, 

once we start the mobilization process, education is provided all the 

way through. And I have to echo what the fine gentleman before 

me said. 

The process that the Navy is using is the Returning Warrior Program. And what happens with that is, once these Sailors return 

home, they have an opportunity to go away to a resort. It is a nice 

place for the family to go where they want to attend. It is totally 

volunteer. 


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And they have an opportunity to sit down and get guidance from 

leadership, the colonels, generals that walk in and say, ‘‘I have had 

a problem with post-traumatic stress,’’ and they go through their 

leadership, where the message is coming from the top, that it is 

okay for that young Sailor—to say, ‘‘I have an issue.’’ 

The opportunities are there for them to get counseling, get financial counseling, Military OneSource, and information on mental 

health issues. From this point on, we have conducted about 31 

events since fiscal year 2007. And we have had over 2,200 participants. 

I have attended one of those. And we have leadership ensure 

they attend. But I have seen folks that walk in with their arms 

crossed, saying, ‘‘You can’t do anything for me.’’ And by Sunday 

afternoon, when they leave, they are saying, ‘‘Thank you. I didn’t 

know that the Navy and military really cared about me.’’ 

And there has been outstanding opportunities, especially when 

they are able to sit down at the roundtable. The military member 

has dealt with a lot of issues while they are deployed, while their 

spouse has dealt with the heating blowing out, the car blowing out. 

And once they had the opportunity to interact, it all comes together 

and there is a lot of healing that goes on. 

And the other side of it is the TRICARE, making sure we have 

the providers for that. The distance and travel are areas of concern. 

I have Sailors that are traveling from one coast to another because 

they love the Navy. They are losing money. When I have a Sailor 

that is doing it, and they are actually losing money that weekend, 

but—every weekend, I can’t ask for any more, sir. 

I mean, they are there because they are doing relevant work, and 

we know they are making a difference. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Master Chief WRIGHT. They are volunteering to keep doing that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Master Chief. 

Master Chief WRIGHT. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. To begin the second round, we will begin with Mr. 

Wamp, Mr. Farr, and then Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Wamp. 

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS

Mr. WAMP. Well, I have several questions in different directions, 

but picking up on what Ander Crenshaw raised and the Master 

Sergeant just talked about on the financial side of the troops, do 

we have more payday lending and predatory lending? You talked 

about their cars breaking down. 

How many of them are still turning to finance vehicles that are 

not good for them? Do we know if we are moving toward alternatives? This is such a hard time for everybody, and last year, gas 

prices went through the roof. That becomes an issue, and people 

are upside-down. 

What are you seeing? Is there anything we need to do, in terms 

of predatory activity around our troops that might be upside-down, 

to take some of the stress off the family, because it is all about 

staying ahead? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I don’t have any specific numbers, 

but talking with soldiers and their families when the gas prices 


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were very high, it was very, very tough on them. And you have 67 

percent of married soldiers living off the installation. That means 

that they are commuting back and forth everyday to work. And, it 

is just the cost of living every day that has gone up. 

And I also sit on the Board of Directors for the Army Air Force 

Exchange Service (AAFES), along with Chief Master Sergeant 

McKinley. One of the things we noticed were the financial statistics. The sales in AAFES actually went up. 

And when you look at the rest of the economy, Wal-Mart was the 

only other one going up. So obviously, the soldiers and 

servicemembers are shopping at those places where, they can get 

the best buy. 

Sergeant Major KENT. It is some hard times out there, sir. Payday lenders was a big problem out in California in the Camp Pendleton area. It assisted our marines/sailors when California passed 

a state law for payday lenders. And the lenders have I mean, they 

pretty much are going out of business because of the law that they 

passed in California. 

And, also, we have been very active down at Camp Pendleton, 

you know, teaching them, you know—about the financial management. 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, we have held both lectures, seminars, 

training on not only predatory lending, but the financial responsibilities for our Sailors and we have seen a decrease in it. And 

what we have, with the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society is called 

the Quick Assist Loan. It is QAL. It is a fund of about $300 in one 

shot. And when I say one shot, it is you walk in, you walk out with 

a check. It is a huge success for us. 

What we have seen is an increase, but they pay them back. It 

gets them past what they need to get to, to get on course again. 

We have really hit that hard and I think that we are headed in 

the right direction. 

Our Fleet and Family Support Centers have made that a priority. And they have gone proactive on the waterfronts, as well. I 

don’t have the numbers, but we have gotten 137,000 of our Sailors 

touched this past year, which is a 51 percent increase over 2007. 

So we are more out. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, with the Air Force, it 

starts in the recruiting office. We make sure that, before we recruit 

somebody, that they don’t have a debt ratio that is going to set 

them up for failure for the future. 

Once we get them to basic training, even in basic training we 

teach them financial counseling and how to manage a budget and 

be smart about the future. They get that when they arrive at their 

first duty location and hopefully set them up for success in the future to spend wisely. 

And the bill we passed on predatory lending, I think, was a tremendous success. Thank you very much for making that happen. 

HOME PORT ASHORE

Mr. WAMP. Maybe we are running out of time, but, Master Chief 

West, on the home port ashore provision, because I know when I 

went out on the USS HARRY TRUMAN, I told you about that this 

morning, it was pretty tight quarters. 


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Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. They are out there for a long period of time, unlike 

the other services when they get in. Give us a little bit more detail 

about what we can do to help you when soldiers are home so that 

quality of life is good enough for them to go back out to sea for 6 

months. 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. As I pointed out we have about 

9,000 of our Sailors that are on a ship. Until you have done that 

and experienced it, it is a pretty tough environment out there for 

sailors. My hat is off to them every single day. 

So now we have a master housing plan that we are presenting 

to the CNO in a couple of weeks which will provide I guess a landscape on what we can do. Through a Public-Private Venture (PPV), 

one of which is out in California, Pacific Beacon. I will take you if 

you haven’t seen that. I would welcome you to come. I will even 

show you the great quality-of-life living, which is going to put 

about 2,900 spaces. And then, down in Virginia, in Hampton 

Roads, about 3,600 spaces. 

Our challenge right now is really in three locations, but we certainly do need that help. But our three locations are Norfolk, Virginia. We have, again, about 5,700 of our Sailors living on board 

the ships. In Yokosuka, Japan, about 700 and in California, about 

700. 

Even with the plan in place, it is going to be very tough for us 

to get these folks ashore. One of the things that we are asking to 

do is double up, go through the Marine Corps model and the college 

model, for that matter, sort of the one-plus-one, put a couple of our 

young Sailors in there. I will tell you this is a success story out in 

Japan, even though we have a shortfall there, we have had a significant decrease in the amount of incidents out on the economy. 

And you know as well as I do, it is a big deal anywhere, but more 

so in Japan with American Sailors. 

I do have a couple of slides that do show that, sir. And I just 

don’t want to get too deep into it, but it shows the number of beds 

the number of our Sailors because, again, as I pointed out earlier 

to Congressman Dicks, I do believe that you give a Sailor WiFi and 

a computer, that is what they want, really just to get away, get 

away from that ship. 

So I would ask this committee for support. And I am sure the 

bachelor housing area really needs some support there. And, also, 

go in and view a lot of our buildings are aging, as well. That is one 

thing that we have to tackle. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. [Laughter.] 

We will go with Mr. Farr, Mr. Crenshaw, and then Mr. Berry. 

Mr. Farr. 

CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Again, thank you for all this good, lovely dialogue. I have a lot 

of questions, one I would like to follow up on is something that I 

am very interested in, and that is really trying to integrate the capabilities of the services and the interagency with our allies—partners across the full spectrum of operations. 


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We have learned in this committee that our military are the best 

in the world at being able to go anywhere at any time, kick down 

any door, do anything we have to do. But we have not done a very 

good job at winning hearts and minds. And we can get in, but we 

can’t get out. 

My whole experience was in the Peace Corps where you actually 

had to work yourself out of a job. What I have seen is that soldiers, 

a lot of them, get really interested in cross-cultural experiences, 

young kids parachuting into another culture and other languages, 

the conditions of poverty, and so on, and develop an interest in 

sharing American values with host country folks. 

I think that is a much longer and stronger effort. But the only 

people I think are going to do effective nation-building are our military, because they are on the ground. You can do wells. You can 

do schools. You can do things like that. 

I am concerned that we have 33,000 U.S. contractors performing 

for the Army. And I wonder, is that getting in the way—is there 

a way that we can do that? Can the military decrease violence and 

leave it better than they found it? 

What are we missing in this? Because it is the soldiers on the 

ground—embassies are all locked up and nobody can go out without being guarded, and same with USAID. But I have heard out 

at conferences at the Naval Postgraduate School that the international nongovernmental organizations are on the ground with 

the soldiers. 

And the one thing they and the military have in common, they 

are both getting shot at. And they are both trying to do the same— 

the military for security purposes, but in the end, to make it secure 

for what? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I would encourage you to get out 

and visit with our soldiers. And I will give you a couple of examples, because the Army has done a magnificent job at working itself 

out of a job. As I travel around, I get a lot of questions from young 

soldiers about—in Iraq and Afghanistan, but historically we have 

done a magnificent job. 

In Bosnia, December 1995, 20,000 soldiers went there. November 

of 2004, when we pulled out, there were less than 900 soldiers 

there. So it took us 8 years to go from 20,000 soldiers to less than 

900, and then we handed that mission over to the European Union. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Bosnia now? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Just a couple of people in the headquarters. That is it. 

Kosovo, spring, summer of 1999, 14,000 soldiers that were part 

of that campaign. Today, the Army National Guard has about 

1,400 there. And, they have done a magnificent job over there at 

building. It is helping the government become operational, and it 

is the government at all levels. It is at the national level. It is the 

county, province, down to all the small towns and villages. 

But you have to get the government operational. And then it is 

training the security forces to take our place. And as those security 

forces become competent, that allows us—and I will give you a couple of quick stories from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Mr. FARR. Do our soldiers need more language training, cultural 

training? 


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Sergeant Major PRESTON. We have worked very hard. The last 

couple of years, across the board, cultural training comes before 

any one deploys, as well as language training. 

And when we look at the different language schools that are out 

there, we are leveraging that right now. And there are soldiers in 

every unit and organization that are deploying right now that are 

taking language training. 

I will give you a quick story. I was just at Fort Polk with the 

56th Stryker Brigade out of the Pennsylvania Guard. And he was 

one of their trainers. And I asked him how long he had been and 

he said, ‘‘Sir, I have only been here about 7 months.’’ 

And I said, ‘‘Where were you at before that?’’ He said, ‘‘I was in 

Iraq. I was in Baghdad. I was on a training team.’’ 

And I said, ‘‘Well, what did you think of that?’’ And he said, ‘‘Sir, 

I would go back in a minute.’’ And I said, ‘‘Well, why do you say 

that?’’ And he said, ‘‘Because I was able to make a difference and 

it was the friendships that were developing.’’ 

And he said that, ‘‘I was out everyday with a squad of Iraqi soldiers that I helped train. And one day, we came under fire. There 

was a sniper that was firing at us. We took cover behind a concrete 

barrier. And as I came up to shoot my weapon, Sergeant Oman, 

who was—I was, you know, his teacher, he pushes me back down 

behind the concrete barrier and he says, ‘Stay down.’ ’’ 

‘‘And, of course, I told him, ‘Oman, I have to get up. I have to 

be able to shoot.’ And Oman told him, ‘Stay down. Today is not 

your day to die.’ ’’ And that was the kind of close bonding relationships between us and the Iraqi soldiers. 

I was just there in November. I spoke with Command Sergeant 

Major Adel, who is the sergeant major of the Iraqi army, a close, 

personal friend of mine. And I was there for their third annual senior NCO conference and there with all of his division command sergeant majors, across the Iraqi army, and we are all brothers, and 

we are very close friends in what we are doing right now to help 

each other. 

In Afghanistan, the sergeant major of the army is Rashan. He is 

a graduate of class 56 at our—United States Army—Sergeants 

Major Academy. He is half-American and spent an entire year 

down there going through the school. 

And, when you look at the relationships and what he and with 

the chief of staff of the Afghan army, General Bishmail Kahn, who 

spoke at their conference in November; I told General Casey that, 

when he sat up there and spoke, if he had been wearing one of our 

uniforms and speaking English, you would have thought he was 

one of our American generals, because he was saying all the right 

things. 

We have done a lot of things. And I can tell you about—— 

Mr. FARR. How about contractors? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. We have contractors out there, but 

they are really in support of the soldiers there on the ground. And, 

we don’t have enough of the combat support, service support kind 

of functions that those contractors right now are doing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Brief statement? 

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tion. We are working almost every day with NGOs, or nongovernmental organizations. 

We have deployed COMFORT and MERCY. You talk about winning the hearts and minds of all these countries. It is an incredible 

thing to see, the capability those ships bring, and more importantly, how many people line up and want us back. 

We use our amphibs in that way, but we also have over 12,000 

of our Sailors right now on the ground over there in Iraq and Afghanistan, up in the hills, and in the provisional reconstruction 

teams. 

I was just out there with our CNO. And we got to fly out to a 

place where they are building some schools and all that stuff. It is 

incredible. It is incredible the way those countries and those people 

come to us and want our help. 

REBUILDING IRAQ

So I have to tell you, your Navy is out there. We are engaging 

every single day with those NGOs. And it is just an incredible feeling. 

But if you are ever either in San Diego or able to come down to 

the COMFORT or the MERCY, please, I will give you a personal 

tour. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Can I make a 30-second comment, sir? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sure, go ahead. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Western Iraq used to be a bloody place. 

I was there in 2004 and 2005. And the Marines today over there 

are able to turn off kicking in the doors and they are out there actually helping the locals each and every day. 

That is the young PFCs on the ground. They know when to turn 

it on and kick down doors and when to turn it off and help the 

Iraqi people. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is great. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, just a second? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. It is not only Iraq and Afghanistan, sir, but we are doing capacity-building in many countries, whether it be in the Pacific, to South America, from the African continent to all over Europe. And more funding to help with 

this would be fantastic. 

But to build the military through professional military education 

and so forth through our Combatant Commands (COCOMs) and 

each one of our services is a great thing. And it is going to make 

us all safer in the long run. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you all. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

QUALITY OF MILITARY HEALTHCARE

Yes, that whole discussion—that—you really can’t surge friendship, and the things that you are doing in the front end, such as 

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), in the Caribbean, those potential hotspots I think what your men and women are doing, just to 

build relationships, you just don’t walk in one day and say, ‘‘Now 

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tion about a specific part of health care, suicide prevention—big 

picture, health care is so important, the quality of life of not only 

the men and women who serve, but the families. 

And I know we have done a lot—the Chairman has been real active in the military construction projects. We have built some new 

facilities, new clinics, new hospitals. And we want to keep on doing 

that. 

But I want to ask you all, just in terms of overall health care, 

just the delivery of health care, what would you say are the good 

things that we do? What are some of the things that we ought to 

do better? 

And what do you hear—what do your troops say when they talk 

about health care? What are some of the, when people are sitting 

around talking, ‘‘We wish you did a little better,’’ or, ‘‘We are really 

thankful for this part or that part,’’ can you touch on that, just 

some real-world examples that you see? Because I have to believe 

that is so important for families, particularly. 

ARMY FAMILY ACTION PLAN

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Sir, I will start. Last week, we had the 

Army Family Action Plan. And this is a conference that we did 

here in D.C., but it stems out and it starts all around the Army, 

overseas, as well. 

And it starts with the soldiers and families at installations and 

they raise issues to those representatives at the installation level 

to present to the annual conference. And then to the leadership. 

The Secretary of the Army and the chief of staff of the Army are 

there—and one of the top five issues that was raised this last week 

that has now been added is there is a shortage of medical providers 

in military treatment facilities. 

And that is hands down, has always been a concern out there as 

you travel around. It is accessibility and availability. The quality 

of the care is very good, once you get into it, but it is accessibility, 

it is availability. 

TRICARE

And, of course, we have tried to stem that by partnering with 

medical communities and facilities off post as well, but there is still 

not enough. The Army is very big, and being able to get out there 

into all those remote sites, as Command Sergeant Major Gipe, 

Command Sergeant Major Caffie said, it is to TRICARE providers—to travel to get somebody that takes TRICARE. And that 

is a concern. 

Sergeant Major KENT. The quality of medical service is very 

good, sir, but the shortage of doctors is the issue. 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, the same here. I will tell you, I could 

not be happier with our Navy medicine and Marine Corps aspect. 

They do a lot of good things. 

I would say if there is any one thing, it is continue to keep that 

ball in the air for us. You know, sir, you drop that ball, and we 

start missing things, but, you know, you see the assistance you 

could provide, that would really be of value. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, I think we have come a 

very long way since 1995 when we started TRICARE. But I think 


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one of the big improvements we can do to make it more attractive 

for civilian health care providers is to take out a lot of the bureaucracy that we can right now. 

You may have someone who goes to visit a doctor’s office—Blue 

Cross-Blue Shield in just a matter of a few minutes—to see the 

doctor, and the paperwork is taken care of. You go to the doctor 

with TRICARE and it is an hour’s worth of paperwork. And a lot 

of doctors just don’t want to put up with it. 

We need to clear up the bureaucracy and make it easier and 

more attractive for civilian doctors that want to take—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thanks. Before I recognize Mr. Berry, I want to 

take the privilege of welcoming to our subcommittee Mrs. Zach 

Wamp, Kim Wamp, and their son, Weston. 

And as chairman of the committee, let me—I don’t want to embarrass the ranking member of the committee in your presence, but 

I want to thank you both for the sacrifices you have made, for the 

time Zach often has to spend away from family, to his leadership 

in this committee. We are thrilled to have you both. The subcommittee is very privileged to have Zach as our ranking member. 

Zach, would you like to—— 

Mr. WAMP. I am going to rat out my son, who is a senior at the 

University of Tennessee and about to graduate magna cum laude 

May the 1st. He and Kim are here for the National Prayer Breakfast, which I am very involved in each week, and they just came 

into town. 

But they had not been to a committee hearing in this room since 

I joined as ranking member. I have to tell you that my son, when 

you were under consideration as Vice President, started rooting for 

that ticket just because of our relationship. So you had one Republican working for you, so—at least we would have somebody in the 

White House that we know. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And my Republican campaign opponent was rooting for me, as well. But, Weston, thank you—thank you very much. 

[Laughter.] 

And it is great to have you both here. 

I think the top enlisted leaders of our services that are here symbolize the people making a difference for our country, and our military aren’t only those that have on the uniform or wear the title 

of member of Congress, but spouses and the children. So we welcome you. 

Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. Well, I would just thank all of you for your service 

and the great job you do. I think this committee is committed to 

doing the best that we can to see that you have what you need to 

do that job and do it well. 

Master Chief West, you are from the same neck of the woods as 

our colleague, Mr. Wamp. I am wondering, what made you turn out 

so well? [Laughter.] 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, I just have to say that I am just across 

the Georgia line. 

Mr. BERRY. That explains it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Berry. 


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And welcome back to the subcommittee. You have been a great 

member of the subcommittee. And you are here personally at every 

committee hearing unless you have an absolute conflict with other 

hearings. And we thank you for that. Thank you for being here. 

TOP QUALITY OF LIFE ISSUES

Let me continue a tradition of this subcommittee, if I could, and 

just ask each of you really two questions. First would be, in terms 

of quality-of-life morale issues, would it be fair for me to say, or 

to conclude from your comments, that time away from family is 

number-one right now? Would that be a yes—let the record show 

that time away from family is the number-one quality-of-life issue 

right now. 

Moving beyond that and putting aside pay, because we know 

that is always crucial to those serving our country, if we were to 

be arbitrary and to, say, take education, whether it is for the serviceman or woman or their family, education, health care, housing, 

and daycare, while we have a responsibility to address all of those 

four areas, could I ask you to make your own judgment and say, 

speaking for your respective servicemen and women and their families, which would you rank as the number-one challenge where we 

need to put more resources? What would be number two, number 

three, if you want to? 

Sergeant Major KENT [continuing]. Marine barracks? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. 

Sergeant Major KENT. I would—sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So barracks improvement—— 

Sergeant Major KENT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Sergeant Major KENT. As we grow the force, we are going to need 

other space. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. How about second, Sergeant Major? 

Sergeant Major KENT. Second would be daycare, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Daycare after barracks? 

Sergeant Major KENT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Sergeant Major Preston. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Childcare which is working in the 

right direction and is a priority right now, but childcare, barracks 

are the top two, and then health care. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. The two of you, the sense is we have made 

progress on family housing. It is not that we need to stop, draw a 

line in the sand and stop improving military family housing, but 

we at least—our servicemen and women—and they are seeing real 

change, so we are behind the curve more on barracks versus family 

housing? 

Master Chief West. 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, I have to agree over here. I will tell you, 

the bachelor housing is absolutely the number-one priority. With 

that said, the family housing, what this committee has done and 

through our PPV partnerships, is phenomenal. In my 28 years in 

the Navy, I have never seen better housing and daycare is another 

one. I know we have made huge strides. We have a very successful 

rate as we roll out, so we are making headway there. 


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And also with health care, we have to keep all three of those up 

in the air, but my number-one priority without a doubt is housing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Master Chief WEST. Bachelor housing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, bachelor housing. 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Chief Master Sergeant McKinley. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, I don’t think that I would 

really necessarily put them as a one-two-three. I think it is a package deal. You know, I think each one of them are equally important. And you can’t really have one without the other, so we have 

made tremendous strides in each one of those. But each one of 

those is still very important. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sure. And I don’t want to make the third or fourth 

list on the priority list seem less important, because they are very 

important. But if you only had enough money to put into one of 

those four areas, where would you put that money? 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Continue with housing. I 

think housing is very—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Family housing or barracks? 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Both. 

Mr. EDWARDS. All right, if you could only put money into barracks or family housing, where would you put it? 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. I would right now put it into 

barracks, because we still have Airmen out there living in barracks 

that are very old. The infrastructure needs to be redone. You can’t 

put lipstick on a pig. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. Right. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. You have heard that one before. So you have to go in and work with infrastructure. And that 

takes money. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. And forgive me for trying to put you in a 

box, but I think just trying to get that sense of priorities, with limited resources—we don’t have an unlimited check here. We should 

not ignore any of those areas. We want to keep making the kind 

of progress we have had in the last several years in all of these 

areas, but that is good to know. 

Mr. FARR. Is your BAH for a barrack the same as for a house? 

If you stay in a barrack, you still receive a housing allowance, don’t 

you? Or if you stay in a house on base, you pay your—— 

Master Chief WEST. You forfeit, at that point, your BAH, if you 

stay. However if you have a public-private venture, then you do get 

paid the BAH, but then you turn around and hand it back to the 

PPV. 

Mr. FARR. Are the economics better for the private venture, better in building housing than in building barracks? 

Master Chief WEST. We have a few barracks that are going PPV. 

BASIC ALLOWANCE FOR HOUSING

Sergeant Major PRESTON. What you have to look at is that, for 

a married soldier, they receive a basic allowance for housing. And 

they have a choice. They can—— 

Mr. FARR. On-base or off-base? 


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Sergeant Major PRESTON. On-base or off-base. But they pay either way. But for the single soldier, they don’t receive a housing 

allowance if they are living in a barracks. And, of course, if you 

want them to live off-base—and we have done that to free up space 

in the barracks we have taken some of our senior noncommissioned 

officers who are single and paid them an allowance for housing to 

allow them to go off and find an apartment, but, that is a cost, as 

well. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Could I ask Master Chief Wright and Sergeant 

Major Gipe and Sergeant Major Caffie. Starting with you, Master 

Chief Wright, could you come up to Mr. Carter’s seat again? And 

you don’t have to choose from those same 4, because housing, 

health care, education are obviously different sometimes in terms 

of the challenges for the members of the Guard and Reserve. 

But the quality-of-life issues, what would be the first, second, 

and third priorities that Congress needs to take a look at, in terms 

of supporting quality of life and morale for our members of the 

Guard and Reserve? 

Master Chief Wright. 

Master Chief WRIGHT. Thank you, sir. Just trying to do some 

quick thinking here. But I think the distance and travel, I think 

that is a main one. 

Number one. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Any other of the concerns you hear? 

Master Chief WRIGHT. The other is TRICARE, a follow-on with 

that. I know they are paid at the Medicaid levels. And a lot of 

times, when you are dealing with the medical facilities and the providers, it is all about the patriotism. They are looking at the flag, 

and that is wonderful, but there is not a lot of incentive there for 

it. 

And on the other side of it, just making sure we have good, quality facilities for these folks to come and train, too. A majority of 

that time, they are training with the units and doing everything 

they have to. But when they are at the reserve site, or the NOSC, 

Navy Operational Support Center, they have quality facilities to 

work in. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Master Chief WRIGHT. These are my top 3, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Master Chief. 

Sergeant Major Gipe. 

Sergeant Major GIPE. Again, sir, without a doubt, health care is 

our number-one issue. Education is up there, but with the G.I. Bill 

and most states providing tuition assistance for Guard and Reserve 

members, so without a doubt it is the TRICARE and the yellow ribbon piece of the health care that relates to post-traumatic and 

those kind of—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. What training equipment—— 

Sergeant Major GIPE. We are doing very, very well on the equipping course. We are not where we need to be yet, but there is a 

plan to get there. And the funding is dedicated long term to get 

there. 

The military construction to improve the facilities that we have 

to train in would have to be up there, as well. But there is a great 

plan in place for—up there. And the Army has done a phenomenal 


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job with getting this, as well as Congress, funding the money for 

that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thanks, Sergeant Major. 

Sergeant Major GIPE. Thank you. Yes, sir. That is really what 

the issue is. It is the provider issue. And then we alluded to Military OneSource for counseling sessions and the online things. 

Things are getting better all the time, but TRICARE providers 

is a huge issue for us, because they are just not out there and 

available and where they should be. If we could get that fixed, that 

would be huge. 

Mr. FARR. Military clinic are for the uniformed military personnel, but the spouses and children have to go to the private sector, and they don’t want to take TRICARE reimbursements—— 

Sergeant Major GIPE. Of course, we have many soldiers that 

don’t live anywhere near a military facility, so—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thanks, Sergeant Major. 

Sergeant Major Caffie. 

Sergeant Major CAFFIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Priority number one for me would be health care. I think we 

have already addressed the issues with bureaucracy and paper 

flow. We need to enhance the—physicians and nurses within that 

program. 

Second for me would be the distance. As we transform—primary 

concern. I have soldiers driving excess to 250 to 300 miles—that we 

do not compensate them for. 

And third would be equipment and renovating the installations 

that I have—Reserve. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you all. 

Any members—any of you want to follow up on that? Okay. 

Mr. Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Welcome back to the subcommittee—— 

Mr. CARTER. I would like to thank these fine gentlemen for being 

with us, and I apologize for being late. I had to go to a meeting 

with the leadership. 

AGING FAMILY HOUSING

Sergeant Major Preston, I want to talk to you a little bit about 

this Army Family Covenant you talked about. Chairman Edwards 

has played a major role in establishing RCI, the housing program. 

We have made great strides in military housing. We are all well 

aware of it, as all of you are. 

However, I visit Fort Hood many times each year and have 

toured several times a housing area called Chaffee Village. Are you 

familiar with Chaffee Village? 

I don’t know what year it was built, but it had to be in the 1950s, 

because it looks old. Chaffee Village has 674 units for enlisted soldiers and their families, and is part of the RCI program. We are 

spending about $40,000 a unit to make them more livable, but, 

quite frankly, this is, in my opinion, like putting lipstick on a pig. 

I mean, these are old units. We are patching them up, but in reality, there is nothing around here that old that is patched up like 

that. 


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And the real issue is we have to provide the quality of life that 

we promised them, that we keep this Army Family Covenant. 

Now, even if these additional funds are provided to patch it up, 

it is not going to be to the standard it ought to be, as compared 

to the other housing that we are providing on Fort Hood and other 

installations. 

I know that Chairman Edwards is well aware of this, as are 

quite a few others. I guess my question to all of you is, do you have 

housing issues like Chaffee Village on other facilities you visit that 

are still in use. They are old and being patched rather than completed? 

Have you informed the powers-that-be, this committee and others, of your needs for housing areas like Chaffee Village so that 

they can be in the next budget that we have to deal with? Because 

I think this is something that it is time for us to put a spotlight 

on. It is livable, but it is not quality living. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Mr. Carter, I know Chaffee Village 

very well. And having been there as a battalion sergeant major and 

I sponsored Comanche II. For those houses that did not meet the 

quality of life, the private partners have gone in and completely 

torn them down and built a new house. And specifically at Fort 

Hood, you can go around and see out on West Ford Hood, hundreds 

of brand-new houses that have been built. 

I get asked by a lot of soldiers that are living in the old houses 

like Chaffee or Comanche II why they have to live in the older 

house while somebody else has the newer house. And it really gets 

down to, what is the capitalization plan for that housing? 

Before privatization, we as an Army did not do very good at planning for the capitalization for housing as well as our barracks. And 

that is why we have a lot of old stuff out there that we are now 

trying to play catch up. 

But with our private partner, they have a capitalization plan so 

that, you know, as those houses reach the end of their life cycle, 

you know, they will be torn down and those soldiers, you know, 

as—either as they leave or as they, you know, transition away from 

the installation, will be moved into, you know, new and upgraded 

housing. 

So the good thing now with the private partners—capitalization 

plan, and you rotate through, and you eliminate the oldest stuff, 

and you build new. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, almost every visit I make to Fort Hood, I get 

brought through Chaffee Village when there is a change of command. The first place I go is for a drive through Chaffee Village. 

This is something that really is on the minds, especially of the enlisted men. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. And, sir, the private partners—for a 

lot of money—— 

Mr. CARTER. They have. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON [continuing]. Chaffee Village and fixed 

them up. And, when I was at Fort Campbell when we first started 

the capitalization process, these old ranch-style houses, very, very 

old, and Command Sergeant Major Hill, who is now with General 

Petraeus down in CENTCOM, he was still the installation sergeant 

major there. 


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And he and I have walked in and taken a look at this brand-new 

house that they have renovated. And he and I both looked at each 

other and said that, you know, if we were both specialists—the 

rank that was looking at those houses now, we would re-enlist, to 

live in a house—so the private partners have really done, a very 

good job at renovating and fixing up the old places, to provide the 

quality of life that we want. 

Mr. CARTER [continuing]. Other response from anybody? 

[The information follows:] 

The Army’s Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) privatized housing projects 

are developed, operated, managed, and maintained in accordance with a detailed 

community development management plan (CDMP). Project-specific CDMPs define 

the plan for housing recapitalization efforts during the 3 to 11 year initial development phase (IDP) and the remainder of the 50-year project, including housing renovations, demolitions, and new construction. 

During the IDP, RCI housing recapitalization is funded through a combination of 

private debt, private equity, and/or government equity. Following the IDP, RCI 

housing recapitalization is funded from a project reinvestment account. The project 

reinvestment account is funded through the project cash waterfall at a sufficient 

level to sustain project housing at contemporary standards throughout the 50-year 

project. 

One of the biggest advantages of military housing privatization is the speed at 

which houses can be renovated and constructed during the IDP, and the high quality of housing and housing maintenance that can be sustained over the project life. 

Sergeant Major KENT. Well, we have a plan to fix housing. 

Thanks to all of you, the funding that we get for our quality of life 

I will tell you, we have some great housing on our military installations. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, I am aware we have some great housing units. 

Master Chief WEST. Yes, sir. With the Navy, we are on track to 

eliminate anything that is out there in fiscal year 2011, but what 

is important is our private companies. They are working real well 

with our family housing—naval installations. 

So like I told the members earlier, sir, it is the best housing I 

have seen in 28 years of service. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, I am very passionate 

about this, and so are all of us here. And I have used this comparison before, but I think it is very valid. As you walk through Arlington National Cemetery, we have a standard. We take care of the 

fallen. They have the same markers; they have the same plot, so 

there is a standard, no matter what service you are in. 

It is a shame we don’t do this while we are wearing the uniform. 

We have some that we take care of, some that we don’t. We need 

to make sure we provide that standard while we are wearing the 

uniform. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

HOUSING PRIVATIZATION

Mr. EDWARDS. You know, Mr. Carter, if I could jump in, I think 

generally we would all agree that privatized, public-private partnership programs work very, very well. That doesn’t mean this subcommittee couldn’t, you know, expend some effort reviewing it and 

seeing where it is working better than other areas. 

And the question I couldn’t answer—is, how do you make a decision that at what point that developer at Fort Hood gets to put 


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more money in his pocket as a profit? We want him to make a reasonable profit. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And it seems that we ought to—if nothing else, we 

ought to use the bully pulpit of this subcommittee to pressure the 

developers, salute them where they are doing well, but if in some 

cases they are, you know, renovating a 50-year-old house rather 

than building a new one, and yet they are making very, very solid 

profits, maybe we ought to let them know we are going to keep an 

eye on them. 

Mr. CARTER. That is the thing. You know, if you are a soldier, 

and, you know, one guy is living in a brand-spanking-new house 

and his wife and kids have this really nice house, the other guy 

comes back, he is coming to a clean, refurbished house built in 

probably 1955, and then refurbished, you can’t help but saying he 

is in a substandard housing, even if it is perfectly clean, perfectly 

functional, and everything works. It is not what the other guy has. 

Refurbishing costs a lot of money. Fixing up all the houses costs 

a lot of money. Maybe our money would be better spent if we started going in and tearing these things down and building new 

houses. 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. Mr. Chairman, I would recommend 

that you take a look at it. And the best analogy I have for RCI 

housing is that it is just like getting a haircut. We are halfway 

through the haircut right now, so depending on which side of the 

head that you look at, one side looks good, but there is a plan that 

they are working through. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In some cases they are spending $40,000 or 

$50,000 renovating the unit where they could spend $150,000 just 

rebuilding a brand-new—and, again, I don’t know that I have an 

answer to that. I don’t know if any other members do. 

I assume it is done again on an installation-by-installation basis 

where they negotiate an agreement. But I think it might be 

healthy. You know, we have all talked about exercising oversight. 

And maybe we could bring the developers in and others—again, salute them for the good work they are doing, but also let them know 

we are going to look over their shoulder and make sure that they 

are in a time of war and multiple deployments and the sacrifices— 

representing are making that we are going to expect them to err 

on the side of, you know, putting that extra dollar into unit housing. 

Mr. CARTER. I think our partners would give us a fair analysis 

of what they see as needed. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Might be a good basis for a future subcommittee 

hearing. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. I think we are almost through. I asked Mr. 

Crenshaw. He has no more questions. 

Judge Carter, do you have any more questions? 

CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE—HORN OF AFRICA

I just have a couple of points and then we will be through on our 

side. I know time is getting late. 


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Going back to Mr. Farr’s question, I want to publicly say how 

much I appreciate and was so impressed with his insight into 

things around the world. 

But this issue of hearts and minds. Chief Master Sergeant 

McKinley, you mentioned AFRICOM earlier. I was so impressed 

with General Kip Ward, who is the commander. 

I wanted to ask you if we have any permanence there? I know 

that there was a temporary status in Djibouti and we really 

haven’t established permanent base for AFRICOM headquarters. 

But I want to tell you this. One of our guests for the prayer 

breakfast is a former general who is now in the top civilian leadership of Kenya, and I was with him last night. And I asked him 

about this. He told me how impressed he was with General Kip 

Ward and the fact that our military presence there, while it is not 

permanent yet, is about making peace and winning the hearts and 

minds of people in northern Africa. 

Now, of those 25 countries I mentioned earlier, quite a few of 

them are on the continent of Africa. And I am asking you, because 

I was in Tanzania to the south not too long ago, and I asked him 

about that former Arab coast, Mombasa particularly. Actually, I 

think some things are turning in a better direction. 

Part of it is because our presence is welcomed. I know, from Kenya’s standpoint, this is a Maasai general who is now in civilian 

leadership, and he was really impressed with the U.S. presence in 

northern Africa, which I think bodes well for this hearts and minds 

issue. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, I was just in Djibouti in 

November. The leadership there is very committed, but they are 

dealing wih the tyranny of distance of Africa. You can basically put 

the United States of America in Africa three times. 

So when you are looking at how we get from Point A to Point 

B, we have to work that out. But the goodness that we can do 

there, winning the hearts and minds, it is just astronomical. So we 

have to stay committed and make sure that we take care and have 

a plan in how we can get from Point A to Point B to Point C. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sergeant Major, you wanted to say something? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. You know, sir, I was Djibouti. And we 

have a lot of stuff there for the—army to help train them, as well 

as—in Kenya. 

But I flew up into Ethiopia. This is a great kind of joint team— 

flew into Ethiopia, the city of Dire Dawa. It is the second largest 

city in Ethiopia. It is a city of about 300,000. 

And I was met there on the ground by Staff Sergeant Colson, 

who is an Army Reserve staff sergeant, who was the NCOIC or 

noncommissioned officer in charge of a 17-member team. And his 

commander was on leave so he was gone. So this staff sergeant was 

in charge. 

And he had a team of Navy Seabees as well as a squad of artillery soldiers from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, that are doing force protection. He had an airman and a signal NCO who was doing the 

comms to keep him in touch with Camp—but we traveled around 

the city. 


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And he took me out and showed me the 21st and 22nd water 

point that the Seabees have put into place for the locals to draw 

water from, fill up their water jugs. They took me out to a $200,000 school project, primary, secondary school that they were putting into place for first grade 

through eighth or ninth grade. 

And while we drove around the city, it was—you could tell the 

relationship that he had built with all the locals, because they were 

all—they all knew him. They were all waving at him. 

But here is a young, staff sergeant with 7 or 8 years in the 

Army, and then he is helping to build a city. You know, he built 

a school and, helped to provide water, to the citizens. And, it is just 

amazing out there to see the things that are being done. 

I visited the chief of staff and sergeant major of South Africa. I 

was went around to their training facilities. And they are trying to 

build a noncommissioned officer corps like ours. 

And that is one of the reasons why we are celebrating the year 

of the NCO. And, South America has some unique challenges down 

there, as well. But, we are partnering with every one of those countries. 

Master Chief WEST. Sir, if I could just add one quick point to 

that, it is not necessarily the 30-, 40-, 50-year-olds that are making 

a difference. We are having 19- and 20-year-olds going out there, 

negotiating deals, and working with these tribal leaders or these 

leaders of those communities. It is just an incredible thing. 

Sergeant Major KENT. And we are actually doing that with the 

Navy every day, sir. We are actually—port—and we win hearts and 

minds each and every day. 

Mr. WAMP. And one other closing thing that I want to bring up 

through several hearings as we go forward, Mr. Chairman, and 

that is that what we heard from the deputy chief of staff of the 

Army and Mrs. Casey, when they met with us after the election 

and they said that the Congress still needs to change the law so 

that outside foundations can support our soldiers. We talked about 

Fisher House, an example, but there are still some impediments of 

our free enterprise system to support the military. 

We need to look at ways to take those walls down, especially 

with the needs that we hear about and the stress that is there with 

multiple deployments. If our private sector is willing to help and 

in any way the law keeps that from happening, we need to take 

those things down. 

They brought that to us in December at that dinner I attended 

2 weeks after the election. I thought, ‘‘That is something we need 

to bring up over and over again until we figure out exactly how to 

take down these barriers to get all the support.’’ I know they wanted help, and they know that there are stress points, and let’s let 

them do that. We will look into that every time. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Good suggestion—bring in our authorizer friends, 

but it would certainly be something that would be important to do. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Do any members have any additional questions? And, obviously, 

you can all turn in written questions. 

Mr. Farr. 


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TRICARE PROVIDERS

Mr. FARR. I wasn’t going to have one, but I want to get back to 

this TRICARE issue. As I understand TRICARE, it essentially 

models the Medicare reimbursement rate. It establishes rates by 

region. 

The problem is that providers don’t want to take that rate because it is too low or the process is too much of a hassle. It is very 

difficult to change the rate. 

How much of this problem is rate? And how much of it is bureaucracy? Because we contract out a huge multibillion-dollar contract, and then process blows up, and with a new provider every 

6 years, all the forms, telephone numbers, and contacts, and appeals change. 

Do you have any suggestions of how to improve this? 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Sir, I think a lot of the health 

care providers out there, they are dedicated Americans. They love 

our military, like everybody else, and they are probably willing to 

take that little less money. But if the bureaucracy, if the paperwork was much easier for them, I think that would help a lot. 

Mr. FARR. Do you have a memo on that? 

[The information follows:] 

The question is a good one because reimbursement rates are, indeed, sometimes 

part of the problem. I should explain that when we say TRICARE is tied to or as 

you say ‘‘modeled’’ on Medicare rates. It doesn’t mean that we match those rates 

dollar for dollar. In some locations we actually pay more than Medicare, but if those 

Medicare payments go up or down, our rates tend to match the same rate of increase or decrease. 

Does TRICARE pay enough? TRICARE participation is voluntary. If we pay too 

little, providers do not participate. We have been able to find ample TRICARE-accepting providers in most markets. We interpret this as meaning we pay acceptable 

market rates. It is a delicate balance. 

You also mention that providers feel that the TRICARE process is a ‘‘hassle.’’ Providers deal with numerous private insurers, plus the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), TRICARE, Medicare, etc. It is difficult to deal with multiple billing systems, but we do not perceive the TRICARE billing process to be more onerous than 

other payers. TRICARE has an excellent record of paying on time and paying accurately. We monitor timely payment continuously and have an excellent history of 

rapid payment. We also strive to minimize changes for beneficiaries while giving 

them the greatest choice. 

Our benefit is excellent and TRICARE is rated the best health plan in the nation. 

An independent healthcare research firm polled 71,000 American households and 

found that TRICARE had higher customer satisfaction rates than any other 

healthcare insurance carrier in the United States. It exceeded Aetna, Blue Cross 

Blue Shield, CIGNA, Kaiser Permanente, the VA, and others. (Independent research 

was conducted by Wilson Health Information. Third party information source found 

on Business Wire: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/milmOEIN/ 

isl2009lJanl16/ailn31198561) 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. We can get back to you on 

that, sir. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. The specifics. 

Chief Master Sergeant MCKINLEY. Yes, sir—about what that bureaucracy is? 

Sergeant Major PRESTON. I know for the health care providers 

out there, they have a kind of balance. They are very patriotic, and 

they try to balance the number of people that they are seeing between the high end and the low end. So they have a balance. 


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But there is a stigma, but I have to give them credit. They have 

been working very hard to improve their process of paperwork and 

make it more automated. 

But there is also a stigma out there. A command sergeant major 

of the Texas National Guard was living in Midland or Odessa, and 

to find a health care provider, the specialist his family needed, they 

had to go all the way to Fort Worth. 

And that is the challenge. It is now working through and demonstrating that some of the processes have improved. They have 

gotten better. And it is getting more of the civilian health care 

folks out there now to sign up and take TRICARE. 

[The information follows:] 

To date there are more than 325,000 providers in the TRICARE network with 

over 1 million non-network providers accepting TRICARE patients. In order to make 

TRICARE more attractive to health care providers, the TRICARE Management Activity (TMA) has a variety of tools to include: reducing the administrative burden, 

increasing the number of providers willing to accept TRICARE patients, and lastly, 

exercising an active outreach program. 

TMA is engaged in a comprehensive effort to reduce the administrative burden 

on TRICARE providers. Efforts include expediting the claims process for providers. 

Currently more than 99% of retained claims are being processed to completion within 30 days. Additionally, more than 97% of claims are now filed electronically. Providers have online capability to check beneficiary eligibility, update their information for beneficiaries appearing in TRICARE provider directories, check claim status, and submit referrals. Lastly, monthly provider bulletins and quarterly provider 

newsletters are used by providers to communicate important facts about the 

TRICARE medical benefit and business processes to the various TRICARE beneficiaries. 

TMA conducts surveys to determine the numbers of healthcare providers accepting new patients under TRICARE. TMA’s fiscal year (FY) 05–07 surveys covered 

network/non-network providers in various geographic areas nationally, including remote areas. Together, the three year findings across all states and health service 

areas reveal that approximately 87% of all physicians surveyed are aware of the 

TRICARE program and about 81% of physicians accepting new patients would also 

accept new TRICARE patients. For physicians who do not accept new TRICARE patients, the most commonly single cited reason is due to ‘‘reimbursement’’, which accounts for approximately 25% of all comments received. Reimbursement concerns include low and insufficient fees, fee schedules that do not cover overhead costs, or 

reimbursements that take too long to receive. The remaining reasons for not accepting TRICARE include a variety of other non-reimbursement factors such as providers accepting no new patients, inconvenience, and other miscellaneous reasons. 

The FY08 National Defense Authorization Act has directed DoD to continue this 

survey process through 2011. 

Title 10 U.S.C. 1079(h)(1) requires the TRICARE program to follow the reimbursement rates of Medicare to the extent practicable, unless DoD can justify a deviation. TRICARE rates and Medicare rates are identical for most services. Medicare rates are adjusted each year. These rates will vary by location and service provided. In areas where access to care is severely impaired because of low reimbursement rates, TMA can use its authority to increase TRICARE reimbursement rates 

by issuing locality waivers that increase rates above the TRICARE reimbursement 

rate for specific procedures in specific localities. Secondly, TMA can issue networkbased waivers that increase some network civilian provider reimbursements up to 

15% above the maximum TRICARE reimbursement rate to ensure adequate numbers/mix of civilian network providers. Directors of the TRICARE Regional offices 

work with their managed care support contractors to address requests for reimbursement waivers. A variety of stakeholders can request a waiver to include providers, beneficiaries, managed care support contractors, or military treatment facilities. 

Expanding the network through outreach is a top priority of TMA. TMA is reaching out to state officials, medical associations, and individual physicians to educate 

them and appeal to their sense of patriotism in accepting TRICARE. This outreach 

is showing promising results. For example, the Oregon legislature approved incentives including a one-time tax credit for new providers in the TRICARE network, 

plus an additional annual credit for treating patients enrolled in TRICARE. Since 


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2004, Oregon’s TRICARE provider network has increased by 35%. In addition, the 

governors of 20 western states have supported TRICARE’s efforts to encourage more 

health care providers to accept new TRICARE patients. Their combined efforts led 

to an overall increase in western region TRICARE network doctors from approximately 80,000 in 2004 to more than 125,000 today. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Important issue. Thank you, Sam. 

Let me finish as Mr. Wamp began the meeting. We are privileged 

and humbled to be at the table with you and to have an opportunity to thank you with a word for what you have done for our 

country and all of those men and women that you represent so ably 

have done. 

And we want to thank you with our deeds, as well, with better 

health care and housing and quality-of-life support that the servicemen and women you represent deserve. 

So this is a great way. I can’t think of a better way to start up 

the new Congress than to have this, our first subcommittee hearing. Again, that is a testament of our respect to you. 

Thanks to each of you for your leadership. We look forward to 

working with you in the months and years ahead. 

With that, we will stand adjourned subject to the call of the 

chair. 

Let me just say to all the members, my staff just sent me a note 

that said there is a bill scheduled for vote any moment now. So before you can go running back to your office building, you might 

want to check on the floor. 

Thank you very much. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Congressman Dicks:] 

Army: 

Question: Are there any special challenges to supporting quality of life for the 

military at installations in the Pacific Northwest region? What changes or improvements would have the greatest impact on improving facets of quality of life in the 

Pacific Northwest region? 

Answer: There are no challenges specific to supporting quality of life for Soldiers 

and their Families stationed in the Pacific Northwest region. Fort Lewis serves as 

home to approximately 25,000 Soldiers and civilians, 29,000 Family members, and 

120,000 retirees. Fort Lewis delivers on the Army Family Covenant—the Army’s expression of commitment to quality of life commensurate with service; recognition of 

the mutual bond between the Army, Soldiers, and their Families; and dedication to 

improving Family Readiness. We are continually improving quality of life across all 

components—Active, Guard, and Reserve—through implementation of the Army 

Family Covenant, regardless of geographic location. 

Marine Corps: 

Question: Are there any special challenges to supporting quality of life for the 

military at installations in the Pacific Northwest region? What changes or improvements would have the greatest impact on improving facets of quality of life in the 

Pacific Northwest region? 

Answer: There are no special challenges to supporting quality of life (QOL) for the 

military installations in the Pacific Northwest. Housing, child care, school and single Sailor programs are all important elements to improving quality of life for sailors. In the Pacific Northwest, these programs are resourced consistent with the rest 

of the Navy’s QOL programs in CONUS. 

The PB09 FYDP contained one Physical Fitness Center project for NAS Whidbey 

Island at a cost of $24.4M that would improve facets of QOL in the Pacific Northwest region. 

Navy: 

Question. Are there any special challenges to supporting quality of life for the 

military at installations in the Pacific Northwest region? What changes or improvements would have the greatest impact on improving facets of quality of life in the 

Pacific Northwest region? 

Answer. There are no special challenges to supporting quality of life (QOL) for the 

military installations in the Pacific Northwest. Housing, child care, school and sinVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00117 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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gle Sailor programs are all important elements to improving quality of life for sailors. In the Pacific Northwest, these programs are resourced consistent with the rest 

of the Navy’s QOL programs in CONUS. 

The PB09 FYDP contained one Physical Fitness Center project for NAS Whidbey 

Island at a cost of $24.4M that would improve facets of QOL in the Pacific Northwest region. 

Air Force: 

Question. Are there any special challenges to supporting quality of life for the 

military at installations in the Pacific Northwest region? What changes or improvements would have the greatest impact on improving facets of quality of life in the 

Pacific Northwest region? . 

Answer. There are no specific challenges to supporting quality of life at installations in the Pacific Northwest region that are unique to McChord AFB, Mountain 

Home AFB and Fairchild AFB. The Air Force will continue to improve the investment in our people to avoid unacceptable risk to combat capability and to people 

and family programs. Quality of Life projects are a priority at these bases and include quality housing, fitness centers and child care centers. 

[End of questions submitted for the record by Congressman 

Dicks.] 

[Questions for the record submitted by Congressman Bishop:] 

SUICIDE PREVENTION

Question. Last week it was reported that suicides among soldiers in 2008 rose for 

the fourth year in a row, reaching the highest level in nearly three decades. At least 

128 soldiers killed themselves last year, and the Army suicide rate surpassed that 

for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War. This suicide count, which includes soldiers in the Army Reserve and the National Guard, is expected to grow. 

Fifteen deaths are still being investigated, and the vast majority of them are expected to be ruled suicides according to Army officials. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the 

vice chief of staff of the Army, who is leading suicide-prevention efforts has stated, 

‘‘We [the Army]— need to move quickly to do everything we can to reverse the very 

disturbing number of suicides we have in the U.S. Army.’’ What is the Army doing 

to address the problem? 

Answer. Since my testimony in February 2009, the Army has taken major steps 

to address the tragedy of suicides within our ranks. 

From February 15 to March 15, 2009, the Army conducted a service-wide Suicide 

Prevention Stand Down and Chain Teaching, a first according to the Center for 

Military History. During the stand down, the Army trained every Soldier on suicide 

risk identification and intervention, and addressed the stigma associated with behavioral health counseling, using an interactive video titled ‘‘Beyond the Front.’’ 

Feedback from Soldiers about the video was so positive that new, similar videos are 

being created for Families and DA civilians; and the Army National Guard and Reserve plans to tailor these videos for their Soldiers as well. Also during the standdown, the Army distributed thousands of ‘‘ACE’’ (Ask, Care, Escort) wallet cards to 

Soldiers; these cards provide a quick reference on how to identify and care for a potentially suicidal buddy. Follow-up to the stand down included chain teaching on 

suicide prevention tactics. Chain teaching remains underway through July 1. 

In March and April 2009, General Chiarelli conducted an eight-day, six-installation fact finding visit. He also organized a multidisciplinary team of experts from 

across the Army Staff, which conducted a review of those findings and Army programs and policies relating to suicide, behavioral health, and suicide risk factors. 

The team developed over 200 separate actions to be taken to improve existing systems and programs. Those actions form the nucleus of the Army’s strategic approach 

to the suicide issue: the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention. 

The Army issued the Plan in mid-April. A senior level Council, chartered by General Chiarelli, meets twice a month to review and refine the action plans for his approval and implementation. Some of those plans include efforts to combat the problem of stigma; expand the number of Army Chaplains and behavioral health providers to improve access to care; and ensure funding for popular resources such as 

the ‘‘Strong Bonds’’ Program, a family-relationship initiative of the Chaplain Corps 

which fosters relationship-building skills. The Council review process will continue 

for several months while the Council develops recommendations for strategic, enduring changes Army-wide. Another part of the Plan directed Army leaders and medical 


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treatment facilities to immediately optimize existing policies and resources to prevent suicides and set the stage for the longer-term strategic changes. 

Another long-term effort by the Army in this area is the October 2008 agreement 

with the National Institute of Mental Health for a five-year longitudinal study of 

suicides, designed to assess factors contributing to suicide and identify training to 

reduce suicides and other mitigation techniques. 

General Chiarelli holds frequent, periodic briefings with commanders and a Senior Review Group on Army suicides. This ensures top Army leadership maintains 

appropriate focus on this important issue. It also allows for information sharing and 

learning from individual cases. 

The bottom line, however, is that Soldiers have always taken care of Soldiers. The 

Army team is an unbroken chain from the Chief of Staff to the newest recruit, and 

the team has been mobilized to help one another. I firmly believe that ultimately, 

it is our Soldiers who will turn this problem around. 

ARMY MEDICAL ACTION PLAN

Question. Last April GEN Casey stated that ‘‘at the core of the Army’s strategy 

to maintain an all-volunteer force lie in two programs that the Army leadership had 

developed’’-one of those was the Army Medical Action Plan (AMAP) which deals 

with the Army’s initiative to develop an ‘‘integrated and comprehensive continuum 

of care for Warriors and their families at home and in battle.’’ How has that program initiative fared and how has the money to that program been used to deal 

with the suicide crisis in the Army? 

Answer. The transformation of US Army Warrior Care began in April 2007 with 

the development of the Army Medical Action Plan (AMAP), which outlined an organizational and cultural shift in how the Army cares for its wounded, ill, and injured 

Soldiers. Over the past two years, the AMAP has evolved and changed its name to 

the Army Warrior Care and Transition Program (WCTP), fully integrating Warrior 

Care into institutional processes across the Army, and achieving many of the Army’s 

goals for enhancing care and improving the transition of wounded warriors back to 

duty or into civilian life as productive veterans. The Army has made tremendous 

progress in transforming how it provides health care to its Soldiers, with improvements impacting every aspect of the continuum of care. During this period, overall 

Soldier and family satisfaction with the care and support they receive as a result 

of the efforts of the WCTP has increased significantly. Two years ago, only 60% of 

those in the legacy medical hold units were satisfied with the care they receive. 

Today, 80% of Soldiers and Families who now receive the focused and comprehensive care and support provided by Warrior Transition Units indicate satisfaction 

with the care they receive. 

Funding for the Army’s suicide prevention efforts is separate and distinct from 

funding for the WCTP. The money directed to the AMAP/WCTP is used to provide 

the necessary care, support, and infrastructure that wounded, ill, and injured Soldiers require. Part of this support, however, includes staffing the Warrior Transition 

Units with one behavioral health provider for every 100 Warriors in Transition. In 

addition, Warrior Transition Units conducted a ‘‘safety stand-down’’ starting on January 30, 2009, to review unit compliance with the 18 preventive measures that were 

implemented in February 2008 after an Army assessment team completed a comprehensive review of suicides and accidental deaths in Warrior Transition Units. Finally, the WCTP complies with guidance promulgated by the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force and the Army Suicide Prevention Council. 

COMPREHENSIVE SOLDIER FITNESS

Question. For the fourth consecutive year, the Army has seen an increase in suicide rates. There were 128 suicides last year in the active Army, with another 15 

cases still pending a determination, according to data compiled by Army human resources officials. This was up from 115 suicides in 2007. The Army stated that over 

the past two years, it has increased its efforts and has enhanced resources and initiatives aimed at identifying and mitigating the causes of suicidal behavior; however, the suicide rates continue to increase. How does the Army plan to change its 

past strategy in order to stop this increasing trend? What is the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program and how will it enhance Soldier’s resiliency and total fitness 

in this era of persistent conflict? What other programs are being offered to Soldiers 

to deal with the difficult situations which are the results of repeated deployments? 

Answer. The Army is implementing the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention. The Plan represents a strategic 

change because it is the first strategy to employ a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention across the spectrum of Army policy, doctrine, organization, training, 


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materiel, leadership, personnel, and resources. Due to the breadth and nature of 

that strategy, the Plan widens the aperture of the Army’s approach from a narrow 

focus on suicide to the broader context of risk reduction and health promotion. The 

Plan is also unique because it stems from efforts led from the top down by the 

Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, as compared to earlier initiatives welling from lowerlevel Army Staff elements up to senior Army leadership. In short, General Chiarelli 

is leading this critical issue; it is too urgent to wait for resolution through normal 

Army channels. 

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is an Army strategy to provide each Soldier 

the opportunity to maximize his or her potential in life: socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and through a strong Family. The program assesses the holistic 

fitness of all Soldiers, encompassing all dimensions. It begins when you join the 

Army, and like physical fitness, includes re-assessment at routine intervals. The results of the assessment give each Soldier an individualized program of education 

and training as needed. CSF provides the training and tools to enhance Soldier resilience—the ability to grow and thrive in the face of challenges and bounce back 

from adversity. 

The Program will enhance Soldiers’ resiliency and total fitness by systematically 

training each Soldier in positive life-coping skills and the ability to identify incipient 

behavioral health concerns before they seriously affect the Soldier’s well-being and 

readiness. The Program includes training to encourage Soldiers to seek behavioral 

health and other counseling before problems arise. The training will also indirectly 

discourage stigma associated with seeking counseling, because all Soldiers will be 

accustomed to discussing psychological health issues. 

The Program’s resiliency training will be initiated in training schools and will continue throughout each Soldier’s career. For example, the Program includes 

BATTLEMIND training for major junctures in a Soldier’s career from Basic Training to the Pre-Command Course. There are also pre- and post-deployment modules 

for both Soldiers and spouses. To date, BATTLEMIND is the only resilience training 

program demonstrated to reduce symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress upon redeployment. People who participate in BATTLEMIND also feel less reluctance to seek 

mental health counseling than people who have not had the training. 

Other programs offered to Soldiers to deal with the difficult situations arising 

from repeated deployments include the ‘‘Strong Bonds’’ Program, a family-relationship initiative of the Chaplain Corps, which fosters relationship-building skills; the 

Military and Family Life Consultant Program, which embeds counselors into units 

during post-deployment, and enables counselors to meet informally with Soldiers in 

non-clinical settings to avoid stigma; and the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program, 

which provides information, services, referral, and proactive outreach programs to 

Soldiers of the Army Reserve and their Families through all phases of the deployment cycle. 

FAMILY PROGRAMS

Question. Can you discuss the state of Army and Marine Corps families, especially 

families that have had a service member go on more than one deployment? The recent suicide levels, divorces, and issues with reintegration point to a stressed force? 

What steps are the services taking to counter-balance these trends? 

Answer. Army Families remain resilient in the midst of extraordinary sacrifices 

as their loved ones advance the cause of freedom around the world. They have set 

aside careers, interrupted their education, and when living far from a military base, 

struggled to locate child care equal to the price and quality available at military installations. Quality of life programs continue to contribute to Soldiers’ and Families’ 

sense of belonging to a caring military community, which reinforces their desire to 

choose the Army as a way of life, despite the serious strains they experience as a 

result. 

The Department of Defense conducted two Status of Forces surveys of active duty 

service members in 2007 to assess the impact of frequent deployments on troops and 

their Families. Their top concerns were spouse employment and education, household repairs, yard work, personal vehicle maintenance, maintaining emotional connections with spouse or Family, safety of Family in the community, anxiety or depression, marital problems, and problem behavior at school. Although Soldiers cited 

marital problems as a concern, a recent RAND study found little support for the 

hypothesis that deployments caused an increase in divorce rates across the Services. 

Under the Army Family Covenant, the Army began to implement aggressive improvements to a broad range of family-oriented, quality of life programs and services 

to standardize and fund existing Family programs and services; increase accessibility to health care; improve Soldier and Family housing; ensure excellence in 


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schools, youth and child services; and expand education and employment opportunities for Family members. 

Since the Covenant’s inception, the Army has made significant progress and improvements in quality of life programs across a range of Family programs. Examples 

include implementation of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program to minimize 

stresses of military service, particularly the stress of deployment and family separation; deployment of 200,000 training products to strengthen resilience in military 

children; increased staff for the New Parent Support Home Visit Program; additional funding for respite care; implementation of Soldier and Family Assistance 

Centers; and employment of thousands of spouses. 

The Army has also implemented plans and programs to address specific Soldier 

and Family issues. The Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, 

and Suicide Prevention is a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention across 

the spectrum of Army policy, doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, 

personnel, and resources. Additionally, the Chaplain Corps expanded the Strong 

Bonds program, a research-based, Chaplain-led training initiative helping Soldiers 

and spouses strengthen their marital and family relationships. Strong Bonds began 

in 1999 with four events and 90 couples and has grown into a program with commanders planning 3,200 training events this year in order to provide nearly 130,000 

participants with the knowledge and skills to sustain resilient relationships during 

multiple deployments. 

While we are moving in the right direction with the Army Family Covenant, we 

still have much work to do. The Army remains determined to provide a strong, supportive environment where Soldiers and their Families can thrive. 

Question. Can you discuss the state of Army and Marine Corps families, especially 

families that have had a service member go on more than one deployment? The recent suicide levels, divorces, and issues with reintegration point to a stressed force? 

What steps are the services taking to counter-balance these trends? 

Answer. Stress on the Force. There is no question that continued OPTEMPO puts 

stress on the force, not just for deploying Marines, but for those who remain behind 

and face increased workloads. There were year on year increases for 2008 in suicide 

incidents and divorces. 

Marine Corps commanders are fully engaged in promoting the psychological 

health of our Marines, Sailors, and family members. To enable leaders, individuals, 

and families to prepare for and manage the stress of operational deployment cycles, 

the Combat and Operational Stress Control (COSC) Program provides a set of policies, training, and tools to prepare for the upcoming deployment, recognize stress 

reactions early and manage them more effectively within operational units. Marine 

leaders are assisted by mental health professionals, chaplains, and COSC regional 

training coordinators in the operating forces, to detect stress problems in 

warfighters as early as possible, and are provided the resources to effectively manage these stress problems in theater or at home base. Resources are also provided 

for the family members left behind to provide support, communications, and information flow. 

This training is being incorporated in formal Professional Military Education 

schools for both officer and enlisted Marines, such as the Expeditionary Warfare 

School and the Staff Non-commissioned Officer Advanced Course. We have staffed 

full-time COSC training coordinators at each of our Marine Expeditionary Force 

headquarters. 

To assist with prevention, rapid identification, and effective treatment of combat 

operational stress, we are expanding the Operational Stress Control and Readiness 

(OSCAR) Program—our program of embedding mental health professionals in operational units—to directly support all active and reserve ground combat elements. 

This year, we begin placing mental health professionals organic to the active Divisions and Marine Forces Reserve. By FY11, full OSCAR teams will be fielded to the 

Infantry Regiment level. OSCAR will eventually be expanded to all deployed elements of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force. 

Our Marine Operational Stress Training (MOST) program was developed with 

Tri-Marine Expeditionary Force (TRI MEF) Commanders based on the USMC COSC 

stress continuum model, now adopted by OSD. Our program supports the full deployment cycle by focusing on Leaders, Marines and families from pre-deployment 

through post-deployment, providing information on what’s to come, what to look for, 

and what to do when stress reactions appear. COSC concepts have also been incorporated in family readiness training. 

Stress on the Families: To mitigate the stress on military families and children 

facing the multiple challenges of having a loved one at war, we are partnering with 

the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) and UCLA’s Center for 

Community Health and the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress to sponsor 


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a program called Project FOCUS, ‘‘Families OverComing Under Stress’’, at our 

major deploying bases. The family-oriented program is designed to work with Marines, spouses and children to improve family communications post deployment by 

through specialized resiliency training. 

FOCUS is founded on leading evidenced-based family intervention models for atrisk families which have demonstrated positive emotional, behavioral and adaptive 

outcomes for families over time. Working with the existing teams of dedicated military family services personnel, FOCUS staff will assist families to better understand 

how combat operational stress affects them and their service family member, how 

to manage it, and how to strengthen themselves and their children in readiness for 

tomorrow. This program is currently being provided at Camp Pendleton, 

Twentynine Palms, Camp Lejeune, MCB Hawaii, and MCB Okinawa. Next year it 

will be expanded to include MCB Quantico, the Wounded Warrior Regiment and 

Battalions, and Marine Corps Reserve units in the Los Angeles Basin. 

Suicides and Suicide Prevention Programs. Suicide prevention is a high priority. 

The loss of any Marine through suicide is a tragedy for the Marine’s family and 

unit, and can never be accepted. With 42 suicides recorded in 2008, the Marine 

Corps experienced its highest suicide rate since the start of Operation Enduring 

Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The number of confirmed Marine suicides 

has increased from 25 in 2006 to 33 in CY2007 to 42 in CY2008. Our suicide rate 

in 2008 of 19.5 suicides per 100,000 approaches the national civilian suicide rate 

for a demographic similar to the Marine Corps. Through April, there were 12 suspected or confirmed suicides in CY09. 

We are actively engaged in prevention and early identification of problems that 

may increase the risk of suicide. Marine Corps leadership is taking proactive action, 

focusing on the important role of leaders of all ranks in addressing this issue. Understanding that there is no single suicide prevention solution, we are committed 

to having an effect on the individual Marine through leadership and command involvement at all levels and we recognize that we must reduce the stigma sometimes 

associated with seeking help. 

Suicides are monitored monthly and annually for deployment related trends such 

as the number of deployments and dwell time. Although it is not unreasonable to 

assume that one or more deployments may cause an increase in suicides, to date 

we have been unable to establish a direct relationship between the two. The Marine 

Corps Combat Development Command Studies and Analysis Division is conducting 

further analysis of the data on dwell time and deployments. Additionally, we will 

participate in the Army longitudinal study being conducted by the National Institute for Mental Health. 

Regardless of duty station, deployment, or duty status, the primary stressors associated with Marine suicides are: problems in romantic relationships, physical health, 

work-related issues such as poor performance and job dissatisfaction, and pending 

legal or administrative action. This is consistent with other Services and civilian 

findings. Multiple stressors are almost always present in a suicide. 

The Commandant and Marine Corps leadership are taking proactive action to address this issue. I selected a senior enlisted Marine leader to add unique insight to 

our efforts in suicide prevention, and the Assistant Commandant (ACMC), through 

the Executive Safety Board, is directing a series of initiatives which are currently 

in accelerated development: 

• Training: An ACMC-directed all hands training on suicide prevention was conducted during the month of March. Since 90% of suicides have tended to occur in 

the ranks of El-E5 Marines, a half-day, high impact, relevant workshop has been 

designed to reach the NCO/FMF Sailor community and facilitate their work with 

junior enlisted Marines. This training is expected to be ready by this summer. 

• Leadership Suicide Prevention Video Messages: All 06 and higher commanding 

officers were directed to produce videos focusing on leadership and suicide prevention to set the tone for stigma reduction and an imperative of prevention. 

• Integration of Suicide Prevention and the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program 

(MCMAP): A prevention message was incorporated in the MCMAP program in a 

manner appropriate and engaging to reach all Marines. 

• Relationship Distress Hotline: Relationship problems, both romantic and marital, remain the number one associated stressor related to suicidal behavior. Suicide 

is complex and while this is not the only problem, it is the most common. A hotline 

by phone, email and live internet chat that is marketed specifically to assist with 

relationship distress and questions may reduce risk of suicide related behaviors that 

result from this type of stress. In the interim, we have partnered with Military 

OneSource to strategically market their relationship building resources to Marines 

and family members. 


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The Marine Corps will continue to aggressively pursue suicide prevention initiatives; reevaluate existing programs designed to reduce the stressors most correlated 

with suicidal behavior; develop and distribute new prevention programs; and refresh 

and expand training materials. 

Reintegration Programs. The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program is a national 

combat veteran reintegration program that assists National Guard and Reserve 

members and their families throughout the entire deployment cycle: Pre-Deployment; Deployment; Demobilization; and Post-Deployment. The program provides 

servicemembers and their families with information, services, referral, and proactive 

outreach opportunities which help them prepare for mobilization, sustain them during mobilization, and reintegrate servicemembers with their families, communities, 

and employers upon post-deployment. To provide servicemembers and their families 

with a wide range of options as close to home as possible and to leverage scarce 

community and state resources, Defense Department officials are working to unify 

efforts among the services, the reserve components, other federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations. 

The Department Of Veterans Affairs also provides services to returning Veterans 

(including those who are active duty), surviving spouses and dependents, disabled, 

minority, and women Veterans. The VA offers health care, mental health care, information about benefits and eligibility, job and business opportunities, and information about education, home loans, and more. The VA offers free care for combat-related conditions for 2 years after returning from deployment. Mental health services, including care for PTSD and substance use treatment, are available and include individual and group treatment options. Outpatient and residential programs 

are available, depending on location. Treatment providers include psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and addictions counselors. 

RCI HOUSING

Question. How can use of privatized housing improve the overall quality of life 

and better family housing in the military? 

Answer. Use of privatized military Family housing has improved the quality of 

life for Soldiers and their Families by providing world-class housing communities 

and amenities faster and at a higher standard than traditional methods. Since the 

start of Army housing privatization, we have built over 19,000 homes, renovated another 14,000 homes, and built community centers, playgrounds, walking trails, and 

other amenities. Further, privatization is designed to ensure sustainment of the condition of the housing at those higher standards over the 50-year terms of the Army’s 

privatization projects. 

Question. How can use of privatized housing improve the overall quality of life 

and better family housing in the military? 

Answer. In 2001 the Marine Corps had close to 17,700 inadequate housing units, 

with the majority of those units requiring significant revitalization or replacement. 

Based on Public Private Venture (PPV) contracts now in place, the Marine Corps 

will have successfully met the Department of Defense goal to have contracts in place 

by 2007 to eliminate inadequate housing and will complete the build-out by 2014. 

With ninety-six percent of our world-wide inventories privatized to date, we continue to see success from our PPV projects across Marine Corps installations. PPVs 

have not only improved the homes in which our families live by being built to modern standards, they are also providing community support facilities such as community centers, playgrounds and green spaces that help create neighborhoods and a 

sense of community. 

Congressional support of the PPV program allows us to continue to address the 

deficit requirement for additional family housing resulting from Grow the Force increases by providing seed money for new construction projects. The PPV program 

allows the Marine Corps to leverage private sector funds and buy more investment 

in family housing. The private sector contributes development capital for PPV 

projects in addition to the government funding. The ratio achieved to date is over 

5 to 1. In turn, as homes are privatized, the requirement for government Operations 

and maintenance is lessened. 

With nearly our entire domestic inventory privatized, we will continue to build on 

our prior successes and use PPVs to help us address most of our remaining housing 

deficit requirement. 

Overseas we are engaged with the Government of Japan in developing a Special 

Purpose Entity (SPE) for Family Housing on Guam. Similar in concept to our domestic PPVs, this SPE will supply the housing for Marines and their families relocating to Guam from Okinawa, Japan. 


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Question. How can use of privatized housing improve the overall quality of life 

and better family housing in the military? 

Answer. Privatized housing has brought about a dramatic improvement in housing conditions for service members and their families and has increased their quality of life, readiness, morale, and retention. Through privatization, the Navy is able 

to leverage a tremendous amount of capital (about 18:1) for a relatively small investment to reduce housing deficits, upgrade homes, and perform maintenance faster than traditionally using military Family Housing appropriations. Privatized housing is designed to market-based standards, which requires developers to include 

community centers and events, swimming pools, and family-oriented amenities to 

foster a sense of community and attract residents. 

Question. How can use of privatized housing improve the overall quality of life 

and better family housing in the military? 

Answer. Privatized housing is providing more new homes faster than ever before. 

Project Owners are bringing the best of private sector housing and community 

standards onto our bases. New homes with energy efficient appliances, programmable thermostats, two-car garages, spacious kitchens, and carpeting are creating 

on-base neighborhoods where Air Force families choose to live. Not only are we getting over 200 new homes a month, but we now have a funding mechanism in place 

to maintain, renovate, and replace these homes over the 50–year life of the project. 

Today our Air Force members and their families are choosing privatized housing, 

not because they have to, but because they want to. 

HOUSING FOR REDEPLOYING SOLDIERS

Question. President Obama has indicated that he wants to withdraw from Iraq 

in the next 16 months. Some senior commanders have expressed concerns regarding 

an overly aggressive withdrawal from Iraq. What are your views and what impact 

would that withdrawal and redeployment have on your ability to house returning 

service members? Would the reduced timeline significantly impact your ability to 

absorb the increase in troops onto your bases? Would there be any housing or infrastructure issues absorbing these service members? 

Answer. The acceleration of the drawdown plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom is 

expected to place stress on the Army’s current facility support plan. The return of 

forces, coupled with unit modularization, requires the Army to address and improve 

unit operations and maintenance facilities, as well as barracks, Family housing, and 

quality of life requirements to support the All-Volunteer Force. Upon release of a 

drawdown plan, the Army will complete its barracks facility support analysis to gain 

greater fidelity on the impact on our installations and their ability to adequately 

house Soldiers and their Families. 

Question. President Obama has indicated that he wants to withdraw from Iraq 

in the next 16 months. Some senior commanders have expressed concerns regarding 

an overly aggressive withdrawal from Iraq. What are your views and what impact 

would that withdrawal and redeployment have on your ability to house returning 

servicemen? Would the reduced timeline significantly impact your ability to absorb 

the increase in troops onto your bases? Would there be any housing or infrastructure issues absorbing these servicemen? 

Answer. The Marine Corps is conducting detailed planning to develop potential 

force sourcing solutions which incorporate the potential drawdown of Marines from 

Iraq, as well as the potential increase of Marines deploying to Afghanistan. Were 

every Marine to return immediately, we would meet the increased bachelor housing 

demand with a combination of relaxed occupancy standards, interim relocatable 

billeting structures, and a greater reliance on the local economy through approval 

of Basic Allowance for Housing for noncommissioned officers and junior enlisted Marines. 

The reduced timeline should not significantly impact our ability to absorb the increase in troops to our bases. The Marine Corps had funding in place by FY 2005 

to eliminate permanent party gang head barracks. 

Our robust FY 2009 Military Construction program will provide over 12,000 new 

spaces on our installations. Many of these projects will be completed in 2010 and 

2011. This new construction will mitigate many of the expected bachelor housing 

issues. However, temporary use of some gang head barracks has been and will be 

required while renovations take place in permanent facilities. We are using temporary facilities to support our immediate growth requirements with funding provided by Congress in the 2007 GWOT Supplemental as well as other measures (such 

as slowing down demolition of older facilities). Current deployment cycles are helping to alleviate ‘‘space crunches’’ at the installations. 


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Question. President Obama has indicated that he wants to withdraw from Iraq 

in the next 16 months. Some senior commanders have expressed concerns regarding 

an overly aggressive withdrawal from Iraq. What are your views and what impact 

would that withdrawal and redeployment have on your ability to house returning 

servicemen? Would the reduced timeline significantly impact your ability to absorb 

the increase in troops onto your bases? Would there be any housing or infrastructure issues absorbing these servicemen? 

Answer. The Navy would not have any difficulty absorbing returning Sailors into 

housing. Sailors returning from deployments in Iraq are accommodated much like 

those returning from a ship’s deployment. 

Question. President Obama has indicated that he wants to withdraw from Iraq 

in the next 16 months. Some senior commanders have expressed concerns regarding 

an overly aggressive withdrawal from Iraq. What are your views and what impact 

would that withdrawal and redeployment have on your ability to house returning 

servicemen? Would the reduced timeline significantly impact your ability to absorb 

the increase in troops onto your bases? Would there be any housing or infrastructure issues absorbing these servicemen? 

Answer. There will be no impact to Air Force housing or infrastructure. Air Force 

members deployed to Iraq are on ‘‘temporary duty’’ from their permanent duty station. Housing requirements at each Air Force installation are determined based on 

the full complement of Service members permanently assigned to an installation— 

this includes consideration of the suitable housing available in local communities. 

Military families continue to reside in family housing at the permanent duty station. For unaccompanied Airmen deployed to Iraq, dormitory rooms are kept available at their permanent duty station. 

Question. President Obama also stated that he would like to see a ‘‘surge’’ in Afghanistan. Given recent lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it your view 

that the U.S. can effectively win the fight in Afghanistan alone or will we need a 

like or similar commitment from our major allies—Germany, France and Great Britain—who are currently reducing the number of their troops? Will this create any 

further strain on our soldiers and what are the military plans to address this? 

Army: 

Answer. I defer judgment on these important questions to President Obama and 

Secretary Gates, who continue to work on how best to address the challenges you 

raise. 

Question. President Obama also stated that he would like to see a ‘‘surge’’ in Afghanistan. Given recent lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it your view 

that the U.S. can effectively win the fight in Afghanistan alone or will we need a 

like or similar commitment from our major allies—Germany, France and Great Britain—who are currently reducing the number of their troops? Will this create any 

further strain on our soldiers and what are the military plans to address this? 

Marine Corps: 

Answer. The Marine Corps defers judgment on these important questions to President Obama and Secretary Gates, who continue to work on how best to address the 

challenges raised by Congress. 

Question. President Obama also stated that he would like to see a ‘‘surge’’ in Afghanistan. Given recent lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it your view 

that the U.S. can effectively win the fight in Afghanistan alone or will we need a 

like or similar commitment from our major allies—Germany, France and Great Britain—who are currently reducing the number of their troops? Will this create any 

further strain on our soldiers and what are the military plans to address this? 

Navy: 

Answer. Respectfully defer judgment on these important questions to the President and Secretary of Defense, who continue to work on how best to address these 

specific challenges. 

Question. President Obama also stated that he would like to see a ‘‘surge’’ in Afghanistan. Given recent lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it your view 

that the U.S. can effectively win the fight in Afghanistan alone or will we need a 

like or similar commitment from our major allies—Germany, France and Great Britain—who are currently reducing the number of their troops? Will this create any 

further strain on our soldiers and what are the military plans to address this? 

Air Force: 

Answer: I defer judgment on these important questions to President Obama and 

Secretary Gates, who continue to work on how best to address the challenges you 

raise. 


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SINGLE SOLDIER HOUSING ENTITLEMENTS

Question. Is the Army transferring the cost of not having sufficient barracks space 

to soldiers by giving them a certificate of non-availability to move off post but not 

providing them with a dislocation allowance? Why are soldiers forced to break their 

lease, pack up their home goods and shut off their utilities upon deployment? 

Answer. The Army is not transferring the cost of having insufficient barracks 

space to Soldiers by giving them certificates of non-availability to move off-post. The 

Army programs housing for single Soldiers in the ranks of Private through Sergeant 

in the United States and Private through Staff Sergeant overseas. For those ranks, 

a certificate of non-availability is provided to Soldiers to authorize payment of Basic 

Allowance for Housing at the ‘‘without dependents’’ rate when barracks space is not 

available. If a Soldier is authorized to reside in barracks, and that Soldier is denied 

accommodation due to lack of adequate space in the barracks, that Soldier is paid 

a dislocation allowance. The Army is not aware of any such instance where a Soldier 

has been denied a validated dislocation allowance. 

Garrison commanders develop local housing policies based on individual garrison 

needs that may require Soldiers living off-post to break a lease when being deployed. If a Soldier is required by the commander to break his or her lease prior 

to deployment, the Soldier returns to the barracks, and household goods are stored 

at government expense. 


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THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2009. 

REVIEW OF VA CHALLENGES 

WITNESSES 

JOHN D. DAIGH, JR., MD, CPA, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR 

HEALTH CARE INSPECTIONS 

RANDALL B. WILLIAMSON, DIRECTOR, HEALTH CARE, GAO 

VALERIE C. MELVIN, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND 

HUMAN CAPITAL ISSUES, GAO 

BELINDA J. FINN, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDITING 

MAUREEN T. REGAN, COUNSELOR TO THE INSPECTOR GENERAL 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. Good morning. I would like to begin 

the hearing and welcome our witnesses and everyone here in the 

room. 

When I had the privilege of becoming chairman of this subcommittee 2 years ago, I said I would have three goals in regard 

to veterans: one, that we would increase funding so that we provide 

the resources needed to provide the care and services that our veterans have earned by their service to the country; secondly, that 

we exercise more oversight of the V.A. and how those dollars are 

being spent; and, thirdly, that we work together with the V.A. and 

VSOs and others to find innovative new approaches to providing 

better care and get a bigger bang for the buck for our taxpayers. 

Today’s hearing is going to focus on the second of those three 

goals, our responsibility as a subcommittee to exercise oversight of 

the V.A. I am proud of the fact that, by working together on a bipartisan basis, we have increased V.A. funding in the last 14 

months by $17.7 billion, an unprecedented increase. 

But with that unprecedented increase comes responsibility to 

taxpayers and our veterans to see that those dollars are being 

spent wisely. So the specific purpose of this morning’s hearing is— 

with the help of our witnesses—to evaluate some of the challenges 

being faced by the V.A. 

We all know we could have an entire week of hearings on all the 

good things going on in the V.A., but today we are going to make 

improvements. We have got to focus honestly and directly on challenges. And so that is what we are here to try to accomplish. 

I want to welcome both the Office of Inspector General for the 

Department of Veterans Affairs and the United States Government 

Accountability Office here to be part of this panel. 

The hearing this morning will be conducted in two panels. The 

first will focus on V.A. health care, and the second will review information technology and other challenges of the V.A. 

Let me just say very briefly that, in recent years, Congress has 

provided unprecedented increases, as I mentioned, to the DepartVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00127 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ment of the V.A., $17.7 billion since the beginning of the 110th 

Congress. 

The Office of Inspector General and the GAO play a vital role in 

ensuring that these appropriated funds for the department are 

spent efficiently and for the highest priorities. Congress relies on 

both of these highly professional, nonpartisan offices to alert us to 

the problems with department operations and to recommend actions that can be taken to resolve these problems. 

I will be introducing our two witnesses in just a moment. But, 

again, welcome to our subcommittee. 

And with that, I would like to recognize our ranking member, 

Mr. Wamp, for any opening comments he would care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, the goals you stated are laudable. I 

think we are on the path to achieving those goals, and we have a 

great bipartisan team that is an absolute privilege and honor. 

I just want to say briefly before we hear the testimony and ask 

a lot of questions that need to be asked as we begin this budget 

cycle year and the appropriations that follow, the I.G. and the GAO 

are very helpful. And those statutes that created inspector generals 

and the fact that the GAO is a watchdog, birddog, the eyes and 

ears for the Congress, and it is very helpful. 

I appreciate the people that you represent when you come today 

that are doing the research and turning the rocks over to find out 

what is under them so that we can actually do our job more effectively, because this is the one piece of the congressional responsibility that neither party has a lot to brag about. The oversight of 

the Congress, in my opinion, in the modern era is not adequate. 

It is more complicated than it has ever been, so it is harder to 

oversee, but at the same time I think we are too inclined as a body 

to go do things and then just let it happen, as opposed to going 

back and deciding, are we still on the right road? Or do we even 

have any business doing this? 

We know we have business doing what you are here today to talk 

about. But the question is, is it done as efficiently as it possibly can 

be? And that is where you can really help us, because there are a 

lot of ways that we can tweak, improve, and rewrite language in 

our bill, which has to go forward. 

That is the difference between this committee and a lot of other 

committees. You might give testimony before the Veterans Affairs 

Committee and the legislation you are talking about never becomes 

law. Our bill will become law every year. 

Therefore, we really appreciate what you are bringing to it. I just 

want to re-state the value that it can bring to these professionals 

that will actually put our bill together soon, even though we don’t 

have much idea of what the President’s budget request says yet. 

That prescription is not there, but we have to go ahead and get 

started. I think I speak for both of us there. 

And with that, I look forward to the testimony and I yield back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I just want to thank you very much for your very 

important, insightful, and appropriate comments. 

Let me first introduce Dr. John Daigh. Dr. Daigh was appointed 

assistant inspector general for health care, health care inspections 


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in January of 2004 for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Colonel 

Daigh retired in 2001 after 27 years of active-duty service in the 

United States Army. 

And, Colonel, I thank you for that service, as well. 

Dr. Daigh earned his medical degree from the University of 

Texas Southwestern Medical School and wouldn’t want to suggest 

that is why he is here today, but it is good to have a fellow Texan 

here today. And he actually graduated prior to that from the 

United States Military Academy, class of 1974. 

Let me also add an extra note. I am proud that this subcommittee, against the wishes of most administrations, Democrat 

and Republican alike, are not always the first to volunteer a request for additional spending for inspector generals. 

We felt that this was awfully important, given the unprecedented 

new money that we have put into the V.A., that the V.A. inspector 

general’s office be adequately funded. So we actually plussed that 

up on a bipartisan basis. And I think that will help us in our oversight efforts. 

Mr. Randy Williamson is currently director in GAO’s health care 

team and is a staff member of GAO’s Seattle field office. He has 

been with GAO for over 40 years. He has managed audits covering 

a wide range of federal activities, most recently health care, transportation, and homeland security issues. 

He currently manages GAO’s portfolio of work on health care 

issues for veterans and members of the Armed Services, two very 

important responsibilities, Mr. Williamson, and we thank you for 

that. He attended the University of Washington, where he received 

a bachelor’s degree in accounting. 

To both of you, we will put your entire written testimony in the 

record, but we would like to ask you to take 5 minutes each to 

make your opening comments. I know there will be a lot of dialogue and questions and answers and discussion after your statement. 

Dr. Daigh. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN DAIGH

Dr. DAIGH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I would like to 

thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you the critical challenges facing the department. We appreciate your support of our efforts in the inspector general’s office. 

First, I would like to state that I believe that V.A. provides highquality health care to veterans. I do, however, believe, as I stated 

before the House Veterans Affairs Committee during the Marion, 

Illinois, hearings, that the internal controls do need to be improved 

to assure that there is a uniform high-quality benefit. Secondly, although our published work in this particular area of computerized 

medical records is limited, I am concerned that the rate of innovation of the V.A.’s computer medical records has not kept pace. 

And if that rate of innovation doesn’t improve, I think it will be 

progressively more difficult for V.A. to address the challenges of 

the future. 

Thirdly, I believe that it is beneficial to review the current management structure of VHA, which emphasizes that all health care 


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is local. This has resulted in the creation of business rules that 

vary too widely across the V.A. system. 

I would offer as an example of that policy, there are many copies 

of the medical record. It is not one set of code; it is 50 or 80 different sets of code. So to change the medical record or to innovate 

is really quite a difficult issue. 

The VISNs are all organized quite differently. Hospitals are organized quite differently so that, to make a change or to manage this 

enterprise there is a burden that is unnecessary. 

Lastly, I would urge support for a project that is known as the 

DOD/V.A. Reporting and Analysis Data Mart. This data mart 

works to combine data from both DOD and V.A. It is an outgrowth 

of the efforts on transition to care, which would create a universe 

of veteran data that when fully implemented, I think, would make 

it easier to derive innovative performance metrics, improve budgeting and forecast modeling, and analysis of V.A. and DOD business processes. 

And with that, I am pleased to be here today and glad to answer 

your questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Dr. Daigh. 

Mr. Williamson. 

STATEMENT OF RANDALL B. WILLIAMSON

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss V.A. healthrelated budget issues as you consider V.A.’s 2010 budget request. 

The V.A. faces major budget challenges as it prepares to meet 

the needs of both an aging veteran population, as well as a growing 

number of veterans who have served their country in Afghanistan 

and Iraq. 

V.A. faces a major budget challenge in its budget formulation 

process to accurately estimate the cost of providing quality services 

to our nation’s veterans. This will not be easy. By its very nature, 

budget formulation is challenging because it is based in part on imperfect data and assumptions, which is further complicated in the 

changing environment the V.A. faces. 

Budget execution will also be challenging. If the president’s proposed budget increases are enacted, V.A. faces a prospect of hiring 

thousands of new health care providers and support staff, serving 

new veteran populations, and expanding current services and developing new programs to better serve our veterans. 

As V.A. moves forward to address these challenges this year and 

beyond, it must do so thoughtfully and with diligence. Our work 

over the past 3 years has shown weaknesses in V.A.’s budget formulation and execution processes, and I would briefly like to discuss a few of these areas. Many of these issues involve V.A.’s longterm care budget. 

Regarding budget formulation, we reported in 2006 that V.A. 

made unrealistic assumptions about the impact of some of its policies, made inaccurate calculations, and did not obtain sufficient 

data for useful budget projections. 

These factors were largely responsible for V.A. having to request 

supplemental funding totaling $975 million in fiscal year 2005 and 


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amending its fiscal year 2006 budget to increase its request by almost $2 billion. 

Early this year, we again reported on budget formulation issues 

for the long-term care portion of V.A.’s budget. Specifically, in its 

2009 budget request, V.A. may have made unrealistic assumptions 

about the cost of both its nursing home and non-institutional longterm care. 

For example, V.A. projected that the cost of a day of non-institutional long-term care would not increase at all, when available data 

showed that it was increasing at a rate of 19 percent. Assumptions 

like these call into question the credibility of V.A.’s budget information. 

Budget execution has been a problem in certain respects, as well, 

and this area poses a major challenge for V.A., as it faces a potential budget increase of about 10 percent in fiscal year 2010. 

For example, our work in 2006 on spending for V.A.’s mental health initiatives shows that V.A. allocated $300 million in fiscal 

years 2005 and 2006 for new mental health initiatives, but the 

agency was not able to spend all of this in those years due to 

delays in both hiring staff and locating space. 

Similarly, in our recent report on long-term care, we found that 

V.A. assumed in its 2009 budget request that it would increase its 

non-institutional long-term care by 38 percent over the previous 

year, which means that V.A. would have to hire and train significant numbers of staff in a one-year period. V.A. did not explain 

how it planned to achieve this increase. 

Tracking the use of funds for new initiatives has also been an 

issue. We reported in 2006 that the V.A. did not have adequate 

methods for tracking spending on its mental health initiatives and 

could not determine whether monies allocated were actually spent 

on those initiatives. 

This ability to track funds, especially for new initiatives and priorities, is critical for effective and cost-efficient budget execution 

and congressional oversight. 

Mr. Chairman, as I close, I would like to re-emphasize again the 

importance for V.A. to adopt a thoughtful, well-planned approach 

to budget formulation and execution. To its credit, V.A. has implemented a number of our recommendations to address past budget 

issues, but continued vigilance is necessary. 

Anticipating and sufficiently planning for changes and 

proactively addressing workload and spending challenges are critical, including the need for forward-looking and careful strategic 

planning. 

Equally important is the need to keep the Congress well informed, including developing and reporting data that will help the 

Congress oversee and hold V.A. accountable for the funds entrusted 

to it to best serve our nation’s veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I would be happy 

to answer any questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

As we begin questions, members, let me say, out of respect to everyone’s schedules, since we have two panels this morning—and actually two hearings, with a second hearing this afternoon—I am 

going to go on and gavel us all to close when we hit 5 minutes. And 


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I will begin that process, asking staff to do that with me. And that 

way we can get through more rounds of questions. 

So if you are in the middle of an answer when I gavel, if you 

could finish that sentence. You can make it a long sentence—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. But—we would appreciate that. 

Mr. Williamson, let me begin by asking you, dealing with the 

issues, the problems that you mentioned, has GAO come out with 

specific recommendations about how to address those? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Yes, we have come up with a number of recommendations as far as long-term care programs, both in terms of 

strategic planning, as well as budget execution and formulation. 

One of the things that we found in looking in the strategic plan 

was that V.A. was not being totally transparent in looking at the 

total workload that it would serve by not fully communicating this 

information in its plan. 

Instead V.A. reported only workload for priority one vets that 

were going to receive nursing home care, but did not report the 

lion’s portion of the workload in long-term care which is discretionary. We think it is important that the entire workload be reported. We made a recommendation to do that. 

On the budget formulation side, the important thing there is to 

come up with good cost assumptions. The cost assumptions for both 

nursing home care and non-institutional care were far below the 

current experience of the V.A. So we made recommendations that 

V.A. use better estimates in that regard. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Very good. Thank you. 

And we welcome additional—information. I am sure staff has 

copies of some of your reports. We could take a look at those—— 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Okay. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Dr. Daigh, you talked about the management approach of the V.A., that all health care is local. I would like to 

apply that to mental health care. I understand each hospital has 

a certain culture and individuals, and you respect that, but nevertheless—and mental health care is an example—I am worried 

about, do we have the best practices, particularly since the mental 

health problem is going to be the signature challenge of the Iraq 

and Afghanistan wars, we deal with veterans health care needs? 

Are we making any progress in terms of trying to find best practices and then apply those throughout the V.A. health care system, 

and particularly on mental health treatment for our vets? 

Dr. DAIGH. Let me address that in a couple of thoughts here. 

First I think it is extremely difficult to treat PTSD, which would 

be the most common condition servicemen have. There is, in fact, 

a set of treatments that have been viewed as best practice in that 

data does support that they do work. 

We are saddened that these treatments have not been rolled out 

more aggressively and that the wars have gone on for a number of 

years and the treatment or the training of providers to provide that 

set of practices has not been rolled out as aggressively as we would 

like. 

Having said that, I think people who are psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers and properly trained in mental health 


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can deal with these issues effectively. I think adding that extra 

arrow into their quiver helps their ability to treat these patients. 

The new plan that V.A. has to roll out a mental health services 

standard set of programs across the system, I think, is a good effort. I think it sets a very high mark, in terms of having every hospital—being able to provide a standard package of care. 

I am concerned that it is aggressive. In my view, V.A. is comprised of a series of hospitals that are low-volume providers. It is 

difficult for a low-volume provider to economically provide a complex set of treatment packages where you have individuals dedicated to only one program out of many. In our reviews of the millennium health care programs, we found that larger places in big 

cities could easily tap into resources and—smaller places had a 

more difficult time. 

So I think there does need to be the flexibility to allow local providers to pick which of these plans they think would be better suited to their population. And I think the plan does address that in 

its formulation. 

The other question with PTSD that we have looked at is, are veterans being treated well for PTSD? And I will say that we think 

they are being treated well. We have looked at this at Temple. We 

have looked at this in a variety of hospitals across the system. 

And although we find problems occasionally with the delivery of 

the care, I think that V.A. is trying to make the right diagnosis on 

the clinical side and in VBA a different stovepipe effort has to deal 

with the benefit side. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Wamp. 

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Mr. WAMP. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have never seen a chairman 

gavel down like that. [Laughter.] 

Just keep on this line of thought about PTSD, because you talked 

about how hard it is to treat. How hard is it to actually bring mental health professionals in that have any experience in the battlefield or with multiple deployments, all of the things that we know 

contribute mightily to these mental health problems? 

It is one thing to know how to treat it, but I would think that 

it would be real important to also know what the veterans in some 

way, shape or form have been through. 

I have been worried about the rapid increase in funding because 

it doesn’t always translate into efficiency, especially when you 

spend money really fast like in a stimulus bill. You come back 12 

months later, 18 months later and say, ‘‘Man, this is ugly. You 

know, we are not efficiently spending the money.’’ 

In this case with this ramp-up, I noticed in 2008 $319 million directed at PTSD. You talk about the numbers in previous years but 

that is a lot of money. Do you think it is efficiently being spent? 

Do you think that these mental health care professionals are adequately meeting the needs of the veterans, and do they have the 

experience in the war, in serving? Where do they come from? 

How do you, over the next 3 to 5 years, keep ramping up? How 

would they, how should they ramp up their capabilities to meet 

these needs? The suicide rate is, like I said, the canary in the mine 


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here. We know that that is the stress point, so mental health is a 

big topic of discussion as we go through these hearings. 

How do we try to help the V.A. ramp up this piece? 

Yes, sir, Mr. Daigh. 

Dr. DAIGH. Well, sir, I would make the point that, although I 

agree that military PTSD, both whether it is sexual trauma or related to combat exposure, is by and large a military event, it is not 

totally a military event. 

For instance, police officers and firemen also, through the course 

of their life, see horrible things repeatedly. So the civilian trained 

and functioning psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers 

do have experience with the phenomena of PTSD that is not the 

same, but it is close. 

So I think one can then, where resources are constrained and 

where the population is relatively small, try to leverage people who 

are not fully employed by the V.A. to try to improve access. 

We have recently completed a report on access to mental health 

care in a state, which we plan to publish in the next week or 2. 

They leveraged community mental health care centers, I think, to 

great advantage. And I think it is possible to ramp up access to 

care, assuming that you have some metric to ensure that people 

see providers who are qualified to provide the care and you don’t 

rely totally on the fixed facilities the V.A. seems to have. 

So I think there are some ways one could improve access that 

would be helpful. 

As to the efficiency and dollar values you talk about, I am not 

able to address that issue, sir. 

VA MEDICAL PROCEDURE PROBLEMS

Mr. WAMP. I don’t know if I can get to this whole question in this 

5 minutes, but I will come back, but in Tennessee, we have had a 

problem that has come out, beginning February the 13th, about 

certain people in Murfreesboro’s being exposed to body fluids of 

other people during colonoscopies. 

And 6,400 people were kind of put on notice that they may have 

been affected. And now this week, Johnson City, another health facility, notified some people that it might have bled over into their 

facility, as well, where patients are being treated at both places. 

Is this a systemic problem? Is it being addressed? Another canary in the mind. When it happens in one system, you have got to 

say, ‘‘What do you know?’’ And so we can come back after 5 minutes, but let me know what you know. 

Dr. DAIGH. Yes, sir, I think that repeatedly in health care there 

are going to be instances where instruments are defective or procedures are defective and patients are exposed to environmental contaminants. 

So we recently reported in Las Vegas where, in doing 

colonoscopies that were purchased care, a huge number of people 

were exposed to hepatitis and potentially to AIDS. There have been 

other instances where specific instruments were not—either the instructions to clean them were not appropriate or the cleaning process done at the hospital broke down. 

V.A., through their patient safety program, aggressively tries to 

pre-emptively deal with these issues. When they find a problem, 


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they notify veterans and try to get it addressed. In the last couple 

of years, the SPD—that would be the rules that pertain to how one 

cleans instruments and uses the infectious disease protocols to ensure that sort of thing doesn’t occur—have been rewritten and 

strengthened. 

So I think the problem is important. It will not go away. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Dr. Daigh. 

Members, since this is our second hearing, I have incorporated 

some of the suggestions made at our first hearing. So let me just 

quickly reiterate what we are going to do in terms of the list of who 

asks questions. 

Those members that are here when we gavel the meeting into 

order will be recognized based on seniority, rotating between Republicans and Democrats. After the meeting has begun, members 

will be recognized based on the order in which they showed up— 

again, rotating between Republicans and—and Democrats. 

With that, I would like to recognize Mr. Salazar. 

COMMUNITY-BASED OUTREACH CLINICS

Mr. SALAZAR. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now I know the 

importance of getting here 15, 20 minutes early. [Laughter.] 

I do appreciate it. But as many of you know, my district is one 

of the largest congressional districts in the country. It is all of the 

western and southern part of Colorado. Much of the services provided to veterans is in CBOCs, some that are contract-based 

CBOCs, some that are V.A.-run CBOCs. 

Can you tell me—— 

Mr. DICKS. What is a CBOC? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Community-based outreach clinics. They are small 

clinics that are—— 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Don’t have—with very basic services to veterans. 

Do you know or have you done any research as to who does a better job? Is it the contract-based CBOCs or V.A.-run CBOCs? 

Dr. DAIGH. We think that is a very important question. And we 

brought that to the attention of this subcommittee last year, and 

we have been provided money to take a look at some of those 

issues. 

We will begin to review CBOCs like we currently review hospitals—and we will specifically have sorted CBOCs into those that 

are contract-run and those that are not contract-run. There are 

about 800 CBOCs nationwide. 

We have sampled them. And we will try to come back with an 

answer to—both on the quality side and on the certain aspects of 

the budgetary side of that with an answer to that question. 

So I cannot answer it right now, but we will have reports this 

year that directly address it. 

Mr. SALAZAR. What percentage are contract-run versus—do you 

know that? 

Dr. DAIGH. If you will allow me to—I think about a third or less 

are contract. Most are V.A.-run. I can get you the abstract data 

with numbers on that, if you would like that—get that back to you, 

sir. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you. Appreciate that. 


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[CLERK’S NOTE.—The responses are included with the questions 

for the record.] 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman, so somebody else can ask. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

BUDGET ESTIMATES

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me ask—you know, Mr. Williamson, when you talked about 

the—the V.A. and the budget process, it sounds like, you hit and 

miss from time to time. It seems to me you have got—to have the 

right kind of budget, you need—first, you have got to have the 

plan. Then you have got to have the correct estimates. And then 

you have got to timely execute it. 

And it sounds like they have been missing on, you know, some, 

if not all of those. What, like, when you sit down and talk to them, 

whether they underestimate it or overestimate, what has been the 

reaction? And do you see improvement from year to year? Or do 

you find that sometimes the same mistakes get made? Or are they 

just—is it just really difficult to do that? 

I mean, how does it fit in, when you sit down and say, ‘‘Here is 

a better way’’? What is their attitude toward that? And do you find 

that the correction is being made? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. The V.A. reacts positively to our recommendations. But, it seems to be a little different situation every time. 

Some of the answers we get, in terms of why they underestimated or why they came up with unrealistic cost estimates, for example, the answer we get would be, well, we wanted to be conservative. Well, that wasn’t a very satisfying answer to me, because, 

you know, in the face of much higher estimates or experiences they 

have had, so there must be, you know, some other things going on 

that they are not telling us. 

I think the big thing in terms of planning is, whenever you get 

a fairly large infusion of money, it is very important that you have 

good goals and priorities ahead of time. And that is why strategic 

planning is so important, in terms of setting the priorities of the 

agency, the goals of the agency, setting strategies. 

And we haven’t seen—at least in the long-term care budget—any 

thoughtful consideration of that. And I think, in a larger sense, as 

we harken back to our work on the mental health report in 2006, 

the same kind of thing. 

They decided to allocate money, $300 million in those 2 years, 

2005 and 2006, and yet didn’t really have a good idea and didn’t 

really carry through with distributing that money to their VISNs 

and to their health care facilities. 

When we did that work, a lot of the VISNs were not aware of 

the fact they were supposed to use those allocations for mental 

health. And as V.A. allocates money, it is really important that 

they communicate between headquarters, the VISNs, and their 

medical centers. And sometimes that communication is lacking. 

We point those things out, and they are very receptive, and they 

fix them, but other things then occur. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, like on the—what you are talking about, 

discretionary care and kind of the long-term care, that what they 


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call discretionary seems to me it is really not really discretionary. 

It is part of the long-term care, but it is maybe an effort to shorten 

the stay to save money. 

When you point that out, do they recognize—I mean, that is like, 

fudging the numbers to say, well, this is—we are going to have a 

short-term stay, but the long-term stay is discretionary, but it really is not discretionary, because it is part of some, acute situation 

that is going on. 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. What I meant by that was that V.A. is only required by law to serve priority one vets in their long-term care facilities, but most of the vets they serve are not priority one. Twothirds or more are lower priorities. 

So—and they only feel responsible for reporting the priority ones. 

And it is useful information to you as you deliberate. You need to 

know the total—you know, the total workload. And so we pointed 

it out. And they are going to—well, we don’t know what they are 

going to do yet, because while they agreed with our conclusions, 

they have not yet responded to our recommendations on that. 

IDENTITY THEFT

Mr. CRENSHAW. I want to ask about identity theft, because I noticed that was something you are focusing on. And we used to see 

it in the big sense, like the big massive loss of data, when that 

laptop got stolen. 

But how is that working? In terms of individual identity theft, 

how do you find out when that takes place? Is it very common? 

How is the V.A. doing, trying to protect against that? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. —anything about that? The identity theft? 

Dr. DAIGH. I am unable to comment on how V.A. is doing. My 

office investigated Birmingham—one of the larger data losses. I 

would just say that I think they provide the ability for you to check 

whether or not your identity has been stolen through civilian providers of financial information, but I am unaware of it. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Got you. So not a great, big problem right now 

on an individual basis that you have seen? 

Dr. DAIGH. I have no information. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I got you. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Dicks. 

VA AUDITS

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we appreciate your 

fairness in applying the rules. I just wanted to say that. 

Let me, first of all—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. I appreciate the gentleman’s suggestions. 

Mr. DICKS. Since we have a University of Washington alumnus 

here, I want to—Bremerton—this is too good to be true. 

Let me ask you this. We have—on my subcommittee, we have 

been checking on whether an agency can pass an audit. Can the 

V.A. pass an audit on how they spend the money at the end of the 

year, financially? 

Ms. FINN. And I can tell you that V.A. has received— 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Ms. Finn, for the record and for the transcription, 

could you please identify yourself? 

Mr. DICKS. Maybe you ought to just come up to the— 

Mr. EDWARDS. And maybe come up and sit here? 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. FINN. Okay. 

Thanks. I am Belinda Finn. I am the assistant I.G. for audits at 

the V.A. 

The V.A. has successfully passed and received a clean opinion on 

their financial statements for about the last 10 years. 

Mr. DICKS. Good. 

Ms. FINN. It doesn’t mean they don’t have problems. They have 

three material weaknesses, one over their I.T. systems and their 

security, their need for better financial systems, and a third weakness that I cannot recall at this moment. 

Mr. DICKS. Don’t they also have a problem communicating with 

the Department of Defense health care, that that is still an issue? 

Ms. FINN. They do, but that is not a financial statement. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay, that is a separate—— 

Ms. FINN. Yes, weakness. 

Mr. DICKS. That is a separate problem? 

Ms. FINN. Yes. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, for the record, why don’t you give us—and you 

can figure out what the third one was. 

Ms. FINN. I will do that. 

Mr. DICKS. Yes. 

TELEMEDICINE

Mr. DICKS. Dr. Daigh, let me ask you this question. I have been 

promoting this idea, and I am having a hard time with the Army 

getting this done. Now, maybe the V.A. could help them. 

When these kids come back—and this is not just for the Army 

and the Marine Corps, but this also could be for the Guard Reserve, the National Guard—we have had people come in who have 

this idea of online psychiatric care. In other words, with the concern people have about privacy—and even you could maybe even do 

this in country. If they had a problem, there could be a network 

of psychiatrists that they could go online and talk to and to try to 

help relieve their problems. 

And with this escalation in suicides, it seems to me that something needs to be done. Now, the Army is working its way through 

this methodically, and it is going to take 4 months to have a competition—an RFI on this. 

I just wonder, is there any way we can figure out to do a pilot 

project or something to see if this works while they are working out 

these competition rules and things of that nature? What do you 

think of that? 

Dr. DAIGH. By online, you mean telephone or do you mean—— 

Mr. DICKS. No, on computer. 

Dr. DAIGH. On computer. 

Mr. DICKS. On the Internet. 

Dr. DAIGH. Okay. So there—— 

Mr. DICKS. And this has been done in some places already, but 

it is not being done on a systematic basis. 


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Dr. DAIGH. Right. So there is a nationwide V.A. suicide hotline 

which we were advocates of and—has been very successful. Online, 

if you mean video, would—under another rubric would be sort of 

mental video telehealth is a standard way that professionals provide medical consultation either directly to patients or to other providers with less experience. 

So, for instance, you might have an expert in—a psychiatrist sitting in a desk who you could go and project his image and conversation to a social worker at some other location with the patient, and you could talk about a mental health issue or you could 

talk about a skin disease or you could talk about a variety of 

issues. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, what about the troop—the person who is having 

mental problems, and he wants to—and maybe he wants to do this 

confidentially, can he talk to a psychiatrist and get some help? 

Dr. DAIGH. I am always concerned about trying to understand 

the emotion that is in speech and information that is transferred. 

Mr. DICKS. Yes. 

Dr. DAIGH. So I would think that either the telephone or seeing 

them and hearing them would convey a lot more information that 

would be useful to the mental health provider than simply a chat 

room or an Internet conversation. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, maybe you could—could that be done? I mean, 

could you do it so you could have the conversation on a video basis? 

Dr. DAIGH. I believe that the military currently does it all the 

time now—— 

Mr. DICKS. Yes, I mean—— 

Dr. DAIGH. —across the world to Walter Reed. The V.A. does it 

or telehealth in—for example and many other states. So the answer 

is, yes, I think it can be done, and I think fairly easily. 

Most people, if you have a computer and you have a video camera, then I would think you could do that. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. An important line of questioning. 

Mr. Berry. 

COMMUNITY-BASED OUTPATIENT CLINICS

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As you addressed Mr. Salazar’s question about CBOCs and outside contractors, I would think it should include a comparison 

about how small business set-asides that get these bids, that basically have no expertise or background in health care, get a bid and 

see how the care—which is all any of us care about on this committee—of course, we have all got to be concerned about money— 

but is to see that our veterans get the best possible care that they 

can get. 

And I would encourage you to compare that in the study that you 

do. And if you have any information about it at this point, I would 

like to know about it. But I would like to see that done. 

Dr. DAIGH. That is not an element in our current plan, but we 

will look—I will go back. And when we have the data—quality of 

care between those that are contracted and those CBOCs that are 

not contracted, we will look at that and get that back to you. 


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Mr. BERRY. Okay, thank you. 

Dr. DAIGH. It may not be—since the samples weren’t selected to 

answer that question, it may not be statistically significant, but I 

will give you the data we have on it. 

Mr. BERRY. Okay. 

That is all, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Berry. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Chairman. 

Mr. Daigh, I want to just thank you for your public service. I 

think it is—we are very fortunate to have you with a medical program and CPA background being able to do this. And I think with 

this committee we are almost—we like to have these hearings in 

a conversational mode so that we can really kind of fix things that 

are broken. 

Do you have a chance—I mean, you are the inspector for, you 

know, health care inspections, but in that you get to see how things 

are—as you said in your opening comments. I think the policy of 

our committee—at least I have been saying ever since I have been 

in this committee—that our goal is to leave no veteran behind. 

My hope and feeling is that if there is any model in government 

that could really reach out and provide all those kinds of services 

that are needed to leave no person behind, no veteran behind, that 

it is the Veterans Administration. 

I am glad Mr. Wamp is here, because he may be a governor of 

a state, and it seems to me the Veterans Administration can be 

modeling for a lot of people, a lot of states, a lot of interests in this 

whole health care reform, which is also, hopefully, mental health 

reform, so that we have an accessibility of services. 

HOMELESS VETERANS

And I loved your statement that all health care is local. In that, 

I have lots of questions, but I am really concerned about what we 

are doing with the homeless veterans. We heard that we have 

250,000 homeless veterans that are sleeping on the streets of 

America. That is a lot. And we ought to be, as a country, embarrassed. 

For some of them, there are no facilities. We have been trying 

to allow the civilian community to be contracted, particularly with 

PTSD, for local psychologists who are licensed and can treat these 

folks, so that the veterans don’t have to go a lot of miles to get access to a clinic or a hospital. 

How we can close these gaps and what things we can do? I have 

a Vietnam veterans association that has received a bunch of houses 

from the closure of Fort Ord that are rundown and not up to code. 

They actually have homeless families that they are trying to put 

in these houses. And we don’t have any—money to rehab the places 

and bring them up to code. 

How do we, in your position, bring the recommendations to how 

to close these gaps so that we can really have a much better, seamless delivery of care? You are pioneering. You are pioneering the 

medical records. You are pioneering these clinics and these community-based clinics. 


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I think you are really pioneering a lot of things that the Department of Defense doesn’t do, nor does the other deliveries of health 

care that we have in the U.S. 

So in your professional role, do you see a bigger picture of how 

we might be able to address the gaps? 

Dr. DAIGH. Yes, sir, I do. The last effort that I asked for support 

for was the DOD/V.A. reporting and analysis tool. And I think if 

one understands who veterans are and understands their characteristics and where they live and has access and understands what 

their mental health needs or physical health care needs are, then 

one can begin actually to look at the V.A. care that is available, 

where they access the V.A. system. 

You can access and see where they access DOD. You could see 

where they access the Medicare or Medicaid, where they are getting their care from. You can begin to see if there are other HHS 

clinics out there that they are getting their care from. 

So you can build a picture of where they are getting care. And 

you can also build a picture of where they are not getting care and 

where you need care or you need to procure care of some type. 

Mr. FARR. We are not doing that? 

Dr. DAIGH. I think that we are currently focused on and the 

metrics we submit with the budget are focused on transactions. If 

you show up at this hospital and ask for care, were you provided 

it? Not, if you live on the other side of the mountain and you are 

the same person are you provided that care? 

Mr. FARR. Thank you— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. 

Welcome. I know the chairman got into this at the outset, but 

I would like to revisit it, and that is the standards. I am enormously impressed and what is so impressive about the V.A. is that 

it is the biggest public health system we have in our country and 

that it has scale and that we can measure outcomes on a scale 

basis and take what works and bring it to scale. 

But we have it for MRSA. We have it for cancer. We have it for 

every illness under the sun, but we don’t have it for mental illnesses. 

Now, the big debate now in the mental health community is between clinical outcomes and functional outcomes. And the real 

meat and potatoes here are functional outcomes. You know, we can 

debate all day about clinical outcomes, but we know what functional outcomes are. We know what—people can get up and go to 

work, hold down a job, not drink as much, be able to stay compliant with their meds. 

There are pretty basic measures. And those aren’t measures that 

are hard to get. We can get them from the NIDA, NIAAA, and 

NIH. And until we employ some basic measuring sticks, we are not 

going to know whether your methadone clinic or your out-patient 

clinic in Chicago or your PTSD clinic combined with your methadone clinic in Houston or your Providence V.A. and whatever it is 

doing with their vet-to-vet program is, which program has had 

more success in terms of getting veterans back on their feet, going 


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to the local community college, and having the greatest success 

academically and in the working world, so forth and so on. 

So I can’t implore you enough. We have got to lay down standards. As, you know, rudimentary as they may initially be, we have 

got to start somewhere. And I am wondering, why haven’t we? 

Dr. DAIGH. Do you mean standards—population at risk or do 

you—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Standards by which to measure how we are doing. 

We are never going to get anywhere knowing what is working and 

what is not working out there if we don’t know first what the objective measuring stick is, what we are after. 

Dr. DAIGH. I would agree with you that the current metrics that 

are used and submitted with the budget are usually transactional 

or process metrics, which I agree are what you are against. We are 

looking for, you know, functional outcome and—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right, functional. 

Dr. DAIGH. So what I am suggesting is that, again, if you know 

who the population is, one can have outcome measures to apply to 

a population to see if folks are going where you would like them 

to go, the outcomes are what you would like. 

For instance, there might be a unit that comes back from Iraq 

that decides to demobilize in a way that they provide specific training to their soldiers or do specific things to try to ensure that they 

don’t have PTSD or that—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right. 

Dr. DAIGH [continuing]. Outcome. And there might be another 

unit that had similar activity that didn’t take those steps or took 

a different set of steps. So if you know who was there and you then 

can go and look and see several years down the road what the outcome was, one can look back and see if one idea of how to deal with 

this on the battlefield or after the battlefield made a difference. 

So I am completely on board and advocating that this sort of 

data be put together so one can do the kind of analysis you are suggesting to ferret out which ideas seem to be working the best. 

Mr. KENNEDY. So speaking of audits, we need to be tracking all 

the different data that is being—and employ it in terms of how it 

is being collected, so we know what is working and what is not 

working in a manageable way. And how do we propose—how do 

you propose we get about doing that? 

Dr. DAIGH. In my office, I have to rely on psychiatrists or mental 

health professionals to identify what they think the best outcome 

metric would be for a mental health issue or on a cardiologist, for 

example, but DOD and V.A. are currently working to try to get 

this—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Okay. 

Dr. DAIGH [continuing]. Together. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, that is what, Mr. Chairman, we need to 

work on, bring the mental health and DOD folks up here and get 

them to answer what they are doing in terms of mental health 

metrics. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Kennedy, may I interrupt? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Sure. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I am going to stick to the 5-minute rule on this 

round, but we are going to go directly into a second round. 


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Mr. KENNEDY. Okay. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And recognize members. And let me just say, 

members, on a second round, the policy will be we will recognize 

members by seniority, as long as they were here when the second 

round began. 

So we will go with Mr. Wamp, and then we will go with Mr. 

Farr, Mr. Salazar, Mr. Kennedy, and then Mr. Berry. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. It may be Farr, Kennedy, Salazar, Berry, Salazar, in 

that order. 

Anyway, and this will be my last question for these two, because 

I know we have got to move on with the other panel in this. 

COMMUNITY-BASED OUTPATIENT CLINICS

The 30,000-foot view, Mr. Chairman, where I wonder often, having been in Congress for over 14 years and really worked at expanding our out-patient clinics’ capabilities. Watching the whole 

CBOC process evolve, and now super-CBOCs, and watching the 

V.A. stiff-arm contracting care as much as they could, and certainly 

any kind of demonstrations where they might contract with local 

health care providers for in-patient care, which they have resisted 

I think all across the country, but certainly in my area they have. 

We don’t have a hospital within 2 hours of where I live. So the 

CBOC becomes more and more important. And super-CBOCs can 

really fill that gap of care. 

So my question is, do you think from your studies—and every 

year we need to check—are the trends towards super-CBOCs and 

trying to keep as much care available to the veteran, without having to drive 2 or 3 hours to get in-patient care, is a good trend? 

I thought when care was the big thing that we were somehow 

going to take some of these older facilities in the Northeast that 

are not fully utilized, and maybe close them and redirect some of 

the resources to where the veterans had actually moved, which in 

many cases was the warmer climate where there might be a little 

water. A lot of it is in my backyard, but I haven’t seen that happen. 

And I just wonder, are there regions of the country that are more 

efficient than others? Are there regions where we are spending 

money and doing things better? Or is it a uniform outcome across 

the country, I.G. and then GAO? 

Dr. DAIGH. I would like to try to answer your question this way. 

One of the issues that arose after some adverse events in the last 

year or 2, where in trying to provide procedures at relatively small 

hospitals there were some catastrophes, V.A. has agreed to our recommendation to determine what procedures can be done at each 

hospital by the level of staffing that they have. 

So they have gone through and identified what sort of care they 

have for pre-op, op, post-op, and then ward care, if you will. And 

they have gone through and looked at the surgical procedures that 

they have done and categorized them into sort of three groups, you 

know, relatively straightforward, and complicated, and very complicated. 

So they have agreed with us that there are certain things that 

you just shouldn’t do at a relatively small facility. So I think that 

the push to do too much at a facility, hopefully, will not occur, and 


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therefore then one will have to come up with strategies to deal 

with patients who are distant from a CBOC, which has, frankly, 

you know, capability, but limited capability, or hospitals, which all 

have limited capability, depending—you know, there is always another bigger hospital someplace that can do more. 

So I am hoping that the V.A. will then be able to arrive at some 

practical solutions to address that issue that you are talking about. 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. A couple of issues you raised are interesting. 

I think, in the discussion of CBOCs, we shouldn’t forget vet centers, because for mental health issues especially, vet centers are 

the entry point for more and more vets these days. I think close 

to 65 million vets a year use these facilities. 

And I just recently visited a couple vet centers in Southern California. And I think there are a number of issues relating to staffing, to training, especially for things like military sexual trauma, 

whether these folks are being adequately trained for all of these 

things that veterans are presenting, I think, is a question. 

The other issue you mentioned, in terms of cost comparison, V.A. 

has in place performance metrics which allow them to look at how 

efficient each hospital throughout the country—each of their hospitals are. And I think there is a question of whether the headquarters or the VISNs are actually looking at that data, looking at 

indicators, that maybe there are some outliers, and really saying, 

‘‘Why is that happening? Is there anything we can do about it?’’ 

I mean, some of it might just be due to the fact that health care 

costs are higher in certain locations. That is certainly true. But I 

would want to look at that process and something that we are interested in, in the work we are doing. 

Mr. WAMP. How many veterans you say go to VA medical facilities? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. I think we are close to 65 million. 

Mr. WAMP. You mean—— 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. I mean—— 

Mr. WAMP. I heard that, and I said there are only, I think, 23 

million—so I was wondering where this number came from? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. That is 65 million outpatient visits for VA 

healthcare. That is the visits, yes. 

Mr. WAMP. I understand. But I knew it wasn’t 65 million. 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. No, no, no, I know. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. I yield back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS

Mr. FARR. There are 23 million veterans? Do we have the capacity to have them all in a computer? I mean, you have to know that 

they are a veteran if somebody comes in. There has to be records 

of it, right? 

Dr. DAIGH. There are records of that. 

Mr. FARR. How do we develop an individual plan for each veteran, for what the options are? 

Dr. DAIGH. There are—— 

Mr. FARR. We want them to know that, hey, you are a veteran, 

you are in a priority. You are this priority. Oh, by the way, even 


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in the county that you live in or community that you live in, there 

are these resources available and in the region there are others. 

Because what you are saying is, all we are doing is keeping track 

of sort of a check-off system, if somebody enters by asking for services. And we count the ones that are using the services. We are not 

keeping track of the unmet needs of veterans. 

Dr. DAIGH. I have probably said it a little too harshly. I think 

that there is a view of all the veterans, and all veterans need care, 

but if you get down to the actual metrics that people apply, most 

are transactional. So there are limitations in going backward where 

data is not as well computerized as we would like, pay records, for 

instance, so you can identify people. 

But if you look at the different computer systems, the amount of 

data available degrades fairly quickly once you get back into the 

1990s, and you can build it back, but only at the current level we 

are with limits. 

So I agree with you that we should try to identify where our 

folks are, what their priorities are, and then try to assist them to 

get the care they need. 

Mr. FARR. The reason I am asking is, I am on the Agricultural 

Committee, and we are looking at the school lunch programs, and 

I found out from California that we can find out where all the poor 

kids live who would qualify for the school lunch program better 

than the method the schools use. That method essentially requires 

the parent to come in and say, well, yes, I am poor, I want my kid 

to have a lunch. And I thought, well, we can do that by using the 

Medicare and census data. 

Dr. DAIGH. Yes, sir, there—— 

Mr. FARR. It tells you exactly where these people live and who 

they are. We need to do that with veterans. I mean, we are all so 

insular, and we can look at all these other resources that governments have, whether they are federal, state or local, but we have 

got that kind of data now. We just haven’t arrayed that data in a 

way that makes it helpful. 

It is also not only the data, but are there, do we know, some 

proven results? What does it take to get the treatment you need? 

To make sure that you have some functional functionality. It seems 

to me that it is really a matter of knowing how good our records 

are and then using other resources that the federal and state governments have to put a list together—If it were good for one veteran in one community, it would be good for all the veterans in 

that community. 

All health care is local. 

Dr. DAIGH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. What is that health care? 

Dr. DAIGH. Well, sir, we are going to publish a report where we 

took the population of veterans living in a state, sampled them, 

geocoded where they lived, geocoded all the care providers that 

V.A. owned, V.A. contracted with, and that V.A. had fee basis—— 

Mr. FARR. Yes. 

Dr. DAIGH [continuing]. And then calculated drive time for all 

those folks, breaking the care up into those folks who could write 

prescriptions or those folks who could offer counseling—— 

Mr. FARR. Yes. 


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Dr. DAIGH [continuing]. And then looked at what that care in 

that state looks like. So I am right there with you. I think that is 

exactly—— 

Mr. FARR. How long is it going to take to do that? 

Dr. DAIGH. I am going to publish that in a couple of weeks for 

one state. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Will you bring those back to this committee—— 

Dr. DAIGH. I would be—— 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. What those recommendations are, as you 

look at that data? 

Dr. DAIGH. I will. And I think that data exists and that it can 

be used to address needs for different areas. So the needs of this 

state might, in fact, be different than the needs of another. 

So I am right there with you. I encourage that. We have begun 

to look more at populations, at the needs of populations, driving 

down to individual care plans, which is what you are saying. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Just one brief question. You mentioned that the 

V.A. had different codes for their electronic medical records and 

how they enter information, one of you did, I think. Have they 

taken your recommendations as to how they can—— 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. In terms of medical—— 

Mr. SALAZAR [continuing]. Record. Isn’t that what you said? I 

thought that is what you had said, that they had different codes 

as to how they entered different material into the electronic medical records. Maybe—— 

Dr. DAIGH. My understanding is that there is a standard system 

of codes used across country for government and non-government 

to describe the activities in a hospital. And the V.A. uses those 

standard codes in their medical records to define what care was 

provided. 

Now, there might be many, many codes in medical records, so I 

am not sure exactly what—— 

Mr. SALAZAR. But didn’t you say that that was one of the weaknesses—— 

Dr. DAIGH. What I was talking about, sir, was innovation in the 

medical records. For example, we went back and looked at how 

V.A. compared in their treatment of patients with deep venous 

thrombosis, so, for instance, you are admitted to the hospital. You 

have a broken leg. You are at risk of getting a clot that would then 

travel to your lungs. 

Are the outcomes for that specific entity for which there are 

standards of who should be anticoagulated, you know, out there, 

how did the V.A. compare? We found that the V.A. compared well 

with the rest of the country. Their rate of deep venous thrombosis, 

embolisms about the same. 

Where we had a problem was that the medical record, if it were 

more intelligent, could say, ‘‘You are admitted with this diagnosis. 

Has this medication been ordered?’’ So there are medical record 

systems that have that business intelligence in it. V.A.’s doesn’t. So 

there is frustration by the physicians in the field that that innovaVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00146 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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tion hasn’t been put into it already, since everyone—since that 

would be one of the things that you would like to see. 

All I am saying is that that rate of innovation, the way that the 

medical record can change and keep up with science needs—is important. And if that rate of innovation doesn’t keep up, then V.A. 

is going to fall behind. 

So I bring that to you as a risk for which I apologize I don’t have 

a lot of work, other than what people tell me and this one piece 

on deep venous thrombosis. But I think that is a very important 

issue. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. Berry. 

COMMUNITY-BASED OUTPATIENT CLINICS

Mr. BERRY. Thank you. I will be very brief. And I thank all three 

of you for being here and for the work you do. 

Back to the CBOCs and the comparison study you are doing and 

all that. How long will it take to complete? 

Dr. DAIGH. Well, we will begin actually going to CBOCs in April. 

We will, at the end of the fiscal year, roll up the data that we have 

in a cumulative report. We will report on the quality of care at 

each of the CBOCs on an every-other-month basis, and so it will 

be four or five CBOCs that will be visited. 

And then there will be a report on the financial issue of contracting that will—to be honest, I haven’t figured out whether it is 

going to be a separate report or part of the roll-up report at the 

end of this fiscal year. 

Mr. BERRY. It seems to me that it might be a reasonable thing 

to do to suspend further solicitations until we have the results of 

that report. 

Dr. DAIGH. I can’t comment, sir. I have no data. And—— 

Mr. FARR. Can I follow up on that? Is this part of the other alternative way to get private financing through the health care center 

for facilities program, where you have a private developer build the 

facilities and then lease them back? Is that part of that? 

Mr. BERRY. No, not that I am aware of, Sam. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

TELEMEDICINE

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Let me just finish with one quick question. And let me say, also, 

I know we have just scratched the surface. I know a number of 

members will have additional questions in writing to send to you. 

Let me just ask—one better use of psychiatrists, psychologists, 

we have in the V.A. is the use of telemedicine. Is there any other 

way we can bring more psychiatrists and psychologists into the— 

tremendous competition—is out there in the marketplace. You have 

the private sector and the V.A. 

Anything we can do with loan forgiveness for young psychiatrists 

coming out of medical schools, anything else that either of you 

would recommend? 

Dr. DAIGH. I haven’t looked at that issue. I think you would be 

better to ask the mental health professionals at V.A. as to what difVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00147 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ficulty they have hiring and what they think would work. We simply have not addressed that in our work. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. Williamson. 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. No, I—we haven’t addressed that, either. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Let me just conclude then to allow time for 

the second panel by thanking both of you. 

You know, I know that, given your responsibility, sometimes you 

are probably welcomed as warmly as a bank auditor by bank executives. But you are genuinely welcome to this subcommittee, and 

we see you as real partners and carrying out a responsibility that 

I think we all want to see Congress do more of, and that is the 

oversight responsibility. 

I am so impressed by the experience and the commitment that 

I see with your two positions and those others testifying with us 

in just a few moments. It is obvious to me it is a genuine commitment to help our agencies be better served, in this particular case, 

help our veterans receive the care that they have earned and so 

very much deserve. 

Thank you for the important role you play. Please consider yourselves partners with this committee. You are welcome to contact us 

at any point. From here forward, you would be returning our call. 

And so work closely with our staff on ideas and recommendations 

you have about how we can address some of the challenges that 

you have outlined today or challenges that we didn’t have time to 

get into today. 

Thank you, Dr. Daigh. 

Thank you, Mr. Williamson. 

Members, I would like to call the second panel forward. And we 

have three witnesses in that panel. 

As they come forward, let me just say that the goal of this panel 

is to address issues regarding I.T. interoperability, the implementation of the new G.I. Bill. I think we are facing some real challenges 

trying to meet the deadlines there—issues regarding auditing, contracting, and claims processing, recognizing that the backlog of veterans waiting to have their claims processed has been a major 

issue of veterans and veterans organizations. 

To address these issues, we have three witnesses today. First, as 

introduced previously, Ms. Belinda Finn is with the Office of Inspector General. She was appointed assistant inspector general for 

auditing in the V.A. in January of 2007. 

Prior to joining the V.A., Ms. Finn was a deputy assistant inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security. She has also 

worked as an accountant and arbiter with the Department of 

Treasury, the Department of Defense I.G., the Department of Energy I.G., and the U.S. House of Representatives I.G., making very 

well the point to her service that I was just trying to make about 

the degree of professionalism and experience in these positions 

with inspector generals positions is very impressive to me. 

Thank you, Ms. Finn, for being here. 

Ms. Maureen Regan, welcome, Ms. Regan, to our subcommittee. 

Ms. Regan was appointment counselor to the inspector general in 

1989, once again showing a deep depth of experience and commitment to your position. She began her government career in 1984 


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as a staff attorney with the Department of Veterans Affairs Office 

of District Counsel in Washington, D.C. Ms. Regan is a graduate 

of Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University here in 

Washington. 

Again, and welcome. 

Our third witness this morning is Ms. Valerie Melvin. 

Ms. Melvin, welcome to our subcommittee. 

She is the director of information management and human capital issues with the GAO’s information technology team and is primarily responsible for issues concerning health information technology and I.T. human capital. And we have a lot of issues to discuss on that front. 

Ms. Melvin has led studies of information technology management issues at several agencies, including the V.A., the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration. Ms. Melvin is a graduate of the University of Maryland, with a bachelor of science degree in business administration 

and a master’s degree in management information systems. 

Again, I thank the three of you for being here today. And I would 

like to recognize you for opening statement of approximately 5 minutes. Have you selected any order? 

Ms. Finn? Well, let’s just begin with you, and then Ms. Regan, 

and then to Ms. Melvin. 

STATEMENT OF BELINDA J. FINN

Ms. FINN. Thank you, Chairman Edwards. 

And thank you to the members of the subcommittee for having 

me here this morning. I am pleased to be here. 

I am going to be speaking on the issues related to the VBA’s 

claims processing problems, their progress in implementing the 

new G.I. Bill, educational benefits, and finally the challenges involved in spending the stimulus funds and our oversight of those 

funds. 

My office has been tasked with monitoring V.A.’s progress in implementing the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Act, now basically 

called the new G.I. Bill. 

We have found—V.A. has made some progress in the last few 

months, in that they weren’t doing very much at all before. But 

they still have several challenges before they can get to a successful implementation. 

These include the inherent difficulty of fielding a new software, 

limited I.T. development resources, developing staffing requirements, and a really aggressive project schedule. 

Elsewhere in VBA, they are facing the challenge of large backlogs of pending claims for compensation and benefits. This has 

been a challenge for many years. Increases in funding at V.A. have 

enabled them to hire additional claims examiners, but this presents 

its own challenge in developing a productive workforce. 

We are currently working on a review where we are looking at 

claims over 365 days old, and we believe we will identify a number 

of ways that V.A. can help to improve their processing time over 

their claims. We expect to issue the final report on that work over 

the summer. 


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We are currently also standing up an inspections unit that will 

be performing systematic reviews at individual regional offices. Our 

charge there is to review operations and the accuracy of claims 

processing to determine how well the R.O.s are providing accurate 

and timely benefits to veterans. 

In the I.T. area, I know your main focus is the sharing of information. I work in the area of I.T. security and management at V.A. 

V.A., of course, faces continuing challenges related to I.T. security 

and the management of their projects. 

Although the consolidation of functions and activities under the 

CIO has addressed some security issues, we continue to find problems related to access controls, configuration management, change 

management, and service continuity. 

We are also concerned greatly about the management of I.T. capital investment, because these projects present great risks and can 

become costly, risky, and unproductive, if not effectively managed. 

In the stimulus funding, V.A. is not a major player. They have received about $1.4 billion to do maintenance and repairs in VHA 

and the National Cemetery Administration, hire additional employees, and develop some new I.T. systems. 

Even though VA has not received as many funds as the rest of the government, it is still a challenge to spend $1.4 billion wisely 

and efficiently, so we are going to be providing oversight upfront 

over the requirements definition and the controls over the spending 

of these funds. 

Chairman Edwards and the subcommittee, thank you again for 

the opportunity to be here today. And as Dr. Daigh said, thank you 

very much for the continuing support you have given the OIG. I 

will be happy to answer any questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Ms. Finn, for your testimony, for 

being here and for what you are doing. 

Ms. Regan. 

STATEMENT OF MAUREEN T. REGAN

Ms. REGAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to address issues and challenges facing V.A. and maintaining an effective and efficient acquisition program. 

Before I start, I would like to say that your entire panel here is 

University of Maryland graduates. I think it is the first time I have 

been on such a panel, so go Terps. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well represented today. 

V.A. spends approximately $10 billion a year on procuring supplies, equipment, and services, and that number is growing every 

year. Despite efforts to implement policies and procedures to improve the acquisition program, procurement remains one of V.A.’s 

five major management challenges. 

In addition to more than 80 pre- and post-war reviews in contracting that are issued directly to contracting officers, in the past 

year, we have published more than 10 reports that have identified 

deficiencies in the manner in which V.A. plans, solicits, awards and 

administers procurement action. 

We attribute the problems to many factors, including the lack of 

sufficient personnel in those acquisition and program offices that 


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have the knowledge, experience to develop awards and administer 

these contracts. 

In addition, there is little to no oversight—particularly conducted 

at the local levels, in the field. Our work has shown that requesting 

program offices are often not able to identify the requirements or 

properly administer a contract after award. We have also found 

that acquisition personnel are not always familiar with or fail to 

comply with procurement laws and regulations. 

The impact of these deficiencies is exacerbated by the decentralization of V.A. acquisition programs and the absence of a comprehensive system to accurately record and monitor contracts and 

purchases. 

With respect to the latter, in 2007, V.A. activated a new Electronic Contract Management System. It is called eCMS. And the 

purpose was to standardize the procurement process and to provide 

visibility regarding V.A. procurement. 

After it was initiated, V.A.’s Office of Acquisition, Logistics and 

Construction issued a policy telling everybody how to use this system to generate and issue contract documents to record relevant 

contract information on both new and existing procurements. 

We recently completed an audit that showed that contracting entities in V.A. were not complying with the policy. They are not 

inputting the data; they are not using the system as required. In 

fact, we found one VHA policy that they were following that was 

inconsistent with the overall policy as issued by the Office of Acquisition. 

One of the things it did was exempted all your prosthetics from 

using the system, and prosthetics is a large amount of VHA purchases and supplies. 

In addition to our work with the CBOCs that is ongoing, we are 

doing a review at the request of the Secretary of the interagency 

agreements between the Navy’s Space Warfare Systems Command, 

otherwise known as SPAWAR, and an audit of disability examinations conducted by V.A. personnel and those conducted by contractors, a review and an audit of the award administration of V.A.’s 

federal supply schedule contracts for health care services, and we 

are also looking at the Medical/Surgical Prime Vendor Program 

that V.A. has in place. 

One area that V.A. has expended resources for considerable oversight is on the federal supply schedule contracts that V.A. awards. 

As you know, this is really a GSA program. But for about the last 

40 years, the delegation has been to V.A. to do all health care contracts. 

V.A.’s programs—and that is for medical and surgical supplies, 

equipment, pharmaceuticals, and health care services. V.A. entities 

spend about $7.5 billion per year on V.A.’s FSS contracts. About 60 

percent of that, those dollars are V.A. dollars, and so V.A. has a 

great interest in keeping the prices fair and reasonable, because a 

lot of our money is going to those contracts. 

Of great concern to us in the past year, GSA convened a Multiple 

Award Schedule Advisory Panel. Some people call it the blue-ribbon panel. And the purpose was to review the structure used in 

pricing of FSS contracts. 


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On this panel are two representatives from industry organizations. At their request and the request of industry, the panel is 

considering removing key clauses from the contracts. These are 

clauses that we believe ensure not only that government gets fair 

and reasonable pricing at the time of award, but that pricing is 

maintained throughout the term of these contracts, which are 5 

years or longer. 

We believe if these clauses are taken out of the contracts, and 

I know there was at least a vote on it at one point in time to take 

them out, V.A. will be paying significantly higher prices for these 

products than similarly situated commercial customers. 

This completes my oral statement. Thank you for the opportunity 

to address these issues, and I would be happy to answer any questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Ms. Regan. 

Ms. Melvin. 

STATEMENT OF VALERIE C. MELVIN

Ms. MELVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. 

I am pleased to be here today to comment on V.A.’s efforts to 

achieve interoperable electronic health records with the Department of Defense. The two departments have been working for over 

a decade to share electronic health data, and Congress has directed 

them to jointly develop and fully implement interoperable electronic health record capabilities by September 30, 2009. 

The department’s experiences in this area are also relevant to 

the broader effort to advance nationwide health information technology initiatives. As current and past administrations have recognized, information technology has the potential to help improve the 

efficiency and the quality of health care by making patient information more readily available to providers, reducing medical errors, and streamlining administrative functions. 

Federal efforts to realize this potential are being led by HHS’s 

national coordinator for health information technology. We have 

performed numerous studies of V.A.’s and DOD’s efforts to share 

electronic health information, and my testimony today will describe 

some of the departments’ achievements and challenges in this area. 

I will also briefly comment on how these apply to the broader national initiative. 

In summary, V.A. and DOD have made important progress, but 

they continue to face challenges in managing the activities required 

to achieve this inherently complex goal. Over the years, they have 

increased the types of information shared and succeeded in sharing 

computable data, that is, data in a format that a computer can understand and act on. 

For example, the departments are now exchanging computable 

pharmacy and drug allergy data on over 27,000 shared patients, 

permitting their health information systems to alert clinicians to 

drug allergies. 

Sharing computable data is considered the highest level of interoperability, yet achieving this level is not always necessary. Data 

that are viewable but not computable also provide important inforVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00152 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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mation, and the departments are sharing many types of health information in this manner. 

However, they have more to do since not all electronic health information is yet shared, and although health data at V.A. are all 

captured electronically, information is still captured on paper at 

many DOD medical facilities. One challenge facing any effort to 

share data is the need for clearly defined standards to allow different systems to work together. 

For example, technology standards must be agreed on. And a 

host of content issues must be addressed, such as the need for consistent medical terminology. V.A. and DOD continue to work on 

standards to extend their own data sharing, and they also participate in standards-related initiatives led by the national coordinator 

that are focused on transitioning to a nationwide health I.T. capability. 

Their involvement in these initiatives is important, both because 

of the experiences that these departments can offer and to help ensure that the standards they jointly adopt are consistent with applicable federal standards. 

Nonetheless, V.A. and DOD face challenges to effectively meeting 

the September 2009 deadline for full interoperability. While they 

have plans to further increase their electronic sharing capabilities 

by then, these plans do not effectively define the extent of data 

sharing expected to be in place to meet the interoperability goals 

or consistently identify results-oriented performance measures that 

are essential to assessing progress toward the delivery of that capability. 

Further constraining their effectiveness is their slow pace in setting up an interagency program office that is to be accountable for 

achieving the interoperable capabilities. Defining results-oriented 

performance measures and ensuring that they are met would be an 

important part of this office’s mission. 

V.A. and DOD concurred with our recommendations that they 

give priority to these matters, but they have yet to be fully addressed. Until they are, however, the risk is increased that the departments will not achieve interoperable capabilities to the extent 

and in a manner that most effectively serves our nation’s military 

servicemembers and veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would be 

pleased to respond to any questions that you or other members of 

the subcommittee may have. 

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you all. 

I want to be sure I understand one of the points that you were 

making. This came to my attention very briefly yesterday for the 

first time. 

Right now, the V.A. buys a massive amount of prescription 

drugs. And I have heard ballpark numbers that, compared to 

standard retail prices at pharmacies, maybe the V.A. gets and the 

taxpayers receive about a 40 percent discount. Is that in the ballpark? Is that approximately right? 


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Ms. REGAN. You can’t compare to retail because you have to 

know what the pharmacy paid for it versus what you are paying 

for it as a consumer. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Ms. REGAN. VA is probably more comparable to what the pharmacies are paying for covered drugs. We are getting excellent 

prices because of the statute—public law which sets the price. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So millions of dollars in savings to taxpayers and 

to the V.A. by paying—— 

Ms. REGAN. That is correct. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. By negotiating? Okay. 

Ms. REGAN. They are actually not negotiated prices. They are an 

established price by—there is a formula for covered drugs. And the 

formula is, I think, 26 percent below the non-Federal Average Manufacturer’s Price. There is a calculation that is used, so they use 

all the pharmaceuticals that go through a wholesaler, and they 

come up with a price. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Ms. REGAN. And then once you have a contract, you can only increase the price each year by a certain percentage—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Ms. REGAN. That is not negotiated. It is part of a formula. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If I could jump in, I want to be sure about the 

GSA role. Is there a panel at GSA that is recommending changes 

in clauses that would—that would change that so the V.A. could be 

charged significantly higher prices for prescription drugs? 

Ms. REGAN. The law requires, in order to get any money from 

any federal agency, including Medicare, even though they don’t buy 

off the schedule, you have to have the drug on a federal supply 

schedule at what we call the federal ceiling price. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Ms. REGAN. So what their changes will do will not affect the calculation. But once an award is made, there is a clause in the contract called a price reduction clause, and you track certain customers. If the price to a customer goes below a certain price, then 

we get those discounts. That is the one clause that industry does 

not want in the contract. 

So the impact—with respect to covered drugs, there will be an 

impact on the covered drugs. There will be a bigger impact financially on generics and on all your Med/Surg items and equipment. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And this is—you said there are two industry representatives on a panel or a board at GSA? 

Ms. REGAN. It is called the Multiple Award Schedule Advisory 

Panel, and it is made up of various people from various agencies. 

In fact, V.A. was not even invited to be on the panel until the 

House Veterans Affairs Committee, I believe, wrote a letter and 

asked that Mr. Frye, the deputy assistant secretary for acquisition—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. And this is an advisory panel? Who will make the 

final decision on this? 

Ms. REGAN. I am not sure. I think when they make the recommendations, it goes to another body within GSA to be reviewed 

and then up to the administrator. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 


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Ms. REGAN. We do know they have voted to remove the price reduction clause both from services contracts, where maybe it doesn’t 

have that big an impact, to the other commodities schedules. And 

there would be—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. So it could affect prescription drug prices? 

Ms. REGAN. It will affect definitely generics. I think there will be 

an impact. And what you will have is that you may have a fair and 

reasonable price the day of award on all of these Med/Surg, all of 

these items that are on federal supply schedule contracts. You will 

not have a fair and reasonable price the next day. 

What we found in industry is that they will wait to award better 

contracts until after ours gets awarded. And then the discounts 

start coming in. 

I presented to the panel in August, and basically that was part 

of my presentation, is the impact it will have. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, we are going to see that that decision isn’t 

made behind closed doors without public attention. Thank you for 

bringing that to our attention, and I believe all sides ought to have 

a chance to present their facts, but I don’t want anyone making a 

decision without great public knowledge and taxpayer understanding of what the implications could be to them, in terms of increased cost for hundreds of millions of dollars in prescription 

drugs purchased by the V.A. 

Mr. Wamp. 

INTEROPERABILITY

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A two-part question, Ms. Melvin. If not September 30th, when? 

Second, on the medical records piece of the interoperability, if the 

V.A. still has the premiere reputation for medical records and information technology and health care, which I assume they still do 

from year to year, what about DOD? Is it a problem with one side 

not being up to par with the other? What are the problems? I know 

organizationally and funding and all that, but is there a disconnect 

between the two systems’ quality? 

Ms. MELVIN. In answer to your first question relative to when, 

if not by September 30th, that is a question that I don’t have an 

answer for you on, the reason being we have repeatedly reported 

on what V.A. has been doing, V.A. and DOD, in terms of interoperability. 

And one of our concerns is that, as they move forward with this 

initiative, we have not seen the level of planning that would articulate specifically what the final outcomes will be by this September 

30th date. 

Now, having said that, I think it is important to note that V.A. 

and DOD do have, as I mentioned in my earlier statement, levels 

of interoperability that they have achieved, they have achieved at 

the highest level in terms of the computable data for the pharmacy 

and drug allergy data. 

They also have lower levels of interoperability relative to having 

viewable data that is structured, for example, to have lab reports 

that are in place within their records. And they also are able to see 

unstructured data that perhaps is scanned in, like clinical notes. 


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The bigger question on our part is, when you get to September 

30th, what has been defined as the end result for that date? And 

today we have not seen from V.A. any specifics—or from DOD—any 

specifics as to what that ultimate end state will look like. 

We do know that they intend to continue increasing their sharing. They have indicated, for example, that they will continue to include scanning and imaging in what they are doing. Our concern 

and what we would like to see more of—and we think is necessary 

for accountability—is for them to set an end state for what at September 30th and then what more beyond September 30th. 

There is sure to be a need for more beyond September 30th. I 

think laboratory data, for example, is data, computable data that 

they are trying to achieve, but it would be beyond September 30th. 

And then, to the extent that there are other data that are defined by their board that has been put in place to set those priorities, we would assume that would also occur much beyond September 30th. 

As far as why the two departments have not been able to come 

together yet, I would go back, actually, to the very beginning with 

the systems. One of the things that is important to recognize is 

that, even though V.A. and DOD are both modernizing their health 

information systems and they have over time stated that these systems would be the platform for achieving this integrated capability 

that they were working towards, it is important to recognize that 

as these systems were developed—they went down separate tracks. 

There wasn’t a plan that we have seen that was ever intended 

to bring those two systems together in quite the way that would 

be necessary. So I think that where they stand today, and certainly 

through our work and what we have been able to discern, there are 

issues still relative to reaching agreement on what such a system 

would like. 

There are significant questions that would have to be answered 

relative to what capabilities would be needed to serve each department’s mission. I think there are cultural issues relative to really 

being able to overcome those barriers, to step outside and say, ‘‘Is 

my system better than the other?’’ 

They are both modernizing. They are both at different stages in 

their modernization. And while we have not looked specifically at 

the system that DOD is modernizing, we do know that V.A. is 

working on it. We have had concerns with some of the progress 

with what they are doing relative to overall planning and the integration efforts that are necessary to make that system come to fruition. 

So there are many challenges to—really being able to decide, I 

think, first and foremost, what it is that they want to accomplish 

and to start the dialogue. And to Secretary Shinseki’s credit, if I 

understand, there has been some recent dialogue in that regard, 

but much more, in our view, is necessary for them to come to 

agreement on what would be necessary and how to meet the needs 

of both of those departments, especially those unique needs that 

each would have. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I have two questions for Ms. Finn. I 

will wait for the next round. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 


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Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.] 

Are I.T. standards worked out so that the I.T. standards in veterans is compatible with I.T. standards in Medicare and Social Security? 

Ms. FINN. In the area of I.T. security, generally the government 

agencies all try to follow the NIST standard—— 

Mr. FARR. One standard? 

Ms. FINN. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. And then in the president’s stimulus budget—recovery 

package, there is a lot of money for medical records, for going to 

electronic records. And I imagine they are going to have companies 

bidding for that, hospitals bidding. Everybody is going to be bidding. Are they going to the follow the model? I mean, you are way 

ahead of this—V.A. was sort of the beginning of all this, wasn’t it, 

in having the best medical records? 

Ms. FINN. That is my understanding. 

Mr. FARR. So does that become kind of a standard that everybody 

will try to achieve? Are we now going to get a million different software programs out there that aren’t compatible and—— 

Ms. MELVIN. I could share a perspective on that. 

Mr. FARR. Because you are talking about interoperability, and 

that is—— 

Ms. MELVIN. Yes, the key is the standards that have to be developed. You are correct that V.A. and DOD have been out there and, 

as I mentioned, should be able to provide some experiences in those 

areas, and they have set standards to achieve the levels of interoperability that they have. 

However, moving forward, one of the critical things from a national perspective, the standard-setting process is not a fast process. It is an extremely complicated process that is involving many, 

many players—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, we are going to be letting the money out before 

the standards are developed. 

Ms. MELVIN. You are correct in a lot of respects. There are standards that have been defined, but at the same time there are many 

more that still need to be defined. 

The critical factor relative to V.A. is that while, yes, they could 

pursue standards for their own interoperability—and they have to 

certain degrees—the question is, how far out ahead of the national 

standards do they want to get from the standpoint of being able to 

make sure that, once a national initiative is in place, that they, in 

fact—— 

Mr. FARR. What is our priority here? What is the one thing we 

as a committee in dealing with the budget for V.A., what is the 

highest priority, your recommendations to this committee that we 

need to focus on, put some money in, or some language in? 

Doctor, you talked about the I.T. systems haven’t kept up with 

demand, with the workload, and, in fact, the financial systems 

haven’t kept up. Dr. Daigh said that we were pioneers, but we are 

falling behind. What is it that this committee should be focusing 

on? 

Ms. REGAN. I would say one issue—there are a lot of issues—but 

one of them I think we are seeing is personnel that can do the 


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work. And there is increasing contracting out for different things 

that they—maybe they should be doing in house because they lack 

the number and the quality of the people to be able to do it. 

What we hear everywhere we go is that V.A. can’t hire the personnel whether—it may be financial, it may be some other rules 

that are in place. I mean, for example, we need to go out to the 

hospitals. V.A. is doing a lot of contracting for positions, but they 

are not personal services, so you can’t supervise them while you 

are in your facility. 

So even an authority for personal services authority like DOD 

has would be an advantage, if you have to hire outside doctors—— 

Mr. FARR. Among that personnel, is there a priority of the type 

of personnel? 

Ms. REGAN. I think if you ask each part of the agency, they all 

need personnel. The health care needs to be able to hire more personnel to take care of the patients. That would be V.A. employees. 

I.T. needs more personnel who can develop systems who have the 

knowledge even how to develop a contract to go out and contract 

for somebody to develop the system, the acquisition workforce 

needs to be built up so that you have contracting officers. V.A. 

needs more VBA examiners to come in and be trained. 

Mr. FARR. So the money is there, because we appropriated a lot 

of money. And the money is there to hire the people, but then we 

can’t acquire them in the federal service for whatever reason, so we 

are using that money to contract out to the private sector to provide what we can’t do on our own? 

Ms. REGAN. We understand there are some FTE ceilings and that 

they can’t surpass the FTE ceiling, so they have to go out and hire 

people. So that would be one issue to look at. And I think the department can answer that question. 

I mean, right now, I think with hiring, we are getting more applicants for jobs than we have seen in years, so it is not the number of people. It is whether or not we can hire sufficient numbers 

of qualified people and pay—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MULTIPLE AWARD SCHEDULE ADVISORY PANELS

It looks like we once again are uncovering more snakes than we 

can kill. [Laughter.] 

And I share your concern about this procurement of pharmaceuticals. I think that might be worth a hearing all by itself sometime. 

Mr. EDWARDS. With your background, I would like to follow up. 

Mr. BERRY. Some of those—do you call them advisory panels? 

Ms. REGAN. It is a Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel. It 

was published in the Federal Register because it includes non-government employees. 

Mr. BERRY. The V.A. doesn’t have anyone that sits on that panel? 

Ms. REGAN. They have one person. After a letter from the House 

Veterans Affairs Committee, they put person from the V.A., even 

though the only agency other than GSA that awards schedules is 

V.A., and we do $7.5 billion worth of business a year. 


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Mr. BERRY. All right. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Seven-and-a-half billion? 

Ms. REGAN. Yes. And that is growing every year, too. 

Mr. BERRY. That used to be a lot of money. [Laughter.] 

Do you ever have any problem getting a company to participate? 

Ms. REGAN. Yes, in fact, there are certain product lines, for example, cardiac stents, where I don’t believe there are any on the 

federal supply schedule program. It is voluntary for companies to 

come in, but none of the manufacturers have come in and put 

stents on contract. 

Cardiac devices, such as pacemaker, they were on contract up 

until only one company, I think, was left by about 2004. V.A. then 

did a competitive award, national contracts that went to two companies in 2004. One failed because there was a big recall, and the 

other company, I guess the contract expired. They just now awarded another one in November. 

So they do some national competitive contracts for some items, 

but there is a lot of items they haven’t done that on. And like I 

said, stents is a big one. 

Mr. BERRY. I bet recalling stents is an interesting process. 

Ms. REGAN. Yes, V.A. has a fairly good program for the recalls 

that it gets out to the facilities. And they actually have a pretty 

good database telling you what patients and what stents were 

used. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you once again for your service. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Berry. And I look forward to 

leveraging off your expertise in health care, to follow up on the 

issue that we discussed there regarding that advisory panel. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, it looks like you all are efficient 

enough, we might actually get a lunch break here between these 

two hearings. And I am grateful. 

Ms. Finn—— 

Ms. FINN. Yes? 

ENROLLMENT

Mr. WAMP [continuing]. In 2007, we had 23.6 million veterans— 

number is up somewhat, but we all know that not every veteran 

is enrolled in the V.A. What is that percentage? 

And as the economy continues to weaken—and I don’t want to 

scare anybody, but I heard testimony yesterday that we may be in 

the 15th month of a 60-month recession, based on the global economic picture right now, if we are in the 15th month of a 60-month 

recession, what does that do to V.A. enrollment? 

I would expect it to increase as more and more veterans that 

aren’t enrolled in the V.A. system have no choice but to come to 

the V.A. system? 

Ms. FINN. Mr. Wamp, I do not have any statistics at hand on 

how many veterans are enrolled in the system. 

Mr. WAMP. Even with Iraq and Afghanistan? 

Dr. DAIGH. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. Did you say 5 million users? So it is only about 

20 percent? 


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Mr. EDWARDS. About 5.5 million, 5.8 million were the projections 

I think this year. 

Mr. WAMP. So 25 percent is a better number? Which leads me 

to my second question, because I don’t think we have had the kind 

of rapid redeployment, downsizing that we are going to expect 

under President Obama. What does that do? We are talking the 

next 16 months or thereabouts, you should see more people entering the veteran pool. 

Are we ramping up or ready for that? Or is it going to be this 

great influx of new veterans enrolling in the V.A. system as they 

come home? 

Ms. FINN. I don’t think V.A. is ramping up for that, and I am 

not sure what their expectation or their projections are for enrolling those veterans. You know, just as a layman in this, I would anticipate that, as the economy has worsened, if people cannot obtain 

health care through other means, they may look to the V.A. 

Mr. WAMP. You and Mr. Daigh both can answer this question. I 

am speaking to a statewide National Guard convention this Saturday in Tennessee. And so from the Guard and reservist perspective, 

do you know anything to report relative to the V.A.? Because, obviously, their use of the V.A. is kind of like their service to our country. It ain’t what it used to be. It is a whole lot tougher. 

Ms. FINN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. And more and more, I assume, have access to the 

V.A. and are using the V.A. when they come home. Anything you 

all would add as I prepare to speak to probably a couple thousand 

of them Saturday? Great. I don’t think most I.G.s are as nice as 

you are. [Laughter.] 

Ms. FINN. I would say that the V.A. offers people returning, the 

reservists and the National Guard a lot in benefits, other than 

health care. The new G.I. Bill provides payments based on time on 

active duty. Other benefits include educational benefits, and rehabilitation. 

We did an audit of the transition for benefits and found that 

many of the reservists were not necessarily getting notices that 

they were eligible for benefits. And so we recommended that VBA 

put in some new controls. And I believe they have done that. So 

hopefully they should be getting notification. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

NEW G.I. BILL

Ms. Finn, let me ask you: Is there any risk that, because of the 

slowness of implementing software system and the management 

issues involving contracting out versus doing work in-house, the 

new G.I. Bill implementation, is there any significant risk that veterans will be denied the G.I. educational benefits they are supposed 

to begin receiving this fall? 

Ms. FINN. I believe V.A. will be paying benefits. I think the question is, will they be able to handle the volume of claims that will 

come in between now and when they start making payments in August and will they be able to process all of those for timely payment? 


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So I think the risk is that, if someone were to file a claim late, 

they may not get payment right on time, although I can’t say that 

for certain. I think there will be a risk of improper or erroneous 

payments, because this process will likely be largely manual at this 

point. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is what I understand for the first year, 

so—— 

Ms. FINN. Yes. And we won’t have the built-in edit and control 

that we would put into an automated system. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, I hope, given some of the abuses of the original G.I. Bill and the risk that posed to the credibility of what I considered one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever passed by any 

Congress, I hope we can keep an eye on the check-and-balance system to be sure that there are not people qualifying illegally for G.I. 

benefits. And if you have any insights on that in the months ahead, 

please follow my request and contact us and let you and I and our 

V.A. MILCON staff—— 

Ms. FINN. I will add that—— 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Tell us about that. 

Ms. FINN. I will add that to the charge of my team. 

HIRING OF CLAIMS PROCESSORS

Mr. EDWARDS. Nothing could undermine our ability to fight for 

improved benefits and funding for veterans more than abuse of a 

major program such as the G.I. education bill. So we would welcome your input there. 

Let me ask you about the new hiring for addressing the claims 

backlog. We have provided enough funding in the last 14 months 

to hire—if you count the stimulus bill—as many as 7,000 new 

claims processors. How would you rate the V.A.’s training program 

at this point for those new hires? 

Ms. FINN. We took a look at the hiring practice last year. And 

the one area we didn’t look at specifically was the training program, because GAO had just done some work on the training programs. And I think they had some issues mainly with the administration of it. 

We do know that they are deploying the new hires in a team approach, where they work in a specific team with a group of other 

more experienced employees doing incoming triage, which is the incoming processing, or various things. 

And I think that would probably be a reasonable way to implement that many new people. We are going to be starting up work 

again, going back and looking at a second year now of the influx 

of new employees and hope to get a lot more information on how 

they are being used, how they are being trained, and what the end 

result is. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Can we look at the turnover rate, too—— 

Ms. FINN. Yes, absolutely. Last year when we took a look at it, 

the attrition and the turnover rate was relatively low, especially 

compared to other employees. But that was fairly early in the hiring process. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is the V.A. keeping account of data that would 

allow us to look now, a year from now, 2 years from now, to see 


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what kind of rate they have of decisions overturned so we could determine how effective they have been in that job? 

Ms. FINN. I am not sure—that is a good question. I am not sure 

if they will have that by employee, but we will endeavor to find out 

how they will address that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. That would be helpful to look at. 

Ms. FINN. Sure. 

V.A. DATA SECURITY

Mr. EDWARDS. Let me ask you very, very quickly. I have got half 

a minute. Is there any chance that—any significant chance that we 

could have another problem where a V.A. computer is taken out of 

the office and, maliciously or otherwise, used to compromise the 

privacy of a large number of veterans? 

Ms. FINN. That chance still exists, yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. How would you compare the V.A.’s privacy protection security systems to corporate America, as good as, better than, 

or worse than? 

Ms. REGAN. I would say, since the 2006 data loss, V.A. has really 

shored up their ability. If you remember, every big data loss we 

have had has not been intrusion into a system; it has been employees with access losing something or whatever. 

They have now put out a series of rules they didn’t have before, 

where you can’t use your home computer, if you have a laptop, it 

has to be encrypted. 

So I think the risk has diminished. You are still going to have 

rogue employees out there that aren’t going to follow the rules, but 

I think the risk is diminished significantly and that V.A. would be 

able to more swiftly take action because there are strict policies out 

there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I would welcome any recommendations either of 

you has in terms of steps the V.A. hasn’t taken that they should 

take. Thank you. Thank you both. 

Mr. Farr. 

ACCOUNTABILITY GOALS

Mr. FARR. I don’t know if I have any other question, other than— 

for each one of you, if we had one thing that we could—this committee could do, what would it be, in your opinion? 

Ms. MELVIN. From my perspective, because we have looked 

across a number of V.A.’s I.T. initiatives, there is one common concern that always stays on the books with us, and that is in terms 

of their overall project management, their ability to really, as I said 

earlier, to establish goals, to really follow through with results-oriented measures for making sure that they are holding themselves 

accountable for what they are doing. 

We would like to certainly see more in the way of an emphasis 

by the department on making sure that it is holding itself accountable, that it has established really defined measures for its success 

and that it can report against those measures. So from our perspective—— 

Mr. FARR. Is that a lack of skilled managers? 

Ms. MELVIN. It is not—no, it is not contracting, per se. It is really in the—it is in the management, overall project management asVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00162 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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pects of what the agency does. They certainly do put out a lot of 

plans. I don’t want to, you know, say that they don’t have documentation, they don’t have plans. They do. 

What we would like to see is a greater degree of discipline, more 

rigor in the planning efforts that the department undertakes to 

make sure that it really is setting specific goals, that it is not a 

matter of saying, ‘‘We are going to just increase our—what we can 

share or we are going to increase the number of patients,’’ but to 

really set defined, concrete measures of, when we get to this level, 

we feel that will, at least in the short term or in the midterm or 

the long term, that we have positioned ourselves to handle some 

percentage of our staff—— 

Mr. FARR. A greater degree of discipline in creating measurable 

outcomes? 

Ms. MELVIN. Yes, rigor in—in the processes that they are using 

to really manage and monitor and hold themselves accountable for 

their initiatives. 

Mr. FARR. Ms. Regan? 

Ms. REGAN. Can I give you two? 

Mr. FARR. Yes. 

Ms. REGAN. One of them is on the federal supply schedules that 

I would consider, because V.A. has had these schedules for almost 

40 years, just giving them to V.A. and not playing ‘‘Mother May I’’ 

with GSA. We know our products. We have had better oversight 

than GSA has. We know our industries. 

There are clauses in the contract that maybe need to be in ours 

and not theirs. That would be one. 

On the internal V.A. side, as I said in my testimony, decentralization is a huge problem to having an efficient acquisition program, and that V.A. needs to take steps to centralize. 

V.A. did a study last year, PricewaterhouseCoopers did a study 

and came up with the model that hasn’t been implemented. 

Mr. FARR. So the second is what? 

Ms. REGAN. Pardon me? The second was to centralize V.A. procurement. Right now, you basically have two procurement activities. You have VHA, and you have everybody else. You are not 

going to have a procurement program that functions efficiently if 

it is not more centralized or centralized. And that probably should 

be done in steps, as opposed to doing all at once, because most of 

your people are out in the field in VHA. 

Ms. FINN. I would second both of those suggestions greatly. My 

thought would be to hold V.A. accountable for the integrity of the 

data that they use to report their performance and their outcomes. 

V.A. has a lot of data, and it comes from a lot of different 

sources. And as it is rolled up, I can’t be certain that it is always 

collected and recorded really in a consistent manner across the organization. 

So that situation creates a lot of concerns in my mind, over 

measuring their performance, because I am just not sure how well 

we can rely on the data, whether it is the number of claims processed or the medical treatments or the number of patients seen in 

the clinic or the appointments available. 

Mr. FARR. That is all. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. What an excellent question, Sam. I am glad you 

asked that. 

Zach, would you like to finish off any questions? 

Mr. WAMP. Well, speaking of that, I am going to ask three quick 

questions, one to each of you, and I hope we can get quick answers. 

Ms. Regan, how many billions are contracted out under fee-forservice care? And is that an efficient way to go forward to expand 

that or not? 

Ms. Finn, there is a category called miscellaneous obligations. 

How much is that? And is that kind of an end run around the normal process? 

And, Mrs. Melvin, we talked about the complete interoperability, 

but what is GAO’s definition of complete interoperability? 

Ms. Regan. 

Ms. REGAN. By fee-for-service, I would assume you are talking 

about the health care resource contracts, where we hire physicians 

to come into our hospital? 

Mr. WAMP. Yes. Yes. 

FEE-FOR-SERVICE CARE

Ms. REGAN. There is no system in V.A. that can tell you exactly 

how many dollars were spent on that, because, as I have testified, 

there is no system that records all of that data as to what is spent 

and being spent on. 

I do know it is an increasing number, because one of my groups 

does the pre-awards for those contracts. We expected when you increased physician pay, comparability pay, that that would go down, 

but we haven’t seen that. And it is becoming even increasing for, 

like, support services and things like that, so—— 

Mr. WAMP. So you can’t tell if it is efficient because you don’t 

know how much it is? 

Ms. REGAN. Right. Nobody knows how much it is. I can probably 

tell you that we are overpaying for the services, but I can’t tell you 

how many dollars are actually spent, because there is no place that 

tells you that. 

Mr. WAMP. Ms. Finn, miscellaneous obligations? 

Ms. FINN. I don’t know the number. I will get that for you for 

the record. 

We have seen at times other documents, rather than purchase 

orders or your regular procurement documents, being used to 

record miscellaneous obligations. And sometimes we have seen that 

possibly used, yes, to record and obligate funds where it is not 

going through the correct process. 

INTEROPERABILITY

Mr. WAMP. Ms. Melvin, complete interoperability means what? 

Ms. MELVIN. We do not have a definition of complete interoperability. However, what I would state is that it depends significantly 

on the agencies involved and the priorities that they establish. In 

V.A.’s case, relative to the clinicians, that is what they have used 

thus far in setting the priority for the drug allergy pharmacy data 

that is fully computable. It really depends on what the needs are 

and to be defined by those entities that are in involved with that, 

in particular the health care providers. 


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Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I now am finished. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, those are good questions all. 

Well, I want to thank each of you for your excellent testimony. 

And what this hearing does for me is it just reminds me and our 

committee of the important partnership you can play with us as 

you try to be more proactive in exercising our oversight responsibility. 

We have all been so busy over the last few years that it has been 

hard sometimes for committees to exercise the kind of oversight 

that I think all of us would like to do. So we see you as critical 

partners. 

Thank you. I thank each of you, Ms. Finn, Ms. Regan, and Ms. 

Melvin, Dr. Daigh—I tell you, and isn’t it impressive, the years of 

commitment to your jobs and what you are doing? It says a lot 

about your values. 

Thank you very much, all, for being here. We will stand in recess 

until 1:30, at which time we will meet on family housing and troop 

housing. Thank you all. 

[Prepared statements follow:] 


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(235) 

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2009. 

FAMILY AND TROOP HOUSING 

WITNESSES 

WAYNE ARNY, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 

KEITH EASTIN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 

B.J. PENN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, INSTALLATIONS 

AND ENVIRONMENT 

KEVIN W. BILLINGS, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR 

FORCE, INSTALLATIONS, ENVIRONMENT, AND LOGISTICS 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. Thank you for all being here. I want 

to call the subcommittee back to order and say good afternoon to 

everyone. 

I want to welcome you to today’s hearing on the issue of family 

and troop housing in our military. The goal of today’s hearing is 

to establish the current state of family and troop housing in our 

military and to ascertain additional resources or decisions that 

have to be made in order to ensure that every serviceman and 

woman, every family, has an adequate place to live. 

Several years ago the Department of Defense set a goal of having 

the funds in place to eliminate all inadequate housing—family 

housing—by fiscal year 2009. This goal was to be accomplished primarily through the Military Housing Privatization Initiative. 

In the meantime, the Department of Defense has embarked on 

an expansion of the Army and Marine Corps, and the Air Force 

will begin to increase its numbers again after years of decline. This 

will certainly result in additional demands for both family housing 

and a greater requirement for barracks and dormitories. So our 

committee thought that it would be a good time to assess how far 

we have come in addressing quality of housing for both military 

families and single servicemembers and identify challenges as we 

move forward under a new administration. 

Before I introduce our witnesses, I would like to recognize our 

ranking member, Mr. Wamp, for any opening comments he would 

care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, our morning hearing was quite a bit 

cooler in this room, so I don’t know if it is our witnesses or the 

topic, or just the afternoon sun coming through, but it is a little 

warm—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Running up and down those stairs, voting, may be 

it too. 


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Mr. WAMP. In any event, Mr. Secretaries, thank you for your 

time. I look forward to this most important hearing, and I have no 

further opening statement. Just go straight to questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Wayne Arny is the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 

Installations and Environment, and no stranger to our subcommittee. 

Welcome back, Mr. Secretary. 

He was appointed to his current post in February of 2008. He 

previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations and Facilities. He is a 1964 graduate of the Naval Academy, and active duty naval aviator until 1981. How many hours? 

Mr. ARNY. Three thousand. 

Mr. EDWARDS. 3,000 hours of flying time. In those responsibilities he ultimately achieved the rank of commander in the Navy. 

He served as a staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1981 to 1984 and was program associate director for 

national security and international affairs at OMB from 1986 to 

1989. 

And I would note, as with so many who testify before our committee who have served our country in uniform, Secretary Arny has 

two sons currently serving in the Navy. Where are they stationed 

right now? 

Mr. ARNY. They are both in Lemoore, California. One is coming 

east and going to—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank them on our behalf. 

Keith Eastin is the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment. Again, welcome back to our subcommittee. 

He has served in his current position since August of 2005. He previously served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 

and as Deputy Under Secretary and Chief Environmental Council 

at the Department of the Interior. 

He worked as a senior consultant to the State Department in organizing a ministry of the Iraqi government. His private sector experience includes PricewaterhouseCooper, Deloitte & Touche, and 

the American Arbitration Association. 

Mr. B.J. Penn, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations 

and Environment, is returning to the subcommittee once again, 

having been appointed to his current position in March of 2005. He 

previously served as director of the Industrial Base Assessments 

from October 2001 to March of 2005. He is a naval aviator of over 

6,500 flight hours. 

So, over 9,000 hours between the two of you. That is impressive. 

His private sector experience includes having worked with Loral 

and Lockheed Martin. 

Mr. Kevin W. Billings, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for 

Installations, Environment, and Logistics. 

Mr. Billings, welcome. You are no stranger to the Hill. Welcome 

to our subcommittee today. 

He was appointed as acting assistant secretary in 2008. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force 

for Energy, Environmental Safety, and Occupational Health from 

2007 to 2008. He has extensive private sector experience, including 

Westinghouse, Alliance Group, and Interior Solutions. And notably, 


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to former chairman, now ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee in the House, he worked as a special assistant to 

Representative Jerry Lewis, who has been such a champion on behalf of our military men and women. 

I again want to thank all of you for being here. As you well 

know, your full statements will be included in the record, and we 

would like to begin by asking each of you if you could make an 

opening statement of 5 minutes or less. 

And Secretary Arny, we will begin with you. 

STATEMENT OF WAYNE ARNY

Mr. ARNY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wamp, distinguished 

members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before you 

today with my colleagues from the other services to discuss the 

housing initiatives for the department. 

First I want to thank this committee and your colleagues here 

in the House and in the Senate for the authorities that you provided us under the Military Housing Privatization Initiative. These 

authorities have allowed us to greatly improve the quality of housing available to our military families. 

We have been able to make these improvements much faster 

than through the use of traditional military construction, because 

we were able to leverage private capital to augment appropriated 

funding. And the rental streams created in these projects ensure 

sustainment and recapitalization of these houses well into the future. 

We have been extremely pleased with the performance of our development partners on the 94 existing projects across the department. Besides bringing great expertise to the construction and operation of our housing, our partners are proud to be serving military families and offer many services to enhance the sense of community on our bases. 

Our one underperforming partner, American Eagle, has been replaced in all six of our projects—in all six of its projects—by three 

experienced and solidly performing partners. While no government 

funds were put at risk in these projects, the bases involved have 

not yet seen the new construction they had expected. The new partners are quickly moving to get those projects back on track. 

In response to congressional direction, and consistent with the 

lessons we have learned from this experience, we have added increased oversight to the privatization program. This oversight includes on-scene procedures at the base level as well as increased 

program reporting to my office and to the Congress. 

Because of BRAC restructuring, global re-posturing, joint basing, 

and Grow the Force requirements, this is a time of great change 

in DoD installations. All of these efforts have significant effects on 

housing requirements at many of our bases for both families and 

unaccompanied servicemembers. The military departments are 

closely reviewing those requirements at all bases, and together we 

believe we can support our servicemembers and their families as 

we grow the force over the next 3 to 5 years with both military construction and with privatization. 

Unfortunately, however, the stagnation in the housing and overall financial markets has somewhat affected our use of the privatVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00237 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ization program in addressing these changes. Market forces have 

led to increased costs and tightening of credit standards. While the 

effect on our 94 existing projects has been minimal, finding financing for future projects presents new challenges. 

The viability of military housing projects remains high in the 

view of the private sector, but lending is limited across the board 

due to the general lack of liquidity in the financial markets. Military departments have been meeting with the financial community 

to seek new sources of capital, and we have revisited some of our 

guarantee authorities in an attempt to make our projects even 

more attractive. 

Additionally, we are considering executing our new projects in 

such a manner that we will start the private sector operation while 

delaying taking down private sector debt until it is more efficiently 

priced. This will allow the department to stop the deterioration of 

the housing stock of our newer projects while waiting to maximize 

private capital available to the project’s income stream. 

We also greatly appreciate your continued support of our unaccompanied personnel housing program. We are currently completing an inventory of all our unaccompanied housing to better 

identify the shortfalls and ensure proper funding to provide quality 

housing for our unaccompanied servicemembers. We plan to establish goals for improvement, as we did for family housing, and we 

will also continue to pursue additional use of our privatization authorities to improve our barracks, and also to learn from the Navy’s 

first two pilot projects at Norfolk and San Diego. While we have 

had some limited success with unaccompanied projects for senior 

enlisted in the Army, the Navy pilot authorities include an ability 

to pay members partial housing allowances that make projects for 

junior enlisted more financially viable, which we will work to extend to the other Services. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like again to thank—to express—appreciation for the strong support of military housing programs that are crucial to a decent quality of life for our service 

members. 

[Prepared statement of Wayne Arny follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. I thank you, Secretary Arny. 

Secretary Eastin. 

STATEMENT OF KEITH EASTIN

Mr. EASTIN. I don’t want to feel left out here, but I have 192 

hours in a Cessna 172. [Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, I have got my thousand in a 210, so between 

the two of us—— 

Mr. EASTIN. Let me try to be a little short with my opening remarks. I will give you a little overview: The Army’s campaign plan 

is predicated on rebalancing the Force in an era of persistent conflict. A renewed focus and investment in our housing—single soldier and family—programs are key elements for finding that balance. 

Among the challenges we face are a high op tempo, frequent deployments, and aging barracks inventory that requires constant 

management attention, repairs, and maintenance until new construction projects are completed, the impact of the financial market 

turmoil on our ongoing privatization programs, and major stationing changes due to BRAC, Grow the Army, and global redeployments. 

In family housing, we have come a long way with our Army 

housing facilities in terms of quantity, quality, and adequacy. Inadequate family housing will be eliminated in 2016 for privatized 

housing, 2010 for government-owned CONUS housing, and 2012 

for overseas CONUS government-owned housing. For major Grow 

the Army sites, where our housing market analysis show an insufficient in-state of available family housing, we are programming 

additional government equity contributions to our existing residential communities initiatives to build additional family housing 

units. 

With respect to barracks, our goal is to provide safe, clean, and 

functional barracks for all soldiers—permanent party, trainees, 

wounded warriors, and Guard and Reserve. Our overarching strategy is to buy out all inadequate permanent party barracks by 2013 

by removing any barracks with common area latrines and improving our barracks complexes as a whole. The last inadequate buildings will be funded for construction and renovation in 2013 and occupied in 2015. 

We are buying out our training barracks requirements by 2015, 

and those will be occupied in 2017. We are instituting improved 

procedures to assure that barracks are properly maintained, sustained, and renovated. 

With respect to privatization of our housing, our family RCI program is comprised of 45 installations which are comprised into 35 

combined projects and a planned instate of about 90,000 homes. As 

of this January we have privatized 39 of 45 installations, give or 

take 85,000 homes, we have built almost 18,000 homes and renovated another 13,000 homes. The last RCI projects will be awarded in 2010, and the remaining 14,000 privatized inadequate homes 

will be replaced and renovated by 2016. 

Our private sector partners are not immune to the global financial industry turmoil affecting the entire credit market, but I am 

pleased to report that the Army has a proactive process and proceVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00248 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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dures in place to detect problems, and as issues arise we will work 

with our partners to mitigate the impacts. 

With respect to what we call warriors in transition—those returning from either Iraq or Afghanistan—we have about 85,000 

warriors in transition, and they are currently housed in interim facilities that have been modified to remove barriers to improve accessibility. Every warrior in transition is assigned a suitable room, 

preferably on-post, close to the medical treatment facility. 

W.T.s are assigned to the best available facilities we have at the 

post. The specific location is a decision reached by the senior mission commander at those posts. The new permanent warrior transition facilities we are programming will exceed the standards required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal accessibility programs. 

In conclusion, the Army has put policies, procedures, leadership 

focus, and additional resources into place to ensure that we continue to make steady progress towards buying out our family housing, barracks, and warriors in transition requirements, then maintaining them to standards. I await your questions. Thank you. 

[Statement of Keith Eastin follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Secretary EASTIN. Secretary Penn. 

STATEMENT OF B.J. PENN

Mr. PENN. Chairman Edwards, Representative Wamp, members 

of the subcommittee, it is a privilege to come before you today to 

discuss the Department of the Navy’s housing programs. I would 

like to begin by expressing our deep appreciation to the Congress 

and this subcommittee for your unwavering support of housing for 

our Sailors, Marines, and their families. With your support, we 

have made tremendous progress in improving the quality of life, 

and specifically the living conditions, for our personnel. 

I will briefly discuss those improvements, as well as the remaining challenges. The privatization of family housing within the Department of the Navy has been a resounding success. To date, we 

have executed 30 projects involving more than 61,000 homes for 

Navy or Marine Corps families. As a result of these projects, over 

41,000 homes will be constructed or replaced. These authorities have allowed us to leverage $800 million in the Department of the Navy—to fund approximately $8 billion in investments. To put it another way, each dollar that the Navy has 

contributed will yield $10 of investment in better housing for our 

families. 

Military housing privatization has been the cornerstone of our efforts to eliminate inadequate family housing in the department. 

Where privatization is not feasible, such as the foreign locations 

where the U.S. authorities do not apply, we have continued to use 

traditional military construction. 

At the end of 2007, we met the OSD goal of having funds, programs, and contracts in place to eliminate inadequate family housing. The Navy currently expects that all work will be completed by 

2011, and the Marine Corps by 2014. The latter period is extended 

because the Marine Corps plans to retain its housing in the interim 

to accommodate the increased requirements due to force structure 

initiatives, like Grow the Force, until sufficient additional housing 

can be built. We have made similar progress in unaccompanied 

housing. 

This committee’s support of the Commandant’s Barracks Initia- tive and the resulting fiscal year 2009 appropriation of $1.2 billion 

in MILCON funding for Marine Corps barracks will translate into 

approximately 12,300 permanent—party spaces at eight Marine 

Corps installations. The Marine Corps expects to satisfy the requirement by 2014. 

We have also focused on the needs of our wounded warriors 

through the construction of wounded warrior barracks at Camp 

Lejeune and Camp Pendleton. These projects will provide critical 

temporary housing for our healing wounded warriors. 

The Navy has successfully executed two unaccompanied housing 

privatization projects using the pilot authority provided by the 

Congress in 2003. These projects will result in a total of over 3,100 

units, including over 2,100 new two-bedroom apartments for unaccompanied Sailors stationed in the San Diego and Hampton Roads 

areas. The Navy is continuing to evaluate candidate locations for 

the third pilot project, including the Mayport-Jacksonville, Florida 


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area, as well as additional phases at San Diego and Hampton 

Roads. 

Our unaccompanied program still has its challenges. The Navy’s 

Homeport Ashore Program, to provide housing ashore to junior unaccompanied sailors currently living aboard ships, remains a priority to the department. The Navy has thought to address this requirement through both MILCON and the use of pilot unaccompanied housing privatization authority. 

However, there remain Sailors living onboard ships in our fleet 

concentration areas. The Navy continues to evaluate bachelor housing strategies to address this remaining requirement and enhance 

the quality of life for single sea-duty Sailors. 

Returning to the subject of military housing privatization, there 

has been a great deal of attention focused by Congress on the service’s oversight of housing privatization projects in the wake of difficulties experienced by some partners. We take seriously our responsibility to the Munzert Privatization Agreement to ensure that 

the government’s long-term interests are adequately protected. 

We have instituted a portfolio management approach that collects and analyzes financial, occupancy, construction, and resident 

satisfaction data to ensure that the projects remain sound and that 

the partners are performing as expected. We conduct meetings with 

senior representatives of our partners and, where necessary, resolve issues of mutual interest. 

Where our projects have encountered difficulties, appropriate corrective actions have been taken. For example, we had concerns regarding the performance of the private partner in our Pacific 

Northwest project. We worked with that partner to sell its interest 

to another company—with a good record of performance with military housing privatization projects. We are satisfied with the outcome. 

Additionally, we are not insulated from the difficulties affecting 

the nation’s economy. We have seen a dramatic curtailment in the 

amount of private financing available for our future military housing privatization projects and phases. This, in turn, affects plans 

for constructions and renovations. We are working with the office 

of the Secretary of Defense, the other services, and the lending 

community on ways to mitigate such impacts and preserve our ability to leverage private capital on future phases. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I look forward to 

answering any questions that you or members of this committee 

may have. 

[Prepared statement of B.J. Penn follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Secretary Penn. 

Secretary Billings. 

STATEMENT OF KEVIN W. BILLINGS

Mr. BILLINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Wamp, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to address the Air Force unaccompanied and family housing, both key quality of life issues for our Airmen and our families. 

When Secretary Donley asked me to assume the role of Acting 

Secretary of the Air Force (Installations, Environment and Logistics) six months ago, I laid out four basic principles to guide our 

organization. First and foremost is compliance with the law. Second 

is to be good stewards of the environment, and equally importantly, 

to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars. The fourth is to do 

this all while remembering that taking care of our Airmen and 

their families is what allows us to accomplish our mission. 

Real quickly, though, I would also like to thank my colleagues 

before the committee here, because without the guidance of Mr. 

Arny and Mr. Eastin and Mr. Penn, I would have not been able to 

get up to speed as quickly on these issues as I have, and I want 

to publicly thank them. 

With that fourth principle I want to reiterate what Chief Master 

Sergeant of the Air Force McKinley told you a couple weeks ago 

about our housing and dorms, and that is that the Air Force is 

committed to ensuring our Airmen and their families have quality 

housing in which to live and raise their families. We have almost 

43,000 Airmen living in unaccompanied housing, or what we refer 

to as dormitories, and over 65,000 families living in Air Force family housing. 

We truly appreciate the continued efforts of this subcommittee, 

the Congress, and the valuable support and leadership you have 

provided to the success of our housing program. First turning to 

unaccompanied housing, the Air Force continues our longstanding 

commitment to provide quality dormitories. As Chief McKinley also 

testified to this committee, dorms are not just a place where Airmen sleep; they are a place where we blue our newest and youngest Airmen, our future Air Force leaders. 

Enlisted Airmen are the backbone of our Air Force, and we are 

currently aware of the vital importance quality living conditions 

contributes to morale and retention. Since fiscal year 2000, we 

have demonstrated our commitment by providing quality dormitories for our Airmen by funding 95 construction projects totaling almost $1.3 billion. 

We continue to replace dormitories at the end of their useful life 

with our standard Air Force design, Dorms for Airmen Program. 

The Dorms for Airmen design capitalizes on the wingman strategy 

that keeps the dorm residents both socially and emotionally fit. 

This is accomplished by providing our Airmen privacy and respect 

with their own bedroom and head, yet encouraging them to interact 

with their fellow Airmen through shared kitchen, laundry, and entertainment space. 

The Air Force prides itself in saying that we recruit Airmen, yet 

we retain families, and we understand the importance of quality 

family housing to our members and their families. Our strategy for 


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providing quality family housing uses the Defense Department ‘‘offbase first’’ policy to determine what the local community can support and the need for on-base housing. 

Where possible, we utilize the congressional authorities for privatization to meet our housing requirements. We will continue to 

privatize where it makes sense. However, when privatization is not 

feasible, such as at overseas bases, we rely on traditional military 

construction funding. We continue to make progress in the replacement or major improvement of our housing for Air Force families. 

Since last spring, the Air Force completed new construction or 

major improvements on 1,161 units in the United States and 911 

units overseas. Additionally, we have another 2,286 units under 

construction in the United States, and 2,783 units under construction overseas. 

Using privatization to accelerate our family housing improvement program, we have seen delivery of over 10,000 new or renovated homes, and are currently bringing on-line over 200 quality 

homes a month. By the beginning of 2010 we will have privatized 

close to 38,900 housing units at 44 bases. Further, we plan to privatize 100 percent of our family housing inventory in the 

Continential United States, Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam by the end 

of fiscal year 2010. Current projections show by strategically 

leveraging more than $402 million in government investment, we 

will have brought in almost $6.3 billion in private sector total housing development. 

Finally, I would like to thank you for your support of our Airmen 

in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This important appropriation significantly supports the Air Force programs for providing quality housing for our Airmen and their families. Specifically, we thank you for providing the Air Force $80 million for family housing and military construction, $16 million for 

housing operations and maintenance, and $100 million for dormitories. While this appropriation will help the Air Force improve 

its housing inventory and stimulate the local job market surrounding our various Air Force bases, there are still critical requirements to fund in future appropriations. 

In closing, the Air Force would like to thank the committee for 

its continued strong support of the Air Force and unaccompanied 

and family housing. Through your support we are improving the 

quality of life for our Airmen and their families by bringing quality 

dormitories on-line faster than ever before, and at significant savings to the taxpayers through privatization. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering your 

questions. 

[Prepared statement of Kevin W. Billings follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Secretary Billings, and let me thank 

each of you for what you do every day. One of the reasons I consider it a privilege to be on this subcommittee is, I don’t think 

there is any shortage of lobbyists running around Capitol Hill supporting various multi-billion dollar weapons programs, but in my 

18 years in the House I think maybe two or three times at the 

most have I had anybody come by my office asking that we do more 

to provide better housing for our troops and their families, so you 

are the voice and leaders making a difference in their quality of 

life, and I thank each of you for that commitment. 

I was going to recognize Mr. Wamp to start out the questioning, 

but do I understand that Mr. Crenshaw might have to leave after 

the next round of votes, and if that is necessary, I would be happy 

to—— 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, if you are going to rotate back and 

forth I would ask that you let him go first in the event that he has 

to leave after this series of votes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You bet. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

PRIVATIZED HOUSING

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all. I think privatized housing, as the chairman 

said, gives us all a sense of pride, and so often civilians look at 

military housing and say, ‘‘Gee, you know, that is not so good.’’ And 

now they look at the privatized housing with a sense of envy, saying, ‘‘You know, we would like to live in those kind of houses.’’ 

I visited San Diego and saw the family housing, and I tell you 

what, it is awful nice. And I haven’t seen the, the privatized bachelor quarters, but I think it is a great program. It leverages the 

money that we have and enables us to do good things that the private sector has been doing for a while. So I thank you all for working on this program. 

Two quick questions. One has to do with Navy Region Southeast. 

Secretary Penn, I know you have done Bachelor Privatized Housing in San Diego, you have done it in Hampton Roads, are you still 

on track to do the Southeast project, part of those at Mayport, part 

of those at Kings Bay? 

Mr. PENN. Yes, sir. We are looking at the options to provide fantastic homes for our troops, and we are doing an analysis, as you 

know, with a private program. We had three initial locations, and 

two of them fell out, and Mayport-Jax is in now, and we are doing 

the analysis on Mayport-Jax, based upon the requirements, yes, 

sir. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Is there anything you need—do we need to extend this program? As I understand it, it may expire at the end of 

this fiscal year. 

Mr. PENN. It expires in September of 2009, sir. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. So it would be important for us to extend this 

program 

Mr. PENN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. One of the things I wanted to ask you about 

Mayport: When you do a housing demand study, as you know the 

Navy has made a decision to homeport a nuclear carrier there, and 


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the carrier may come sooner, may come later, but when you do the 

demand part of your housing study, do you take into consideration 

the fact that there is a plan to have nuclear carrier there with 

3,000 Sailors? Does that go into your study? 

Mr. PENN. That may be part of our EIS, or environmental impact 

statement. We look at everything: schools, traffic. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. But in taking into consideration it takes a little 

while to build a project, you don’t want to end up with a shortage 

of housing. 

Mr. PENN. We do analysis on Mayport, that is correct. We do. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Got you. And on the other side, I ask the Air 

Force, no program is perfect, but my colleagues in Florida, we have 

been informed that Patrick Air Force Base, that project down there 

hasn’t gone as well as some of the other ones, and there is a new 

developer, and we were told they are going to open the housing up 

tonon-defense people, and possibly living on base if you are not a 

military member could present problems. 

Do you sense that? Is that something you are aware of? And 

have you done everything you can, been as creative as you can, to 

make sure that there aren’t enough folks in the military to kind 

of fill those? 

NON-MILITARY ON BASE HOUSING

Mr. BILLINGS. Yes, sir. The issue with the waterfalls, as it is 

called, at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida is larger than the developer wanted. There were operations to make sure that there are 

the right number of folks in the buildings, but when it falls below 

95 percent we open it up first to other military families, then unaccompanied military, then to the Guard and Reserve, then after that 

to contractors, and then it falls down to the local community. 

But before we let anybody from the local community in, we do 

background checks, we do financial checks, and we make sure the 

priority is to not have them on base. A lot of the privatized housing 

is off-base, and the civilians who are part of that privatized housing are in the off-base part first, as opposed to on the on-base part. 

And finally, the commander has sole authority of who he lets on 

his base and who he doesn’t, so as you put the processes together 

to makes sure that these projects are viable—that is why we have 

the waterfall so that the developers can continue to do the work 

they need to do—we prioritize who can be part of that waterfall. 

The waterfall is in place in a number of other bases, and again, 

there are processes to make sure that anybody who is part of that 

is looked at very carefully. 

HOUSING PRIVATIZATION STANDARDIZATION

Mr. CRENSHAW. Real quick, Mr. Chairman—also at Eglin. The 

Air Force is going to do a project there, and as I understand it they 

have put it out to bid at least twice, no developers said they want 

to do it, and do you coordinate with the other services on building 

family housing contracts? Is there kind of a standard or standardized way to do a privatized housing project? I wonder why it hasn’t 

worked as well there at Eglin, which is over in northwest Florida. 

Any particular reason—does it still make sense? 


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EGLIN AFB, FL HOUSING PRIVATIZATION

Mr. BILLINGS. Privatization will make sense at Eglin Air Force 

Base, Florida. One of the issues at Eglin—a complicating issue at 

Eglin—is the bed-down of the F–35. And as we beddown the weapon system we were doing a supplemental environmental analysis so 

that we can move forward to beddown. The supplemental analysis 

will look at, perhaps, different runways and different flight patterns. So, we have actually put the privatized housing initiative at 

Eglin on hold until we have done the supplemental environmental 

impact statement on the overall F–35 bed-down of the integrated 

training facility there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. ARNY. I would like to make one comment. The thing to remember, too, is—which took me a while to figure out—anybody 

below an active duty military person that comes in on this waterfall, and the first levels are either reservists or Guard or militaryrelated, or even on-base civilians, but anybody below that first level 

only gets a 1-year lease, so that if you are full a year later that 

person is out and one of your active duty people come in. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Got you. Got you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp, let me ask you, in terms of the procedure—we have 

a 15-minute vote going. Are you comfortable with us going till 2 or 

3 minutes before this vote is over? There is one more vote after 

this, so—— 

So if staff will let us know when it is down to 3 minutes before 

the votes, I would appreciate that. 

Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You cut it pretty short. 

Mr. EDWARDS. But you get your full 5 minutes. 

PINON CANYON

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you. 

First of all, let me thank all of you for your service. And not to 

be outdone, but you have 182 hours, I have got—— 

Mr. EASTIN. Ninety. One hundred and ninety. Please, don’t—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SALAZAR. I have got over 600 on a Piper Cherokee, so—— 

I would like to discuss two more issues with Mr. Eastin. I know, 

first of all, let me just tell you that I have the greatest respect for 

all of you who have served in the military and for all of you who 

serve this country. But there was an article in ‘‘The Pueblo Chieftain’’ this week where ‘‘The Chieftain’’ reported that Secretary 

Eastin has reached a lease agreement with Denver businessman 

Craig Walker to acquire 70,000 acres off the Pinon Canyon and 

would announce it in Trinidad. 

It really took me off-guard. I know that you and I have had some 

discussions before about maybe the auction. Last year, 2 years ago, 

we passed an amendment to Mil-Con V.A. appropriations bill that 

actually prohibited the Army from utilizing any funding for future 


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expansions of Pinon Canyon. And of course, that was only a 1-year 

prohibition. 

Last year it was included in the language, and I guess I would 

like to ask you if you think it was the intent of Congress to completely bar the expansion with the use of these funds. I think that 

you might have mentioned to others that there might be other 

sources of revenue or funding for that expansion. Could you 

maybe—— 

Mr. EASTIN. This is, as you and I have discussed before and I 

have discussed with the citizens of Trinidad in an interesting little—what do I want to say—availability in a gym down in Trinidad 

for people to make comments about what the Army was doing. We 

have no intention of violating what the prohibition is, but we have 

had, I believe, Senator Salazar has asked GAO to look at this, and 

they have found that we are not violating the law with respect to 

that. 

Our reading of the law—and you can’t get around having lawyers 

even though you are at the Army; they are everywhere—we asked 

them curtly about this. We are not acquiring, which would require 

military construction funding, but we are, if you will, investigating 

whether this will work and finding out how to make it work. 

Our opinion is that those preliminary steps to see what the citizenry thinks, to take surveys out there of basically—land and when 

the land might be available, that can be used with operation and 

maintenance funds, and not military construction funding. So it is 

not our intention to buy anything without coming back to the committee, and certainly discussing this with the Southeast Colorado 

delegation. So I think there is some confusion in what the source 

of the funds was, and what could be used with those funds and the 

other available funds for other purposes. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Do you think that maybe you may be cutting some 

of the funding that we use for housing for troops and utilizing some 

of those funds to begin the search and paying for some of the research that you are doing now to acquire these properties? Do you 

think that that is not taking money away from the housing? 

Mr. EASTIN. Congressman, I don’t believe so. We are using operation and maintenance funds, which comes out of a different account, so it is neither—family housing operations, which is one account, it is not in the construction funds. It doesn’t come out of any 

RCR projects we have, and doesn’t come out of any of the barracks 

upgrade programs either, or the training barracks upgrade programs. So in our opinion—and in any event, I would venture to say 

that what has been expended is something quite south of $1 million on this. 

Mr. SALAZAR. So you will say that there is actually no agreement 

right now? 

Mr. EASTIN. ‘‘The Chieftain,’’ of course, is free to write whatever 

it likes, and my guess is you have seen that, but there is not agreement to do anything. We are looking at all sorts of options down 

there for acquiring land; we have, in fact, looked at that—it is a 

little, I believe it is between 70,000 and 80,000-acre site that is the 

subject of our discussions—but no deal has been made. I don’t even 

know if we can do it—certainly we couldn’t do it without coming 

back to see you all. 


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Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. We will have time for a 

second round of questioning, for those members who can stay here. 

Mr. Wamp. 

INVESTMENTS

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have got a couple of 

questions for each witness, and I will come back the second round 

if I need to. 

Secretary Arny, one of the drumbeats that all of our witnesses 

will probably hear from me throughout the Mil-Con quality of life 

side of this subcommittee is, I have spent a lot of time with General Casey in the last year, and there are impediments to our military families receiving support from the private sector, from the 

philanthropic sector, and outside groups . . . all of the above. And 

we hear more and more of this, how people want to help but the 

law prohibits them to help. 

Is there anything that you know of today, relative to this testimony and the housing piece, that is still an impediment to outside 

groups helping our military families and I mean financially? They 

want to help, and there are impediments to investments and support for families, and we are scouring the countryside trying to find 

anything that is in the way of our extraordinary free-enterprise 

system, even in a recession, from helping our military. Do you 

know of any? 

Mr. ARNY. Sir, this issue has not come up, in my knowledge, in 

terms of—I was trying to think through the various—we are getting support from the private sector, but it is all competitive, and 

we bid for it. Other than people giving our troops funds, which we 

don’t permit, I think the law is prohibiting that, I would have to 

work with you—— 

Mr. WAMP. Yes. If anything comes up like that, call me. I want 

to hear about it. 

GROW THE FORCE

Secretary Eastin, on the Grow the Army sites that have inefficient availability family housing, the RCI partnerships to build additional housing, can you tell the committee where these locations 

are, what the deficits are in those locations, and how long it will 

take before additional housing will be constructed? 

Mr. EASTIN. There are basically nine of our installations that are 

involved in some sort of Grow the Army operations. I can list them 

quickly or furnish them for the record, but basically we are happy 

with all of our housing at each of these. Of course, we rely on the 

private sector to basically furnish about half of the housing. This 

is to protect the private sector developers, as development community as well as our own, so we don’t see any deficits in those that 

have not been taken care of or planned on. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I see your note. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you would like to continue, you still have time 

left. 

We will stand in recess until we take both votes; then we will 

be through with voting for the day. 

[Recess.] 


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STIMULUS FUNDING

Mr. WAMP. All right. Down to Secretary Penn. 

Sir, I was going to ask you about the Homeport Ashore Initiative 

and the stimulus bill, and how the stimulus funding ties into the 

progress that you are making on ramping up the Homeport Ashore 

Program. Didn’t you use some of the stimulus money for that? 

Mr. ARNY. We are going to come out with our list here pretty 

quickly, and most—we are still not sure what exactly will tie specifically to Homeport Ashore, but we have asked—we at OSD asked 

the Services to come up with fast spending program. If you recall, 

almost all of the—there is a little bit of MILCON in each of the 

Services, there is the hospital MILCON for TMA, so if it is tied to 

the stimulus it is going to be in the sustainment in the—— 

So it wouldn’t be, I don’t think, directly tied to Homeport Ashore. 

It might benefit Homeport Ashore in that perhaps we are, you 

know, renovating some rooms, or fixing up some heating, or replacing windows, or that kind of smaller project that we usually push 

off to the back that we are able to do with the stimulus money. 

Mr. WAMP. You mentioned the dorms and $100 million, but how 

does the stimulus money tie into Tier 1 and Tier 2 deficiencies on 

dorms on the Air Force? 

Mr. BILLINGS. Sir, all of the stimulus money will be spent on Tier 

1 dorms or deficient dorms. One deficient and three Tier 1 dorms 

will be funded with the stimulus money. 

Mr. WAMP. That is it, Mr. Chairman, for now. 

INADEQUATE HOUSING

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. 

Let me ask each of you a traditional question of mine. In whatever way you define adequate and inadequate housing, can you tell 

me how many families in your respective service, how many families live in inadequate housing and how many single servicemen 

and women are living in inadequate housing? 

Unless, Secretary Arny, if you have the numbers for all the Services. 

If not, we could just begin with you, Secretary Eastin, if you have 

those numbers. 

Mr. EASTIN. I can furnish more accurate ones to you, but, you 

know, the large part, with our family housing we probably have 

about a deficit of, I would say, about 9,000 or 10,000. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Nine thousand or 10,000. 

Mr. EASTIN. Barracks, of course, we are looking at, in the training barracks, a large number—145,000 in training barracks. But 

permanent party barracks, as we said, we will have those filled out 

in 2015, and now the number, I think is around 30. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thirty. And would you follow up, just to fine-tune 

those numbers? 

Mr. EASTIN. I will get those for you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. All right. I appreciate that. 

[The information follows:] 

There will be 19,208 permanent party barracks and 65,084 training barracks 

spaces that remain inadequate after executing fiscal year 2009 military construction 

and renovation projects. Additionally, there will be 681 inadequate Army-owned 

Family housing units (homes and apartments) at one enduring site in Baumholder, 


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Germany, as well as 4,399 inadequate Family housing units that are surplus to the 

Army’s needs, or at sites due to close. There will also be 19,659 inadequate Army 

privatized Family housing units. 

Mr. PENN. The Department of Navy, sir, has approximately 5,000 

families still living in inadequate housing. Maybe we will eliminate 

ours by 2011—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. How many Marine families are living in inadequate housing? You said 5,000. 

Mr. PENN. That is total. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Maybe that is counting Navy and Marines, then, 

okay. 

Mr. PENN. And if we look at the bachelor quarters, the Navy has 

15,600 Sailors, and the Marine Corps has 17,400 Marines. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Secretary Billings. 

Mr. BILLINGS. We have 10,835 inadequate family houses with 

about 8,000 families living in those houses. Those will be eliminated by the end of fiscal year 2015. We have 106 inadequate dormitories with approximately 3,200 enlisted personnel in 61 inadequate dorms, 400 contractors in 41 inadequate dorms, mostly in 

remote locations. 

Mr. EDWARDS. When you say dorms, that could be a building 

with 200 barracks in it? 

Mr. BILLINGS. Yes, sir. I mean, most—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. How many individual barracks—— 

Mr. BILLINGS. Individual rooms, sir, I will take that for the 

record. 

[The information follows:] 

The Air Force has 106 inadequate dormitories with a total of 4,500 rooms. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Let me ask you, with the challenges you have mentioned— 

BRAC, global inflation, and construction, which we didn’t control 

but we will all be affected by it—have any of the services changed 

your goals for providing full adequate housing or barracks since 

this time last year when you or your cohorts testified? Are these 

the same goals that you had a year ago, or have they slipped in 

any way? 

Mr. EASTIN. Same with the Army, same year of buildup. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Same thing? 

Mr. BILLINGS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PENN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. ARNY. One thing we are trying to do in the future is—of all 

the barracks is, we would like to—specifically, all of us have concentrated on permanent party, and we now want to raise training 

barracks up to that same level to see what we need to do with that, 

and then move also on to—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Judge Carter brought to my attention some of the 

family housing down at Fort Hood that has been defined as adequate, but when he and I visited it several weeks ago I would be 

hard-pressed to say with a straight face that it is adequate housing. But we will leave that for further discussion, perhaps, Judge 

Carter’s discussion. 

Judge. 


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Mr. CARTER. I think you are reading my mind, Mr. Chairman. 

FINANCIAL CHALLENGES

Before I get to the couple of questions I had—I am very interested in continuing to move through the current economic challenges, which Chet just asked a question about. I read in every one 

of your comments that this new financing challenge that we have 

in the private sector has created at least a hiccup in your plans. 

It says here in this statement, I believe this is by the Navy, that 

the Secretary of Defense and the other Services were working and 

finding out ways to work with the lending community to solve this 

problem. I assume that this means interim financing for construction. 

What have you come up with? Because from what we hear, the 

lending markets are sealed up and they are not making loans, and 

it is hard for people to find loans, and that is why we are all spending so much money trying to figure out a way to solve that problem. Do you all want to comment on what you have come up with 

to solve these problems? 

Mr. ARNY. Well, I believe you there. One thing we have done, we 

have gone to the lending community, and they all agreed that our 

ratings are high. We have kept our debt service under control; the 

programs are very solid. So we are faced with the same liquidity 

problem as everyone. It is not like we had a bunch of sub-primes 

and now we—— 

Mr. CARTER. I understand that. 

Mr. ARNY. So one of the things we are doing, and I mentioned 

it kind of peripherally in my testimony, is with our newer projects. 

Ordinarily we put in some military construction or some DoD 

value, and the lender would bring us—or the private sector partner 

would bring money to the table, go out and get a major loan so that 

we could do a bunch of new construction. Well, now we are postponing that new construction so we can get the private sector guy 

on board to do the maintenance for us, because one of the secrets 

of privatization is not just reconstruction on all these projects, it 

is also the maintenance over a 50-year period. 

One thing that we were never very good with, and those of us 

that have been around the Service for a long time, we would use 

what I call then 30-year MILCON approach. You would build something with MILCON, and then we would let it go for 30 years, and 

the 30 years later we would have another MILCON project. We 

never were very good at maintaining it. 

So in the interim, until everybody gets some relief on the financing, we are keeping the projects going—the new ones—trying to get 

those new ones, get the management on board so that we get better 

management of our projects, and then as the markets open up, 

then come back in with the loans. 

Mr. CARTER. And I would agree, that is a good use of your time 

and your money. But I think going back to the question that the 

Chairman asked, doesn’t that in some way throw you off the construction schedules? I think that was the gist of the Chairman’s 

question. I mean, if it does, we want to know. 

Mr. ARNY. It does. It does throw us off, but again, even before 

we had this credit crunch, other things would pop up. The beauty 


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of this is we do have flexibility in each of these partnerships to adjust to whatever happens. 

Mr. CARTER. The housing, of course, we are talking about at Fort 

Hood is Chaffee Village. Right now it is scheduled to be renovated, 

which would I guess mean basically gutted and rebuilt on the inside, but you are still going to have the basic structure of a twobedroom, old house. And it is my understanding that we are quite 

some years off from going in and replacing Chaffee Village. 

Mr. EDWARDS. 2032, as I recall. 

Mr. CARTER. 2032, I believe it was. These houses look old. They 

not only are old, but they look old too. There are a whole lot of 

strange things in those projects, and the Chairman and I both went 

through several units. We are just curious if there is any possibility 

of a mind change to speed up the replacement of those units. I realize it is not a popular thought with the Army right now, but it is 

a real concern. It is the concern of the Army families that are stationed there, and it is a concern that I have and I believe the 

Chairman shares with me. So I would like your comments about 

that. 

Mr. EASTIN. Let me discuss that a little bit. This is part of a residential communities initiative program, where the—and the Army 

will get together and decide what the scope of that particular RCI 

project is in something called the initial development period, commonly called the IDP, where we phase in—there is some new 

houses, some houses have nothing done to them, some are renovated, and it is on a time schedule that is all carefully negotiated 

with both the partner and our financing source so that once that 

is locked in these schedules are driven by what the financing of it 

is. 

Unfortunately, the Chaffee Village homes—674, as I understand 

it—have minor renovations to them which, quite frankly, is paint 

and window seals, and things like that, but the major part of them 

will come at a prearranged schedule down the road a piece. How 

can you fix that? Dollars. You have to contribute—the Army would 

have to contribute some funding to it so that hopefully you can borrow some funding against that, and then basically double up on 

how much you can do—— 

The financing market is not affecting this right now, but if we 

wanted to change one of the few parts of the mix, that is when you 

would get into, I would think, a little more difficult—— 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EASTIN. I don’t disagree that these houses are not what we 

would all like. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. We will follow up on that. 

Mr. Kennedy, and then Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

BARRACKS

Welcome, all of you. Thank you for your service. I want to follow 

up with the Chairman’s question about how many barracks are unsuited for use. 

I think that we would get ourselves in a lot of trouble if we were 

to leave this question unanswered for a long period of time. I know 


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you are working with flexible budgets and trying to deal with timing, in terms of trying to keep O&M up and getting some of these 

more critical areas addressed, but when you have got the numbers—like quarter million barracks in the Army, over 100,000 in 

the Air Force, you know, tens of thousands in the Navy, just off the 

top of your head—of barracks that are, you know, insufficient for 

usage for our enlisted, it seems to me this is something that doesn’t 

juxtapose well when at the same time you say, it has worked very 

well for family housing, and when the privatized housing has 

worked very well with the family housing we have managed to 

move things along quickly, a lot better than the past. 

So when it comes to moving the O&M along more quickly, doing 

the O&M better than the government used to do it, positioning construction so that when the money does come and the liquidity back 

to the market starts coming back we are ready to move on it, that 

we are in position to do that. It just seems to me—what I would 

like to know is, what is the hold-up to doing for our enlisted what 

we have done for our families? 

Mr. ARNY. Let me comment overall. Having worked with Mr. 

Penn on the Navy side for 7 years—6 years—it is much easier to 

privatize the family housing than it was to privatize—than it is to 

privatize enlisted dorms. The Navy faced—all three Services have 

inadequate—a level of inadequate. That doesn’t mean they are uninhabitable; they are inadequate by our standards. 

But what the Navy then faced was Homeport Ashore, when you 

had all these ships in port, you jumped another 30,000, so the 

Navy had to move quickly, and so reached out and tried privatization in Norfolk and San Diego. And in my humble belief, and I 

think Mr. Penn—it has been very successful so far. The housing 

that is up and about to run in San Diego is something that is better than most of our officers are living in, and even the enlisted 

housing that the partner took over, we have been doing satisfaction 

surveys and it was at 70 percent, the private partner took over and 

they just have a better sense for service than we do—it is not our 

business—and it went to 90 percent. And in Norfolk we are doing 

that. 

That doesn’t work for all the Services. The Marine Corps requires E–5 and below to live in barracks. They need the barracks 

to be next to their units. They require their barracks to be built 

out of concrete block. That is their standards. 

The Army has, I believe it is E–5 and below as well. We are trying to work through some of those. Where we can’t we are going 

to standard MILCON, and like I said, we are going out to survey 

and start to set goals like we did in family housing to get out—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. So are you piloting? We would like to see where 

you are piloting projects around the country. 

Mr. ARNY. That, which we have authority to do—the two project 

at San Diego and at Newport News in the Norfolk area, and the 

third project in the Mayport-Jax area. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And then how about Army? 

Mr. ARNY. Let me—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. 

Mr. ARNY. Let us divide up two things here. We are doing pilot 

projects on privatization at five separate installations, but for E– 


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6s and above. If you do E–5s and below—the reason RCI projects 

work is there is an income stream. The income stream is the basic 

allowance for housing that you would pay a family for living offpost. So instead of paying him—off-post, you would bring it inside. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right, right. 

Mr. ARNY. There is no such allowance for housing for single soldiers, so it presents some difficulties. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That presents a difficulty, but it also presents a 

problem when these are the soldiers we are relying on to do multiple tours, and they need to be living in quality quarters irrespective of what their—the way this program is structured for purposes 

of allowance for housing, is what we are saying. 

Mr. ARNY. I agree. So in areas where we can do it—first of all, 

we are fighting internally with our own personnel people who then 

have to pay that BAH. So if we can’t do it with privatization, where 

it doesn’t work—remember, it needs to be up near the fence, it 

needs to be isolated, there are lots of different restrictions—then 

we are focusing on permanent parties, getting rid of inadequate. 

We have got the funding to do that; we now need to move to training and others. 

We realize there is a gap and we are trying to get it a step at 

a time. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Isn’t that one of the problems we face with the Army growing by what, 67,000, and the Marine Corps by 22,000? I mean, that has changed the dynamic here 

of being able to have these barracks and other things in a reasonable period of time. Isn’t that part of the problem? 

Mr. ARNY. It is, but to be frank, and I think the Army did the 

same thing, but I know, working with Mr. Penn, the Navy, as opposed to the Department of Navy, coughed up money—what, two 

or three budgets ago—to the Marine Corps so that part of Grow the 

Force, Grow the Marine Corps, included many more barracks. And 

the one thing that we in the I&E world were able to do is get the 

Marines to buy them differently. 

While the Marines won’t privatize, we did get them to go out and 

buy barracks in batches rather than one at a time. Now, you know, 

on these joint bases, there has been a little resistance—I am looking at the Air Force here—and I have heard, you know, there has 

been reticence about how this is going to be done. And it does make 

sense to me that—you know, there is a lot of things that can be 

joined, but you have got to protect the integrity of the missions. 

Mr. DICKS. How are you doing on that? 

Mr. ARNY. We are doing superbly, thanks to Mr. Billings and his 

Air Force colleagues that are here today. 

Mr. DICKS. What about the ones that aren’t here? [Laughter.] 

Mr. ARNY. It has been a remarkable effort, and there—and I 

have been around the military since 1960. I was an infant at the 

time. But as I try and tell folks that you have—two or three bases 

that are right next to each other, a civilian driving by looks at it 

and assumes it is all Department of Defense. So it is hard to go 


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to them to say, ‘‘No, you have two different cultures.’’ And they look 

at you like you are crazy. 

But it is cultural change that we are bringing to the Services, 

and we meet weekly and bi-weekly in my office with the Services 

and their reps banging this stuff out. And we are making tremendous progress. But we have to grow to get over those categories. 

But joint basing is bringing stuff together, but it is joint basing 

only for installation management, not for mission, and that is a 

message we have to deliver every week. The missions are still intact; what we are bringing into jointness is the mission support, 

the installation supports for that mission. 

So the mission—— 

Mr. DICKS. So you think this is moving ahead now—— 

Mr. ARNY. Absolutely. 

Mr. DICKS [continuing]. And we don’t have this resistance? Good. 

I am glad to hear that. 

Mr. BILLINGS. Well, sir, and when I came on board in this job, 

Secretary Donley and General Schwartz made it a priority to work 

with Mr. Arny, to work with us, and we have signed our MOUs, 

we are very close to signing the last Phase 1 MOU, I think by the 

end of this month. 

Mr. ARNY. I knew we were achieving victory when the biggest 

problem we had at one of the bases, who shall remain nameless, 

was the number of guard dogs. [Laughter.] 

Mr. DICKS. All right. Well again, I have enjoyed working with all 

four of you. I will just say one thing as I walk out the door, because 

I have a meeting: We still don’t have base security where I think 

it ought to be. Every service has a different approach to this. Secretary Arny, you and I have talked about this—we have got to get 

this under control. Because every time we put in a system at, like, 

Andrews, or the Trident Submarine Base, or Fort Dix, we find that 

a lot of people are getting on these bases that shouldn’t be getting 

on them. 

Somehow we have got to get this thing standardized and know 

what our protocol is. And up to this point I have been working on 

this—Secretary Penn knows this; he has been in my office three or 

four times trying to get this straightened out. Everybody points the 

finger at everybody else. There is no uniformity across the three 

Services about how to do this. So I hope this is something you can 

take on. 

Mr. ARNY. Will do, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

COMMITTEE SUPPORT

We will begin the second round of questioning with Mr. Wamp, 

and then with Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, Sam Farr asked a good question this morning 

that I am going to ask of all the witnesses. If you could jump over 

on the other side of the table, tell us the one thing that we need 

to take away, that we need to hear today from you all on what we 

could do to help you best in this bill going forward—anything at 

all that is helpful. This morning it was very helpful. You might not 

have anything, but I wanted to give you that opportunity. 


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Mr. ARNY. Good question. And I discussed with members before, 

it would be nice if you all had the MILCON end to payment package too, because one of the issues that we are faced, I think we 

are—from the MILCON side, we could always use more. I mean, 

there is not a program that doesn’t use more. But we are in decent 

shape with MILCON, and I think we have the program to look forward to the future, and we are measuring it better. 

Sustainment was a problem up until a couple of years ago. We 

now have established DOD standards at 90 percent sustainment 

across the board where we were down at 70 to 75 percent—90 percent sustainment, and we at our office are working—my office is 

working with the services to look at, now that we have done housing—family housing—we have got a better handle on bachelor 

housing, I call it—unaccompanied housing—now admin space. 

Eight years ago we looked at, how do we privatize admin space, 

and there are all sorts of schemes floating around. None of them 

work, because as Mr. Eastin said, there is no income stream. 

So I think we have got a way to do that, and we are going to 

work it, and I think you need to ask us, ‘‘How are you doing now 

in family housing and bachelor housing, but what are you doing for 

admin space? How do you measure whether it is sustained properly? How do you measure if it is modernized?’’ And I think we 

have got a way to do that. 

And again, I want to set basic, simple—I know you didn’t like 

our inadequate measure, but at least it was a measure that each 

Service understood. It wasn’t necessarily translatable, but they all 

understood it, and we set goals to get there. And we missed them 

a little bit, but at least we had goals, and we are going to try to 

do that with admin—all the buildings, not just admin space, but 

hangars and all the stuff that falls out. 

Mr. WAMP. Secretary Eastin. 

Mr. EASTIN. First let me say, it is rare that I don’t comment on 

something up here, but you all have supported the Army’s housing 

and our MILCON exceptionally well, and I thank the Chairman 

and the rest of you for that. 

And probably outside of your control is when the funding comes. 

Everything gets approved, and then we have 8 months left to go 

to try to build it all instead of 12 months. I just throw that out; 

Chairman Edwards has heard that comment from me for the last 

3 or 4 years now, but I don’t know how you fix this, but—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. You were so persuasive last year we got the bill 

passed—— 

Mr. WAMP. But timing is often more important than the funding, 

in terms of planning, and finality. 

Secretary Penn. 

Mr. PENN. If you just continue your support of the quality of life 

issues—Rep. Crenshaw mentioned the fact that we have an authority that is expiring in September. If you just continue to support 

us in that area, it is working great. And thank you so much for 

your support. 

Mr. WAMP. Secretary Billings. 

Mr. BILLINGS. Well, sir, thank you. I just, again, reiterate what 

my colleagues have said: Thank you. As we move forward with 


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eliminating Tier 1 dorms, we have $2.2 billion programmed for 

that, as the number one priority. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. I think that is a great 

question to ask, both this morning and this afternoon. 

Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to 

follow up on Mr. Wamp’s question, but I think it was—I guess I 

will pick on the Air Force a little bit today. 

All of you have pretty much the same standards when it comes 

to family housing and, you know, individual housing, but it always 

seems like the Air Force seems to have nicer buildings, nicer everything. Is that true or not? 

Mr. ARNY. You haven’t been to Lewis-McChord yet. [Laughter.] 

Mr. EASTIN. I take the 5th on that. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Well, I am an Army guy, so I stand up for the 

Army. 

Mr. PENN. And I am sure when we were flying, we always landed 

on Air Force bases, everything was better. [Laughter.] 

The food, everything is better at an Air Force base. 

Mr. SALAZAR. I really think it is a case of what base you are on. 

And I think that—I will give you the example I heard as a comment at a Marine Corps who spoke at a—in Quantico where, as a 

second lieutenant, he was stationed down there, and he made the 

comment that he and his new wife moved into his house and they 

went and bought one bedside table for their bed, not because they 

couldn’t afford two, but because there was no room in the bedroom 

for more. And he didn’t like to cook, but he didn’t have to worry 

about it because the kitchen was so small—this is officer housing— 

that only one person could fit in at a time. 

And if you could go back now, and I think you need to, to visit 

some of the enlisted—that is where our concentration is, is on our 

enlisted housing—at the housing at Quantico and all the bases 

where it is going in, you will see a standard that far exceeds anything we have had before for officers, let alone enlisted housing. 

The privatization has brought in an outside perspective. 

So the other thing too is, you could go anywhere in the world in 

the old days, it is the same house. Well, that same house may be 

perfectly adequate for one base, but inadequate—we were building 

houses with big lawns in Key West where nobody could afford to 

buy lawns, but we were buying them. So in San Diego, where 

houses are closer together and land is more expensive, the houses 

are closer together and our enlisted barracks go vertical. 

In Norfolk, where there is plenty of land, our enlisted barracks 

are more spread out and our family housing is more spread out, so 

we have now—the privatization has done wonders for the family 

housing. We are trying to get that over to our other stuff. 

Mr. BILLINGS. Sir, just quickly, I wanted to—— 

Mr. SALAZAR. I am not picking on you. 

AIR FORCE HOUSING

Mr. BILLINGS. No, I understand, but I mean, to put this in context, this is one of the things that I have learned since I have been 

in the Air Force, that our bases are our weapon systems fighting 


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platforms and have been for the history of the Air Force. And so 

that has been one of the reasons that I think the Air Force has historically put a lot of emphasis on the housing and the base, in 

terms of where we have been. In my short tenure, this is one of 

the things I have learned. 

I do want to tell an anecdote, though. I was coming back from 

meeting at U.S. Southern Command last week, and I got to fly 

back with General Blum, and General Blum said, ‘‘You are the installations guy, aren’t you?’’ and I said, ‘‘Well, yes, sir,’’ and he 

goes, ‘‘You know, I am finally living on an Air Force base and I am 

being treated the way I have always wanted to be treated my entire life.’’ [Laughter.] 

Mr. SALAZAR. And I just wanted to just, in response to Mr. 

Eastin’s reference to that GAO study that was done in the Army, 

that study was actually one that was just supposed to justify the 

need for—Pinon Canyon; I don’t think it had any reference to legalities or stuff like that. But I will just leave it there. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Judge Carter. 

BARRACKS

Mr. CARTER. I have just about got all my answers, but I want 

to go back just for a minute to the privatization issue. And I understand we have got issues with capital, as does the whole country 

and the whole world, but going back to the Army and privatization, 

we have talked about this now at least twice since I have been on 

this Committee. About what the schedule is with the Army, and I 

didn’t hear the answer of where we are going with barracks privatization. I know you have been working on getting pilot projects 

going—— 

Mr. EASTIN. I would be happy to furnish that for the record, because I don’t have the exact figures of what is per year, other than 

the overall figure that we are going to have—— 

[The information follows:] 

The Army does not currently have any Unaccompanied Personnel Housing (UPH) 

barracks privatization program or projects for single, junior Soldiers (Privates 

through Sergeants) planned. 

However, the Army does have a UPH privatization program and projects for single, senior Soldiers (Staff Sergeants and above, including officers) where there is a 

lack of adequate or affordable accommodations off post. There are five projects with 

the status of each indicated in the accompanying chart: 

Installation # Apts # Bedrooms Date privatized 1st apts open All apts open 

Fort Irwin, CA ............. 200 200 March 2004 ................. September 2008 ........ July 2011 

Fort Drum, NY ............ 192 320 July 2007 ..................... February 2009 ............ May 2009 

Fort Bragg, NC ........... 312 504 December 2007 ........... January 2009 ............. July 2010 

Fort Stewart, GA ........ 334 370 January 2008 ............... November 2008 .......... January 2010 

Fort Bliss, TX * .......... 358 410 Late 2009 .................... Non-applicable ........... Non-applicable 

1,396 1,804 

* Project financing expected in 2009, once the capital markets settle down. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Edwards and I both went through and saw that 

we are in the process of modernizing several of our barracks at 

Fort Hood, as you mention in the report. Ultimately we have got 

to build some new barracks at Fort Hood that really fit the standards that the Army has set for maintaining soldiers. That is why 


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I need to find out when we might be going that way, because ultimately that looks like the solution. 

Mr. EASTIN. I will furnish you a schedule for Fort Hood, but the 

basic problem is a lot broader than Fort Hood. I think 79-or-so percent of our barracks are ancient—some even acropolis-like, if you 

will—where you just keep dumping sustainment money through 

the hole in the roof, and there is just a point—you have seen these 

in old houses—that you just can’t do it anymore and be effective. 

You need to either tear it down or rip the floors out and start 

again, and this is an expensive process. 

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir. I agree with that. 

Mr. ARNY. And that is one of the reasons we look forward—at 

least we are now working with—we tried to do restoration and 

modernization on—remember we used the old 67-year, which didn’t 

work, because if you had a hurricane and dumped a bunch of 

money into Pensacola, which is what Mr. Penn and I saw, then all 

of a sudden your restoration modernization looked great Navywide, because you are measuring with two gross sets of standards. 

One thing we are looking at is to—we have Q-ratings for every 

facility in the Services. Now, some of them haven’t paid attention 

to those Q-ratings, so what we are looking at is to say, ‘‘Okay, how 

many with Q–2 and Q–1 are, you know, are above what we accept, 

adequate and excellent?’’ 

So we are looking at, ‘‘Okay, guys. You have got the Q-ratings. 

They had better be right, because we are going to start measuring 

you against that.’’ Very simple, like I said. 

And each Service does it a little differently, but they all have it. 

That way we can—then the Army leadership can get down and say, 

‘‘Look, I have got half my barracks are Q–3 and Q–4,’’ and point 

to Keith and me and say, ‘‘Okay, when is the program to get them 

up?’’ ‘‘Well, we need money, and here is what we need, exactly, to 

get up there.’’ 

Because before it was all too squishy. We are trying to get it 

more finite without trying to over-control it with formulas. That is 

my hope for the future, anyway. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

Chet. 

DOLLAR AMOUNT NEEDED FOR STANDARD HOUSING

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Carter. 

Let me ask you if each of you could put together some numbers 

and, you know, you don’t have to sharpen the pencil down to the 

penny, but I would like to know in today’s dollars how much money 

would each of you need to bring all barracks in your respective 

service up to your standards, and all on-post family housing. Is 

that something that you could do over a 2-week period—just a 

broad number? Again, and I would say within a range of 10 percent—10, 15 percent, either way. Don’t spend thousands of hours 

getting it down to the penny and dime, but could you give us a 

ballpark number? Would that be possible? 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. ARNY. Two weeks might be a little tough, potentially. It is 

the crazy season right now with the budget, but we can get you— 

I think we can get you—at least to show you where we have got 

holes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I would like to—I don’t think I have ever heard 

that number, and I would like to just get a number of what that 

would actually be. 

Mr. ARNY. Family housing for sure, permanent party barracks 

are next easiest; the others might be a little squishy, but we will 

definitely—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. If our country just said, you know, ‘‘By gosh, we 

are just going to see that every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine 

is going to live in quality housing, and what is it going to take to 

do it? We are going to do it.’’ I would just like to know what that 

number is. 

Mr. PENN. You said on-post. Can we go off-post as well, because 

Navy doesn’t—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. I didn’t want you to have to go out and evaluate every home that someone is living in on the private sector, or 

on BAH—family housing. Family housing, you bet, if it is on-post, 

off-post. Don’t worry about the Basic Allowance for Housing number; that would be hard to get a handle unless you did an inventory 

of where everybody lived. 

HOMEOWNERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Secondly, the Homeowners Assistance Program: Given the same 

economic problems that are creating liquidity problems for some of 

our private home partnerships, it is also creating problems for our 

servicemen and women when they are having to sell their home because their country asks them to be stationed in another community in another state. So many of them are having to sell their 

homes at absolute fire-sale prices. We have put $550 million in the stimulus bill to help the Homeowners Assistance Program. I am not sure, Secretary Arny, if that 

is under your jurisdiction or not, but do you, or any of you, have 

any thoughts about how that money will be used and how serious 

of a problem is this out there? 

Mr. ARNY. We are working very closely with the Army; we have 

set up a working group with all the Services, but the Army is the 

lead agent for that. We should be back to you within a month as 

to how big the problem is and how we are going to control that, 

but that is a wonderful start towards—I mean, our top priority are 

the wounded warriors and the families of the fallen that have had 

to move. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So you could even—it applies even to widows, if 

somebody has—— 

Mr. ARNY. Absolutely. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Lost his or her spouse in service to 

country in combat, they have got to move—not only go through the 

grieving process, but just get a shalacking in terms of their loss on 

their home if they—— 

Mr. EASTIN. What we are developing is guidelines on how this 

will work, because I think this is a worthy program, but you can 

start playing games, for lack of a better word, with how much I lost 


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as account of this, and that is where I don’t want—I don’t want to 

get the foul of the same problems that we have seen around in the 

financing area, where, you know, you write something down and 

the somebody games it for you. So we have got to do this very carefully. It is a lot of money, and it couldn’t go to a better place. We 

have gotten, I would say, a couple hundred inquiries—we have a 

Web site set up—— 

Mr. ARNY. It already has a Web site and we already have forms 

online. 

Mr. EASTIN. A hundred hits a day. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I think it is important to send a message to our 

servicemen and women that when you buy a house it is not a riskless investment. They have to understand, if they want upside better than Treasury note interest rates, there is risk involved. 

So I know there is a balancing act. At the same time, we are in 

potentially the deepest, longest recession we have had since the 

Great Depression at a time where, with BRAC and global repositioning, we are moving a lot of people around at the country’s request, and there ought to be some balance to help those. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Chairman, can I—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. My friend brought this up to me: The way I understand the program, it is that you have to have—you can’t have 

bought your house after June of 2006. Those people don’t qualify 

if you bought your house after June of 2006, and there is an awful 

lot of folks that are moving from Hood to Carson that have homes 

that were purchased after June of 2006. I don’t know the answer 

to that. We have been asked that question. 

Do you know, Mr. Chairman, if that applies to the HAP program? 

Mr. EDWARDS. The answer is yes. 

Mr. CARTER. I thought so. And that is an issue, because, you 

know, we are moving to fourth ID to Carson, and that is going to 

be an awful lot of soldiers, and—— 

Mr. ARNY. It was tied to when the markets started dropping, is 

what I am told, but we will look at it. Again, we have got a working group together, and as you know, it was done fairly quickly, 

and we may need improvements to it as it goes on. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Will the highest priority be given to—— 

Mr. ARNY. Absolutely. Wounded warriors—that is the number 

one on everybody’s list. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. ARNY. Also, I think our general philosophy is, we will not 

make you whole, but we will reduce the amount of pain. And we 

have got to figure out what that is, because I agree with you, we 

don’t what to—and we also need to parse it down to look at, you 

know, who put no money down and lost a lot, who put 20 percent 

down, you know, how do you—and then lost their 20 percent—how 

you balance that off. It is a lot of questions in there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 


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KOREA HOUSING

Mr. WAMP. Secretary Eastin, despite the fact the Reggie White 

was from my district and Usher is from my district, my most 

prominent constituent is a guy named General B.B. Bell, who is 

back home—and Katie is very sick, by the way; When he was here 

last year, and we will hear this later, the realignment on the Korean Peninsula was of interest and Camp Humphreys was a unique 

kind of a situation. Can you update us on those 2,400 housing units 

there? 

Mr. EASTIN. Sir, I would be happy to, but I will refer this to my 

deputy, Joe Calcara, who knows this issue backwards and forwards, and I am only here—— 

Mr. CALCARA. We have reached an agreement—in December— 

late December and early January. He is going to lay out the project 

using a private finance-type approach. The project is currently in 

underwriting. We expect to have a mock closing in early May, and 

then have an official closing in June. 

The first 1,200 units will—construction will start immediately on 

those sometime in July. That should be ready for the 2012—a thousand units will be in the second tranche, and we will probably have 

a second closing maybe 12 months after the first one, and that 

builds out the remaining number of units, the 2,400. 

Pinnacle is the master developer. It is an RCI and I think a 

Navy housing partner, and they perhaps—in the Air Force. It is a 

well known agent. Construction will be by Samsung, which is one 

of the largest Korean construction contractors. There is a huge 

amount of equity in the deal, so we feel very comfortable we will 

get to underwriting. We are dealing with the liquidity issues, but 

at last point we had 28 investor—— 

We also have relatively conservative underwriting elements in 

the transaction, so I think the project will close. I am pretty confident of that. 

Mr. WAMP. Good report. Thank you. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

MARKET LIQUIDITY

Mr. EDWARDS. Could I ask a follow up on the liquidity issue that 

Judge Carter raised? Do we think that providing additional public 

capital would help open up private investment dollars? For example, if we had enough federal dollars to go in where there is 20 percent down, 30 percent down, or whatever number you want to use, 

is that how we address this, because this is a serious problem? 

Mr. ARNY. Well, Joe—I would like my deputy to comment on 

that, because he has been working on this, if you don’t mind. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sure, absolutely. Have him come to the table, 

since Judge Carter is gone. 

Just for the record, if you would identify yourself. 

Mr. SIKES. I am Joe Sikes, the director for housing for Mr. Arny. 

And the answer to that would be that all of the Services have been 

talking to their individual financial people, and we think that 

maybe Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac coming into this with some 

guaranteed authorities might actually free it up. Putting more 

money at it would effectively just do more MILCON, if you will, 


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and certainly that can help build some more houses, but I don’t 

think it really helps free up the private sector lending. 

We are also looking at taking some of the guarantee authorities 

we used in the beginning of the program for base closure guarantees, turning those into some sort of 1-year debt service or a guarantee to eliminate having to put aside money, which is being required right now because that doesn’t exist in the market anymore. 

So we are not totally sure how to get the market to move, but we 

are talking to all parts of it we can, and each of the Services privatization arms are going and talking to their partners about their 

specific projects to see what they need to do to get the—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. I don’t know if we could find the money, but if between now and our mark up you were to find that X number of dollars would, for whatever reason, open up Y number of dollars, eight 

in 10 times the kind of leverage that you testify to, that has occurred in the past. Additional dollars would really allow us to stay 

on track, in addition to other avenues that you are pursuing, please 

let us know. 

And again, I don’t want to suggest we will be able to find the 

money, but all of us would like to see this family housing program 

stay on track and not have to be delayed because of something that 

was absolutely not the fault of the servicemen and women who, despite the recession, continue to get deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and as you know better than anybody, continue to make tremendous sacrifice. 

GUARANTEED LOANS

Mr. BILLINGS. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that the Air Force 

is doing with our guaranteed loans is—they were originally structured for payments at the end, when they were complete. 

Now, as houses are completed, we are freeing up cash to continue 

to allow them to move forward during this time. We have restructured these loans—allowing partial payments for completed houses, 

as opposed to the end. This is allowing us to free up a little cash 

right now. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Do you audit the return on investment for these 

companies? I didn’t realize when we first got into this—and I am 

thrilled at the good things that have happened—we worked 8 years 

to put this plan in place—but they are very highly leveraged. They 

are putting up a relatively small amount of equity and then 

leveraging that greatly. Can you monitor, on an installation-by-installation basis, what kind of return on equity we are making? 

Mr. SIKES. Yes, sir—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. What is their average return on equity? 

Mr. SIKES. It is going to vary greatly by project, but a lot of them 

are—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Just to pick a project, since that is the one 

where I looked at the housing with Mr. Carter recently, could you 

get me the numbers for Axis lend-lease at Fort Hood? 

Mr. SIKES. Yes, sir. 

[The information follows:] 

A typical housing project under the Military Housing Privatization Initiative 

(MHPI) includes a one to three percent private equity investment, with the private 

partner/owner earning a 12 percent return on investment. In addition, the private 


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sector partner/owner earns fees for construction, development and property/asset 

management. MHPI project fees range from three to five percent of development 

and property/asset management costs, and four to six percent of construction costs, 

with up to 50 percent of the total fees being incentive based. 

Fort Hood military housing was privatized in October 2001 and was the first 

project negotiated under the Army’s Residential Communities Initiative (RCI). The 

project finances in the Fort Hood deal structure reflect market conditions at that 

time, including the perceived risks of lender participation in projects under the relatively new MHPI program. The Fort Hood project features a two percent private 

sector equity contribution that earned a 12 percent preferred return during the initial development phase (IDP). The Ford Hood project features a five percent total 

fee (four percent base and one percent incentive) for developer and property/asset 

management costs, and features a 5.1 percent total fee (3.6 percent base and 1.5 

percent incentive) for construction. 

Additionally, following completion of the IDP, total return on equity is capped at 

25% subject to financial performance of the project. These terms were consistent 

with market returns when the project closed in 2001. One of the lessons learned 

from the privatization program is that private equity is the most expensive form of 

capital and, as a result, requirements for private equity have been relaxed in later 

projects. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I would like to see—if a company is making a, you 

know, a responsible return on equity, then we have no right to ask 

them—we have no contractual right to ask them to do more. But 

if they were making a return on equity that were to be double or 

triple what investors are receiving out there in the private market, 

it would make me want to find a way to sit down at a table and 

talk to them about whether they should wait till 2034—— 

Mr. ARNY. I think you will find they are all conservative, because 

they also have management fees—their total income isn’t coming 

off their investment. They have management fees that vary based 

on our satisfaction for them, too. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Does their return on equity count what they are 

making in management fees? 

Mr. SIKES. No. They are normally not—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Could you include that, just to pick one example 

so I can look at one that I am familiar with at Fort Hood, include 

how much they are also making in management fees? I don’t represent it anymore, but I know the person that does. 

Mr. SIKES. Sir, we will get that for you. But one thing that Mr. 

Arny was indicating was, if you remember at the beginning of the 

program we were demanding 10 percent equity, and we backed off 

on that because we realized if we were paying 12 percent on that 

we wouldn’t be getting as many houses. So one reason why it is 

where it is is because they don’t actually have that much equity 

in it; they mostly make their money off of fees, and that causes 

them to stay around, which is what our original intent was, that 

they would have partners that weren’t trying to run out on us as 

soon as they get their equity back up, but partners that would stay 

for 50 years. 

We will get you that data, though. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. I don’t have any additional questions. 

Thank you for your testimony and for your service every single 

day. We will stand recessed at the call of the chair. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards:] 

NAVY UNACCOMPANIED HOUSING

Question. I understand the Navy is working on a Bachelor Housing Master Plan 

to complete the Homeport Ashore initiative and provide all sailors with adequate 


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housing. When will this plan be completed, and will it have an impact on the FY10 

budget request? 

Answer. The Bachelor Housing Master Plan is expected to be completed in September 2009 and will not have an impact on the FY10 budget request. 

Question. As part of this plan, will the Navy establish a standard for room configuration and living space? 

Answer. The Navy will be constructing 1 + 1E units (2 bedroom, 1 bath apartments with kitchenette and laundry) to address our Homeport Ashore deficit. 

Question. How many training barracks spaces does the Navy currently have? Is 

the Navy able to determine how many of these spaces are adequate? 

Answer. The Navy has more than 100 facilities designated as training (dormitory) 

barracks. This provides approximately 10,000 rooms with 39,000 individual spaces 

in support of Navy training. Based on both the condition and configuration of facilities and their quality ratings (Q-Ratings), 40% of dormitory facilities are considered 

not mission capable (Q4). 

MARINE CORPS BARRACKS MODERNIZATION/GROWING THE FORCE

Question. The Marine Corps is on track to meet its Growing the Force target endstrength of 202,000 by the end of fiscal year 2009. Even though the Marine Corps 

was provided an unprecedented amount of funding for barracks construction in 

FY09, clearly the MILCON program has not moved fast enough to accommodate all 

new unaccompanied marines while satisfying deficit and adequate barracks requirements for the pre-GTF force. Please explain the strategy you are using to house unaccompanied marines until the Commandant’s barracks initiative is completed in 

2014, with specific reference to the use of relocatable facilities and existing inadequate (including gang head) barracks. 

Answer. The Marine Corps is grateful for the support Congress has given us, especially your Subcommittee. Barracks are a critical facilities element in supporting 

our war-fighters and the Base Enlisted Quarters (BEQ) Campaign Plan is an integral part of efforts to improve the quality of life of our enlisted Marines and Sailors 

in our barracks. Because the Marine Corps has a significant and continuing barracks requirement, we have dedicated a large portion of our MILCON facility investment to barracks replacement projects. Our primary focus remains housing our junior enlisted bachelor personnel in pay grades of E1 through E5. When the Marine 

Corps undertook its Barracks Initiative, we intended to reach our goal of a 2+0 room 

standard by 2012 for an end strength of 180,000. With the direction to Grow the 

Force to an end strength of 202,000, we have had to push that goal to 2014. It 

should be noted that the Marine Corps has a permanent 2+0 waiver of the 1+1 module DoD standard. 

The Marine Corps does not currently have existing excess barracks capacity at 

our installations to support this personnel increase. Given the expectation that in 

many locations Marines will arrive under the Grow the Force initiative before final 

construction of associated barracks is realized, we are relying on a variety of means 

to accommodate this growth. These means include use of relocatable barracks at 

specific locations, greater reliance on Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), and maximizing the use of existing facilities through temporarily increasing densities, slowing the demolition of older facilities, and temporarily reducing the size of units we 

would normally require to be housed together under our unit integrity concept. For 

example, where BEQs are underutilized, we will billet Marines by unit below the 

battalion/squadron level (e.g. maintain company or platoon integrity) to maximize 

utilization of the barracks. In limited instances, barracks with gang heads that have 

been kept for use in surge conditions, have been utilized. 

All new and replacement BEQ spaces will be constructed to the USMC 2+0 room 

standard, with shared rooms (1 Marine per ‘‘space’’) for E1–E3 and private rooms 

(1 Marine per ‘‘2 spaces’’) for E4–E5. Where space is limited we are increasing authorization of BAH own-right for senior NCOs. This allows senior NCOs to live on 

the local economy, and helps ease the temporary room shortage. On some bases and 

stations we will maximize BEQ efficiency by billeting up to three junior Marines in 

a room and two corporals in a room. As a temporary measure, we will look to billet 

Marines in surge/overflow barracks during whole barracks renovations. 

At locations where relocatables are part of our temporary solution, we are ensuring they are of a quality and supportability to maintain adequate habitability and 

quality of life for the duration of their use, and built well enough to minimize any 

maintenance tail associated with them. They are much more durable, functional, 

and aesthetically pleasing than many previously used relocatable facilities. Use of 

these facilities is also limited to a length of service keyed to the completion of the 

MILCON project they are supporting—they will not be kept for future contingencies. 


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Thank you again for your continued support of this program. Through the great 

work of our recruiters and outstanding retention efforts in the field we will reach 

our target end-strength ahead of our programmed BEQ construction plan; however, 

we do have a plan that provides adequate interim solutions for housing our Marines 

and will achieve the Commandant’s desired end state of a 2+0 assignment standard 

by 2014. 

WOUNDED WARRIORS BARRACKS

Question. Please describe the configuration of Marine Corps Wounded Warrior 

barracks, how this differs from standard 2±0 unaccompanied quarters, and how the 

layout serves the recovery and transition process. 

Answer. All Marine Corps barracks rooms in the Wounded Warrior barracks are 

configured to be fully accessible to the physically handicapped. Enhancements in the 

Wounded Warrior barracks include: wheelchair accessibility ramps; larger automated opening doors; elevators; Americans with Disabilities Act compliant laundry 

rooms; larger rooms; tilt mirrors; roll-in showers; low sinks and counters. Emergency call buttons will be provided to ensure a higher degree of safety for Marines 

who may experience unforeseen complications or difficulties during their recuperation. The larger rooms will facilitate storage and use of wheelchairs as well as 

adaptive equipment, extra prosthetic devices, and specialized athletic equipment. 

Specialized dietary requirements will be facilitated by the on-site common kitchen 

facility. On-site multipurpose rooms will be used for physical therapy, massage, and 

interactions with health care professionals as required. Counseling rooms will be 

used by a variety of transition specialists meeting with Wounded Warriors such as 

Career Retention Specialists; Veterans Administration counselors; Veterans Services 

Organization representatives and Physical Evaluation Board counselors. Lounges 

within the barracks provide the opportunity for recovering Wounded Warriors to 

provide and obtain peer support and interaction. The paved fitness trails will provide the degree of safety and trafficability required for our Marines who need a 

level, hard surface to recreationally rehabilitate. These enhancements will give 

Wounded Warriors greater mobility to move around and to use the facility independent of assistance, and for all our Wounded Warriors these enhancements will 

greatly increase their confidence and morale. Our standard barracks do not have all 

of these enhancements, although it is a requirement for all of our newly constructed 

standard barracks to have a minimum of 2 rooms on the ground floor designed as 

physically handicapped accessible rooms. 

Finally, the Wounded Warrior barracks will be part of the Wounded Warrior campuses at Marine Corps Bases Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune. Centralization 

of the Wounded Warrior population will facilitate communication of essential updates and ease accountability for Marines and sailors in residence. Consolidation of 

our Wounded Warriors will also reduce the transportation requirement. The many 

features of this robust facility are essential to support the recovery and transition 

of our Wounded Warriors. 

Question. What is the size and composition of a Wounded Warrior unit in the Marine Corps? 

Answer. The Wounded Warrior Regiment Headquarters and its Battalions are 

currently staffed as follows: 

#Staff: MIL CIV CTR TOT 

Regiment Staff: ............................................ 70 19 33 122 (19 of military are mobilized 27%) 

Bn East Staff: .............................................. 75 7 21 103 (59 of military are mobilized 79%) 

Bn West Staff: .............................................. 61 10 13 84 (38 of military are mobilized 62%) 

Total: .................................................... 206 36 67 309 (116 of military are mobilized 56%) 

(#Note: Staff number does not include Marine for Life program which is not dedicated to injured support mission.) 

WWR Patients Tracked and Owned: 

WWR HQ Owned: 10 

LODs: 413 

ADSW Medical Hold: 10 

Medical Hold: 288 

District Injured Support Cells: 647 

BN East Owned: 362 

BN East Tracked: 599 

BN West Owned: 56 

BN West Tracked: 873 

WWR Total: 3,258 


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FAMILY HOUSING—GENERAL

Question. You state in your testimony that the Army will commit to a ‘‘renewed 

focus and investment’’ in housing. What specifically is meant by this statement? Do 

you feel that Army family housing efforts have been insufficient? 

Answer. What is meant by the statement is that the Army is constantly looking 

for opportunities to improve its Family housing and single Soldier housing programs. We are proud of our programs, but not so proud that we think they are perfect. We have standards and procedures that specify the conditions in which Soldiers and Families should be housed. But where we fall short, we try to learn what 

went wrong, and how to fix it in the future. 

The best way to understand the statement is to examine it in context with the 

portion of the testimony that covered barracks programs. In the aftermath of concerns about barracks conditions last year, the Army conducted a sweeping inspection of our barracks worldwide to ascertain the extent of the maintenance and facility issues we were facing. We took immediate actions to correct deficiencies whenever they were uncovered. 

We sought to learn from the situation last year by making important changes to 

the way we manage our barracks. The combination of changes we have made, under 

the broad mantle of the ‘‘First Sergeants Barracks Initiative,’’ exemplifies our overall approach of seeking opportunities to improve our housing programs whenever 

possible. 

Lastly, the Army is focused in our construction, sustainment, restoration, and 

modernization programs to buy out our barracks requirements for permanent party 

barracks by FY 2013 and training barracks by FY 2015. 

Housing Market Analyses have identified several Grow-the-Army installations 

that have shortfalls in available family housing. 

Question. Which specific installations have an insufficient end-state of available 

family housing, and what is the deficiency at each installation? 

Answer. Based on the latest approved Housing Market Analyses (2007–2008), the 

following installations are projected to have an insufficient supply of Family housing. 

Fort Bliss, TX—2,690 units 

Fort Bragg, NC—150 units 

Fort Campbell, KY—50 units 

Fort Carson, CO—952 units 

Fort Drum, NY—1,762 units 

Fort Gordon, GA—459 units 

Fort Knox, KY—246 units 

Fort Lewis, WA—1,272 units 

Fort Polk, LA—179 units 

Fort Riley, KS—313 units 

Fort Sill, OK—78 units 

Fort Stewart, GA—91 units 

Fort Wainwright, AK—230 units 

USAG Oahu, HI—1,056 units 

White Sands Missile Range, NM—793 units 

Question. Please provide a detailed plan of how the deficiency at each installation 

will be addressed. 

Answer. The Army relies on the local community to provide most of the housing 

for Army Families. All of the installation Family housing inventories with projected 

deficits are privatized or scheduled for privatization through the Army’s Residential 

Communities Initiative (RCI). Where Housing Market Analyses project an insufficient supply of Family housing, the Army has engaged with local community leaders 

to see how we can help to encourage local housing development for Soldiers. In several cases, local development alone may be insufficient to supply the housing when 

needed, and therefore, the Army is programming additional funding to contribute 

to the RCI project to build additional Family housing units. The list below details 

the Army’s strategy to meet Family housing requirements. 

Fort Bliss, TX—Use additional equity (FY08–09) and encourage local development. 

Fort Bragg, NC—Use additional equity (FY08). 

Fort Campbell, KY—Rely on local community. 

Fort Carson, CO—Use additional equity (FY08–09). 

Fort Drum, NY—Encourage local development. 

Fort Gordon, GA—Rely on local community. 

Fort Knox, KY—Seek additional equity and rely on local community. 


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Fort Lewis, WA—Use additional equity (FY08) and encourage local development. 

Fort Polk, LA—Seek additional equity. 

Fort Riley, KS—Rely on local community. 

Fort Sill, OK—Seek additional equity. 

Fort Stewart, GA—Use additional equity (FY09). 

Fort Wainwright, AK—Privatize in FY09. 

USAG Oahu, HI—Rely on local community. 

White Sands Missile Range, NM—Seek additional equity and encourage local development. 

HOUSING SERVICES

You state in your testimony that the fiscal year 2010 budget will support staff 

and facilities required to enhance housing assistance services for soldiers and families living off post. 

Question. What level of staff and funding increases are necessary for this purpose? 

Answer. Current staffing and funding levels are adequate. As Grow the Army initiatives are realized at Army garrisons, we will increase staffing as necessary. The 

Army recognizes the various stationing actions, combined with the housing market 

downturn, will result in many Soldiers and Families looking to receive help from 

our housing service offices. The Army is focused on improving the quality of the 

housing services we provide, and being responsive to the needs expressed by our 

service members and Families. 

Question. Please provide a specific list of new facilities that will be needed to support increased services. 

Answer. No new facilities are currently required to provide services. Existing 

housing offices will be utilized in their present locations. The American Recovery 

and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides funding for the upgrade of three Housing 

Support Offices, and signage and flooring for another 56. We are currently reviewing requirements for all garrison housing offices for future programming of repair, 

upgrade, or replacement. 

FORT HUACHUCA/YUMA PROVING GROUND RCI 

The Army recently indicated its intent to award a project for Fort Huachuca and 

Yuma Proving Ground in which the initial development cost would be $110.2 million, with the developer securing $90.4 million from the private sector and providing 

$1.8 million of its own equity. The balance of the funds, according to Army, would 

come from ‘‘net operating income and interest earned on the construction escrow 

fund’’. 

Question. Please explain in greater detail how this will work. 

Answer. Net Operating Income will be generated through rent collections by the 

RCI project in the process of providing housing to residents. This source of funds 

is the money that is left after the expenses of the project have been paid. The RCI 

project will receive rent from residents and will use a portion of these funds to pay 

for utilities, maintenance, and other operating expenses. The money that remains 

after paying project costs will be used as a source of funding for a portion of the 

project’s development work, including the replacement and renovation of homes. 

Another source of development funds is the interest income that can be earned 

from construction escrow funds. Construction escrow funds are designated for building new homes and renovating existing homes over the next few years of the project 

and can be invested in an interest-bearing account. These funds earn interest income for the project while in escrow accounts and the interest earnings add to the 

total funds available for project development. 

Question. Has the Army taken this approach on any other RCI projects? 

Answer. Every RCI project has included the Net Operating Income generated 

from the particular project as part of the funding for the development of new and 

renovated homes. This income from each RCI project, after covering project expenses, provides a payment to the accounts designated for that project’s development. Also, each project maintains construction escrow accounts that earn interest 

payments on these invested funds until they are withdrawn to construct new and 

renovate existing homes. This interest income serves as another source of funds for 

the development. 

BARRACKS

Question. In May 2008, the Army informed Members of Congress that $10 billion 

in future investment would be necessary to eliminate inadequate barracks. Adjusting for fiscal year 2009 funding levels, what is the total investment (including miliVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00308 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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tary construction and O&M funds) that the Army now requires to eliminate inadequate barracks? 

Answer. As of fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget submission, the Army needs $8.3 billion from FY10–13 to provide quality barracks that meet Army standards for Soldiers in permanent party and training barracks to keep the buyout of inadequate 

barracks on track for FY 2015. 

Question. Please provide a year-by-year funding and project schedule that shows 

how Army will fund the buyout of inadequate permanent party barracks by FY 

2013, and training barracks by FY 2015. 

Answer. The fiscal year (FY) 2009 President’s Budget Request identified funding 

required each year to buyout is as follows: 

Permanent Party Barracks 

$725 million—FY10 

$1.9 billion—FY11 

$1.3 billion—FY12 

$1.6 billion—FY13 

Training Barracks 

$724 million—FY10 

$333 million—FY11 

$913.2 million—FY12 

$816 million—FY13 

Additional funding will be required in FY14–FY15 to complete the training barracks buyout. Once the FY10 President’s Budget Request is released, these figures 

may change, and we can update you at that time. 

Question. You state that ‘‘any soldier found living in a substandard room has 

been, and will be, relocated.’’ For this purpose, what does ‘‘substandard’’ mean? 

Answer. The term ‘‘substandard’’ is defined as housing that does not provide a decent, safe, sanitary, and habitable accommodation in good repair; housing that does 

not meet minimum space and privacy standards; and housing that does not provide 

separate and secure male and female sleeping and bathroom facilities. 

Question. You state that ‘‘we have transferred barracks ownership from deploying 

units to the garrison in order to better maintain them at an acceptable standard. 

We are now centrally managing our barracks. Why didn’t IMCOM already centrally 

‘‘own’’ and maintain barracks? Wasn’t that part of the purpose for which IMCOM 

was created? What role does IMCOM play in barracks maintenance and repair? 

Answer. From the outset, the Installation Management Command (IMCOM) has 

owned and maintained barracks; however, the day-to-day barracks management was 

shared with the occupying units. The operating tempo of the Overseas Contingency 

Operations revealed that the units could no longer devote time to barracks utilization and management. To rectify this, IMCOM initiated the First Sergeants Barracks Initiative (FSBI), which provides room-by-room barracks accountability. Under 

FSBI, garrisons are now responsible to identify, report, and correct barracks deficiencies. 

Question. Under the First Sergeants Barracks Initiative, how does a given soldier 

take concerns about living conditions to the chain of command so that an official 

with the decision making and funding authority can correct the problem? 

Answer. Under FSBI, the Soldier takes their concerns about living conditions to 

the Garrison Commander’s Housing Office. The Housing Office will then ensure the 

concern is addressed in a timely, effective, and economical manner. 

Question. What are the specific responsibilities of the sergeants major who have 

been placed at directorates of public works? 

Answer. The Directorate of Public Works (DPW) Sergeants Major (SGM) provide 

the Garrison Command Sergeant Major (GCSM) with critical insight into installation support requirements. DPW SGMs have installation engineering and infrastructure management expertise as well as vast operational experience that is very 

valuable to the installation. On larger installations, the DPW SGM is responsible 

for monitoring facilities renovations and duties to ensure that all life, health, and 

safety issues are identified and corrected. 

Some of the specific duties performed by the DPW SGM are: 

(1) Meet and foster positive working relationships with all of the unit command 

teams and civilian partners on the installation, especially with the installation 

grounds and maintenance teams and all Unaccompanied Personnel Housing (UPH) 

managers. DPW SGM is a member of the Installation Planning Board and a Master 

Planner with continuity of ‘‘Soldier Care’’ in mind. 


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(2) Monitor First Sergeant’s Barracks Initiative (FSBI) and barracks renovation/ 

construction projects as well as provide input to the installation command team and 

solicit feedback. 

(3) Support the Barracks Manager by being the conduit between barracks residents and their chain of command. 

Question. At what threshold do mold conditions in barracks present what the 

Army considers an unacceptable risk to soldier health? 

Answer. The presence of mold is unacceptable from a quality of life perspective, 

even if it does not pose an immediate health risk. 

Black mold, specifically, is toxic and may have an adverse impact on a Soldier’s 

health. Upon detection of what appears to be black mold by a Soldier or through 

a routine inspection, the appropriate medical officials are notified to determine if 

the mold is unsafe. An air quality test may be conducted if necessary. If mold is 

found within the barracks, all efforts are made to remediate it within 24 hours. If 

the mold cannot be remediated within 24 hours, the affected Soldier(s) are moved 

out of the barracks and housed in a safe environment. Upon complete remediation 

of mold, Soldiers are returned to the barracks. 

Most installations have contracts with service providers that will respond within 

24 hours. Otherwise, the remediation is done with in-house staff. The Installation 

Management Command (IMCOM) is notified of any instances of black or toxic mold 

through a Serious Incident Report. The IMCOM Command Sergeant Major is also 

notified to ensure IMCOM headquarters is apprised of the situation. 

Question. How many barracks have been deemed unlivable due to mold conditions? 

Answer. The Army has not deemed any barracks unlivable due to mold conditions. 

Upon detection of mold, appropriate actions are taken. There have been two instances in which entire sets of barracks have been vacated to remove mold; however, 

the Army has not deemed these unlivable as the mold has been successfully remediated. Where mold has been a persistent and recurring problem in very humid climates, vacating a facility for an extended period can be an effective method to ensure that it has been dealt with properly. 

Measures have been put into place to minimize the potential for mold growth and 

regrowth in our barracks. Installation Directorates of Public Works are installing 

proper vapor barriers and special HVAC systems with ultraviolet lighting that will 

kill mold. Barracks are also being renovated and upgraded through the Barracks 

Improvement Program to prevent the conditions in which mold grows. 

Question. This Committee has received heightened interest in barracks privatization for junior enlisted in the past year. Putting aside concerns about the payment 

of BAH, are there any concerns that you have about barracks privatization, speaking purely from the installation management side? 

Answer. From the installation management side, some of the concerns regarding 

barracks privatization for junior enlisted Soldiers include adjustments to Army culture and command, assignment policies, deployment issues and the current state of 

the financial markets. The Army has approved a portion of privatized unaccompanied quarters for single Staff Sergeants (E–6) and above at five Army installations where there were housing shortfalls for those grades. We will continue to monitor the Army’s existing Unaccompanied Personnel Housing privatization projects as 

well as the Navy’s pilot program. 

Question. What is the Army standard for training barracks? 

Answer. There are different space and privacy standards for training barracks 

based upon Soldier grades and the type of training program. Basic Training and 

One Station Unit Training barracks are configured for open bay living spaces with 

common area latrines. Advanced Individual Training barracks are configured for 

two Soldiers per living area with a shared bathroom. 

GUARD AND RESERVE

Question. How will the Army increase housing opportunities for mobilized Guard 

and Reserve soldiers? 

Answer. The Army is reviewing how to best accommodate the approximate 60,000 

Reserve Component Soldiers that mobilize annually. The Army is considering establishing primary mobilizations centers potentially at Camps Shelby and Atterbury, 

and Forts Drum, Bragg, and McCoy; however, the Guard and Reserve have additional requirements to provide quality training facilities at many installations. 

Much of that requirement will be identified in future budget submissions. 


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WARRIOR TRANSITION

Question. Provide a list of the 36 Army Warrior Transition Units, and the size 

of each unit. 

Answer. The accompanying list details Warrior Transition Unit locations and 

sizes. The Warrior in Transition population is a snapshot in time. Actual numbers 

of Warriors in Transition is constantly in flux as patients complete their treatment 

and new patients arrive. WTUs are closing at the noted locations because of decreasing patient loads, or in the case of Fort Lee, realignment with the Fort Eustis 

WTU. 

# Installation Location 

Warrior in 

transition 

population 

Cadre Total 

1 ......................... Ft Richardson ............................................................. AK 105 57 162 

2 ......................... Ft Wainwright ............................................................. AK 85 30 115 

3 ......................... Ft Rucker (WTU closing) ............................................ AL 2 5 7 

4 ......................... Redstone Arsenal (WTU closing) ................................ AL 11 6 17 

5 ......................... Ft Huachuca ............................................................... AZ 50 22 72 

6 ......................... Ft Irwin ....................................................................... CA 48 17 65 

7 ......................... Balboa (Navy) ............................................................ CA 63 21 84 

8 ......................... Ft Carson ................................................................... CO 534 243 777 

9 ......................... Walter Reed Army Medical Center ............................. DC 683 232 915 

10 ....................... Ft Stewart .................................................................. GA 354 169 523 

11 ....................... Ft Benning ................................................................. GA 307 136 443 

12 ....................... Ft Gordon ................................................................... GA 445 160 605 

13 ....................... Schofield Barracks ..................................................... HI 257 109 366 

14 ....................... Ft Riley ....................................................................... KS 270 123 393 

15 ....................... Ft Leavenworth (WTU closing) ................................... KS 20 4 24 

16 ....................... Ft Campbell ............................................................... KY 512 250 762 

17 ....................... Ft Knox ....................................................................... KY 308 132 440 

18 ....................... Ft Polk ........................................................................ LA 180 114 294 

19 ....................... Ft Meade .................................................................... MD 108 26 134 

20 ....................... Ft Leonard Wood ........................................................ MO 151 54 205 

21 ....................... Ft Bragg ..................................................................... NC 614 222 836 

22 ....................... Ft Dix .......................................................................... NJ 102 48 150 

23 ....................... Ft Drum ...................................................................... NY 359 132 491 

24 ....................... West Point .................................................................. NY 102 33 135 

25 ....................... Ft Sill ......................................................................... OK 93 42 135 

26 ....................... Ft Jackson .................................................................. SC 90 35 125 

27 ....................... Ft Sam Houston ......................................................... TX 568 183 751 

28 ....................... Ft Hood ....................................................................... TX 734 460 1194 

29 ....................... Ft Bliss ....................................................................... TX 257 117 374 

30 ....................... Ft Belvoir .................................................................... VA 68 27 95 

31 ....................... Ft Eustis ..................................................................... VA 134 51 185 

32 ....................... Ft Lee (WTU closing) .................................................. VA 49 25 74 

33 ....................... Ft Lewis ...................................................................... WA 421 232 653 

34 ....................... Schweinfurt, Wuerzburg ............................................. GE 143 56 199 

35 ....................... Heidelberg .................................................................. GE 17 36 53 

36 ....................... Landstuhl ................................................................... GE 138 57 195 

Question. How are the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards different than the 

standards established in the Americans with Disabilities Act? 

Answer. The Department of Defense (DoD) adopted new accessibility standards in 

2004 (Americans with Disabilities Act and Architectural Barriers Act Accessibility 

Guidelines) which requires access for persons with disabilities to federally funded 

facilities. The new standards replaced the older Uniform Federal Accessibility 

Standards (UFAS) and the Americans with Disabilities Act Architectural Guidelines 

(ADAAG). 

Due to some subtle statutory differences between the Americans with Disabilities 

Act of 1990 (ADA) and the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 (ABA), the implementing guidelines for the two laws are similar but not identical. In addition, the 

ADAAG had provisions for features and facilities that were not addressed in the 

UFAS including provisions for van accessible parking spaces, public telephones for 

the deaf (TTYs), automated teller machines, and transportation facilities. To address 

these differences, Army Regulation 420–1 requires Army facilities to comply with 

the most stringent accessibility requirement. 


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DoD and the Army coordinate compliance issues with the Federal Access Board. 

The United States Access Board was created in 1973 and is an independent Federal 

agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities. The Access Board is responsible for developing and maintaining accessibility guidelines for the construction and alteration of facilities covered by the ADA and ABA. The Board develops 

and maintains design criteria for the built environment, transit vehicles, telecommunications equipment, and for electronic and information technology. It also 

provides technical assistance and training on these requirements and on accessible 

design and continues to enforce accessibility standards that cover federally funded 

facilities. A guide on the Board’s website (http://www.access-board.gov/) provides 

additional information on compliance with the requirements of the ABA and ADA. 

FSRM FUNDING FOR BARRACKS

Question. How much FSRM funding did the Army spend on barracks in fiscal 

years 2007 and 2008? Answer. In fiscal years 2007 and 2008, the Army spent about $656 million ($140.1 million and $515.9 million, respectively) of FSRM funds on sustaining, improving 

and modernizing barracks. 

Question. What is the projected amount of FSRM spending on barracks in fiscal 

year 2009? Answer. During fiscal year 2009, the Army has spent, or will spend, about $785 million of FSRM funds on sustaining, improving and modernizing barracks ($647M 

Active, $30M ARNG, $8M USAR). On a related note, the American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) directed the Army to spend at least $153 million 

for barracks over the course of the legislation’s timeframe (which includes FY 2009). 

The Army anticipates spending significantly more on barracks FSRM than the Congressionally directed minimum during the course of executing ARRA funds. 

Question. What is the projected FSRM requirement for fiscal year 2010? 

Answer. For fiscal year (FY) 2010, the Army’s FSRM models project an estimated requirement of about $600 million to sustain, improve and modernize barracks. At 

this time, it is premature to say what amount of FSRM funds will be programmed 

against this requirement. Once the President releases the FY 2010 budget, we can 

provide additional information. 

GOVERNMENT-OWNED FAMILY HOUSING

Question. In a report to Congress, Army indicated that it has over 7,200 Government-owned ‘‘adequate’’ homes that need repairs or improvements costing between 

$10,000 and $30,000. Although this is not explicit in the report, it appears likely 

that the largest portion of these homes is overseas, particularly in Germany. Is this 

correct? 

Answer. Yes. As a result of privatization, the Army’s largest number Governmentowned, on-post Family housing inventory are located at foreign locations. The Army 

had expected the elimination of all inadequate government owned to be funded and 

completed by 2011 for foreign locations. As a result of stationing decisions at 

Baumholder, Germany, this installation’s status changed from a non-enduring location where no construction funds were programmed, to an enduring location. Funding for Family housing replacement projects will be considered in future budget requests to eliminate the remaining inadequate homes at Baumholder. 

PRIVATIZING OF ARMY LODGING

Question. Which installations are in the awarded first group for PAL? 

Answer. The first Privatization of Army Lodging (PAL) Group, Group A, include: 

Fort Hood and Fort Sam Houston, Texas; Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; 

Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Fort Rucker and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; Fort Polk, Louisiana; Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona; Fort Myer, Virginia; Fort McNair, District 

of Columbia; and Fort Shafter and Tripler Army Medical Center, Hawaii. 

Although Fort McNair and Fort Shafter were both initially included as part of 

Group A, the due diligence process (conducted in close coordination with the Army) 

determined that the demand at these installations is best accommodated at the 

nearby locations of Fort Myer and Tripler Army Medical Center, respectively. 

Question. When will the first group be completed? 

Answer. The first PAL Group, Group A, is scheduled to transfer mid-2009. The 

Project is working with the capital markets to finalize lending terms. Once transferred, the first phase of development will be completed within three years. 

Question. What Federal government contributions are being made to the first 

group project, and how much private sector capital will be provided? 


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Answer. In 2008, the value of the contributed Army Lodging facilities and facility 

content was determined to be $36 million. There is no government cash equity contribution, and the scope of the first PAL Project, Group A, is approximately $317 

million. All of the $317 million will be funded through private sector capital and 

financing. 

Question. What is the timeline for groups two and three? 

Answer. Any follow-on groups will be dependent upon OSD review and approval 

following PAL Group A implementation. 


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THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2009. 

U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND 

WITNESSES 

ADMIRAL TIMOTHY J. KEATING, U.S. NAVY COMMANDER, U.S. PACIFIC 

COMMAND 

GENERAL WALTER ‘‘SKIP’’ SHARP, COMMANDER, REPUBLIC OF 

KOREA—UNITED STATES COMBINED FORCES COMMAND, AND COMMANDER, UNITED STATES FORCES KOREA 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I think we will go ahead and get started. We have the staff and the ranking member here, so we can 

move ahead. 

Good afternoon. I would like to call the subcommittee to order. 

We are here today to discuss the basing posture of the U.S. Pacific 

Command and U.S. Forces Korea and the implications that ongoing 

realignments and initiatives will have for military construction and 

family housing. 

Many experts on foreign affairs believe that the international 

system is currently undergoing a great shift in relative power from 

the West to the nations of the Pacific Rim. For several years now, 

we in this subcommittee have been discussing the massive realignment of forces that is underway in Korea, Japan, and Guam, to 

better prepare the U.S. to face its security challenges of the future. 

This realignment is totally dependent upon billions of dollars in 

military construction funding, which, in conjunction with the generous assistance of our Asian allies, will provide the facilities that 

our forces will need to sustain the U.S. military power in the region. We will discuss this and other regional issues with our witnesses today. 

Before we proceed, I would like to recognize our ranking member, 

Mr. Wamp, for any comments he would care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To Admiral Keating and General Sharp, I would just thank you 

for your service. It is extraordinary. I can’t help but think that Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea are in excellent hands, even 

though I know that B.B. Bell left big shoes to fill, especially since 

he is now my most prominent constituent. 

And all of our hearts and thoughts and prayers are with Katie 

and the family at this time, where they are—while they are waiting hopefully to be able to get in line and take care of her physically. 


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But there are many challenges. Our subcommittee finished its 

work in a bipartisan, cooperative way on time last year. A lot of 

other things were not finished, so we are very grateful for that 

leadership, because we want to honor all of our men and women 

in uniform on the MILCON side and our veterans that have served 

our country so well. 

We are committed to doing that again. And, frankly, all the way 

from India east, we know that your commands are really critical 

today because of what is happening, west of you and all the other 

infrastructure improvements and the big changes in Korea, with 

our capabilities with housing and moving a base. 

And I talked to Admiral Keating about Guam, because it is still 

the big piece of what is happening there in the region. We are interested; we are grateful; we are totally supportive in a bipartisan 

way. 

We welcome you back again today. It is probably going to be a 

crazy 2 or 3 hours here because AIG messes us up. So that is all 

I will say. I know we are going to have votes back and forth, but 

just bear with us. We will get through the questions this afternoon. 

We are grateful for your service and every single man, woman 

in uniform that you represent, we want you to know and we want 

them to know through you that we are grateful for their service. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. And well said, Zach. 

Our witnesses don’t need an introduction, but they deserve one. 

Admiral Timothy J. Keating assumed Pacific Command on March 

23rd of 2007. And, Admiral, we are honored that you are here with 

us. 

Admiral KEATING. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. He has 38 years of service to our nation, after 

graduating from the Naval Academy in 1971. He is a naval aviator 

with over 5,000 flight hours. And the bio also said 1,200 arrested 

landings. In case any civilians didn’t know what that part meant, 

I was going to leave that out. But I assume those are carrier landings? 

Admiral KEATING. They are, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. He was commander of the Northern Command and NORAD from 2004 to 2007. And thank you for that service, as a native of Dayton, Ohio. 

General Walter ‘‘Skip’’ Sharp, General, we are honored to have 

you here again. And thank you for your service, as well. 

He is commander of U.S. Forces Korea and Combined Forces 

Command and United Nations Command since June of 2008. He 

was born, interestingly, while his father was serving in the Korean 

War, another example of the legacy of military families. It always 

humbles me how many military—or military leaders are first, second, third generation of service to our country in uniform and how 

many of the children of our top military officials have sons and 

daughters serving. 

General Sharp spent 35 years in service after graduating from 

West Point in 1974. He has had a variety of command posts, including commanding troops in Desert Storm, Haiti, and Bosnia. He 

has also served on four Joint Staff assignments. He has three chilVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00316 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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dren, one of whom is married to an Army major stationed in Germany. 

Are they still in Germany—— 

General SHARP. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Right now? He is a native of Morgantown, West Virginia. 

Again, as Mr. Wamp said, we are very honored that you are here 

and, most importantly, for your lifelong service and leadership to 

our country and to our military. 

We would like to recognize you each for opening statements. We 

will put any longer, formal statement into the record, but we would 

like to recognize you now. 

Admiral. 

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL TIMOTHY J. KEATING

Admiral KEATING. Great. Thank you, Chairman, Representative 

Wamp, Mr. Farr, Mr. Dicks, good to see you all. Thanks for this 

opportunity. I have the rare privilege of—how do you do, sir—representing the 325,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Department of Defense civilians who work for us all in the United 

States Pacific Command. 

You mentioned a point, Chairman. To elaborate, Skip has kin 

that are in service. My dad was in the Navy in World War II in 

the Pacific, so it is a great privilege to follow in his footsteps. And 

our son and son-in-law are both F–18 pilots in the United States 

Navy. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Wow. That is a great legacy. Thank you for that. 

Admiral KEATING. The beat goes on. 

If I could take a second of the committee’s time to kind of go over 

the strategy—of the Pacific Command and tee it up in kind of a 

numerical fashion, we are privileged to represent folks who occupy 

about 50 percent of the service of the Earth, half the world’s population, 36 countries in our AOR. 

Five of our Asia Pacific nations are allied to us through formal 

treaties. Skip lives in one of them. We have the most populous nation, the largest Muslim population, and the largest democracy in 

our area of responsibility. We have about two-thirds of the U.S. 

two-way trade that is conducted in our AOR. 

Interestingly, 15 of the 20 largest ports in the world by volume 

are in our AOR. Nine of those are in China. Shanghai is now the 

biggest port in the world by volume. 

We are pleased with the general state of affairs, and we will be 

happy to entertain all questions about those affairs in our region. 

And we are optimistic about continued progress. 

We are very proud of our legacy and the leadership role that we 

have been able to assume in the region. And we are committed to 

guaranteeing continued success. 

We want to ensure our capacity and capability both enable us to 

succeed in our primary mission of defending our homeland and the 

interests of our nation and our allies. 

To do all that, we employed a partnership readiness presence 

strategy. We think it is a blueprint for enhancing our relationships, 

and this is a very critical notion for us. It is not just the United 

States Pacific Command. It is all of the agencies of the federal govVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00317 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ernment, the countries with whom we deal, their militaries, their 

governmental agencies, and increasingly the private sector that 

help us form this cooperation and collaboration partnership that we 

think is working very well. 

We have been to 27 or 28 of those 36 countries in the 2 years 

we have been in command. And a theme that is unmistakable, it 

is expressed in varying degrees, but those countries view us, the 

United States, not just Pacific Command or U.S. Forces Korea, as 

the indispensable partner. 

Now, some of them advertise it a little more vocally than others. 

Some trumpet it; some keep it very quiet. But it is an unmistakable theme, and we are looking to capitalize on that. 

Now, for all of that, level of stability and somewhat gradually increasing prosperity for all of those in our country and the increase 

of democracy throughout our region—India, for example, has elections coming up, as does Malaysia, Japan likely to, all of these democracies in action, there are challenges in our area of responsibility. 

Foremost among them, we are dedicated to curtailing and extinguishing the spread of violent extremism throughout all of the Asia 

Pacific region. Events in Mumbai and ongoing events in the southern Philippines, in particular, reinforce to us the importance of our 

mission, progress being made in those countries and in those areas 

that we think is significant and bodes well for success in the future. 

A second area of concern—and Skip lives with this on a daily 

basis—technology proliferation, the possibility of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, worse case of all, to include space and missile systems, and that, of course, includes North Korea. And we 

would be happy to field your questions on developments in North 

Korea, Skip being the guy who handles that as an expert on a daily 

basis. 

Finally, a few words about the People’s Republic of China. We 

made real headway, we thought, in the first half of 2008. Then we 

had events, including denial of the port visit by naval ships, and 

Taiwan—and China’s suspension of mil-to-mil discussions following 

the announcement of the next round of Taiwan arms sales. So we 

have not had any significant military-to-military dialogue with the 

People’s Republic of China in over 6 months. 

So the relationship is clearly not where we would like it to be. 

We are also concerned significantly with the People’s Liberation 

Army Navy and other agencies’ activity in the South China Sea, as 

demonstrated by their efforts to get the USNS Impeccable to leave 

its location in an international operating zone, well clear of Chinese national waters, of a couple of weeks ago. 

We have resumed our operations there, as it happens. We are escorting as we speak the next vessel that is conducting that oceanographic research for us, U.S. armed combatant. It is out of sight 

of our ship now, but we will continue to provide response, if necessary, should the Chinese give us further reason to look very carefully at their behavior in a maritime domain. 

All that said, I remain cautiously optimistic about the future of 

our relationship with China. It is of significant importance to us. 

We think there is little merit in operating in two separate spheres, 


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so we are looking to bring the mil-to-mil relationship back on a 

more collaborative and cooperative basis, hopefully in the near 

term. 

So thanks for giving us the privilege of giving you a little bit of 

the United States Pacific Command perspective. We are always 

anxious to have members and staffers come out and visit us to see 

the young men and women who are doing the real essential work 

for our nation’s success in what we think is an increasingly Asia 

Pacific-oriented world. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Timothy J. Keating follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Admiral Keating, thank you very much. 

General Sharp. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL WALTER L. SHARP

General SHARP. Chairman Edwards, Representative Wamp, and 

distinguished members of this panel, it is indeed an honor for me 

to be here today. And it is a real privilege for me to represent the 

soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, DOD civilians, and all the 

families that serve in the Republic of Korea today. 

On behalf of all those outstanding men and women, I really want 

to express our thanks to this subcommittee for all that you have 

shown to support our operations and our quality of life in Korea. 

Your support allows us to promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and improve security in Northeast Asia and—which 

is, I think, very important, given the national security interests 

that we have in the Republic of Korea and in all of Northeast Asia. 

The United States does have a significant national security interest in Northeast Asia. The Republic of Korea plays a vital role in 

the region that accounts for 22 percent of all the U.S. trade in 

goods. It is a first-class economic power, our seventh-largest trading partner, and one of the most technologically and scientifically 

advanced countries in the world. 

It has been a partner with us around the world, and it has proven to be, I believe, the strongest alliance that we have, an alliance 

that is forged in blood and is maintained by enduring commitments 

and friendship of the Korean and American people. 

The Republic of Korea armed forces have fought alongside Americans in Vietnam. They participated in Operation Desert Storm. 

They deployed forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republic of 

Korea is currently participating in six U.N. peacekeeping missions 

around the world today. They recently deployed a 4,500–ton destroyer and anti-submarine helicopter off the waters of Somalia to 

fight piracy operations. 

I also want to thank you all, the members of Congress, for passing the legislation that elevated the Republic of Korea foreign military sales status to a level that is on par with the countries of 

NATO, as well as other nations with longstanding U.S. allies. 

Currently, the Republic of Korea has over 560 FMS cases that are open, for a total value of over $12 billion. And this legislation 

will go a long way to enhancing the alliance’s combined warfighting 

capability. 

And when I came into command, I established three priorities. 

The first is to be prepared to fight and win, and I can report to 

this committee that our alliance, the ROK-U.S. alliance, and all the 

servicemembers of that alliance are strong and we are ready to 

fight and win against any contingency on the peninsula today, all 

the way from instability up to major combat. 

And my second priority was to strengthen the alliance, strengthen this strong U.S.-ROK alliance. We are adapting to what we need 

in the future for an alliance. 

So on the 17th of April, 2012, the Republic of Korea, this professional military force in Korea, will take command of the war fight, 

where today CFC, my—wearing my hat as the Combined Forces 

Command commander, we command the war fight. After 17 April, 


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2012, they will do it, and the U.S. will be in a supporting, to supported role after 2012. 

That does not lessen our requirement there; it just changes it. 

And I do believe that the force level that we have in Korea right 

now and the commitment we have in Korea forces-wise and capability-wise is about right for the foreseeable future. 

We have 28,500 servicemembers in Korea right now. And I believe that to be about the right number. We need to make sure that 

we continue to evolve the alliance so that, capability-wise, both the 

U.S. and Korea—alliance is possible as we move to the future. 

The Korean military will be ready for this change in 2012. We 

are already starting to practice it now in our exercise program and 

all that we are doing to prepare for it. And I am confident that we 

will be able to accomplish that task. 

My third priority was to continue to improve the quality of life 

for all of our servicemembers, DOD civilians, and their family. My 

real goal is to make Korea the assignment of choice anywhere in 

the world. Recently, the Department of Defense authorized us to 

move to 3-year tours for our accompanied servicemembers. We will 

do that over time, as infrastructure becomes available for those 

forces, so we don’t bring families to Korea before the infrastructure 

is there to support it. 

We have just over 2,000 command-sponsored families now in 

Korea. Our goal and the service’s goal, by this time next year, we 

will at least double that. I have the services to be able to accomplish that. 

And then, as we move to Camp Humphreys and as we continue 

to build down with that first-class installation post down there, we 

will be able to continue to bring more families to eventually get to 

the point where all servicemembers who are married can come accompanied and come for 3 years. 

The 3-year tour is tremendously important for me and for the 

command. It greatly increases my capability. And instead of having 

to train a new servicemember every year, I now have them for 3 

years. It reduces the stress on our military around the world. Why 

have an unaccompanied tour anywhere in the world if you don’t 

have to? And you don’t have to in Korea. 

And then, lastly, it really shows the U.S. commitment to not only 

the Republic of Korea, but Northeast Asia, which I believe is critically important for this important part of the world to keep the stabilization that we have there now and in the future. 

As we move south, as you know, there are two parts of the program. The first is the Yongsan relocation program, which moves 

U.S. forces that are currently stationed in Seoul to U.S. Army Garrison Humphries, which is about 40 miles south of Seoul. 

The second part is the land partnership plan, which provides for 

the relocation of the 2nd Infantry Division. That is up north near 

the demilitarized zone, and moving them also down to the Camp 

Humphries area. This will significantly improve the quality of life 

for all of our servicemembers and their families as they move, really, into world-class training and living facilities. 

The great majority of the cost for the Yongsan relocation plan are 

paid through the Republic of Korea. I do thank the committee for 

the $125 million to MILCON that is already appropriated to start 


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the family housing project down there. That is extremely important, and I ask for the continued support. 

Land partnership costs are shared between the Republic of Korea 

and the United States. The new special measures agreement, 

which is the burden-sharing agreement that was just agreed to by 

both governments and both legislatures—or by the national assembly of the Republic of Korea, it is a 5-year host nation cost-sharing 

agreement that was concluded between our two nations. 

This provides burden-sharing money for Korean labor, logistics 

cost-sharing, and a portion of the costs associated with the realignment of our forces. The vast majority of burden-sharing money goes 

directly back into the Korean economy, while reducing the U.S. 

Forces Korea’s appropriated MILCON requirement, thus benefiting 

both nations. 

Appropriated MILCON funding, resources obtained from host nation construction funding, construction activity provided by in-kind 

basis of the Republic of Korea, and investment from the commercial sector and public-private ventures are the key components to 

our overall funding strategy for this transformation. 

I ask for your continued support for future appropriated 

MILCON funding requests that will provide facilities essential to 

the success of the relocation of U.S. forces in Korea. 

While we continue to commit funding toward our ongoing relocation efforts—on the Yongsan relocation and the land partnership 

program, we must also not lose sight of the urgent need to maintain our existing and our enduring infrastructure in facilities that 

support operations today and in the future in Korea. 

And I ask for your continued support for resources to recapitalize 

our enduring facilities that we will—that we have now and will 

continue to need in the future. 

I thank you for the support of this subcommittee that you have 

provided for our servicemembers, DOD civilians, and family members serving in Korea. And I hope for your continued support when 

the fiscal year 2010 budget is established in the Future Years Defense Program is formulated. 

I look forward to working with you for our alliance transformation efforts and providing our men and women the very best 

working, living, and training environment possible in the Republic 

of Korea. And I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Walter L. Sharp follows:] 


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MOVING TROOPS FROM OKINAWA TO GUAM

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Thank you, General Sharp. Thank you 

both for your testimony. 

Members, since we may be having votes today and today is the 

last day of votes for the week, why don’t we stick pretty closely to 

the 5-minute rule for the first round, to give everybody a chance 

to have at least one round of questions? 

And I will just begin, Admiral Keating, by asking you, are we 

still on track for the 2014 move of our troops from Okinawa to 

Guam? And if so, are there any potential roadblocks that might 

push that deadline back? 

Admiral KEATING. Chairman, we are on track. The Secretary of 

State just reaffirmed our national commitment, along with Japan’s 

commitment, to the Defense Policy Review Initiative, a subset of 

which is the agreed implementation plan. That is the movement of 

8,000 Marines and several thousand dependents from Okinawa to 

Guam. 

The fiscal year 2010—as Skip mentioned, the budget that comes 

over, I don’t know what monies are in this year’s budget for the 

movement to Guam. It will be—it is an expensive proposition for 

both the United States and Japan. Our countries are equally committed. 

There will be challenges and road bumps, Chairman, as you say, 

including perhaps the construction of the Futenma replacement facility on the northeast coast of Okinawa. It is a sophisticated engineering project. There is water there right now. They are going to 

have to, you know, landfill and runway. 

The infrastructure in Guam will need some attention. So it will 

be, by all accounts, a very challenging undertaking. Our countries 

are both committed to it. And Guam, of course, remains just a strategic lynchpin for us, the United States Pacific Command all 

throughout the Asia Pacific region. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you very much for that. And let us 

know if there are roadblocks that deal with military construction 

projects—— 

Admiral KEATING. All right, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. That we need to look at. 

U.S. FORCES KOREA TOUR NORMALIZATION

General Sharp, I am so thrilled to hear about your long-term 

plans for Korea and accompanied tours there. This subcommittee 

has expressed on a bipartisan basis year after year, going back to 

Leon LaPorte and General Bell, the concern that you come off a 

tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, you go back to your installation CONUS, and then you are deployed to Korea, and perhaps 

away—90 percent of married soldiers are away for another year 

from their families. 

What percent of the soldiers now that are married have their 

families accompanying them? Are we still in the 10 percent range? 

General SHARP. Sir, we currently have—we believe, of the 

28,500, about half of those are married. So if you take ballpark 

numbers, 14,000 are married. We have just over 2,000 commandsponsored families that are there right now, so 2,000 of 14,000. 


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I do need to also point out that we have another 1,900 families 

or so that are not command-sponsored, families that said, ‘‘I am not 

going to spend another year away from my servicemember. I am 

going to come and live on the economy in Korea.’’ 

General Bell did exactly the right thing. We are paying a housing 

allowance for them to live off-post. They get TRICARE Standard 

instead of TRICARE Prime. So there are some differences and 

there are some out-of-pocket expenses that those non-commandsponsored families have to do. 

This new ruling that really went into effect in early December, 

but all the regulations were finally changed about 3 weeks ago, will 

allow me to take the great majority of those 1,900 families and 

offer to them, do you want to stay another year and become command-sponsored and get all of the benefits? I think a large number 

of them will take us up on that as we go forward. 

Mr. EDWARDS. The fact that there are 1,900 who would go not 

command-sponsored shows the needs and wants of families to be 

together. And the thought that any single family has to take money 

out of their own pocket in order to be together while they are serving our country concerns us all. 

And I—one other question. I am going to take one more minute 

within my timeframe. Do you have a game plan? We had a military 

construction budget over the next 5 years that shows us, 2 years 

from now, we will be at—instead of 13 percent today, we will be 

at 20 percent. Do we have any kind of a timeline on that? 

General SHARP. Sir, the timeline that I have takes me out to 

about the 2015, 2016 time period. And that construction does not 

get me all the way to the endpoint of all families. 

During that period between now and 2015, 2016, allows me to 

complete the building of Camp Humphries, which, when that is 

complete, will be, I believe, the best base anywhere in the world. 

It is a base that is being designed from the ground up. It is—— 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Fort Lewis. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FARR. He is probably right. [Laughter.] 

General SHARP. It is a cost-sharing between us and the Republic 

of Korea. The family housing in—that is going to be put there is 

an Army initiative of a Humphries housing opportunity program, 

which are being paid for by private investors that are there. 

As we progress past that point, we will have to continue to work 

with—I will work with my department and this committee in order 

to be able to establish what MILCON needs, because the more 

MILCON, obviously, we get, the quicker we can get to the end 

state we all want. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you would send us the timeline you presently 

have and what percentage accompanied families you could have 

with that timeline, then we could look at whether over time we 

could speed that up. 

General SHARP. Will do. Yes, sir. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. General. 

Mr. Wamp. 

NORTH KOREA AND OCEANIC COOPERATION

Mr. WAMP. Admiral Keating, having been in the last year to 

Japan and Shanghai and Singapore and down in Oceania, you 

talked about the Asia Pacific Command and how important it is. 

Can you generally give us an idea where you see the most troubled 

waters, no pun intended? 

I mean, I would think that Oceania, Oceania is pretty stable and 

pretty peaceful. You get over into Indonesia. You still think some 

radicalization takes place there? You talked about Mumbai, which 

was a little—not a little—a serious, serious flare-up that the Indian 

government has handled, I think, pretty well, given the delicacies 

of Pakistan to the west, et cetera. 

And then you come back into the Pacific Rim, headed north to 

Korea, and we all know, you know, the tensions still there. And I 

am just interested in where you see the real challenges in terms 

of our capability. 

And I know we are on the MILCON side, but we have to have 

a pretty good understanding of where the investments need to be 

made and why. 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. Right this minute—the area of greatest concern to us is, of course, Skip’s. Activities of Kim Jong-il and 

his military leaders are of significant concern to us. 

There is the positioning of missile launch equipment around the 

Taepo dong. There are significant efforts underway, of course, at 

the State Department. We are in support of and coordinating with 

State on those efforts. 

Activities that China demonstrates in the South China Sea are 

of concern. Balance that, very—quite interesting to us, they have 

three ships that are in the Gulf of Aden, Central Command area 

of responsibility, but they are doing a pretty good job, to their credit, of executing their mission to decrease piracy in the—off the 

coast of Somalia and Yemen. 

So North Korea on a day-to-day basis probably our most significant military concern. The development of a reasonable relationship with China on a mil-to-mil basis, as would reflect their incorporation of increased transparency and better stated intentions on 

a mil-to-mil basis, and across the entire spectrum of global economics and strategy, those two areas would be of foremost concern to 

us. 

You mentioned Oceania. Our great partners, Australia and, importantly, New Zealand, while we have a difference in policy with 

New Zealand, they are helping us keep a very—a weather eye on 

all of the southern reaches of the Asia Pacific waters, and their efforts have been significant in, for example, Fiji, a coup there, but 

they have forces that are still there in Fiji. 

Timor-Leste, Australia has helped Timor-Leste introduce democracy to that nation. And the enforcing of fishery concerns for those 

small nations who depend for their livelihood on being able to continue to harvest the waters of the world, and our Coast Guard does 

a great job of helping us there, too. 

So there are areas that I would pay pretty close attention to. 


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Mr. WAMP. Well, in this series of questions, I am going to take 

that to General Sharp and say, you mentioned about kind of the 

pullback of some of your forces from the demilitarized zone above 

Seoul, which we talk still about this threat, and then Camp Humphries being well below Seoul. 

And I know, from last year’s testimony, how important it was for 

the Republic of Korea to free up that space so they can grow their 

city and you can go south. But if we go south and the trouble is 

still north, explain to us, in terms of the capabilities—I know that 

is not a bad—not a fun post north of there, but you still maintain 

a presence, in terms of a deterrent, I assume. 

Tell us, who will still be up there and why certain troops are able 

to mobilize south of Seoul? 

General SHARP. Sir, the great, great majority of the ground forces 

that would stop a North Korean attack are Republic of Korea 

forces. The Republic of Korea army and, really, the entire forces, 

but especially their army are first-class. And they have the responsibilities and the ability to be able to stop that ground attack. 

What we bring in the early parts of the war are primarily air 

and naval air assets, to be able to take down the long-range artillery. So moving what we have in 2nd Infantry Division out of 

Camp Casey and Camp Hovey north of Seoul does not degrade my 

warfighting capability. 

In fact, in a sense, it increases it, because instead of being scattered at dozens of camps all across, you know, the northern part— 

north of Seoul, I am now consolidated to allow 2nd Infantry Division to do what they really need to do during the first days of the 

war, which are help NEO, to get our family members out of there, 

and that consolidation helps with that, also, in the moving south, 

but, more importantly, to bring additional forces into Korea. They 

have a responsibility to do that, too. 

The deterrent value is, we are still in Korea. And the deterrent 

value, I believe, increases with the more families that we bring to 

Korea, because it demonstrates the commitment that the United 

States has to the defense of the Republic of Korea. 

Mr. WAMP. Is that 28,000 number pretty constant, sir? 

General SHARP. Sir, it is now. It has not been over time. We 

were, 10 years ago, at about 37,500. Secretary Rumsfeld in 2003 

had a goal of bringing it down to 25,000. Last April, President 

Bush at the time and President Lee, on President Lee’s first visit, 

his first visit off the peninsula, which was to the United States, 

came and they had agreed to keep the force level at about what it 

is right now, which is 28,500. 

Again, I believe that is about the right level for now and for the 

foreseeable future. 

Mr. WAMP. And how many in Japan, Admiral Keating? 

Admiral KEATING. About 50,000. 

Mr. WAMP. Fifty thousand? 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. 

Mr. Chairman. 

General SHARP. Sir, I would also point out, on Japan, they also— 

you know, I have seven bases that are United Nations Command 

bases in Japan, which are tremendously important for the war 


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fight, because they help flow through our forces and bring ammunition and fuel from them. So it really is a good teaming in order to 

be prepared to go to war. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL DIVERSITY

Mr. FARR. Admiral Keating, General Sharp, thank you for your 

service and thank you for being here in our MILCON committee. 

I have three questions, and I am not going to be able to come 

back for a second round, so I am going to try to get them all out 

now. 

I represent the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. And I 

know PACOM has a lot of interaction with it. One of the things I 

am hearing about is the dramatic reduction in both the number 

and diversity of international students due to flat funding of the 

IMET funding, which no longer will cover the travel and living expenses adequately for some of these foreign officers. 

In your respective commands, is there anything you can do to 

help increase the budget for IMET? Because I know IMET is important to you. 

Admiral KEATING. They are huge to us at Pacific Command, and 

I am sure to Skip, as well. We ran the numbers. There are about 

185 foreign military students in our military institute—educational 

institutions in the United States. There are 75 young men and 

women in our service academies. 

Our view is, is this is a relatively small investment that can 

yield a substantial and long-term dividend. I was unaware that 

there had been restrictions imposed on Dan Oliver and the Postgraduate School. 

Mr. FARR. They flat-funded it, so the increased cost of travel and 

living expenses are not included. 

Admiral KEATING. Enthusiastically endorse a consideration by— 

I think it is a Department of the Navy program probably, but— 

broad support on that one, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Anything you can do to help, I would really appreciate 

that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We will take it under consideration. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FARR. The Naval Postgraduate School is widely recognized 

for its expertise in its security sector reform programs, such as the 

Center for Military—Civil Military Relations and the Center for 

Stabilization and Reconstruction Studies. These programs address 

the critical educational needs in building stabilization and reconstruction capability, both home and abroad in places like Nepal, Sri 

Lanka. 

I wonder if you had any plans to increase the PACOM utilization 

of these programs—civil military and CSRS. 

Admiral KEATING. You bet. And thank you for the question. 

We have Lieutenant General John Goodman, recently retired 

Marine three-star, who was heading our Center of Excellence for 

the United States Pacific Command. And one of the areas that he— 

in which John is going to concentrate is the increasingly multilateral, multinational approach to training folks to prepare for conflict 


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and the consequence management attendant to conflict and natural 

disaster. 

And so those areas that you cite, kind of the phase four part of 

our operations, are of significant importance to us and to Skip. And 

in our former lives, we have seen manifestation of the need for 

more work in that area. So we—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, I am very excited to hear that. We have had previous commands come in here and tell us how much need there is 

to build that capacity. And, obviously, you have endorsed that, as 

well. 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. I appreciate that. 

NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL AND COOPERATION WITH OTHER

COUNTRIES ON SEARCH AND RESCUE

I am aware that PACOM and the Naval Postgraduate School’s 

Center for Asymmetric Warfare had been working with the Vietnamese government on increasing their capacity to do search and 

rescue. And I wondered if that program could also be extended to 

Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia? 

It is a no-brainer that the more capacity capabilities we can provide to our allies, the less cost it is going to be for us. 

Admiral KEATING. You bet. You are exactly right, Congressman. 

We would, again, enthusiastically endorse an expansion of that 

training opportunity. We will take that one. I was unaware that— 

I don’t think we are excluding those countries. 

[The information follows:] 

The Vietnamese Government is very restrictive when it comes to military-to-military engagements. Our engagement with Vietnam has concentrated mostly in the 

medical and engineering arenas. The Naval Post Graduate School’s Center for 

Asymmetric Warfare involvement with the Vietnamese government serves as a way 

to engage with Vietnam in a non-threatening way, which benefits both the United 

States and Vietnam. Increasing capacity to conduct Search and Rescue just happens 

to be a priority for the Vietnam Government. As far as expanding this capability 

to Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, it is something that we are not excluding 

from these countries, however within our bilateral engagements, search and rescue 

is not a priority for these countries; therefore they are not looking to benefit from 

the Center for Asymmetric Warfare. 

Search-and-rescue exercises are fairly fundamental. They are not 

rudimentary, but they are simple. They are not very complex, and 

they don’t involve elaborate command-and-control. 

We are able to conduct those with China through their offices in 

Hong Kong. Now, it is technical—complicated relationship. 

We have also proposed doing them with China. We do them with 

Russia on a fairly regular basis. So search-and-rescue exercises are 

an important step in a developing exercise program with these 

countries, and we would be delighted to do them with the countries 

that you mentioned. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

I don’t have any further questions. I appreciate your enthusiasm 

and your service. 

Admiral KEATING. Thank you, sir. 

General SHARP. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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And welcome back, Admiral Keating. 

General, nice to see you. 

NUCLEAR POWERED AIRCRAFT IN JAPAN

Let me start by asking Admiral Keating about the process in 

Japan, when it went from a conventional carrier to a nuclear carrier. As you may know, I represent Naval Station Mayport, which 

is in northeast Florida. And the Navy, as you know, has just made 

a decision to make Mayport capable of homeporting a nuclear carrier. 

And so, as we work with you and your predecessor to go through 

that in Japan, things worked pretty well. And just a couple of questions. 

One, do you recall—just a ballpark number—how much it cost to 

go through all of that in Japan? And I know Japan paid part of 

the cost. But do you recall what some of those numbers are? 

Admiral KEATING. Congressman, I don’t. We will get that for you. 

It is a number that someone will have readily available. I just don’t 

have it off the top of my head. 

[The information follows:] 

The total facilities cost to support a nuclear powered aircraft at Yokosuka was approximately $314 million in U.S. dollars. This cost was shared between the U.S. 

Navy ($176 million) and by the Government of Japan ($138 million). The cost breakdown follows. 

The U.S. Navy cost included; berth 12 upgrades to support nuclear aircraft carrier 

(US MILCON P–998) at $67 million (4160 volt AC shore power, high quality water 

production facility, and maintenance support facilities), co-generation power plant 

(Navy Energy Savings Performance Contract) at $95 million, various facilities repairs (Operations and Maintenance, Navy funds) at $7 million, and various support 

equipment (Other Procurement, Navy) at $7 million. 

The Government of Japan cost (Host Nation Funded Construction) included; berth 

12 upgrades for aircraft carrier at $108 million and bay dredging at $30 million. 

[CORRECTED PACOM ANSWER]

There is no controlled industrial facility (CIF) in Japan. CIFs are radiological 

work facilities that exist only within the United States to support shore based radiological work associated with nuclear powered warships. Work involving radioactivity 

from the propulsion plant is never accomplished ashore in Japan. 

You are right. It is not an insignificant sum of money. I would 

guess—and we will confirm—it is in the hundreds of millions of 

dollars. There are nuclear safety certifications. There are water 

depth concerns. There are electrical loading and certain laboratory 

facilities that aren’t normally attendant to conventional ship stationing, but I will get you as accurate a figure as I can. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Because we are waiting. We are hoping that— 

actually, I just had a meeting with Admiral Alexander, who is head 

of the Navy Region Southeast and they are sharpening their pencils and tell us how much it is going to cost to do Mayport. 

And we are expecting it to be in the MILCON budget that the 

president submits. So I was just curious. We can kind of compare 

that. 

And one of the other things, sir, is do you know—when you forward deployed an aircraft carrier, I know one of the big items that 

will be at Mayport—and I visited in San Diego, they built what 

they call a controlled industrial facility, which is the—really works 


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on the nuclear propulsion, very specific to nuclear carriers—did 

they build one of those? Is there one of those in Japan? 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. That is a going in—I mean, that is 

a dealmaker for our friends in the Navy. If those facilities aren’t 

there, and nuclear safeguard assurances can’t be provided, then we 

don’t either send a nuclear—we don’t permanently station a nuclear carrier in a place that doesn’t have them. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I got you. And I assumed that. If you have—I 

think one of the justifications for going to Mayport was the only 

controlled industrial facility on the East Coast is in Norfolk. And 

it would provide a backup, now on the west coast you have three, 

so that is helpful. 

But if you could give us an idea—— 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir, we will. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. General Sharp, just real quickly. Before my time 

expires, I want to welcome you. 

And, by the way, on a personal note, my intelligence tells me you 

just became a grandfather for the second time. 

General SHARP. That is good intel. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I need a little help, because my daughter is 

going to have her second child in the next month or so, so we will 

compare notes. And I know it was great the first time; I am sure 

it is even better on the second time. So thank you for your service. 

KOREA

To hear all the good things happening, I first visited South Korea 

right around about 2002, and the living conditions weren’t so great, 

the relationship wasn’t so great. And things have really turned 

around. 

But one of the things I remember—it was about 2002, and they 

were just getting ready to kind of put in place the Good Neighbor 

Program, because there had been some incidents with the civilians 

and our folks. And I know that was going to just try to build a better alliance. 

And maybe if you could just briefly tell us, number one, what 

were the tenets of that? How is it working? And are there things 

that you see we could do better? And then, three, is there anything 

we ought to do as a subcommittee to help you in that? 

General SHARP. Sir, thank you. The good neighbor program is 

very much alive and thriving right now, and we are continuing to 

try to improve it even more. 

You know, if you look at the different polls that they have run 

in Korea in different places, over 65 percent of the people of South 

Korea want the U.S. military there. And that number has been 

fairly consistent for the last couple years. 

The new administration for the Republic of Korea, headed by 

President Lee, who became the president a little over a year ago 

from now, is very supportive of not only the relationship between 

the Republic of Korea and the United States, but U.S. forces in 

Korea specifically. 

And he personally has visited our command post. He personally 

has taken part in some of our exercises over there. I had an office 

call with him last week, because he knew I was coming to talk to 

this committee, so that relationship between the people of the ReVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00356 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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public of Korea and the government of the Republic of Korea and 

U.S. Forces Korea couldn’t be better than it is right now. 

We are working very hard on the good neighbor program, because I believe that our personal and professional relationships 

with the Korean people really do get at the strength of the alliance 

now and into the future. 

So some examples of what we do. We work very hard to be able 

to bring—get Korean children linked up with Korean veterans that 

come to visit Korea and spend a day with them together that go 

up to the DMZ, take the DMZ tour, eat lunch together, to be able 

to have those veterans tell these young Korean children how they 

fought in a war and what it was like back in the 1950s. 

We, through many, many of our different camps, teach English 

to the Korean people. There is a great desire of the Korean people 

to learn English. So we have English-speaking camps. 

The Koreans, in exchange, are just unbelievably warm to all of 

our servicemembers over there and really do go out of the way, not 

only to welcome them when they first get there, but to continue 

that strong friendship and relationship throughout the entire time 

that they are there. 

It is a cornerstone of my command priorities, because it really affects all three of them, prepare to fight and win, strengthen the alliance, and improving the quality of life for our servicemembers. 

So I say, it is something that we continue to push forward. 

Where the committee could help is to continue to support, continue 

to support us to be able to enable to bring more families and 

servicemembers to Korea and to be able to truly have the facilities 

we need for 3-year accompanied tours over there, because, again, 

I think that strengthens the alliance and strengthens this bond 

and a friendship that we have between Koreans and Americans 

there. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. FARR. The Defense Language Institute told me that the most 

difficult language for westerners to learn in the entire world is Korean. The longest training program they have is for Korean. 

General SHARP. Is that right? I know it is difficult. I did not realize it was the toughest. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Some of us are still struggling with English. 

[Laughter.] 

I will get there. 

Mr. Dicks. 

GUAM

Mr. DICKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Admiral and General, good to have you here. 

I have been contemplating a trip out to Guam. And Admiral 

French, who used to be in our area up in Puget Sound, is now out 

there. 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. DICKS. And I talked to Congresswoman Bordallo’s office just 

to get a sense of what problems they have. And there are a couple 

things here. 

And I don’t know if this has any effect on the military or not, 

but one was that they are going to have to close the Ordot Dump 

and open up a new dump and recycling center. Apparently, this 

cost $45.9 million to close it and $113.8 million to create the new 

center. And so that was one issue. 

And then wastewater treatment, they are under a court order— 

they have to replace—I think it is—wait a minute here. The landfill is facing a U.S. district order to close and be replaced in 700 

days. And the site has been on the national priority list for action 

under the Superfund program for 26 years. 

Guam must also comply with a new EPA decree to provide secondary treatment at its northern wastewater facilities. And apparently this costs $300 million. 

And then the port of Guam, they are trying to improve the capacity there. And although some funding can be kind of sent to DOT 

via MARAD and the Department of Defense, if the port is designated a strategic port, the GAO and DOD have identified the 

port, if left at its current state, to be a major chokepoint for delivery of materials and supplies on Guam during the construction 

phase of the military build-up. 

Are you aware of these issues? 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. And can we help Guam somehow with this? I don’t 

think they are very prosperous, are they? 

Admiral KEATING. No, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. I mean, in terms of having the money to deal with 

these kind of problems. 

Admiral KEATING. They are not. They don’t have significant— 

huge cash reserves, I mean, not to diminish the impact of the challenge. One, Bill French is doing a magnificent job. 

Mr. DICKS. Yes, he is terrific. 

Admiral KEATING. He is doing a magnificent job. Two, Congressman—Chairman Skelton just led a delegation through, and they 

visited Guam, and Bill talked to them. Congresswoman Bordallo 

was part of that delegation. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

Admiral KEATING. The challenges are not insignificant on Guam. 

A great piece in our favor is, we are talking about United States 

property here. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

Admiral KEATING. And this is the strategic import to us at Pacific Command. There is the flag of the United States of America 

flying over that very important piece of land and surrounding 

water and air. 

The economic challenges are significant. There is the wastewater. 

There will be needs for more schools. We talked about this with the 

chairman, the four or five more schools that are in our testimony. 

The challenges are not insignificant. Guam will need fiscal assistance, and we are aware of those challenges, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. Is there a plan to deal with it yet? 


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Admiral KEATING. Yes and no. There is a naval office headed— 

now Acting Secretary Buddy Penn was in charge of it. Major General David Bice leads the Guam program office. They are developing timelines and flow charts to begin addressing those challenges that you described, sir. 

As to the funding support for those, that is a matter of concern 

throughout the FITA. 

Mr. DICKS. Yes, because I know that one of these, it is like 700 

days, and then they will be facing a fine of a million dollars a week 

or something. 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. I am not familiar with those details, 

but the Guam program office is—they have representatives in 

Guam and representatives in the Pentagon every day, working 

with State and across the interagency, to address these environmental and infrastructure challenges. 

Mr. DICKS. The Guam program office? 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. GPO? 

Admiral KEATING. Joint Guam Program Office. Yes, Buddy Penn, 

Secretary Penn was in charge, and his action officer is Major General David Bice, Marine Corps, retired. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. Thank you. 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Members—excuse me? 

Mr. FARR. Do you have the largest geographical command in the 

world? 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 

General SHARP. Half the world. 

Mr. FARR. Incredible. 

Admiral KEATING. Fifty—some—about half-plus, a little bit. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Members, this first vote is a 15-minute vote. I will 

ask staff to let us know when there are 3 minutes to go. There is 

a second vote that is a 5-minute vote. 

Let’s begin the second round of questioning. 

Mr. Wamp. 

IMPACT OF THE VALUE OF U.S. DOLLAR

Mr. WAMP. Well, a couple things bubbled up through our hearings last year that don’t seem to be quite as pressing this year, and 

that is the price of gasoline and the value of the U.S. dollar around 

the world. Can you tell us how that impacts you this year, going 

into your 2010 request, and how you calculated for these issues? 

And maybe both of you, what are the weak spots economically 

within your areas? I know Japan’s economy has really struggled for 

a long period of time. But how has it impacted your budget? 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. The stability of the dollar is, of 

course, of significant importance all throughout the area of responsibility. The economic impact of the current crisis is slightly smaller to markedly smaller the impact in many of the countries in our 

region because of historically conservative policies by its citizens 

and governments throughout the Asia Pacific region. 

In many Eastern and Southeast Asian countries, they just save 

money and don’t invest in significant numbers in their stock markets. We were in Hong Kong 3 weeks ago. There was a line outside 


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one of the banks for folks who were going in and trying to withdraw all their money, and there were certain bank concerns about 

this run on—it was one bank, and—but it is an example of the relatively conservative fiscal policies of families and governments over 

there. 

The price of gasoline is significantly different than when we were 

here last time. Those decreases in costs have certainly been realized by the Department of Defense, and it is not exactly—they are 

not giving us the—it was 4 bucks a gallon a while ago. It is down 

to a buck and a half. We don’t enjoy any of the dividends there. 

But the important point is, our readiness has not decreased, in 

spite of fluctuations on the global oil market prices. And the young 

men and women who are doing the flying, the steaming, and the 

driving are doing it to the same extent today that they were a year 

ago. 

General SHARP. And in Korea—them being—Korea being mainly 

an export country, the global economy greatly affects them. And 

the value of the won has declined. It is gotten worse for the Republic of Korea. 

But I must say that, despite the world economy and despite the 

issues that Korea is having with their exports, because of what 

they learned in the mid-1990s during the IMF crisis, they have a 

huge amount of reserves. And their banking structure is in pretty 

good shape. 

I think it is also notable that, even in the middle of all this, a 

month-and-a-half ago, 2 months ago when we were negotiating the 

burden-sharing agreement of how much Korea would pay to the 

United States on a yearly basis, not only did they agree to about 

the right amount, which was 760 billion won, so about $741 million, a year they agreed to that, and they agreed to that amount, 

plus CPI, plus inflation for 5 years. 

So that really shows their commitment, I think, to the United 

States and their commitment to keeping our forces there, that even 

in this tough economic time, they are willing to commit that money 

for a 5-year period. 

Mr. WAMP. And there is no hint there with the Republic of 

Korea. Is there no hint from Japan economically on their commitment to Guam? 

Admiral KEATING. There is no hint, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Completely committed. 

Admiral, one last question. You gave us the four broad areas in 

your 2010 request, defense policy review, Republic of Korea transformation, grow the forces, sustainment. What is the percentage in 

your 2010 request of each of those four major areas? 

Admiral KEATING. I don’t have the breakdown. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. 

Admiral KEATING. We will be happy to get your staff that answer 

very quickly, sir. 

[The information follows:] 

The percentage breakout of funds in the four broad program areas is as follows; 

Defense Policy Review Initiative at 11 percent, Korea Transformation at 2 percent, 

Grow the Force at 40 percent and Sustainment at 47 percent. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 


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Mr. Farr. 

RESOURCES TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC

Mr. FARR. I am just so impressed of the amount of the world that 

you command. It seems like a lot of the attention is in Korea. 

As I have flown around that region, as massive as it is, and 

spent some time in Indonesia, and the problems it has, and Thailand and so on, are we committing enough resources and positioning ourselves well enough in the South Pacific to meet the challenges ahead? 

Admiral KEATING. The short answer is, yes, sir. 

To elaborate just a little bit, the three pieces of our strategy that 

I mentioned are partnership, readiness and presence. J.O.s on the 

staff—junior officers on the staff have this bumper-sticker-type saying that they say, ‘‘Virtual presence equals actual absence.’’ 

That is to say, all the video teleconferences and, you know, you 

can hook up and communicate in a way that was unprecedented 

when Skip and I were younger, but you still have to go out there 

and put boots on the ground, and jets in the air, and ships on the 

water, and tanks running through the mud. Nothing replaces 

American presence in these countries. 

Indonesia, a classic case. They want to do a lot more with us 

than we can support because we are stretched a little bit thin. 

Singapore provided—they are building a brand-new command 

and control and intelligence center. And we would have asked, but 

before we even asked, they volunteered to give us a corner of it for 

U.S.-only information and the Singapore and in the Changi intel 

center. 

India—— 

Mr. FARR. Just trying to get you to move there. 

Admiral KEATING. They wouldn’t mind it. Senator Inouye would 

feel different about it. 

India, we have about a dozen full-scale field exercises with those 

folks every year. So to your point, presence is one of the three cornerstones of our strategy. We don’t just concentrate on Skip and 

United States Forces Korea. He has a major exercise that is winding down right now. 

We want to get out and about to the best of our ability. The 

young men and women who join, they like to join the services and 

see the world. It is part of why they decide to support and defend 

the Constitution. 

We would like to be in more places than we can be. We are in 

sufficient places right now. And we are going to continue to work 

this program very aggressively, all throughout our area of responsibility. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

ACCOMPANIED TOURS TO KOREA

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, let me start in. 

General Sharp, let me go back to the accompanied tours in 

Korea. You said by 2016 you want to be at what point? 

General SHARP. I said by this time next year, I want to double. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General SHARP. I want to be a little over 4,000. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General SHARP. I think by 2015 or 2016, as we build out Camp 

Humphries, we can probably realistically add about another 2,000, 

so up to somewhere between 5,500 and 6,000. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So we would—even as far out under the present 

glide path, as far out as 2015 or 2016, we would still have more 

than half of the troops assigned at Korea that are married unaccompanied? 

General SHARP. That is correct. Now, there are some things we 

are doing to try to speed that up. The main drivers are housing, 

schools, and medical facilities. 

And the housing—the way we are working the housing right now 

is that the program which you are well aware of that the Army has 

initiated, the Humphries housing opportunity program, which is 

currently focused on Camp Humphries, which will, by 2011 or 

2012, build 2,400 apartments down there, it is a project that a consortium of companies is going to build on Camp Humphries firstclass apartments that meet our standards for security, and comfort, 

and living space, and all the things that we have, at their dime, 

and then we will use our housing allowance to rent it back from 

them, and they will continue to manage it. 

Everything to make that project real has taken place, except for 

the final contract, which we are confident we will sign that contract 

in April or May of this year. 

When that works, I will then be able to take that same concept 

and to be able to start negotiations at Daegu and at Osan. If we 

are able to get folks under contract to be able to build more houses 

in those locations using the same concept, that number of 5,500 or 

6,000 by 2015, 2016 could expand, depending upon how much we 

are able to get that to expand. 

So the 5,500, 6,000 by 2016 is, I believe, a conservative estimate. 

It is if we are not able to expand housing any more than what we 

currently have on the books. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I am sorry. Go ahead. 

SCHOOLS

General SHARP. The other issue that is, in a sense, the more difficult issue is schools. The schools issue is we have planned and in 

the budget, between our budget and what the Koreans are paying 

for the move south out of Yongsan and all, enough schools to be 

able to handle the 5,500 or so that I talked about by 2015 or 2016. 

But if we are—when we expand from that 5,500 to the 14,000, 

we are going to need another 20 or—a little over 20 schools beyond 

that in order to be able to go the maximum that we all want to 

be able to get. 

There are obviously several ways to build those schools, and we 

are working very closely with DoDDS on this. In fact, Dr. Shirley 

Miles, the head of DoDDS, she left Korea today. She has been out 

twice already to Korea to try to work with us on how we are going 

to get there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. What is the approximate cost of one school? 

General SHARP. Sir, I don’t have that. I will have to get back 

with you. I don’t think I have that in my notes. But we will get 

that back to you very quickly. 


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[The information follows:] 

High School and Middle Schools each cost approximately $61 million and Elementary Schools cost approximately $43 million each. 

We are working several initiatives along those lines, though. 

There may be a way to do a public-private venture on schools similar to what we are doing for the housing opportunity program in 

exchange of tuition, if you will, that we are able to pay back some 

building of some schools. 

We are looking at some possibilities as to, can we team with the 

Republic of Korea government to do some building of schools in exchange for some students attending some of our schools. Again, 

these are all at the very, very formative. 

I met with the minister of education of Korea about 3 weeks ago. 

And we have formulated a team, between us, the DoDDS school 

system, and the Ministry of Education in Korea to look at all of 

these issues. 

Could we move quicker if we had additional MILCON to build 

schools? Of course we could. And we are working that with the department right now. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I am not going to ask you to stay much longer 

after the vote, but I would like to come down. It might just be staff 

and me afterwards, but I would like to follow up on this. Is there 

any way could get just a rough number? 

General SHARP. Yes, sir, I can. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I mean, $5 million, $10 million? 

General SHARP. Sir, I can get that within 10 minutes. In fact, I 

probably have it in one of my—get that very quickly. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you would excuse us for a few moments, we are 

going to go up and vote. I might actually go up and vote and come 

right back. And then I would go up and vote the second time, and 

that might give us a couple minutes. 

General SHARP. Sir, I will have the answer before you get back. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. I will not call us back to order, because there is 

only one member here. And while I think we could do a lot of good 

by unanimous consent, I think—— 

[Laughter.] 

I can think of a lot of things that we could do for the Pacific 

Command. But let me just—if we could continue—— 

General SHARP. I do have the numbers you were asking for, sir. 

To finish out, we have right now 10 schools that are programmed, 

paid for by a combination of the Republic of Korea burden-sharing 

money, the Republic of Korea government, and by us. 

We need 20 more schools to be able to completely flesh out the 

full—of those 20 schools, eight are high schools or middle schools. 

Each one of those costs, in our projection, $61 million, and then the 

12 additional are elementary schools, which have an average cost 

of $43 million each. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I didn’t realize how expensive schools were to 

build. 

General SHARP. So the total cost of all 20 schools is right at $1 

billion. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. And I would never suggest that we can get 

a dollar more than what would be budgeted, but we always want 

to look for options, should we be able to do that. 

You were saying earlier that housing was—you think you can address that one way or another creatively, public-private, and various ways, schools—if you could medical facilities as schools—— 

General SHARP. Yes, sir. And we have—from DoDDS. As I said, 

Dr. Miles, Chairman Miles, the head of DoDDS, has been out to 

visit us twice. And she is committed to, if we can figure out how 

to build a school, she can get the teachers there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General SHARP. And we are doing some interim things that I 

think will also be very beneficial. She is starting up a virtual high 

school, where Korea will begin—the hub for all of Northeast Asia, 

Japan, Guam, Okinawa, where not this coming school year, but the 

year after that you will be able to get a fully accredited high school 

diploma going to this virtual school. 

It is not—classes. It is truly a virtual school where you get on 

and, you know, you have kids in Korea and kids in Okinawa and 

kids in Hawaii, you know, and around the world, really, interfacing 

with a real teacher on, you know, back and forth, doing real classes, which will really help us as we move forward and be able to 

bring more kids. 

So she has been very proactive. You know, if I could just say, any 

support that you can continue to give to Dr. Miles and DoDDS 

would really be appropriated. I mean, budget cuts hurt us all, but 

just because of her little bit of margin she has, as her and I were 

talking about this earlier this week before I came out, it would, you 

know, hurt us, which would hurt her, which, you know, just cascades across what we are trying to do in a lot of different venues. 

So I am a great supporter of DoDDS. I grew up in a DoDDS environment. And my kids did. And I think they really do a very good 

job. 

ACCOMPANIED TOURS TO KOREA

Mr. EDWARDS. I would just like to do anything possible—and we 

are going to be looking at some tough budget years ahead—but 

anything possible to allow more accompanied families to go to 

Korea more quickly than the planned schedule. 

How will you handle this during the interim until you do get to 

the final goal of having, you know, every family that wants to bring 

their loved ones over can? Will those whose families wish to stay 

home, will they have an option of serving for less than 3 years? 

General SHARP. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The current and the rule that 

will stay in place is really doing a family—a married servicemember will really have three different choices or has to date three different choices. He can come one year unaccompanied. He can come 

two years accompanied and not get any additional cash benefits. Or 

he can say, okay, I am willing to come, and I want to come for 

three years, and I want to bring my family. 

In that third option, the services—mainly Army and Air Force— 

have agreed to pay him what we are paying now for his assignment 

incentive pay, which is $300 a month extra, to sign up for that 3- 

year period. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General SHARP. The middle option of 2 years unaccompanied will 

eventually go away and will eventually end up being just like 

Japan or just like Germany, where it is—you have the choice between 1 year unaccompanied and 3 years accompanied. 

And there will be, you can tell just by the numbers, a large number that really will end up not getting a choice, because when we 

get to the place where we are at capacity for housing and schools 

and medical, then I will have to say, ‘‘I can’t bring any additional, 

so it is when one of those families leave, another family can come 

in.’’ 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. Okay. Okay. 

Are we now at 28,000 for our ultimate—— 

General SHARP. Twenty-eight thousand five hundred. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Twenty-eight thousand five hundred? 

General SHARP. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Not going to go down to the 25,000? 

General SHARP. Both Secretary Gates and Minister Lee, President Lee, and in the past President Bush personally, and Secretary 

Clinton, when she was over there, reconfirmed 28,500 for the foreseeable future. And, again, I think that is about the right number. 

As you know, we are getting ready to start a Quadrennial Defense Review over in the department. That will look, I think, at 

really the entire Pacific and the world, as far as force posture goes, 

whether we need to be—so the composition of that 28,500 may 

change some over time, but I think that is the right commitment 

of forces. 

Mr. EDWARDS. When would be a QDR be completed? 

General SHARP. Sir, it is due back to you all with a budget next 

year. So—— 

Admiral KEATING. That is February of next year. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So it would be in time for the 2011—cycle. 

General SHARP. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So if we get—do we know where those other 3,500 

soldiers or troops were scheduled to be located, in CONUS or in 

Europe? Somewhere there would be a hole of 3,500 forces. Is there 

a specific site that was impacted by that decision? 

General SHARP. No, sir. It really was in the process of—you 

know, Secretary Rumsfeld said cut a third, and then Secretary 

Gates reversed that, so the Army was in the process of—you know, 

it is a complex thing, with the Army building up forces, increasing 

the number of forces, and then this move. There was no set place. 

There wasn’t really going to be, you know, kind of a cross-cutting 

section of not just Army, but Air Force were also greatly involved 

in that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. 

GUAM BUILDUP

Admiral Keating, could I ask you if your staff could put together 

for us the total budget numbers for our part of the Guam buildup, in terms of military construction, if you count housing, medical 

care—— 

Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Everything, just so we have a sense 

of—— 

Admiral KEATING. To be clear, we are happy to do that, Chairman. What we will do is we will go to the Joint Guam Program 

Office. They have oversight. We don’t; they do. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Admiral KEATING. But we will get with them. And between the 

two of us—and, really, that is the Department of Navy, to get technical with you, but between the two of us, we will ensure that the 

answer we give you is supportable by us and it reflects their analysis. 

[The information follows:] 

Currently, the extent of U.S. Government’s funding planned for Guam build-up 

will be provided with the release of the Fiscal Year 10 President’s Budget. After the 

budget is released, we will provide you with the numbers for the cost. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And in the continental United States over the last 

year, construction cost increases have leveled out some because the 

economy has slowed down. When you start—I am not a construction manager, but when you put that much construction in such a 

small area, do we have any sense that inflation isn’t going to double the cost of those construction projects? Do you think we have 

a pretty good handle on it? 

If you came back here 2 years from today, do you think we would 

be able to stick with whatever numbers that you would stand behind today as that projected cost? 

Admiral KEATING. I am not sure, Chairman. I don’t have any 

more experience in that than perhaps you do. 

The likelihood of a new home in Guam being the same square 

foot as the likelihood of a home in Chevy Chase—well, Chevy 

Chase is not such a good example—a similar home anywhere in the 

states I think is not high. It would likely be more expensive. 

To offset that, labor costs are lower. And there is dramatic interest all throughout the South Pacific in the Defense Policy Review 

Initiative, with respect to construction in Guam. 

So there are—and this is going to be an issue. There are labor 

laws against non-U.S. citizens providing certain construction help. 

And we get advised by other members of Congress that don’t think 

for—or words to this respect, we are not going to let non-U.S. citizens build U.S. housing on U.S. territory. The law is complicated. 

There are initiatives underway to change the law. 

Long answer to a short question. I think that housing will be not 

inexpensive to construct. It will be high-quality. It is the same that 

Skip says for his base in Korea. We are hoping—the Marines are 

hoping that this becomes—not Humphries—that Guam becomes 

the number one. So we have an interesting challenge unfolding 

here, you know, living with the stars. 

I think it will be not as—it will not be an insignificant factor, the 

cost of housing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you can—if it is appropriate and you choose to 

do so, to use your position and the opportunity to do some 

jawboning to let those involved in the construction decisions know 

that it would be a real problem for Congress if we have construction costs, just projected, low ball, and then go through the roof. 


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We went through that with BRAC, one year went from $19 bil- lion to $31 billion. It is hard to believe that we would have that 

much unprojected increase in MILCON costs in a 12–month period. 

I want to thank you both for coming and for your leadership. 

Oh, Mr. Bishop. You came in quietly. My gosh, we now have two 

members. We have unanimous consent. Do we want to change the 

world? 

Mr. BISHOP. Well, sir, I just came to support the chairman and 

to support PACOM. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you for that. Do you have any questions? 

Mr. BISHOP. No, sir, I don’t. My staff has been following the 

hearing and we have read the testimony. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. BISHOP. And we are quite pleased. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. They have said they would like Korea and 

Guam to be almost as good as Fort Benning, Georgia. [Laughter.] 

But, you know, staff will follow up with a number of very specific, detailed questions, but I think some of that is more appropriate to handle between your staff and our staff. But the overview 

you have given us, the major priorities are what we really wanted 

to hear today. And we heard them. And thank you both for your 

lifetime of service and for your families’ lifetime of services. 

Admiral KEATING. Thanks, Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We will stand adjourned. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the Record Submitted by Chairman Edwards to Admiral Keating.] 

Question. Regarding the relocation of Marine Corps personnel from Okinawa to 

Guam, is there anything new or substantively different in the February 2009 U.S.- 

Japan agreement as compared to the 2006 ‘‘Road Map’’? 

Answer. No. The Guam International Agreement, signed 17 February 2009 by 

Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Nakasone legally secures the actions by 

both Japan and the U.S. including multi-year funding, to ensure the relocation of 

the U.S. Marines in Okinawa to Guam as promised in the Roadmap. 

Question. To date, how much funding has the Government of Japan made available for the Okinawa-to-Guam realignment? 

Answer. In Japan’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget (which was recently approved 27 March), Japan requested over $1 billion for realignment costs, including $392 million for Guam ($336 million to be deposited in the U.S. Treasury account for 2009) 

and $323 million for the Futenma Replacement Facility. 

Question. What is the total estimated Federal government cost for the Okinawato-Guam realignment, including costs borne by agencies other than the Department 

of Defense? 

Answer. Under the Roadmap agreement, the cost estimate for facilities and infrastructure necessary to support the realignment of Marine Corps forces from Okinawa to Guam was $10.27 billion. Of this figure, the Government of Japan is responsible for up to $6.09 billion of the costs. The U.S. Government is responsible 

for the remaining $4.18 billion and any additional costs. 

In addition to costs associated with infrastructure and facilities, the Government 

of Guam will need increased federal funding and support to prepare for the secondary economic and physical impact of military realignment. In 2008 the Government of Guam estimated these costs to be $238M for Fiscal Years 2010. The Department of Defense is working closely with the Department of the Interior and key 

interagency partners to review the cost estimate provided by the Government of 

Guam and develop a coordinated, collaborative approach that establishes agency accountability for improvements to Guam’s civilian infrastructure and social service 

needs. Federal agencies are currently determining how they may support the Government of Guam’s needs through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as 

well as other grant and loan programs. 

Question. What is the total military construction and family housing cost for all 

initiatives on Guam other than those associated with the Marine Corps relocation, 

such as the Air Force Strike/ISR Task Force, Navy forward porting, and Army ADA? 


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Answer. The total military construction (MILCON) proposed in the Fiscal Year 

(FY) 2010 to 2015 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) for Guam, excluding the 

Marine Corps Relocation (DPRI), is being developed by the Department of Defense 

and the Office of Management and Budget. 

Question. According to the September 2008 report from the Navy, transient carrier berthing in Guam will not begin until 2019. What are the key milestones in 

this process, and what is the total infrastructure cost associated with this initiative? Answer. Current project cost is $390 million. Key project milestones: • Guam transient CVN berthing engineering/planning study: Completed Jul 

2008 • Environmental Impact Statement 

• Notice of Intent published in Federal Register Mar 2007 • Record of Decision Mar 2010 (tentative) • Construction (assuming FY11 MILCON authorization) 

• Funding profile: assume 8 funding increments of approximately $50 

million year, FY11–FY18. • Construction start Mar 2011 • Construction completion Sep 2018 * • Wharf testing/certification/ready for use Aug 2019 

* Construction completion can be achieved as early as 2015 if funding incre- ments are increased to approximately $80 million per year. Navy projection is 

that by 2014 increased ordnance loading operations and increased transient carrier visits will exceed maximum capacity of Guam Kilo Wharf where both missions are supported currently. 

Question. Will the Department of Defense be responsible for funding the $1 billion 

road project on Guam? Will this be implemented through the DAR program? 

Answer. Through construction capacity studies, assessment of socioeconomic impacts, and the development of the Environmental Impact Statement, it has been determined that Guam’s road network requires improvement to handle the expected 

flow of materials from the port to work sites, as well as to handle the projected 25% 

increase in population after service members, dependents, and other civilians relocate to the island. The Army’s Surface Deployment and Distribution Command 

(SDDC) administers the Defense Access Road (DAR) program, which is established 

under U.S. Code Title 23 Section 210 to maintain and construct roads that are important to national defense. 

The Joint Guam Program Office (JGPO) is working with SDDC and the Federal 

Highway Administration (FHWA) to evaluate a number of road projects on Guam 

to support the relocation of Marines. Five roadway, bridge, and intersection improvement projects have already been certified and analysis continues for additional 

project certification. It is too early to determine what the total cost of road projects 

on Guam will be. 

Question. How was the number of 8,000 Marines to be relocated arrived at—i.e., 

was it based on an analysis of specific units to be relocated, or was it driven by 

other factors? 

Answer. The relocation of 8,000 Marines was based on analysis of specific units 

to be relocated to meet the following requirements: 

The number of 10,000 remaining Marines on Okinawa is based on the PACOM 

requirement to maintain a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (approx 10,000 Marines) 

forward deployed for Operation Plan (OPLAN) and contingency requirements. 

The approximately 8,000 Marines being relocated to Guam reflects associated III 

Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), 3rd Marine Division, 1st Marine Air Wing, 

Combat Logistics Regiment and base support personnel. 

The realignment of Marine forces permanently stationed in Okinawa, Guam, and 

Hawaii strikes a balance that maintains a credible deterrence against our ‘‘most 

dangerous’’ scenarios, and also creates new opportunities for persistent engagement 

with regional partners—our ‘‘most likely’’ scenarios. 

Question. Have you finalized the set of units to be relocated to Guam, and if so, 

are there any significant differences from the set identified by the Secretary of the 

Navy in the September 2008 report? 

Answer. The forces identified for relocation remain the same as identified in the 

May 2006 U.S.-Japan Realignment Roadmap and reiterated in the Secretary of the 

Navy report of September 2008. 

Question. An estimated 5,000 to 25,000 workers will be needed on Guam for the 

buildup, depending on the amount of work-in-place at any given time. The current 

resident population of Guam is approximately 175,000. What is your strategy for securing the number of workers needed, and how will these workers be housed? 

Answer. The estimate for the total number of workers required during the period 

of peak construction—foreign, domestic and local—is approximately 10,000–15,000. 


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This figure is based upon a $2.5 billion level of construction during the peak period. 

Given that construction will ramp up from the start to the peak, fewer workers are 

expected in the earlier part of the construction program. 

Guam’s current workforce cannot account for this surge. Shortfalls that cannot be 

addressed by workers from the U.S. mainland, Hawai’i, or the Commonwealth of the 

Northern Mariana Islands will most likely be filled by H2B visa foreign construction 

workers. Use of H2B visa foreign construction workers is currently occurring on 

Guam and has traditionally been used during major periods of major construction 

activity on Guam, such as the building of resort hotels in the late 1980s and early 

1990s. 

The construction industry will secure the workers who will first work with the Department of Labor to determine the capacity of the local market. The Guam Department of Labor is prepared to certify that there is an insufficient supply of labor in 

the Guam region. The construction industry will then petition the U.S. Citizenship 

and Immigration Services to authorize the number of guest workers they need for 

their construction projects. With this authorization, the construction industry will 

work with various embassies and labor suppliers to acquire the skilled labor they 

need. The construction contractors are required to manage the housing, logistics, 

transportation and medical care of their workers. 

To minimize negative impacts on Guam, a workforce housing and logistics strategy has been established with the following tenets: ensure fair and equitable treatment of all workers; pursue options that support transient workforce and can transition into positive long-term benefits for Guam; recognize that Guam and Federal 

agencies have the sole enforcement authority; and achieve positive public support 

that is critical for an enduring base and relationship. Based upon these tenets, contractors will be evaluated on their ability to manage safety, medical, housing, transportation and security for their workforce, as well as the ability for these workforce 

logistics solutions to positively impact the Guam community. 

Question. Have you analyzed the impact of the buildup on Guam on the regional 

market for construction material and labor? If so, do you have a strategy to mitigate 

supply bottlenecks and price inflation? 

Answer. Department of Defense is still analyzing the issue of supply and price inflation for materials and labor associated with the Guam military build-up. There 

was some concern that price inflation for materials and labor would adversely affect 

program implementation. However, with the recent economic downturn these concerns may be somewhat mitigated. Much depends upon the turnaround of the economy in the next few years. 

The acquisition strategy for the Guam military build-up envisions the establishment of building criteria and standards to enable offsite methodologies that will reduce the requirement for imported work force and on island building materials. The 

acquisition strategy also contemplates attracting firms that understand and have 

experience in operating in logistically challenged areas 

Relative to strategies for mitigating supply bottlenecks, we recognize that the Port 

of Guam is a potential bottleneck. However, the recent initiative by the Port Authority of Guam to obtain new cranes with greater capacity should alleviate some of the 

pressures at the port. Additionally, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) was recently designated the lead federal agency for the Port of Guam Improvement Enterprise Program pursuant to Public Law 110–417, Section 3512. As the lead Federal 

agency, MARAD will manage the expenditure of Federal and non-federal, and private funds made available for the project, provide necessary oversight for port improvements, ensure National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance, and 

provide project management through a prime contractor. This effort lead by MARAD 

should further increase efficiencies and throughput at the port. In addition, Defense 

Access Road projects will be considered in the build-up to improve trafficability and 

relieve chokepoints along the haul road. 

Question. Last year you estimated that a $500 million investment would be needed for training facilities and ranges in Guam and the Northern Marianas. Has Marine Forces Pacific completed the training concept study, and if so, what is the current cost estimate? Is this figure included in the estimated $4 billion U.S. share for 

the relocation? 

Answer. The Marine Force Pacific Training Concept Plan was finalized in April 

2008. This study presented an unconstrained concept for locating training facilities 

and ranges on Guam, Tinian, and Pagan. The cost for all range construction and 

required enablers was estimated to be approximately $1.8 billion. Only a small portion of this cost requirement is included in the estimated $4 billion of the U.S. share 

for the relocation. The original cost sharing agreement between the United States 

Government and Government of Japan included approximately $360 million for land 


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acquisition in support of ranges on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern 

Mariana Islands, Andersen South training, and Naval Magazine consolidation. 

Question. When will the Environmental Impact Statement for the training ranges 

be completed? 

Answer. The target date for completion of the Guam Military Buildup Environmental Impact Statement, which covers all aspects of the Marine Corps realignment 

(administrative facilities, housing, training, which includes maneuver, military operation in unbar terrain, and live fire, quality of life facilities, etc.) the construction 

of a transient aircraft carrier pier, the establishment of an Army Ballistic Missile 

Defense Task Force on Guam, and various infrastructure improvements, is January 

2010. The Record of Decision will be signed shortly thereafter. 

Question. The February 2009 agreement is clear that the relocation of marines 

from Okinawa to Guam is contingent upon the Government of Japan moving forward with the Futenma Replacement Facility. The agreement specifically states 

that the GOJ must make ‘‘tangible progress’’ on the FRF. What would you consider 

‘‘tangible progress,’’ and have you seen any to date? 

Answer. ‘‘Tangible Progress’’ is any event or milestone within the Defense Policy 

Review Initiative which can be visibly seen as being completed along the timeline 

recommended in the 2006 agreement. To date, Japan has: 

—passed the ‘‘Law to Promote the Realignment for U.S. Forces in Japan’’ which pledged $16.8 billion ($10.7 billion for Japan and Okinawa and $6.09 billion for Guam) for the total cost of realignment of U.S. Forces in Japan: includes the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) ($3.6 billion), Okinawa consolidation ($4.2 billion), Iwakuni ($1.4 billion), U.S. Army Transformation ($0.268 

billion), Aviation Training Relocation ($0.290 billion), and Economic measures 

for local communities ($0.848 billion) 

—initiated the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the FRF (as of 

February 2009 in its second phase) 

—provided security against protest activity that interfered with the EIA 

—established and employed consultative mechanisms with local officials 

—enacted and implemented a new system of economic incentives for local 

communities 

—funded and commenced on-land construction projects on Camp Schwab 

—requested $323 million for FRF construction for the Fiscal Year 2009 

budget 

—reached agreement on the International Agreement on Guam Financing 

with, the United States, which confirms the political agreements of the 2006 Realignment Roadmap and clearly establishes the linkages between FRF completion and Guam relocation. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards to General Sharp.] 

STATUS OF REALIGNMENT

Question. Please provide an update on the status of land acquisitions necessary 

to implement both the Land Partnership Plan and the Yongsan Relocation Plan. 

Answer. All land required to implement both the Land Partnership Plan and 

Yongsan Relocation Plan has been acquired by the ROK Government. Portions of 

the land at USAG Humphreys, Osan AB, and Camp Mujuk have been granted to 

USFK under the SOFA. USFK is currently working to secure the grants for the remaining land. 

Question. Please provide an update on the status of all USFK installations that 

have been closed or will be closed under the Land Partnership Plan and Yongsan 

Relocation Plan. 

Answer. Currently 37 installations have been closed under LPP and YRP. Of 

those, 35 have been returned to the ROK Government. The remaining 2 are currently being surveyed using the recently approved Joint Environmental Assessment 

Procedures and should be returned within the next 6–8 months. No further installations will be returned until the facilities required to relocate the units are constructed at enduring installations and the units have relocated. 

HUMPHREYS HOUSING OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM

Question. Please describe the structure of the Humphreys Housing Opportunity 

Program. Will any families be assigned to this housing? Will families have enough 

adequate alternative options to make a meaningful choice? Who will control the land 

that HHOP housing sits on? What leverage does USFK have to ensure that the developers will meet their commitments? 


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Answer: 

• HHOP is private sector development and long term property management of 

2400 units of Army Family Housing (AFH) at USAG Humphreys. 

• Army selected Humphreys Family Communities LLC (HFC). Equity members 

of HFC are Pinnacle AMS Development Company LLC (property/asset management) 

and Samsung C & T Corporation (construction contractor). 

• Families will not be assigned to the housing; they will be referred to HFC at 

in-processing. Rental of the housing is at the election of the family and will be done 

through a standard landlord-military tenant leasing arrangement. 

• The 2008 Housing Market Analysis (HMA) for USAG Humphreys determined 

the community could provide for 40% of housing needs. In addition to the community and HHOP, there will be over 600 Army owned family housing units. 

• Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) the United Forces Korea will be 

granted exclusive use of the land on which the apartments will be constructed. The 

Army will issue a use permit to HFC. 

• The United States Army will enter into a Use Agreement with HFC. The agreement requires that HFC operates and manages the housing at industry standards 

of care and maintenance. 

Question. How do you determine what constitutes an ‘‘adequate’’ family housing 

unit in Korea for the purpose of complying with DOD policy? 

Answer. The Air Force, Army and Navy use Housing Requirement Market Analyses (HRMA), Housing Community Profiles (HCP), Housing Market Analyses 

(HMA) and Housing Market Surveys to determine ‘‘adequate’’ family housing units 

in Korea for the purpose of complying with DOD policy. This is the same process 

used by the Services worldwide. 

COMMAND-SPONSORED FAMILIES

Question. Please explain in detail how you will be able to accommodate a growth 

in command-sponsored families from 2,135 to 4,320 using your current infrastructure. 

Answer. In general, infrastructure is available due to the drawdown of over ten 

thousand military from the peninsula since 2004. The main cause to limit ourselves 

to 4,320 families is the capacity of our schools. We have a very limited ability to 

convert available structures to schools, which drove us to the upper limit of 4,320 

families in the immediate future. Other services and functions (such as medical and 

child care) require additional staff and/or equipment, but not additional infrastructure. 

FORCE LEVELS IN KOREA

Question. The Global Defense Posture Review called for reducing the force level 

in Korea from 37,500 to 25,000. Was this reduction based on any analysis of the 

specific units to be relocated? 

Answer. The guidance was to reduce the force level by one-third, or 12,500, which 

was not based on an analysis of warfighting capability. After the reduction was directed, an analysis of the missions and tasks associated with USFK was conducted 

to determine which units should be relocated. We then linked specific units to the 

tasks and rank ordered them in priority. Those units no longer contributing or least 

contributing to the Korea mission set were identified for the drawdown. 

Question. What would have been the impact on USFK if the reduction to 25,000 

had been carried through? 

Answer. Continuation of the force reduction to 25,000 would have reduced the 

overall warfighting capability of USFK. The reduction would have taken away the 

opportunity to review the force level and force mix relative to recent and new strategic decisions, particularly concerning the changing mission set and future requirements for U.S. military forces in Korea. Additionally, the realignment of ground 

component missions requires a force level of approximately 28,500 to enable USFK 

to execute its assigned missions and tasks and provides a better overall capability. 

Question. How has the decision to retain the force level in Korea at 28,500 required any adjustments in your milcon and family housing programs? Are there any 

installations that were projected for closure that will now be kept open as a result 

of this decision? 

Answer. The current force structure does not require changes to installation closures or MILCON and family housing programs. 


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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009. 

EUROPEAN COMMAND 

WITNESS 

GENERAL BANTZ J. CRADDOCK, USA, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES 

EUROPEAN COMMAND 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. The subcommittee will come to order. 

General Craddock, welcome back to our subcommittee. It is great 

to have you here, and thank you for not only being here today but 

for your lifetime of very distinguished service to our country. 

Today we will discuss the current basing posture of the U.S. European Command. In 2004, the Department of Defense initiated a 

sweeping change in the U.S. military overseas presence that called 

for reducing force levels in Europe by roughly 48,000 troops. This 

included the relocation of two division headquarters and two brigade combat teams from Germany to the United States. 

In 2007, the Secretary of Defense decided to temporarily station 

two BCTs in Germany until the 2012–2013 timeframe. 

As we discussed with today’s witnesses in last year’s EUCOM 

hearing, this decision raised the possibility that we would not draw 

down our forces in Europe to the extent that the Defense Department had originally planned. 

The purpose of this hearing is to gain additional insights on 

where the ultimate decision on this issue stands and to discuss 

other significant issues relating to European Command basing and 

construction. 

Before I proceed, I would like to turn to Mr. Wamp, our ranking 

member, for any comments that he would care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, just to welcome back what I consider 

to be one of the greatest living Americans and a man who is headed for a little bit of R&R after a brilliant career and distinguished 

service. And it is an honor to be in his presence and look forward 

to his testimony this morning. 

Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well said and ditto. 

Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Let me introduce someone who doesn’t need an introduction, but 

he deserves one. General John Craddock is the commander of U.S. 

European Command and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. This is his second appearance before the subcommittee. He 

has been the European commander since December of 2006. 


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Prior to that, he served as commander of SOUTHCOM from 2004 

to 2006. And am I correct? Nearly 38 years of service to our country in uniform. Thank you for all of those years of service. 

His previous assignments include Commander 1st Infantry Division, commander of U.S. Forces during the initial operations in 

Kosovo, Joint Staff. And with pride, I would like to point out, Assistant Chief of Staff for 3 Corps at Fort Hood, Battalion Commander with the 24th Infantry during Desert Storm. And he is a 

graduate of West Virginia University. 

General Craddock, without objection, your full testimony will be 

submitted for the record, but I would like to recognize you now for 

any opening comments you would care to make, and then we will 

proceed with questions and discussion. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL BANTZ J. CRADDOCK

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, Chairman Edwards. 

And I appreciate that, Congressman Wamp. 

It is, indeed, an honor to appear here before you. I always look 

forward to this opportunity because I think this forum, this committee is very important. So thank you for that. 

I am here representing the approximately 84,000 servicemembers 

and family members and civilians of U.S. European Command. It 

is a longstanding command. We have, as you know, in the last 2 

years, changed our command. We have taken Africa and cut it out 

from our responsibility. We went from 92 countries to now I have 

51 countries I am responsible for. 

We have changed the geopolitical environment somewhat in August of 2008 with the Russian encroachment into Georgia. I would 

tell you that that has changed the political dynamics in Europe because the assumption we made in NATO and in our bilateral relations, the United States and these nations, was that for the last 17 

or so years, the assumption was not to worry, nations, there will 

be no violation, no attack, no encroachment of your sovereignty. 

That changed on the 7th of August, and now we have a different 

situation in Europe where we have many nations who have anxieties over the Russian Federation and what their strategy is and 

where they are going to be headed. And that is particularly noticeable in the nations that border Russia. 

Then we have a different perspective, which is nothing has 

changed. We still have the same Russia. So those tensions exist. 

Energy is another complicating factor because the Russian production, distribution, pushing into Western Europe, many of these 

nations depend primarily on Russian gas and much of Russian oil. 

So there are new dynamics at work. This affects the U.S. European 

command because it impacts on our ability, then, to understand the 

dynamics and be able to respond. 

I have with me today my command sergeant major, Mark Farley. 

Sergeant Major Farley is tasked to visit all of our forces at all 

these installations. He probably is the most expert in the command 

in terms of where people are, the quality of life they have at the 

locations, the facilities they use. So he is—he is my wing man here, 

my battle buddy. And I will tell you, I depend on him a lot. 

He is going to retire, also, here shortly. So we made an agreement when we go, we go together. But he is—he is the guy here 


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that probably, if we have some issues, I will turn to him to help 

out. 

But thank for the opportunity. I look forward to your questions. 

And thank you, Chairman, and the committee. 

[The prepared statement of Bantz J. Craddock follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. General Craddock, thank you. 

And Sergeant Major Farley, let me speak for the committee in 

saying we are deeply grateful to you and to your family for your 

service and sacrifices for our country. One of the greatest privileges 

in my life was to represent Fort Hood in the Congress for 14 years. 

Thank you for being here today. 

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION IMPLICATIONS IN GERMANY

General Craddock, let me apologize to you that we have Budget 

Committee markup all day. I would like to see us fund the Defense 

Department this year. So I better high tail it over to the Budget 

Committee after my opening questions. But you have key members 

and key staff here who will be shaping this budget. We are very 

grateful, and it is important that you are here and we thank you 

for that. 

Let me ask you about the timing of the decision that the Department of Defense has to make in regard to the two brigade combat 

teams and you are—obviously, the decision itself and the timing of 

that decision has military construction implications both in Germany and here in the United States. 

Could you tell me where you think we are on the timing of that 

decision? And, also, if you could give us any insights into what 

would be the military construction implications in Germany should 

we keep them there. Do we have a bottom line on additional monies that might be invested, whether it is for living quarters or for 

barracks or for other facilities that we might have—frankly, I know 

once we have made initial decisions to draw down troops, we tend 

to cut corners on maintenance of our facilities. 

Any insights you can give us on those points, I would be very 

grateful. 

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, Chairman. 

You are absolutely right. There is going to be, obviously, service 

considerations here because of the cost of the maintenance and care 

of the facility. I have talked at length with General Carter Ham, 

who is the commander of U.S. Army Europe. He understands that 

we must have, from the Army, a timing construct here so we understand when decisions have to be made so that contracts won’t 

be let, brick and mortar won’t be started to be put together in the 

States if the decision is made not to bring the two brigades back. 

He tells me—and we are trying to work this, and it is difficult 

because everyone wants to keep information close hold. But he tells 

me that the Army will need a decision on the two brigades by 

about October of this year. That is, in order to do the work they 

will have to do if they come back to start to prepare for them, the 

12 and 13, or to stop those efforts and focus on other areas. 

Now, I have taken that information and I went to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy, because the policy 

shop is the driver in regards to the decision on force posture. And 

I told her that the Army timeline says October. And she told me 

that the plan is, the OSD plan in the joint staff, is to put this decision into the Quadrennial Defense Review, the QDR, that is starting to formulate now. 

She believes—and I talked to the chairman on Monday—he believes that they will have in the QDR, they will be far enough long 


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with their global force posture decisions, not only Europe but the 

Pacific—Guam and Okinawa—that they will have their decision by 

late September on force posture for Europe. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

General CRADDOCK. So that sounds encouraging, and we are 

going to push on that to make sure that it doesn’t get pushed aside. 

But that synchs up, synchronizes up pretty good. 

So I think, Chairman, that is the timeline we are looking at. I 

have told the secretary and the chairman I will come in to him 

with my proposal. 

The compelling arguments that need to be made—excuse me—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. It is that time of year. I am fighting allergies, so 

I understand. 

General CRADDOCK. The rationale or the arguments that need to 

be made to show why we need to keep the two brigades—and we 

will also show the tasks that will not be done—the missions, the 

exercises—if we don’t have those two brigades. 

So we are working on that. We will bring in May to the joint 

staff—in the tank—the ops desk, we will start with them. So that 

will kick that process off. That will inform the QDR. 

Mr. EDWARDS. All right. 

General CRADDOCK. So that is what I am looking at. 

Now, if we retain, the decision is to keep the two brigades or 

there may be a decision to delay the decision. Maybe delay bringing 

them back until 2014 or 2015. They will make the final decision 

later—I heard that. 

If we keep that, there will be a Mil Con hearing for recapitalization in the installations that now are considered non-enduring that 

would have to stay enduring to accommodate the two brigades. Essentially, we are talking, probably, two facilities. It would be troop 

barracks and family housing. They are, quite frankly, in pretty 

good shape now. 

So it is not as if we have to go ahead and tear down and stand 

up. But there will be, for those two brigades in the out years, some 

recapitalization costs. I don’t have an amount, but I think it is only 

two installations. 

The plan would be that those two brigades would fill in as much 

as they could to the main operating bases established now— 

Grafenwoehr—Baumholder. But Schweinfurt then may take and 

have to be backfilled by logistics and support troops for the retention of two brigades. So I don’t think we are talking about a large 

standup of new main operating bases, maybe one, maybe two at 

the outset. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. And, again, thanks for being here. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to say one word to Sergeant Major Farley before I ask 

a question. And that is my good friend, Fred Thompson, got really 

famous playing himself in a movie. And once you retire, Sergeant 

Major, if there is ever a movie where they need an authentic-looking sergeant major, you should just step into that role. There would 

be life after the service, for sure. You look just like a sergeant 

major ought to look. 

So thank you for your service as well. 


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Major FARLEY. Thank you, sir. 

QUALITY OF LIFE

Mr. WAMP. General, I think you just came off of a quality-of-life 

conference, and I was just going to ask you of the status—that is 

our main thrust here is quality of life. Give us an update on the 

overall quality of life throughout the European Command and then 

kind of the second piece of the question which is a part of quality 

of life. 

You have made a big deal out of the schools throughout the European command, and I want you to update the committee on 

where you are with the schools as you prepare to leave and what 

the needs are still with the schools from your perspective. 

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, Congressman. 

The quality-of-life conference, I thought, was a good one. We had 

a good representation of delegates. We brought in teams, a good 

sampling of teams. And I was very impressed with the out-brief 

when the team group got up and gave their issues. Dynamic, articulate, poised, quite impressive. 

The major priorities and issues for quality of life are, one, counseling for families and service members post- and pre-deployment. 

Because of this extended duration, we have got troops and units 

now starting—preparing for their third 12—some of them 15- 

month. Now we are back to 12-month rotations. We have had Air 

Force, 3-, 4-month rotations continuous. 

This is a key need. And the fact is the problem is overseas, we 

can’t get the servicing contracted off post. We have got to have the 

counselors, you know, embedded in our organizations, the mental 

health organizations and medical organizations to do that. So that 

is priority number one. 

Second is the child, youth, and teen facilities. We have got to 

make sure that because of this extended rotation, deployment, 

when service members are going, that there are adequate facilities 

to keep the kids engaged, active, productively engaged, particularly 

the teenagers. So that is another one that is been—we had a lot 

of focus on. 

Access to medical care and dental care. I think what has been 

done and the help we have gotten is to reduce out-of-pocket costs 

for dental care so that that dental insurance plan is better, is helpful. 

TRICARE for the off-post requirements is coming along. It is better than it was. We have more physicians, local national physicians, whether it be in Germany or Italy or the UK, that are in the 

program. So that is helpful. And we have got some better counseling and better knowledge of how that works. 

It is not yet as easy or as good as here in the States, and that 

is the goal. My goal is to make life in Europe for our forces commensurate with what we have here in the States. And with the 

dental and medical, we are getting close, but it is not quite enough. 

Our medical facilities—I was at Landstuhl 2 weeks ago—very 

impressive to see our staff, physicians, nursing all rotate with the 

global force into Iraq and Afghanistan. So we have got a continual 

turn. And what we have to do then is contract local national, German and Italian doctors to go in. So we have a lot of turbulence. 


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Mr. WAMP. Right. 

Before you go on to schools, let me just ask then what is the percentage of the troops under your command in European Command 

that have their families with them? 

General CRADDOCK. Hmm. Sergeant Major. 

Major FARLEY. About 60 percent, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Sixty percent. And is that increasing? We had the Korean Command in here last week, and we are really trying to improve command sponsorship. Ratchet up where families can be 

with the troops because of these extended stays, multiple deployments and rotations, et cetera. 

Is that increasing in European Command or decreasing? 

General CRADDOCK. I think, at the senior noncommissioned officer, it is decreasing I think. The number that bring their family is 

down because they get to Europe, a few months later, they—so 

rather than bring the family—— 

Mr. WAMP. And then leave them—— 

General CRADDOCK. I think at the junior ranks, we are probably 

holding about steady in the number that bring their families. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. 

General CRADDOCK. Because as opposed to the past, we can get 

more of them on to post housing and things like that. But senior 

NCOs, I think, many of them are coming—— 

Mr. WAMP. Schools. 

General CRADDOCK. Schools. This is a major concern of mine. 

DODEA and then the Department of Defense schools in Europe, 

DODS Europe, has done, over the several years that I have 

watched as my kids went to school there on and off, has done a 

good job in terms of curriculum establishment, in terms of quality 

of the teachers and, also, I think the administration. So I am pretty 

much impressed with that. 

The challenge we have got now is facilities. For several years we 

have tracked this back. We have 43 percent of the schools in 

DODEA worldwide that are located in Europe. We have about 44 

percent of the students of all the DODEA who are located in DODS 

Europe. 

For several years now, we have been getting 15 percent of the 

DODS Mil Con allotment, and we have fallen farther and farther 

behind in being able to maintain facilities and being able to replace 

facilities. We are Band-Aiding over the years and patching up the 

facilities. 

There was a requirement in the Appropriation Act to report 

back—DODEA had to report back the status of the facilities. They 

have four categories—Q1 through 4, four being the lowest. Seventytwo percent of our facilities are Category 3 or 4. Category 3, major 

repair required. Category 4, replacement required. 

I think overall, DODEA came out 70 percent. So we are a bit 

worse than the average overall. So the challenge we have had over 

the past couple years is to get—I don’t mean to do this in a pejorative way, but we had to get DODEA’s attention that we had— 

we need a better fair share of the Mil Con appropriation. We need 

a better allocation. 

And I think we have done that to the extent that we now have, 

from them, a commitment that we will get a greater share. The 


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challenge is being able to sustain the appropriation for Mil Con. I 

am hearing it may be cut and that there are some fences for the 

Mil Con in Europe and CONUS because it is grow the Army so, 

therefore, it can’t be touched. 

We have got a few projects that we want to do, and I know I am 

constrained a bit by OMB and I am not supposed to talk about 

monies and things like that. My concern is this. It is a readiness 

issue. 

We must have schools facilities, fiscal plans, commensurate with 

what they find here in the States. Will it be like Northern Virginia? Maybe not. Will it be like Georgia? Tennessee? Texas? Yes, 

it has got to be like that. Right now, it is not. 

I live in SHAPE in Mons, Belgium. I go over to the SHAPE 

International School. I have walked through it several times, and 

it is a huge campus that, over the years, has been patched with 

temporary buildings here and there all over the place and then tied 

together in a physical plant that is—it is customized. There is— 

every time something breaks, it is a unique fix because it is not 

like anywhere else. It has been all pieced together. It is the same 

throughout all of EUCOM. 

Old hospitals turned into schools. Facilities that were never intended to be a school, we moved in, we made it work. But these 

need more care and maintenance or they have got to be replaced. 

So that is the challenge. 

The readiness piece of this is when Mom or Dad gets orders for 

Europe and they then find out where they are going. They call 

ahead. What do they do? The first thing they ask about is quarters. 

Where am I going to live? The second thing is schools for the kids. 

And if what they get is good school system, bad facilities, there 

is no lunchroom, the gyms are far away, they are decrepit. Then 

they will leave the family at home because they are set in some 

place in CONUS in the United States that is acceptable to them. 

And then Dad or Mom becomes a geographical bachelor or 

bachelorette and a 2-year tour, not a three. And we have got a 

greater turn. 

This effects readiness because they are not as focused on the job 

forward because they have got the family back here. It is a split 

perspective, and it is much more difficult. We are going to have 

that. We are going to—I worry that we will turn EUCOM assignments into a—either a burden or a hardship tour because we can’t 

provide the schooling. Schooling is critical. 

And my headquarters, EUCOM, we have got senior noncommissioned officers who have kids in school, high school kids a lot of 

them, and officers—and they will—they will opt out if they don’t 

think the kids can get an education, if they don’t have an adequate 

place to live—and we are doing pretty good there—or if the facilities aren’t acceptable in terms of medical care and things like that. 

That is the problem with the schooling. It is a readiness issue 

over time. 

Mr. WAMP. That is it for this round, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr. Wamp. 

And thank you, General. 

Chet had to go to a Budget Committee meeting and asked if I 

would chair the committee. 


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I will ask some questions and then I will go to Mr. Crenshaw. 

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION IN TRAINING

I was very interested, General, in reading your statement about 

your efforts in building the partner capacity, the BPCs promise to 

be a stronger and more flexible response to the broad spectrum of 

threats in your jurisdiction. 

In reading that this morning and then just a moment ago, I 

spoke to the international IMET, the Military Officers—graduate 

school in Monterey that I represent. Thirty-nine of them, a lot from 

Singapore, but a good number in Korea, but a lot of them from 

your part of the world. 

And what I was interested in is that we have seen a cut in the 

funding of IMET which has not allowed these officers to come to 

this country because their host countries pay for it. And it is more 

expensive now. So they have been cutting in host countries, but we 

have been matching, you know, it works on a formula basis depending on the host country. If we help Germany or France or England at all in sending their officers—or Australia, it is full scale. 

But the others—the other countries, they were telling me that it 

is a real difficult problem. 

And it seems to me, as I read throughout your testimony, this 

whole concept that we are going to really try to build a lot more 

capability in soft power and education and peace and things like 

that. 

What is your feeling about what is happening at IMET? If we 

lose those officers, isn’t that part of building your partner capacity 

that they come here and get this kind of training? 

General CRADDOCK. Absolutely, sir. It is critical. IMET is probably, dollar for dollar, the best program we have for building partner nation capability and capacity. And, indeed, over the years, we 

have seen a trend now where the dollars available go down. 

Every year, we work closely with the nations to determine their 

needs, to request school slots. When a family from the Ukraine, a 

family from Georgia, a family from Azerbaijan comes to a year-long 

school, the officer, the noncommissioned officer brings his family 

and they live in the States, we gain from that, they gain from that, 

they go back, they never forget that. And it is very—it is valuable. 

It is critical. 

This is a Title 22 program along with the foreign military financing. And the State Department essentially funds the program, 

turns it over, then, to geographical combatant commands to implement. So we work closely with State. But they fund it. 

We have—I think, we have got to push harder to sustain the 

funds for IMET. I am absolutely convinced that, in terms of opening up and engaging, that is the first place that we have got to go. 

But the process is cumbersome. 

What will happen is I have, in all these countries, offices of defense cooperation. They are in the embassy. They work with the 

host nation military to decide what schools, what slots with needed. 

We then pull that together at EUCOM. We put a package together 

and a recommendation. It goes back to the office of secretary of defense policy. They look at it. They massage it or cut it or change 

it. They send it over to State Department. 


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State gets it. They add their spins on it or whatever. It goes 

through OMB and comes over here. And oftentimes, then, when 

State gets it back, this is just a fact of life, that money is withheld 

as a cash flow enabler. 

So for fiscal year 2009, this fiscal year in IMET, we get—money 

up front, so we buy school slots. And then if we don’t get a predictable stream of money, normally what happens then—this is—I did 

this in SOUTHCOM, and this is the third year in EUCOM. About 

July or August, we get the big dump on IMET monies based upon 

whatever it is State did not need to reallocate for something else. 

And then we apply it for school seats the last quarter of the fiscal 

year, but we have to get it spent by the first quarter of the next 

fiscal year. 

And the challenge is these are services that have these classes, 

these schools. The services want to get those school slots, seats, 

filled up early in the year. If they don’t, they sometimes they cancel 

that school or that course for July or August or September. 

So we become at risk if we can’t get somebody in. We have the 

money, but we don’t have the seats because the class is cancelled. 

Or we have to get it in the first quarter of the next year and try 

to fill up. So it is not a—it is not a consistent approach over the 

year. It is feast or famine. 

Mr. FARR. I am very interested in seeing what we can do to, perhaps, make that a better decision making process. And, in fact, I 

asked Chet if he would stay here because they just whacked a billion dollars out of State Department, and there is no doubt that it 

is going to hit this program which you just said is the best partner 

solution there is. 

And our strategy for achieving stability around the world is to 

develop these partnerships and building partnership capacity. 

I think it is important that you communicate those thoughts, 

also, to Secretary Clinton. 

General CRADDOCK. Okay. I will. 

Mr. FARR. And we will try to do something on this end. 

I have some other questions, but I think I will let Mr. Crenshaw 

go right now. 

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE—EUROPEAN SITE

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, General Craddock, for your service and wish you 

well. 

When you were here last year, we had a pretty candid discussion 

about the missile defense in Poland and in the Czech Republic. And 

I had just come back and met with the Poles and they were, at the 

time, they were—they had a lot of demands like—it seemed like 

they hired some guy to negotiate for them picking up all the points. 

The Czech Republic things were kind of moving along pretty 

good, and then after Russia invaded Georgia, as I recall, Poland 

kind of, may be, had changed their perspective or whatever. 

So I know that they have signed agreements with the president, 

but I understand—I guess back in December both those countries, 

though decided, well, let us wait and see what the new administration is going to say about all this before we kind of ratify those. 


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And I just—I guess I wanted to ask you, from your perspective, 

has anything changed, in your view, in terms of that—those two 

sites in terms of missile defense, number one? 

Number two, there was an article in Reuters, I think, that talked 

about the Polish government was a little concerned that maybe if 

we didn’t follow through, they had a lot on the line, they, you 

know, had made a lot of commitments and what kind of impact 

would that have over the area that you command? 

And then, finally, where are we in terms of the military construction that we appropriated the money in 2009? Not all the money. 

But just those three questions. 

In general, anything changed? What would happen if we didn’t 

follow through? And what is left in terms of dollars? 

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, sir. 

There has been changes, and there is concern, I think, both in 

Poland and the Czech Republic over how we are going to proceed. 

As you said, the Poles have approved the placement of the interceptors. The EUCOM will do the technical agreements to do that, 

the land-use agreements and the arrangements. But we cannot do 

that until a Status of Forces Agreement is signed with the Poles. 

So we are waiting for that. So we have got to get through that 

process. 

State Department will work that, and once that is agreed to, 

then when we are given that, we will proceed for the land-use 

agreements and the technical arrangement that start digging the 

brick and mortar. 

A little bit different, Czech Republic. The lower house did not 

vote on the approval. They have withdrawn it because their law 

says, after so long, it has to vote, and they were afraid they would 

not get a favorable vote, so it has been withdrawn. 

Yesterday, the government got an unfavorable confidence vote, so 

the prime minister—the president will have to form a new government. They may wait until after the end of the rotating EU presidency to do that at the end of June. But it looks like, right now, 

that government, which was in favor of installation of the radar, 

is going to dissolve, probably, by the end of the June. And we are 

concerned that the next government may not hold that radar in the 

same favorable light. 

So we have got some political changes here that are, obviously, 

impacted on what we are going to do. 

I have talked to the military leaders of both of those nations. I 

have talked to the defense ministers. They all tell me that, indeed, 

they have spent some political capital with their constituents, their 

people, in order to generate approval for the radar. The incursion 

into Georgia convinced the Poles very quickly, as you said. So they 

were very favorable to that and that was no issue. 

It is still on the margins, I think, in the Czech Republic. Some 

polls I read say that 70 percent are against the radar. Others I 

read 48. So I don’t know where it is, but I know it is an issue with 

their population. 

I think the longer the United States waits to decide how they 

want to proceed, the greater risk we have in the peoples of those 

nations then thinking that it is a good thing for them. And I think 

that, as I saw the foreign minister of Poland talk about the lack 


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of confidence, and he is worried that the United States may change 

its position. I think that will, again, influence other nations in how 

they view our consistent relationship. So, unfortunately, it will play 

in. 

Now, the requirement—the need for a radar, I think, NATO is— 

the 3rd of December, the foreign ministers affirmed that the third 

site was needed and would provide significant protection from ballistic missile attacks. So there is no question there so far of the 

threat. 

It is a matter of, now, I think, a decision by the United States 

on how they will proceed, how they will proceed with regards to the 

Russian consideration of the third site. And I think those are going 

to be some difficult political decisions that will lead to difficult discussions at the highest levels of the U.S., the Russian Federation, 

and I think, Poland and the Czech Republic. 

So we, right now, essentially, we are in a hold status. We are 

waiting for a political decision on—my requirement is to protect 

U.S. forces and U.S. families and interests in Europe from ballistic 

missile attack. If we do that by putting in a third site to intercept, 

fine. If we do that through political means, diplomatic means, economic means to minimize or reduce the threat, that is okay, too. 

But that has yet to occur. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. In terms of the appropriation, is there anything 

needed yet? We appropriated some money last year, but I guess— 

is that kind of on hold as well? 

General CRADDOCK. That is on hold until we get the go-ahead to 

make the technical agreement, and then the monies will be used 

to break—start shoveling earth and do the brick and mortar. I 

think it is an incremental appropriation. I think it is okay. It is 

just a matter of have we got the trigger to get started. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Gotcha. 

General CRADDOCK. Yes. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I have got another question, but 

I will wait until the next round as well. 

Mr. FARR. Okay. 

Mr. Carter. 

ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, the dollar is fluctuating pretty severely, and there is a 

global downturn that we are seeing which, of course, that is frontpage news over here. I was reading an article last night about the 

economic crisis in Europe. 

It seems at least that in some countries, Spain and Ireland being 

the two examples I was given in that article, they are teetering on 

the edge. Is that having an effect on the military construction 

projects that you might have or that you might anticipate? And are 

we going to need to formulate something consider the possibility of 

a severely fluctuating dollar when we start trying to spend money 

in Europe? 

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, sir. 

A difficult question. What we have seen is a favorable exchange 

rate with the dollar against the Euro here over the last few 


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months. But in the last 2 weeks, the dollar has lost $0.10 against 

the Euro which is pretty significant in a very short period of time. 

I don’t think that is going to impact too much. I think, actually, 

because of the economic downturn, that we may be able to leverage 

that into great opportunities with the Mil Con we do have because, 

as there is less demand for the construction business, local contractors, whatever, then we may be able to get their business at a better rate for us because they want business. 

Mr. CARTER. Right. 

General CRADDOCK. As opposed to they have got too much business and they, you know, we have to either outbid or wait. So I 

don’t think that will be unfavorable. 

What I do think, though—— 

Mr. CARTER [continuing]. Bid for American companies or European companies? 

General CRADDOCK. If there is an American company that can do 

it, fine, but the problem there is the Status of Forces Agreement. 

And number the Status of Forces Agreement that we have, for example, in Germany, you are going to have to go to a German company before American if the German can do the same work. It is 

not even a bidding process because the taxes then on the American 

company are pretty high, and that makes a difference. 

But this downturn, I think, is going to impact any cost shares 

or anything that the nations would have right now. We are going 

to have to fight harder. 

Let me give you an example. The SHAPE International School 

has got 17 nations as a part of it. It has been there ever since 1968, 

and we have worked over the years. We are having a very difficult 

time with them to pay their fair share. And they are saying, because of the downturn, they are not going to touch it. 

They have 17 percent of the students, they paid 3 percent of the 

cost. The other nations are paying a fair share. But with the downturn, discretionary monies, they are going to look hard at all these 

cost shares to see if they can reduce it. That is where the danger 

lies. 

Mr. CARTER. The overall economic situation in Europe, at least 

in the article I was reading, is that the Eastern Bloc in the last 

election just barely turned out to vote, there was around 17 and 12 

percent voter turnout in some of the eastern nations in the EU. 

And even the founding nations were below 50 percent, in fact, they 

were below 40 percent. 

The imposed currency is starting to be a burden on some of the 

countries, do you have any comment about that? 

General CRADDOCK. Well, no, I agree with that. Now, the Euro, 

the European Union, has got a lot of regulatory requirements, and 

it is a bit of a burden. You know, there is requirements for contributions to different types of funds in the EU. And those are 

must-pays much like very view as our budget, civilian pay is a 

must-pay. Those are must-pays. 

So that then, as you have got to do that and your revenue generation is less, it reduces the discretionary funding. NATO asked 

its members to contribute 2 percent of their gross domestic product 

to the security sector, to defense. That is—they want 2 percent for 

ministries of defense. 


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Right now, there are three countries out of 26 that contribute 2 

percent. And the trend is down for everyone. And I think within 

a month, it will be two countries, the UK and the U.S. We had six 

countries doing it 6 months ago. Now, we are down to three. It is 

going to go to two. That is where we are trending. 

And in Europe, when times are tough, revenues are down, the 

first place they go to grab discretionary funding is in the security 

sector. I think we are going to continue to see that. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

NATO CONTRIBUTIONS

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Carter. 

General, both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and joint chief 

of staff chairman, Admiral Mullen have called for a whole-of-government response to stabilization and reconstruction issues in Afghanistan. And I am wondering do you know what NATO countries 

will contribute to this kind of buildup of the civilian surge? 

General CRADDOCK. Well, the effort is ongoing right now. It is— 

it is going to be pushed hard, I think, by the Secretary of State. 

She has been given the task to engage with the NATO nations. 

As you know, the United States has increased its force commitment by 30,000. When they are all there by the end of July, it will 

be 30,000 since the 1st of January. Commensurate with that, at the 

same time, we have to increase the civilian representation. 

What do I mean by that? We need Department of Agriculture or 

like type agriculture experts from Europe—energy, transportation, 

commerce—that can integrate into not only the central government 

in Kabul and mentor these—this nascent civil service, if you will, 

but also move out into the provincial—the provinces, the capitals 

and the provinces and the districts and mentor and partner with 

the government personnel there. And that has not happened. 

Mr. FARR. So the State Department has a new coordinator for 

stabilization and reconstruction, Admiral Herbst—excuse me, Ambassador Herbst. 

General CRADDOCK. Right. 

Mr. FARR. Is he going to be coordinating the NATO country civilians as well or just trying to grab our folks? 

General CRADDOCK. I think he will be working the U.S. side. And 

right now, the U.S. side is the predominant side in terms of numbers. However, in the north, the Germans have started to push in 

quite a few civilians. And, right now, their provincial reconstruction teams are co-led by a civilian, the foreign ministry, and by a 

military officer. 

We are seeing a little more of that in the West, but we have got 

to do two things. One is—— 

Mr. FARR. Do these teams train together at all like you would 

train—— 

General CRADDOCK. They come together. They get trained up, 

and then they deploy down. We want ours to stay a year. Theirs 

stay 6 months. They have a continual turn, also. 

Every one of the PRTs, not only ours but those run by other nations, has a U.S. State Department representative and a USAID 

representative. So we get integrated into them there. 


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Mr. FARR. And they have a language and cultural training to be 

able to work on the grounds? 

General CRADDOCK. It is—we need to grow it. But what we have 

is a good core capability around which we need to put more agriculture experts, energy experts, medical experts so that we can continue to build capabilities. 

Mr. FARR. What I am curious about is this interaction between 

Department of Defense, NATO, and these civilian crisis corps folks 

that are—that are—the stabilization group, how that will be integrated in command and how it will be integrated in operations because, obviously, you can’t be two different entities in the same 

country on different missions. 

General CRADDOCK. In the U.S., where the rubber meets the road 

is a provincial reconstruction team. There is 26 in Afghanistan. 

The U.S. has 12. And in that team that is led by U.S. military officers, but embedded in the team are State Department representatives, USAID representatives, Department of Agriculture—we are 

starting to get them—land grant colleges are sending agriculture 

experts from the school over on 6-, 7-, 8-month rotations. 

Mr. FARR. Is this primarily—country? 

General CRADDOCK. Yes. I just talked last month to the Department of Agriculture expert in Regional Command East, U.S. leading, and he has got several teams of 30 or 40 from schools, land 

ag colleges, agricultural schools, who are over there working with 

farmers. And he said it is amazing because it is very basic. 

Give me an example. He said, well, we found out that a lot of 

these farmers overwater. There is a lack of water, but when they 

get it, they overwater the crops. So we worked with them to show 

them how to do this better, and crop yields then go up two and 

threefold. 

So the land is fertile. There is water under the ground. Some rivers in the east particularly. And it is a matter then of just giving 

them the basic fundamentals of pulling it all together, and the crop 

yields go up. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Poppy fields? 

General CRADDOCK. Different problem. But it is most—that is 

mostly in the south right now. Ninety percent of the poppies are 

coming out of the south, and that is where the focus—is going to 

be next. 

STABILIZATION CORPS

Mr. FARR. I am very keenly interested in emphasis on soft power. 

I think it is the right thing to do, and I think America can do it 

well. I was a Peace Corps volunteer and came back with that experience of language and cultural knowledge and really working with 

the peasants that, you know, just didn’t understand sort of basic 

things. 

So I am interested in how you, as a career military officer, feel 

about this. It really seems to me that if we are really going to do 

stabilization and we are going to work ourselves out, we have got 

to have that civilian transfer. 

General CRADDOCK. I agree. Absolutely agree. 

Mr. FARR. What are the things that we need to add that we are 

not doing? 


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General CRADDOCK. I think that we have got to have, whether 

it is USAID or whether it is the stabilization and reconstruction directorate in State Department—maybe that is where it starts—we 

have got to have an energized, growing—it has got to be bigger— 

stabilization corps. And they have got to—right now, the military 

is doing it in most places, but we have got to get that transitioned 

into a civilian entity and just let the military be there for security 

as required. 

I don’t know how you motivate that, how you get, you know, incentives for folks to join, but that has to occur. 

Mr. FARR. The concept here was to draw upon the trained experience of USAID, State Department, and then have a reserve corps 

made up of state and local folks who you can call upon and you 

would have this cache of incredible career talent and, hopefully, career talents that also know something about the country that you 

could pull together and train and they could come in there as you 

said, a stabilization corps. 

General CRADDOCK. I am all for it. 

Mr. FARR. I guess we just haven’t met the size and skill level 

that is needed. 

General CRADDOCK. I think it is still fragmented. I think departments, Agriculture, Energy, Commerce, Health and Human Services all generate their own participation, but it is not brought together here under a stabilization corps where each department 

agency puts their people in and 40 of them are pulled out and they 

are trained together and culturally assimilated to go into a province in Afghanistan, and 45 go into some other country and—I 

think, now, it is individual stovepipes going in. 

And then they come together on the ground, and it is better than 

nothing, but it is still not good enough. 

Mr. FARR. What was the ingredient that made the military come 

together in a coordinated way? 

General CRADDOCK. We follow a prescribed routine. It is in our— 

it is the way we are drilled. It is our ethos. 

And Regional Command East in Afghanistan, the military put together a program in Nangarhar Province, and they called it 

Nangarhar, Inc.—I–N–C—incorporated. And I took 30 members 

from the Council on Foreign Relations to Afghanistan. We went 

there. 

And the military briefed these industrialists, entrepreneurs, 

businessmen and women here is what we are doing. And everyone 

I heard said why are you doing this. This is not a military task. 

This is a civilian task. You are into development, reconstruction, 

job creation. You are bringing in industrial capability, technology, 

why are you doing this? And the answer is no one else was there, 

but they were doing it very well. 

That is what we have—that is the stabilization corps we are 

talking about. Those—those functions, those skills, those tasks 

have to be handed off to a stabilization corps, a stabilization battalion, whatever and then they have to sustain that over time because we are taking the military—and our strategy is shape, clear 

out the insurgents, hold—keep it secured—and then build. We are 

using our forces to shape, clear, hold, and then build, and we don’t 

have enough to do it. 


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So as soon as the next problem spot comes up, we are trying to 

hold and build, we have to move our forces over to clear the insurgents out of this problem spot. And this is—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, I was involved in carrying the legislation to create that stabilization corps in the State Department, and it is only 

about 2 years old. Congress has cut their request in funding. We 

haven’t funded it enough. But I think it is important for the Department of Defense to talk about that as much as possible and 

plead with all of us appropriators that you need that other arm, 

that other strength in order to secure and stabilize an area. 

And I think that voice, coming from the military, may be even 

more respected on the Hill than coming from the State Department. 

General CRADDOCK. I agree with Secretary Gates. I think it 

means that we, the Department of Defense, push monies over to do 

this. It is in our best interest to do it. 

Ambassador Carlos Pascual was the first director, and I was in 

SOUTHCOM. We worked together closely. I think—and I am—this 

is my judgment—he got so frustrated with the ability to get 

resourced and to get authorities to move ahead that he left. And 

I think when that happened, that whole program lost a lot of 

ground and a lot of momentum. 

Mr. FARR. Well, the Congress can take the blame. They asked for $150 million, and we gave them $10 million. 

General CRADDOCK. Okay. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Carrying the thought a little bit further, this civilian 

approach, I have said here many times, that our commanders 

around the world are maybe our best State Department representatives—and they are more effective than State Department a whole 

lot of times—but don’t you think that that is the best way for General ‘‘Kip’’ Ward to succeed in AFRICOM is with that approach? 

I talked to a top official last month from Kenya who actually had 

gone from concern about AFRICOM to a much better attitude towards AFRICOM. Not threatening, more stabilization support and 

economic development things that they saw real positive instead of 

a threat to the continent which I think was the first reaction. 

And just in a big picture, you have divested those countries, but 

during the transition, don’t you think that that is very much a part 

of the success formula for AFRICOM is that approach? 

General CRADDOCK. Oh, I absolutely do. I think that, in most scenarios today, particularly in Africa, I think, in Eurasia to a great 

extent, soft—S-O-F-T—power is what will prevail. 

In Afghanistan, I have said repeatedly, this is not going to be 

won by military means. The military will set the conditions, the security so that development, which is job creation, the delivery of infrastructure, social services and welfare to the people can occur. 

When that happens, then they will decide they do not want insurgents around because they don’t bring that to them. And the people 

will push the insurgents out. 

Same thing in Africa. Different problems in Africa. It is endemic. 

It is poverty. It is—but it is not a conventional military threat. So 

we have got to—we, the military—have to enable the civilian approach. And that is the challenge we have got. 


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Until we do that, we have got to have civilians behind us. 

Mr. WAMP. We are seeing the push-pull here to a certain extent 

is if the military is involved, a lot of people in Washington don’t 

look at it as foreign aid or assistance to countries. They don’t think 

it is as efficient. This is just a reality that still has to be dealt with 

because I do think as you transition more over to State Department, you don’t get, frankly the efficiency. 

And I know that there were gross inefficiencies with Iraq in staging and procurement on the other side of the world in a war-fighting capacity. But I also believe that you have seen the military be 

very responsive with the resources in this kind of a theater as opposed to, frankly, some State Department. 

So we have got—I understand where you are going, but we have 

got some selling to do. 

Back to Afghanistan, unless you want to interject. 

AFGHANISTAN

Mr. FARR. The problem is—the military has been very straightforward about this and the Department of Defense, Secretary of 

Defense has been very straightforward that they need this capacity 

built up. And they were the first to support this legislation. 

And, in fact, that is how we got it through the Senate. It was 

calls from the Department of Defense that got it through, not the 

State Department. But we haven’t been listening to it or funding 

it. And I think the concept there is that they trained. I mean, if 

you are going to be governor of a state, you are going to have a 

lot of people who are really good at their job and professional. Why 

can’t we call them up as we do National Guard to have these civilian skills and, perhaps, the linguistic knowledge? You know, maybe 

they are Afghans. 

I think it is just a missing component. As far as cost, I mean, 

if we really put a nice spin on it, I think you could get senior people to almost volunteer to do this. Who wouldn’t want to have an 

experience like this? 

Mr. WAMP. Back to Afghanistan and your role as the supreme 

commander and NATO increasing their presence there. Word from 

the Pentagon is that in the supplemental, when it comes, there will 

be a little thin slice for Mil Con directed to Afghanistan. Where 

would that be spent? Do you know? 

General CRADDOCK. I have a NATO hat in Afghanistan. I do not 

have a U.S. hat. But because of this uplift in forces, as I understand, there have to be some additional tarmacs laid because of the 

increase in numbers of helicopters, so they have got to do some 

more work on the airfields. There will have to be more facilities to 

house the troops, whether they are—probably C-huts or things like 

that. Headquarters will have to be built. Regional Command South 

is going to be up a little bit. So I think that is the Mil Con investment. 

From a NATO perspective, we are basically in airfields. NATO 

will take care of common funding for common-use areas. But, for 

example, the Germans in the north in Mazari Sharif have built 

that into an incredible facility. I mean, there is more—there is 

more cement up there than anywhere else in one place in that 


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country. It is huge. But that is nationally funded, no NATO money 

there. 

That is going to happen. The U.S. is going to have to fund some 

of these increases when they put these forces in places where there 

are no facilities now. There is no infrastructure anywhere in Afghanistan. 

So any time you put a force in there, one of these got to put the 

infrastructure in. You have got to put in housing. You have got to 

put in dining facilities. You have got to harden them because of the 

threat from rockets and mortars. And that is where the cost lies. 

Mr. FARR. Is there water? 

General CRADDOCK. There is water in most places of the country’s surface. Southwest, no. But under—not too deep—there is 

water. Some of it is high metal content, but the fact is that before 

the Soviets destroyed it, that was a very complex irrigation system, 

and it was—it was good. The country was green. When the Soviets 

left, they just completely destroyed the irrigation system. 

The challenge we have got with Department of Agriculture and 

some of the European nations is to help rebuild the irrigation system in the south and the north. The east has got, because of the 

Hindu Kush, a lot of mounts and runoff from snow and streams. 

So there is plenty of water there. Good micro, hydroelectric capability. Put a little turbine in one of these streams as wide as this 

table, fast moving, and you can generate enough to put one light 

bulb in 50 houses. That is a pretty good deal. 

So there is water. It is a matter of getting to it, getting it in, out, 

and distributed in irrigation has got to be rebuilt. Totally destroyed. 

Mr. WAMP. So Admiral Stavridis, Ph.D., real smart guy, real 

neat guy, but he is going from dealing with Hugo Chavez to taking 

EUCOM. What do you say to him? [Laughter.] 

General CRADDOCK. Hang on. Well, I did the same thing. But the 

difference—I went from SOUTHCOM to EUCOM and NATO. The 

difference is I had already spent 14 years on and off in Europe on 

assignments. I had been in a NATO command. So I understood a 

lot of how that works. 

So Jim is going to have to—militarily, not a problem. You can 

transfer skills from one combatant command to the next. Okay? So 

that is okay. 

The challenge will be the political and military side in NATO. 

And that is completely different and unique. There are different 

rule sets, different acronyms, different processes. When you—in 

NATO, when you were invited to something, that means you will 

be there. It is—you have got to break the code. And that is going 

to be the challenge. 

So what I am telling you is listen to some of the folks who have 

been around a while very carefully because, in NATO, generally 

speaking, what you hear is different from what they mean. It is incredibly political. 

Mr. WAMP. Wow. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Bishop, under the rules of the committee, I am 

told that priority, because of the way people came in, is that Mr. 

Crenshaw and Mr. Carter go. 


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Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. While we are talking about Afghanistan, let me ask you a couple of questions. You know, kind of big 

picture, kind of what is going on there. But what you just mentioned and, you know, kind of the political nature. 

When I was there, one of the big problems, it seemed like, I 

think you said we have got 62,000 people there. Half of those are 

ours. Right? Forty-two different nations have people there. We 

have got another 14,000 that are kind of part of Enduring Freedom, and we are getting ready to send another 17,000 there. 

And part of the problem is getting everybody to work together. 

As I understand it, some countries don’t go into some areas of Afghanistan. There are these so-called caveats where, you know, we 

watched the film of kind of the way people engage the enemy, and 

they were watching from high-tech spy planes. Now, here they are, 

the bad guys are here, but there are too many people nearby so we 

can’t do anything until they go somewhere else. 

I mean—and I guess I am wondering NATO is getting ready to 

have an anniversary. You are going to have a NATO—do you all 

talk about that? About—it seems to me that, with all the high-tech 

equipment you have got, you know, interoperability kind of questions of how you train people, how you work together, the different 

rules that different countries have. 

Give us a picture of the overall situation in Afghanistan. And 

then what do you think are the things that we ought to be doing 

legislatively or the things that you are trying to do at these NATO 

summits to kind of work together? 

But could you kind of comment on a couple of those issues? 

General CRADDOCK. I will give you an overall Afghanistan. I just 

took the North Atlantic Council plus non-NATO troop-contributing 

nations in 2 weeks ago—well, last week, actually. That was 42— 

reps from all 42, ambassadors from 42 countries. 

So we got them out and about to see the country and talked to 

President Karzai, talked to the ministers, talked to Speaker of the 

House Kenuti and others. So I will tell you the general consensus 

was they came back seeing a far better picture than what they expected. 

So, now, it is not rosy, but it is not as bad as you read. Three 

lines of operation in NATO: security, governance, and development. 

My assessment is in security, except for the south, we are making 

progress. In the south, we are stalemated, and we need more 

troops, and that is what the U.S. is going to provide. 

The south is a coherent insurgency. It is Pashtun. They are all 

working under orders from Quetta—the Quetta Sura. The Pashtun 

insurgent leaders have very tight control in the south. It is a coherent insurgency. 

The east is a syndicate of insurgents. You have got Taliban. You 

have got HIG, Hakani, Al Qaeda, IJU, you name it. There are a 

whole bunch of bad guys, and sometimes they work together and 

sometimes they don’t. So they are syndicated to the extent it is to 

their advantage. When they feel like it is not, then they blow each 

other up and try to do something else. Different kind of insurgency. 

The key is Pakistan for them. If the safe haven in Pakistan is 

not eliminated, we will never end the fighting in Afghanistan. Fact. 


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Insurgents, when they are under pressure, go back across the border into sanctuary, and then they pick and choose when to return. 

But except for the south, security is on the uptick. We turned 

over Kabul, the capital, for leave for security to the Afghans. The 

incident rate today, they are doing a pretty good job. Will they ever 

completely eliminate the suicide bomber that makes the headlines? 

No, we can’t do that anywhere in the world. But the number of incidents are down. They are doing okay. 

Governance, I think, is the long pole in the tent. It is the problem. If the people in Afghanistan don’t believe government is a 

positive factor in their life, they will never support the government 

either central, provincial or district. And, right now, the corruption 

is so bad that the people are right on the margins. They don’t know 

whether to walk off and take the Taliban, even though they are 

harsh, they are not corrupt, they don’t—people and shake them 

down, or they think maybe there is a chance the government is 

going to help them. 

If we don’t see a reduction in corruption, if we don’t see the delivery—fair delivery—of infrastructure and services, I am worried 

that even though we could be perfect in securing the place, the people will still never back their government. 

Development is starting to get better. It is now a more coherent 

approach. It is integrated the Afghan national development strategy, which was a long time coming. It is integrating from bottom 

to top, and we are seeing projects linked up and down. So I am getting a better feel there. 

The World Bank Solidarity Program, which is administered down 

at the local level, does not go through Kabul or any provincial capital, is probably the most effective development program there. It 

is very good. 

Now, we have got to take those types of successes and link them 

up and then across. So that is the overall picture. Not moving as 

fast as we want to. We still have to continue to push. 

NATO

And what is the problem with NATO? In order to get buy-in in 

the beginning, I think what happened was that every nation that 

wanted to have a little hitch in going, a caveat—well, we will go 

but we want—okay, fine. Come on. 

And individually, it wasn’t a problem. But then when you have 

got 42 nations and they generate, right now, 17 caveats—18 nations out of 42 are caveat free. The rest have got 70 caveats. They 

won’t do this. They won’t go there. Then the commanders on the 

ground, every time they have put together an operation, have to 

consider that and have to adjust. And it gets to be three-dimensional chess because you think you have got it—no, I can’t use 

these guys because—so it is very difficult. It takes enormous planning efforts. 

And now, the next factor, a good factor, is we have got to work 

with the Afghan National Army. They are getting more capable. 

They are participating in 90 percent of the ops. They lead 50 percent. That is a good thing. So we want that. 

But we have got nations that are caveated. They—if they are— 

if they are providing mentoring teams for an infantry battalion of 


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Afghans in the north, and we have got a problem in the south. So 

we want to move that brigade of Afghan soldiers to the south, but 

that team in the north that belongs to a country says, oh, no, I 

can’t go south. So the OMLTs mentoring team, they stay north. 

The U.S. has to pick up—put a team together to go south. These 

are the things that cause incredible inflexibility that the commanders down there have to deal with. 

So we have got to—it is too late. We have built our house. We 

are going to live with it now. But when we do this again and we 

build an O-plan, an operations plan and NATO says go do it, then 

we cannot let nations opt in the way they want to. You are either 

all in or you are all out. 

And if you are not all in and we don’t have enough to do it, then 

militarily, we go back and say we can’t do it. You told us to do this. 

Here is what we need. You only gave us this. This is all we can 

do. We didn’t do that. 

It is the worst abomination of a military—military effort. We 

just—it is too hard. It is too many restraints. Headquarters structure, all the caveats and the constraints, some of these national 

elements that come in don’t report under ISAF, NATO. They stay 

nationally command and controlled. So it is—we have got to have 

a 21st century structure here, and this is a Cold War structure. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. You bring that up, like, at these meetings and 

it just—they can change. 

General CRADDOCK. I meet with the chiefs of defense every 3 or 

4 months. I tell them this. I need—you know, at the last summit, 

the heads of state said we are going to fill up your requirements 

with troops, we are going to eliminate caveats. The next meeting 

after that, I took a big, old jar in and I labeled it. This is the fillup-the troops. And I laid it out there. Who is going to put something in it? And nobody did a thing. 

So you can name them, you can shame them, but it doesn’t work. 

You just continually beat on them. The chiefs of defense—the military guys—always tell me I can get more. I can provide more. I can 

do this. Will you do it? I will try. They go back, they can’t get political approval. 

Mr. CRENSHAW [continuing]. Withhold military aid—conditionality? 

General CRADDOCK. Most of the ones that have the capability, 

have the capacity and haven’t contributed don’t get aid from us. 

Smaller nations, the newer nations, the new members of NATO are 

paying a bill—they are punching above their weight, but they are 

not real capable, so we have got to help them out. We have got to 

train them. Sometimes, we embed U.S. guys with them to help 

them out. They are willing, but they don’t have a lot to bring. 

It is the big nations that we don’t give any aid to, they are the 

ones that could do it but don’t. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Carter and then Mr. Bishop. 

AFGHANISTAN

Mr. CARTER. Well, this line of questioning we have been going 

into is very frustrating. I was over with the 4th Infantry Division 


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early on, and some of the commanders were complaining about the 

same issues that you are complaining about in Iraq. 

One general, and I won’t mention his name, got frustrated. He 

said I spend more time taking care of these people than I do getting anything out of them. And I have got fighting soldiers that are 

having to take care of these people because they are limited in 

what they are willing to do. And he said as far as I am concerned, 

they might as well go on home. But I guess he was a little bit frustrated. 

But another thing that Sam brought up, and this is only in Iraq 

you are talking about provincial teams were a good issue. I mean, 

they really did work. But the frustration that the military was having at that point in time—this was prior to the surge was it was 

taking a lot of soldiers to move a few people from the State Department out there because they just didn’t want to go. 

And he said, finally, you just said it is easier for us to just do 

it ourselves than try to push these guys out of their little secure 

place inside Baghdad. They didn’t want to go outside of there. They 

didn’t feel like they were getting paid to get shot at and so they 

didn’t want to go out there. 

And so the Army took over, basically, all those issues that were 

supposed to be dealt with. Is that same type of thing occurring in 

Afghanistan? 

General CRADDOCK. To a certain extent, yes, but I don’t think it 

is as bad as what you described because we have been there a little 

longer. When we pushed out the insurgents, the Taliban, in late 

2002, they were beat up pretty bad. We didn’t realize it, but they 

were out there refitting, rearming, regenerating over the next 3-1/ 

2 years. So, by 2006, they were back. 

We had folks out and about, State Department folks and other 

civilian teams. So we had them out there. Now, the—you know, 

and we had security for them, we just had to, probably, put a little 

more security in certain places. But I don’t think it was having to 

get them out there. They were already out there. The question is 

are they—is it good enough. 

The problem wasn’t the U.S. Now, the problem is international 

organizations, nongovernmentals. Right now, UNAMA, the mission 

in Afghanistan only has their people in offices in 17 to 34 provinces. And the reason they will tell you is security. 

Well, the real reason is manpower. There is plenty of security 

where they are, but they don’t have enough people to get out there. 

So they continually have a tension of resources versus security. 

But, no, we do have to provide security. We are asked to escort 

world food trucks. We are asked to do a lot of that. But, you know, 

there is a—there is a bit of a tension. Any time a lot of these 

nongovernmentals, these international organizations see a uniform, 

you know, they push back. They don’t want the military around because they think we endanger them if they are near us. 

But what we are seeing now is a reverse. They are asking us to 

come around and help them out because they realize we can provide a level of security now. ISAF does that. U.S. forces do that. 

If it means we can get them out and they can start doing what 

they are chartered to do, it is probably worth our time to do it. 


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Mr. CARTER. At the Naval Postgraduate School where they are 

doing this training with everybody, military and international and 

nongovernmental organizations, the feedback I am getting is the 

NGOs are much more comfortable being with the military because 

they are out in the fields. What they are not comfortable with is 

watching USAID and the State Department hide in the embassy 

compounds. 

And because of the way they were founded they don’t want to be 

seen as partnering with the military. But as far as ground work 

is concerned, they find themselves, because you say so many of the 

soldiers are doing this work—fixing water systems. 

I think it is a whole new paradigm that America needs to build 

on, NATO needs to build on that we have never trained civilian 

forces to go in and do stabilization in failed states and how maybe 

you ought to go in ahead of time just so they don’t fail. But in postconflict, how do you get them in and how do you restart the system? You need forces trained together and civilians don’t train together. They are all independent. They come in. They rush in. They 

are single purpose. One, will build houses. Somebody else will do 

teaching. They are not under a single command structure, and that 

is why I think we should match military organizational skills to civilian parts. 

I think it is challenging and exciting and a great opportunity, but 

Congress has got to get behind you. 

General CRADDOCK. We don’t have to push out the USAID or 

U.S. State Department. I will say they are out there. We—the challenge is keeping them out there and more of them because, too 

often, we have an AID rep out in the PRT in some remote province, 

and it is time to leave and they leave, and it is 2 months before 

we get a replacement. 

So we have got to have a continual, persistent presence, otherwise the local people lose faith in the fact that we are serious about 

this. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. 

Welcome, General Craddock. 

COMMAND STRUCTURE AT EUCOM

I have been interested in the conversation regarding the three 

Ds: defense, diplomacy, and development which is very much a 

part of the newest command: which is Africa Command. One of the 

specific things in the Africa Command structure is that there is a 

deputy commander for civil and military affairs who is an ambassador. 

And do you believe that in what you are doing in Afghanistan, 

that that would be helpful? Does your command structure at 

EUCOM include a civil military affairs deputy to the commander 

as does AFRICOM? 

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, sir. 

No. The command structure of European Command does not 

have a civilian deputy. I was—I worked with General Ward in the 

beginning in the creation of that structure. And we looked at what 

ailed Africa. We looked at the needs of Africa. We looked at the 

challenges and the threats in Africa. And it was apparent that 


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there are probably more nonmilitary challenges than military and 

it would take soft power to address it. 

And that was a discreet decision, uniquely, to have a civilian 

deputy out of the State Department, Ambassador Yates. I think— 

and what I am doing now, quite frankly, in EUCOM is we are beginning—I have started a review the command structure, a review 

towards our reorganization. 

When I left SOUTHCOM, I did that. I handed that off to Admiral 

Stavridis. 

Mr. BISHOP. SOUTHCOM sort of has that structure, also. 

General CRADDOCK. Right. Exactly. 

So we are heading that way, but I will, quite frankly, tell you 

that we had the first year to be able to split out AFRICOM. A challenge because that changed European Command. That was a significant event. 

So we spent the first year doing that. We spent the second year, 

now, regrouping and understanding what that meant and getting 

ourselves reorganized. Now, it doesn’t sound like much, but the fact 

that—a couple of facts. 

I have got two hats. I am not the only combatant commander 

with two hats, but I am the only one with two different headquarters that are 500 miles apart. That created a significant difference. And along with that was, in years past, the deputy commander of EUCOM was a four-star, General Ward. 

When we split out AFRICOM, my deputy commander became a 

three-star. And while, as competent and capable and good as he is, 

four beats three. And three can’t get in doors that four gets into. 

And when he wants to meet with chiefs of defense as a three-star, 

it is harder. 

When we have conferences—and we do that routinely, we bring 

in the chiefs of defense of the nations once a quarter. If I am not 

there, then it is hard to get them there. So we spend the next year 

sorting ourselves out. 

Now, I have stated let us get ourselves arranged for the 21st century because we are going to be in the process of reorganizing ourselves. Is it going to be like SOUTHCOM? Not exactly. Is it going 

to be like AFRICOM? Not exactly. But it will be what we need to 

face the challenges in our region. 

AFGHANISTAN

Mr. BISHOP. In terms of your long-term military base needs for 

Afghanistan, do you see in EUCOM the need for any long-term 

military basing and access for the efforts in Afghanistan that this 

committee would have to fund? 

General CRADDOCK. Not discreetly towards Afghanistan. I think 

that, in conjunction with Transportation Command, TRANSCOM, 

they have in-route infrastructure requirements in our region. So, 

you know, Moron in Spain, Rota is in Spain, we have got to make 

sure that what we have meets the needs but it is not more than 

we need. We can’t warm base things in two locations if we can fix 

it to be adequate for all the throughput we need in one location. 

So I don’t think there is anything unique to Afghanistan. As you 

know, TRANSCOM is working on a northern distribution network 

so that, instead of having to go through Pakistan, we can come in 


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through Russia and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. 

That is working pretty well. NATO is doing the same thing. 

So I don’t have anything different than what TRANSCOM—we 

support TRANSCOM’s efforts. We just—we are in a debate with 

TRANSCOM. Let us make sure you don’t have more than you need 

there, TRANSCOM. 

DOD EDUCATION NEEDS IN EUROPE

Mr. BISHOP. Okay. Let me change gears for a moment and go to 

your DOD education needs in Europe. 

I think you may have alluded in your testimony to your need for 

school construction in Europe. Can you describe that need and the 

current state of the schools? I think you mentioned about $300 million to $400 million in Mil Con needs per year. 

Does that support the current transformation efforts? And of 

what is that comprised? Other than schools, are there any other 

major construction or infrastructure needs that you have? 

Mr. FARR. Before you arrived, the general went through that 

quite—— 

Mr. BISHOP. I am sorry. I apologize. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Respond to your question. 

Mr. BISHOP. Okay. 

General CRADDOCK. What we have is, over the years we have 

taken and patched together school facilities, school infrastructure, 

fiscal—and we put patches on it because we never had enough 

money to be able to buy new in a quality facility. 

DODEA, for whatever reason, only gave us 15 percent of the 

available funds, yet we have 43 percent of the schools and the students. So we weren’t getting a fair share. Because of that, we could 

never completely fix a problem. We had to Band-Aid several problems. 

So we have gone in these last couple of years, we have identified 

that, we have asked for a greater share. Right now, 72 percent of 

our school facilities, on a grading system, Q–1 through 4 with four 

being worse, 72 percent of ours are three or four. Three means 

major repair. Four means needs a new facility. 

So we are just about at the end of being able to patch these 

things. We are going to have to do some new construction. That is 

the challenge we have got. We have got good staffs, good teachers, 

good curricula. Physical plants are decaying faster than we can 

ever—— 

If we don’t do that, if we don’t get these facilities up to Q–1 soon, 

we are going to have families elect to stay in the States and the 

service member comes alone. And that is going to be a readiness 

issue. 

Now, beyond that, there are several programs. We are still going 

to need to finish up our barracks modernization. We are still going 

need to finish up our family housing system. That is already in the 

plan. And then, as we head towards the objective force for the land 

army for the air, there are some command and control requirements for the Army as they pull together several different units 

into the Weisbaden location. So that is all in the program that we 

have got now. 


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Mr. BISHOP. I apologize for going back over information you had 

already covered. I was in a Defense Subcommittee meeting simultaneously with this, so I apologize. 

But thank you so very much. 

TAJIKISTAN

Mr. FARR. Recently, I got a call from a professor at Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is Russian. And she has been 

teaching problems of the region. And she was really leaning on me 

about how we have sort of paid no attention to Tajikistan. 

You mentioned it. And she said the ills of Afghanistan are flopping into that country without people paying any attention to it 

and it could become really explosive. Do you concur with that—— 

General CRADDOCK. I don’t have a lot of detailed knowledge because Takijistan is in the CENTCOM AOR. But, obviously, as a 

neighbor there, as a border state in Afghanistan, we see that. 

The fact is that smuggling routes, historically, have gone through 

that area up through Tajikistan. We know drugs are moving 

through Tajikistan into Russia. The Russians know that. They 

have a growing problem with heroin addiction coming out of Afghanistan. 

So the fact is we can’t approach Afghanistan by itself as a regional issue, and we have got to then see both from the Pakistan 

side and the Iranian side, which are the two big players, but we 

have got to look north. And then you have got Turkmenistan and 

Tajikistan and—those nations are also going to feel the problems 

move across borders to them the better it gets in Afghanistan. 

There is a natural flow—there has been for centuries—and had 

runs from the south of Afghanistan up through the north through 

the Kunduz Corridor where the Germans are. And that is where 

they are facing problems because it is a Pashtun belt there. And 

so there are a lot of bad things happening. And then you have got 

another one out west into Turkmenistan. Those are the two main 

corridors. 

And as we are able to increase the security situation, it is going 

to move that way. And the other way it is going to move is through 

the Khyber Pass into Pakistan. And then you have got—out west— 

not as defined, not as large, you have got one large corridor into 

Iran, but it is pretty well covered. We watched that—south of that, 

it is a wide open border and there is all kinds of—there is—there 

is a truck park in southwestern Afghanistan where there are no 

paved roads that, at any one time, you will fly a predator over or 

a UAV and there will be a thousand trucks there and they are 

marshaled there coming and going. 

And they are smuggling gasoline. They are smuggling anything 

that is a commodity that they can make money on on the black 

market. It is incredible. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. No further questions. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Crenshaw. 


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PRIVATIZED HOUSING/QUALITY OF LIFE

Mr. CRENSHAW. Just a quick question. You were talking about 

quality of life and family housing. Do you ever use—you know, over 

here, we have kind of seen how privatized housing can kind of 

speed up the process and not wait. Is that something that you all 

have looked at over there? 

General CRADDOCK. We are doing that. Actually, all the new 

things we are doing, the Army is moving into these new main operating bases, it is all done on a build-to-lease. Absolutely. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Great. 

General CRADDOCK. Yes. We even looked at it to see if there was 

a possibility for schools. Is there a way we could build them, but 

it didn’t pan out because, you know, the host nation has their own 

requirements, their own standards. And we couldn’t make the 

thing meet. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. I don’t have any other further questions. I think your 

testimony is probably the most extensive I have ever seen before 

this committee, and I really appreciate it. It is very substantive. 

QUALITY OF LIFE

Maybe in closing, there is one issue that I think the schools, obviously, for a Mil Con project, are a high priority. Is there anything 

else you wanted to share with the committee to prioritize as something we ought to be paying attention to? 

General CRADDOCK. I just came out of a quality-of-life conference 

that we had before the EUCOM about a month ago. And what I 

was struck with—and I have—again, I have been back and forth, 

in and out since 1972, 16 years now. So I have seen this and I have 

watched the transformation of the quality of life. 

And I will tell you that it is incredible. From 1972 to today, the 

folks today—the kids, as I call them—if they were transported in 

time back to 1972 and they saw the quality of life, they would say, 

wow, this is a pretty good deal. But, of course, in life, everything 

is relative. So you gauge how you are based on what you had before, maybe, in the States. 

So I think that what we have to do here is we have to make sure 

the services—and that is the challenge we have got. The services 

have to understand that they do have some responsibility for these 

forward-deployed forces not only in Europe but also in the Pacific. 

And we have got to keep an awareness and a recognition that, 

while it is not going to be the same as what they are going to find 

in a camp, post, station, installation back in the states, we have got 

to make it as close as possible to that in the delivery of infrastructure and services. 

The support relationships are going to be more difficult. You cannot go off post at night in Vilseck down to a 7-Eleven and pick up 

a gallon of milk. It is different. But what you can do is get as close 

as possible. And you can go to a Shoppette, if you can get that. And 

it is open 24 hours a day. That is something we have done. That 

is a good thing. 


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So I think that is what I would focus on. The low-hanging fruit 

is gone. It is quality of life. I said, look, folks, what we have got 

to have here is you have got to tell us what you need, and there 

are probably three categories. 

One is what can I do in EUCOM to fix that problem. Do I have 

the authority? Do I have the resources? We have got some of that, 

not much left. 

What does the Department of Defense have in terms of authorities and resources to fix the next basket of problems? And then 

what is it going to take to fix the next basket, which is statute. 

That is you all. 

What are those problems that we are going to have to fix? The 

low-hanging fruit is gone. The hard ones, to a certain extent, have 

already been pushed up and, sometimes, rejected. 

You know, I asked for a COLA, a cost-of-living allowance review. 

I felt that no one adequately explained COLA for overseas camps, 

posts, and stations. And I talked to David Chu when he was there 

and all of his people, and they came over and they—and my COLA 

expert is right here. I mean, this is a passion. And we worked this 

together. 

But he is the guy that tried to break in to the proprietary formula. It is proprietary. The contractor that does it, we could not— 

he couldn’t tell us. It is proprietary. What do you mean it is proprietary? But it was. 

And we had these folks come over, Department of Defense folks, 

civil service, and explain it, and we couldn’t understand it. I 

couldn’t understand it. You had to be a Ph.D. in economics, I guess. 

I couldn’t get it. 

So we said, please, put it in English. We have got to be able to 

tell our people that. And I asked, then, the Undersecretary, the 

Deputy Secretary, Gordon England. I don’t accept it, please review 

this. And he initiated a panel, and they came back and said it is 

all okay. But the problem is we still don’t know how it works. 

Recently, we were told you have got to take a cut because we 

have overpaid you too long. And we didn’t cut you earlier because 

Craddock requested a review. We reviewed and he lost. So now you 

have got to take two points a month for 4 months. So that is eight 

points—what? About $50 a point? 

Mr. BISHOP. Is this in reference to the civilian employees? 

General CRADDOCK. No. This is military. This is military. 

Mr. FARR. It is $25—— 

General CRADDOCK. It is going to be a couple hundred dollars a 

month difference now. 

Okay. But one place didn’t take a cut to that extent. And that 

place has better facilities than anywhere else. The most modern facilities. Somewhere else that doesn’t have that access, smaller commissaries, smaller PX, took a bigger cut. What kind of formula does 

that? So that is the challenge. 

Mr. FARR. Is there a recommendation coming to us on what those 

statutory changes ought to be? 

General CRADDOCK. Yes. We have put some requests in to the department on some changes to the law that would help the quality 

of life. And that is all being pulled together in OSD general counVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00478 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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sel, and they are going to review this through their legal legislative 

affairs and push it over. 

I don’t know how much it will survive. 

Mr. FARR. Well, we will have our staff look at it. 

General CRADDOCK. Good. Good. I appreciate that. 

Sergeant Major, anything on COLA that you want to add? I 

mean, he is really—it is a passion. 

Mr. FARR. Well, the hearing is, I think, over. So why don’t you 

introduce the officers that you brought with you to the committee? 

General CRADDOCK. Go ahead, guys. This is—Jim Sears is my 

special assistant. EUCOM—he is in a EUCOM billet, but he works 

with the attache. 

In the back row, leg affairs, Rick Myers, my XO. J.L. Briggs. And 

this is the Mil Con expert from EUCOM, and the colonel knows 

that he is the absolute brain on all the history here, where we have 

been, and where we are going. And he is the guy that told me, because of the OMB restrictions, I can’t talk programs or dollars. 

Mr. FARR. Our committees don’t like it when we—— 

General CRADDOCK. Necessary evil, I guess. But, yes. 

Mr. BISHOP. Do the currency and the fall of the dollar impact 

your need for that COLA? 

General CRADDOCK. It plays into that, yes. Yes. 

VOICE. COLA is broken down into three components—which indicates where I do my shopping. In the military—do I shop off post 

or do I shop on post. That is one. 

And then there is a market analysis where they compare the cost 

of items for us overseas to numerous CONUS locations. Once that 

is all done, then the dollar to Euro or dollar to Yen or dollar to 

Won is—as the last thing. 

So the dollar-Euro fluctuation for us—does not take effect until— 

5 percent threshold—for it to be 2 percent—numerous times—and 

they have rejected that request saying that the system was not— 

16 to 31. They said that they couldn’t react fast enough—2 percent 

threshold. 

The—things like that. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. That is the first time I have had that explanation. I appreciate it. 

General CRADDOCK. And the argument is, over time, it all balances out. The problem is many of our families aren’t there over 

time. They are there for a specific period, and if it is caught in the 

downturn, it is always lagging behind. It is always lagging behind 

the depreciation of the dollar. And they never catch up. 

So if you are there 5, 6, 10 years—2 years—but we—what we 

have asked for is, explain it to us in English so we can understand 

it so we could put an article in the Stars and Stripes and say, folks, 

here is how it works and everybody could read that and say, I understand that. We have yet to have that. 

Mr. FARR. Well, the president is arguing a new era of transparency. Maybe we will have that go down to COLA analysis. 

General CRADDOCK. And if the contractor that figures it out has 

got a proprietary formula that we can’t get access to, I don’t think 

it is—I hope that doesn’t continue. But that is really strange. 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you for your presentation. And thank you all 

for your service to our country. We really appreciate it. 

The committee stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m. when we are 

going to reassemble for an afternoon hearing on the interoperability between the Department of Veterans Affairs and DOD on 

medical records. 

General CRADDOCK. Thank you, sir. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards.] 

FORCE LEVELS/DEMANDS IN EUROPE

Question. You have recommended that the Army retain four brigade combat 

teams in Europe. What are your recommendations for the other service components 

(USAFE, NAVEUR, MARFOREUR) of EUCOM? 

Answer. 

United States Army Europe requirements in addition to four Brigade Combat 

Teams (BCT): 

• Seven enabling brigades 

• One division headquarters 

• One Army service component command headquarters 

United States Air Force Europe requirements: 

• Eight fighter squadrons 

• One theater airlift squadron 

• One air refueling squadron 

• One combat search and rescue group 

• One Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance/Global Hawk squadron 

• Associated air base wings to support above requirements 

Navy Europe requirements: 

• One Command Ship (USS MOUNT WHITNEY) 

• One Navy service component command headquarters 

• Associated port and base support units 

• Naval presence in EUCOM area of responsibility of 2.5 major surface combatants (These forces are better suited as rotational forces and may be fulfilled 

through Global Force Management/Request for Forces processes) 

Special Operations Command Europe requirements: 

• One Special Forces Battalion 

• One Special Operations Group with vertical lift capability 

• One Naval Special Warfare Unit 

• One Theater Special Operations Command Headquarters 

Marine Force Europe requirements: 

• Deployable Combined Joint Task Force Headquarters for air, land, and sea 

components 

Rotational requirements: These force requirements are better filled by rotational 

forces and may be satisfied through Global Force Management/Request for Forces 

processes: 

• Naval presence in EUCOM area of responsibility of 2.5 major surface combatants (mentioned above) 

• 1.0 presence of a Littoral Combat Ship 

• 1.0 presence of the Joint High Speed Vessel 

• 0.5 presence of a United States Marine Corp Special Purpose Marine Air 

Ground Task Force 

Question. You also indicate that along with the two BCTs, EUCOM should retain 

‘‘Division HQ structure’’ within the theater. Does this mean retaining two division 

headquarters? Why is it necessary to retain division headquarters structure? 

Answer. EUCOM requires at least one intermediate, tactical level headquarters 

in order to meet directed mission requirements, which includes having a deployable 

Combined Joint Task Force Headquarters for the land component commander and 

to effectively and efficiently conduct Theater Security assistance missions. 

Today United States Army Europe has only one Division Headquarters (1st Armored Division) assigned in the EUCOM area of responsibility and one Corps Headquarters (V Corps). 

—In 2009, V Corps consolidates with United States Army Europe Headquarters into 7th Army and will relocate to Wiesbaden, Germany. This consolidation will remove it as tactical level headquarters from EUCOM. 


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—The 1st Armored Division Headquarters (Wiesbaden, Germany) is scheduled to return in 2011. 

—Thus, by 2011 EUCOM will not have an intermediate tactical headquarters 

land component capability. 

A Division or Corps Headquarters includes a tactical command and control capability for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization operations and training, staff 

expertise, and military-to-military exchanges. This includes Division or Corps level 

exercises with North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and regional partners. A 

tactical level Headquarters enables EUCOM to support NATO Headquarters with 

peer Headquarters or subordinate tactical Headquarters. A ready, deployable, fullspectrum, land-based tactical level Headquarters separate from the Army Service 

Component Commander is a keystone of EUCOM’s ability to build partner capacity 

and export security from Europe. EUCOM requirements include having Service 

Component capabilities to maintain and deploy a Joint Task Force Headquarters. 

The Navy and Air Force Joint Task Force Headquarters are challenged to deploy 

quickly to a land based scenario away from sea and air ports. 

Question. Where are the two temporary additional BCTs currently stationed? If 

the two BCTs were made permanent, would you recommend that they remain at 

these locations or be relocated somewhere else? 

Answer. The two BCTs are currently home stationed in Baumholder and 

Grafenwoehr. If they remain in Germany, they will remain stationed at these locations. 

EUCOM is currently assigned 4 Brigade Combat Teams. The current plan has 

EUCOM permanently retaining the 173rd (Airborne) Brigade Combat Team, which 

is split based between Germany and Italy, awaiting Fiscal Year 2012 construction 

completion at the Dal Molin complex, Vicenza, Italy, and the 2CR Striker Brigade 

Combat Team is stationed at Vilseck, Germany within the Grafenwoehr Major Operating Base (MOB) area. 

Question. The relocation of two brigades and divisional headquarters from Europe 

to CONUS was a key element of the Global Defense Posture Review, and a decision 

to wholly or partly reverse that decision would seem to rebuke the conclusions of 

that review. In your opinion, was this review fundamentally flawed, or was it overtaken by unforeseen developments? 

Answer. The review was not fundamentally flawed; however, decisions made at 

that time were based on geostrategic assumptions that have been invalidated by recent events, e.g., the Caucasus. The resurgence of Russia and its encroachment on 

Georgian sovereignty was clearly not anticipated among NATO and in U.S. bilateral 

relations. Russia’s willingness to use force outside her borders was an unforeseen 

development that renders a reassessment of whether previous strategic assumptions 

made in the GDP Review are adequate regarding stability and security in the region. Additionally, the global economic downturn has underscored the importance of 

the European nations’ dependence upon Russia as an energy exporter, which has 

complicated the understanding of the dynamics involved with respect to Russia. The 

continuing actions in CENTCOM requiring increased support and cooperation from 

our European Allies and partners has also elevated the importance of EUCOM’s 

ability to build those partnerships and export security to regions in conflict or prone 

to crisis. 

Question. Have you seen an increased demand from other countries for bilateral/ 

multilateral training with U.S. forces since the Russian invasion of Georgia? 

Answer. Absolutely. The Russian aggression against Georgia and its intimidation 

and meddling in the internal affairs of other nations has intensified the requests 

for all forms of Theater Security Cooperation both from those nations who have been 

directly threatened and those key supporting partners who understand the importance of a strong and cohesive NATO. The most urgent requests are from Georgia, 

itself, along with the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. These nations 

want to see U.S. forces exercising with their forces. The NATO nations that border 

Russia have all asked for increased assistance in building their own capacity to defend themselves as well as increased exercises as a demonstration of U.S. commitment and capacity. The Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, Turks and 

Bulgarians have requested more U.S. support than I can provide. In addition, nonNATO nations such as Azerbaijan have requested exercises and training events with 

the U.S. Our long standing NATO partners such as the UK, France, and Denmark 

have requested increased interoperability training. Last, traditionally neutral nations such as Sweden, Finland and Austria have shown interest in Theater Security 

Cooperation. This issue is as much about avoiding a reduction of our current level 

of bi-lateral and multi-lateral training as it is about a growing demand signal for 

increased training. 


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We have noted an increased concern by our partners with regard to Russian military activities and intentions and a corresponding desire for the U.S. and NATO to 

reinforce our commitment to European security. From an intelligence standpoint our 

newly-developing relationships with several European partner nations include not 

only intelligence sharing but also tactical level intelligence training. 

DODEA SCHOOLS IN EUROPE

Question. Please provide a listing of DODEA schools within your AOR and indicate the quality rating of each school’s facilities. 

Answer. As I noted in my recent testimony, DoDEA measures and articulates the 

quality of its school facilities in terms of DoD ‘‘Q-Ratings’’ as defined below. 

Q-1 Facility is new or well maintained—Good Condition 

Q-2 Facility is satisfactorily maintained—Fair Condition 

Q-3 Facility is under-maintained—Poor Condition 

Q-4 Facility Requires Replacement—Failing Condition 

The attached table provides aggregate Q-Ratings for each school in the EUCOM 

AOR. 

DoDDS-Europe District/School Name Installation Country Q-Rating 

Bavaria: 

Ansbach Elementary School ............................ USAG Ansbach, Germany ........................................ Q3 

Ansbach High School ...................................... USAG Ansbach, Germany ........................................ Q3 

Bamberg Elementary School ........................... USAG Bamberg, Germany ....................................... Q4 

Bamberg High School ..................................... USAG Bamberg, Germany ....................................... Q3 

Garmisch Elementary/Middle School .............. USAG Garmisch, Germany ....................................... Q3 

USAG Grafenwoehr, Elementary School .......... USAG Grafenwoehr, Germany .................................. Q3 

Hohenfels Elementary School .......................... USAG Hohenfels, Germany ...................................... Q3 

Hohenfels High School .................................... USAG Hohenfels, Germany ...................................... Q1 

Illesheim Elementary School ........................... USAG Ansbach, Germany ........................................ Q4 

Netzaberg Elementary/Middle School ............. USAG Grafenwoehr, Germany .................................. Q1 

Rainbow Elementary School ............................ USAG Ansbach, Germany ........................................ Q3 

Schweinfurt Elementary School ...................... USAG Schweinfurt, Germany ................................... Q4 

Schweinfurt Middle School ............................. USAG Schweinfurt, Germany ................................... Q3 

Vilseck Elementary School .............................. USAG Grafenwoehr, Germany .................................. Q3 

Vilseck High School ........................................ USAG Grafenwoehr, Germany .................................. Q4 

Heidelberg: 

Aukamm Elementary School ........................... USAG Wiesbaden, Germany ..................................... Q3 

Boeblingen Elementary/Middle School ............ USAG Stuttgart, Germany ....................................... Q4 

Hainerberg Elementary School ........................ USAG Wiesbaden, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Heidelberg High School ................................... USAG Heidelberg, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Heidelberg Middle School ............................... USAG Heidelberg, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Mannheim Elementary School ......................... USAG Mannheim, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Mannheim High School ................................... USAG Mannheim, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Mannheim Middle School ................................ USAG Mannheim, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Mark Twain Elementary School ....................... USAG Heidelberg, Germany ..................................... Q3 

Patch Elementary School ................................ USAG Stuttgart, Germany ....................................... Q4 

Patch High School .......................................... USAG Stuttgart, Germany ....................................... Q4 

Patrick Henry Elementary School .................... USAG Heidelberg, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Robinson Barracks Elementary/Middle School USAG Stuttgart, Germany ....................................... Q3 

Wiesbaden (Arnold) High School .................... USAG Wiesbaden, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Wiesbaden Middle School ............................... USAG Wiesbaden, Germany ..................................... Q4 

Isles: 

AFNORTH Elementary/High School .................. Joint Force Command Headquarters Brunssum, 

Netherlands.

Q2 

Alconbury Elementary School .......................... RAF Alconbury, United Kingdom ............................. Q4 

Alconbury High School .................................... RAF Alconbury, United Kingdom ............................. Q4 

Bahrain Elementary/High School .................... NSA Bahrain, Bahrain ............................................. Q4 

Brussels Elementary/High School ................... USAG Benelux .......................................................... Q4 

Croughton Elementary School ......................... RAF Croughton, United Kingdom ............................ Q3 

Feltwell Elementary School ............................. RAF Feltwell, United Kingdom ................................ Q3 

Geilenkirchen Elementary School .................... Geilenkirchen AB, Germany ..................................... Q3 

Kleine Brogel Elementary School .................... Klein Brogel AB, Belgium ....................................... Q3 

Lakenheath Elementary School ....................... RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom .......................... Q2 

Lakenheath High School ................................. RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom .......................... Q3 

Lakenheath Middle School .............................. RAF Feltwell, United Kingdom ................................ Q1 

Liberty Intermediate School ............................ RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom .......................... Q3 

Menwith Hill Elementary/High School ............ RAF Menwith Hill, United Kingdom ........................ Q3 


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DoDDS-Europe District/School Name Installation Country Q-Rating 

SHAPE Elementary School ............................... SHAPE, Belgium ...................................................... Q3 

SHAPE High School ......................................... SHAPE, Belgium ...................................................... Q4 

Kaiserslautern: 

Baumholder High School ................................ USAG Baumholder, Germany ................................... Q3 

Bitburg Elementary School ............................. Spangdahlem AB, Germany .................................... Q4 

Bitburg High School ........................................ Spangdahlem AB, Germany .................................... Q4 

Bitburg Middle School .................................... Spangdahlem AB, Germany .................................... Q4 

Kaiserslautern ES/MS/HS ................................ Vogelweh AB, Germany ........................................... Q4 

Landstuhl Elementary/Middle School .............. Landstuhl, Germany ................................................ Q3 

Ramstein American Middle School ................. Ramstein AB, Germany ........................................... Q3 

Ramstein Elementary School .......................... Ramstein AB, Germany ........................................... Q2 

Ramstein High School .................................... Ramstein AB, Germany ........................................... Q4 

Ramstein Intermediate School ....................... Ramstein AB, Germany ........................................... Q3 

Sembach Elementary School ........................... Sembach AB, Germany ........................................... Q4 

Sembach Middle School .................................. Sembach AB, Germany ........................................... Q3 

Smith Elementary School ................................ USAG Baumholder, Germany ................................... Q4 

Spangdahlem Elementary School ................... Spangdahlem AB, Germany .................................... Q3 

Spangdahlem Middle School .......................... Spangdahlem AB, Germany .................................... Q3 

Vogelweh Elementary School .......................... Vogelweh AB, Germany ........................................... Q4 

Wetzel Elementary School ............................... USAG Baumholder, Germany ................................... Q3 

Mediterranean: 

Ankara Elementary/High School ...................... Ankara AB, Turkey ................................................... Q4 

Aviano ES/MS/HS Complex .............................. Aviano AB, Italy ...................................................... Q1 

Incirlik Elementary/High School ...................... Incirlik AB, Turkey ................................................... Q3 

Lajes Elementary/High School ........................ Lajes Field, Portugal ............................................... Q4 

Livorno Elementary/High School ..................... USAG Livorno, Italy ................................................. Q3 

Naples Elementary School .............................. NSA Naples, Italy .................................................... Q2 

Naples High School ......................................... NSA Naples, Italy .................................................... Q2 

Rota Elementary School .................................. United States Naval Station, Rota ......................... Q1 

Rota High School ............................................ United States Naval Station, Rota ......................... Under 

Construction 

Sevilla Elementary/Middle School ................... Moron AB, Spain ..................................................... Q3 

Sigonella Elementary/Middle/High School ...... NAS Sigonella, Italy ................................................ Q2 

Vicenza ES/MS/HS Complex ............................ USAG Vicenza, Italy ................................................. Q4 

Question. What is the annual sustainment requirement for DODEA schools in 

your AOR, and how does this compare to the actual funding level? 

Answer. Based on applicable currency exchange rates, the facility sustainment requirement for DoD Dependent Schools Europe (DoDDS–E) is $39M for FY09 and 

$37M for FY10. Actual DoDDS–E sustainment funding for FY09 is $34.1M and is 

projected to be $32.2M in FY10. 

Question. What is the backlog of restoration and modernization for DODEA 

schools in your AOR? 

Answer. The backlog of Restoration and Modernization (R&M) is defined as total 

unfunded requirement. DoDEA reports a $1,150M unfunded R&M requirement for 

schools at enduring bases in Europe. 

Working in close partnership with DoDEA, we have generated broad support 

within OSD for increased investment in our schools and anticipate making significant gains on this backlog over the next 5 years. 

Of important note: The backlog figure above does not include $450M in unfunded 

R&M requirements for schools in communities currently slated for closure. While 

DoDEA tracks the backlog at all of their facilities, they do not intend to recapitalize 

or make any non-emergent investment in schools at these closing locations. 

DEPLOYMENT AND EN ROUTE INFRASTRUCTURE

Question. You note in your testimony that ‘‘forward stationed units meet the same 

deployment schedules to Afghanistan and Iraq as CONUS units’’. The 2004 

‘‘Strengthening U.S. Global Defense Posture’’ report from the Department of Defense 

noted that ‘‘heavy divisions in Europe may be closer to the Persian Gulf region than 

units in the U.S., but as Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrated, their movement 

by sea requires a circuitous route via the Baltic and North Seas, the Atlantic Ocean, 

and the Mediterranean. Therefore Europe’s proximity provides no particularly significant time advantage for movement of such heavy forces compared to movement 

from the United States.’’ You seem to argue that the advantages of forward-stationed in forces in building partner capacity should tilt the balance in favor of reVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00483 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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taining a larger force in Europe. At the same time, are there any potential changes 

that could be made to EUCOM’s posture and infrastructure that would bypass the 

Baltic/North Seas/Atlantic Ocean route and allow for a more direct movement of 

heavy forces by sea to Southwest/South Asia? 

Answer. Yes, but such changes would drive tremendous infrastructure costs as 

they would require significant rail network expansion and seaport infrastructure improvements for southern European ports. 

However, the most expeditious route for deployment of EUCOM heavy forces to 

Southwest/South Asia remains the use of mature rail and seaport infrastructure in 

Western Europe through seaports such as Rotterdam, Netherlands; Bremerhaven, 

Germany; and Antwerp, Belgium via the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea. Currently, we flow our Germany-based heavy brigade via ports on the 

North Sea via the Baltic Sea. U.S. Transportation Command estimates a 25 to 30 

day transit timeline to Southwest Asia. Alternatively, CONUS based heavy brigades 

take up to 45 days. 

Our route utilizes the mature rail and seaport infrastructure in Western Europe 

and is facilitated by well established, dependable host nation support. In the event 

of major combat operations requiring multiple U.S. Divisions, U.S. ports and rail 

lines could quickly become overwhelmed. Deploying some of the force from Europe 

could save valuable time. It is quite possible that four EUCOM BCTs could be loaded on ships and under way from Europe while their CONUS BCT counterparts are 

still waiting their turn at the smaller number of U.S. ports that could accommodate 

them. 

Last, I would like to point out, that while forward presence offers advantages for 

rapid deployability to a crisis in Europe, Africa, or the Caucasus, it significantly increases the effectiveness of Building Partner Capacity (BPC) activities in several 

ways. There is tremendous value added for BPC within the theater through the habitual relationships which only forward stationed units can provide. These relationships are critical to building trust and confidence with both our traditional and new 

partners and allies alike. In addition, under current BCT rotation and reset procedures for global sourcing, forward stationed units can contribute to BPC activities 

for approximately twice the length of time that rotational forces can provide. This 

is because the forward stationed unit’s training cycles are conducted in theater and 

can be leveraged for BPC. 

Question. What specific recommendations has TRANSCOM made regarding en 

route infrastructure in the EUCOM AOR? 

Answer. EUCOM works collaboratively with Transportation Command via the European En-route Infrastructure Steering Committee to identify and assess en-route 

infrastructure requirements within the context of the strategies of both Commands 

and accounting for the strategies and requirements for adjacent Commands. Beginning in 2003, Transportation Command specifically recommended infrastructure enhancements at Rota, Spain to increase the capability of this location to support strategic air transport and multimodal (ship to aircraft) operations. Recommendations 

by Transportation Command for en route infrastructure at other locations in the 

EUCOM area of responsibility, for example Ramstein, Germany or Souda Bay, 

Greece, have similarly been provided by Transportation Command. Again, the recommendations are made by Transportation Command with the coordination of 

EUCOM and are further vetted within the Transportation Command-led Global Enroute Infrastructure Steering Committee, a governance body that ensures the most 

vital infrastructure requirements are moved forward. 

Question. What role do airfields, ports and other facilities in the Black Sea/ 

Caucasus region perform in the US/NATO supply effort for Afghanistan? 

Answer. The Black Sea/Caucasus region is proving to be an area of strategic importance to both the U.S. and NATO as we expand our ground lines of communication through countries other than Pakistan. The nations in this region have made 

their airfields, ports and other facilities available to our Afghanistan resupply effort, 

called the ‘‘Northern Distribution Network.’’ 

Specifically, access to Georgia and Azerbaijan allows us to use their road, rail, and 

port networks to move construction and general supplies into Afghanistan. Our aircrews use the airports at Tbilisi, Georgia; Burgas, Bulgaria; Varna, Bulgaria; and 

Constanta, Romania as refueling and crew rest stops. 

NATO is similarly engaged in the region to expand the flow of logistics toward 

Afghanistan. A line of communication is planned via Georgia, Azerbaijan, and 

Turkmenistan. Also, the international airport at Baku, Azerbaijan is an important 

hub for moving cargo from Germany to Afghanistan. 


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MISSILE DEFENSE

Question. What on-site activities are you able to conduct at the BMD locations 

without ratification of the bilateral agreements? 

Answer. Only site surveys have been allowed without Parliamentary ratification 

of our bilateral agreements. Permanent changes, such as ground clearing and construction, cannot begin at the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic until entry 

into force of a Site Agreement and a Status of Forces Agreement which supplements 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Status of Forces Agreement. 

Both the Site and Status of Forces Agreement with Czech Republic were signed 

in 2008; however, ratification in the Czech Republic remains uncertain and will not 

occur until after new Parliamentary elections (likely fall 2009—provided the winning party will support the radar site). 

The site agreement for Poland was signed in 2008 and negotiations for the Status 

of Forces Agreement Supplemental are ongoing. Key issues regarding construction, 

criminal jurisdiction, tax relief, and the application of Polish law to U.S. forces must 

still be agreed upon. The State Department is lead on Status of Forces Agreement 

Supplemental negotiations. 

Question. Would the personnel manning the BMD sites fall under EUCOM operational command? How would the operation of the two bases be integrated with existing garrison/wing command organizations in EUCOM? 

Answer. Yes, EUCOM will command and control (C2) personnel manning the 

BMD sites. 

The operation of the two bases will be integrated through the individual service 

components that have been assigned manning responsibilities for those planned 

bases: U.S. Air Forces Europe for the European Midcourse Radar Site in the Czech 

Republic, and U.S. Army Europe for the European Interceptor Site in Poland. 

EUCOM, Missile Defense Agency, and the European Service component staffs are 

working closely with the services (U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army) to ensure issues 

related to manning, sustainment, and required facilities are addressed. EUCOM is 

monitoring the command organizations which are being planned by the services, 

however the organization of sustainment commands remain a service responsibility. 

Question. Have the construction contracts for the BMD sites been awarded? How 

much of the fiscal year 2009 military construction funds for the BMD sites in Europe have been obligated and expended? 

Answer. Construction contracts for the Ballistic Missile Defense sites in Europe 

have not been awarded, nor has any of the Fiscal Year 09 Military Construction 

funding been obligated and/or expended. No construction contracts will be awarded 

nor Military Construction funds obligated and/or expended until all necessary Status of Forces Agreement Supplemental and Implementing Agreements are complete. 

Facility-related activities are currently limited to design and pre-negotiation of 

agreements that must be in place prior to award of construction contracts. 

Question. The amounts programmed in the fiscal year 2009 FYDP for construction 

of the BMD sites did not include amounts necessary for housing or community facilities to support personnel. The agreements allow for up to 250 personnel at the radar 

site, and 500 at the interceptor site. Do you have an estimate and/or a list of facilities necessary to provide such support? 

Answer. No, we do not have an estimate. While support facility planning is underway, the scope and cost of required facilities at both sites are largely dependent on 

the terms of SOFA Supplemental and/or Implementing Agreements that have yet 

to be finalized. Although we cannot provide meaningful cost estimates at this time, 

it is important to note that EUCOM, MDA, and the lead services at each site are 

committed to meeting mission and mission support requirements with the smallest 

practicable personnel and infrastructure footprints. Once the terms of applicable 

agreements are finalized, the lead services for each site (Army for the European Interceptor Site and Air Force for the European Midcourse Radar) will work with 

MDA to develop mission support facility requirements. 

Question. The agreements with the Czech Republic and Poland retain title to facilities on both sites with the respective host nation governments, including permanent structures built with U.S. military construction funds. How does this compare 

with basing arrangements with other European host nations? 

Answer. Our basing agreements typically retain title with the respective host nation. Our use of facilities at overseas locations is governed by the terms of host nation specific implementing arrangements for real estate, which require consignment 

agreements be established for all U.S. occupied facilities. These agreements are 

binding and valid until terminated with the consent of both parties. Implementing 

arrangements for real estate with both the Czech Republic and Poland will include 

similar terms. 


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Question. In your written statement, you discuss a multi-national Heavy Airlift 

Wing to be established at Papa Air Base, Hungary by the U.S. and twelve other 

countries. Are there any facility requirements for this unit, and will they be borne 

by the U.S., NSIP, or some other cost-sharing arrangement? 

Answer. Operational facility requirements have been identified for supporting the 

Heavy Airlift Wing and in 2009 these costs will be approximately $12.5M. Costs are 

shared among the twelve nations in accordance with the cost-sharing arrangements 

contained in the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) C–17 Program Memorandum of 

Understanding. The U.S. pays 33%, or an approximate $4.2M share. There is an active effort on behalf of host nation Hungary, with support from the U.S., to secure 

NSIP to cover a portion of the facility requirements. 

NSIP eligibility for a given infrastructure requirement is based upon the minimum military requirement, or that infrastructure which is essential to a NATO 

Commander’s ability to fulfill his or her military roles and responsibilities. Infrastructure required to fulfill that minimum requirement is eligible for NSIP funding. 

Infrastructure above and beyond that capability is to be funded by national assets, 

or in this case the SAC C–17 Consortium. 

NATO SECURITY INVESTMENT PROGRAM

Question. In recent years, an increasing portion of NATO Security Investment 

Program funds have gone to support the ‘‘out of area’’ mission in Afghanistan. As 

both commander of EUCOM and Supreme Allied Commander, do you believe that 

the current NSIP program is well balanced between the ISAF mission and needs 

within Europe? 

Answer. The current NSIP program is reasonably balanced according to partner 

nation priorities with respect to current operations in Afghanistan and NATO needs 

within Europe. While the amount of the NSIP available for investment within Europe has reduced with the increased need for financing common-use requirements 

in Afghanistan, this shift has not resulted in undue negative consequences for the 

Alliance. 

Question. How will France’s rejoining of NATO as a full member of the alliance 

affect the cost-sharing distribution within NSIP? 

Answer. France will assume a 12.4% share of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Security Investment Program’s annual Ö640.5 million annual program. Previously, France participated in approximately 60% of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Security Investment Program funded expenditures to include, among others, capital investments for ongoing military operations (Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc), 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Response Force, and the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization Air Command and Control System. France will now participate 

in the remaining 40% of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Security Investment Program funded activities such as the infrastructure for the military headquarters and airfield and port improvements. The French re-integration, along with 

the accession of Albania and Croatia will reduce the U.S. North Atlantic Treaty Organization Security Investment Program cost share from 23.2% to 21.7%. This cost 

share will be phased in over several years as, under normal North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization procedures, France, Albania, and Croatia will participate in the funding of newly programmed projects but not previously programmed ones. 


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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009. 

MEDICAL TRANSITION: DEFENSE TO VETERANS 

AFFAIRS 

WITNESSES 

MICHAEL J. KUSSMAN, M.D., UNDER SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

S. WARD CASSCELLS, M.D., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. FARR [presiding]. This meeting will come to order. 

Chairman Chet Edwards is at the Budget Committee, and has 

asked me, as vice chair, to chair this afternoon’s hearing. 

As you know, this hearing is on the Department of Defense and 

the Department of Veterans Affairs medical transition. The purpose of this hearing is to review the progress that these departments have made in ensuring a seamless transition for our veterans and to identify and to discuss what still needs to be done. 

Witnesses from GAO and the VA inspector general, at one of our 

earlier hearings, the review of the VA challenges, acknowledged 

that the departments have moved forward in their development of 

electronic medical interoperability, but they also indicated that the 

process would be improved by identifying results-oriented performance goals. 

This is only one example of the many issues that must be addressed if we are to ensure that no veteran falls through the cracks 

and is left to navigate that system alone. And I know a lot of members have been asking those questions all year. 

Our witnesses for this hearing will be Dr. Michael Kussman, who 

is the Under Secretary of Health for the Department of Veterans 

Affairs, and Dr. Ward Casscells, the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Health Affairs. 

As the senior physicians and essentially the CEOs of the veterans health systems and military health systems, they are responsible for not only ensuring that their systems meet the medical 

needs of their patients, but that patients can move between these 

systems in order to provide those who have served this nation with 

the very best in care. 

I would like to welcome both of our witnesses to this hearing and 

look forward to your testimony and discussion. 

Before we hear from Dr. Kussman, I would like to recognize my 

colleague from Tennessee, Mr. Wamp, for any opening remarks he 

might have. 


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STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Kussman and Dr. Casscells, you are at the forefront of a very 

important issue; that is, the improving status of our VA health care 

delivery system at a critical time in history, where our veterans 

have problems that we haven’t encountered in other wars, and, certainly, the asymmetrical nature of this war and constant rotation 

of our veterans. 

They come back with afflictions, and we are very keen on this, 

but, also, the overall bureaucracy of the VA is a beast that has to 

be tamed. 

I know we are on the road to recovery. And I appreciate Dr. 

Kussman from last year and Dr. Casscells coming this year, and 

the new secretary calling me and reiterating his commitment to 

trying to improve the efficiencies at the VA, because it is an absolutely essential agency. 

But the bureaucracy is still, in my opinion, an impediment to the 

delivery system being as efficient and as effective as it can be. 

So I look forward to your testimony today and a lot of give-andtake, and then, frankly, the follow-up through the year as we write 

the bill so that, by statute, we can assist you in any and every way 

to deliver the health care as effectively as possible. 

And I am grateful that you are both physicians and that you are 

on the job and you are prepared to address this need. I think that 

is very, very helpful, based on your knowledge. 

And Dr. Kussman and I developed a good relationship last year 

and I feel like we are going in the right direction, but we have still 

got a ways to go. 

So I look forward to your testimony this afternoon. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Kussman was confirmed as the Under Secretary for Health, 

Veterans’ Health Administration, in May 2007. He served as brigadier general and retired after 28 years of active duty service in the 

United States Army, culminating in his assignment as the commander of Europe Regional Medical Command. 

He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Boston 

University. He became the Army Surgeon General’s chief consultant in internal medicine and serves on the faculty of the Uniformed 

Services University of Health Sciences. 

For the record, we will, without objection, accept your written 

statement and if you would just like to give us some brief opening 

remarks, we would really appreciate that. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. KUSSMAN

Dr. KUSSMAN. Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Vice Chairman and 

members of the subcommittee. 

It is a pleasure for me to sit here with my friend, Trip Casscells, 

before you today to discuss VA’s work with the Department of Defense to support medical transitions for injured or ill veterans and 

service members. 

VA’s mission is to care for those who have borne the battle. As 

medical technology has advanced, more and more of our brave heVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00488 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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roes survive what would have been fatal wounds in previous conflicts. 

But survival is only the immediate goal. Our job is to restore veterans to the greatest level of health, independence and quality of 

life that is medically possible. 

We are achieving this goal through close collaboration with DOD 

to facilitate a smooth medical transition and continuum that ensures veterans and service members receive the full continuum of 

care. 

And just as an aside, I was probably responsible for using the 

term ‘‘seamless transition,’’ but I really believe that this is not necessarily a transition. 

That has a connotation of a handoff from DOD to the VA, but 

we have gotten together so closely, this is a continuum. 

There are a lot of active duty people who are in the VA. There 

are veterans who are in DOD and it really is an issue related to 

the continuum of the life cycle of the soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and veteran. 

We recognize from some of our patients this transition is not a 

one-way road, as mentioned. Many of our facilities, particularly our 

polytrauma rehabilitation centers, treat active duty service members who maintain their status with DOD, while other facilities 

treat members of the Reserves or the National Guard between periods of activation. 

Regardless of the desired outcome for each individual patient, 

communication is the critical link in this transition process, communication with our patients, with their families, and among clinicians. 

Effective communication encompasses tailoring rehabilitation 

plans to meet the needs and expectations of our patients and their 

families. Dialogue between clinicians, whether in different disciplines or different departments, brings together capable medical 

minds to ensure all patients receive high quality care that they deserve. 

My written statement focuses on four areas of cooperation and 

coordination between DOD and the VA regarding medical transition for veterans and service members. Those are mental health, 

traumatic brain injury, the electronic health record, and outreach. 

In each of these areas, VA and DOD have established processes 

to improve care coordination, quality, no matter which department 

is providing services. 

Our facilities are active parts of their communities and participate in so many initiatives that seldom receive the praise they deserve. 

I would like to use the few minutes I have now to provide some 

examples of recent initiatives where VA outreach and programs 

have improved the lives of veterans, service members, and their 

families. 

Near the beginning of the month, in Chicago, one of our facilities 

held a welcome home event for more than 100 OEF/OIF veterans. 

VA staff in southern Oregon recently attended two pre-mobilization events to establish contacts with Oregon National Guardsmen 

and their families, in anticipation of their deployment to Iraq. 


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Through these meetings, VA staff educates service members before they deploy about the health care that they will earn in service 

to their country. 

One major initiative that facilitates a service member’s transition 

to veteran status is the yellow ribbon reintegration program, which 

engages service members and their families in the pre, during and 

post-deployment phases. 

VA has a full-time liaison person with this office. This program 

is currently active in 54 states and territories and almost 20,000 

service members have participated so far. 

In Wilmington, North Carolina, just last week, VA staff participated in a yellow ribbon event held for the Marine Corps returnees, 

in which we assisted approximately 50 Marines and their family 

members with VA health care registration. 

At another event in Kansas, members of the Army National 

Guard participated in a similar event. 

Mr. Chairman, these are just a few examples of the countless 

events and measures taken every day by both VA and DOD staff 

to assist veterans and service members in need. 

Thank you again for this opportunity to speak about VA’s role in 

collaborating with DOD to support the continuum of care for injured or ill veterans and service members. 

I am prepared to answer any of your questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Michael J. Kussman follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Our next witness is Dr. Casscells. He was sworn in as Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs on April 16, 2007. 

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Casscells served as John Edward 

Tyson distinguished professor of medicine and cardiology at the 

University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas. 

Dr. Casscells has a bachelor of science from Yale University and 

graduated from Harvard Medical School. 

STATEMENT OF S. WARD CASSCELLS

Dr. CASSCELLS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I will be very brief and just mention the things that we have 

learned from the VA over the past 2 years. 

I, first, want to recognize Mike Kussman’s gracious tutelage in 

so many of these things, because, as he mentioned, he has got a 

long military career, much longer than mine, and he was on the job 

there as acting, and been of great help to me. 

His mobile is on my speed dial. It gives you an idea how often 

we talk. 

First, the disability evaluation system, we are struggling with 

that. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were frustrated 

with it and we have basically yielded that to the VA, single exam. 

VA decides how much people are going to be paid, the 

servicemembers. 

I am very happy with that. Disability evaluations, the time is cut 

in half, and that pilot has been very successful. We expect to roll 

out with that next year. It is now in a secondary pilot in 17 centers. 

Related to that is vocational rehab. It is particularly important 

now because some 15 percent of returning warriors are unemployed. 

As an Army Reservist myself, who will soon be entering the job 

market in about a month, I can tell you that it doesn’t help us that 

the world seems to think now that so many of our returning troops 

are not quite right, that they have got anger problems. 

The fact is most of them come back stronger, better, wiser, 

kinder, gentler, knowing their strengths and knowing their limitations, and with better strengths than they went in. 

And if there is one message I would convey to you, it is that we, 

particularly the VA, could use some help, I think, in the vocational 

rehab area, because so many of our guys and gals deserve jobs and 

a job is the best treatment. 

It is the best therapy and it is the best way to preserve your sanity and your marriage and everything. 

Let me mention, also, in the area of PTSD, post-traumatic stress 

disorder, most of what we know we learned from the VA and we 

want to recognize that. 

Now, as we have the defense centers of excellence, psychological 

health and traumatic brain injury, we have shared leadership. 

DOD and VA co-lead it. 

The same is true for electronic health records. We in the military 

have struggled with that. VA has had a more popular electronic 

health record. We have learned from that. We have adopted the 

graphical user interface on that and together, we have got a unified 


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strategy now, governed by an interagency program office, and I 

think we are both going to be upgrading our electronic health 

records. 

I do believe we will be leading the country in that area. We are 

recovering from our stumbles in that area. 

The fourth area, sir, is research. We have adopted the VA model 

of having our research grants go out in a competitive way. 

The affiliations with the universities that the VA pioneered have 

been an important lesson for us and we are doing more and more 

of that. 

Lastly, in the area of facilities, VA has upgraded their facilities. 

They are among the finest hospitals in the country, many of them. 

My hometown of Houston, the Michael DeBakey VA, is as good 

as any hospital in the world, and now, DOD, we are trying to do 

likewise. 

I will close by saying that yesterday, Secretary Shinseki and Secretary Gates met with the senior leadership on a number of issues, 

particularly the electronic health records, and Dr. Gates left us 

with these orders, which I will share with you. 

He said, ‘‘Surface all the disagreements. Don’t drag them out. 

Don’t paper over them.’’ And in a Texas colloquialism, he said, ‘‘No 

wrestling under the blanket.’’ 

I think we understood what he meant by that—get it on the 

table, resolve it, and I think we are on the right road that way. 

I am subject to your questions, sir. 

[The prepared statement of S. Ward Casscells follows:] 


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DOD/VA MEDICAL FACILITIES

Mr. FARR. Well, thank you very much. 

I will just lead off with a couple of questions and then we will 

go around the room. 

You have several medical facilities that are considered joint ventures together. I am very interested in pursuing that in my own 

district. 

I wonder how many of these there are and whether this is sort 

of the way you are going to move together in the future. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, we have got 11 under development and more 

being studied. The big one has been in the Great Lakes area north 

of Chicago, where we have a big Navy facility and a lot of vets, and 

that has been a multiyear effort. 

Currently, now, the plan is that VA will own the asset. Some 

pending legislation will, I think, allow the Secretary of the Navy 

to transfer those facilities to the VA. 

And some other legislation is pending, as I understand it, to declare that facility a DOD hospital. So even though it is a VA asset, 

it can treat active duty service members. 

This is called the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care 

Center, after the astronaut, former Navy flyer. 

Mr. FARR. So the facility can be accessed by qualified VA. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Right. 

Mr. FARR. And by retirees. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Military retirees, and by active duty. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. The VA, of course, is currently a 

TRICARE network partner, but this particular hospital needs legislation to allow the active duty service members to go there directly 

without using the TRICARE network. 

Mr. FARR. Because in these joint facilities, you have different 

billing. The active duty you bill through the military. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. And then if they are retirees, they are through 

TRICARE billing. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. And if they are VA—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I am sorry to interrupt sir, but it depends, because 

if you are a retiree like myself, I can go to the north Chicago facility as a veteran, not as a TRICARE person. 

But the regular veteran, who is not a retiree—— 

Mr. FARR. Then they see your income is higher, then you would 

have to—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I am classified—for 28 years, I have been evaluated. I won’t get into all the gory details, but that—— 

Mr. FARR. You have a service-related disability. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. That is what VA says. 

Mr. FARR. It is very interesting to hear this. I am keenly interested in this jointness and then when you get into how it is managed and paid for, it isn’t as joint. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Well, there have been some challenges, I think, as 

Dr. Casscells was mentioning. This is a unique—it is not a sharing 

effort. It is a true joint effort. 


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And we have been challenged occasionally by the policies that 

exist. For instance, funding the facility, we—and I know that the 

Appropriations Committee, your committee, is keenly aware that 

we have Title 38 money, we have Title 10 money, and how do you 

get that money mixed together. 

Early on, I think some of us thought that, ‘‘Gee, it would be nice 

to have a Title 28 and do that,’’ but that wasn’t legal. So we have 

been looking at getting maybe some legislation that would allow an 

innovative way of putting the money in and then using it. 

One of the proposals that has been enjoined in the Senate is that 

we both put money in every year to do that, but that is no year 

money and that leads to some issues, as well. 

So I think that is one of the things that we are looking at is trying to develop a way of funding it in a different way. 

Mr. FARR. Does this create problems in trying to get an electronic 

record that is interoperable? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. No. I don’t think that the challenge—— 

Mr. FARR. In terms of the record information used for billing. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. No. I think there are challenges for us not only in 

Chicago, but to work the two systems to make sure that they are 

close and user-friendly. 

Dr. Casscells and I testified, I think, in front of the SFAC last 

October and we brought in, as a demonstration, Ross Fletcher, who 

is the chief of staff at the Washington VA, and had a live demonstration of how we can actually download a great deal of medical 

information and medical interoperability from DOD to the VA to 

help the providers. 

But we still have a ways to go on this. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. My time is up. 

Mr. Wamp. 

MENTAL HEALTH

Mr. WAMP. Well, let me say, I have one question for each of the 

two of you. I appreciate what Dr. Casscells said, and I have seen 

that. 

I have got a nephew who is redeploying this week to Iraq for the 

second time, another nephew who is active duty. The first one is 

Guard, the second one is active Marine, deploying this week from 

California. And they both are the better for it. 

But when we are talking about the suicide rate, which was kind 

of the first point we started on with this year’s hearings, kind of 

the canary in the mine, obviously, the incredible operational tempo 

that these troops are on and their families and the family pressures that this places on the families. 

It is not roadside bombs—as much as it is just the stress on the 

families. So while I know that they are the better for their service, 

the mental health capabilities here have got to be looked at, because of the stress on the families. So many marriages are breaking up, and they are so stressed out. 

So I do think it is important, too, that VA learn from DOD and 

DOD learn from VA, and I think that is real helpful, because I see 

strengths and weaknesses that, clearly, like a good marriage—you 

can help each other, almost cover each other’s weak spots, the VA 

still needs some of that military reform, in my opinion, instead of 


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a government agency bureaucracy and, things like medical records, 

which the VA actually leads the entire health care system on, DOD 

can certainly learn from those models, as well. 

So that is just a little commentary. 

But I still am a little confused, Dr. Kussman, as to how all of 

this screening works and who gets screened for what. Can you kind 

of break through—I think there are 272,000 OIF and OEF veterans. 

Does everybody get screened for PTSD and TBI? Is it a comprehensive thing that everybody is included? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Everybody that comes to us, whether they are 

OIF/OEF or anybody else, get screened for TBI, PTSD, military 

sexual trauma, and substance abuse. 

That is done on a yearly basis, because we have been doing that 

for a long time. The TBI is relatively new, but the PTSD, military 

sexual trauma and substance abuse has been going on for years. 

That is part of our core assessment of patients. It is done with 

the electronic health record. A drop-down menu comes and forces 

the provider to ask those questions and if they are positive, the 

person gets referred as appropriate for the evaluation. 

Mr. WAMP. Which is about a 35 or 40 percent referral of those 

that are assessed and then of those referrals, most of them go to 

VA medical centers and then a smaller number goes to the vet centers. 

But where do the rest of them go? Does everyone get referred 

somewhere? It looks like 21,000 fall in the category of not being referred to a VA medical center or a clinic. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I would have to go back and look at the specific 

numbers. You are talking about TBI? 

Mr. WAMP. Just the referrals from 250,000 post-deployment 

health assessments. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I believe that was in the—but regardless of what 

the screening is for, if it is PTSD, for instance, we have two ways 

that we can provide services for PTSD, depending on the patient’s 

choice. 

They can go to a vet center or they can use the more traditional 

mainstream mental health services. 

That depends on how many people are positive and whether they 

want help. We can’t force people to go get assistance if they don’t 

want to. 

DISABILITY EVALUATION SYSTEM PILOT PROGRAM

Mr. WAMP. Dr. Casscells, when you were talking about the DES, 

you mentioned it, but not in real specific detail, and I think the 

number is a 62 percent reduction in the amount of time that you 

are able to cut out under this pilot program. 

I think the number was 329 days that a veteran had to wait outside of the pilot program for them to be completely processed and, 

under this, you are able to reduce that time by 62 percent. 

Where do we go from here in terms of the pilot program and are 

the other veterans having to wait that long still outside of these 

pilot programs? 


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Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, the veterans who are severely injured are on 

a separate fast track. They are getting their paycheck within 100 

days or so. 

But the veterans who are not severely injured are either in this 

pilot, which has now been extended to 17 centers, or they are in 

the traditional MEB, PEB, two exams, two paychecks system which 

has caused so much confusion, so much delay, and so much resentment. 

The pilot is almost certainly going to be ratified or whatever you 

call it, substantiated by the 17 new centers. 

Mr. WAMP. And they are all up and running, all 17, or you are 

working on setting them up? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. I think they are all up and running and it looks 

like the rollout will be about a year from now, that all the people 

leaving service for medical reasons will go through this system, and 

it has been very popular. 

You can imagine, they get their check faster, it is a bigger check. 

They still have the safety—they still have the appeals processes in 

there for fairness. 

Mr. WAMP. What about hiring on setting all these up and filling 

the staff positions? I understand that not all of them were filled, 

at least by the end of last fiscal year, and I just wonder what the 

status is now on filling all the positions. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, it is taking a while to train people in the VA 

way of doing things, but I think we are fully staffed on that. Let 

me take that for the record and get back to you. 

[The information follows:] 

Our focus with the Disability Evaluation System (DES) Pilot has been to ensure 

we have the necessary tools in place to take care of the Service member and their 

family. Besides equipment and facilities, the Military Departments and Department 

of Veterans Affairs identified, through site assessments, the requirement for additional human resources to meet the needs of our Service members. In the case of 

the Military Departments, they have either hired additional staff or reassigned personnel to meet the needs of our Service members at the 15 DES Pilot locations. The 

Military Departments report that they are on track with regards to the other five 

expansion locations. Similarly, the Veterans Affairs has identified their requirements for each Pilot location. The VA is preparing a separate response that will be 

forwarded in the near future. 

Mr. FARR. We will have a second round. 

The order of recognition, by order of people showing up, is Mr. 

Young, Mr. Bishop, Mr. Crenshaw, Mr. Israel and Mr. Carter. 

Next is Mr. Young. 

DOD/VA DATA SHARING

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Dr. Casscells, Dr. Kussman, welcome to the subcommittee. 

I am curious about where we are on arranging for medical 

records to be available for the VA from, for example, Bethesda or 

Walter Reed and vice versa. 

I know we have had a couple of pilot programs where they could 

be transferred electronically. I am also very personally aware of 

some difficult situations that developed because medical records 

were not available or were not accurate. 


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Are we working on this? Are we trying to get a handle on this 

transfer of records and making these records available to VA and 

military? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Sir, we have been directed and committed to interoperability by September of 2009. 

I wouldn’t sit here and say that we are going to have total interoperability by then, because there are issues technically and otherwise. 

But as I mentioned in our testimony, and we would be happy to 

give a demonstration, that we have pretty much interoperability for 

medical delivery that is available throughout the VA system of 

records at Bethesda and wherever else that they are, and they can 

be downloaded. 

Right now, they are not computable in the sense that we can’t 

add to the DOD record, but we can download the record to see 

what was going on all the way far back as Landstuhl, to the Walter 

Reeds and Bethesdas, on down the line. 

Mr. YOUNG. Doctor, can the hospital at Bethesda reverse that 

and get information from the VA system by downloading, also? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. They go two ways. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I believe that that is—quite frankly, sir, one of the 

challenges is making sure our people know how to do it, that the 

technical capability exists for the information to flow back and 

forth. 

The bidirectional health program has the lab, the diagnoses, and 

all those things are available to go back and forth. Sometimes our 

challenge is to make sure that every physician and nurse knows 

how to do that. 

MEDICAL BRAC IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

Mr. YOUNG. Dr. Casscells, I think this question would probably 

be for the Defense Department, and it has to do with BRAC and 

it has to do with BRAC’s recommendation, with the president’s approval and the Congress’ approval, to merge Walter Reed Hospital 

with the Navy Hospital at Bethesda. 

Knowing many of the doctors personally, working with them as 

they treat their patients, I can tell you that quite a few of the doctors are not really happy or they are frustrated about the way this 

merger is actually working out. 

Some have already left the service. Others are threatening to 

leave the service. 

Are we getting to the point that maybe the frustrations are going 

to be behind us, maybe the merger will be at the point where doctors can function like they should rather than having to worry 

about who is in charge of what, if anybody? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Mr. Young, thanks, that is a very legitimate concern. 

Doctors cite three basic reasons for talking about leaving early. 

One is that they don’t like the electronic health records—this is 

from DOD—it is clunky. Now, most of them will grudgingly admit 

it seems to be improving. 

The second reason is that, for Walter Reed doctors, they are concerned that they may be—they are not sure if they are going to go 

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cause that is a very long commute if you get sent to the one you 

don’t want. 

And then there is only going to be one radiology chairman, only 

one emergency department chief, and so forth. So as those announcements are made, there is a little bit of sour grapes involved. 

But the other big reason, sir, people leave is because they don’t 

have enough patients. So they want to go out and practice orthopedic surgery or neurosurgery or something. 

If they are not doing enough neurosurgery or pediatric surgery, 

whatever, they are not going to be able to work in the private sector when they retire. 

So one of the great things about the BRAC decision and the Congress’ ratification of it is that it will create, in Bethesda, a center 

where there are enough patients, enough volume, that people can 

actually maintain expertise. 

So I think when we get through these growing pains, we will 

have there a center which will be one where everyone wants to go 

in military medicine. It is going to be joint. It is going to have high 

volume. It is going to have the best teachers. It is right next door 

to NIH. 

Of course, you know it well, you spend a lot of time up there, and 

it is next to the Uniformed Services University. 

So location is a big part of it. Volume is a big part of it. And I 

think we are going to get this passed. I think we will meet the 

BRAC deadlines. 

I toured Belvoir today with Admiral Mateczun and General 

Schoomaker. We will make that BRAC deadline. Belvoir is going to 

be, also, a wonderful community hospital. It has very patient-empowering, hospitable features. 

I am not saying it well, but the kinds of modern amenities that 

patients expect, without which they will go to Fairfax INOVA or 

Suburban Hospital or Sibley. 

So we have got to compete with the private sector and what you 

all have done with BRAC is the right thing. We are going to get 

it done. 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, I want to say hooray for the fact that they 

don’t have enough work to do right now. That means the kids 

aren’t getting hurt in as large numbers as they were. 

But I can tell you that for a long time, both hospitals were 

crowded. I have been to Bethesda many times when patients were 

in the hallways because there were no rooms left and they were 

overworked. 

So when we go by to visit with wounded Marines at Bethesda, 

for example, and we hear there are only three or four there, our 

heart flutters because we are happy that they are just not getting 

hurt. 

Now, as Afghanistan begins to become the primary consideration 

militarily, I am afraid it is going to start happening again, because 

what we are seeing in Afghanistan—we just had some pretty interesting briefings. It is not a pretty picture for our military. 

But anyway, my concern is—and as far as the long commute, I 

can tell you, I know about that, because we live 10 miles south of 

Fort Belvoir. During the heavy days of the casualties coming in, my 

wife was at the hospitals, at Walter Reed and Bethesda, every day 


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to help with soldiers and their families, to do things for them that 

the government doesn’t do. 

So I know about that long commute and I asked, if I keep track 

of the mileage, maybe I can deduct it from my income tax, but she 

never would do that. 

Well, I understand that you have a large job and a large responsibility, both of you and both or your systems, and I think you will 

find that this subcommittee wants to provide whatever we can provide, and what we do is appropriate money, to provide what you 

need to do the job for these soldiers that are giving so much to the 

country and their families. 

And so thank you for listening to my concerns. Thank you for 

being here, and God bless you for the good work that your systems 

do. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Young. Thank you for all your personal experience with these hospitals and attending and going out 

there and seeing the soldiers, airmen and Marines. 

Mr. Bishop. 

JOINT DOD/VA FACILITIES

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, gentlemen. Dr. Casscells and Dr. Kussman, let me 

thank both of you for your distinguished careers. 

And let me go back to a subject that Mr. Farr, I think, raised 

a little earlier: the issue of joint facilities between DOD and VA. 

Could you walk me through what will be necessary? For example, last year, the committee passed legislation that authorized the 

building of the Martin Army Community Hospital at Fort Benning, 

and there is a great deal of interest in having that facility serve 

as a joint DOD/VA facility. 

It is now, I think, moving forward with the construction. But at 

some point, if we were to be able to start moving toward jointness, 

what would be necessary for us to prepare? What kind of reports 

would we need? What kinds of assessments or appropriations, if 

any, would be necessary to make any planning adjustments in the 

architecture to accommodate our veterans population, in addition 

to the DOD military and, of course, dependent family needs? 

Is that something that you think is a holistic approach to the 

warrior and the wounded warrior? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Sir, as you know, I was a former commander of 

the Martin Army Community Hospital. So I have got a lot of interest in what happens at Fort Benning. 

We are dialoging very aggressively right now with the Army, 

looking at what partnering can take place at Fort Benning. 

One of the things, though, that, from my experience, and I 

haven’t been personally involved in the negotiations, but Fort 

Benning is a huge post and although it is in Columbus, Georgia, 

it is a long way from downtown. 

So our intent is to try to have a veterans’ clinic collocated with 

the hospital, but it is not so easy to get to. We have a clinic downtown, as you know, in Columbus, community-based outpatient clinic. And where would be the best access for veterans who—it is a 


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long ride and trying to get through the gates and all those other 

things can potentially be—— 

Mr. BISHOP. I can assure you that the city would make whatever 

necessary accommodations for transportation. The security access 

would be the only challenge. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. But it is not as big a challenge as some other 

places, because 185 goes—I think it is 185 that goes right onto the 

base. There is no gate there, because you are going 60 miles an 

hour. It would be kind of hard—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Well, there is a gate now. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Oh, there is? 

Mr. BISHOP. Yes, sir. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. That shows how much I know what is going on. 

But the fact is, sir, that I think the issue of partnering and sharing 

is an ongoing discussion. I think we are all committed to maximizing the efforts all over to what we can do and, obviously, if 

Martin Army Community Hospital, just say, the new one, was 

going to be involved with potentially admitting veterans rather 

than just the traditional things, it would have to be looked at from 

a business case plan B, adapted to the sizing, because it would 

have to be much larger than it would be for taking care of—I don’t 

want to say just—family members and retirees and active duty 

people. 

So there is dialogue going on about that. 

Mr. BISHOP. I asked that question to try to determine whether 

we need to try to put some funds in to deal with that kind of planning issue or whether you have a line item that is sufficient to deal 

with those planning concerns. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I would have to get back to you for the record to 

see what has been taking place. I don’t really know what the 

Army’s thoughts were about that, so it would be a little hard for 

me to say what they would be interested in doing. 

Mr. BISHOP. I thought I would ask that since we have the counterpart at the table. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sorry, Mr. Bishop. Which part of that question 

was mine? 

Mr. BISHOP. The possibility of the cooperation between the two. 

My follow-up question was going to ask who would pay for the 

planning for the jointness, if it were to be deemed feasible—VA, 

DOD or the Army? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Well, certainly, if it was in BRAC, we, the defense health program, would pay for it. 

New Army construction is typically paid for by the line, the big 

Army, but we have on occasion helped them out with that. 

Mr. BISHOP. The Army part is already appropriated. It is a done 

deal as far as the military part goes. 

What we are talking about is a conversion to jointness so that 

by the time the hospital is completed, or shortly thereafter, it could 

serve as a joint VA/DOD facility. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. I would think we would share those costs. 

Mr. FARR. We will both pursue that on a second round. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 


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DISABILITY EVALUATION SYSTEM PILOT PROGRAM

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here. 

I want to go back to the DES pilot project that we talked a little 

bit about. One of the things that I read is that GAO had said that 

there were some gaps in both DOD and VA and their ability to 

evaluate how that is going. 

I know you extended the pilot project. We have touched on it and 

it is doing well. 

But what did they say were some of those gaps and do you feel 

like you have got the mechanisms in place to really evaluate all the 

good and the bad that that program is doing? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, I think the first pilot was just too small to 

give definitive numbers, the number of people who were satisfied 

with their appeals, for example. Well, there weren’t many appeals. 

Whether the appeals process was adequate, well, you need more 

experience with the program. So I think when these next 17 report 

in, we should have the information that we need to roll it out nationwide. 

I am confident about that. But GAO, they have got a way of coming in and asking questions we haven’t asked. So we are standing 

by for their input on that. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. So mostly it was a smaller number. So it is hard 

right now to decide what is the good and what is the bad, and that 

is why you have expanded to have more—then you will have a 

more comprehensive analysis. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Sir, it is even broader than that. We started it 

here and I think, by all indications, it was quite successful, albeit 

small numbers, but it was easy. 

We have got a lot of resources here and we could do all the 

things we need to do. 

What we are learning, as we move it out to more of the hinterlands, away from the facilities where we have a large VA, with all 

the comprehensive things, of how we make sure that infrastructure 

exists. 

Fort Drum, other places, the medical community there isn’t very 

robust and our nearest VA is 90 miles away. So we are trying to 

learn how to do that and we are aggressively trying to develop 

some networks, say, in Watertown, New York, to be better able to 

provide the subspecialty consultations that are needed. 

We don’t have a problem with the primary evaluation, but if people need an orthopedic part of it or a neurologic part of it, how do 

we get those services to that; and, as we move it out, we are moving now toward the Bennings, the Braggs and the Hoods in the 

next thing. Those are huge numbers. 

So this is a challenge that we are committed to. What we have 

done, by telescoping the days from 500 to 300, I can’t remember exactly the numbers, has really been mostly the fact that when somebody gets their DD–214, when they are finally going to get out, 

there is nothing more for them to do. 

They don’t have to come to the VA. They have already had their 

evaluation and, generally, usually, they will get their check within 

30 days, because that whole thing has been done. 


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So we have stopped that second part of it. I think the challenge 

we have is, together, working on the MEB/PEB process that we all 

know needs to be streamlined and things, and that is the next step 

in trying to expedite the process. But it is clearly much better. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. No question. It is one of the questions that we 

get asked most, why it takes so long, the duplicity. So it is a great 

program. 

You mentioned just the initial physical, for instance. What do 

you do if there is not a VA facility near someone, just that entry 

level physical? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Well, to do the single exam, we will provide, either 

through contract or directly—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Even if it is far away from an existing clinic. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Yes. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I got you. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. The real challenge is not the actual basic exam. 

It is the consults. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. It is all the specialties, I got you. 

Dr. KUSSMAN [continuing]. If you are in a rural area. Killeen, 

Texas isn’t exactly a metropolitan area for services. The Temple VA 

is not too far away, but it is a distance, whereas here in town, it 

was three or four miles. 

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS

Mr. CRENSHAW. I got you. 

Let me ask one question to you, sir, about electronic records, because I know we touched on that, as well, and the VA has been 

a leader. You have been doing this for 20 years and now everybody 

knows it is a good way to save money, ensure patient safety, et 

cetera. 

But in your testimony, I think you said twice that we are on the 

brink of change. So what does that mean? You have worked so 

hard for 20 years to be a leader. You won a Harvard award. 

And you want to leverage that to continue to provide care and, 

also, help other folks as they move toward electronic records. But 

what does it mean we are on the brink of change? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Let me try to clarify that. I think our intent is to 

maximize as much of a common electronic record between DOD 

and the VA. 

DOD is on the cusp of making changes and moving forward and 

improving their electronic record, and we are on the cusp of reengineering and rebasing our, I think, world class record MUMPSbased to JAVA-based and make it Web-based. 

So together, I think that is what has to be—the decision that was 

made yesterday at the joint executive committee was we need to 

maximize common applications and common services. 

So as we move forward and on the precipice of these changes, we 

maximize the integration of those changes so there is less and less 

difference between the two systems. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Can you, A, figure out how much you have saved 

through this 20-year process that you have become very good at, 

and, number two, is this brink of change, is this going to cost some 

more money? 


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But can you quantify those savings? Probably, as other people 

move toward this, it would be a great—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I don’t have that, but I can tell you that it has 

been thought that in the civilian community, for instance, that only 

1.5 percent of practicing people have an integrated electronic 

record. 

If you throw the VA hospitals in there, you make it three percent 

for the whole country. So we have that much of an impact. 

One in seven lab tests and one in seven admissions to hospitals 

are done because somebody can’t find the record or can’t find a test. 

So it is a huge amount of money if you looked at a $1 trillion 

industry. I don’t know exactly what it is. But it does cost a lot of 

money to migrate this system from where we are right now to what 

we believe is the future to make sure that we are integrated where 

the country goes. 

The country will move, as we have with the president’s leadership, toward a Web-based, JAVA-based electronic health record, 

and we want to be part of that. The MUMPS is very good right 

now, but we are limited to where we can move forward. 

No one has done this before. So we are in the process of getting 

the best minds to figure out how to move it and then everything 

new that we have developed with it is done as much as possible 

in conjunction with DOD. 

So we don’t have to have interaction. It is the same. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Got you. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Israel, we have some votes pending. Why don’t we 

take your questions and responses and then we will vote, and hopefully everybody comes right back. 

WARRIOR TRANSITION UNITS

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to ask Dr. Casscells to focus with me on the warrior 

transition units. 

Several weeks ago, a group of personnel from the Fighting 69th 

met in this room with Chairman Edwards and me and shared their 

experiences in the warrior transition unit, particularly at Fort 

Bragg, and what they told us was bone-chilling. 

They talked about an acute shortage of mental health professionals. They talked about being handed bags of medicine, all sorts 

of different medications, and being told to self-administer. 

And when they would say, ‘‘Can I see a psychiatrist,’’ they were 

told there aren’t enough psychiatrists. That problem has since been 

solved with respect to being handed bags of medicine, but it did 

happen to them and they complained about it. 

They talked about being given medication, no psychiatrist, no 

mental health counseling, but then kind of living in isolation. They 

would go to a room at the Airborne Inn, they could go out at night, 

drink, come back, take their medicine, and get no supervision at 

all. 

They talked about the complete disarray in case management, 

not being able to see the same doctor, not being able to see the 

same professional. 


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So my questions to you are: do we have enough war transition 

units? Are they fully staffed? Do we need to stand up more? Are 

the personnel in the warrior transition units trained properly? 

What is the metric for success? 

I know these are a bunch of questions. But who is taking a look 

at how these units are operating and making determinations on 

whether improvements are necessary? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, this went to the highest levels of the Army 

a year ago. General Casey and General Chiarelli asked us for help, 

and General Granger, my deputy for TRICARE, went to Fort 

Bragg, I went to Fort Bragg. We talked to the families there. 

And there is no doubt that as these warrior transition units were 

started, there was a tendency for commanders to put service members in there who just had a minor injury that really could get better in the barracks. And they just were afraid of another Walter 

Reed publicity episode. 

So people were just put in these warrior transition units and 

there weren’t enough staff. So it is hard. Army staffing is a laborious process, with a lot of regulations. So we fell behind in the 

staffing. 

We are about caught up in the staffing. The weak spot is still 

mental health counselors. And many of them are not physicians, 

which is fine. The problem is a lot of those patients are taking 

medications, perhaps too many. 

General Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, and I are looking at how we can do a better job of making sure that if people are 

on an antidepressant or something like that, that it is actually 

working. If not, they need to get off it. You can’t just give people 

antidepressants without counseling. 

So this balance is one that General Schoomaker is working hard 

to achieve. I think we are getting there. 

I heard the same things at Fort Bragg, not enough counselors. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Is it just Fort Bragg? I am sorry for interrupting, but 

my time is going to—— 

Dr. CASSCELLS. No, sir. There are a lot of places where—— 

Mr. ISRAEL. The problem is not isolated to Fort Bragg. Isn’t this 

a systemwide—— 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ISRAEL [continuing]. Problem over the 36 WTUs? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, it is particularly true where you have a big 

Army post and a small nearby town, because the small nearby 

town doesn’t have enough doctors. 

I could help out with TRICARE contracted doctors in the town, 

but if there aren’t enough of them, what we really need is more 

caregivers at the installation, and the installation is in a remote location. It is hard to attract civilian employees to work at that fort. 

So we are looking at a variety of approaches to this. At Fort 

Drum, they have been able to do this pretty well, contracting with 

people down at Watertown. 

In Bethesda, they are now pioneering a new approach to get at 

this other issue you mentioned, sir. People want to see the same 

doctor. They want to have a relationship with someone they trust, 

someone who can tell if they have lost weight or gained weight, if 


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their color is off, eyes are red-rimmed, looked like they had been 

crying. 

Doctors knowing you for some time can pick up on those things. 

So it is a very legitimate point and it is difficult, because so many 

providers are deploying or they are getting caught up in meetings 

about Army transformation or other administrative meetings. 

There are too darn many meetings. 

So what they are doing at Bethesda is a terrific thing at the 

Navy Hospital. It is called Medical Home, where they get a small 

group of doctors and say this is like a partnership, like an obstetrics practice. So on a given day, you may not see your doctor, but 

you are going to see one of the two or three partners that you have 

gotten to know and they are trusted. So it brings it down in size. 

This Medical Home situation, where people can call in and get 

an appointment right away and they may not see Dr. Kussman, 

but they could see Dr. Casscells and Casscells knows Kussman’s 

practice style and, in fact, I might have seen that patient once before, that is a source of solace to those soldiers or sailors. 

We are working on it. 

Mr. ISRAEL. It needs more work and I am anxious to partner 

with you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. We have 5 minutes left in voting and when we come 

back, Mr. Carter will be the first questioner. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. FARR. Well, Mr. Carter isn’t back yet. 

Mr. Wamp, you have another commitment. Do you want to—we 

have another vote right after this. 

Mr. WAMP. Just to keep it moving, though, so that you don’t have 

to wait, this is the chairman being courteous while I ask you a 

question. 

CONTINUUM OF CARE

Dr. Kussman, in your testimony, you make reference to at least 

11 commissions, plans, committees, programs or work groups, including the senior oversight committee, joint executive council, 

health executive council, federal recovery coordination program, 

yellow ribbon reintegration program, wounded and injured oversight committee, polytrauma liaison officer, deployment health 

working group, patient safety work group, medical records work 

group, joint strategic planning. 

We talk about the bureaucracy and I do commend you for whittling away and trying to coordinate and being efficient, but how do 

you coordinate all the different groups, agencies, task forces, to 

make sure that our health care is delivered in the most efficient 

and less bureaucratic way? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Sir, thank you for that question, because that is 

the goal. 

We should be helping the service member and his or her family 

and soon to be veteran in that process of moving along that continuum and not creating more aggravation for them, particularly 

when they are sick. Our job is to make that smooth and easy. 

We have developed over the years a great deal of infrastructure, 

and you mentioned some of the things. We could start with the fedVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00540 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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eral recovery coordinators. That was an entity that grew out of the 

Dole-Shalala group to assure that particularly seriously injured 

people had somebody that they could go to who would be coordinating their movement, not just from DOD to the VA or back, but 

in the civilian community, as well, because there are people tapping into a multiplicity of services and sometimes they do fall 

through the cracks, because we don’t have visibility all the time of 

what happened, particularly in the civilian world. 

So the federal recovery coordinator, for lack of a better description, has been the air traffic control person. They are not actually 

providing the care, but they are assuring that the families and the 

service member have someplace to go to get questions answered 

and then are leveraging the large number of people, both in DOD 

and the VA. 

We have VA people in 17 military facilities. We have military 

people in VA facilities. We have care coordinators. We have OIF/ 

OEF coordinators, transition coordinators. 

All these people are meant to assist people as they move along 

the continuum from the Walter Reeds and Bethesdas to our 

polytrauma centers and onward or people who don’t need a 

polytrauma center, but need assistance as they move from Bethesda to wherever they are going to live. 

In the beginning, we weren’t too good at that, but I believe now 

that I hear very few complaints anymore about whether we have 

been able to assist or not. 

Paul Hunter, who is here, is my coordinator related to all DOD/ 

VA actions and the continuum of care for particularly OIF/OEF, 

but for everybody, and we believe we put the infrastructure, that 

it is done on a case-by-case basis. 

Mr. WAMP. I know the purpose of this hearing is the interoperability in the DOD/VA partnership, but while I have got you here, 

Dr. Kussman, last year, I think you sat in on a meeting that we 

had on collections from third-party payments and all. 

How is that going? Are we making progress on collecting money 

that is owed to VA that we are not leaving on the table? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I am amazed that every year we get better. I get 

scared sometimes that one of these years, we are going to project 

how much we are going to get and then we will run into the wall, 

because it is part of our overall budget considerations. 

We have shown significant increases every year and we continue 

to do that. 

As you know, we had a pilot on a CPAC, a combined center in 

VISN–6, in Asheville. It was expanded. It has been very successful 

and, with the secretary’s guidance, we are going to move up that 

schedule from 2013 to 2011 to have six more around the country 

that have shown up to 18 percent increase in third-party collections 

for non-service-connected. 

Mr. WAMP. You said in Asheville, not in Nashville. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Asheville. 

Mr. WAMP. I am just making sure we are staying together there. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. North Carolina. 

Mr. WAMP. To most members of Congress, the VA is not all of 

what we talk about here. To them, it is a CBOC or a super CBOC 


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or maybe they are fortunate enough to have a hospital in their district or close to their district. 

So do you believe, in the wake of CARES and all the reforms and 

everything else, that we are delivering health care as smart and efficiently as possible? 

We are seeing more CBOCs and more super CBOCs being built 

and we are seeing more care contracted, but not privatized, but 

just where it is necessary to contract it, increase the contracting so 

that veterans have more options and access immediately to the 

care that they need, and these seem to be trends that almost fill 

the gaps between some sweeping reforms where you would actually 

close hospitals. 

I had hoped, when CARES came along, being from the south, 

where people are moving and we have lakes and retirees and low 

cost of living, we get a lot of veterans, but we don’t get the new 

infrastructure. We don’t get the facilities to compensate for it. 

And I had hoped that CARES might realign a bunch of that, 

where all of a sudden you would see the hospitals built where the 

veterans are moving. But what we are seeing is the current facilities expanded. So instead of a CBOC, you get a super CBOC. 

And that is good, we are grateful, but we still have gaps. But I 

am seeing that the super CBOC kind of fills the gaps. We serve a 

tremendous number of veterans down in the Chattanooga area, but 

you have got to drive 2 hours to get inpatient care. 

Yet, contracting can fill some of those gaps, because then they 

can see the local provider that they might have to traditionally go 

to Murfreesboro to see, and that is 2 hours away. 

So is that a trend you think is filling some of the gaps in the delivery system? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Yes, sir. CARES was a process. We could, arguably, say it didn’t succeed. 

Mr. WAMP. That is what I would say. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I don’t want to get into that whole thing. So we 

have been looking at a way of changing our approach from facility 

centric to veteran centric; that the veterans live wherever they do 

and our job is to provide services in the maximum way possible as 

close to where they live. 

So the way we have done that, partly, is primary care with the 

CBOCs that are up in the—almost 900 all together and we have 

a continuum of care from highly rural areas that use telemedicine 

and outreach clinics and multiple vans to the traditional CBOC, 

which is mostly primary care, so mental health and those things, 

to large independent CBOCs, to what we have now described as 

health care clinics, HCCs, that are large, robust, ambulatory care, 

same-day surgery centers that provide 90 to 95 percent of why people go to a hospital. 

Any hospital you talk about in this country, when you look at 

why people pull up to the door, 90 to 95 percent of the people coming are doing some kind of ambulatory care thing. They might even 

have their hernia repaired or their appendix taken out or a 

colonoscopy, but they don’t stay over. They leave. 

Relatively small numbers of people actually get admitted to the 

hospital. So we are trying to push the services out and not be hospital centric, but veteran centric, to do that. 


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Building hospitals is an exorbitant cost these days, as you know, anywhere from 500 to $1 billion for small hospitals. And we, effectively, with 153 hospitals on the edge of 57 years old, there is no 

way we are going to be able to replace these facilities and you can 

only retrofit facilities to a certain point. 

So the question then is how can we maximize the services close 

to where—like in Chattanooga, so they don’t have to drive 90 percent of the time to Murfreesboro, and then partner for acute hospitalization with the local community, but still retaining the right 

for complex surgery, neurosurgery, thoracic surgery, to move these 

into our system, because if we don’t do that, we won’t be able to 

sustain ourselves in the complex care. 

Mr. WAMP. If I can have another minute. 

My wife, 3 years ago, went full-blown severe septemia/ARDS in 

hospital. So trust me, I would hope people can stay out of hospitals, 

because sometimes that is—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. They are dangerous places to go. 

Mr. WAMP. They are dangerous places and we actually have had 

a problem in Murfreesboro with colonoscopies, where you are inpatient and there is release, it is easy. 

TELEMEDICINE

I was going to ask one other question, though, because I noticed 

where Chairman Mullen went to Fort Campbell last month and 

talked about some of the innovations, and this may play to both 

DOD and VA, of virtual care, where maybe you can get some of 

these treatments online. 

How is that working and is that a demonstration that has some 

validity? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. We have probably led the country in telemedicine, 

tele-psychiatry, tele-dermatology, and we have—I don’t know what 

the latest number is, probably around 40,000 or 50,000 people who 

are getting their care that way with the technology that allows you 

to communicate with your primary care nurse or your primary care 

person without leaving home. 

Mr. WAMP. Some veterans may be more inclined to be interviewed in that capacity than to come in, right? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. So we are moving, as we can, emphasizing rural 

health, but also patients who can’t get out to do things, because we 

can check the blood pressure, we can check the glucose, we can 

check their weight, and somebody who has a problem with, say, 

congestive heart failure, the fluid kind of backs up because the 

pump isn’t working so well, they will gain weight and if they are 

monitored on a daily or every other day basis, the nurse says, 

‘‘Mike Kussman, what is your weight,’’ and I say, ‘‘I have gained 

two pounds,’’ maybe we ought to take another Lasix, because if you 

don’t do that, the next week, they are seven or eight pounds and 

then they are in the emergency room and end up being admitted. 

So you can cut off some of this stuff with technology and the patients are much happier, obviously. 

INTEROPERABILITY

Mr. FARR. I have two questions. One, sort of the purpose of this 

hearing and this interoperability, the other is money is sort of the 


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interoperability of the rest of government now, spending billions of 

dollars on electronic files. 

Are you engaged in this? Are there people that have done this 

and know the pitfalls? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Are people coming to us? 

Mr. FARR. We have put billions of dollars in the stimulus package to convert paper files to electronic files and now there is going 

to be a lot of vendors out there selling systems and it is going to 

be a madhouse. 

The concept, obviously, is that when you are finished with all 

this, you will have some interoperability. You won’t be owned by 

one system. But it seems to me that if I were engaged in getting 

the rest of the country, the civilian community to convert to electronic files, I would come to the VA first. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I think we are partnering with HHS. As you know, 

Rob Kolodner used to be in charge of that initiative. Dr. 

Blumenthal, I think, is the new designee to do that. We are working daily with them. 

But our hope is that we can lead the country together, DOD and 

the VA, as a forcing mechanism, because we also have a lot of patients that Trip takes care of that are in TRICARE. 

And if we start working with our TRICARE partners to make 

sure that they have electronic records, and we buy a lot of feebased care, and if we do it, you can suddenly have a mass that 

might be able to lead the country. 

Mr. FARR. Lead the rest, yes. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. So we are very conscious of that responsibility. 

Mr. FARR. We have land owned by DOD that Veterans are going 

to build a building. And my question about that building is that 

you are exploring this new model to fund medical facilities under 

the health care facilities—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. HCC, sir. 

Mr. FARR. HCC. That is essentially a private development, build 

to suit, and then leased back to you. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Lease to build or build to lease is one way of doing 

it. We could also build our own building. But getting major construction is always difficult and leasing sometimes is easy. 

Mr. FARR. Are you going to include these facilities in this year’s 

budget? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I think that we have already identified some with 

HCC down in south Texas, because there was a strong movement 

to have us build a hospital, because we were very sensitive to the 

needs of the community, having to drive 5 hours to San Antonio 

for anything more than basic—— 

Mr. FARR. But you don’t know if there is any in the budget this 

year. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I don’t think we are—— 

Mr. FARR. I will come back on that. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. The budget hasn’t been, as you know, completed. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. FARR. We will come back to some of these other issues, but 

Mr. Carter has been patient all day. 


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DOD/VA DATA SHARING—INTEROPERABILITY

Mr. CARTER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, we were just visiting on what my question was 

going to be about. We are very excited at Fort Hood that we are 

going to have a new hospital in 2010, along with Camp Pendleton, 

and they already have authorization for building at Raleigh and 

Lejeune. So you are going to be in the hospital building business. 

Where I live, we are a fast-growing hospital district and they 

have built two large hospitals in my hometown in the last 4 years. 

In visiting Seton Hospital, they were talking about the miles and 

miles of wiring that they have put in Seton Hospital in anticipation 

of electronic recordkeeping. 

So this has been an ongoing issue, we have talked about it today, 

and we talk about it just about every time we get you guys in here. 

Do you have any ideas about what kind of plans they have for 

the integration of new technology, putting together the interoperability between the VA and the DOD on this recordkeeping at all 

the new hospital facilities? 

Is that going to be part of the anticipated planning that you see 

on the hospital? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. We are very fortunate that we have got 

really a technical breakthrough, which should finally reduce the 

cost of achieving interoperability. 

It got so bad that Secretary Peake was having us fax and scan 

every piece of paper to the VA and just recently, the technical people, DOD and VA, have come up with a joint solution using what 

they call services oriented architecture. 

This is open source architecture, which enables you to be modular in the way you build your connectivity, in the way you build 

your electronic health record and yet you don’t give up any security, but you add flexibility and you markedly shrink the time. 

In the military, the acquisition process takes many years. By the 

time you pick a product and start to contract to get it, the product, 

when it is delivered, is out of date. So now, with moving to this 

services oriented architecture, it is like design-build in the construction community. You have got a chance to change the design 

at the last minute. 

This is going to rapidly—this is going to decrease markedly the 

time from picking the product to the delivery and installation of 

the product. 

It also lets you uninstall a piece without the whole thing coming 

down. So you can do your maintenance and so forth. So this thing 

called services oriented architecture, SOA, is huge. 

AHLTA—UPCOMING CHANGES

The other thing it does is decrease the cost estimate. A year ago, 

when there was so much unhappiness about our electronic health 

records, we went back with a clean sheet of paper, even talked 

about pulling out the DOD’s record system, called AHLTA, which 

was slow and hard to learn and would often crash. 

So we looked at the cost of pulling that out and putting in Vista, 

knowing full well that they want to upgrade theirs. What we had 


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put in, by the time we put it in, would already be version 1.0 and 

they would be on to 2.0. 

Even if we did that—and we had a certain number of doctors 

who said just give us the VA system. If the VA upgrades it, okay, 

but we would rather have the VA system. 

We looked at the cost of that. Estimates ranged from $10 billion 

to $15 billion to pull out AHLTA and put in Vista. 

So now, we will get back to you when this budget comes out. We 

will have estimates that are a quarter of that. And instead of the 

2015 delivery date, we will be talking about 2012. This is technology coming to the rescue. 

So I am finally confident that we are going to have fully interoperable records and not only that, but we will have records as 

good as anybody out there has got. 

Mr. CARTER. That is exciting, because just having the opportunity to go through the construction phase and looking at these 

hospitals and what is being done today, it is really space age, it is 

really something, and that is exactly what we want. 

We want to have the best we can do with smart technology. So 

I am pleased to hear that. 

MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

A question had been asked here earlier and I wanted to just 

mention something to you. I have mentioned it to the folks at Fort 

Hood. 

I had a bunch of people from Texas, the mental health and mental retardation state agency, come to my office in Cedarville and 

say that they had an abundance of mental health workers that 

were on staff that they needed help with, meaning to work for 

them, and wanted to know if the Army wanted to contract at Fort 

Hood with them to provide mental health, both psychiatrists and 

certified mental health workers. 

It has just been in the talking phase more than anything else 

and we may match them, but it may be that you find that a lot 

of places, that the MHMR departments in states might have accessibility to contract for some of the shortfall that you have for mental health professionals. 

I just bring that to your attention because you have talked about 

it today and that has always stuck in my mind that they said we 

have an abundance of psychiatrists and certified professionals that 

we can use to contract with the Army. 

So I just wanted to put that on the table for you and see what 

you thought about that. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Loree Sutton, on our staff, has looked at that, as 

you know, sir, and she gave it a thumbs-up. The Texas reintegration project is what they call it. 

Mr. CARTER. Right. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Yes, sir. And so she is still wrestling with our 

personnel and readiness people as to whether that could be a onetime MOU or whether it actually might be a template for a wider 

rollout. 

Sir, I would have to take that for the record and get back to you. 

[The information follows:] 


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Thank you for your inquiry regarding the Texas State Integration Program. We 

are always interested in learning more about new and innovative ways to assist 

Service members, Veterans, and their families. Community efforts to assist with the 

reintegration of recently deployed Service members and their families are particularly needed, and we welcome civilian, local, and state initiatives in this regard. As 

to this specific program, although we have been able to gain some information, we 

are not yet familiar enough with this particular program to give a definitive response. As a result, we have been in contact with them, and hope to set up a meeting where we can learn more about the program, and better determine whether it 

would be of benefit. 

Mr. CARTER. I just mention it really as a suggestion that would 

be helpful. You might find the same thing exists in Tennessee and 

other states, California and so forth. But there are ways we can 

contract with firms that have the professionals available since we 

are having such an abundance of need right now that it might help 

and I just bring it up for that purpose and that purpose only. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

DOD/VA HEALTH CARE COLLABORATION IN MONTEREY

Mr. FARR. I would like to get back to my question for both of you. 

Let me give you a little of the scenario. 

Fort Ord used to be one of the largest training bases in the 

United States. It had probably 32,000 folks there. 

The base was downsized, remaining as a residence for active 

duty soldiers assigned to language studies at the Defense Language 

Institute in Monterey and to students at the Naval post-graduate 

school. 

What happened at Fort Ord, you had a 400-bed licensed hospital 

that closed and up to that time, everybody in the military community, the active duty personnel, the families of the active duty personnel, the retirees in the community, and the veterans all used 

that hospital, because there was plenty of space and it was space 

available, but there was plenty of it. 

But the hospital closed, and I think you are going to find this in 

a lot of communities. They didn’t have a hospital anymore. 

You opened a clinic at the Defense Language Institute, a dropin clinic for the soldiers, but a lot of them didn’t know, particularly 

at the Naval post-graduate school, that they could go over to the 

Presidio in Monterey, not too far away, but several miles, and get 

their clinical care there. 

The TRICARE families ended up in mass confusion about trying 

to find TRICARE doctors and we found none in the community that 

would serve pediatric care, because the reimbursement rates 

weren’t large enough. 

So they contracted with a firm in Salinas, which is about 30 

miles away. Then in the meantime, we have rebuilt all of that, 

with the RCI project. So you have this wonderful military community who is very happy, with the exception that there is a lot of 

confusion in how you get access to TRICARE. 

And the Monterey Bay area being very expensive, it is very difficult to find doctors who can come in. Our senior doctors are leaving their practices. So you can imagine how difficult it is for a 

young doctor, and they are not coming in and picking up these 

services. 


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They have told us, however, that if we have facilities where the 

cost of the overhead, cost of the rent, is not so high as it is in the 

private sector, they would be glad to partner up. 

So what we have tried to do, in the meantime, Veterans opened 

a clinic. It has been so successful it is cracking at its seams. We 

have now a piece of property that the local active duty community, 

Army and Navy, both agree is ideal, because it is right in the community, in the RCI community, and VA is willing to build a facility 

there. 

The question is whether you are going to build it as an HCCF, 

and what I hear from Palo Alto is that there are seven potential 

HCCF sites scheduled for construction in 2010. 

Your last answer to me was that you didn’t know. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Well, it was planned, but the budget hasn’t been 

confirmed. So I don’t know. But a lot of them are in leasing, so they 

wouldn’t be in the construction budget. 

There are things that we would like to do that we are looking 

at, but I don’t know where they got 17 from. 

Mr. FARR. Seven. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Seven from. I would have to go back and ask. 

Mr. FARR. Could we find that out? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Sure. 

Mr. FARR. And I would like to find it is just one of them. 

Dr. Casscells, I don’t know if you know, but the Monterey Bay 

area has about 6,000 men and women in uniform and about, between veterans and retirees, another 28,000 people. 

So it really makes sense now to try to make this combined facility that VA is going to build to have you as a partner in that facility. But that decision is in the feasibility studies out there and it 

is going to show that you are going to have about a $10 million 

savings, just TRICARE alone. 

But you haven’t made the decision whether to partner with the 

VA yet on this and I am waiting to see that decision to be made. 

Hopefully, it can be made as soon as possible, because we would 

like to—we will have all the numbers for you and it will show that 

it is financially a smart thing to do. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, as you know, from your visit with Major 

General Horoho and Ken Cox from my office, the Army is collecting 

their part of the data for this joint study, what is called the joint 

market assessment team. 

VA generously offered to build a joint clinic. They also paid for 

the study. The Army surgeon general is completing the study. The 

team goes out there the 13th of April to do their site inspection and 

wrap up the report. 

So we should know very soon, certainly, during the appropriations cycle, whether anything more is needed. Of course, we would 

love to hear—get a solution, because on TRICARE, my hands are 

a little bit tied. I can offer a 10 percent adjustment to get pediatricians in the Monterey Bay area to take TRICARE, but that is 

Medicare plus 10 percent. 

And pediatricians aren’t millionaires, but they still don’t want it. 

It is hard to get the—our TRICARE network is very thin in some 

of these areas. It is thin in areas that are very wealthy. It is also 

thin in areas that are very rural. 


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And Congress has given us—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, I think the lesson learned here that is really 

some advice to both of you, because veterans are everywhere that 

there are active duty military. If you are going to close a hospital, 

you are going to have unintended purposes, which are never measured, but, obviously, felt when the hospital closes. 

People have got to consider that. We thank God you did respond, 

TRICARE, you weren’t in command at the time, but TRICARE had 

to fly in doctors just to be there. It was very expensive, and they 

didn’t anticipate that it was going to happen. 

But our Medicare reimbursements are the lowest in the country, 

for one of the highest cost communities. That is another problem 

and we are fighting that. But your TRICARE reimbursements then 

are based on this low, low base, which none of the doctors are even 

receiving or civilian doctors are not taking Medicare patients. 

We have 2,000 senior citizens who get their health care through 

emergency. It is appalling. 

We have excellent veterans’ clinics. They are very successful. It 

just seems to me that now that we are going to build a new facility, 

that it just makes really good sense, this is right in your footprint, 

to serve the families of the active duty members who now have to 

truck over to Salinas. 

We can get pediatric care right in that building. We have already 

got commitments from doctors to come. So I am looking forward to 

a favorable marriage here. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, could you write in there that the clinic director would be Dr. Casscells? That would be a great favor. 

Mr. FARR. Whatever it takes, we will do that. You want that in 

the bill? [Laughter.] 

Be careful what you ask for. Fortunately, the clinic is already 

going to be, I promised, just before he died, to General Gourley, 

who put all this together, and we are going to name it after him. 

But we can name something after you. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. I might have to go work there. 

Mr. FARR. We can arrange that, too. 

I think it is about time we wrap up. 

CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT

There is a tradition that Mr. Edwards has that I love and it sort 

of just is a parting shot. 

We are sitting here trying to prioritize a lot of issues. In your 

opinion, what is the one thing that—each of your opinions—what 

is the one thing that this committee, as appropriators, can do to fix 

what you think is the most serious problem right now? 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, on the defense side, I would say stay the 

course that Mr. Edwards has charted. What he has done in supporting the construction of military hospitals, most of which were 

built before I was in medical school, in asking that these hospitals 

be built and that they be first class. 

You not only boost the morale of the doctors and nurses, but you 

boost the morale of the patients if they feel they are—a new hospital, a hospital that is safe and high tech, shows our respect for 

them. 


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And the hospitals that your funds have enabled us to have, we 

now have hospitals that are lead—they are green, they save 28 percent on energy, reduce maintenance. The hospitals have safety features that our current hospitals don’t have and they promote patient privacy and patient empowerment. 

The new generation of hospitals is nothing like what we have 

currently in the military. 

So I would just ask that you stay the course, because these hospitals will pace themselves. If we have an Army hospital, for example, that is one-third full, it loses money. The patients go down the 

street to a private hospital. 

We pay twice. We are paying to keep the hospital open and then 

TRICARE, me, paying for the downtown care. 

So what you are helping us do, this committee, in shoring up 

military hospitals will be cost-effective in the long run and we appreciate it enormously. 

So my message would be, please, just stay the course. 

Mr. FARR. You just made my speech for a joint clinic. It is a lot 

cheaper than a hospital to serve a lot of people. 

Dr. Kussman. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Thank you, sir, for the question. 

First of all, I very much appreciate what the chairman and all 

of you have done in support of what we have done and what we 

have needed and you have always been willing to listen and help 

us move forward. 

My biggest—well, one of my biggest—I was just running through 

a list of things, but as you know, our appropriation is in four parts, 

the services, used to be admin facilities, and then IT. 

And one of the challenges is when this is separated, and I understand why it was done and I am not arguing about that, it is just 

that it locks us in sometimes and it is very difficult to reprogram 

money. 

So when I want to do that, I have to go through the process of 

asking permission to do it. This is particularly poignant in IT, because I think a lot of people presume that medical IT in support 

of the delivery of health care is in medical services, because it is 

part of medical services. 

But the way the budget is structured, it isn’t. It is in IT. So we 

can buy a new piece of equipment, but the IT tail that goes with 

it has to be funded out of something else. 

Mr. FARR. Competing with something else. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Yes. I mean, there are a lot of things we need in 

IT, security and things like that. So the unique necessity of medical 

IT becomes a challenge when we are competing, and that is why, 

the last 2 years I reprogrammed money out of medical services into 

IT to support medical IT projects. 

But I think that this is an unintended consequence of an IT, separate IT budget, because nothing we do now in medical services 

doesn’t have an IT tail. 

So I hope I articulated that in a coherent manner. So the challenge for us is being sure that when you give us money in medical 

services, we can actually use it, as well, because a lot of times, it 

gets frustrating—— 

Mr. FARR. Did we create these different accounting accounts? 


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Dr. KUSSMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. The Congress did. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. So you are suggesting it needs to be modernized to essentially IT is really part of everything and not just a separate 

standalone. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. It is not just buying Blackberries and servers and 

things. It is integral to everything I do medically. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I know when we were in the California state legislature, I am sure Mr. Wamp knows the same thing, the problem 

was that when IT came out, there were so many vendors up there 

and everybody wanted it. It was going crazy. People were buying 

things that didn’t work. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. And that is why I think—— 

Mr. FARR. So we tried to professionalize it and bring it all under 

one roof. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Right. And as you know, we moved to a centralized OI&T in the VA I think that that is very important to maintain standards and quality and make sure that people don’t waste 

their money on things. 

And even if it was in medical services for medical IT, I think that 

it is okay for them to have oversight to make sure we don’t buy 

something stupid. 

But the challenge is to continue to expand medical services when 

there is not enough money in the IT budget sometimes to meet all 

the requirements. So things start competing with each other and 

sometimes—and I am not complaining about the money. It is just 

the way that things are done now. 

And I believe that when this was done, the presumption was that 

there was a lot of medical IT that would be paid for in medical 

services, because I believe it is part of medical services, but I can’t 

do it anymore. 

So that is one of the things that I would think that might be 

helpful. 

Mr. FARR. Well, we will take a look at that. I would suggest that 

your team, working with HHS on the electronic filing, I mean, your 

IT has got to be the—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. It is more than just the electronic record. It is 

wireless. It is things that—we buy a new MRI. There is an IT support tail to that and that doesn’t come out of medical services. It 

comes out of the IT budget. 

It is part and parcel of the delivery of care, but it has been separated from the delivery of care. 

Mr. FARR. I don’t know IT that much, but it seems to me if you 

are buying equipment that is sophisticated as it is and you are trying to create an electronic records system, that equipment is going 

to be informing a lot of your data itself. 

You are going to have reinterpretation of data coming out of— 

I mean, I have seen these charts and scans and the way they put 

things together, and it is remarkable information that is even understandable for a patient like me, and that is—— 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I am a dinosaur, too. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. And that is generated by the machine 

that scanned me. Isn’t this all integrated and doesn’t this have to 


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be something in this discussion, if we are all going to try to get the 

entire country on some kind of interoperable system? 

To me, interoperable means it is all like one. Isn’t that included 

in that? Don’t you, in your recordkeeping, account for things like 

that? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Supporting our electronic health record, money 

comes out of IT. 

Mr. FARR. Okay. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. When we expand new services, in medical services, 

there is frequently an IT tail. When I open a new CBOC or a new 

HCC, there is IT support for that. 

We can put all the equipment in and prepare ourselves to deliver 

services, but I can’t use medical services money to support the IT 

part of it. It has got to come out of the IT funding. 

It is very complicated. 

Mr. FARR. Has that been brought to the congressional attention 

before? 

Dr. KUSSMAN. I don’t know if I stuck my neck way out, but I 

think we have had some dialogue about this in the past and it is 

the way we do business right now. 

And my plea would be we look at that and see if there is a better 

way of doing it. 

Mr. FARR. Has somebody got a better way to do it, anybody, because we are doing report language and we can set up a system 

to get us some answers. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Maybe. 

Mr. FARR. All right. We will work on that. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. Thank you. 

PUBLIC ASSISTANCE TO WOUNDED WARRIORS/MILITARY FAMILIES

Mr. WAMP. My staff should have put this in my notes and they 

didn’t, so they will next time. 

General Casey and General Chiarelli have been working with me 

to identify impediments to outside groups, private entities, from 

helping our veterans and even helping the families of our active 

duty men and women, because there are impediments in the law 

to them being able to help, and I will give you an example. 

We had a van offered to our outpatient clinic a couple years ago, 

after we had the wreck, people lost their lives, and a new van was 

offered, but there was an impediment to being able to accept that 

van. 

So anything that you can do, Dr. Casscells, on your way out? Dr. 

Kussman? We are asking for you to share with us any impediments 

to the private sector, that really wants to help our veterans and to 

help our military families, from being able to help. There are impediments and we need to eliminate those as we pass this bill from 

year to year so that everybody that wants to help is not prohibited 

by a dumb law. 

If there is a reason for it, we will back off. But if it is just some 

illogical problem, we want to get rid of it. So help us, just send us 

any ways you think that people are prohibited from helping our 

veterans and our military families. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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NETWORK OF CARE WEBSITE

Mr. FARR. You just reminded me, I would like to also refer you 

to a Web site, www.networkofcare.org. It has been brought to my 

attention by our local doctors. 

This organization is putting together on the Web all of the information, county-by-county, in the United States and it is contracted 

for by the local governments to put together, for example, if you 

were dealing with PTSD, all of the PTSD services that are available in that county and all of the funding that comes from it, both 

private sector and public sector, the support community out there 

to handle it, and pertinent legislation at the state and federal level 

that would relate to it. And they even have ability for case management, where a personal file can be done. 

The concept here was that as you have soldiers going back home 

who know the DOD health care delivery system and they have to 

go to a place to get it or a VA clinic that they might be assigned 

to, but that may be miles, miles and miles away, that you could 

actually give them a portfolio when they leave and say, ‘‘By the 

way, in your own community, here is what is available.’’ 

I think it is an incredible disclosure tool, because often in cases, 

as you know, that community of care is sometimes the best and 

families have no idea that there are support groups out there. 

I have had parents come in to me with children with diabetes 

and not even knowing that we have this huge network of families 

with diabetic kids who have learned how to handle that. 

And I want to provide that kind of same service for the soldiers. 

Dr. KUSSMAN. We are aware of this and there is dialogue going 

on about how to best utilize this across the continuum of care. Certainly, if nothing else, it makes people aware of where they could 

go locally for services. It doesn’t mean necessarily we would pay for 

it there, but that is a separate issue. 

At least they know that they have someplace and they may have 

their own insurance or something else from work. The National 

Guard and Reserve, when they get out, they would know where to 

go quickly. 

Mr. FARR. Well, if you are having a shortage of health care providers in areas, professional licensed people that could be counselors for PTSD, it seems to me that you have now got access to 

a civilian licensed community that might be in your backyard. 

Dr. CASSCELLS. Sir, I will make sure this is in our national resource directory and we have several similar Web sites, 

afterdeployment.org, health.mil, militaryonesource.com, and we 

will make sure that networkofcare is featured on those with a link, 

establish a link. 

Mr. FARR. I hope that is helpful to you. 

Well, thank you very much, folks, for your professional and public service and career, and thank you for coming today. 

The meeting is adjourned. 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2009. 

BASE POSTURE AND SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST 

WITNESSES 

WAYNE ARNY, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 

KEITH E. EASTIN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT 

B.J. PENN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, INSTALLATIONS 

AND ENVIRONMENT 

KATHLEEN I. FERGUSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE 

AIR FORCE (INSTALLATIONS) FOR KEVIN W. BILLINGS, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE, INSTALLATIONS, ENVIRONMENT AND LOGISTICS 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. Good morning. I would like to call the 

subcommittee to order. And I want to welcome each of the secretaries here. Secretary Arny, Secretary Easton, Secretary Penn, Secretary Ferguson, thank you all for being here. 

Zach, we found out Mr. Billings’ airplane lost pressure at 37,000 

feet last night, so he is somewhere between St. Louis and Washington, DC. 

Mr. ARNY. And we are all upset. We forgot that—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is right. That is a new one. 

Mr. ARNY. I lost pressure in my car on the way to work. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely. I will tell you. 

Please, Secretary Ferguson, please tell Secretary Billings we understand, and just glad that no one was hurt. We understand it 

was military aircraft, that no one was hurt. 

Ms. FERGUSON. No one was hurt. It landed safely. The aircraft 

is being repaired now. And he is on another airplane on his way 

back right now. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is good to hear. 

Well, again, I want to welcome all of you to our hearing on the 

Department of Defense’s ongoing implementation of the 2005 Base 

Realignment and Closure round. BRAC 2005 became law on November 9, 2005. 

The department has until September 15, 2011, to complete all of 

the required actions, as you well know. 

The cost of this round—at least the cost that is being funded through the BRAC account—is $32 billion, according to the current 

information that we have. And I believe that is up from the initial 

estimate of BRAC somewhere in the $19 billion range. 

I have two major concerns I would like to address at today’s 

hearing. The first concern is whether the department can, in fact, 

complete all of the required closures and realignments by the legal 


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deadline. This BRAC round has been variously described as the 

biggest, most complex and most costly round ever implemented. 

Clearly, this BRAC round was much more than about saving 

money. It was about executing a transformation of the military. A 

number of very difficult actions will be pushing right up against 

the deadline. 

The second concern I have, related to the first, is whether the 

deadline can be met wisely and effectively. What I mean is this. 

Can we meet the deadline without cutting corners on facilities that 

our troops and families need? Can we do it without paying exorbitant premiums to contractors to speed up construction? Are we 

going to satisfy the mere legal requirements while leaving a tail of 

expenditures to be funded through the regular MILCON appropriation or other accounts? 

A number of GAO reports on BRAC have been released in the 

past 2 years. The basic theme of all of these reports could be described as costs underestimated, savings over-estimated. 

Not only were the savings underestimated, but some of the savings could best be described as theoretical. But as we all know, 

however, the costs are very real. 

We have reason to believe that some of this cost is coming at the 

expense of other pressing military infrastructure needs. The department is committed to a number of major initiatives with high 

military construction costs, such as growing the force and realignment of the Marines from Okinawa to Guam. Unlike BRAC, however, these actions are not mandated by law. 

Our worry and our concern is that, under current economic and 

fiscal conditions, BRAC could end up crowding out other needed investments for the next 21⁄2 years. We also must not forget that we 

still have a large unfunded obligation to clean up and dispose of 

military properties that were closed during the previous four BRAC 

rounds, going back to 1988. 

Is that correct? Was the first BRAC round in 1988? 

According to the 2007 Defense Environmental Programs Report, the total cost to complete cleanup at these sites is nearly $3.5 billion. And I have not seen that number going down in recent years. 

I am very pleased that our witnesses are here today. Since you 

bear the burden of implementing BRAC, I am interested in hearing 

your frank assessments of the challenges you face and how the 

services are meeting these challenges. 

Before I introduce our witnesses, let me turn to our ranking 

member, Mr. Wamp, for any opening remarks that he would care 

to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, thank you for being punctual and efficient yourself. And welcome back here after our Easter work period. I just traveled 4,000 miles in 17 days all across the state of 

Tennessee in my Volkswagen, so I have got a whole new perspective of life. [Laughter.] 

I want to thank our witnesses for coming, and those that tried 

to get here. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, you were very cooperative as we 

raised this issue over the last 2 years on whether the money for 


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BRAC to close out by 2011 was in place. And we did the very best 

we could to provide the resources. I think your two objectives of the 

hearing today are entirely appropriate. 

I would even add a third. And that is to make sure that the monies that we have dedicated have been spent efficiently to-date, so 

that as we continue to work towards some new timelines—obviously, I read the report showing that we do not expect most of 

these sites to meet their target goals in terms of finishing out the 

BRAC realignment on schedule—but to make sure that as we put 

additional resources into BRAC, that the money is being spent as 

efficiently and as effectively as possible. 

I do think you are right on target about the long-term obligation 

of the cleanup efforts, because I think many times, from my experience in Tennessee, that is just punted down the field. And frankly, 

the ongoing cost of maintaining these facilities continues to climb. 

And the cleanup is few and far between, so to speak. 

So, I think this is an important hearing. Even though it might 

not be the highest profile hearing that we have this spring, it is 

an important hearing on an important objective. And I do think the 

whole BRAC process, Mr. Chairman, is one that the government 

can point to for true reform. 

There are very few processes that government can actually say, 

this works. Because everybody talks about government reform, but 

there is very little reform of the government. The government just 

grows. At every level it grows, but particularly in Washington. 

And actually, BRAC, as a model, if we do it right and make sure 

it is efficient and accountable, is a good process for an objective 

look at how to reform a host of other programs. And that is why 

BRAC is important, because this is sort of a benchmark as to 

whether or not the government can ever reform itself, or clean 

itself up, or make itself more efficient. And there are a host of federal agencies that could learn from the BRAC model, as long as we 

have a good story to tell. 

And I thank you very much, and look forward to the testimony. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Wamp, thank you for your comments. And I 

think your points are well taken in terms of our need to focus on 

the efficient use and wise use of the BRAC dollars, and help us 

apply that to future BRAC rounds and lessons learned. 

For the sake of time, I am going to forego the long introduction. 

With the exception of Secretary Ferguson, each of you has been before this committee multiple times. 

Again, I thank you. 

I would note for the record that Assistant Secretary Penn is also 

the Acting Secretary of the Navy. And we welcome you back. 

I would like, on a personal note, to thank Secretary Eastin for 

your long and distinguished service to our country, to our military 

and the United States Army. I know that Monday is, I believe, 

your last day in your present position. And I have no doubt you 

will continue to find other ways to serve our country. 

But I would be remiss if I did not personally take the time to 

thank you, Secretary Eastin, for your incredible work on behalf of 

our country and our Army soldiers and their families. You have 

made a real difference, and I have seen that first hand on multiple 

occasions with your hard work. 


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Mr. WAMP. Hear, hear. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Secretary Arny, we are honored to have you here. 

And as deputy undersecretary, let me begin with you, and then we 

will follow with people on down—— 

STATEMENT OF WAYNE ARNY

Mr. ARNY. I would be happy to. 

Chairman Edwards, Mr. Wamp and distinguished members of 

the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before 

you today to address the Department’s implementation of the 

BRAC Commission’s decisions. 

As previously discussed with this committee, BRAC 2005 effort 

is the largest round undertaken by the Department. And we continue to monitor BRAC implementation to ensure we are meeting 

our legal obligation. 

Further, the Administration, as before, will request sufficient 

funding to enable the Department to continue its efforts to meet 

the requirements of the BRAC process and be completed by September 15, 2011. 

Implementation of this round is an exceedingly complex undertaking, as you have mentioned, not merely as a function of its magnitude, but to the largest extent, as a function of the original goal 

established for this round. The BRAC 2005 would focus on the reconfiguration of operational capacity to maximize warfighting capability and efficiency. 

Focusing on operational capacity required that we appropriately 

assess the increased military capabilities we are achieving through 

these recommendations. We accomplished that requirement and, 

through BRAC, are significantly enhancing this capability. 

For example, in the largest operational Army BRAC movement, 

the Army plans to build three brigade combat team complexes, a 

combat aviation brigade complex and a division headquarters at 

Fort Bliss, Texas, to accommodate the 15,000 soldiers and their 

families who are being relocated there. 

The closure of Naval Air Station Brunswick is another example. 

This action will allow the single-siting of the East Coast Maritime 

Patrol community at NAS Jacksonville, while reducing operating 

costs. Construction is moving ahead as planned. 

Besides these individual actions, the key component of this 

BRAC round was a goal to rationalize medical infrastructure to address the transformation we have seen in health care, and to adapt 

our facilities to address the continuing change in warrior care. 

We were able to realign two of our major military medical markets, San Antonio and the National Capital Region. These address 

a critical need to realign and consolidate key clinical and clinical 

research capabilities while addressing serious facility modernization requirements. 

In San Antonio, the Department is consolidating inpatient service into a recapitalized Brooke Army Medical Center while replacing the aging Wilford Hall with a state-of-the-art ambulatory outpatient center. 

In the National Capital Region, we are closing the aged and degrading Walter Reed and transferring its services to both an expanded Bethesda and the new community hospital at Fort Belvoir. 


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In addition, the medical center at Andrews will be transformed into 

a clinic. This allows DoD to forego the cost of renovating Walter 

Reed, and instead focus its resources to realign the active duty 

beneficiaries to the remaining hospitals in line with changing demographics. 

Because these transformations required facility closures as well 

as restructuring, we could not have been—these could not have 

been accomplished efficiently without the authority provided by 

BRAC. 

BRAC 2005 also calls for the transfer of installation management 

functions to create 12 joint bases from 26 separate bases. The Department is using this opportunity to create conditions for more 

consistent and effective delivery of installation support at these 

sites, capitalizing on the fact that these bases either share a common boundary or are in close proximity. 

Consequently, the installation management functions and the delivery of installations support functions can be consolidated to ensure best business practices, while warfighting capabilities are preserved or enhanced. 

A Memorandum of Agreement for each Joint Base, signed by the 

affected service vice chief, is defining the relationships between the 

components and will govern the supporting components delivery of 

support at approved output levels—something we have never done 

before. 

A governance framework, called the Joint Management Oversight Structure, allows for approval of variations to policy guidance, 

deviations to approved output levels, and dispute resolution. 

The supporting component—in other words, the lead component—will establish a joint base commander, who will be responsible for installation support to the supported component or components and the tenants. The deputy joint base commander will be 

from the supported or follower command. To-date, five of the 12 

MOAs have been signed, and the 12 joint bases are being established in two phases, with full operational capability for phase one 

in October 2009, and phase two in October 2010. 

At FOC, both the total obligational authority and the real property will transfer from the supported component or components to 

the supporting component. And if you want, we can talk about that 

at greater length in the hearing. 

As I said, and as you mentioned, these are complex recommendations, and we recognize the unique challenges associated with their 

implementation, particularly for those recommendations where 

synchronization is required to manage interdependencies with 

other initiatives. 

To provide necessary oversight and to apprise senior leadership 

whenever issues require attention, we institutionalized an implementation execution oversight program. We do come up with good 

titles, I thought—— 

[Laughter.] 

The recent GAO report acknowledged that this is a positive step 

in oversight. This level of review allows our managers to explain 

actions underway, to mitigate the impacts of problem issues. 

The recently published GAO report also acknowledges that the 

Department has made steady progress thus far in implementing 


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BRAC 2005. There has been a great deal of concern, as you mentioned, about the increased costs of BRAC 2005. 

It is important to note that almost 70 percent of the BRAC 2005 

program supports military construction requirements, compared to 

33 percent experienced in previous rounds. This is because in this 

round, the Department decided to use new construction versus renovated space, with existing space diverted to other needs, to accommodate changes in unit sizes, functions or responsibilities by increasing facilities, changing configurations or building additional 

facilities, and to accept inflation factors exceeding previous planning factors. 

Finally, it is our policy that every practical consideration shall be 

given to implementing DoD actions that seriously affect the economy of a community in a manner that minimizes the local impact. 

To that end, the Department provides economic adjustment assistance through its Office of Economic Adjustment, or OEA, to help 

communities who have decreases—and in this case, in this round, 

increases—to help them help themselves use the combined resources of federal, state and local governments and the private sector. 

Regarding prior BRAC disposal and redevelopment, the department has used the full range of transfer and conveyance authorities to dispose of real property made available. Property disposal 

is complete at 205 out of 250 prior BRAC locations where property 

became available for disposal. And local redevelopment efforts, in 

turn, have resulted in the creation of 143,700 jobs, more than offsetting the 129,600 civilian jobs that were lost across 73 prior 

BRAC locations where OEA is monitoring redevelopment activity. 

As of December 2008, our last data, we have disposed of over 

367,000 acres of the 422,000 or so acres at these legacy locations, 

leaving only a little over 55,000 acres left to go. When we exclude 

leases in furtherance of conveyance, which will be transferred in 

many cases when cleanup is complete, only 34,000 acres or so remain. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I sincerely thank you for this opportunity to highlight the Department’s BRAC efforts. 

[The prepared statement of Wayne Arny follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Secretary Arny. 

Secretary Eastin. 

STATEMENT OF KEITH E. EASTIN

Mr. EASTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wamp and members 

of the committee. 

I will try to be brief. 

The Army has 102 specific BRAC actions that are our responsibility, and another 11 that were business plans that we manage. 

We are now 31⁄2 years into this process. And I think I can count 

firmly by saying we have 2 years, 4 months and 24 days before 

September 15, 2011. [Laughter.] 

As you mentioned, unfortunately, I will not be around to see the 

end of—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. And we regret that. 

Mr. EASTIN. We have a very carefully orchestrated plan and 

group that runs our BRAC program. And all of these projects are, 

as announced, on schedule. 

Since I have been here, I have asked the question: Who are we 

kidding? We are not going to get all of this done by 2011. 

And we ask it, and I ask it, virtually every couple weeks. Do we 

know of any of BRAC actions that are not going to make the deadline? And the answer is ‘‘no.’’ They will all make September 15, 

2011, in the Army. 

We all know that something is likely to go on between now and 

2 years from now, but we do not see anything specifically. My 

guess is, one of the AFRCs might slip a little bit, or something like 

that. But we do not see that right now. 

And we are in the process, as you know, of closing 387 National 

Guard and Reserve Centers, and at the same time, building 125 

Armed Forces Reserve Centers that will encompass those activities 

abroad. 

We are—as Wayne has indicated, Fort Bliss is growing vastly. 

We are basically tripling its size. Fort Belvoir is doubling in size, 

and adding the National Geospatial Agency out there will bring 

8,500 new people to it alone, plus the new Dewitt Army Hospital, 

which will supplement the Bethesda complex. 

All of that is on time, on schedule, and I would like to say under 

budget. Budgets will now and then change, but—we are on track 

to complete all of it. 

We got into environmental restoration. Of course, the disposition 

of property from the installations we were closing, we would—it is 

our goal to move this property within 6 months after a request 

from an LRA or land, local reuse authority. And we are trying to 

do our best to take the property disposal aspect of this and then 

put it into effect. 

Standing in the way of that, of course, is that most of these installations, in one way or another, are subject to some contamination, either something fairly benign like a corporation yard, to 

something where we have unexploded ordnance and have to clean 

up before we turn it over. 

Everything, I am happy to report, is on track. We think the scope 

has not been degradated in any way, to answer one of your questions. 


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And as I say, crossing our fingers securely behind our back, September 15, 2011, will come and go with our successful completion 

of this. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Keith E. Eastin follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Secretary Eastin, thank you very much. 

Secretary Penn. 

STATEMENT OF B.J. PENN

Mr. PENN. Mr. Chairman, Representative Wamp, members of the 

committee, I am pleased to appear before you today to provide an 

overview of the Department’s BRAC program. 

Regarding BRAC 2005, we have moved swiftly from planning to 

execution since I last briefed you in March of 2007. All 59 led business plans are approved and underway, and our program is on 

track to fully meet the September 15, 2011, statutory deadline. 

In total, the Department awarded 85 of the 118 BRAC construction projects with a combined value of $1.4 billion. Eighteen 

projects worth $256 million are on track to be awarded this year. 

At the end of the fiscal year 2008, the Department has closed 43 

percent of the BRAC 2005 properties slated for closure. 

One success story I would like to highlight comes from New Orleans, which still struggles to recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

We entered into a 75-year leasing agreement with the Algiers 

Development District, ADD, in September of 2008. In exchange for 

leasing 149 acres of Naval Support Activity New Orleans, the headquarters, Marine Forces Reserve, will receive approximately $150 

million in new facilities. Demolition began recently, and we have 

established temporary quarters for the commissary, so that the 

military personnel, retirees and their families still have access to 

the quality of life service during construction. We continue to work 

with ADD to ensure this partnership’s successful outcome. 

Our remaining environmental liabilities for BRAC 2005 are substantially less than in prior rounds of BRAC. We have spent $148 

million in cleanup through fiscal year 2008. We attribute this to 

the relatively few numbers of closures, the absence of major industrial facilities and the extensive environmental work that the Department has accomplished over the past several decades. 

Financially, we continue to control costs, keeping cost growth 

down to a modest 2 to 21⁄2 percent per year. 

Our overall execution rate is nearly 90 percent, a significant improvement over the same period last year, and further evidence of 

the shift from planning to accelerated implementation. 

We are also on track to obligate over 90 percent of our fiscal year 

2009 funds by the end of September. We appreciate the efforts of 

this committee, which contributed directly to our success by providing these funds early in the fiscal year. 

Although we are on track to meet the statutory deadline, we do 

face some challenges. Seven major construction projects require 

complex site approvals and operational certifications from the DOD 

Explosive Safety Board. And we also have correctional facilities 

that require certification before occupancy. We are monitoring construction closely, so that the projects complete in time to conduct 

the necessary certifications. 

With respect to Legacy BRAC, the Department has achieved a 

steady savings rate of approximately $2.7 billion per year since fiscal year 2002. At the end of fiscal year 2008, we disposed of 93 perVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00589 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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cent of our real properties slated for closure in the first four rounds 

of BRAC. 

Many factors play into developing a conveyance strategy, including environmental mitigation, indemnity and liability considerations and the financial capacity of recipients to manage or develop 

the property. We have used a variety of disposal methods, including the Economic Development Conveyance, EDC, that was specifically created for BRAC properties. 

We have conveyed 91 percent of Navy real property at no cost. From the remaining 9 percent, we received over $1.1 billion in revenue through a variety of conveyance mechanisms, nearly all of it 

since fiscal year 2003. Since then, we have used these funds to accelerate cleanup and finance the entire prior BRAC effort, including caretaker costs from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2008. 

Despite our success in using property sales to augment cleanup 

and disposal and recover value for taxpayers, future revenues are 

very limited. We resumed our request for appropriated funding last 

year. 

It is also our experience that EDCs do not necessarily spur economic redevelopment any faster than traditional conveyance methods. Some communities that receive no-cost EDCs during a more 

robust economy have not developed the property, or have yet to realize the benefits of having property on the tax rolls. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee. 

And we look forward to answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of B.J. Penn follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Secretary Penn. 

Secretary Ferguson, thank you again for being here to fill in for 

Secretary Billings, who lost the pressure on his plane at 37,000 feet 

on the way back to Washington last night. 

We are glad you are here, and would like to recognize you now 

for your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN I. FERGUSON

Ms. FERGUSON. Thank you. And he, again, sends his apologies for 

not being here. He spent the last two days in San Antonio visiting 

Fort Sam Houston and Lackland Air Force Base for all the BRAC 

recommendations. So, he is going to come in with a fresh look on 

the ground. And unfortunately, he was unable to make it this 

morning. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I understand. Thank you. 

Ms. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wamp, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide an update on the 

Air Force’s efforts in support of Base Realignment and Closure and 

our implementation progress to-date. 

More than 42 months ago, the recommendations of the BRAC 

2005 Commission were approved. Today, we find ourselves a mere 

29 months away from reaching the commission-mandated completion date of September 15, 2011. While we still have much more 

work to do, I am confident in informing the committee that the Air 

Force BRAC implementation efforts are on track, on time and on 

budget. 

BRAC 2005 resulted in seven Air Force installation closures and 

59 realignments affecting 122 installations. To achieve these closures and realignments, the Air Force must execute more than 410 

separate implementation actions. This complex effort involves more 

than just bricks and mortar. It includes military construction, operations and maintenance, environmental reviews, training and the 

movement of people and things. 

Mr. Billings’ written statement, which had previously been provided to the committee, outlines in detail two BRAC undertakings 

in San Antonio which illustrate the complexity of the Air Force 

BRAC program. I will not go into those today in the interest of 

time, but these are the largest efforts the Air Force has undertaken 

in the San Antonio area, with the TRICARE Management Activity 

for SAMMC and or the MEtC. And I will be happy to talk about 

those in more detail. 

During past testimony, the Air Force has also stressed its strong 

support of the BRAC 2005 Commission joint basing recommendations. I can tell you the Services and DOD have been working hard 

to implement one of BRAC’s most transformational initiatives, and 

are working through many complex issues to make joint basing 

work. 

The Air Force wants to personally thank Mr. Wayne Arny for his 

leadership over the last year in guiding all the services in the implementation of the BRAC recommendations. We have made tremendous progress and are now in the process of reviewing and coordinating numerous implementation plan details and formal 

memorandum of agreement for each joint base. 


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The Air Force has a long and successful history of working towards common goals in a joint environment, and joint basing is no 

different. 

Mr. Chairman, the last item I would like to address is the BRAC 

recommendation to bed down the Joint Strike Fighter, integrate a 

joint training center at Eglin Air Force Base. The last 21⁄2 years 

has demonstrated the use of BRAC to bed down a weapons system 

still in development is very difficult. 

In the case of the Joint Strike Fighter, the noise profile of the 

aircraft was unknown at the time of the BRAC decision. And issues 

identified through the National Environmental Policy Act process 

required further study, which are now underway. The result of this 

analysis will help us identify ways to operate the aircraft and mitigate the potential noise impacts on the community as we bed down 

this important weapon system at Eglin. 

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I will finish with a short execution 

overview. 

BRAC 2005 impacts more than 120 Air Force installations. 

Whether establishing the F–35, Joint Strike Fighter initial training 

site at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, closing Kulis Air Guard 

Station in Alaska, or transferring Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, to the Army, the Air Force community as a whole, Active, 

Guard and Reserve, will benefit from the changes BRAC directed. The Air Force’s total BRAC budget is approximately $3.8 billion, 

which the Air Force and DOD have fully funded. Our largest costs 

are for military construction projects, totaling more than $2.6 billion. 

Operations and maintenance expenditures are just over $900 

million. And there are other BRAC expenses as well, which include 

information technology, equipment procurement and Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard training, to name a few, at $142 million. Other BRAC program expenses include $136 million for military personnel expenses and environmental planning and cleanup. 

The Air Force’s primary focus in the 2010 program is in budget 

areas other than Military Construction, because we are now focused on personnel-related issues, relocating assets and functions, 

outfitting new and renovated facilities and procuring those endstate necessities, continuing environmental actions to realign and 

integrate the total force. 

Thousands of man-hours have been spent on planning, coordinating, meetings, visiting bases and executing the more than 410 

actions we must implement to complete BRAC 2005, and we have 

many more ahead. The good news is, Mr. Chairman, we will be 

done no later than September 15th, and we will have executed our 

program within budget. 

This concludes my formal remarks, and I thank you and the committee for your time and opportunity to provide you this update. 

And I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Kevin W. Billings follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Secretary Ferguson. 

And thank you again, all. 

For the record, your complete statements will be submitted and 

made part of that record. 

You each will begin with the 5-minute rule, and we will be able 

to do multiple rounds here and cover a lot of the subjects. You will 

begin with me. 

You answered my first question. But for the record, each of you— 

is this correct—each of you has said that your respective service 

will meet the BRAC time deadline. Is that correct? 

Mr. EASTIN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PENN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. So, that answers the follow-up question I 

was going to ask. 

Do any of you see any need to provide exemptions from BRAC 

or extend the BRAC deadline? 

Mr. EDWARDS. The answer would be ‘‘no.’’ For the record, all 

have answered ‘‘no.’’ 

COST ESTIMATES FOR BRAC

Let me ask this, then. In some ways, it is like fitting a size 12 

foot into a size nine shoe. I know we have had challenges between 

some of the original cost estimates for BRAC. It seems that initially, we went from around $19 billion estimate to about $31 or $32 billion. It seems like we have locked in on that 

$32 billion figure for several years. 

Could I ask each of you, has your respective service or Secretary 

Arny, from your oversight position at DOD, have you seen projects, 

or would it be possible to get a list of projects, that were either 

pushed outside of the BRAC account or pushed outside of the future year defense plan timeline in order to make the BRAC numbers stay within the estimates of the last year or two? 

Mr. ARNY. Let me—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Secretary Arny. 

Mr. ARNY. Let me respond to that. I know of no projects that 

were pushed out that were necessary for BRAC, that we may have 

decided that a project was unnecessary for one reason or another, 

and it is not out in the out years, so it was chopped completely. 

The—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. So, you say not necessary. There might have been 

projects that perhaps our base commanders wanted or supported, 

but maybe the Department decided it was not absolutely necessary? 

Mr. ARNY. Absolutely. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. As part of the BRAC—— 

Mr. ARNY. I remember one in particular. There were a couple 

that flashed through my mind. But one was the lack of communications between Crane and China Lake. We were supposed to build, 

like, 40 weapons storage bunkers. And we, in Navy—when I was 

in Navy at the time—sent a tiger team out to every base to scrub 

the recommendations, and found lots of errors. 

In this case, the question was asked of Crane—they thought the 

question was: How many bunkers do you have? And they said, 40- 

something. And the real question that was being asked was: How 


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many do we need to build at China Lake for this function? And it 

was five, or six or something. 

And so, those, if you look back at the record, there were 40-something out of five or six. 

So, we scrubbed. We had places where somebody wanted a dog 

kennel. A dog kennel was not required. Somebody wanted to—not 

that humans are frail—but somebody wanted to upgrade a police 

station that did not require being upgraded. So, there were those 

kinds of changes. 

And I assume you will ask questions about COBRA. But our initial estimates were based off of COBRA, which is not as, you know, 

as confirmed, not a budgeting tool. 

And so, in the process of going from COBRA to actual budget 

plans, I think we have stuck pretty close, because once we got 

through that first year of planning, when we were actually putting 

engineers on the ground, what are soil conditions? What exactly is 

this building going to look like, and where is it going to sit? And 

we got decent estimates. 

And if you recall back then, inflation was going crazy at some of 

our locations. Once we got a handle on that, then I think our cost 

adjustments have been just pluses and minuses. And where there 

have been increases or decreases, we have included them in the 

budget. But relative to—I think we are at—according to my data, 

we are at $33.2, relatively, billion. The changes have been minor 

in the last couple of years. 

LESSONS LEARNED

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. What I might, Secretary Arny, in my second round, is ask you about lessons learned. While you were not 

in your present position when the BRAC process began, perhaps— 

I would be interested in following up on Mr. Wamp’s opening comments. I would like to find out what lessons you think we have 

learned. 

When you are doing a cost-benefit analysis and then making decisions based on that, obviously, there are serious implications if 

the original costs were around $19 billion, then they jump up to 

$32 billion. If you had the actual costs rather than the estimated 

COBRA costs initially, a number of these decisions might have 

been made differently, based on that additional—— 

Mr. ARNY. I would love to, because I do not think they would 

have, and I can explain why. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. I would welcome that in the second round. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, we will have a lot of questions. Some we may 

have to have you take with you and report back to us. 

But start on the big picture, because the testimony we just heard 

was all pretty positive, with a lot of forecasts that respective services were going to meet the September 15, 2011 schedule. 

SURVEYS AND INVESTIGATIONS REPORT

But what I was talking about when I opened was the S&I report, 

surveys and investigations here, that point to issues that may lead 

to that not happening. Almost half of the 222 business plans have 

varying degrees of risk of missing their deadline. 


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Over half of the business plans have completion dates within the 

final 2 weeks of the deadline, which obviously is very little margin 

of error in terms of implementing a 21⁄2-year plan to meet those 

deadlines. And therefore, S&I believes that it will not be as rosy 

a picture on meeting those deadlines. 

And frankly, if this were anything other than the United States 

military sitting across the table having this versus what I just 

heard, we would have a field day at ripping you apart. But in this 

case, because the military has got an unbelievable record around 

the world of meeting deadlines and doing things right, I just want 

to know, is there any lack of continuity between what you are saying and what our investigators are telling us in terms of how tight 

these schedules are? 

It is probably yours, Secretary Arny? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, I would love to take a look at specific examples, 

which—you point to one thing that we often miss in this BRAC 

2005 process, is that in this process, we had business plans. In 

prior BRAC rounds, we had no business plans. It was just turned 

over to the services, and they executed. 

So, there was no way for anybody to go in and track progress or 

by certain deadlines that we have now. And I can tell, having been 

on the Navy side, the process is painful, because you have got to 

lay down lots of requirements. And I and my current associates 

were in different positions and warred often over those business 

plans. 

We would have liked to have started earlier, once BRAC 2005 

hit. But we had extensive NEPA requirements to complete. 

So, in earlier rounds, we just went in. There was no DoD budget 

for it. Services just did it. As you heard earlier, we had less 

MILCON. 

And if you recall in the earlier rounds, the military was coming 

down, tremendous sizes. So we were just eliminating whole units, 

so that BRAC in many ways from the force movement was a lot 

easier than this round. 

You had rather large movements of people. And it—let me get 

back to your question. A lot of these are at the—we would have 

rather had them earlier, but because of our NEPA constraints and 

our planning constraints, we could not. 

We still believe we will make those deadlines. And I am constantly pushing the services and their chief engineers to get this 

stuff done earlier. And now that they are on a roll, I think a lot 

of those deadlines will come a little bit earlier. 

Mr. WAMP. And for our purpose, the conclusion of this report 

says, the unanimous view of BRAC program managers said that receiving fiscal year 2010 funds on time is going to be critical, if 

many project deadlines are going to be met. 

Obviously, last year we were working really hard, and the chairman did a great job of getting this bill done. But obviously, the flow 

of funds is going to be key to any of these goals being met. 

You cannot throw a schedule off 1 week, if over half of your business plans call for completion in the final 2 weeks without missing 

your deadlines. And they do not need to be arbitrary when you are 

trying to carry out a mission that other people are making plans 

on. 


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Mr. ARNY. Well, we do really appreciate the fact that this committee, especially, got this bill out. You are one of only two, if I recall. Right? 

Mr. WAMP. Right. I do not know if we are making a habit of it. 

[Laughter.] 

My time is about up, so I will come back to the other questions 

later. But—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Could I ask just—— 

Mr. WAMP. Sure. 

FIXED DEADLINE

Mr. EDWARDS. Just for the record, I would like to hear your answer to Mr. Wamp’s question about what are the consequences if 

this bill is passed after the October 1 deadline? Would there be 

any? 

Mr. ARNY. It really affects this, because we have such a fixed 

deadline. In fact, it affects all of our military construction. You will 

not believe internally what hoops we jump through when we do not 

get the money until October, November, December, January. 

As you have seen in some years, it has come very late. And we 

are borrowing money from other projects and really doing all—expending all sorts of effort. And some things cannot get started. 

I think, fortunately, most of our stuff is started, so even with a 

continuing resolution, we would be okay. But it will hurt us. It will 

make life very difficult. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Would it make it—I do not want to put words in 

your mouth. 

Mr. ARNY. It is not impossible. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Could it make it difficult, if not impossible, to finish a number of the key projects by the BRAC deadline, if you do 

not get your funding—— 

Mr. ARNY. Depending on how late. Frankly, because of the last— 

in my experience in this period of time as opposed to when I was 

doing this in the 1980s, we tend—because of the experience that 

we have had, we tend to put cushions in there, so that if the bill 

does not show up on the 1st of October—I mean, there are very few 

of us at the table who remember the 1976 T, fiscal year 1976 T as 

a transition year, when we went from one July to one October, so 

that we could all—it did not, you know. 

So, we do put—we do put a cushion in there. So, depending on 

how late, if it is just a week or two, we might—it might not be a 

problem. But much later than that, it will be a problem. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, just one other quick question. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Wamp, for any additional questions—— 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you. That was very good. 

Just one other quick thing on this round, and that is, the 

takeaway point from the morning here, obviously, that was one of 

them, for sure. Getting the money on time is huge. Is there another 

one, a big takeaway point for this morning for this committee? 

From any of you? 

Mr. ARNY. I think—— 

Mr. WAMP. Things we have got to get across? 


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Mr. ARNY. Stay the course. Yes, just stay the course. And we do 

not believe we need an extension at all. And that helps us keep it 

all in a box. 

Mr. WAMP. Got to have a deadline. 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. I will wait for the rest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having this 

hearing. 

FORT ORD

Congress is synonymous with BRAC for me. I arrived with a base 

closure at Fort Ord, 28,000 acres, probably the largest base ever 

closed. And I think I have spent every single day in the last 15 

years in Congress dealing with that closure. 

Where deadlines are concerned on legacy bases, the Army never 

met any of them. So, it will be interesting to see if DoD meets 

deadlines in this round. 

I have some questions for Secretary Eastin in regards to the 

cleanup issues at Fort Ord, specifically the ESCA payment that we 

agreed to and the contract we made for cleanup. That last payment 

to FORA, which is the approximately $40 million, when will that 

be made? And will it be in full? 

Mr. EASTIN. It was my understanding that it is complete. If that 

is not correct, I will get back to you. 

Mr. FARR. It is? All right. 

Mr. EASTIN. And I am happy to report that one. 

Mr. FARR. So, the money is there. 

Mr. EASTIN. There. It is out the door. 

Mr. FARR. Has the Army finalized its cleanup protocols with 

BLM on how the BLM land is to be cleaned? When I heard about 

it last summer there were still about a half a dozen outstanding 

issues between Army and BLM. 

Mr. EASTIN. We are working through a couple other minor 

issues, but we are still, as you are well aware, constrained by the 

800–acre-a-year burn that we are going to have on that land to 

clean up with the UXO out there. 

Mr. FARR. Can you give me a copy of the agreement, the latest 

one? 

Mr. EASTIN. Yes, I will get that to you. 

Mr. FARR. Also, have you gotten into the cost of that cleanup? 

Are any of those funds set aside? 

Mr. EASTIN. I really have not done the—we expense something 

like $250 million a year on cleanups. And to the extent that this 

programs, there will be funds for it. 

Mr. FARR. Well, that is the question. Is it—— 

Mr. EASTIN. The 800 acres a year for burning is the limiting factor. 

Mr. FARR. Has the Army set aside some money for that cleanup? 

Mr. EASTIN. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. Can we get that detail? 

Mr. EASTIN. I am going to get you those details as well. 

[The information follows:] 


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The Army provided the final installment of $40 million on the Fort Ord Environmental Services Cooperative Agreement (ESCA) to the Fort Ord Reuse Authority on 

December 17, 2008. 

There is no formal agreement between the Army and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). BLM’s final comments and the Army’s response to comment are documented in the Fort Ord Track 3 munitions and explosives of concern Record of Decision that was completed on May 27, 2008. 

Funding to continue cleanup of the range areas on Fort Ord will be included in 

the fiscal year 2010 budget request. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. Thank you for your service. 

Mr. EASTIN. My pleasure. 

Mr. FARR. With your retirement, we are going to miss you. 

Mr. ARNY. Don’t congratulate him too much. 

Mr. EASTIN. No, I—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ARNY. Keith may be—— 

Mr. EASTIN. I brought my Fort Ord map here with me. [Laughter.] 

And it is duly annotated from last year. 

TREASURE ISLAND

Mr. FARR. Mr. Penn, I would like to raise a couple of questions 

regarding the conveyance of Treasure Island in the San Francisco 

area. 

I understand the City of San Francisco put aside $700 million 

and the developers have put up $500 million for infrastructure improvements at Treasure Island, and the city has offered the Navy 

a 50–50 profit sharing for revenues from the development. 

With this kind of offer, why hasn’t the property been transferred? 

Mr. PENN. We estimated the property at $250 million. And that 

was substantiated by GSA. And the city has only offered us, I think 

$17.5 million for it. 

Mr. FARR. The purpose of this property is to do economic development, is it not? 

Mr. PENN. But they are not going to be doing economic development the way we see it. The houses are already there and just— 

there will be no business, which is required for the EDC. 

Mr. FARR. Who determines that? 

Mr. PENN. The courts will. We push back on it. The courts will 

determine if it will, in fact, meet the requirements for the creation 

of jobs. 

Treasure Island has houses. And the jobs—they want to make it 

into a—— 

Mr. FARR. When the service pulls out, it is the responsibility of 

the local government to create a reuse plan, not the Navy to tell 

the locals how to use it. 

The local government—— 

Mr. PENN. Given the land for nothing. We have certain requirements, as you well know, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Well, you have a—— 

Mr. PENN. With a no-cost EDC, right. 

INFRASTRUCTURE

Mr. FARR. Yes. But that is not what my question is. There is a 

plan of what, about $1.2 billion. This has been promised to do inVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00618 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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frastructure; that will provide jobs, and the city is offering a 50– 

50 profit sharing revenue. What problem is 50–50? That is pretty 

good. 

Mr. ARNY. If I recall that—excuse me, because I was working for 

Mr. Penn doing this—that 50–50 is at the tail end after all the 

other people have been—we are not—the Department is not averse 

at all to profit-sharing participation. But the profit sharing at T.I., 

the last time I checked it—I do not know if it was changed—is at 

the very tail end, after everybody else gets something. 

Mr. PENN. After the developer and everyone else has their profit—— 

Mr. FARR. But you transferred all of Fort Ord without those conditions as—— 

Mr. ARNY. Because there was an economic development for jobs. 

Mr. FARR. Right. 

Mr. ARNY. And that means permanent jobs for—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, I would argue, the permanancy of those Fort Ord 

jobs is questionable. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, the plan—— 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Anyway. 

Mr. ARNY. T.I. has gone through nine separate plans. And we 

have always been open—the Department and the Navy, when I 

was working there—to a no-cost EDC. We argued that, do a cost 

EDC. If it works out to be no cost, it is fine. But to do an EDC, 

which we are still doing lots of them, it requires permanent jobs. 

And housing components are not part of that. 

Mr. FARR. Yes, but the issue is the economics. Right now you estimate the value of the land at $250 million. But paying that kind 

of money precludes building in public benefits. You cannot do it. 

You cannot do the low-income housing. You cannot do the setasides for parks—— 

Mr. ARNY. Oh, yes, sir. 

I would argue you can, because we include that in the value. If 

you are doing public benefit conveyances, those come at no cost. If 

there are parks as part of the development, we based it on—we 

based the cost estimate—the appraisal, I am sorry—the appraisal 

strictly on what the city provided as the use, because we do not 

control the use of the property. It is the zoning authority that controls the use of the property. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I argue it would make a good EDC. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Sam. 

Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And thank each of you. It 

is good to see many of you again. 

BRAC COMMUNITIES

There are some GAO studies that show that some of the communities are located near the facilities that are gaining troups, are not 

on track for the construction of schools, housing and infrastructure 

required to accommodate arriving soldiers and their families. 

Considering that Secretary Gates has indicated that he intends 

to move many of the quality-of-life programs to the base budget, 

which have been funded through supplementals, how are the Services assessing whether all those services, other than BRAC headVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00619 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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quarters and motor pools, will be in place, by September 15th of 

2011? 

Are the communities going to be ready? 

Mr. ARNY. Well, sir, in many cases, it depends on the community. 

If they have had plenty of notice, we are working—the Office of 

Economic Adjustment, which works for me—has been providing 

loans—or not loans, I am sorry, grants—to all the communities surrounding these gaining bases, so that they can go through the planning process, not only for BRAC closure, but for an opening—I am 

sorry, for where BRAC is increasing the number of people there. 

And I know they are wrestling with some of these situations. I 

do not know of a particular one. If you have got some particular 

one, I would love to be able to go back and research that for you. 

Mr. CARTER. I have heard knowledge that the communities are 

struggling at Bliss and at Carson, and I have spoken with some of 

the members of Congress, and they do indicate that some of the 

school districts are struggling to try to meet these issues. 

We have always had an issue about military construction money 

going to building schools, at least as far as the fort that I represent 

is concerned. We have had that issue, actual brick-and-mortar 

schools. I am just curious as to where we thought they were as far 

as the quality of life for our soldiers. Because that is what it is all 

about. We want them to come back home to a place where families 

can live. 

Mr. ARNY. I believe that, with some exceptions, that we are in 

decent shape, but I will get back to you on particulars on that. 

[The information follows:] 

Working with the Economic Adjustment Committee (EAC), established under Executive Order 12788, as amended, to support the Defense Economic Adjustment Program, senior leaders from Office of Economic Adjustment, Office of the Deputy 

Under Secretary of Defense (Military Community & Family Policy), Army Headquarters, and U.S. Department of Education completed six site visits to a representative sample of mission-growth locations (Fort Benning, Fort Bliss, Fort Bragg, Fort 

Carson, Fort Drum, and Fort Riley) to better understand the specific education 

issues arising from mission growth; improve communication across cognizant Federal sources of assistance; and identify gaps and/or lags in capacities to respond. 

Site visit findings and observations were completed and shared with the cognizant 

Federal agencies, Executive Offices of the President, Congress states, locals and 

local educational agencies and are posted at www.OEA.gov. The following represents 

some of the issues discussed: 

• School capacity. Some local educational agencies (LEAs) will face challenges 

providing facilities to accommodate student growth. 

• Consistent growth estimates. Communities and stakeholders would benefit from 

more consistent growth estimates from the Department of Defense. 

• Deployment impacts. Some LEAs and the supporting communities face challenges to assist dependents of deployed military personnel. 

• Reciprocity, recruitment, and other ‘‘soft costs.’’ Curriculum requirements and 

assessment levels vary from one state to another, presenting challenges to transferring military dependent students which often impact grade advancement, extra-curricular activities, and graduation. Furthermore, teacher certification requirements 

vary, impacting spousal employment. 

• Improve communications with military parents. Communications and outreach 

about educational resources could be improved, especially to military parents living 

off post. 

• Special education. Some locations appear to be receiving a higher than expected 

number of children with special education needs, which can generate unexpected demands for credentialed teachers, and higher than anticipated operating and facility 

costs. 

• Regional planning capacity. Some areas would benefit from additional resources 

dedicated to building regional responses to education growth challenges. 


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Mr. CARTER. I think it is important. 

Mr. ARNY. I agree. 

Mr. CARTER. I realize you have a deadline. You cut yourself 2 

weeks’ slack. That is fair. Let us hope you make it. But the world 

has to also function to make life good for these soldiers. And it is 

to some extent our responsibility to make sure it is moving along. 

I am very proud of what the communities around my fort have 

done in staying ahead of the game on school infrastructure. But it 

is not that way everywhere. 

I think, in the way we view the Army today, that the families 

fight the wars, that we have got to be sure that we have got those 

people. If they are not moving in that direction, we need to be 

building fires under them. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, we have—and I go back to my Navy experience, 

which was more on the ground. When we were doing housing, 

privatized housing at our bases, in most of our bases where we 

needed more schools, we could not build the school legally, but we 

could provide land, which we did, in the local school board. 

And on some of our bigger bases like Camp Pendleton, we actually have the schools on the base, provided by the local community. 

In one BRAC community in—I mean, not BRAC, but housing in, 

I believe it was Camp Lejeune, we actually built the school, but 

that is because the schools on base are DODEA schools, so that a 

housing privatization project actually built the school. So there are 

some problems with local laws, too, as well. 

Mr. CARTER. I would like to ask another question, if I have time, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You do. You have another minute. 

BRIGADE COMBAT TEAMS

Mr. CARTER. General Helmick said that he would like to retain 

at least four BCTs in Europe for the purpose of meeting NATO obligations. However, the Army’s plan called for drawing down two 

BCTs in Europe, and one IBCT in Korea. Secretary Gates made an 

announcement to cancel the activation of three of the Grow the 

Army BCTs. 

Can you talk about the long-term future attempt for overseas 

forces and plans to ensure adequate infrastructure will be available 

for them? 

Mr. ARNY. Well, I will let Mr. Eastin talk to the BCTs, but I 

would like to follow on, too. 

Mr. EASTIN. Yes, we have not made a decision on where those 

BCTs might be drawn from. But one thing that needs to be kept 

in mind here, we are not talking about drawing down the size of 

the Army. How it is organized, whether a BCT is there or not 

there, people, soldiers are still there. So they may be in different 

units. 

But drawing down a formal BCT is not going to draw down the 

number of soldiers, nor the number of soldiers we program for and 

their families. So, those—the support for them will be there. 

Mr. ARNY. Let me go on to talk about planning. First of all, we 

are starting up a Quadrennial Defense Review. And that, I am fairly sure, will be one of the major questions asked. 


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Also, from my shop, we have been looking around at the major 

combatant commands. And we are going to institute combatant 

command infrastructure master plans, which we will sit down, for 

instance, in European Command, with the EUCOM commander, 

with the Army, Navy and Air Force and Marine Corps, whoever is 

there, and the undersecretary for policy staff, and we will sit down, 

and we will create an infrastructure master plan, based off the 

QDR, because we do not want to make decisions based on policy, 

to find that people do not have barracks to go to, or the base was 

closed last year, or we need to open a new base. 

So that we have a master plan that is updated periodically in 

every region of the country. We do not have as formalized a process 

right now as we need to for the infrastructure. And we want to institute that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. 

Let me thank all of you for your service. Particularly let me 

thank Secretary Eastin, who I understand will be ending his service very shortly. 

BRAC COMMUNITIES

I want to follow up on the line of questioning that Mr. Carter 

was asking, particularly about BRAC communities that will be 

upsizing. 

I would like to address these specifically to Secretary Eastin and 

Mr. Arny. 

Secretary Eastin, according to a letter that I got from you on 

April 7th of this year, you were projecting approximately 3,535 net 

new school-aged children as a result of the BRAC personnel 

changes at Fort Benning, which is considerably lower than was anticipated, given the local school systems in the area projecting 

6,840 new children. 

And in the Fort Benning area, you are talking about eight school 

systems, four of which are on the Georgia side of the Chattahoochee River, Fort Benning, and three of which are on the Alabama 

side, for a total of eight school systems. 

Fort Sill in Oklahoma is projecting 2,349 new students, Fort 

Bliss, 18,229, and Fort Bragg, 6,674. These are local school system 

projections. And I know that Fort Benning’s projections are based 

upon collaboration with the Fort Benning authorities, as well as 

the local school districts. 

But your estimate is considerably lower than that, which causes 

a great deal of concern, particularly from Mr. Arny’s testimony, 

with regard to the Office of Economic Adjustment, which really has 

responsibility for making these communities able to accommodate 

the DOD changes, particularly with school construction. 

What can we do? It seems as if the responsibility here is almost 

a matter of finger-pointing from one agency to another. 

In your testimony, Mr. Arny, you indicate that you will be looking toward the Transportation, Commerce, Education and Agriculture Departments for help. But somebody has to bite the bullet. 

And it seems as if the Department of Defense has a moral responsibility to these communities, to help them accommodate the needs 


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of our warfighters and their families when it comes to school construction. 

And if we expect, for example, in the Fort Benning area, 6,680 

or 640 new students, it would be a disservice to them and to their 

warfighter parents for us not to have those communities ready with 

schools in place. 

I understand you have a conference set for the fall to discuss 

some of these issues, but we have been talking about it for about 

3 or 4 years in this subcommittee. In fact, I think in the authorization conference report, there was actually language authorizing 

some additional funds to do the planning on that. But you have not 

requested those additional funds in your budget submission for this 

year. 

So, I am very frustrated. And the communities that are being 

upsized are very frustrated. We would like some concrete action 

and some specifics on how we are going to fund the schools. Many 

of these will be off-base, and we need some help. And these communities are really almost at panic mode, particularly given the current economic environment. 

One, we need to get some kind of synchronization on the numbers. And two, we must decide how this is going to be paid for. I 

know the Office of Economic Adjustment did build schools when 

Kings Bay was constructed off the coast of Georgia. And they did 

schools and housing, as you indicate. 

But it seems to me that this is a much bigger problem than the 

Department of Defense is recognizing. It needs to be dealt with 

sooner rather than later. 

Can I get a response on that? 

Mr. EASTIN. Let me talk to the number problem, as we remember 

from last year at this time, talking numbers. 

Our formula, which is basically 0.4 child per family, which has 

been around the department for many, many years, that was used 

as a basis to start with how many children would be generated by 

the increase in the size at Benning. 

Then the senior mission commander at the time sat down with 

the local community. And that is where the roughly 3,500 number 

came from, is taking our standard procedure for figuring out how 

many children are going to be there, and then fine-tuning it and 

getting down to the aegis of how many are expected here, how 

large are these family sizes, how many single soldiers are going to 

come, this sort of thing. 

But it was my understanding that there had been an agreement 

with the local community. 

Mr. BISHOP. Right. The agreement that we got was the 6,839 figure: 2,771 school-aged military, 1,096 government civilians, and 

2,972 children of contractors. Those are the figures that both the 

local base people and the eight local school systems agreed upon. 

But, of course, when we sought to verify that we were both using 

the same figures, you came back with a much lower figure. 

My question is, with Fort Bliss and Fort Sill and Fort Bragg, are 

those figures low-balled also? 

Mr. EASTIN. I do not think any of these are low-balled, to be honest with you. What we are trying to do here is to arrive at a number. Because these kids are our kids. 


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Mr. BISHOP. Exactly. 

Mr. EASTIN. And we want to make sure they get educated. 

The larger problem is, how do you pay for that? 

Mr. BISHOP. That is the question I am asking. 

Mr. EASTIN [continuing]. If it is 20,000 out there. 

I do note from the New York Times this morning, which I read 

occasionally, that you are going to get about 10,000 new from a Kia 

plant. And everybody is happy as a clam about that. But I do not 

know what the arrangements are for Kia to pay for their kids. 

But these are, in large part—— 

Mr. BISHOP. But—— 

Mr. EASTIN [continuing]. They live on the economy and pay—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Yes, it is a little bit distant from Fort Benning. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. EASTIN. But no, in all seriousness, schools traditionally have 

been the responsibility of the local community and supported by 

the tax base. 

IMPACT AID

Mr. BISHOP. We understand that. The Impact Aid program was 

added to ameliorate that but has been always underfunded. And it 

does not deal with a problem the size that is created by these 

BRAC upsizings. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I want to stick to the 5–minute rule. But let me 

add that we all know this is a significant issue, and we have been 

kicking this around for a couple of years. We have not seen really 

any change in policy from the Department of Defense. 

But it seems to me the problem is, they get Impact Aid, Part A, 

Part B money after the kids are in school, but no help with construction money up front. And there ought to be some way for us 

to deal with that, even though Impact Aid is the jurisdiction of the 

Health and Human Services Committee, there are military kids. If 

a classroom goes from 20 kids to 40 kids, because of BRAC, then 

that is affecting military families, many of whom are serving in 

Iraq—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Chairman, may I just add to that? You have 

three subcommittees of Appropriations that have to address this. 

You have defense, you have MILCON, and you have the education 

subcommittees, all of which—well, I should say none of which provides adequate funds to deal with a problem of this magnitude. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Maybe we need to get all three. That may be part 

of the problem. Maybe we need to get all three subcommittees together and talk about that. 

Let—I have—— 

Mr. ARNY. I would like to make just one comment. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. ARNY. We have tried very hard within the legal limits that 

we have to help the communities plan and provide for these 

schools. Seventy-five percent of our folks live off base. 

So, when that increases their tax base—and I understand they 

do not have the construction money up front, so they are coming 

with a tax, you know, contribution. Even if they are renting, they 

are going to rent a house where somebody is paying taxes. And in 


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some cases, like I said, we have actually offered land for nothing, 

so that people could build schools on the bases. 

The only one I know of that we have built was a DODEA school, 

so I would have to check on the others. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, let us continue on in a second round. I want 

to let everybody have a chance to finish the first round. But this, 

by cutting this off, I do not want to suggest I am not really concerned about this. I think we do have to deal with this issue somehow. 

Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have any questions. I just wanted to commend all of you for all your hard work, 

and especially, Secretary Eastin, on your retirement. I look forward 

to continuing working with you in the future, especially on the 

issue of Pinon Canyon. [Laughter.] 

That seems to be a sore spot around here. 

But I have enjoyed working with you, and God speed and take 

care. 

Mr. EASTIN. Likewise, and thank you. 

Mr. SALAZAR. And I yield back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. Berry, thank you for being here. I think Mr. Berry indicated 

he did not have any questions on this round. 

LESSONS LEARNED

To begin the second round, let me go back, Secretary Arny, if I 

could, to the question of lessons learned. You make decisions based 

on a cost-benefit analysis. It turns out, according to GAO, that the 

savings benefits have been maybe significantly overestimated, and, 

obviously, the costs were underestimated. And unless cost-benefit 

was not used in BRAC—and I assume it was—you know, that 

could significantly change decisions. 

If you underestimate the cost of your decisions by $11 or $12 billion, and you overestimate the savings by $1 billion, you can argue 

these changes on a policy basis. But I think, you know, administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, have argued BRAC recommendations based on costs and savings. 

Could you give me your sense of the lessons learned? And do we 

have any lessons that can help us accurately estimate both the savings and the costs, those factors, if there are any, with your backgrounds? 

Mr. ARNY. I think, and I go back to, from Texas, the congressman, retired, who started this—claims to have help started—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Dick Armey. 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, Dick Armey. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Who did—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Play a key role in initiating BRAC. 

Mr. ARNY. Because I remember from before BRAC, when Admiral Zumwalt in the 1960s closed a bunch of bases. And that was 

the last time we were able to close any bases. And we were going 

from a 1,000–ship Navy to 600 at the time. And in the last, we 

have gone down to 300. 


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What we found is, one of the hidden secrets of BRAC is it makes 

the initial NEPA decision for you. Prior to BRAC, we could not 

close a base, because when we decided to close a base, we would 

go into NEPA, we would get sued—lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. So, we were carrying lots of excess capacity that we did not 

need. 

So, the BRAC process has been very successful in allowing us to 

make military decisions on capability. And I would emphasize that, 

that the primary goal is military value. 

Now, we do get lots of savings, and there are costs in that process. We believe that part of the problem with the costs being less 

in the initial years is that we estimated the movements, and the 

construction would begin earlier, so we have delayed some of the 

savings. 

We still believe—and I do not have the numbers at the tip of my 

tongue—there will be significant annual savings that will remain, 

because of the decisions being made. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Are you updating that? Is it—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. You are always updating those numbers? 

Mr. ARNY. We do. We do. 

Mr. EDWARDS. When you have those and you are comfortable 

with those numbers, could you provide that to the committee? 

Mr. ARNY. We will. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

COBRA

Mr. ARNY. As far as the initial estimates, people went—I mean, 

not very many people understand the COBRA model. They believe 

it to be the ultimate model when they go to it, and so the COBRA 

model says $10. Therefore, it is $10. 

And frankly, I did myself until you start digging into it. But once 

you start digging into it, the COBRA model is very, very useful 

comparing apples to apples, because you are making assumptions 

on building size off of a model, and you are comparing it to another 

installation doing the same sort of things. So it is very good at 

helping you make relative decisions between do I do option A, B 

or C. 

But it is not very good at estimating long term the cost of a particular building, because it does not look at—first of all, you freeze 

inflation, so it does not discuss inflation at all. And by the time we 

got to executing BRAC, the numbers that were in COBRA were 3 

years old. So you already had 3 years of inflation on top of what 

COBRA was saying. 

Mr. EDWARDS. COBRA assumes no inflation? 

Mr. ARNY. That is right. It—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. That should be one lesson learned. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, not for comparison. It looks at constant dollars. 

So you are making a comparison, do I pick this or this, would I say, 

because then, once you let inflation go, you are going to inflate all 

of your estimates. Okay? 

But once you have made that decision, the problem we have is, 

then, okay, your costs have gone up here. You have forgotten about 


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option B and C, because you did not pick those. So the costs would 

have gone up probably the same percentage on B and C. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Unless you had a facility where you already had 

the present buildings providing the structures for the services. And 

instead of keeping those services at that installation, you decide to 

move them somewhere else. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, we—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. And in that case, inflation is a real factor. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, but we also—you also compare some of the decisions were made. We were going to renovate. We do look at renovation versus—as compared with new construction. We do compare 

those. 

So, the other thing we did in this BRAC is, after the decisions 

were made, we also added things on, especially in the Army and 

especially for medical. We added a bunch of stuff to the BRAC that 

were not really part of the initial decision. We wrapped in some 

major force moves, the people coming in and out of Europe, that 

were not part of BRAC 2005, because the BRAC process is continental—or not continental—the 50 states only and the territories. 

It is only the United States. 

So, the costs went up, and I can give you a comparison of where 

all they—we know, because of our business plan process, where all 

those costs came from. Some was inflation, and a lot of it, a huge 

part of it was adding stuff to the mix that really was not part of 

BRAC 2005, because it was stuff coming from Europe into the 

United States, so it was not really part of that whole BRAC 2005. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In a way, if we were going back to determine lessons learned, is there a way to differentiate extra costs that were 

because of other decisions on global repositioning—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Such as costs—— 

Mr. ARNY. I have got those numbers here. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Because otherwise, there is no accountability. You 

just say, well, there were factors that came into play—so what? We 

had a $12 billion more expensive program than we had intended. 

And certainly it has an impact on presidential budgets that are 

presented for 5 years. So, I hope we would not—and I do not think 

you did—underestimate the importance of trying to build in realistic assumptions. 

Mr. ARNY. That was some of the initial escalations right away. 

And I was involved in it, because I did not—I was not involved in 

the run-up to BRAC. I got it after the decisions were made. And 

we were having to escalate tremendously, based on not only just 

normal inflation over 3 years, but if you recall, we in the Navy 

were looking at, you know, after Hurricane Katrina and things like 

that. So, we had some significant—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. I will conclude with this, because I am over my 

time—but we ought to assume in future models that there are unpredictable factors. We want to get an honest estimate of what the 

real costs of a BRAC round would be, or building new installations 

would be. We ought to build those factors in. 

It is kind of like the federal government assuming there will 

never be another hurricane, there will never be another war, there 


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will never be another tornado. Therefore, this is what our budget 

is. Doesn’t it look balanced? 

Mr. ARNY. We have documented this one better than we have the 

previous rounds. But I would argue, human nature, when you are 

dealing with press headlines, we will do that, if we have another 

round. Say, look, we are looking at COBRA numbers. You have got 

to understand those are going to be different than real numbers. 

But sometimes that gets lost in the initial onslaught of data. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. Right. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I think I have this round and then 

one more round, just so you will know this side. 

My experience is that three groups of people typically do not 

admit their mistakes or liabilities: men, women and children. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. Not necessarily in that order. 

Mr. WAMP. Right. And the fourth might be witnesses before hearings over the last 15 years that I have been here. 

BRAC MONEY

But with that said, we talked earlier about lessons learned. Are 

there more efficient ways that BRAC money is spent and less efficient ways? Is there anything to acknowledge what really, really 

works, where we get the most bang for our buck on these investments in BRAC? Is there anything that really needs to be improved? 

Mr. ARNY. Frankly, I am very satisfied with the process, the way 

it is going. And there are not a lot of savings now, but one element—and we will talk about that—that I think over the long term 

will be efficiencies that will produce savings—you cannot estimate 

them now—and that is Joint Basing. 

We are—I mean, I grew up in the service, not as a kid, but from 

the Naval Academy on, and did not realize until I was doing Joint 

Basing how stuck we are in our own cultures. All right? 

The Navy, in which I have the most experience, back in the 

1960s, 1970s, 1980s, when I was in the service as a fighter pilot, 

you never noticed who ran the base. It was just always there. 

But each base was being run by its major claimant, its major 

command. The Naval Air Systems Command ran PAX River where 

I was stationed. Commander of Naval Air Forces Pacific ran 

Miramar. Air Land ran—well, there were huge inefficiencies. 

So, the services have begun to consolidate management as we get 

smarter at it, so that you have the commander of Naval Installations Command. And you find huge inequities in how—I mean, I 

remember one with Congressman Dicks where we were doing firefighting differently all over the country. 

Now that we are bringing these bases together, I have gotten up 

in front of these Joint Base groups and said, look, you guys have 

got to get out of your light blue-dark blue suit mentality. If somebody is driving up the Jersey Turnpike and they look at, they see 

McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, they are going to look at it and say, oh, 

it is all run as one DoD base. Well, it is not. 

And so, including them together, bringing them together, we 

have done some—we have made enormous progress, because we 


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now have common output levels of service that we are doing in 

these joint—where the services all agree that we are going to—you 

know, you are going to have X amount of guard dogs per number 

of people. 

And we have developed joint groups at my level and below, 

where we iron these things out, and we have, you know, at 

McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, there will be an Air Force colonel as the 

commanding officer, an Army colonel as the vice commander and 

a Navy captain as the head of installation, the local installation 

management. So we have brought all three services together, and 

we are doing it all around. 

It is much more difficult than I would have ever imagined, but 

I think it will produce tremendous results for the country. 

Mr. WAMP. She smiled down at the end of the table, because I 

think the Air Force was the last one to come along with this new 

vision. 

Mr. Penn, you had a question? 

Mr. PENN. One of the things we started doing, sir, was we created tiger teams to go out look at specific projects. I think you created that. And we found additional savings there, just by going out 

and putting the individual eyes on and scrubbing. 

Mr. WAMP. I have been at Hickam and Elmendorf, where this 

was very much discussed, joint basing. 

Mr. ARNY. Really? 

Mr. WAMP. Yes, especially Hickam. 

Let me ask, though, if there is a savings of an asset, and you say, 

through joint basing we actually do not need this or that, is it disposed of like a BRAC site with the GSA disposal process, I think 

is what they call it, or dispensation process? 

Mr. ARNY. We have the—under BRAC, the GSA authorities are 

transferred to the Department of Defense, so we can just—we have 

read the law. If any base, gaining or joint, where there is excess 

property, it can be disposed of under BRAC, or it can be disposed 

of regularly. 

Mr. WAMP. Yes. 

Mr. ARNY. What we have found, though—coming to Hickam, 

Pearl Harbor-Hickam—is probably the toughest thing to make people realize is, what we were doing was, we were making the installation management of the base joint. The mission was still Air 

Force or Navy. 

Mr. WAMP. Right. 

BRAC CLEANUP

Now, I have other questions about how this process works, because is there any differentiation between the cleanup responsibilities of a site that is in BRAC 2005, than any other site that happens to be BRACed along the way—— 

Mr. ARNY. No, absolutely not. 

Mr. WAMP. All the same. 

Mr. ARNY. All the same. 

Now, what is interesting is, especially since I was doing BRAC 

cleanup for Mr. Penn before, when we looked at the bases in BRAC 

2005, I mean, the total for Navy, total cost to complete on the 

cleanup, was—I think it was like $150 million for all the bases, inVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00629 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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cluding two that dropped off that were industrial, Portsmouth and 

the sub base, New London. 

Now, we might have found some more. When you put shovels in 

the ground you always do. But the cost was, say, less than $200 

million for all those bases. 

I mean, we have bases at Hunters Point, for one, which has more 

than $200 million, and we will have probably spent we are done 

$1 billion cleaning that base up. 

So, what do I attribute it to? Well, in the early rounds, which 

started in the 1980s, we had not done a lot of cleanup nationwide, 

as a nation or as a military. And since that time, we have done a 

heck of a lot of cleanup. 

I mean, Albany, Georgia, when we—when that was ready to dispose of, we had just finished cleaning up the gas station. Gas stations are typical on the bases for having problems. And so, Albany 

is completely clean, all done—or remedy is in place. 

So, the answer to your question is ‘‘yes.’’ The cleanup is no—the 

requirements are no different, whether it is an active base—well, 

there is some requirement that we do not have to comply with an 

active base. But for closed bases, no matter what round it is, we 

have to still comply with state and federal law. 

Mr. WAMP. That is it for this round, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Can I quickly follow up and ask, have we updated 

our models of estimating what cleanup costs are, so that we will 

be more realistic in—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, and—— 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Future decisions? 

Mr. ARNY. We do not base them on models, interestingly. We 

base them on signed affidavits, basically, from our RECs, our— 

what is RECs? 

Ms. EDWARDS. Environmental coordinators—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, the environmental coordinators on the bases have 

to sign. 

We go through a lengthy process with EPA. And we sit down and 

we do discovery, basically. We use overhead photographs in many 

cases to try and find locations. We test them. We identify sites. 

And then the RECs, based on their experience and that of their 

contractors, estimate the cost. And that cost—cost to complete. 

What will it take to clean up this process? 

We then go and aggregate those and report them annually—I 

think annually, or semiannually—to Congress. 

Now, what is interesting on some of our bases out West, the 

team was doing that. And they were concerned that each year the 

cost to complete would increase, if you open a shovel up. 

And this—the cleanup contracts were all done competitively. But 

they went out and recompeted it, and got the costs down. You 

know—Six Sigma. 

So, we are constantly wrestling with, what is the cost to complete 

on our FUD sites, our active sites and our cleanup sites. The estimates are the best that we can do through human nature. 

Now, I will say, for instance, at Hunters Point you have a base 

that was built in the 1800s. It has been a major construction site 

ever since. We had radium dials, instruments, if you recall, back 


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in World War II. We would just throw those in the landfills. Well, 

they were all radioactive, you know, trigger it off. 

Not only that, at the end of World War II, we brought the ships 

back from the Bikini Atoll tests, and it was a nuclear radiation effects test base. So there, the cost is not bringing in lasers and fancy 

stuff. We have to dig down 10 feet and pull out sewers, because we 

found a couple of sewers where there was trace—you could not find 

anything on the surface—but you would find trace radioactivity. So, 

rather than investigating every sewer, we are digging them all up. 

And there is no place in California to dump, to dispose of lowlevel radioactive waste, so we are trucking it to Utah. So, the cost 

there is just truck-miles and steam shovels. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is expensive. Thank you. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that my base closed 

18 years ago. It still is not cleaned up. It still is not though all the 

land has been transferred. So, not everything is hunky-dory. 

I think the Department of Defense is sitting on a lot of land that 

should have been disposed of already. There are many ways of 

doing so. 

For growth communities it is impossible for them to absorb the 

kind of impact that new missions bring, especially where education 

is concerned. You finance schools through general obligation bonds, 

which take a vote of the people. You do not finance the construction 

of schools through the property taxes or other methods. 

So there is no way you can build new schools relying on the local 

process. The public will reject raising the taxes on their land just 

to build schools for all the military kids. I do not think you could 

pass a referendum like that. 

DoD built a school down at Kings Bay, Georgia, when it built the 

submarine base. There is nothing there. You went and built a 

school. You build DoD schools. There is no reason you cannot work 

out this through the OEA process to build the schools at mission 

growth bases. 

Mr. ARNY. Congressman, I agree with you entirely. And— 

Mr. FARR. I am trying to solve Mr. Bishop’s problem. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, I want to check on the Kings Bay, because I am 

dumbfounded. A friend of mine was the construction manager down 

there. 

Because my experience over the last 8 years is, we are not permitted to build schools in—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, you—OEA—I understand there is a process 

through OEA in which you can do that. And—— 

Mr. ARNY. I will check. And OEA gives me the, you know, the 

blah-blah-blah every week. And—— 

Mr. FARR. I mean, I want to follow up on Mr. Wamp’s question 

on cleanup. 

I understand that the DoD estimates for backlog cleanup is $3.5 

billion. That includes the 2005 round bases, the legacy bases. 

What is it going to be in your budget for this year for the cleanup? 

Mr. ARNY. A, I do not have the number at the tip of my tongue. 

B, I cannot talk about it until it is out. But C, it will be, I suspect, 

no less, if not more, than what we did last year. 


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Mr. FARR. And can you break that down by pre–2005 and 2005 

bases? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. So that it will committed that way? Or will it just be 

in one item? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. I am told it will be. 

Mr. FARR. Yes what? What— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, it will be—no, it will be broken out. 

Mr. FARR. Okay. 

TREASURE ISLAND

You know, I want to also tell Mr. Penn, you are sitting on that 

property on Treasure Island. I am a native San Franciscan, so I am 

very interested in this property. 

It is not moving. The State of California has adopted laws saying 

you can only sell it to the State of California, and they are willing 

to sue that all the way up to the Supreme Court, if you want to 

challenge it. 

It seems to me that, as part of the whole stimulus effort we want 

to create jobs. And I cannot think of a faster way to create jobs 

than to transfer that base as fast as possible. 

We sit around and debate with the City of San Francisco what 

the fair market value is. And I do not even know if that fair market value was done with the California restrictions factored in, but 

that has got to have some effect on value. 

I would just encourage you to use whatever options you have 

available to get that land transferred. We are hurting for jobs in 

California and this is an area with the highest drop in housing 

prices in the United States, the highest number of foreclosures. 

You take a look at that Greater Bay Area, and it is really hurting. 

Part of my frustration with this BRAC process is its incredible 

slowness. I mean, you use the COBRA model, you go through the 

BRAC process. The BRAC Commission recommends that these closures occur, and everything is going to be taken care of. All the 

community needs will be taken care of. You can redevelop, you can 

sell, you can create jobs. You can do this, do that. 

But it is so slow. So, as I said, after 18 years Fort Ord is still 

not finished. 

BRAC ACRES PENDING DISPOSAL

I want to know from you, what are the total number of disposed 

BRAC acres, not including the leases in furtherance of conveyances? Just how many acres have we gotten rid of in your total inventory? 

Mr. ARNY. We have gotten rid of—I had that in— 

Mr. FARR. What is the total number of BRAC acres pending disposal by year? 

Mr. ARNY. We can get you those. We disposed of—because I 

asked for that number—we have 205 of 250 prior BRAC are completely disposed of. We created 140—almost 144,000—— 

Mr. FARR. But you would—I mean, you probably closed Fort Ord 

in that. You have not disclosed—— 

Mr. ARNY. I do not know. I will check on it. 

[The information follows:] 


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The total number of BRAC acres pending disposal by year (including Outgrant 

LIFOC acres) are provided on the table below: 

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 

Air Force ................... 66,209 67,301 55,735 42,419 35,661 30,294 21,042 16,281 13,479 

Army ......................... 176,840 214,332 145,408 249,918 239,654 104,694 96,020 128,986 76,358 

Navy ......................... 141,344 129,847 96,133 95,785 87,311 12,936 17,885 38,197 32,822 

Total ................ 384,393 411,480 297,276 388,122 362,626 147,924 134,947 183,464 122,659 

Mr. FARR. Remember, that goes to BLM, and we cannot do that 

till we clean it up. It is just—— 

Mr. ARNY. As of December 2008, we have disposed of 367,000 

acres out of 422,000, leaving 55,000—— 

Mr. FARR. And how many are going to be disposed of, of the 

pending number that you have are going to be disposed of—— 

Mr. ARNY. I can check on that. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. By years? 

Mr. ARNY. Because I think a big chunk of the 34,000 acres—remember, Lease in Furtherance of Conveyance (LIFOCs) are in 

many cases, like at—— 

Mr. FARR. You know what they are. 

Mr. ARNY. But at El Toro, we have disposed of the whole base. 

A bunch of it is a LIFOC. They are developing on top of our 

LIFOC, because one of the—like 20 percent of the base is a large 

LIFOC, where the pollution is down 200 feet. And there is a long, 

many year, multi-year pump-and-treat that we are cooperating 

with. So, that will remain a LIFOC for decades. But the development will take place on top of it. 

Mr. FARR. I think we have done that with the university—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

So, we can get you those by—— 

Mr. FARR. And I would also like to know the number of acres 

conveyed by service and by property disposal type. 

Mr. ARNY. We can do that. 

Mr. FARR. And to which type of grantee. 

And I would like to know the length of time for disposal of BRAC 

acreage, and by disposal type. 

What I am trying to get here is that, I think that if you look at 

these numbers, you are not moving property as fast as you should 

be. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, in many cases, like at T.I., we rely on the LRA’s 

plan. And they have had nine separate plans over the last 15 

years. 

But we have—— 

Mr. FARR. Those arguments cannot go to the San Francisco property. I mean, this is another example where— 

Mr. ARNY. No, that is the property I am talking about. 

EDC

They have had nine separate plans that changes constantly. Because they wanted to do a no-cost EDC. And we were fine with 

that. 

Mr. FARR. But once they have an adopted plan, that’s it. You do 

not—— 

Mr. ARNY. That is right. 


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Mr. FARR [continuing]. Micro-manage the plan. 

Mr. ARNY. No. But they—but we said, you know, we go in and 

appraise it for the value, because a no-cost EDC, an EDC must be 

for permanent jobs. That is the law. 

And they finally, after nine plans, had come around to doing 

mostly housing on there, which is fine. But that does not qualify 

for an EDC. Part of it does. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I think the planned value is—your estimated— $1 million—— 

Mr. ARNY. We have—— 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. If you are going to sit on that forever— 

Mr. PENN. Right. And we offered—we want to go back and do it. 

Mr. FARR. Well, they have made some offers. 

Mr. PENN. We will pay for it, if we can. 

Mr. FARR. They have made some pretty good offers. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, and frankly—— 

Mr. FARR. We are auditing that all—— 

Mr. ARNY. Frankly, the City of San Francisco has been getting 

the revenue. They have been renting the houses out on Treasure 

Island to the public since the base was closed, and they have been 

getting the revenue. So, it has not been revenue-negative. They 

have been making rents off those houses since we closed it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two questions left, one for 

Secretary Arny and one for Secretary Eastin. 

VISION CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

Secretary Arny, I believe about 5,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with direct eye injuries. Part of this realignment with the National Naval Medical Center, I think, is a 

big investment in what is called the Vision Center of Excellence. 

Can you go into more detail about where we are at with the Vision Center, and how is it coming along? 

Mr. ARNY. No, sir, I cannot. I will have to get back to you on 

that. 

[The information follows:] 

The Department has determined that space at the present National Naval Medical Center can be renovated to house the Vision Center of Excellence and staff, 

such that it can be collocated with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. DoD is examining options on the cost and the fiscal years in which to fund the 

project. The current estimate is $4M in MILCON for renovation projects in the first 

FY and $0.3M in operations and maintenance in next FY to outfit the facility. DoD 

is reviewing when the renovation necessary to establish the center can take place 

to integrate it with the extensive BRAC construction now underway at Bethesda. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. If you will get back to me on that. 

And then, Secretary Eastin, this is probably—— 

Mr. PENN. Sir, what would you like to know on the vision center? 

Mr. WAMP. Just an update on where we are in the process, how 

it is coming along. 

Mr. PENN. Sir—— 

Mr. WAMP. You have got that here? 

Mr. PENN. Well, Army is the business plan manager for that. All 

the plans are being held by TRICARE Management Activity, TMA. 

We are putting it in an existing space in building eight, as part 

of the BRAC movement from Walter Reed to Bethesda. 


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Total cost is $3.2 million. 

Mr. WAMP. And there is a $2.6 million HVAC upgrade, I think. 

So, all of that money is in place and it is moving forward. We are 

going to get this Vision Center of Excellence up and running. 

Mr. PENN. Right. 

Mr. ARNY. Let us double check. I am hearing some conflicting 

data. We will get you—— 

[The information follows:] 

The Department has determined that space at the present National Naval Medical Center can be renovated to house the Vision Center of Excellence and staff, 

such that it can be collocated with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. DoD is examining options on the cost and the fiscal years in which to fund the 

project. The current estimate is $4M in MILCON for renovation projects in the first 

FY and $0.3M in operations and maintenance in next FY to outfit the facility. DoD 

is reviewing when the renovation necessary to establish the center can take place 

to integrate it with the extensive BRAC construction now underway at Bethesda. 

Mr. PENN. Yes. But the money is still TMA’s. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. If you would get that to us. 

And then the second thing sounds parochial, because it is in Tennessee, but it is almost the opposite of what you normally hear. 

None of us are immune from this. 

MILAN ARSENAL

Normally, someone would be lobbying for BRAC to be changed. 

My question about the Milan Arsenal in west Tennessee is whether 

BRAC 2005 is being complied with. And here is why. I am going 

to give you kind of a series of questions. 

The newspaper tried to get some answers a couple of months ago 

there in Milan, Tennessee, but they could not. A facilities use contract was awarded for one company to basically run Milan and the 

Iowa AAP. But now, it appears that some of the missions are moving to Iowa. 

And in 2005, under BRAC, the Milan Arsenal was named a Munitions Center of Excellence, and was supposed to receive funds 

from Kansas and Lone Star. I was there and toured it, and listened 

to what is happening. I am questioning whether or not this is actually running exactly opposite of BRAC. 

This appears to be political influence set in to move some things 

outside of BRAC. And I just need a series of questions answered 

that, frankly, the newspaper could not get answered 2 months ago. 

And I know you are leaving next week, so if you could have 

somebody pick these questions up, get to the bottom of it, and let 

me know, please, about Milan. I do not want to bug you too much 

with an issue that is Tennessee, but this is a BRAC question. 

[The information follows:] 

I’m glad you asked about that because there have been some misunderstandings. 

First, as to the newspaper’s questions, the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a Corrective Action Request from the commander of Iowa Army 

Ammunition Plant to the operating contractor there, relating to the contractor’s 

storage and housekeeping. The Army has been working on that FOIA request. We 

want to be responsive to the newspaper’s request while protecting the operating proprietary information. 

Second, I assure you that we are fully complying with BRAC Law. In the case 

of Milan, BRAC Law required the Army to move certain munitions capabilities from 

the Kansas and Lone Star plants to Milan. Those capabilities are moving to and 

will be retained at Milan. 


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Finally, let me address the new operating contract for the Milan and Iowa plants. 

Both of these government-owned, contractor-operated ammunition plants have been 

operated by a single contractor under a single contract, for a number of years. With 

the contract at the end of its term, we held a competition for a new contract for 

the operation and maintenance of these facilities. The successful offeror elected to 

consolidate production workload at Iowa and to develop Milan as a commercial distribution hub, while retaining some production capabilities there. The Army did not 

require that solution. It was a commercial decision by an offeror for its method to 

maintain both facilities at no cost to the Government and provide the ammunition 

we need. 

Mr. EASTIN. I am surprised that I have not heard this. So—and 

usually, these inquiries filter up to me. So, I will be happy to. 

Mr. WAMP. Very good. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

TRAFFIC CONGESTION AT BETHESDA AND FORT BELVOIR

Let me ask about Bethesda and Walter Reed, two questions. 

One, why did the administration have to, in recent weeks, ask 

for an additional $263 million for the fiscal year 2009 supplemental 

to move this project forward? 

And secondly, does the Department of Defense, the Navy or the 

Army have a good analysis of what the impact is going to be on 

traffic congestion at both Bethesda and Fort Belvoir? And if so, is 

DoD putting any money into that transportation infrastructure, or 

is that being left to the local communities to address that? 

Mr. EASTIN. Let me talk about Belvoir, then I will let B.J. talk 

about—which avenue is that? [Laughter.] 

We have—there are significant traffic problems at Belvoir. And 

one of the ways you handle these traffic problems is to spread them 

out, which is what we have tried to do with so-called BRAC 133, 

moving 6,400 and some people up to Market Center instead of 

down in Belvoir proper, keeping some out at EPG down there and 

keeping them off of the more local roads, Route 1, especially. 

There still exists—and I have not looked at it in the last 4 or 5 

months—there still exists probably $200 million worth of road improvements that are going to be needed down there. And it is basically state-funded activities. 

We have a DAR, Defense Access Road program, that we have 

funded for $36 million. We are looking at a couple other—some of 

the off-ramps off of Fairfax County Parkway. But as to whether 

they would be funded as DAR—it has very constrained ability to 

pay for roads unless they are specifically, basically for military purposes. 

But the traffic is going to be challenging, but we are going to be 

able to handle it, I think, on Route 1 with respect to the hospitals—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. When you say challenging, are there any estimates about what a 30-minute commute is going to be? Will it be 

an hour-and-a-half commute? Or will it be a 40-minute commute? 

Mr. EASTIN. We have estimates on probably every inch of road 

at Belvoir, and I can get those to you. I have not looked at them 

in a while. 

[The information follows:] 


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US Route 1 is critical to both morning and evening traffic conditions for Fort 

Belvoir’s Main Post. Dispersion of population growth among Fort Belvoir, the Engineering Proving Ground, and the Mark Center has mitigated some of the impact to 

Route 1 and the Fairfax County Parkway. While off-post traffic will be slightly more 

congested (5 to 10 more minutes of travel time) after 2011, the more dramatic 

change in traffic will come in terms of adding about 15 minutes before and after 

the peak traffic times. In accordance with the Environmental Impact Statement and 

Record of Decision, Fort Belvoir is implementing a Traffic Demand Management 

Plan to further mitigate traffic impacts. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. EASTIN. But we have a consultant that is all over this. And 

it is, from day one when this recommendation—this whole BRAC 

process was adopted, everybody looked at Fort Belvoir and said, 

gee, isn’t that near 95? Which is loosely called traffic condition F. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Mr. EASTIN. Which means—and the question is, how long will it 

be traffic condition F every day. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Mr. EASTIN. So, what we are trying to do—yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In hindsight, in terms of lessons learned, do we 

need to spend more time in any future base realignment decisions 

carefully examining the traffic implications for those decisions? 

Mr. EASTIN. In my remaining 3 days in this job—a little more 

freedom to talk. But it would have been nice if they had considered 

traffic problems in some of these. I think that the outcome might 

have been slightly different. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So, based on what you have seen, those involved 

in the original BRAC decision or recommendation on Belvoir, and 

perhaps Bethesda, as well, did not do a careful analysis of the—— 

Mr. EASTIN. I am not sure what analysis was done. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Traffic implications. 

Mr. EASTIN. I was not here at that end of the scheme either. But 

in terms of someone that has had to deal with this, sometimes on 

a daily basis, if there were no traffic problems, there would be zero 

problems making this work at Belvoir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. ARNY. I would add to that, that Mr. Eastin and his group 

have done a great job, because there were recommendations to 

move stuff to Belvoir that we have actually had—we have created 

Belvoir annexes to do it. 

And I suspect that both the Commission and the Navy folks 

doing it took their best shot at it, but did not have that level of 

details. 

Now, I will also look at the other side of the coin at Bethesda 

and Belvoir. They, I am sure—I was not there—but I am sure their 

political leaders were at the BRAC Commission asking to move 

things to those bases. So, I mean, it is a double-edged sword. 

And to answer your question about the—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. It is the whole security issue—— 

Mr. ARNY. Well, it really was not—I think we have a handle on 

the security. It was really the traffic on the roads around Belvoir 

and at Bethesda. And what we found at Bethesda was that Montgomery County had a lot of stuff in planning, because Bethesda 

had a traffic problem before. And now, as a result of BRAC, but 


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even more as a result of Wounded Warrior, we have increased the 

capacity. 

There were a lot of things that Montgomery County and the 

State of Maryland had put off that they had planned years ago, so 

it just spurred into action. 

And speaking of that, you had asked, the $263 million in the 

supplemental was the second part of the amount that we talked 

about last year, which was $416 million. Back in the old days when 

we funded things in supplementals, the deputy secretary made the 

decision to increase the capability of Bethesda, over and above 

what BRAC had said. And that $679 million was to go into the supplemental, because it is all for Wounded Warriors. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Farr. 

FUDS

Mr. FARR. One clarification on the cleanup ask, the money. Is 

that going to be based on what the department asks for, or what 

Mr. Edwards—the end amount after Mr. Edwards’ adds last year? 

Will it be on what we appropriated, or what you—— 

Mr. ARNY. I will have to get the answer for that. 

[The information follows:] 

BRAC Cleanup: 

The Department of Defense will apply the full appropriated amount (including 

Congressional plus-ups) to cleanup of Environmental Restoration sites on BRAC 

properties. The FY2009 President’s Budget Request for BRAC Environmental was 

$455 million, while the final appropriated amount was $525 million. The FY2010 

request of $554 million is requirements-based, and reflects an increase over the 

prior year due to a transition of several cleanup actions from the DERA program 

into the BRAC 2005 program. 

We will try—we have always tried to—I notice that Mr. Penn 

talked about it in BRAC. When we got the land sale revenues, we 

increased our cleanup. 

There are certain limits. And I share your concern about this 

backlog, because you are focusing on BRAC, but I am having to 

focus on the FUDs, the formerly used defense sites. In many of 

these cases, even if you throw money at it, we cannot clean up faster than we are right now, because a lot of it is painstaking. There 

is a lot of planning involved—— 

Mr. FARR. But it helps to get some money in there. And not being 

able to move forward without cleanup—well, that is usually what 

holds up conveyances. 

TREASURE ISLAND

Mr. Penn, this will be my last question. It is really about the 

Treasure Island. What is your intent? We would like to move that 

as fast as possible. 

I know you say you want to get fair market value. But as I recall, the original BRAC law did not require that you have to get 

fair market value. It only required that you seek fair market value 

for bases closed after January 1, 2005. Treasure Island was prior 

to that. 

So, aren’t there other options? And I just heard you say maybe 

you are going to go out and get another appraisal? 


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Mr. PENN. Well, that was one of the options with the city, if they 

want to purchase it. But you are right. They are trying at this time 

for a no-cost EDC. And as Mr. Arny stated, that has to be for job 

creation. 

Mr. FARR. Well, look. At Fort Ord, DoD you transferred almost 

all of it except the welfare and morale properties, which were golf 

courses. You sold those. You had to. 

You did one other sale of Fort Ord. But you have transferred 

about 20,000 acres out there, all of it in a no-cost EDC. 

But the job creation just never materialized like we thought it 

would. 

But anyway, there is nothing being built at Fort Ord. right now. 

I mean, we did get a university, which is great, but that was public 

benefit demand. 

So, what is your intent? What are you doing right now to try to 

get that property moved? 

Mr. PENN. With Treasure Island, we have to go back to the city 

and hopefully talk to them. 

For example, we did eight no-cost EDCs between 2002 and 2009. 

Zero-cost EDCs were executed. Now, all we have to do is get them 

to align, and we can do it. 

I mean, we are still in negotiations. The doors are not closed. 

And, in fact, actually, it is more money out of our pocket to maintain these facilities, as you well know. 

Mr. FARR. Yes, it is costly. 

Mr. PENN. Exactly. 

Mr. FARR. You have got the liability—— 

Mr. PENN. So, the sooner we can rid of them—— 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Maintenance costs. How much a year is 

it costing? 

Mr. ARNY. I am not sure. Treasure Island, I think, is just some 

human oversight, because, again, the city took it as a lease, and 

they have been renting out the office space and the housing. So 

they have been revenue-positive since the base closed. 

Mr. PENN. They have acres. They have— 

Mr. FARR. You have got to build it all up to California code now. 

Mr. ARNY. I understand, sir. I am just saying that it is not a cost 

to us, because they have been renting it out and getting property. 

I would have to give you the acreage—— 

Mr. FARR. And there is cleanup, too, isn’t there? 

Mr. ARNY. And which we are proceeding with. 

Mr. PENN. We are doing that, correct. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Any ballpark on how many acres? 

Mr. FARR. It is an island. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, it is two islands, actually. There is Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island. And—— 

Mr. FARR. We still have the Coast Guard—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

Mr. PENN. Right. 

Mr. ARNY. The Coast Guard is there. We lost part of it to 

Caltrans. They condemned part of it for the—— 

Mr. FARR. This is the island that the Bay Bridge goes over to—— 


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Mr. EDWARDS. I have seen pictures, but I do not think I have 

ever—— 

Mr. ARNY. I am going to say it is like—I get 367 acres stuck in 

my mind, but I do not know. I can get you the answer to that. 

Mr. PENN. We will get back. 

[The information follows:] 

• 79 acres conveyed (Coast Guard, Federal Highway Authority and Job Corps) • 996 acres (468 acres dry land/528 acres submerged land) remaining • Over 50% of dry land environmentally suitable for transfer 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards.] 

STATUTORY BRAC DEADLINE

Question. How does the Department define compliance with the BRAC mandate? 

Answer. The Department has a legal obligation to complete all closures and realignments no later than six years from the date the President transmits the Commission’s report to the Congress. The Department defines completion as the point 

in time at which all functions specified in the BRAC recommendation have been relocated to and are functioning at the receiving installation(s) identified in the recommendation. In the case of closures, caretaker and environmental operations may 

continue at the closed location, as long as the functions have been relocated to and 

are functioning at the specified receiving location. 

Question. Who determines or certifies that a BRAC action has been completed? 

Answer. Implementing BRAC 2005 recommendations requires detailed plans that 

delineate required actions, their timing, and necessary resources. The large number 

of transformational recommendations, particularly recommendations to establish 

joint operations, presented significant implementation challenges that underscore 

the utility and necessity of good planning. As such, the Department developed Business Plans to serve as the foundation for the complex program management necessary to ensure BRAC 2005 recommendations are implemented efficiently and effectively. Responsibility for the development of each Business Plan was assigned, by 

recommendation, generally to the Military Department or Defense Agency with facility management authority at the receiving site. Organizations significantly impacted by the recommendation were consulted and required to formally coordinate 

on the plans. Business Plans form the initial operational and budgetary basis for 

BRAC 2005 implementation and must be updated twice each year. Each business 

plan manager is required to certify that the BRAC recommendation for which they 

are responsible have been completed. 

Question. What are the actual legal consequences, if any, of not meeting the 

BRAC deadline? 

Answer. The Department is obligated to complete closures and realignments by 

the deadline imposed by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990, 

as amended. Applicable statutes (the BRAC Act of 1990 and annual appropriation 

and authorization acts for DoD) do not address failure by the Department to complete a recommendation by the statutory deadline. The BRAC Act of 1990 authorizes 

the Department to take such actions as may be necessary to close or realign approved military installations, and to use for such purposes funds in the Department 

of Defense Base Closure Account 2005. The legal consequences of a failure to meet 

the deadline on this authority and funding are not clear. 

The Department fully intends to meet its legal obligation to close and realign all 

installations by September 15, 2011, as required by the Defense Base Closure and 

Realignment Act of 1990 as amended. As intended by Congress, the deadline ensures that the Department moves functions with minimal disruption and that DoD 

transfers closed facilities to the community for reuse as expeditiously as possible. 

The deadline keeps the Department focused on completing implementation and ensures that DoD closes installations expeditiously to allow communities to redevelop 

the property. Specific adverse effects of failing to meet the deadline include: 

• Projects being stretched over many years as both internal (Military Department Comptrollers) and external (Congress) forces shift money away from 

BRAC projects to other ‘‘short-term’’ priorities with the net result being increased in cost due to inflation and scope growth. 

• Breaking linkages between many recommendations that require careful 

choreography of the recommendations that are dependent on functions moving 

out of one location so another function can move in. 

• More opportunities for Congress to try to reverse or alter decisions. 


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• Delayed modernization of facilities provided by BRAC construction. 

• Personnel turmoil and uncertainty as relocations drag on. 

• Unwillingness of market to plan/invest in either redeveloping closing sites 

or expanding development (including housing) at receiving locations 

Question. In the four prior BRAC rounds, were any actions not completed by the 

statutory deadline? If so, how was the issue resolved? 

Answer. As required by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990, 

as amended, for each of the four previous BRAC rounds, the Department met its 

legal obligation to close and realign all installations within 6 years of the date the 

President transmitted that year’s Commission Report to Congress. 

COBRA 

Question. As you noted in your testimony, BRAC 2005 is the most complex BRAC 

round ever. You also noted that previous BRAC rounds were undertaken during a 

period of downsizing in the Armed Forces. Compared to previous rounds, the number of major closures in BRAC 2005 is slightly below average, while the number of 

major realignments is 2.4 times the average of the previous four, and the number 

of minor closures and realignments is more than triple that of all previous rounds 

put together. Furthermore, as you also noted, military construction funding as a 

percentage of total cost for this round is more than double that of previous rounds. 

The COBRA model has been in use since the original 1988 round. While the Committee appreciates your point about COBRA being a, comparative tool, and not a 

method of producing ‘‘budget quality’’ cost estimates, did the Department make any 

efforts whatsoever to refine the COBRA model in order to account for the unique 

nature of this BRAC round? 

Answer. The COBRA model was used during the development of the BRAC recommendations, whereas the unique nature of this BRAC round was not apparent 

until that process was complete—a point at which refinement of the COBRA model 

would not have been useful. The Department did refine the COBRA model (before 

it was used in this round) based on experience in three prior rounds. As stated in 

the Government Accountability Office (GAO) review (Military Bases Analysis of 

DoD’s 2005 Selection Process and Recommendations for Base Closures and Realignments July 2005) of the Department’s BRAC selection process ‘‘DOD has used the 

COBRA model in each of the previous BRAC rounds and, over time, has improved 

upon its design to provide better estimating capability. In our past and current reviews of the COBRA model, we found it to be a generally reasonable estimator for 

comparing potential costs and savings among various BRAC options.’’ The Department agrees with GAO and stands by the use of the model to compare alternatives. 

SAN ANTONIO MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER

Question. Construction on the new medical center at Fort Sam Houston began in 

December 2008. According to the original 1391 submitted for this project, the construction timeline was three years and three months (assuming a start date of December 2007 and a completion date of March 2011). How will the Department ensure that this facility is completed and outfitted by the BRAC deadline? 

Answer. The Department is watching all projects closely, especially those that are 

complex and complete near the implementation deadline. This recommendation in 

particular has been subject to focused oversight. At this point, the Department is 

confident that all inpatient functions will be moved from Wilford Hall to Brook 

Army Medical Center, those inpatient functions will cease at Wilford Hall, and the 

new San Antonio Medical Center will be operational by September 15, 2011. 

JOINT BASING

Question. According to GAO, Joint Basing will produce no net savings for the Department. What is your estimate of the net annual recurring cost required to support Joint Basing? 

Answer. Based on the most current FY10 President’s Budget data, the annual recurring savings from the Joint Basing recommendation, starting in FY2012, is estimated at $32M/year. As the Department gains more experience in financing joint 

base operations, the Department will revise these estimates in future budget submissions. 

EGLIN AFB-INITIAL JOINT TRAINING SITE FOR THE JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER

Question. As Deputy Assistant Secretary Ferguson stated, the noise profile of the 

Joint Strike Fighter was unknown at the time of the BRAC recommendation for esVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00641 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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tablishing the Initial Joint Training Site (IJTS) at Eglin AFB. The Record of Decision of the IJTS demonstrated a significant noise impact issue and restricts the Department to only 59 of the 107 programmed aircraft, which would operate under restricted conditions. What is your plan of action if the restrictions on aircraft and 

operations are upheld by the supplemental EIS? 

Answer. Several alternatives are under review in the preplanning for the supplemental EIS to include other operational locations on the Eglin reservation, additional runway(s) and reorientation of runway(s). As the Air Force evaluates these 

options and works toward a draft DOPAA, we anticipate some of these alternatives 

will meet operational needs and potentially reduce noise impacts to warrant and be 

analyzed fully in the supplement EIS. 

Question. The Committee understands that the Navy variant of JSF will not be 

available until September 2012. If this is the case, how can the Department comply 

with the BRAC mandate? 

Answer. The JSF aircraft acquisition is a programmatic decision and is not part 

of the BRAC recommendation. 

The BRAC recommendation requires that a JSF Initial Joint Training Site be 

stood up at Eglin AFB. This includes appropriate manpower movements for maintenance and pilot instructors from all three Services; construction of a specialized JSF 

Academic Training Center housing JSF training devices and JSF flight simulators 

for all three aircraft variants; and other supporting facilities for aircraft maintenance and housing/feeding student personnel. 

The manpower and facilities have been programmed and construction is underway 

on a schedule to meet the BRAC timeline. The academic training facility with its 

maintenance and flight simulators will provide the capability to train all Services 

maintenance personnel and pilots by 15 Sep 2011. The JSF acquisition schedule 

may vary with individual Service requirements and other programmatic decisions, 

however the Initial Joint Training Site, with the capability to train JSF personnel 

in all variants will standup prior to 15 Sept 2011 and be ready to align with the 

JSF acquisition schedule. 

Question. The Secretary of Defense announced on April 6, 2009 that the Department will increase the buy of Joint Strike Fighters. Will this have any impact on 

the requirements for the joint training site at Eglin? 

Answer. This announcement does not impact the requirements for the joint training site at Eglin. 

EGLIN AFB-RELOCATION OF 7TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP

Question. It is the Committee’s understanding that the construction to support the 

relocation of the 7th Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg to Eglin has been delayed and complicated by the issues associated with the training site for the JSF. 

What projects has the Department currently identified for bedding down the 7th 

SFG at Eglin, and what is the timeline for the award and construction of each 

project? 

Answer. There is one BRAC project, funded in two increments (FY09/FY10) that 

has been identified to meet the BRAC requirement to relocate the 7th SFG to Eglin 

AFB. One contract has been awarded for the first increment and another is scheduled for award this fiscal year. The award of this project was delayed because of 

issues associated with the JSF that were identified in the Environmental Impact 

Statement (EIS). Those issues have been resolved, the project is on schedule to meet 

the BRAC deadline of 15 September 2011. 

Question. The relocation of the 7th SFG involves Air Force, Army, and Special Operations Command. Eglin AFB, however, is not a Joint Basing site. Has the Department sorted out what each command will be responsible for in terms of MILCON 

programming and execution? 

Answer. The Army will be responsible for the MILCON programming and execution for the construction projects required by the 7th SFG. 

Question. The Committee has information that there are about $106 million of unfunded construction requirements for the 7th SFG at Eglin. Have any 7th SFG 

projects been identified which are not being funded by BRAC? 

Answer. There is one BRAC project, funded in two increments (FY09/FY10) that 

has been identified to meet the BRAC requirement to relocate the 7th SFG to Eglin 

AFB. There have been projects identified that are not necessary to meet the BRAC 

requirement but are part of the Military Construction (MILCON) program. These 

projects have been identified, validated, and programmed for funding through the 

MILCON program. The Army provided funding to the Air Force for child care, medical, and a gymnasium. If any other requirements are identified and are validated 

they will compete for funding through the normal MILCON process. 


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SAVINGS AND REDUCTION IN EXCESS INFRASTRUCTURE

Question. What is your current estimate of how much money BRAC 2005 will save 

the Department, and how does this compare with the savings from the four prior 

rounds? 

Answer. The Department estimates that the BRAC 2005 recommendations will save $4B annually, which compares with the four prior rounds as follows: • BRAC 88 $1B annually • BRAC 91 $2.4B annually • BRAC 93 $2.8B annually • BRAC 95 $2.0B annually 

Question. What is the Department’s estimate of the net reduction in acreage and 

square footage that BRAC 2005 will produce? 

Answer. As stated in the Secretary’s letter to the BRAC Commission, the goal of 

BRAC 2005 was to ‘‘support force transformation; address new threats, strategies, 

and force protection concerns; consolidate business-oriented support functions; promote joint- and multi-service basing; and provide the Department with significant 

savings.’’ As such reducing footprint was not a primary goal. The net change in acreage and square feet will not be known until all recommendations are implemented. 

At this point the Department estimates it will return 49,138.75 acres to communities and other federal agencies. 

Question. The Department cites savings derived from the costs associated with 

service members or civilian personnel who are reassigned from a closed or realigned 

installation. These savings are claimed from eliminating authorized positions, despite there being no corresponding decrease in overall personnel strength. This assumption generates nearly half of the BRAC 2005 savings claimed by the Department. Both the BRAC Commission and GAO have disputed the Department’s claim 

that these savings are real. What is the Department’s specific rationale for claiming 

these savings, and can you demonstrate any actual savings from such actions? 

Answer. The issue regarding the treatment of military personnel savings represents a longstanding difference of opinion between DoD and GAO. The Department considers military personnel reductions as savings that are just as real as 

monetary savings. While the Department is not reducing overall end-strength (and 

is increasing end-strength for the Army and Marines), the reductions in military 

personnel for each recommendation at a specific location are real. As is the case 

with monetary savings, personnel reductions allow the Department to apply these 

military personnel to generate new capabilities and to improve operational efficiencies. The fact that the Department has already decided how to ‘‘spend’’ those 

savings (application to other priorities) does not change the fact that savings did 

occur. 

DEFENSE ACCESS ROADS

Question. As discussed in the hearing, certain transportation improvements have 

been identified to support BRAC realignments at gaining installations, such as Bethesda and Fort Belvoir. Some of these improvements may be eligible for military 

construction under the Defense Access Roads (DAR) program. If DAR projects in 

support of BRAC are certified, will these projects be programmed into the BRAC 

account, or will they be shifted to regular MILCON accounts? 

Answer. Any such DAR projects, if certified and validated in DoD’s planning, programming, budgeting, and execution system, will be programmed in the BRAC account. 

FORT DETRICK

BRAC requires the relocation of the Naval Medical Research Center’s Biological 

Defense Research Directorate to Fort Detrick. The initial assumption was that the 

Directorate would be housed in existing, renovated laboratory facilities. A new facility was programmed for AMRIID, but no space was made available for the Navy’s 

Directorate. In June 2008, OSD determined that new $49 million laboratory construction project for the Navy was the only viable solution. 

Question. Why did it take until June 2008 to make the determination that new 

construction was needed? 

Answer. As is the case in complex issues involving multiple organizations and 

stakeholders, the Department pursued a variety of options to determine the best, 

least cost alternative to building a separate facility. Arriving at this point required 

a deliberate analysis of alternatives and achieving consensus among the various organizations. While this deliberate process was lengthy, it ensured that all organizations’ views were represented in the decision process. In the end, senior leadership 


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decided that a laboratory for the Navy’s directorate was the best approach to meet 

the Navy’s unique mission requirements. 

Question. When will new laboratory be fully outfitted and ready for occupancy? 

Answer. The new laboratory is expected to be fully outfitted and ready for occupancy during fourth quarter of FY 2011. 

COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND QUALITY OF LIFE PROJECTS

Question. Does the Department consider community support and quality of life 

projects—such as child development centers, chapels, commissaries, and fitness centers—to be ‘‘necessary’’ for BRAC, and therefore appropriate for BRAC 2005 funding? 

Answer. In general, the Department believes that community support and quality 

of life projects that support personnel growth caused by BRAC actions to be eligible 

for BRAC funding. The determination of whether specific projects are eligible is left 

to the Military Departments controlling the installations. 

Question. How does the Department determine whether a given project is appropriate for BRAC 2005 funding? 

Answer. As indicated in the earlier question, the Military Departments determine 

which projects are necessary to support incoming missions that arrive as a direct 

result of a BRAC action. The specifics of the individual projects are developed based 

on such factors as population growth and the type of mission coming to the base. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the record submitted by Congressman Wamp.] 

BRAC IMPLEMENTATION

According to the testimony, the Department continues to monitor BRAC implementation to ensure that we are meeting our legal obligation under the law. 

Question. What is the Department’s view on what it considers to be ‘‘meeting the 

legal obligation under the law’’? 

Answer. The Department has a legal obligation to complete all closures and realignments no later than six years from the date the President transmits the Commission’s report to the Congress. The Department defines completion as the point 

in time at which all functions specified in the BRAC recommendation have been relocated to and are functioning at the receiving installation(s) identified in the recommendation. In the case of closures, caretaker and environmental operations may 

continue at the closed location, as long as the functions have been relocated to and 

are functioning at the specified receiving location. 

Question. If and when the Department makes the determination that a BRAC action cannot be completed on time, what are some of the options that you are considering? 

Answer. At this point in time, we are confident that all recommendations will be 

completed on time. If later in the process, it appears that a recommendation may 

not be completed on time, the Department will examine its options in detail to determine the best way forward. 

Question. How many Joint Basing MOAs have been signed? 

Answer. As of April 10, 2009, five joint basing Memorandum of Agreement 

(MOAs) have been signed. Those MOAs are for Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, 

Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Story, Joint Base Andrews—NAF Washington, Joint Region Marianas (Naval Base Guam—Andersen AFB), and Joint Base 

McGuire—Dix—Lakehurst. 

Question. Which ones? 

Answer. Those MOAs have been signed for Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, 

Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Story, Joint Base Andrews—NAF Washington, Joint Region Marianas (Naval Base Guam—Andersen AFB), and Joint Base 

McGuire—Dix—Lakehurst. 

Question. How many does the Department expect to have signed by the beginning 

of FY’10? 

Answer. The Department expects to have signed MOAs for all 12 joint bases by 

the beginning of FY’10. 

Question. When does the Department expect to have all MOAs signed? 

Answer. The Department expects all MOAs to be signed by October 1, 2009. 

MILAN ARMY AMMUNITION PLANT

Your testimony describes that the first major BRAC 2005 closure was completed 

last December when the Kansas Army Ammo Plant was closed and production was 


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moved to McAlester (OK) Ammunition Plant, Crane (IN) Ammunition Plant, and 

Milan Ammunition Plant in TN. Secretary Eastin, I’m seeking clarification on a 

number of issues related to the recently awarded facilities-use contract for both the 

Milan Army Ammunition Plant (AAP) and the Iowa AAP. Both plants will now be 

operated by a single contractor, with production work being concentrated in Iowa. 

Question. A February 24, 2009 article in the Milan Mirror-Exchange cites a corrective action report (CAR) issued by the Army. The CAR reportedly highlights a 

number of serious safety violations at Iowa AAP with instructions to report back 

to the Army by January 29, 2009. Can you please provide me with a detailed response about the CAR issued by the Army? 

Answer. Corrective Action Report cited in the newspaper article found deficiencies 

in one of the operation areas with regard to storage and housekeeping of in-process 

and scrap material. American Ordnance immediately shut down the business unit 

where this occurred and put procedures in place to assure there will not be any future housekeeping and storage issues in any business unit at either Iowa Army Ammunition Plant or Milan Army Ammunition Plant. 

Question. Have the violations at the Iowa AAP been completely addressed? 

Answer. Yes. There is no indication that American Ordnance will experience any 

safety shortcomings related to its plan to consolidate the bulk of its production at 

Iowa, and Iowa can assume the increase in workload. Government staff will continue to monitor the area for which the Corrective Action Report was issued, as well 

as all other areas at Iowa. 

Question. I understand that some security concerns may have been highlighted, 

so in light othese security concerns, is the Iowa AAP ready to assume significant 

workload that is set to be transferred from Milan? 

Answer. There is no indication that American Ordnance will experience any security shortcomings related to its plan. 

Question. Will this production move mean that all large and medium caliber munitions are produced at one government-owned plant? If so, does such a concentration create a vulnerability in our national security? 

Answer. Moving the large and medium caliber munitions production capability 

from Milan to Iowa doesn’t mean that the Army will be limited to a single source. 

Several other sources exist within the National Technology and Industrial Base with 

the capability to load, assemble, and pack mortar and artillery high-explosive cartridges, 40mm ammunition, and 105mm and 120mm tank rounds. 

Question. There may be a significant cost to clean up sites at Milan if production 

and testing are moved to Iowa AAP. Has the Army identified such environmental 

costs? Were they taken into consideration during the contract evaluation? 

Answer. The Army considered the potential environmental remediation costs that 

could be involved at Milan during the contract evaluation. American Ordnance plans 

to bring additional tenants to Milan to preclude the closure of any environmentally 

managed areas. These managed areas include ammunition disposal areas, test 

areas, or other operational areas or ranges that require special environmental permits for the activities or processes conducted there. The government will bear the 

costs of environmental remediation at Milan regardless of when they are incurred. 

Question. Under BRAC 2005, Milan was slated to become a ‘‘Munitions Center of 

Excellence’’ and receive functions from Kansas AAP and Lone Star AAP. Does the 

recent contract award comply with BRAC 2005? 

Answer. The contract awarded to American Ordnance (AO) complies with BRAC 

2005. Under BRAC, certain munitions production capacity and capability was directed to be relocated from Kansas Army Ammunition Plant and Lone Star Army 

Ammunition Plant to Milan. However, BRAC did not preclude establishment of 

similar capacity and capability elsewhere. To ensure BRAC compliance, none of the 

production equipment that moved to Milan from Kansas and Lone Star will be 

moved to Iowa. Instead, AO plans to create new production capability at Iowa, while 

retaining at Milan the capacity and capability relocated from Kansas and Lone Star. 

Question. How would this reorganization impact the number of jobs at the Milan 

plant? 

Answer. American Ordnance will determine how many of its jobs for work under 

the contracts will move and when, and what number of jobs will be required for its 

Milan operations. 

DISCRETE BRAC ACTIONS

The Army has over 1,100 discrete actions that are required for the successful implementation of BRAC 2005. 

Question. How many discrete actions have been completed to date? 

Answer. The Army has completed 180 actions as of April 22, 2009. 


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Question. How many do you expect to have completed by the end of fiscal year 

2009? 

Answer. The Army has 265 actions of which 180 are already completed that are 

scheduled for completion by the end of fiscal year 2009. 

Question. What is the cost to implement these 1,100 discrete actions? 

Answer. The over 1,100 actions represent what the Army needs to complete to 

meet the requirements of the BRAC Law. Therefore, the cost as of the President’s 

fiscal year 2009 budget submission is $17.3 billion. 

Question. How much of that cost is military construction? 

Answer. The military construction cost to complete the over 1,100 actions as of 

the fiscal year 2009 President’s Budget submission is $13.1 billion. 

FY ’09 ARMY BRAC 2005 CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Question. What is the total cost for the 96 BRAC construction projects that the 

Army intends to award in FY ’09? How many of the 96 BRAC construction projects 

that the Army plans to award in FY ’09 have been awarded to date? 

Answer. The cost for the 96 BRAC construction projects scheduled for award in 

fiscal year 2009 is $3.8 billion. As of April 22, 2009, the Army has awarded 26 of 

those projects. 

NAVY BUSINESS PLANS

Question. The Secretary has approved all 59 Navy-led BRAC 2005 business plans 

along with 24 other service-led business plans with some Navy equity in them. Your 

testimony points out that some significant challenges lie ahead. What specifically 

are those challenges, and how are you managing the process to ensure that statutory requirements will be met? 

Answer. Seven major construction projects at Naval Air Weapons Station China 

Lake, CA and Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head, MD require complex site 

approvals and certifications for operation from the Department of Defense Explosive 

Safety Board. Additionally, Correctional Facilities require certification before occupancy. And finally, several complex move actions require close coordination with 

other services and agencies. The Department of the Navy (DON) is closely managing 

construction so that it completes in time to conduct the necessary certifications. 

DON is also maintaining effective and continuous coordination with other services 

and agencies for the interdependent moves to succeed. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the record submitted by Congressman Farr.] 

Question. I am concerned that conveyance of legacy bases continues to lag. The 

longer these properties stay on the DOD books, the more they cost us to maintain 

and secure. And—they are not providing any economic activity for local communities. I would like your office to I provide me with the following statistics so we 

can get a good handle on just where we are on getting these parcels off the DOD 

books and into the hands of locals. Total number of disposed BRAC acres (not including Outgrant LIFOC acres). Total number of BRAC acres pending disposal by 

year (including Outgrant LIFOC acres). Number of acres conveyed by Service by 

property disposal type and to which type of grantee. Length of time for disposal of 

BRAC acreage by disposal type. 

Answer. Total number of disposed BRAC acres (not including Outgrant Lease In 

Furtherance of Conveyance (LIFOC) acres) is provided in Table 1 of Enclosure 1. 

Total number of BRAC acres pending disposal by year (including Outgrant LIFOC 

acres) is provided in Table 2 of Enclosure 1. 

Number of acres conveyed by Service, by property disposal type, and to which 

type of grantee, is provided as Enclosures 2 and 3. Enclosure 2 also provides comments concerning apparent fluctuations in data from one year to the next, including 

instances where the status of acreage may be reclassified from one year to the next. 

Length of time for disposal of BRAC acreage by disposal type will be provided separately as soon as we are able to complete the necessary data search, validation, 

and calculations with the Military Departments (MILDEPs). 

The information provided reflects yearly disposal activity starting in 1999 when 

the Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment began tracking this information. Prior to 1999, the MILDEPs had disposed of approximately 16% of the acreage to be disposed. This response provides a yearly disposal picture for the remaining 84% of the total property disposed under BRAC 88, 91, 93, 95, and 05, through 

December 2007. 


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Mr. FARR. Okay. 

Mr. EASTIN. So, the—is somewhat—in San Francisco. 

Mr. PENN. We will scrub that—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. If there is some way we can work with you to 

move that forward, please let us know. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Wamp, any other—— 

Mr. WAMP. Great hearing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I have no additional questions. Obviously, we will 

have a number of written questions we will send to each of you. 

But thank you for your service, and we appreciate you being here. 

The committee will stand in recess. Thank you. 


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THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

TESTIMONY OF OUTSIDE WITNESSES 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. FARR [presiding]. Good morning. The subcommittee will come 

to order. 

Before I begin, I want to mention that the chairman, Mr. Edwards, is going to be a little bit late. He is testifying before another 

subcommittee, and he asked me to chair the hearing until he arrives. 

We have about 16 witnesses today from various nongovernmental 

organizations. And with that many witnesses, we are going to have 

to go in a very timely order. 

Because of those constraints, we ask each of you to limit your 

testimony to no more than 5 minutes. We will have copies of all 

your written testimony, and I will make sure that those are included in their entirety in the record. 

At this point, I would like to ask Mr. Wamp if he has anything 

to say, opening remarks. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Just almost, Mr. Chairman, ditto what you say. This 

is a learning experience for us to give everybody an opportunity to 

appear. And the main thing, I think, is a takeaway from each one 

of the outside witnesses. 

The main thing is, if you can even just underscore my takeaway 

for the day, things that we have to do or should do or the most important things, try to think about that ahead of time so that, no 

matter what, we get whatever that message is before you walk out 

the door. 

And that way, we can listen, learn, help and lead, which is a 

pretty good model for us to follow around here. It is not done 

enough, but we are going to try. So thanks for being here. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

And I want to echo that. I read your testimony this morning, and 

I was very impressed. There are a lot of suggested things like report language that we could include, but it is really for us to listen 

to you and to take away, what are the priorities, needs of the various entities represented here? 

We are going to go in the order this committee has set up, and 

the first is the Friends of the V.A. Medical Care and Health Research. 

Mr. Galen Toews, is he here today? 

Galen is a V.A. physician scientist at Ann Arbor V.A. Medical 

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sity of Michigan Medical School. He is testifying on behalf of the 

Friends of the V.A. Medical Care and Health Research. 

Dr. TOEWS. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Welcome to the committee. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

FRIENDS OF VA MEDICAL CARE AND HEALTH 

RESEARCH (FOVA) 

WITNESS 

GALEN B. TOEWS, MD 

STATEMENT OF GALEN B. TOEWS

Dr. TOEWS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, my name is Dr. Galen Toews. And as mentioned, 

I am testifying on behalf of FOVA, a coalition of 80 veterans service and voluntary health and medical professional organizations 

that work to support funding for veterans health programs. 

We are especially committed to ensuring a strong V.A. medical 

and prosthetic research program. And FOVA recommends the subcommittee provide $575 million for the V.A. medical and prosthetic 

research program in fiscal year 2010. We also, importantly, request an additional $142 million in the 

V.A. minor construction budget to address the deteriorating state 

of V.A. laboratory infrastructure. 

Research really plays an essential role in the V.A. health system. 

Research is the process by which hope is fulfilled, hope for less 

pain, increased function, and independence, symptom-free days, 

and in some instances hope for a cure, hope for leading, in short, 

a normal life. 

These are the kinds of hopes that veterans who come to the V.A. 

are seeking. And the V.A. is dedicated to bringing these hopes to 

fruition. 

The V.A. is doing a good job. In 2008, the V.A. published the results of a landmark, 7-year diabetes trial, which found that intensive control of blood glucose in Type 2 diabetes does little to cut the 

risk of heart disease compared with standard treatment. 

In 2007, the V.A. unveiled the first powered ankle-foot prosthesis. The V.A. has also been involved in comparative effectiveness research for many years, a program that the president has 

highlighted. 

In 2008, the V.A. demonstrated in a large, multi-site clinical 

trial—something we do very well—that more intensive treatment of 

acute kidney injury, for instance, dialysis 6 times instead of 3 times 

per week, did not produce any added benefit. 

In 2007, the V.A. found that balloon angioplasty and stenting, an 

invasive cardiovascular procedure, did little to improve outcome for 

patients with stable coronary artery disease, who were also receiving optimal medical therapy. 

In short, the V.A. is doing good research that is having a direct 

impact on improving the lives of veterans. 

There are some challenges. FOVA congratulates the V.A. for a 

decision to raise the merit review cap from $125,000 per year to 


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$150,000. And this was done to recognize the increased costs of 

doing research. 

However, this welcome increase in grant size puts pressure on 

the V.A. to reduce the overall number of grants awarded. We urge 

the subcommittee to provide V.A. with the necessary resources to 

maintain the new award size, while continuing to support a comparable number of merit review awards. 

The second challenge is sustaining the good work that we have started. The V.A. will need to increase its funding by at least $20 

million in fiscal year 2010 to just keep up with current purchasing 

power. 

The third challenge is what I mentioned earlier, and that is the 

state of V.A. laboratory infrastructure. State-of-the-art research requires state-of-the-art technology, equipment and facilities, in addition to highly qualified and committed scientists. In recent years, 

the V.A. minor construction program has failed to provide the resources needed to maintain, upgrade and replace aging facilities. FOVA recommends Congress provide at least $142 million for 

V.A. laboratory renovations in fiscal year 2010 via this minor construction budget. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for listening. 

[The prepared statement of Galen B. Toews follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Dr. TOEWS. I am happy to answer questions if you have any. 

Mr. FARR. Any questions, Mr. Wamp? 

I just have one quick one. DARPA came here and demonstrated 

a lot of the prosthetics that they are developing. Are you working 

closely—are these labs working closely with DARPA? 

Dr. TOEWS. Yes, they are. They are working closely with a variety of laboratories. The prosthesis specifically mentioned was an 

MIT and Brown collaboration. But the answer to your question is 

yes. 

Mr. FARR. Terrific. I am very excited about what you are doing 

in that field. 

Dr. TOEWS. Right. Right. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Dr. TOEWS. You are welcome. 

Mr. FARR. Our next witness is Joel Streim? He is testifying on 

behalf of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry. Dr. 

Streim is the professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. 

Welcome to our committee. And we will take your testimony in 

full for the record, and if you could summarize it. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY 

WITNESS 

JOEL E. STREIM, MD 

STATEMENT OF JOEL STREIM

Dr. STREIM. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am Joel Streim, a past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry and a practicing geriatric psychiatrist. 

AAGP is a professional membership organization dedicated to 

promoting the mental health and well-being of older Americans 

and improving the care of those with late-life mental disorders. 

You have our written statement, which addresses a number of 

concerns. I will focus my testimony today on just two issues: first, 

the return on V.A. investments in geriatric mental health research 

and services with benefits that are now accruing to veterans across 

the lifespan; and, secondly, the need to safeguard funding to ensure 

full implementation of the VHA comprehensive Mental Health 

Strategic Plan and uniform mental health services handbook that 

specifies requirements supporting that implementation. 

The number of veterans 85 years of age or older has grown rapidly in recent years, and the V.A. predicts that this oldest group 

will reach 1.2 million next year. 

Providing health care for these veterans is challenging, as many 

of them have co-occurring chronic medical conditions, psychiatric 

illness, including cognitive disorders, and/or substance use disorders. For these patients, the interactions between their medical 

and psychiatric illnesses often complicate their health and result in 

poorer outcomes. 


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To deal with these common interactions, geriatric specialists 

have recognized that psychiatric treatment must be integrated and 

highly coordinated with general medical care. Over the past decade, the V.A. made a historic investment in aging research and integrated service models, and now it is paying dividends not only in 

better treatment for older veterans, but also in how we approach 

complex conditions across the lifespan. 

V.A. has played a leading role in developing the scientific evidence base for understanding and treating health problems that 

are common in late life, such as cognitive impairment, musculoskeletal disorders, and chronic pain. 

V.A. expertise in managing these interacting infirmities of aging 

now is informing the approach to younger veterans with similar 

problems. The cross-fertilization made possible by advances in geriatric mental health care will be especially important in working 

with returning OEF–OIF veterans who have polytrauma, which results in functional limitations due to combinations of cognitive impairment and physical disability. 

A related concern is the previously recognized association in 

older adults between head trauma and an increased risk of developing dementia, which raises the worrisome possibility of accelerated brain aging in these younger veterans with head injuries. 

AAGP urges Congress to support the V.A. in monitoring and 

managing the downstream effects of traumatic brain injury and its 

associated cognitive and physical disabilities beyond the initial recovery period as these veterans continue to age. 

A second successful V.A. investment in mental health services for 

veterans across the lifespan must be continued and strengthened. 

This is the mental health enhancement initiative, which has grown 

from $100 million when the special purpose fund was created in 

2005 to $557 million in 2009. 

Through this important initiative, V.A. has ensured the availability of mental health staff to treat elderly veterans who receive 

their general health care through home-based primary care programs and in community living centers, previously known as nursing home care units. 

The integration of mental health services into primary care and 

related settings has made it easier for older veterans to access 

mental health care, and it has improved the coordination of care 

for complex problems that I described in this population. 

It has now been 5 years since the development of the VHA Comprehensive Mental Health Strategic Plan and 5 years since the 

mental health enhancement initiative was made available to support that plan. We at AAGP look forward to the time when the 

strategic plan is fully implemented according to the requirements 

specified in the recent uniform mental health services handbook 

that was published in June 2008. 

However, it is anticipated that after 2009, the enhancement initiative will be rolled over into Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation, known as VERA. And while we believe V.A.’s intent is to 

maintain these enhancements of mental health care for older veterans, we have concerns about V.A.’s ability to achieve full implementation of the strategic plan without sustained, dedicated funding. 


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We therefore urge Congress to enact safeguards to prevent diffusion of the ongoing support that is required to reach this goal. 

AAGP appreciates that there is an important existing safeguard in 

appropriations language that requires no less than $3.8 billion to 

be spent for mental health purposes. 

However, further safeguards are really necessary to ensure continuation of funding specifically dedicated to full implementation of 

this VHA Comprehensive Mental Health Strategic Plan. 

I would like to thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to 

testify today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions you 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Joel Streim follows:] 


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Mr. WAMP. So if there is a one-sentence takeaway, what would 

it say? 

Dr. STREIM. Try and figure out a safeguard to make sure that, 

if funds are rolled over into VERA, that they are dedicated to make 

sure that the strategic plan is actually implemented. 

Actually, the GAO did a follow up in 2006 and published a report 

showing that funds allocated under the mental health initiative— 

enhancement initiative actually didn’t all get to mental health activities that were part of the intended implementation, according to 

the handbook requirements. 

And so it is down to follow the dollars and make sure they get 

to where they are intended to go. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you. 

Dr. STREIM. The appropriations are there. We want them to continue. But we want to make sure they actually do—— 

Mr. FARR. You want a firewall? 

Dr. STREIM. Exactly. And I leave it up to you to craft that. 

Mr. FARR. Let me ask you one question. You recommend a creation of a new line of mental health research funding for the development, testing and dissemination of an intervention to manage 

the psychiatric and behavioral manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias. 

Do the National Institutes of Health already have that? 

Dr. STREIM. Yes, the NIH funds the large proportion of the Alzheimer’s research in the United States currently. The V.A. has actually also taken tremendous initiative in this area. There are geriatric research, education and clinical centers. There are mental illness research, education and clinical centers—— 

Mr. FARR. Then why do we need a line item? 

Dr. STREIM. Because we really believe that the Alzheimer’s research at this point is still underfunded. And the reason we are 

particularly concerned now, as I said in my oral testimony, is, with 

all the returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq theaters, we 

are seeing head injuries, and we know that these young veterans 

are at risk as they age for developing dementias of the Alzheimer 

type. And we want to be as prepared as we can, as they get older, 

to follow them up and make sure that the treatments are in place. 

Alzheimer’s research is underway, but we have a long way to go. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. We appreciate your testimony. 

Dr. STREIM. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Moving on, Barbara Cohoon is the Deputy Director of 

Government Relations for the National Military Family Association. She is a member of the Department of Defense’s Uniform Formulary Beneficiary Advisory Panel. That is a mouthful. She has 

been appointed to DOD’s Defense Health Board’s TBI Family Caregivers Panel, Health Care Delivery Subcommittee, and the TBI 

Subcommittee. 

We look forward to your testimony. 


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THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009.

NATIONAL MILITARY FAMILY ASSOCIATION 

WITNESS 

BARBARA COHOON 

STATEMENT OF BARBARA COHOON

Ms. COHOON. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee, 

the National Military Family Association would like to thank you 

for the opportunity to present testimony on the quality of life of 

military families, the nation’s families. 

In this statement, our association will address issues of importance to military families, veterans, and survivors regarding family 

readiness, family health, and family transition. 

Our association is pleased with the attention this subcommittee 

has paid to expanding childcare facilities. However, we continue to 

hear more childcare services are needed to fill the ever-growing demand. Our association encourages increased funding for drop-in 

childcare for medical appointments and restive care on DOD and 

V.A. premises—partnerships with other organizations to provide 

this valuable service. 

Privatized housing is a welcome change for military families. 

However, project delays negatively impact the quality of the life of 

our families. A visit to Key West, Florida, found a contractor had 

only renovated 32 homes out of 890, and no new construction 

projects had been completed. We request an oversight hearing to 

address these issues. 

The V.A. needs to be cognizant of the ever-changing landscape 

and needs of their veteran population and those who care for them. 

The V.A. needs to offer alternative housing arrangements, which 

allows for a diversified population to live together in harmony, fosters independent living, and maintains dignity for all involved. We 

recommend V.A. funding for these housing initiatives. 

The commissary is a key element of the total compensation package for our military families. Our association is concerned there 

will not be enough commissaries to serve areas experiencing substantial growth because of BRAC. Additional flexible funding is 

needed to ensure commissaries are built, expanded or renovated in 

these areas. 

Our association is concerned DOD and the V.A. health care system may not have all the resources it needs to provide access to 

health care for all eligible beneficiaries. DOD and V.A.’s health 

care facilities must meet today’s health care demands of the diversified population. 

Congress must provide timely and accurate funding for worldclass facilities, offering state-of-the-art services supported by evidence-based research and design. 

Family members are a key component of their veteran’s wellbeing. Our association is especially concerned with the scarcity of 

services available to these families as they leave the military. 

The V.A. and DOD need to think proactively as a team and as 

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sitional programs. And these services need to be adequately funded. 

Interoperability is crucial. We need to create a seamless transfer 

of medical record information, especially as we move toward more 

joint facility operations and for our wounded, ill and injured who 

frequently transfer between the two agencies’ health care systems. 

We encourage Congress to adequately fund V.A. and DOD I.T. 

interoperability. 

Caregivers need to be recognized for the important role they play 

in the care of their loved ones. Their daily involvement improves 

the quality of life of the veteran and saves the V.A. money. In order 

to perform their job well, caregivers need to be trained, certified, 

and appropriately compensated for the care they provide. 

Our association looks forward to discussing details of implementing such a plan with members of this subcommittee. We 

would like to see the dependents educational assistance benefit 

match the increase in Montgomery G.I. Bill benefits and adjust 

proportionately whenever Congress raises servicemembers’ educational benefits. 

Our association asks for dependency and indemnity compensation, DIC equity, with other federal survivor benefits and that it be 

increased to 55 percent of V.A. disability compensation. We ask 

Congress to make the additional $250 DIC family transitional payments paid by the V.A. retroactive through October 7, 2001, and 

that this benefit be linked to COLA in the future. 

BRAC and global rebasing are still occurring. For families remaining overseas, additional MILCON funding is needed to rebuild 

and upgrade schools. To address these concerns, we urge Congress 

to appropriate $100 million in MILCON funding for these schools. 

Our association would like to thank you again for the opportunity to present testimony today on the quality of life of our military families. We thank you for your support of our 

servicemembers, veterans, their families, and for the survivors who 

made the greatest sacrifice. 

Military families are our nation’s families. They serve with pride, 

honor, and quiet dedication. We look forward to working with you 

to improve the quality of life for all these families. 

Thank you, and I await your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Barbara Cohoon follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you—certainly, you did that in a timely way, 

14 pages of testimony all single spaced. I think you had more requests than all the other witnesses of the day. 

Do you have any questions? 

Mr. WAMP. It is about the best summary of the quality-of-life 

needs that I have actually heard, so whoever did that is very good. 

This is a little off that path, though, and you may have to get 

back with me on this, but General Casey, General Chiarelli, and 

General Casey’s wife have all told me personally that there are still 

impediments in the law, statutory impediments to outside entities, 

nonprofits, even for-profit entities, or individuals from assisting financially military families. 

And I have actually got a new bill and old law right here that 

I am reviewing, trying to figure out how to approach this. But if 

your association can identify any impediments that exist today for 

military families, I hear them say that a lot of our free enterprise 

system wants to help military families and they can’t, they are prohibited by law, by statute. 

I need to know where, how, and what to change, because I want 

to do that. I feel like that is a missing link. You all clearly make 

your case to us on behalf of the taxpayers, but if there is this huge 

potential out there of our free enterprise system, besides employers 

in the Guard and Reserve, et cetera, people that want to help but 

they can’t, they are prohibited. 

And some of it is gift rules. I am reading all this, but I don’t 

think it is just direct gifts, like I want to give you food or whatever. 

I think it is support. 

And that is a question that we need to address every hearing. 

But if you all can glean that from your membership and ask, you 

know, where have you seen them stopped from helping—people 

they want to help? Let’s say you want to give a van; I don’t know. 

I mean, just things like that. 

So I am just throwing that at you, but I don’t expect you to answer the question, but I would love to have you come to my office 

and give me any feedback from your membership. 

Ms. COHOON. Well, we certainly can do that. America Supports 

You, which is a Web site set up by DOD, has a lot of nonprofit entities that provide services for families. And we direct them in that 

direction on a regular basis. 

Also, too, the military itself has institutions in place as far as to 

help out financially, along with the different services on top of that, 

too, for them to go to. 

So there are organizations that have been giving out large sums 

of money and have been giving—you know, fixing up homes and 

things like that. So I will certainly go back and talk to members 

within our association, as far as what they are hearing regarding 

legal aspects that are preventing it from going on. 

But we certainly tell people on a regular basis to go to America 

Supports You. We also point them in other—because our association does not give out money. But we do steer them to organizations that do it on a regular basis and have not heard back that 

the organization itself was unable to proceed. 

Mr. WAMP. Quickly, because there are 13 others, but let me ask 

you, how many of your families still have financial problems that 


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cause them to go to predatory lenders and borrow money that puts 

them in a hole that they can’t get out of? 

And what about divorce? And are you seeing suicide rates go up, 

many times from family members who have had financial problems 

or divorce while they have been serving? And that pressure leads 

to suicide, and some people think it is asymmetrical warfare and 

head trauma and all that, which are in some cases, but in most 

cases, it is just the pressure on the family. Is that what you see 

with your membership? 

Ms. COHOON. Well, we are hearing the financial aspect starting 

to play out more and more. I was recently in Norfolk, and the special forces are starting to notice, especially foreclosures on homes. 

And they themselves have set something up to help them financially with that particular piece. 

Because their concern is—and it is true across the service—if you 

are thinking about financial issues back home, it is difficult for you 

to be able to serve in theater and do your job. And so they are looking at that particular piece. 

Predatory lending is still an issue. There are some loopholes 

which we can get back to you on that that we would like to see addressed. 

But the services themselves, as far as the Navy-Marine Corps 

Relief Society, those types of programs have made it so that it is 

a little bit easier as far as their servicemembers to go and get 

money. 

The problem with the mental health issues is, there is a shortage 

of providers out there. One of our things that we also had in our 

testimony is we need to do a lot more outreach as far as teaching 

our families, but also the communities in which they live, signs and 

symptoms of mental health issues and then, also, the resources to 

go to, because it may not necessarily be the spouse. It is mom or 

dad, or it might be the coach that is picking up. 

So there are a lot of different moving parts, but we can certainly 

get back to you on the lending piece. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Barbara. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. That Web site is 

AmericaSupportsYou.com? 

Ms. COHOON. I think it is .gov. It is through DOD. It was set up 

some years ago, and it is where all the nonprofits can actually register and that can provide services. 

Mr. FARR. I will take a look at it. Thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

The next witness is Stephen Nolan. Stephen is testifying on behalf of the American Lung Association. In May 2006, he was elected to serve on the board of directors of the American Lung Association. This is the oldest nonprofit health agency in the country. 

Welcome to our committee. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION 

WITNESS 

STEPHEN J. NOLAN 


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STATEMENT OF STEPHEN J. NOLAN

Mr. NOLAN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. 

I am Steve Nolan. I am chair of the American Lung Association. 

As the chair just indicated, we are the oldest voluntary health organization in the country with over 300,000 volunteers and over 5 

million active donors. 

I am an attorney in private practice in Baltimore, Maryland, and 

have been a volunteer with the American Lung Association for over 

10 years. 

I am pleased today to be accompanied by our new American 

Lung Association president and CEO, Chuck Connor, Captain 

Charles Connor, I should say, U.S. Navy, retired. Captain Connor 

served our nation in uniform for over 26 years. 

First of all, we want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the committee for increasing the investment in medical research at the 

V.A. to $510 million for fiscal year 2009. 

There is no doubt that our nation has an undying commitment 

to all our veterans, especially the 40 percent of our veterans who 

are over age 65. Chronic diseases are now the most prevalent in 

the V.A. system. Now is the time to increase funding for research 

at the V.A. to meet emerging needs and the existing disease burden. 

The American Lung Association recommends and supports increasing V.A. medical and prosthetics research to $575 million. 

Tobacco use and the chronic diseases caused and exacerbated by 

tobacco take an enormous toll on veterans. We commend the work 

of this committee and the Veterans Health Administration to increase smoking cessation. 

While cigarette smoking continues to be a problem for veterans, 

progress has been made. In 2007, a survey conducted of veterans 

enrolled in the Veterans Administration showed that 22 percent of 

the entire enrollee population currently smokes cigarettes. In contrast, the general population, the rate of smoking among the general adult population is 19.8 percent. 

We recommend that the committee encourage the Department of 

Veterans Affairs to work with the Department of Defense to increase effective efforts to prevent tobacco use and increase tobacco 

cessation. 

Let’s try to stop tobacco addiction, end disease before it starts, 

and prevent the enormous health toll on this nation’s veterans and 

active-duty military. 

Now, let’s look at just one lung disease the American Lung Association is fighting. Chronic lung disease causes a large human and 

financial cost within the V.A. system. Generally in this country, 

lung disease is responsible for 1 out of 6 deaths. It is the thirdleading cause of death in this country. 

And in particular, chronic pulmonary obstructive disease affects 

approximately 16 percent of the veterans, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs health care. 

Proven interventions are effective, and treatments have been 

showed to improve quality of life. Chronic obstructive pulmonary 

disease, or COPD, is a term referring to two lung diseases, chronic 


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bronchitis and emphysema. Both conditions cause obstruction of 

the air flows that interfere with normal breathing. 

Emphysema begins with destruction of the airways. As air sacs 

are destroyed, the lungs are able to transfer less and less oxygen 

to the bloodstream. The lungs also lose their capacity and elasticity, which results in a shortness of breath and difficulty exhaling. 

Symptoms of emphysema include cough, shortness of breath, and 

limited exercise tolerance. People with COPD may eventually require oxygen and supplemental mechanical respiratory assistance. 

The other COPD that I mentioned is chronic bronchitis, and that 

refers to inflammation and eventual scarring of the lining of the 

lungs and the bronchial tubes. 

The bronchial tubes then make an ideal breeding place for bacteria infections, infections which are a frequent reason for hospitalization and emergency visits of veterans and other people with 

COPD. 

Cigarette smoking is associated with a tenfold increase in the 

risk of dying from chronic obstructive lung disease. About 80 percent to 90 percent of all deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease are attributable to cigarette smoking. 

It is possible to reduce the burden of COPD and tobacco addiction in the V.A. system through using proven, effective measures, 

summarized in national treating tobacco dependence guidelines. 

Mr. FARR. Can you wrap it up? 

Mr. NOLAN. Yes, your honor. 

I would like to say just a few words regarding research—— 

Mr. FARR. You have got about a half a minute. 

Mr. NOLAN. Yes, sir. Again, the ALA supports increasing the in- vestment to $575 million. 

[The prepared statement of Stephen J. Nolan follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. NOLAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, that is the takeaway, but what is the cost of 

cigarette smoking to the United States of America each year? 

Mr. NOLAN. In H.R. 1256, which was recently passed by the 

House, the cost is tremendous. Cigarette companies alone spent 

$13.5 billion in 2005 to keep Americans addicted to smoking and 

to attract new smokers. 

But, sir, I will provide the committee with the actual dollar cost, 

the overall dollar cost to our health care system in a supplemental 

submission. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. WAMP. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. I have one question. In your testimony, 

you point out that the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 

that more than 50 percent of all the active-duty personnel stationed in Iraq smoke. Why? 

Mr. NOLAN. Captain Connor. 

Mr. FARR. That is 1 out of every 2. Are they smoking before they 

go to Iraq or are they picking it up there? 

Captain CONNOR. The indications are that they are nonsmokers 

before they come into the Army and they pick it up during the 

course of their service because some of their sergeants or their seniors smoke. And in theater, they pick this up—— 

Mr. FARR. Are there any penalties for starting to smoke while 

you are in the service? 

Captain CONNOR. There are no administrative or disciplinary 

penalties, but they are coming back from service 50 percent as 

smokers when they weren’t a year or two before. 

Mr. FARR. You need to look into that. 

Thank you. 

Mr. NOLAN. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Mr. FARR. Our next witness is Dr. Heather Kelly, Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer in the Science-Government Relations office of the American Psychological Association, a scientific 

and professional organization of more than 150,000 psychologists 

and affiliates. 

Welcome to our committee, and we look forward to your testimony. We have the testimony and will submit it for the record, so 

if you could just summarize it. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 

WITNESS 

HEATHER KELLY 

STATEMENT OF HEATHER KELLY

Ms. KELLY. Yes, sir. Thank you. 

Good morning, Mr. Vice Chairman, Ranking Member Wamp. As 

was mentioned, I am Dr. Heather O’Beirne Kelly with the American Psychological Association, APA, and we are a membership organization of more than 150,000 psychologists and affiliates across 

the country, both scientific and clinicians focused. 

Many of our psychologists work within the Department of Veterans Affairs as both research scientists and clinicians committed 

to improving the lives of our nation’s veterans. 

A strong V.A. psychology research program provides the scientific 

foundation for high-quality care within the V.A. system. V.A. psychologists play a dual role in both providing care for veterans and 

in conducting research in all areas of health, including high-priority areas especially relevant to veterans, such as mental health, 

brain injury, substance use, aging-related disorders, and physical 

and psychosocial rehabilitation. 


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As you know, the current conflicts have presented new challenges for V.A. psychologists, as many veterans of PTSD have postconcussive symptoms extending from blast injury. In addition, V.A. 

psychologists often receive special training in rehabilitation psychology and/or neuropsychology, which helps to improve assessment, treatment and research on the many conditions affecting veterans of the current conflicts, including PTSD, burns, amputations, 

blindness, spinal cord injuries, and polytrauma. 

Equally important are the positive impacts of psychological interventions on the care of veterans suffering from chronic and agingrelated illnesses, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, HIV, and 

pain. I should mention psychologists have a very strong program 

within the V.A., in terms of substance abuse prevention and treatment, especially focusing on smoking these days in the current theaters. 

Here are my two take-home points. First, APA joins the Friends 

of V.A. Medical Care and Health Research, the FOVA coalition, in 

urging Congress to provide $575 million in fiscal year 2010 for the 

overall V.A. medical and prosthetic research accounts. This recommendation is echoed in the veterans Independent Budget and in 

the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs views and estimates. 

We also urge the committee to make sure that our stellar V.A. 

scientists have adequate technology, equipment and facilities for 

their research. That is my second take-home point. 

So within the V.A. minor construction program, which has not 

provided the resources needed to adequately maintain, upgrade 

and replace aging research facilities, we again join FOVA in urging 

Congress to designate $142 million in fiscal year 2010 within the 

minor construction budget specifically for renovation of research facilities. 

This is not asking for luxury. I mean, it is true that some of 

these facilities have research labs that are in worse shape than my 

children’s elementary schools, and that should not be the case. 

As a psychologist and also as the daughter and granddaughter 

of career military officers, I feel very strongly, both personally and 

professionally, about our responsibilities towards military personnel and veterans. 

The care of veterans suffering psychological wounds as a result 

of military service is at the heart of the V.A.’s mandate to ‘‘care for 

him who shall have borne the battle.’’ And with your support, V.A. 

psychologists stand ready to respond with cutting-edge research 

and treatment. 

Thank you. And I am happy to take any of your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Heather Kelly follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, less than 2 minutes. Well done. 

Mr. WAMP. Thanks for your service and excellent testimony. 

When the other witnesses said that we still don’t have enough providers for psychological services, what is your association doing to 

help us provide those providers through the V.A. in the field so 

that we do have adequate mental health services for our returning 

population? 

Ms. KELLY. Yes. And I can get back to you with a much longer, 

specific response, but we echo their concerns. Sometimes the issue 

is not as much financial as making sure that the—as a previous 

witness mentioned, get to the right places so that the money can 

be spent on the right things. 

And you all have helped in the past couple of years—devoted a 

lot more support toward mental health professionals. In some 

cases, we have those professionals now, and we are waiting to get 

them a desk, a computer. So there are a lot of issues around personnel that aren’t necessarily always pure numbers. 

But we can certainly get back to you in terms of what the issues 

are and how best we could address those. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Ms. KELLY. I had a nice meeting with your staff last week on 

some of these issues. They have been very helpful. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. In the office of the American Psychological Association, you represent all the professionals in the association, not 

those just that are in the V.A.—— 

Ms. KELLY. Correct. 

Mr. FARR. or any government—— 

Ms. KELLY. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. And what we have been trying to do is—match those 

professionals with the patients in their hometown communities. 

Ms. KELLY. We have had a lot of interest from our membership 

across the country, both in terms of Reserve, V.A., and active 

duty—psychologists who practice as clinicians who want to be of 

service, of volunteer service to military and veteran personnel. 

And we are trying—and as NMFA mentioned, we are trying to 

find the best ways to hook up appropriate personnel with appropriate training in ways that they can be helpful to sort of augment 

what the military and the V.A. population of mental health professionals can provide. 

Mr. FARR. A very effective Web site you might look at is called 

networkofcare.org. It tries to link up resources county by county in 

the United States, so that you really know what all the network 

of care in a given field, Alzheimer’s or mental health, or other 

kinds of diseases, what kind of resources are there in the civilian 

community, as well as the government. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Well, thank you for your testimony. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. FARR. Next witness is with the American Thoracic Society, 

Jesse Roman-Rodriguez, who is testifying on behalf of the American Thoracic Society, a medical professional organization of over 

15,000 members dedicated to the prevention, treatment, research, 

and cure of respiratory disease. 


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Dr. Roman-Rodriguez is a professor of medicine at the Emory 

University School of Medicine and is also staff physician at the 

Emory Clinic and the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. 

Welcome to our committee. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

AMERICAN THORACIC SOCIETY 

WITNESS 

JESSE ROMAN-RODRIGUEZ, MD 

STATEMENT OF JESSE ROMAN-RODRIGUEZ

Dr. ROMAN-RODRIGUEZ. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. 

My name is Jesse Roman-Rodriguez, as you heard. I serve at the 

Atlanta V.A. Medical Center, and I am here to talk to you about 

the good things that V.A. provides, but also to request that you 

provide funding for its infrastructure. 

I am excited to be here because of the many things the V.A. medical research and prosthetic research program provides. I know I 

have only a few minutes, so I am going to focus on a couple of 

things that I believe are truly outstanding about this program. 

As you mentioned, I testify on behalf to the American Thoracic 

Society. It is a 15,000-member medical professional society dedicated to the research, prevention, treatment and cure of respiratory 

disorders. Like me, there are many ATS members that serve in 

V.A. facilities all across the country. 

This organization is especially committed to ensuring the continuation of strong V.A. medical and prosthetic research program. 

And it is grateful that, in the past year, there has been increases 

in the V.A. funding, and we request the subcommittee to provide 

$575 million for the V.A. research program in 2010. 

Now, why support the V.A.? And you have heard other witnesses 

describe that. Let me give you my version of it. 

First, the V.A. research program attracts many bright, young 

physicians to serve our nation’s veterans. You have the best physicians. You also have the best trainees. And that is a crucial component with what the V.A. does, and these are people devoted to taking care of veterans. 

I came to the V.A. because of its research program. I trained in 

the V.A. in San Juan. Later on, I went to the St. Louis V.A. I have 

been 17 years at the Atlanta V.A., and I am moving on to Kentucky 

to the Louisville V.A. And it is a program that I would not leave. 

Based on my experience, and the experience of my colleagues and 

many others, I am convinced that the V.A. research program keeps 

high-quality doctors within the system. The grants, the mentorship 

opportunities that are there really attract these people who are actually devoted to the care of patients. And, therefore, being able to 

maintain a clinical research career there is highly attractive for 

these physicians. 

The second point that I want to make is the V.A. research program excels in clinical research. It is great to perform research in 

tissue culture and Petri dishes and so forth, but we have got to 


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translate that research to the human condition and the care of patients. That is something the V.A. researchers do and do extremely 

well. 

In my own place, research performed by my colleagues has improved dramatically the care of critically ill veterans and veterans 

with tobacco-related diseases, diabetes, hypertension, and so forth. 

The third point is that the V.A. research produces really outstanding science. These findings can be found in the top journals, 

New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Society, and so forth. 

I will give you one example at my own V.A. I have a group that 

is involved in alcohol-related research and its’ relationship with the 

lung. Until the mid-1990s, there was no known association between 

those two. Now, because of this group, we know that chronic alcohol abuse increases susceptibility to acute lung injury, which kills 

about 50 percent of the people who develop it. 

This group, over the past decade, has found the mechanism by 

which this happens, has found a receptor that affects—that relates 

to alcohol in the lung, and is looking very carefully into potential 

therapeutic targets to treat that. So whether it is alcohol abuse, 

lung cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s, V.A.’s researchers are looking into that. 

And, lastly, the V.A. research program is good for veterans. Its 

program is devoted to taking care of diseases that have—or that affect the veteran population. 

What is the problem? Well, one of the problems—one of the dark 

spots here is the infrastructure in the V.A. aging facilities. The 

V.A. research labs are woefully out of date. The sub-par research 

facilities are making it increasingly hard to recruit and retain topflight physician researchers into the V.A. 

The ATS greatly appreciates this subcommittee bringing attention to this area by supporting and developing a report that will 

look at the V.A. infrastructure. Unfortunately, the funds are really 

needed now so that we don’t continue to neglect V.A. research labs. 

Funds to refurbish V.A. research are desperately needed in 2010. 

ATS strongly recommends that $142 million be provided to rehabilitate the existing laboratory space. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I think it is clear that V.A. research provides 

a lot of good things to a lot of good people for a little money. I hope 

you will continue to support the nation’s veterans to provide $575 

million for the V.A. research program and $172 million to improve 

its infrastructure and space rehabilitation for 2010. 

Thank you. And I will answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Jesse Roman-Rodriguez follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. No questions. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. How many research facilities are there? 

Dr. ROMAN-RODRIGUEZ. Around 52 or so, one or two per state. 

Mr. FARR. And $142 million will take care of that, huh? 

Dr. ROMAN-RODRIGUEZ. It will go a long way to improving the research laboratory structure, yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Okay, thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony, Doctor. 

Dr. ROMAN-RODRIGUEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Next witness is Joe Barnes, who is the Fleet Reserve 

Association’s national executive director. He is also a senior lobbyist and chairman of the association’s National Committee on Legislative Service. 

Thank you for being here today. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

FLEET RESERVE ASSOCIATION 

WITNESS 

JOE BARNES, USN, RET. 

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH L. BARNES

Mr. BARNES. Thank you, Congressman, Ranking Member Wamp. 

It is a pleasure to be here. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present FRA’s legislative goals. 

My name is Joe Barnes. I am the FRA’s national executive director. 

And with me today is Gerald Brice, a constituent of Representative 

Wamp’s, and FRA’s southeast region vice president from Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you for coming. 

Mr. BARNES. He is here to participate in FRA’s Hill business day, 

in conjunction with our national board of directors meeting tomorrow and Saturday. 

A continuing concern for FRA is ensuring that wounded troops, 

their families, and the survivors of those killed in action are cared 

for a grateful nation. This includes adequate and sustained funding 

to ensure quality health care, support and benefits, medical and 

prosthetic research, and a smooth, seamless transition for veterans 

transitioning from DOD to the V.A. for care. 

There is progress towards these goals, and FRA sincerely appreciates the strong support from this distinguished subcommittee in 

achieving this. FRA appreciates and firmly supports the administration’s plan to submit a 2010 V.A. budget of $113 billion, which 

is $15 billion higher than this year’s budget. 

Much of the significant increase in discretionary funding will go 

to V.A. medical care. And FRA notes that the proposal exceeds the 

Independent Budget recommendations by $1.3 billion. 

FRA also supports legislation to authorize advanced appropriations for V.A. medical care and, if approved, urges adequate appropriations to support this initiative. 


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FRA also supports the timely enactment—or appreciates the 

timely enactment of the 2009 V.A. budget, which was the first time 

in 15 years that this legislation was passed on time. 

The association also supports increased funding to support improvements to the Veterans Benefits Administration paperless system and to expand access to additional Priority Group 8 veterans 

seeking care in the V.A. health care facilities. 

The administration’s budget outline also references the importance of further expanding the concurrent receipt of disability compensation and retirement pay for those medically retired from service. 

Full concurrent receipt for all disabled military retirees is a longstanding FRA priority, and the association strongly supports adequate appropriations to support this initiative. 

FRA continues its strong opposition to enrollment fees for lower 

priority group veterans seeking care in the V.A. health care system. There are approximately 1.3 million veterans in Priority 

Groups 7 and 8, and the association supports adequate appropriations to prevent shifting costs to them for care they are earned in 

service to our nation. 

Although not under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, FRA 

also continues its opposition to TRICARE fee increases for military 

retirees and believes there are other cost-saving options which 

must be implemented to help address funding challenges. 

The association salutes Chairman Edwards for his leadership on 

this issue and strongly supports the Military Retirees Health Care 

Protection Act, H.R. 816, which, along with adequate V.A. health 

care funding, is being addressed by our association’s leadership 

during nearly 40 visits to various members of Congress today. We 

also appreciate Ranking Member Wamp’s co-sponsorship for this 

legislation. 

FRA strongly supports adequate funding to support medical and 

prosthetic research and to reform the antiquated Veterans Benefits 

Administration paper claims system to help address the chronic 

claims backlog. 

Regarding military construction and quality-of-life programs, 

FRA appreciates the tradition of inviting senior enlisted leaders to 

testify before this distinguished subcommittee each year. This is 

the only opportunity for these leaders to testify on Capitol Hill regarding important quality-of-life programs. 

As noted by MCPON Rick West and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlton Kent, family housing and barracks construction 

and childcare facilities are top concerns and directly relate to the 

morale of our servicemembers and to ensuring family readiness. 

FRA strongly supports funding for these important programs, 

which includes the Navy’s home port ashore and other housing and 

barracks projects, and the expansion of childcare centers. 

In closing, allow me to again express the sincere appreciation of 

the association’s leadership for all that you and members of this 

distinguished subcommittee and your respective staffs do for our 

nation’s servicemembers and those who served in the past. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Joseph L. Barnes follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Barnes. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Real quickly, I want to thank Mr. Barnes, but mostly 

Gerald Brice back there. Every one of us has somebody in our district that is a true veteran advocate that you hear from all the time 

and follows all the issues, who beats the drum, who wears you out, 

and that is him. 

So I am honored that you are here in this room today. So thank 

you for coming today and supporting Mr. Barnes’ excellent testimony. 

I think the issues that you bring to us, this subcommittee is fully 

committed to. We just need to keep working together to push the 

ball further down the field. 

So thank you for your presentation. 

Mr. BARNES. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. Perhaps you could give the committee your input on 

TRICARE fees. There is strong opposition to TRICARE fee increases from military retirees and there are other cost-saving options which must be implemented. 

Could you give some examples of those cost-savings? 

Mr. BARNES. Well, yes, Congressman. The drastic proposal to increase TRICARE fees has been proposed for the past 3 years by the 

Department of Defense. We firmly believe there are other cost-saving options, such as expanding use of the more cost-effective mailorder pharmacy, wellness programs, which are addressed in this 

year’s defense authorization bill, federal pricing, for example, 

which is being implemented, results in significant savings, and 

there are other options. 

I can get a more complete list—— 

Mr. FARR. Yes, I would like—helpful, as we do this whole, big 

health care bill, we are going to have to find those cost-saving options. And your recommendations would be very helpful. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. BARNES. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. We really appreciate your testimony. 

Mr. BARNES. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. The next witness is from the National Association for 

Uniformed Services, Rick Jones. Mr. Jones joined the National Association for Uniformed Services as its legislative director in 2005. 

Before this position, he served 5 years as the national legislative 

director for AMVETS. He is an Army veteran who served as a medical specialist during the Vietnam War. 

Welcome back. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR UNIFORMED SERVICES 

WITNESS 

RICK JONES 

STATEMENT OF RICK JONES

Mr. JONES. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Vice Chairman Farr. Appreciate being here. 

Thank you, Ranking Member Wamp. 

We want to, first of all, express our deep gratitude to you, Vice 

Chairman, and Chairman Edwards, and Ranking Member Wamp, 

and all of the members of this subcommittee for your deep concern 

and your expressed interest in assuring that veterans were a number-one priority over the past 3 years. 

You have done a superb job of marking up the bill and providing 

the funds that are needed to care for our men and women who 

serve this country and defend our cherished freedoms. Thank you 

so very much. 

Mr. FARR. And we will continue to do so. 

Mr. JONES. I was pleased also to hear your interest in sustaining 

TRICARE. As Mr. Barnes presented, I know that is not an issue 

that is before you, but we are very pleased to hear your interest. 

It is a very important earned benefit for those who serve more than 

20 years in the military and the uniformed services. Your attention 

is deeply appreciated. 

On military construction—and we strongly recommend that you 

continue to develop BRAC realignment accounts, which included 

housing and barracks, medical facilities, childcare, training facilities, make sure they are in place, please, for our returning troops. 

If facilities are not ready, as you know, and funding construction 

will be delayed or deficient, there will be insufficient housing, insufficient barracks. Childcare will go wanting. So these are needed 

when they are needed, and we trust that you will understand this, 

as you have in the past provided adequate funding in these accounts. There are more that need to be done. There is more that 

needs to be done. 

While we haven’t yet received the full budget from the administration regarding the Department of Veterans Affairs, we can’t 

really build on the comments and recommendations of the president, but we can, however, and do endorse the Independent Budget 


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document, which has been formulated by four of the major veteran 

service organizations and vets, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars, which 

you will hear from later today in this hearing for public witnesses. 

At a minimum, we recommend that you increase the Department 

of Veterans Affairs’ budget approximately to $54.6 billion. That is 

an increase of $4.3 billion over current funding, about as much is 

being requested by the Independent Budget. 

I recognize that the administration’s initial outline of this budget 

increases the funding an additional billion dollars. We are yet to 

see those details. And what details we have seen to this date have 

been somewhat suspect. One of those details was the third-party 

funding for war-injured wounded veterans, which we are thankful 

has been taken off the table, so we have been informed. 

We also support research initiatives in the areas that have directly benefited not only veterans, but the public at large. And we 

also support lifting the ban on access to V.A. health care for our 

Priority 8 veterans. And denying access really only devalues the 

service of those who seek care. 

And we do recognize and are pleased to see the additional funding that has been provided for some 550,000 Priority 8 veterans 

over the next 3 years, but more can be done. There are many priority veterans—Priority 8 veterans who can’t identify private or 

public health insurance. And we would like to see that insurance 

brought into the system. We think that is one way to bolster funding for the care of these Priority 8 veterans. 

We urge this subcommittee to take action to honor our obligation 

to these men and women and not force V.A. to ration, deny or delay 

care. 

At the close of March, regarding disability claims benefits, VBA 

had more than 697 claims pending. That is a 30,000 claim increase 

over this time last year. We recognize that there are problems over 

there, and there are deep problems. We recognize that you have 

provided funding, and additional claims adjudicators are in process 

to deal with these claims. 

But yet we need to pay attention to that and not fall backward 

on the advances that you have made already to date in providing 

the funding that is necessary to upgrade the benefit claims process. 

Seamless transition. The president has made himself very clear 

on this issue. We are very pleased to see the president and yourselves in line regarding the electronic health record. You know, this 

goes back to Chuck Percy, a senator from Ohio, who in 1982, directed the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of 

Defense to come together and provide this sort of electronic health 

record. 

The stove piping in the Department of Defense has been a very 

serious problem and one that hopefully you will take care of. 

Again, I thank you so very much for giving us the opportunity 

to testify today. We deeply appreciate your care of the men and 

women who serve this country. 

[The prepared statement of Rick Jones follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Thank you for your service. I wanted to ask one question that 

was very comprehensive. In my district, we have 28,000 veterans. 

And we have a great veterans clinic. We also have over 6,000 men 

and women in uniform. We are trying to do a joint DOD-veterans 

clinic. And a lot of the recommendations in here, I think, were very 

helpful to try to do that. 

One thing I would recommend that you look at is that with the 

bases that are growing, the new bases in the realignment, you put 

in your testimony about childcare and medical facilities and barracks, but it is also schools that are going to be needed. 

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. Thank you. 

Mr. FARR. You need funding sources for that, this committee is 

learning. 

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. The marriage rate is way up, and that 

means children. And your understanding of that is wonderful to 

hear. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FARR. I would like to now welcome back John Maupin, who 

is president of the Morehouse School of Medicine and is testifying 

on behalf of the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools. 

Welcome back, and thank you very much. We have your testimony for the record. And if you could just summarize it, we would 

appreciate it. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

ASSOCIATION OF MINORITY HEALTH PROFESSIONS 

SCHOOLS, INC. 

WITNESS 

JOHN E. MAUPIN, JR., DDS, MBA 

STATEMENT OF JOHN E. MAUPIN

Mr. MAUPIN [continuing]. I have provided a corrected copy. And 

I will give you a quick summary. 

First, let me say thank you to the committee as a whole and to 

yourself, Congressman Farr, and to, of course, my friend, Congressman Zach Wamp. Your involvement and engagement with the V.A. 

and encouraging them to have greater collaboration with the minority medical schools, specifically our AMHPS schools, has really 

gone a long way in terms of progress in our endeavors for full integration into the V.A. system. 

Their recent report provides, as you asked, provides an overview 

of activities. While it does provide an overview of activities, it 

doesn’t quite hit on some of the issues that still remain, if we are 

going to have an optimal relationship within the V.A. system. 

In fact, I would just highlight for a moment, in one of their reports, on their report on—table one, they talk about all of the historically black colleges and universities where students and residents receive V.A. clinical training. 


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That report, quite frankly, is a list of all the historically black 

colleges that are located in a V.A. city, but that does not mean that 

all these schools have relationships with V.A. 

So it is a little misleading and a little disconcerting that they 

would make that inclusion, as if there is a greater level of activity 

when it is not. So that shows that we still have a lot to learn about 

each other. 

My comments today are really to provide you with some very 

specific recommendations that we believe will go a long ways to fostering a greater involvement of our institutions within the V.A. system. 

We believe that the national V.A. should extend its efforts beyond the division level to the hospital relations level, to the hospital leadership level in each of these areas. 

We know, for example, that without strong advocacy and sustained involvement of V.A. leadership at both the V.A. and the 

medical center level, normal competitive tensions between schools, 

where one institution has a longstanding relationship, the V.A. personnel often have difficulty in engaging in new collaborative relationships. 

Where there have been successes, it has clearly been at both the 

V.A.—at the division level and at the hospital leadership level, as 

well. 

We want to continue to encourage an increase in the number of 

residency positions and to ensure greater integration of our schools 

into core residency programs, such as medicine and surgery, and 

other procedural services. 

We have had great involvement in primary care areas, in the 

out-patient areas, but very little involvement still in the in-patient 

areas, in particular surgery and internal medicine. We have in-patient psychiatry, for example, at Meharry, but not involvement in 

in-patient surgery. 

There are plans for in-patient surgery, but that has been slow, 

in-patient medicine, that has been slow, but—and we have had 

very little, if at all, discussions about in-patient surgery. There is 

still a lot of pushback of our integration in those key areas, from 

an in-patient perspective. 

We would also like to encourage that there be appropriate funding for attending physicians within the V.A. so that we could have 

both full- and part-time individuals. Right now, we have residents 

that are engaged in the V.A., but they are under the supervision 

of the existing pool of faculty. And so we believe that there ought 

to be an opening up of the opportunity for us to also have faculty 

that are a part of the V.A. 

There has also been a restriction in part-time faculty use in the 

past by the V.A. I think it is an opportunity to expand without the 

full cost of full-time faculty. And so we would encourage the committee to encourage the V.A. to reconsider its restrictions on parttime faculty. 

In addition, we hope that we will be able to play a leadership 

role in the new initiatives that the V.A. has been involved in. We 

are encouraged that the V.A. has made progress, for example, in 

women’s health, and they have involved Meharry Medical College 


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and the leadership of the established men and women’s health program there in the Nashville area. 

But we also know that there are other opportunities that we are 

uniquely suited for and have national leaders in the various disciplines, that if given the opportunity, we would love to be involved 

in opening up new initiatives in those areas. 

We also hope that we are able to facilitate the full participation 

and the expansion of subspecialty services. One of the things we 

ran into was an additional restriction. Our schools are primarycare focused, and we have generalist training. 

But even in the generalist training, we have subspecialists that 

are on our faculty that can provide services. There is a restriction 

that you cannot be involved in those areas unless you have a subspecialty training program. We think that restriction is not in the 

best interests of providing care and does not particularly help us, 

in terms of the recruitment of new faculty. 

There are other areas which are in my document, and I would 

love to take questions from you. We have made progress. We have 

a lot more to do. Your involvement has meant a lot to what has 

happened. We need the V.A. national, division, and the local to be 

engaged and fully understand that this is something that must 

occur, in terms of full integration of our schools into the V.A. system. 

[The prepared statement of John E. Maupin follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming back 

this year. And, again, your testimony is very helpful. 

Mr. WAMP. All I would say is that I support Dr. Maupin’s request. As a matter of fact, it is on my Web site, a written request 

for the coming years that these things are honored by this committee and that everyone is encouraged to do exactly what he just 

testified. 

Mr. FARR. Okay, thank you. We will put your revised copy in the 

record. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. Edwards has arrived, so he will chair his committee. 

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. Let me first thank Mr. Farr and Mr. 

Wamp for keeping this subcommittee in good hands. I was working 

on a project that has been 68,000 years in the making. A lot of 

mammoths had to die in my district nearly 70,000 years ago, and 

we are trying to protect that with the National Park Service. 

I am very glad to be back. But thank you for conducting the 

hearing this morning. 

We are honored to have Patrick Campbell with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Appreciate very much your service 

to our country and your continued service speaking out on behalf 

of America’s veterans. 

And I would like to recognize you for 5 minutes at this point. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS OF AMERICA 

WITNESS 

PATRICK CAMPBELL 

STATEMENT OF PATRICK CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, thank you. 

This is a new thing for me. I have never been down here before. 

I feel—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. It is much more comfortable—— 

Mr. CAMPBELL [continuing]. Much more comfortable—— 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Than the other—— 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Actually, it is a little more intimate, a little more 

intimate than the other hearing—well, if I am here to say anything—I read a lot of the testimony; you have probably about 500 

pages worth of paper to read after all this—and that is to say 

thank you. 

You know, the people that I represent are men and women who 

are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who are thinking 

about what it is going to be like when they come home. And for 

the last 7 years, we have been fighting a war, but this country 

hasn’t been prepared to deal with those people coming home. 

And 2 years ago, this Congress said we are going to make a commitment to veterans. And you started fully funding the V.A. for the 

first time in 77 years. And I just want to say thank you for that 

commitment, because that commitment is making all the difference. 


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Unfortunately, it was just the beginning. I mean, right now, as 

you know, we surged into Iraq, and we are surging into Afghanistan, but soon that soldier is going to be coming home. And what 

that foundation that you have built over the past 2 years of fully 

funding the V.A. is just building a baseline. 

This is not the end point. We need it to keep growing and keep 

building, because we have one opportunity to get in front of these 

veterans and give them an opportunity to transition into, you 

know, a good future. 

As you know, I served in Iraq in 2004–2005. And even to this 

day, I am still suffering from some of the issues that I dealt with 

over there. It has a profound effect on my work and an even more 

profound effect on my relationships. 

And I utilize the V.A. I utilize the veterans centers as an opportunity for me to transition back into the world that I left. 

The soldier that is coming home, we have one opportunity to get 

ahead on traumatic brain injury. We need to develop through the 

centers of excellence an effective screen before and after so that we 

have an idea, when someone like myself drops a tank hatch on my 

head—I didn’t tell you I was the smartest person ever—when I 

drop a tank hatch on my head and I knock myself out for a minute, 

that I don’t find out that, you know, through some random test 

that I take on later that I am suffering from severe short-term 

memory loss. 

I should be finding that through the V.A. When I go access the 

V.A., they should be testing me, saying, ‘‘Did you have any explosions?’’ When I was in Iraq, we got blown up 13 times. I was in 

five car accidents, and I dropped a tank hatch on my head and 

knocked myself out, but I have never once been screened by the 

V.A. for the traumatic brain injury. I think that is a problem. 

It took members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee staff 

to convince me to go get counseling. I think that is a problem. And 

we are not creating a problem where the V.A. is actually reaching 

out and getting veterans and bringing them into the system. The 

V.A. is still a passive system, sitting and waiting. 

The V.A. has started to put its toe into the waters of doing outreach. You might have seen the bus ads that they had around here, 

but it is still kind of almost an afterthought. 

And if I could ask any one thing about this committee that you 

haven’t already been paying attention to is that we need to have 

a direct line item for outreach, and it needs to be a part of everything that we do, where the V.A. is aggressively marketing the 

benefits that already exist. 

The other thing that we need to work on—and this is something 

I know this committee is getting into the jurisdiction of is we will 

start giving the V.A. the resources and the opportunity to spend 

those resources effectively. 

And I know, Mr. Chairman, you and I have talked about advance 

appropriations before, and I think that this is the way in which you 

help veterans like veteran Marine Ray Real in southwest Texas, 

who has to drive 6 hours to go to his PTSD appointment. 

When Ray wants to set up an appointment, he has to call like 

a U2 concert ticket on the first day of every month to sign up from 


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the 2 days a week that they have PTSD counseling, and he has to 

drive 6 hours once he actually does get that appointment. 

And if he misses out on that appointment, if he doesn’t get that 

appointment then, he has to wait a whole other month. 

Now—all of a sudden make sure he gets it, but that might mean 

they will have one more day. They will be able to use their dollars, 

stretch them a little bit wider and maybe provide one more day of 

services for someone like Ray Real. 

And to take this even farther, Ray—he tried to get an appointment recently. And he was denied, because they didn’t have space. 

And recently he got in a fight, and, unfortunately, killed the person 

he was dealing with, and is now spending the rest of his lifetime 

in jail. This is someone who reached out for help and was turned 

away at the door. 

So this is something that, if we don’t deal with it now, we are 

going to lose these veterans as we go along. 

We need to make sure that we are taking care of our female vets, 

which was something that is new to this generation. Eleven percent of Iraq and Afghanistan vets are female, and we need to make 

sure that they have the facilities they need. 

And, obviously, I care a little bit about the G.I. Bill. We need to 

make sure that the G.I. Bill is done right. I know that the actual 

benefits itself are not done through this committee, but giving 

them the resources they need to implement it is done through this 

committee. 

And thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. 

[The prepared statement of Patrick Campbell follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Patrick, thank you for your testimony and, obviously, we will do a lot of follow up to the points you have made. 

I just want to say you complimented this committee. The accomplishments we have had over the last several years, you and your 

organization have certainly been a critical part of that. So thank 

you for the difference you are making. 

And I was under the impression now that V.A. did screen every 

veteran coming in, for whatever reason they are coming in to the 

V.A. hospitals, that they are being screened for TBI and PTSD. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Only if you go to a V.A. medical center, and it 

is a paper screen. This gets back to, we have not developed an appropriate screen that actually effectively detects. But if you go to 

a vet center, you don’t do that screen. And so, you know, lots of 

people are using—I call the vet centers the gateway to—you know, 

into the V.A. And, you know, we need to be expanding those programs for the vet center. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We will follow up on that. 

Any questions, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Gratitude for Patrick and all the people he represents. No questions. Thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. You have been a great spokesman for 

our veterans. 

Any questions? 

Mr. FARR. Yes, one. Thank you. Your testimony and your list 

here is very helpful. We certainly will implement it. 

I would like to follow up on why we can’t get that veteran PTSD 

services in his hometown. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I agree. 

Mr. FARR. There is no reason you have to go that far to our clinical psychologist who can provide that service. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. All it takes is a standard. And right now, the 

V.A.—it is individually based that says, you know, each regional officer gets to make a decision on whether or not that is too far to 

drive. And when you make it individually based, you know, people 

are going to do what they can to save money. 

And—if you drive over 70 miles to get counseling, that is too far. 

You know, I am not going to say something that is going to cause 

everyone here—we need to privatize health care, but what we do 

need is we need a clear, bright-line standard: This is too far to 

drive. This is too far to go. 

And then give them the discretion for anything that is closer. 

And that will help answer, so everyone will know what is appropriate and what isn’t. 

Mr. FARR. It is a good suggestion. Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. 

We would now like to call Dr. Stanley Appel with the ALS Therapy Development Institute. 

Dr. Appel, thank you for being here today. I would like to recognize you for 5 minutes. 

And I think it has been said, assuming everyone was here and 

heard it, that your full testimony will be made part of the record. 

And then we ask each witness to limit their comments to 5 minutes. 


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Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Appel. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

ALS THERAPY DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE 

WITNESS 

STANLEY APPEL, MD 

STATEMENT OF STANLEY APPEL

Dr. APPEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to 

thank you and the subcommittee for allowing me to talk about one 

of the scourges of our servicemen coming back from their service, 

namely Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. 

I also want to acknowledge the support of several of your colleagues, Congressman Capuano, who has been tireless in championing a therapy program for ALS, Congressman Brown of the 

Veterans Affairs Committee, Chairman Spratt have also recognized 

the value of a targeted therapy program, and they are both friends 

of General Mikolajcik of South Carolina who, unfortunately, has 

ALS and couldn’t be here today. 

And I would also like to acknowledge that Congressman Patrick 

Kennedy sits in the Appropriations Committee with you and has a 

personal interest in ALS. 

Let me make several points. One is, the importance of ALS to the 

military. It turns out that, if you served in the first Gulf War, you 

have twice the chance of developing ALS than if you served any 

place else, an incredible statistic. 

If, in fact, you serve in the military, you have an increased likelihood, a 60 percent likelihood of developing ALS than if you didn’t 

serve in the military. 

Now, what is ALS? ALS is the most horrific, devastating disease. 

I happen to have been chairman of neurology at Duke University 

and Baylor College of Medicine for 27 years. I chair the department 

of neurology at Methodist Hospital in Houston now. And I will tell 

you, of all the diseases we take care of, nothing matches ALS with 

the devastation. 

You can’t walk, so you are in a wheelchair. Then you can’t use 

your arms. Then you can’t talk. Then you can’t swallow. Then you 

can’t breathe and you die in 3 to 5 years. 

And we have no cure for this disease, and it is over-represented 

in our military, and that is the major point that I want to address 

to your subcommittee, because it is key and critical that we have 

a comprehensive approach. 

It doesn’t mean that, in my laboratory, which is basic science and 

applied, that we aren’t doing individual things as goes on and my 

colleagues at Hopkins, at Harvard, et cetera, but it does mean that 

there is no comprehensive approach to the development of therapies. There is no comprehensive approach. 

So ALS Therapy Development Institute in Boston is a nonprofit, 

almost biotech-like company in developing therapy development approaches. It is a group of 30 scientists who are culled from pharmaceutical companies who have a passion and motivation to solve 

this. 


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Pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested in this. This is ‘‘an 

orphan disease.’’ They are not particularly interested whether it affects more military people than anyone else, but they themselves 

hopefully will be able to get some of the developments that go on 

at places like ALS TDI to our patients, because, once you have got 

a drug or a good drug, then they will spend $100 million or $200 

million that is necessary to take it there. 

But we absolutely need to declare war on ALS. And that is something—NIH hasn’t declared war on ALS. But because it is overrepresented in the military population, I really urge you all to consider that. 

We have a lot of servicemen coming back from Iraq, Afghanistan, 

the Gulf War, and many of them will develop ALS, and we have 

very little to offer them. So I urge you to consider a comprehensive 

program like this. 

I am not here to ask for funding for ALS TDI. What I am here 

to do is to ask you all to develop a comprehensive program. ALS 

TDI does it, but there are other ways. But it is most critical that 

you focus on this very needy population of our veterans coming 

back. 

They have been in the battle. Many of them have won the battles. They are losing this. 

ALS is not an incurable disease. It is an underfunded disease. 

These folks coming back are, in fact, in a war, and they don’t have 

the tools, they don’t have the ammunition to get the enemy, namely ALS. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Stanley Appel follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Dr. Appel. Could I ask you, is there 

speculation or has research indicated why men and women serving 

in the military would have such a higher percentage of having ALS 

than those who have not served? 

Dr. APPEL. It is absolutely key and critical that there are environmental factors that are triggering this. I would like to tell you 

from all our investigation, epidemiologically or through the V.A. 

registry, that we have identified those. 

We have identified some of them, maybe the toxins that our servicemen were exposed to in the Gulf War, but it is not clear that 

that is the sole environmental factor. So it is key that they are encountering environmental factors. 

And the second issue, obviously, there is some susceptibility. And 

we have recognized. We have done genome-wide—what we call 

SNP, single-nucleotide polymorphism, looking for this. And we 

have identified 50 or 100 genes, but it is not at a point where we 

can apply it through our V.A. to our servicemen to identify that. 

So it is a complex mixture, and yet it is factual. 

But you don’t need to identify the cause. Penicillin has cured an 

awful lot of people before we understood how it worked. We need 

to have a comprehensive program that will target therapy development, and that is what we don’t have in the United States, and we 

don’t have in our V.A. system. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, just briefly, if you take the numbers of veterans 

that we have and you assume that there is some similar outcome 

with the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as you had with 

Desert Storm, what kind of population are you expecting to end up 

with ALS, based on our current warfighting strength? 

Dr. APPEL. I don’t have the specific answer to that, because that 

is a great question that requires a specific number based on this. 

But if you look in the United States, there are 40,000 patients living with ALS. 

This disease everyone thinks is a rare orphan disease. It is not. 

It is because the patients die so quickly that, when you sample the 

populations, you don’t see them. But we will try and get those 

numbers for you, because I think that is important information. 

[The information follows:] 

Your question is somewhat difficult to answer, as the reasons for the increased 

incidence rate of ALS in military veterans are not understood. For now, I can tell 

you that the lowest possible number of future ALS diagnoses of those who have 

served in the War on Terror would be about 100. That number clearly understates 

the potential magnitude of the problem. We do not yet know what is causing this 

increase in incidence, and we do not know the time interval between the exposure 

and the development of first symptoms. That latency could be as much as several 

decades. As a result, the figure will be considerably higher since exposures in this 

particular region, or factors of contemporary warfare may have more of an effect on 

these soldiers than we presently realize. In the 2008 Report of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, the panel expressed its ‘‘great concern that the full impact of this disease on Gulf War veterans might not be known 

for decades.’’ When you consider that the incidence around the world is 1–2 cases 

per 100,000 individuals, I am certain you can appreciate that even 100 cases represents an extremely large cohort. To put this range into perspective it is important 

to note that during this same period there have been roughly 1,000 amputations resulting from combat. 


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I ask you to remember, too, that research has also found that ALS is striking veterans at considerably younger ages than the national average. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much. 

Dr. APPEL. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sam. 

Mr. FARR. Just one question. 

Dr. APPEL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. In the comprehensive strategy that you are urging, is 

there another modality, another disease where we do have that 

comprehensive strategy? 

Dr. APPEL. There are a number of diseases where it is financially 

profitable for the pharmaceutical company to invest the kind of resources that would do it. Heart disease, stroke, hypertension, 

hyperlipidemia, but not in a disease like this, where those aren’t 

the risk factors and where hundreds and hundreds of millions of 

dollars are not being invested—— 

Mr. FARR. A comprehensive strategy? 

Dr. APPEL. Well, we are talking about $100 million program at 

a minimum, in terms of doing it. And yet the benefit for our servicemen is they will have a disease-free future. And that is something that I think all our servicemen should be promised. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Dr. Appel. 

We are very honored to have a city council member from Vicenza, 

Italy, Ms. Cinzia Bottene. Help me with the pronunciations, and 

forgive me for any mispronunciations. 

But we know that your community has been a partner with the 

United States in defending Europe, fighting for security throughout 

the world, and we are honored to have you here. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER, VICENZA, ITALY 

WITNESS 

CINZIA BOTTENE 

STATEMENT OF CINZIA BOTTENE

Ms. BOTTENE. Thank you, Chairman and members of the committee. 

My name is Cinzia Bottene, and I am a city council member, and 

I am here representing the citizens opposed to the new U.S. military base in Vicenza, Italy. 

Since I don’t speak English very well, Stephanie Westbrook will 

read my testimony and help with any questions. 

We welcome this occasion to illustrate the concerns of the citizens, meeting with members of the Congress over what we think 

is a serious mistake. 

We ask you not to make this mistake, because Vicenza is a city 

of 120,000 people. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and showcase of architect Andrea Palladio, whose work inspired icons of 

American democracy, such as the Capitol building. 


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The site of the new base is located in a residual area, completely 

surrounded by houses, and just one mile from the historical city 

center, with 35 Palladian buildings. The area is the last remaining 

open space in our city, and this alone is reason for it to be protected and reserved for public use. 

We ask the members to try to imagine building a military base 

in Central Park or right here on the mall. One look at the photo 

included with our testimony should be enough to understand just 

one of the many reasons for the opposition to the base. 

We ask you not to make this mistake, because the site also lies 

just a few feet above one of the three most important groundwater 

sources in Europe. The project for the new base includes thousands 

of pylons that will go over 80 feet into the ground, as you can see 

in the photos included, and this poses a serious risk to our water 

source. 

We ask you not to make this mistake because the location of the 

base is in violation of a number of European Community directives 

on protected natural habitats, and cases are currently pending before the European Community. 

Despite having been formally requested several times by the 

mayor, and by the citizens of Vicenza, an Environmental Impact 

Assessment has been continually denied. 

The initial negotiation for the new base dates back to 2001, 

though the citizens and most city council members were kept in the 

dark until May 2006. The information concerned together with this 

lack of transparency led ordinary citizens of all ages and from 

across political, social and cultural boundaries to mobilize in opposition, which has continued for 3 years now. 

There has been an endless succession of nonviolent demonstrations, bringing as many as 150,000 people to the street. Citizens 

have been back on lobbying trips to Rome, to European Parliament 

in Brussels, and twice before to Washington, D.C. 

The widespread opposition to the new base also led to a political 

shift in Vicenza. In April 2008, after decades of governing the city, 

the ruling coalition was voted out. The new administration ran on 

a platform opposing the base, promising a vote in city council and 

a local referendum. 

In July 2008, city council voted with 25 opposed to the base and 

2 in favor. The local referendum was 13 October, 2008. Over 95 

percent voted against the base. 

We ask you not to make this mistake, because Vicenza already 

has seven U.S. military installations, including Camp Ederle, dating back to 1955. 

Numerous Defense Department publications highlight the importance of maintaining good host nation relations, but how can you 

possibly think to maintain good relations knowing that the new 

base has already caused a deep divide between the Vicenza community and the U.S. military? 

Imposing this decision will do nothing but create an inhospitable 

climate. How can you proceed knowing that the base will be built 

in a protected natural habitat directly above an important groundwater source and without any environmental impact assessment? 

We ask members of this committee to respect our city and territory, to respect the wishes of local residents, to respect our chilVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00792 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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dren’s future. We ask that Vicenza be treated with the same respect as any city in your country where a similar project would be 

unthinkable. 

After 3 years of investing more time and energy than you can 

imagine in opposing this base, I am more convinced than ever the 

people of Vicenza will simply never accept it. Even yesterday and 

today, people in Vicenza are demonstrating against the base, even 

now, while we are sitting here in front of you. 

We strongly ask this committee to block funding for the new 

base, to reconsider the entire project, and find an alternative solution that takes the concerns of the local population into account. 

On behalf of the citizens of Vicenza, I thank you, Mr. Chairman 

and committee members, for the opportunity to appear before you 

today. And I will be happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Cinzia Bottene follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Let me first thank you for coming and for the excellent testimony. 

The fact that you have come this far to make this statement certainly is an expression of the strength of your feelings. And I know 

those feelings must obviously represent many citizens in your community. 

Ms. BOTTENE. Can I tell—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Please. 

Ms. BOTTENE. Thank you. 

We thank you that we have been able to express deeply how serious the problem is in our town. The photo we enclose and the 

water source that you can see in the enclosed photo can express 

very well which is the product of the problem. 

And there is another photo very important which shows how 

close—this is Basilica Palladiana, and this less than one mile from 

the city center. 

Mr. EDWARDS. How far away are our present military installations in the Vicenza area? 

Ms. BOTTENE. Six miles. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Six miles? 

Ms. BOTTENE. Yes, but there is no Air Force there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is the local community support the present military installation there? 

Ms. BOTTENE. Yes. Camp Ederle is there from—since 1955. And 

the relations between the community and the military have always 

been perfect, but now, since we know that this—there will be another military base and so close to Vicenza, to citizens, and on the 

water source, of course, citizens are moved in another direction. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Has there been any sort of agreement signed between our two federal governments? 

Ms. BOTTENE. Yes, surely some. But the first step was between 

the Bush administration and the Berlusconi administration. Then 

in Italy, we had Prodi administration, the other side. And in that 

moment, they told us that there would be a sort of reconsideration 

of this problem. 

So the Parisi, the defense minister, spoke to Spogli, which was 

the ambassador of United States in Rome. And after that, Spogli 

gave a sort of ultimatum to Vicenza to say yes or no. And in 9 

days, we had to give an answer, and the answer to agree, because 

it is difficult, you can imagine, for our country to say no to United 

States. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Let me ask Walter, can you update us before we 

address any other questions, any other members of the committee, 

can you update us on your understanding of this installation, 

where we are in the process? So the project is underway? Okay. 

Well, let me see if Mr. Wamp or other members of the committee 

would like to ask any questions. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. No, I had the opportunity to have them in my office. 

We spent over an hour and got very concerned about this. 

I thought it was going to be used as an air base, but it is a housing base. And it is very difficult but I share their concerns. 


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One question I have, though, in the architecture. Does the city 

get to approve the architecture? Do you have any involvement in 

that so that it—— 

Ms. BOTTENE. You mean in the project? 

Mr. FARR. Yes. 

Ms. BOTTENE. It is not a problem of project of architecture. It is 

a problem of sight and of being so close to the city center. It doesn’t 

matter what is the architecture. 

Mr. FARR. But these are houses. These are houses around here, 

are they not? It is for housing. 

Ms. BOTTENE. Yes, only—— 

Mr. FARR. The base will be used only for housing. 

Ms. BOTTENE. That is not true. We have some numbers here. 

Mr. EDWARDS. What other purposes would the base be used for? 

Would it be used for military exercises or as an airport—— 

Ms. BOTTENE. It is an old Air Force base that is being—it is 

abandoned airport. It is being revitalized for housing. 

We—we have left, you can see there are—the new basing— 

140,000 square meters—facilities complete with approximately 

860,000 square meters of parking and more than 1,000 heavy vehicles. In addition, the projects comprises two multi-story parking garage with a capacity of more than 1,600 vehicles. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You know—— 

Ms. BOTTENE. And there is also a space for plane. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Ms. BOTTENE. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I don’t know what the probabilities are of changing the decision, given that this project initially received local approval and construction has begun. 

But I was not aware of the local opposition, and perhaps other 

members of Congress were not. We will be happy, out of respect of 

the partnership your community and our country have had for 

many years, to ask the leadership at the Pentagon about this. 

Ms. BOTTENE. The leadership? 

Mr. EDWARDS. The leadership of the Pentagon, key people, key 

people at the Pentagon—— 

Ms. BOTTENE. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Whether they took into account local 

opposition. We will ask the Pentagon whether it is being reconsidered or if they are moving ahead. 

But we ought to treat each other with respect. And we will certainly make a good-faith effort to try to get answers. 

Ms. BOTTENE. So you are—I am sorry. I say it back to you to be 

sure I have understood. You are trying to ask the Pentagon people 

to reconsider the project and—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. No, I don’t have enough information today to 

make a recommendation yes or no on the project. But out of respect 

to your visit here—— 

Ms. BOTTENE. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And the fact that you represent your constituents 

as we represent our constituents, we will ask the Pentagon how far 

along this project is. Have they taken into account the local opposition to the project? And is it possible to stop or are they committed 

to moving ahead? 


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So we will raise questions. I don’t know if we can change the outcome, but we will ask questions and then communicate back with 

you. 

Ms. BOTTENE. Thank you. 

We thank you very much. And we hope that intelligence also 

allow to understand when a mistake is committed. So this could 

leave room and place for discussion for reconsidering everything 

and, most of all, for listening to what local people are definitely 

saying in the last 3 years. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, thank you for speaking up on behalf of your 

citizens. Thank you. It is an honor to have you here. Thank you. 

Thank you for your excellent presentation. 

I would now like to recognize Mr. Michael Houlemard, who is 

president of the Association of Defense Communities. He is also executive officer of the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, guiding the planning, implementation, and financing of the redevelopment of the 

former Fort Ord military reservation, an issue of great interest to 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. I think this committee knows about everything there 

is to know about Fort Ord, but you haven’t heard what it is like 

for a community, as Mr. Houlemard represents the association of 

space reuse communities. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

ASSOCIATION OF DEFENSE COMMUNITIES 

WITNESS 

MICHAEL HOULEMARD 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HOULEMARD

Mr. HOULEMARD. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 

Chairman Edwards, Vice Chairman Farr, Ranking Member 

Wamp, Congressman Berry, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. I very much appreciate this opportunity, because the key issues that are facing the defense communities of 

this nation are severely impacted by the economic downturn that 

the nation is experiencing right now, and communities across the 

country have asked that we, on their behalf, speak up loudly and 

succinctly about what their problems are. 

First of all, a little bit about the association. We have 1,200 

members. And those members provide a home to our nation’s 

troops, their families, the veterans, and the others that are the civilian support network for our military. 

We are the nation’s premier organization supporting those communities with active, growing, and closed installations, especially 

about mission enhancement, realignment, community installation 

partnerships, all the private partnerships that are going on across 

the nation. We have been doing that for over 30 years. 

The testimony I am going to give today is going to focus on three 

areas that I think are of particular interest to us at this time. 

First—and I think the subcommittee is well aware of this from 

other testimony it has received and what other colleagues have 

said earlier today—the BRAC 2005 round, as it is the largest and 


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most complex round of base closures and realignments, is very important to the nation. 

Now, we are reading a recent Government Accountability Office 

report. And in that GAO report, they describe several significant 

challenges which will adversely impact the department’s ability to 

complete the 2005 round of closure, especially by the September 

15th deadline. 

In particular, we are concerned that, to ensure the services can 

accomplish the deadline that ADC recommends, that they get full 

funding for the programs included in the BRAC 2005 account. 

What I am particularly concerned about and what we received a 

lot of comment about has to do with growth communities and the 

potential massive local infrastructure requirements, especially for 

schools, that will be required as part of realignments and reassignments in the 2005 closure and with soldiers coming back from Iraq 

and Afghanistan. 

Second, the Department of Defense has estimated it has about a $3.5 billion backlog in environmental remediation work that has to 

be done for properties across the nation. Local communities have 

been working on redeveloping these lands, working closely with the 

Navy, the Air Force, the Army, the Corps of Engineers, and the 

Marine Corps on how that environmental restoration is going to 

take place. 

Certainly, the military’s use of those properties were at a military time, but they are now potentially proposed for civilian reuse, 

requiring a significant amount of activity—and I will call it restoration activity—for them to be used for productive purposes for our 

communities. 

I am particularly concerned that those environmental remediation activities focus on the safety of the adjacent communities. 

Those communities have existing veterans and ongoing experiences 

with facilities that are still supporting the military’s work, and our 

children are still exposed to remnant hazards, including munitions 

and explosives. 

It is important that the full environmental requirement be funded for these properties to be transferred to local communities. The 

House of Representatives recommended $300 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That funding did not survive 

the joint committee’s recommendations, and so therefore it was not 

included. 

That $300 million is only a small part, but that $300 million 

needs to be restored, and our members would suggest that it 

should be carried forward in the 2010 budget. If the House can do 

that and this subcommittee could recommend, we would appreciate 

it. 

My third point promotes the expeditious transfer of closed military installations to federally recognized local redevelopment authorities with an emphasis on using the no-cost economic development conveyance mechanism available in law. We are asking that 

it be emphasized more than just be a part of multiple opportunities 

for transfers. 

As a little bit of background, the BRAC commission was created 

to consolidate and increase efficiency in DOD facilities. Part of that 

commitment to Congress was that the BRAC process would help 


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closed bases transition in a quick way so that they would be available for local reuse. 

Over five rounds of BRAC have occurred, and hundreds of military installations have been decommissioned or downsized with the 

expectation that these properties would be available to local communities for economic recovery and economic development. 

However, despite reports to the contrary, recent evidence continues to support our 1999 testimony that the inconsistent and uneven and time-consuming transfer process by the military department still leaves thousands of acres of former installation property 

unused, with fallow acreage hampering many other community economic redevelopment activities. 

In fact—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Could I ask that you take about 30 seconds to finalize? And I apologize for—— 

Mr. HOULEMARD. I certainly can. On this particular point, Chairman, we have a very distinct philosophical difference with the Department of Defense, because they are emphasizing market-rate 

sales, and we are emphasizing local economic recovery and job creation. We have to have the land to be able to do that, and that is 

our emphasis. 

I would like to say, on behalf of all of ADC in the nation, we really want to thank this subcommittee for its continuing work and 

support for veterans, for the soldiers, and for their families. Defense communities are at the core of what our program does. And 

you have heard others say what we need done in both BRAC and 

in the investment in environmental restoration. 

So I appreciate the time, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Michael Houlemard follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Well, thank you. And as someone who represented 

Fort Hood for 14 years, I have seen firsthand the importance of our 

defense communities. And thank you for leading them, for what 

you do. Thank you for sending Sam Farr to Congress. He has been 

a great spokesman for our communities on this issue and the issue 

of transfers. 

I have a feeling this is going to be an issue we are going to do 

a lot more talking about. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, we spent all morning on BRAC yesterday, and 

he is exactly right. And I think we are going to follow through on 

all of it, so I thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. HOULEMARD. Appreciate the time, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Yes, what is the one thing you think that DOD could 

do to ease the growth pains? And is one service better than the 

other at transferring property? 

Mr. HOULEMARD. I am biased because I work mostly with the 

United States Army, but I think all of the services will show you 

models of success. All services can also show you areas where they 

would have wanted to do better. 

So I can’t say that I would point to anyone better than the other, 

but I will say this: With respect to growth communities, sir, there 

is current authority under law that the Department of Defense 

could provide support for communities for the front-end infrastructure and schools needs that would help. 

When soldiers return and their young children need to find 

places in classrooms to be in and other facilities to get back—— 

Mr. FARR. So Mr. Bishop was here yesterday. And his problem 

is that he has a growth community. There is no funding for schools. 

The Department of Defense says, ‘‘Well, that’s taken care of in the 

local infrastructure funding.’’ Many of us on this committee disagree. 

And you say there is a tool that DOD can use to up front this—— 

Mr. HOULEMARD. There remains authority in law for the Office 

of Economic Adjustment to provide for capital needs. This was done 

before. It was created when the Trident submarine program many 

years ago, I think both in the state of Washington and the state 

of Georgia where that was deployed, and that authority still exists 

today. 

So this is always a question of priorities, sir, but I can’t imagine 

a better priority than for the communities now left to provide educational services for soldiers, families, as they return from overseas. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Now I would like to recognize Mr. Ben Redmond, with the National Association of OEW Contractors. 

Mr. Redmond, welcome. And I would like to recognize you for 5 

minutes. 


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THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF OEW CONTRACTORS 

WITNESS 

BEN REDMOND 

STATEMENT OF BEN REDMOND

Mr. REDMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. 

I am honored to be here today to represent the National Association of Ordnance and Explosive Waste Contractors, commonly 

known as NAOC. NAOC is a trade association for firms involved 

in the detection and cleanup of unexploded ordnance on active military bases, formerly used defense sites, and base realignment and 

closure sites. 

It includes 65 member companies, employing more than 250,000 

people in every state of the union. Our member companies participate in the entire spectrum of cleanup, from development of detection technologies to the actual cleanup of UXO sites. 

I am here today to speak about the environmental restoration 

and cleanup on BRAC sites. According to the 2007 defense environmental program’s annual report to Congress, over the past 10 

years, Congress has provided $5.8 billion for environmental activities at BRAC installations. 

Annual appropriations for cleanup of BRAC sites have remained 

consistent. However, the total amount for environmental cleanup 

on BRAC sites is only approximately $60 million per year for military munitions cleanup. This is a rough number, as there is no requirement to report funding or expenditures for munitions cleanup 

separately from traditional hazardous waste cleanup. 

This funding, however consistent, is woefully inadequate to address the problem. Currently, there are 92 legacy BRAC sites, and 

there are 37 current BRAC 2005 military munitions response sites, 

with a total cost to complete of almost $1 billion. A detailed list is 

included as an attachment to my testimony. 

The backlog on cleanup of legacy BRAC sites is a problem that 

has been addressed by this body itself. The problem was specifically addressed in a Senate report and House report, which accompanied the fiscal year 2009 Military Construction and Veteran Affairs Appropriations bill. 

When installations are closed, the local economy has little chance 

to recover until these sites have been transferred to allow safe use 

for their intended purpose. Limited funding delays that require 

cleanup, which delays the transfer of this land from the Department of Defense to private entities and municipalities for nonmilitary use and tax-generating economic activities. 

With a weakening economy and a possible prolonged recession, 

the timely cleanup of transferred and transferring sites which protect the public and provide for economic development is extremely 

important. 

Though some BRAC sites have been transferred, previous reports 

from the Government Accountability Office have noticed that environmental cleanup requirements present the primary challenge to 


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transferring the properties. A good example is the BRAC installation that has remaining sites to be cleaned up is Fort Ord, which 

is one of the most beautiful sites in the country, with high-value 

real estate ripe for redevelopment. 

Fort Ord was closed in BRAC 1991, with expectation to clean up 

and turn over the site within a few years. This has not happened. 

Other high-value sites that need additional funding which could 

be redeveloped and bring new jobs and increase the tax base include sites in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Tennessee, Texas, 

Louisiana, and many other states. 

An area of concern that NAOC has identified is there is not a detailed aggregation of data on BRAC sites. Currently, site data is 

not collected and reported at a precise enough level to allow for 

proper budget formulation and cataloging of sites. 

We believe this has hampered funding, privatization, and contributes to an underestimation of the remediation required in associated backlog. NAOC recommends that DOD be required to collect 

data in smaller data sets, such as a county or the individual state’s 

equivalent of a county for all MRP sites. 

In summary, it is in our national interest to appropriate funds 

for the timely, complete cleanup of unexploded ordnance on BRAC 

sites for both legacy BRAC and for BRAC 2005. 

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak with you on behalf of 

NAOC about this important issue. I want to thank Chairman Edwards for his leadership and for holding this hearing. 

I would also like to thank Ranking Member Wamp for his service 

on the committee. 

In addition, I would like to thank Congressman Farr for championing these issues. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Michael Houleward follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Redmond, thank you very much for your testimony and also for what you and the members of NAOC do, the important work that you do. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. No questions, thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. You know, I have one. Mr. Redmond, yesterday we 

heard from DOD that you can’t absorb any more funding, that they 

are moving as fast as you can possibly clean up, and that there is 

no need to put more money into it because it can’t go any faster 

than it already is. 

Can you comment on this? 

Mr. REDMOND. Yes, sir, I can. 

Secretary Beale over at OSD—he has since moved on—but he 

asked NAOC 3 years ago, how much additional funding could we 

absorb with the personnel we currently have? With the slowdown 

of operations in Iraq, that number is over $2 billion a year. The 

current funding is around $500 million a year. So NAOC does not 

agree with the Department of Defense—— 

Mr. FARR. Would you get us some specifics on that? 

Mr. REDMOND. Certainly. 

Mr. FARR. I really appreciate it. We have got to get that into the 

record. I mean, it is too bad they are not here today to respond. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. REDMOND. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. But they were adamant that, ‘‘We are just doing as 

fast’’—you know, I don’t believe that. It is the same thing we heard 

with public works, is that we couldn’t fund—no more building of 

roads because there weren’t enough tractors and personnel out 

there to do it. But it seems to me there is capacity and the government is underestimating that capacity. 

Mr. REDMOND. Well, I think the stimulus program is currently 

showing with the construction of new roads, there is capacity that 

is unused. And certainly within NAOC, there is capacity which 

could be applied immediately, if the funding was available. 

Mr. FARR. And that is job-intensive. 

Mr. REDMOND. It is labor-intensive, yes, sir. It creates jobs. And 

it is a small investment for the return, because when these lands 

were returned to the communities, they can be redeveloped for industrial use in bringing even more jobs and increase the tax base. 

It is a good deal. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. REDMOND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Redmond. Appreciate it. 

I would like to now call forward Steve Robertson with the American Legion. 

Steve, welcome back. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. It is good to be back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Did somebody twist you too hard? 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I wish I could say I did something glamorous, 

but it was pure clumsy during a visit of a college. I missed a step 

and landed on all fours. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That elderly lady that you saved from falling 

down those steps—— 

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is now—I will swear to that, if you will. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Welcome back to the committee, and thanks for 

all your work and the Legion’s work with our committee in the 2 

years that I have had the privilege of chairing the committee. And 

I would like to recognize you now for your opening statement. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

THE AMERICAN LEGION 

WITNESS 

STEVE ROBERTSON 

STATEMENT OF STEVE ROBERTSON

Mr. ROBERTSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like my full 

testimony to be submitted for the record. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. I wanted to start with thanking the committee 

for the funding that we got last year. And the most important part 

was that we got it on time. I can’t begin to tell you how much we 

appreciate that. The entire veterans community, I think I can 

speak for them, to say that we greatly appreciate having it on time 

to give us the full year to be able to spend the resources. 


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We also appreciate the supplemental that brought in money to 

the V.A. for a lot of the work that needs to be done throughout the 

system. 

Now, as you are well aware, we have a team that goes around 

the country visiting V.A. medical facilities and on-site inspections 

to kind of get a feel for what areas are working well and what 

areas need improving. 

And I can tell you that we are in the middle of following up to 

see how the money is being spent. We are trying to follow up on 

non-recurring maintenance issues to make sure that those are 

being addressed in a timely manner. 

We are also still concerned about CARES, the projects that we 

were supposed to have underway, seeing what kind of progress 

were being made on that. 

We are also visiting the regional offices to see what kind of 

progress is being made in the claims adjudication area. I can tell 

you, from a couple of visits that I have made personally, that they 

are hiring the new claims folks. Again, it is going to be the process 

of getting them trained up to where they can take on the more 

challenging cases. 

So the morale is improving at a lot of the regional offices, just 

the fact that they know that they have got the folks online. The 

problem is, is you are replacing guys and gals with 30 years’ experience, and you just can’t replace that experience that quickly. 

Again, we are once again asking about the issue of advanced appropriations. We appreciate having it on time this time, but we 

would like to have it 2 years in a row. We see a big difference in 

the veterans world. And if it is possible to advance the idea of an 

advanced appropriations for the medical care, we would greatly appreciate that. We are going to continue to ask for that throughout 

the year. 

I am going to cut this short, so if there are any questions that 

you all would like to ask, I will be more than happy to try to answer them. 

[The prepared statement of Steve Robertson follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thanks for your testimony. And thanks for your 

oversight. 

You know, I said I wanted three goals to pursue when I became 

chairman. One is to provide more funding for the V.A.; two, exercise more oversight; and, three, encourage innovation. And you are 

a partner in all three of those, but particularly in oversight. 

While we have plused up significantly the inspector general’s office, they can’t compete with millions of veterans out there every 

day that are seeing what is going on firsthand in the hospitals. So 

thank you. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. With the number of volunteers, that is the other 

area that we get a lot of input. We have so many people that work 

as volunteers day in and day out. A lot of times, they will tell us 

when there has been a position that has been held open for a long 

period of time without being filled or a problem with one of the facilities that they know needs to be replaced or equipment that is 

on backlog. 

So we have a lot of assistance out there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And let me just say, in regard to advanced appropriations, that decision hasn’t been made yet, but I know that, because of the interest and the priority shown on this issue among 

our veteran service organizations, including the Legion, there are 

a lot of serious discussions going on about seeing how that could 

be put into place. 

So the concerns expressed repeatedly by our VSOs have been 

heard and are being, as we speak, being considered. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Total respect for the American Legion. Appreciate 

Steve, as well. You are a great advocate, and thanks for the testimony. And we will be with you. 

I understand the desire to sometimes take us out of this picture, 

but I do think that Chairman Edwards’ leadership has proven that 

we can annually allocate these resources in an effective way and 

get the money to you on time and use this process to make the V.A. 

more accountable. And I know that forward funding sounds good, 

but to me, it will make the V.A. less accountable. 

I don’t want to get in that fight today, but I do see the pressure 

from these hearings, from this process helping right now. So I totally understand where you are coming from with the constant flow 

of dollars, but I also think if they don’t have to come here, the pressure is off. 

I have seen it in other directions, other agencies. There are other 

agencies—frankly, like the Tennessee Valley Authority that used to 

receive federal appropriations. And I guarantee you, they are less 

accountable today to the taxpayer, the rate payer, and the Congress because they don’t receive appropriations than when they did 

annually. 

And that is just one example. There are many. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. Thank you for your leadership and partnership. 

And, Sam, we did get a bill passed on time last year, and we are 

going to make every effort to do so this year. 

Mr. Farr. 


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Mr. FARR. No questions, just thank you. Longest testimony we 

have, and thank you for doing it within a short period of time. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FARR. You are doing a good job, Steve. Really appreciate it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you would sit there and let the Independent 

Budget group come up. And then we will have you back to the 

table if there are any questions and answers after the Independent 

Budget presentation. 

Could I now ask those of you that are here with Independent 

Budget, Ray Kelley with AMVETS, Kerry Baker with DAV, Carl 

Blake with Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Christopher Needham with Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

Thank you all. Thank you again for the incredible partnership 

that you have been an important part of over the last several 

years. We have passed historic and unprecedented increases in 

V.A. funding. You have been a terribly important part of that successful effort, and we thank you for that. And thanks for being 

here. 

I would like to recognize you in whatever order you would care 

to. 

Mr. BLAKE. Well, Mr. Chairman, I guess sort of the way we have 

normally done it is, we speak on the health care piece. PVA has 

responsibility for that. And then I will defer to DAV on the benefits. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And, Carl, for the transcription, if you would 

just—as you begin your speech, if you would say who you are and 

what you are representing. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET AND PARALYZED 

VETERANS OF AMERICA 

WITNESS 

CARL BLAKE 

STATEMENT OF CARL BLAKE

Mr. BLAKE. Yes, sir. 

Chairman Edwards, Ranking Member Wamp, Mr. Farr, I would 

like to thank you again for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the Independent Budget on the fiscal year 2010 budgetary 

needs of the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system. 

I am Carl Blake with Paralyzed Veterans of America. I want to 

echo the sentiments of Steve from the Legion. We certainly appreciate everything the subcommittee has accomplished in the last 2 

years. I don’t think we would be where we are at without your 

leadership and, really, the support of the full subcommittee. So we 

certainly appreciate that. 

We were pleased to see that the initial information from the administration suggests what will probably be a significant increase 

in the budget once again. It really will be a truly historic budget, 

if we get what has been proposed by the administration. 


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We will withhold any final judgment on that until we have much 

more details. I think we are anxiously awaiting it, just like I am 

sure you and your staff are, as well. 

For fiscal year 2010, the Independent Budget does recommend approximately $46.6 billion for total medical care, which is an increase of about $3.6 billion over the fiscal year 2009 operating 

budget level. 

Our medical services recommendation includes approximately $36.6 billion, which includes $34.6 billion for current services, 

$1.17 billion for an increase in patient workload, and $790 million 

for policy initiatives. 

I won’t go into great detail about our breakdown for the increase 

in patient workload, but it is explained in some detail in my written statement, and it is also explained in more detail in the full 

Independent Budget, which I believe your committee staff has received already. Our policy initiatives include about $250 million to continue to 

expand the mental health services within the V.A., approximately 

$440 million to close the capacity gap for long-term care services 

that currently exist between what is mandated by the millennium 

health care bill, which is Public Law 106–117, and what the V.A. 

currently maintains, and then $100 million for prosthetics. 

For medical support and compliance, the Independent Budget recommends approximately $4.6 billion and, for medical facilities, 

approximately $5.4 billion. This includes an additional $150 million 

for non-recurring maintenance. 

The PVA, along with the Independent Budget, would like to 

thank you for your work on the stimulus bill and the funding that 

was included in that. 

We recognize that that bill included a significant amount of 

money directed towards non-recurring maintenance, which I think 

we have identified in recent years as being one of the major problems in the V.A. funding stream because of the lack of funding and 

because that, in the past, was always one of the accounts that was 

cannibalized when transfers were needed and funding was needed 

to come up with in shortfall years. 

But, again, we thank the subcommittee for the work on the stimulus bill and the money that was provided. We were disappointed 

that there wasn’t some funding directed towards major and minor 

construction, but we look forward to seeing what the administration proposes to add funding to those accounts for fiscal year 2010. 

And, finally, Mr. Chairman, as you know, we all support H.R. 

1016, the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency 

Act. I won’t go into any details about our position other than you 

know where we stand, and we would appreciate hearing what you 

have to say about the consideration being given to it. 

As you probably know, the president did reaffirm his commitment to it about 2 weeks ago in a press conference where he had 

all the veteran service organizations there, so that has just 

emboldened us a little more, I believe. 

And so we are going to continue to work on that issue, and we 

look forward to having more in-depth discussions about that alone 

with everyone on the subcommittee, if you would like, at a later 

time. We will be testifying on this issue and, I guess, broader fundVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00855 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ing reform issues before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs 

next week. 

So I would encourage you to take note of that and listen in to 

see what we have to say, as well. 

So, again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you and the subcommittee for all of your work. And I would be happy to answer 

any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Carl Blake follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. I don’t have a question, but let me just suggest 

something. I think one of the things I would recommend that you 

consider presenting to the subcommittee is how the subcommittee, 

if we went to 2-year funding for the V.A., how we would maintain 

not only the same level, but an increased level of oversight, what 

the pluses and minuses are. 

I think the questions raised by Mr. Wamp are very legitimate. 

We all want to keep the hammer over the V.A. to see they are 

spending every dollar wisely. 

Mr. BLAKE. Sure. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Which is why you need timely funding, but address the question—not right now, but if you would in the weeks 

ahead. We will talk some more about that. 

Mr. BLAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, go ahead. Who is next? 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET AND AMVETS 

WITNESS 

RAY KELLEY 

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND C. KELLEY

Mr. KELLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Ranking Member Wamp, Mr. Farr. 

I am Ray Kelley from AMVETS, and I will be discussing the 

NCA issues, as it appears in the Independent Budget. 

In fiscal year 2008, $195 million was appropriated for NCA. That 

was $28.2 million more than the administration’s request, so I 

thank the committee for that. 

Something to note out of that is only $220,000 was carry over in 

that budget. So they spent their money—they awarded 39 of the 42 

minor contracts that they had planned to award and granted $37.3 

million of the $39.5 million in the state grants program. 

They also, out of that budget, used $25 million to invest in the 

national shrine commitment that we have advocated for the last 

several years to increase to $50 million a year for a 5-year period. 

NCA has also almost hit the mark on the percentage of veterans 

who fall within the 170,000 veterans 75-mile radius for burial benefits, make sure that they have access to burial benefits. And the 

Independent Budget is requesting that that model be changed, be 

reduced from 170,000 veterans down to 110,000 veterans. 

The reason is, is that, over the next several years, there will be 

no other areas in the United States that will qualify for a national 

cemetery under this current policy. Reducing it will immediately 

open it up to, I think, five or six different areas that have a need 

already, that almost meet that 170,000 veteran qualifier. 

Again, our total number will be $291.5 million, and that includes 

the $50 million for the shrine initiative. And I want to thank you 

for the $50 million in the stimulus package that will go towards 

the shrine initiative. 


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And talking to NCA, they have it on good authority that they 

will spend that within the fiscal year 2009, so I will stick to continue to need $50 million in the 2010 budget for that. 

Mr. Akaka has introduced a bill—it is S. 728—which will provide 

a supplemental burial and memorial benefit to veterans. And it 

matches what the Independent Budget had asked for in the past 

with the increased plot allowance and burial benefit allowance. 

And it comes really close to matching what past I.B.s have recommended, but it is a supplemental. And it is predicated on appropriations. So I support the bill. It will provide a substantial increase to veterans to help them in their final resting place. 

And thank you again for holding this hearing. I am happy to answer any questions you have at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Raymond C. Kelley follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. All right, thank you and AMVETS for all you do 

on behalf of veterans. Thank you for being here today. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET AND VETERANS OF 

FOREIGN WARS 

WITNESS 

CHRISTOPHER M. NEEDHAM 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER NEEDHAM

Mr. NEEDHAM. Mr. Chairman, my name is Chris Needham. I am 

with the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and I would like to thank you 

for the opportunity to testify today. 

We handle the construction portion of the Independent Budget, 

so I will limit my remarks to that. 

Our major concern with respect to major construction is the 

growing backlog of projects. Because V.A.’s projects are funded on 

a multistage basis, there are a large number of projects that have 

opened that have not received full funding. That total backlog is 

about $2 billion. 

So as V.A. moves forward, that represents a challenge, that these 

projects need to be funded before we can necessarily move on to 

some of these other projects and other priorities that V.A. needs 

filled. 

Overall, we look at the construction budget in terms of recapitalization, that major-minor maintenance, they all sort of tie together 

to provide the overall capital budget. Now, the standard for that 

that industries use is about 5 percent to 8 percent of plant replacement value. 

V.A.’s most recent estimated plant replacement value is about $85 billion. So, accordingly, that means that the total capital budget should be in the range of $4 billion to $4.25 billion, a little above 

that, perhaps. 

In the last fiscal year, the administration’s request was about 

$3.6 billion. And the increase that this committee helped push 

through brought V.A. to in line with what the recommendations 

are. We sincerely appreciate your efforts on that. 

The other issue is with respect to minor construction. And that 

is another issue where you guys have really done a great job to increase funding. 

Now, minor construction has sort of grown in importance, because a lot of minor construction goes to helping non-recurring 

maintenance issues. And those are the simple things, sort of the 

one-time issues that need to be fixed to help maintain facilities and 

keep them running. 

It could be something as simple as maybe changing the flooring 

or repairing walls, but it is also important safety issues such as, 

you know, fire and sprinkler systems, elevators, just those one-time 

things that help make sure that these buildings last as long as we 

need them to. So the increases in minor construction help take care 

of non-recurring maintenance. 


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And as Carl spoke of earlier, we definitely appreciate the stim- ulus bill and the $1 billion included in that for non-recurring maintenance. It really does help, because V.A.’s estimates are of about— 

it is about a $4 billion backlog in maintenance issues. And that $1 billion goes a long way towards fixing that backlog, 

but it also attests to the need that we need to continue to address 

these projects and these priorities. 

One other small issue I will get to, with respect to minor construction, is medical research. Medical research projects right now 

have to compete with direct health care projects, in terms of 

prioritization. And as a result, often medical research falls far 

below some of these other priorities. The Draft National CARES Plan identified about $142 million in 

laboratory improvements. And we would like to see these funded. 

Now, these are important, you know, mostly for—not just for 

safety and health concerns, but also for recruitment and retention, 

that if you are showing a doctor around, you know, somebody you 

are trying to hire, and he sees a laboratory from the 1960s, you 

know, he might run in terror. 

But what we need to do is we need to have high-quality, firstclass, modern research facilities, both for recruitment, but also so 

that V.A. can continue to do its wonderful research. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Christopher Needham follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET AND DISABLED AMERICAN 

VETERANS 

WITNESS 

KERRY BAKER 

STATEMENT OF KERRY BAKER

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Kerry Baker. 

I am with the DAV. And today I will focus on issues affecting the 

Veterans Benefits Administration. 

On behalf of the VBA, we have come before you for many years 

requesting additional funding to reverse its chronic history of 

understaffing. You have answered that call. In just the past few 

years, V.A. has hired approximately 3,000 additional claims processors. In fact, the V.A. is still hiring additional personnel because 

the monies allocated during the past couple of years. 

Congressional actions to increase staffing have provided VBA a 

major tool in stopping the chronic increases in claims processing 

and, we hope, a tool for regaining some control over the backlog. 

Nonetheless, the claims backlog struggle is nowhere near its end. 

V.A. received approximately 888,000 rating claims in fiscal year 

2008, or 88,000 more than they had anticipated. 

It estimates they will decide over 942,000 claims in 2009. However, it may actually received nearly 1 million claims in 2009. 

Because of the unknown long-term impact of VBA’s increased 

staffing, we are not prepared to seek additional staffing and subsequent funding, other than cost-of-living increases for VBA at this 

time. 

However, to help improve the claims process, the Congress must 

do more to upgrade V.A.’s I.T. infrastructure. It must also be given 

more flexibility to manage those improvements. 

Despite problems in the claims process, Congress has reduced 

funding for I.T. initiatives over the past several years. In fiscal 

year 2001, Congress provided $82 million for I.T. initiatives. And 

by 2006, that funding had fallen to $23 million. 

Congress has, however, noticed the disconnect between the I.T. 

and improvements in the claims process. Section 227 of the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2008 places new requirements 

on the V.A. to examine all uses of current I.T. and comparable outside I.T. systems with respect to claims processing. 

V.A. must then develop a new plan to use these and other relevant technologies to reduce subjectivity, avoid remands, reduce— 

in regional office rating decisions. 

All I.T. initiatives are now being funded through V.A.’s I.T. appropriation and tightly controlled by the CIO. However, VBA initiatives include expansion of Web-based technology and deliverables 

such as Web portal and training and performance support systems, 

virtual V.A. paperless processing, and enhanced veterans service 

and access to benefits, status, delivery, and data integration across 

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The I.B. VSOs believe a conservative increase of at least 5 percent annually in I.T. initiatives is warranted. V.A. should give the 

highest priority to the review required by the Benefits Improvement Act of 2008 and double its efforts to ensure these ongoing initiatives are fully funded and accomplish their goals. 

Further, the impact of I.T.’s centralization under the CIO should 

be examined and, if warranted, shift appropriate responsibility for 

their management from the CIO to the undersecretary for benefits. 

Another area of concern is Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment. A cornerstone of several new initiatives is VR&E’s fivetrack employment process, which aims to advance employment opportunities for disabled veterans. 

Also, increasing numbers of severely disabled veterans from ongoing conflicts have benefited from VR&E’s independent living program. Independent living specialists provide services that empower 

service-disabled veterans to the greatest extent possible, to live 

independently in the community. 

VR&E needs approximately 200 additional full-time employment 

coordinators and independent living specialists to provide these 

services to eligible veterans. 

Furthermore, the I.B. VSOs believe VR&E needs approximately 

50 additional FTE dedicated to management and oversight of its 

increasing reliance on contract counselors and service providers, as 

well as for program oversight and support. The additional FTE 

would support national initiatives recommended by the VR&E task 

force and would provide support to decrease the growing caseload 

and allow for more intensive services to be provided to severely disabled veterans. 

V.A.’s fiscal year 2008 estimate for total FTE in VR&E has reported in its fiscal year 2009 budget submission is 1,185. However, 

the total FTE for 2009 has been decreased to 1,179, which is even 

a decrease from 2007 figures. 

This decrease in FTE for such a vital program is inexplicable, 

considering the increased need for VR&E due to the ongoing combat operations. Therefore, the I.B. VSOs recommend that the fiscal 

year 2008 total of 1,179 FTE for VR&E be increased by 250 to a 

total of 1,429 FTE. 

And that concludes my statement. It has been an honor to testify 

before you today. 

[The prepared statement of Kerry Baker follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Great, thank you. Thank you very much for all 

that the DAV does every day on behalf of America’s veterans. 

Let me ask one question. In relation to the Independent Budget 

for fiscal year 2009, where does President Obama’s request for the 

V.A. compare? Is it the same? Is it above it? Is it below it? 

Mr. BLAKE. The president’s budget request compared to this current year’s—or this current year’s request versus the I.B. was actually over the I.B. request by about $1.3 billion, I believe. As best as we can tell, the administration assumed about $3.4 

billion in collections initially in that number, and the I.B.’s recommendation turned back to what the 2009 number was, so it was 

about $2.6 billion. So there is some of the gap there. 

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why there is a difference. We are 

certainly pleased that it is above the I.B. I mean, we make no 

bones about saying that we are the standard. I would be interested 

in seeing the details and figuring out where they may have made 

some plus-ups. 

I would honestly say that I can identify at least a couple places 

where we were probably conservative. One example would be in the 

education service, in the veterans benefits side, or in GOE. 

We didn’t recommend any increase in FTE, and yet everyone always asks us why not, given the new G.I. Bill coming online and 

that. And I think it is partly because we weren’t really sure how 

the V.A. was proceeding at this point, and we didn’t feel really 

comfortable in recommending an additional FTE level for that, so 

there is some loss there. 

So there are some areas I could identify even within the I.B. that 

we were probably conservative on. But the short answer to the 

question is, they are above the I.B. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Steve, let me ask you to come up. 

And, Tom, come on up, too. We would love to have you here. You 

have been a great partner in this. 

And as I do that, I am going to have to ask your understanding. 

The Fleet Reserve Association was to give me an award because of 

the great work that Mr. Wamp and Mr. Farr and this staff and 

committee have done, but they chose me, I guess, to get the award. 

So thank you all for making me look better than—— 

Mr. WAMP. You can accept it on our behalf. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Obviously, we are going to have a number of conversations as we go through this appropriations process. So today 

was primarily focused on what you put into the formal record, your 

highest priorities, concerns, questions, and comments. 

I am going to turn the gavel back over to Mr. Farr for whatever 

time he and Mr. Wamp would like to address questions. But thank 

you. Please see it as no sign of disrespect. I don’t want to disrespect 

the Fleet Reserve Association by not being there when they offer 

that award. 

Mr. Farr, the gavel is yours. Thank you for doing this today. 

Mr. Wamp, thank you—— 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Wamp just wants to have a picture taken with 

that award that you—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. He deserves it, and so do you. 

Mr. FARR [presiding]. Well, congratulations. Thank you very 

much. 


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I guess it is just opening up for questions now. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, I don’t really have any questions. Either I am 

getting old or veteran group activists and representatives are getting younger. So, I mean, I look at you all, and I think, ‘‘Gosh, you 

all are a young group of people,’’ including you, Steve. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. After 21 years, sir, I take that as a compliment. 

Mr. WAMP. I know you have been at it a while, and you do a 

really good job. 

The only question I would have is, in the post-9/11 world, I have 

followed this closely and watched it, especially over the last couple 

of years. It seems like the Independent Budget, while there used 

to be almost a rub between the Independent Budget, the authorizers, the appropriators, and OMB, is like a four-corner, you know, 

conflict. 

It looks to me like everybody is growing together as the Congress 

and the administration make more commitments to veterans. Is 

that just the general perception, that there is not the kind of competing interest with the Independent Budget that we used to have? 

You are sitting here having a conversation with the chairman 

about the president’s budget exceeding the Independent Budget, 

which used to just be almost the other way around all the time, 

correct? 

Mr. BLAKE. Absolutely. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Mr. Chairman—Steve Robertson with the American Legion for the reporters—I think one of the big differences is 

the quality of care. The V.A. has definitely taken a turn in the time 

period I have been in Washington—when we moved from a hospital-based system to more of an integrated health care delivery 

package, and with the community—everything else—— 

Mr. WAMP. Right. 

Mr. ROBERTSON [continuing]. I think even OMB—and I never 

thought I would compliment OMB on anything—but I think even 

OMB realizes that they are getting the best bang for the buck and, 

if the rest of the health care industry would take a lot of the initiatives that the veterans community has taken, I think they would 

realize a lot of savings, as well. 

So I really think that a lot of the things we have been advocating 

have become a reality. For example, we never had enrollment of 

the V.A. until 1996, 1997—— 

Mr. WAMP. Yes. 

Mr. ROBERTSON [continuing]. Before we actually knew what population we were going to be taking care of. We weren’t having people make payments into the system and bringing their health care 

dollars with them, which was something that was new. 

And just the fact that we are delivering better care, we are able 

to compete with the rest of the world and attracting a lot of our 

veterans to the system who may have never used it before. 

But the rest of the health care industry is changing, as well. And 

we are being the health care of choice, by a lot of the veterans that 

have other options. 

Mr. BLAKE. Mr. Wamp, what I would say is, where you have 

really started to see together—grow together is that the administrations have come more towards—or the administration has come 


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more towards where I thought Congress and the veterans community was more closely aligned, mainly because I feel like, between 

the pressure from the committees and the folks on the Hill and the 

veterans community, we have managed to get a lot of the gimmicky 

stuff that used to be part of the budgets and a lot of the things that 

covered up true needs have been removed. 

And, I mean, you really sort of get to a truth in budgeting point. 

And I think that is where we are starting to kind of come to that 

point now, where, you know, we are close enough that we all recognize that the—you can’t really fudge the needs in the end. And so 

we are getting to that point now. 

Mr. BAKER. I would like to add something on the benefits administration. I know that, you know, we have probably come before 

this committee and a lot of others year after year after year about 

the claims backlog and how there wasn’t enough benefits processors to get that backlog worked out. 

And I believe, if my memory serves me correctly, Chairman Edwards asked last year, if you get that—still going to ask for more 

people. Well, we got what we asked for. 

And so the fact that it takes 2 or 3 years sometimes to get those 

claims processors up to speed, sure enough, this year, we are not 

asking for any new claims processors. We understand the president’s budget may actually contain that. 

I think that we indicated to the chairman last year that, if we 

could get enough, we could focus on policy within VBA to try to get 

the claims process a little smoother. But you can never do it until 

you have enough people to work within the system. 

Now that you do—and that is what we have focused on this year 

in the I.B.—is try to improve some policies so that those people 

could be used to the best advantage. 

So I think you are 100 percent correct when you say those corners are coming together. 

Mr. WAMP. And I think—we have had 20 witnesses. I can’t remember who mentioned the CARES. You still had some questions 

about CARES. Steve, that may have been you. 

And I am just wondering, because, obviously CBOC, Super CBOC 

centers have all helped tremendously, but then I am still wondering, too, about some of the CARES recommendations, as to 

whether or not they are going to be implemented, whether they are 

just kind of dead, and things go in a different direction. 

I thought when CARES was first proposed that there might be 

a movement of some of the facility strength from the upper east, 

where veterans have fled, to the southeast, in my area, where veterans have heavily populated. The rivers and the streams and the 

cost of living is lower, and they have moved towards the sun, also. 

But CARES hasn’t really done much about closing facilities or realigning things as much as V.A. health care has tried to take the 

health care services to the point of need where the veterans are 

more. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, I think CARES was really a blueprint, because we had some concerns because of the lack of study on the 

long-term care and mental health issues, a lot of the recommendations on facilities to be closed were places where we had mental 

health services being provided in a great demand. 


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So I think it was supposed to serve more as a blueprint, and we 

were supposed to develop it more as we went along. Well, Katrina 

kind of took care of a couple of issues for us. They wiped out basically two facilities that are still in the process of being built. 

The Denver project has been going on now for almost a decade, 

of replacing that facility. Las Vegas, they are finally making some 

headway on that. So, you know, the major construction that the 

CARES talked about, I think, are still moving in the right direction. It was a lot of the minor construction consolidation things 

that had to be looked closely. 

And if I am not mistaken, the Veterans Affairs Committee is 

scheduling a hearing in the near future on CARES to see where we 

are and what adjustments need to be made. 

But the veterans community was pretty much concerned because 

of the lack of information on long-term care and the mental health 

issues. We weren’t really sure that the CARES had adequately 

taken that into consideration with some of the recommendations, 

Waco being a classic example of one of them that was supposed to 

be closed. And that is probably one of our best mental health facilities in the whole system. 

Mr. NEEDHAM. One of the strengths, I think, of the CARES process is, is it sort of made, I guess, V.A.’s approach to construction 

management much more professional, in that it sort of forced them 

to identify models and identify procedures and identify the process. 

It is not to say it is a perfect process. I mean, as we have seen 

with, like, Denver, that has been, you know, 10 years in the making, and we are at about, you know, version number six of which 

kind of hospital we want. So, I mean, there are always certainly 

heartaches. 

But if you look at the totality of the projects that have been done 

and how many of them were involved in the original CARES process, it is actually much more sizable than it would seem in initial 

glance. 

But, also, as Steve was saying, in terms of, you know, the minor 

issues it is identified, you know, we talked about, you know, the 

need for minor construction, but also the research, and those were 

all things identified and brought forward by the CARES project. So 

in that aspect, it was valuable. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. And the rural health care is still a major issue. 

And I think that most of the veterans community knows that the 

secretary has the authority to contract out services in areas where 

it is not feasible to build a facility, and we strongly advocated that 

over the years. 

This is the American Legion, Steve with American Legion. We 

have concerns over the voucher system. We think that is a disaster—to happen for a number of reasons. 

Mr. BLAKE. And I think, to be fair, when CARES was conducted, 

rural health care—I feel like rural health care has really become 

a front-and-center issue that it wasn’t during the CARES process. 

And it sort of changed the dynamic beyond what CARES looked at. 

And so I think the V.A. has been thrown a new challenge, and 

it is sort of balancing what the needs were identified under CARES 

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Mr. ROBERTSON. The war, with the activation of Guard and Reserve units, brought more National Guard and reservists into the 

health care window than before—— 

Mr. FARR. Well, keep pushing, because it isn’t going to happen 

without you. I mean, I think what we represent civilian, military, 

veterans, the whole community. And the best kind of care is quality care delivered close as possible. 

I think there is going to be with health care reform a need for 

us to find a lot of savings, which is probably going to be at the administrative level. And it seems to me that we have got all these 

silos of health care that, if we had a better job of integrating, we 

could get a better bang for the buck and we could move those savings into providing higher-quality care in the rural areas. 

But we are going to have to fight every inch of it. And the veterans are way ahead, because, you know, everybody is moving in 

the direction the Department of Veterans Affairs is going. 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, the telemedicine—I mean, there are a lot 

of things that V.A. is doing—— 

Mr. FARR. Yes, it is fantastic. 

Mr. ROBERTSON [continuing]. That is on the leading edge that we 

would like to see the rest of the health care industry try to emulate. 

Mr. FARR. I have one question, Mr. Kelley. I appreciate your testimony on veteran cemeteries. I agree with all your recommendations. I have been fighting this for 15 years. We had a military 

base close. We have land set aside, for a veteran cemetery, but because we are within 70 miles of an existing cemetery, we have a 

problem. It is really more—it is only 70 miles as the crow flies, not 

as one drives. 

So nobody wants to get buried in the existing cemetery. It is in 

the middle of the San Joaquin Valley. And so we went the state 

route, but the state of California is saying, ‘‘We are not going to 

do cemeteries.’’ They have refused to do it. 

So we invented a third way using state legislation to create essentially a private investment that would then guarantee the 

state’s role. And the state will apply for it. I mean, we are not inventing a new application process, but we are indemnifying the 

state. 

And so we have this land all set up for the feasibility study, and 

it is about 105 acres, and it is on Monterey Bay. The idea was to 

put a civilian cemetery next to a veteran cemetery. The profits are 

made off the civilian cemetery and can be used to maintain the veterans cemetery. 

Mr. KELLEY. Right. 

Mr. FARR. So we are looking for a developer. If you have anybody 

that wants to go and have a place on the Monterey peninsula to 

help us build a first-class veteran cemetery, where the federal part 

is all reimbursable. 

I would love to try to change all the law, but it is probably going 

to be easier to get this thing built this way than it is to be able 

to get Congress to waive the 70 miles and do all that other stuff. 

Mr. KELLEY. It looks like—what I have is an evaluation of the 

burial benefits. And they did a very in-depth study of how to 

change this. And that is where my recommendations came from, is 


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pooling some of their recommendations. And to serve the most veterans, it was to reduce the veteran population. 

Mr. FARR. Where did you get a copy? Did that just come out? 

Mr. KELLEY. It came out in August of 2008. And—— 

Mr. FARR. Do we have that? Can we work with you to get that? 

Mr. KELLEY. Sure. And to serve the most veterans, it seemed 

more feasible to leave the 75-mile radius, but reduce the number 

of veterans in that area. It would immediately open access. I don’t 

think it will help you. 

Mr. FARR. No, it won’t help us. 

Mr. KELLEY. But there were studies that—— 

Mr. FARR. But, see, what they are doing in California, the department has decided to go up through the San Joaquin Valley. 

But if you put a cemetery in Bakersfield, and put one up in Santa 

Nella, and you put one up by Sacramento, 70-mile radius goes from 

Nevada out into the ocean. 

Mr. KELLEY. Right. 

Mr. FARR. Now, the problem is, there is no support facility. None 

of these communities or areas have ever had any history of military 

presence. 

Mr. KELLEY. Right. 

Mr. FARR. So you are going to have a burial without anything 

military anything, whereas in our community, we have the longest, 

oldest military base in the United States, still operational. And we 

have got seven military footprints there. I mean, it is a closed military base. 

No matter what the merits are to this project, you can’t get over 

the 70-mile rule. So, I mean, I am just asking if you know anybody 

who is interested financially, there is an ideal piece of real estate 

for development. 

Mr. KELLEY. I will look into it for you, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Okay, thank you. I don’t have any more questions. If anybody 

has the last shot, you want to—yes, sir? 

Mr. ZAMPIERI. Can I get the last shot—— 

Mr. FARR. You can have the last shot. 

Mr. ZAMPIERI [continuing]. Director of government relations, and 

I appreciate it. In the Independent Budget, in other VSOs that testify, I just wanted to draw your attention to that the NDAA included in 2008 and 2009 that—they create various centers of excellence. 

And you probably know where I am going. For TBI, PTSD, vision 

loss, hearing loss, and orthopedic, sort of the five centers, and— 

there has been some significant challenges, is the term that I keep 

getting told, in implementing all of those centers. 

If you were to diagram the chart and look at—funding and program operations of those centers, you would be astonished, I think, 

at the lack of—— 

Mr. FARR. What do you want? 

Mr. ZAMPIERI. The vision centers of excellence and the hearing 

and the orthopedic centers, I think if you could work with the Defense Appropriations Committee on ensuring that DOD is implementing all of those and working in cooperation with the V.A., because there has been some problems. 


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The House V.A. Oversight Subcommittee had a hearing on 

March 17th. And they uncovered some big problems there. 

Hopefully, again, I think if you can just check with the Defense 

Appropriations Committee, it was Mr. Young and Mr. Murtha. And 

in the course of having DOD witnesses coming over and testifying—centers, make sure they are explaining what they are doing 

and—— 

Mr. FARR. Okay. 

Mr. ZAMPIERI. They have admitted under oath, for example, they have spent a total of $7,500 on the vision centers of excellence— 

that is sort of unconscionable. 

Mr. FARR. We will have our staffs check with those other committee staff and see if we can address that. 

All right? Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. All 

of you, thank you for your service and for being here today. We appreciate it. 

The meeting is adjourned. 


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THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009. 

RELATED AGENCIES 

WITNESSES 

CHIEF JUDGE WILLIAM P. GREENE, JR., U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

VETERANS CLAIMS 

GENERAL JOHN W. NICHOLSON, U.S.A., RETIRED, SECRETARY, AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSIONS 

TERRENCE C. SALT, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 

THE ARMY (CIVIL WORKS), ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY 

TIMOTHY C. COX, ARMED FORCES RETIREMENT HOME 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I would like to call the subcommittee 

to order. 

Chief Judge Greene, welcome back to the committee. 

Chief Judge GREENE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And thank you for your work on behalf of America’s veterans. 

I am going to be very brief in my opening statement. Our first 

panel is the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. 

The budget request for fiscal year 2010 is $27,115,000, of which 

$1.8 million is for the pro bono program. 

The request is a net decrease of $3.86 million when compared to 

the fiscal year 2009 appropriation, which included a onetime appropriation associated with GSA expenses for a new judicial center. 

And, Judge Greene, we have introduced you many times so I 

won’t go through your whole bio, but thank you for your distinguished career in the Army and your continued service to our country at the court now. 

Chief Judge GREENE. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I would like to recognize Mr. Wamp for any opening comments—— 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Just to thank you, Chairman, for the way you run 

this committee, the way we got our work done on time, the joint 

commitment to doing that again this year and these witnesses this 

afternoon. 

This hearing is important, and I know you want to move along 

so that we don’t hold them any longer than we can. 

And with that, I will just yield back and get started. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Judge Greene. 


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STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE WILLIAM P. GREENE, JR. 

Chief Judge GREENE. My turn? 

Chairman Edwards and Ranking Member Wamp, I certainly am 

very pleased to be here again with you to talk about the budget for 

the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. 

I think you pretty much have capsulized the budget for fiscal 

year 2010. We are in the unique position this year of asking for 

less money than we were appropriated last year thanks to your 

great support and putting the money in motion to kick start the 

project for the courthouse for our veterans. 

There are, however, some increases in the budget if you take 

away that $7 million that I need to bring to your attention. With 

the addition of the pro bono representation program budget, they 

are requesting an extra $120,000 over last year’s budget. 

Our increase can be focused essentially on $1.5 million to anticipate the incurred costs of taking care of two additional judges that 

have been authorized by Congress to assist us in this mission. And 

if Congress confirms and the president appoints these individuals 

after December of 2009, then three-quarters of the year will require 

us to be able to adequately financially support two judges and the 

accompanying staff. 

The other part associated with that is the fact that because of 

our growth with the two additional judges and because of the conditions that we are in now, we will need to expand space—available 

space—and that would be moving some employees out to another 

location and leasing space there. 

And so the cost associated with that, plus the build-out and the 

other moving expenses, will be about another $2 million to cover 

that cost. 

Other than that, we have the regular increases that are associated with financial services and security and the like. 

I just need to say that the court is very grateful, again, for the 

demonstrated support that you have provided reference to the 

courthouse. We have transferred that $7 million to GSA to get the 

ball rolling. 

We have identified a site on 49 L Street SE, but there are issues 

that have to be addressed and answered before we can firmly commit to requesting the specific funding requirement other than the 

$7 million. There are soil contamination issues, the ability to acquire an additional adjacent lot, setback issues for the building, 

and then whether or not there is sufficient overall size for putting 

a courthouse on that location. 

Mr. EDWARDS. It is never easy, is it? 

Chief Judge GREENE. It is never easy. And if this doesn’t work, 

then we will have to go to other alternatives. 

But you can rest assured that as soon as those answers are given 

that I will diligently move forward to providing you a very fullyfunded request. 

[The prepared statement of the Honorable William P. Greene, 

Jr., follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Great. Thank you, Judge Greene. 

And obviously your full testimony will be submitted for the 

record. 

I think we have a minute or two left on one vote with one more 

vote to follow. So this shouldn’t take long. 

RENOVATING AN EXISTING BUILDING

Judge Greene, let me ask if there is any possibility with the market turning down and a lot of real estate developments really in a 

cash bind, is there any option that there might be a building that 

is already built that becomes available that could be renovated in 

Washington? Or does GSA keep its eyes open for those kind of opportunities? 

Chief Judge GREENE. Yes, sir. GSA is identifying sites like that 

and, of course, we are helping them identify sites as well. Quite 

frankly, I have looked at the National Building Museum because 

that is the old Pension Building. And you walk in there and you 

see nothing but things associated with veterans coming in there to 

receive their pensions for their service. There is plenty of space in 

there. Certainly that is a very attractive option in the absence of 

having your own independent courthouse like the other courts 

have. 

The Arts and Industries Building run by the Smithsonian was 

part of the feasibility study. The problem there, of course, is it is 

going to take probably $200 million to just rehab it. Then you have 

got to retrofit it to a courthouse. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sometimes renovations can be more expensive 

then building from scratch. 

Chief Judge GREENE. And, of course, the feasibility study was 

really directed at us staying in the current commercial office building that we are leasing. 

The kick there was that to turn that into the courthouse, you 

would have to displace two other federal tenants. There are associated costs with moving them out and finding them another place 

and then retrofitting the rest of the space in Indiana Avenue for 

the court. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, are you satisfied that the planning for the 

site that they are looking at is moving ahead? I know there are 

hurdles and potential roadblocks, but they are moving expeditiously. 

Chief Judge GREENE. I am, sir. And from, at least from my Army 

experience, I would like to have many, many options going at one 

time, alternatives. 

One thing that might have delayed it was that when the feasibility study was submitted we had identified, quite frankly, property on the Capitol complex that was used for Senate parking, and 

we wanted to mirror the project that had been used for the 

Thurgood Marshall Building, which would have provided more 

parking for Senate staff and what have you. It would have been an 

ideal location as supported by many of the veterans organizations. 

But I am informed that that is not available. So we then divert 

to the other options that GSA has identified. 


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DECREASE IN CASE FILINGS

Mr. EDWARDS. My last question is, you had a decrease of case filings of about 43 per month in 2008 versus fiscal year 2007. Do you 

see that as a trend or was that just a onetime—— 

Chief Judge GREENE. A decrease? Yes, it has been a decrease. We 

certainly are still looking at 4,000 to 5,000 a year, though. I think 

we received for instance, starting for fiscal year 2008—October 

2008 to March 31, 2009, we have received 2,200 cases already and 

have terminated 2,000. We are at half year so we are still on that 

trend. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 

INCREASE IN JUDGES

Mr. WAMP. Well, did you say, and I missed it, why the increase 

in judges that you have added are temporary and not permanent? 

Chief Judge GREENE. I did not say. That, I think, quite frankly, 

was a legislative compromise. That is not an unusual thing. In Article III courts sometimes Congress will temporarily increase the 

number of Article III judges for a particular jurisdiction. 

The idea is that apparently after 2013 there would not be any 

authority to increase the court beyond the seven. And that 13 is 

probably gauged towards anticipated retirements like my own. 

So I don’t think it appreciates that in 2013 you could be receiving 

6,000 cases. 

Mr. WAMP. That is all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

I have some additional questions I will submit in writing. But 

those are all the questions I have. But thank you. Please keep us 

informed how the planning is—— 

Chief Judge GREENE. Oh, absolutely. You will be the first to 

know. [Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Judge. Good to see you. 

We now have the American Battle Monuments Commission, and 

representing the commission are Brigadier General John Nicholson, U.S. Army, retired. He is the executive secretary of ABMC, 

and he also has with him, accompanying him, Brigadier General, 

retired, William Leszcyznski, the executive director and chief operating officer. 

And I am going to forego introductions because the two of you 

have been before this committee several times. In the interest of 

time, I want to give you an opportunity to jump into your testimony. 

So, General Nicholson, if you would like to proceed, I will recognize you for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN W. NICHOLSON

General NICHOLSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

General NICHOLSON [continuing]. And members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today. 


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Since the administration has not cleared me to discuss the detailed fiscal year 2010 appropriation request, I can only talk about 

the work that is ongoing within the commission. 

The commission has served as a guardian of America’s overseas 

commemorative cemeteries and memorials since 1923. Our mission 

is to preserve for future generations the 24 cemeteries and the 25 

monuments, memorials, and markers that we maintain around the 

world to honor America’s war dead. Those missing in action and 

those who fought at their side. 

The Fiscal 2009 appropriation of $59.5 million for salaries and 

expenses allows us to execute our mission and supports our requirements for compensation and benefits, rent and utilities, maintenance, infrastructure, and capital improvements, contracting for 

services, procurement of supplies and materials, and replacement 

of equipment. 

To support this level of effort, our staffing requirement is 409 

full-time equivalent positions. 

The fiscal year 2009 appropriation of $17.1 million into our foreign currency fluctuation account has brought that balance up sufficiently to defray losses resulting from the changes in the value of 

foreign currencies against the dollar and allows us to maintain purchasing power in an uncertain financial environment, a critical factor when 80 percent of our annual appropriation is spent overseas 

using foreign currencies. 

Last year, you wrote language into our appropriation for this account that reads, ‘‘such sums as may be necessary.’’ We thank you 

for your visionary leadership in making this fundamental change 

in how this critical account is managed. We have always taken our 

stewardship responsibilities seriously, and the ‘‘such sums’’ language does not lessen that responsibility. It does, however, reduce 

the risk to our operations, ensuring access to the funding we need 

when we need it, to maintain buying power if the U.S. dollar becomes weaker than originally estimated, and for that, we are very 

grateful. 

As you have seen on your visits, our overseas cemeteries and memorials are tangible representations of American values and our 

own nation’s willingness in two world wars to come to the defense 

of our own freedoms and the freedoms of others. These magnificent 

national treasures instill patriotism, evoke gratitude, and teach important lessons of history to all who visit. 

ABMC’s first chairman, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, 

promised that time will not dim the glory of their deeds. To fulfill 

that vision, we have a responsibility beyond simply maintaining 

beautiful and inspirational commemorative sites. We also must 

perpetuate the stories of confidence, courage, and sacrifice, that 

those we honor can no longer tell for themselves. 

We reported to you last year on the opening of the Normandy 

Visitor Center. Following completion of that project, the commission recognized that the war dead at Normandy are not the only 

American war dead buried overseas that deserve to have their stories told. In that spirit, we plan to adapt the interpretive techniques used so effectively at Normandy to our other visitor buildings around the world. 


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But we do not intend to build new facilities like at Normandy. 

Instead, we will renovate existing visitor buildings to accommodate 

the types of exhibits and visitor services that have been so well received at Normandy. We have recently conducted site surveys of 

five prototype cemeteries to help us determine how best to do this 

and where to start. 

We are well into exhibit design for Pointe du Hoc where the emphasis will be on low-profile panels placed along a self-guided walking tour of the battleground, which appears much as it did when 

the rangers captured the Pointe on June 4, 1944. Minimal displays 

and interactive programs will be placed in the small French-owned 

visitor building near the Pointe. 

Concurrently, the Pointe du Hoc restoration project is advancing 

well. The French government made a public announcement of the 

project on March 3 and emphasized support from the French and 

American governments. On April 15, we submitted the required environmental impact study and contingent permit request to the 

French, which will begin the official permit process. 

By French standards, this project is moving very quickly, and we 

continue to enjoy enthusiastic support from French officials. We 

will keep you and your staff apprised of our progress. 

In concert with these important initiatives, we continue to work 

diligently to attract many more American and foreign visitors to 

personally experience these inspirational and educational commemorative sites. As always, we welcome and encourage your visits 

to see for yourselves the manner in which we use the resources you 

provide to us and to experience firsthand the pride of living in a 

nation that so honors those whose service and sacrifice have kept 

us free. 

I would like to close my remarks by introducing the members of 

my staff that accompanied me here today. As you mentioned, Brigadier General Bill Leszczynski, U.S. Army, retired, the executive 

director and chief operating officer of the ABMC; Tom Sole, director 

of engineering and maintenance; Mike Conley, director of public affairs; Alan Gregory, director of finance; and Matthew Beck, the 

budget officer. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to respond to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of John W. Nicholson follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. General Nicholson, thank you. And let me say at 

the outset, I know this is far more than a job and a position to each 

of you. It is a passion and a labor of love, and I thank you for that. 

You are the stewards of some of the most hallowed and sacred 

grounds anywhere in the world, and we are grateful to you and to 

your dedication, and I say—when I say to you, I mean to you, General Leszczynski, and to all of you. 

NORMANDY VISITOR CENTER

General NICHOLSON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Let me ask you about the Normandy Visitor Center. How many people do we estimate visit that a year? Any broad 

estimate? 

General LESZCZYNSKI. About 500,000 right now is the number of 

people that are actually going through that center a year, sir. 

POINTE DU HOC

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Secondly, in terms of the effort that you 

have made, this subcommittee has funded to prevent Pointe du Hoc 

from literally falling in the ocean, which, to me, would be akin to 

allowing the Statue of Liberty to fall into New York Harbor. How 

is that going? Are you now confident that that historic site, meaningful site, hallowed ground can be protected? 

General NICHOLSON. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So the technology is there. Now you are working 

and I know you have been working very closely with the French 

which you reference in your testimony. But the—the engineering, 

the technology is there. It is feasible. We have the cooperation, the 

partnership, and the resources. It can be done. 

General NICHOLSON. Well, I would say yes, but I would like to 

defer to the engineer who is really hands on that issue. 

Mr. SOLE. Sir, as you know, Texas A&M—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. For the record, could you identify yourself? 

Mr. SOLE. Yes, sir. Tom Sole, director of engineering and maintenance for the American Battle Monuments Commission. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Tom, why don’t you come up here a little closer 

to the microphone? 

Mr. SOLE. Sir, as you know, Texas A&M spent a couple of years 

doing a very in-depth study of that site to examine the causes of 

the instability. Now all of their work has been reviewed by two 

French technical organizations to validate their work. And they 

have basically concluded that their work is sound, and so that has 

given us great confidence that, indeed, we are on the right path. 

And I think it has also given the French great confidence, and that 

is why they support it so strongly. 

I think the work is important not only because of the stability, 

but it also protects the historical nature of the site, as well as its 

environmental aspects, because it is an environmentally protected 

site for the French. So I think Texas A&M did a great study. They 

gave us great insights. And I think that right now the solution that 

they kind of laid out in their study is the one that we are pursuing, 

although we are going to go out to contractors soon to see what the 

contractors can actually do to give us the final solution. But we are 

confident that we will be able to remediate much of that—— 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Great, great. 

And I also salute you on your interpretive programs. I think you 

are right in referencing them as public diplomacy efforts. It is a 

way of reminding the world when they come visit our cemeteries 

overseas of the sacrifices Americans have made on behalf of the 

world. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, two questions. 

General Nicholson, you look to me like you are thinner this year 

than you were last year, and my first question is did you mean to 

do that. [Laughter.] 

General NICHOLSON. You are very observant. Four pounds slimmer. 

Mr. WAMP. That is all? 

General NICHOLSON. Yes, I gave up whiskey for Lent. [Laughter.] 

Mr. WAMP. Well, being from Tennessee, I am not going to tell 

you what to do. [Laughter.] 

General NICHOLSON. Lent is over. 

Mr. WAMP. In the legislature in Tennessee about a month ago, 

they declared milk as the official drink for the State of Tennessee. 

And so, as I was traveling the state for 17 days, I made several 

points to tell folks that I didn’t realize they started putting George 

Dickel and Jack Daniels in milk—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WAMP [continuing]. And it is the only way I could explain 

what they did, the legislature. 

INTERPRETIVE TECHNIQUES

You talked about interpretive techniques, and I have been at 

Pointe du Hoc, and I have been at Normandy, and it was one of 

the most moving experiences of my life. And, you know, I came 

back after seeing Theodore Roosevelt’s cross at Normandy, and 

then I was at the Pentagon for the Medal of Honor recognition of 

both the father and the son, and that is just an extraordinary 

thing, tying our sacrifices together. 

But you talk about interpretive techniques, and I am interested 

because you talked about some of the things you are doing at 

Pointe du Hoc with the walkway and the panels. Are there other 

measures that you are going to do? What have you done at Normandy that is different for the visitor that is an experience that 

you might use in other places? Is it interactive? Are there kiosks? 

What is it? Because I haven’t been back. I wish I could go a lot. 

But what interpretive techniques under your testimony are different? 

General NICHOLSON. Well, that is a good question, and I will ask 

Mike to give you the detail, but we are doing several things that 

you did mention on a different scale, not as intensively as at Normandy. 

Mike, you have been—— 

Mr. CONLEY. Mike Conley, director of public affairs, American 

Battle Monuments Commission. 

Sir, in answer to the question, Normandy is the first of a kind 

for us. We have visitor buildings at all 24 of our cemeteries. If you 

have been to the cemeteries, you know that they are really 


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throwbacks to the eras when the cemeteries were built. They are 

more like receiving rooms in a funeral parlor, and when you consider that the first visitors were the mothers and fathers and 

spouses of the war dead, that made a lot of sense. But as we start 

transitioning away from those generations, and trying to attract 

younger generations, trying to incorporate more modern techniques. 

When you go to the visitor center in Normandy, you will find 

very powerful films that tell the story. You will find campaign 

interactions where you can actually follow the flow of the divisions 

through the Normandy operation, the landing, then the ensuing operations, and then, the standard exhibit with text. 

But what we really tried to do is focus on individuals. You will 

find a series of vignettes on individuals buried in the cemetery or 

who served alongside of them and survived to try to allow people 

to make that personal connection. And what we are really trying 

to do—before we did the visitor center, clearly, going to Normandy 

was a moving, inspirational experience, but what we are now able 

to do is to provide the historical context for why that cemetery 

came to be put there, how and why those individuals buried there 

died, and for what they died, so that you really understand the context of that sacrifice. 

As the secretary said, we don’t intend to build anything on that 

scale because, quite frankly, the visitorship at the other cemeteries 

wouldn’t warrant that. But using the films, using the interactives, 

using the database searches, and using the personal anecdotal stories, we can still tell the story at all of our facilities, and that is 

the direction we are moving. 

Mr. WAMP. Without taking anything away from the raw and 

awesome simplicity of the site itself. I mean, that, to me, is the 

most overwhelming thing about Normandy, is just the crosses. 

Mr. CONLEY. Absolutely. 

General NICHOLSON. They don’t take anything away from it. 

Mr. WAMP. Don’t take anything away from that. 

Mr. CONLEY. In fact, the facility itself was intentionally designed 

to be set off by itself, low profile, so it did not in any way, 

architecturally, detract from the solemnity of the cemetery. And we 

know we get a million—about a million visitors to the cemetery. 

The executive director talked about half of those maybe going 

through the visitor center. That is okay. The destination is the 

cemetery, not the visitor center. The visitor center provides context 

for the visit to the cemetery. 

Mr. WAMP. That is great. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I just visited your cemetery in Manila. I was just 

overwhelmed. It is on the most beautiful piece of real estate in all 

of the Philippines, and it is probably now the most valuable piece 

of real estate in the country. It is on a beautiful hill surrounded 

by cities. 

And I mean, I don’t have any questions. I just want to tell you 

that it was—I loved the way all the battles of the South Pacific 

were displayed in art and tile, and it was fascinating. And then to 


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look for your family names of ancestors you never knew that may 

have been related. I found it very touching and very, very powerful. 

I just wish we could get a cemetery built in my own district. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Does anyone else have a question or observation? 

Mr. FARR. General Nicholson always looks young, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely. 

General NICHOLSON. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, I don’t have any additional oral questions. 

We may have some follow-up written questions, and, obviously, 

once you have officially released the 2010 administration budget for 

ABMC, then please come back and let’s sit down and talk with our 

staff and figure out what that budget implies and whether we need 

to adopt it or whether we need to add to it or do some fine-tuning. 

FOREIGN CURRENCY FLUCTUATION ACCOUNT

Mr. FARR. I do have one question. 

I was reading your testimony about the foreign currency fluctuation account. I was very interested in trying to help the Peace 

Corps out because we had to cut all the positions because of their 

costs overseas, with the valuation of the dollar. We never got that 

money in. It was about $17 million for the whole program, and we failed 

to get it in last year, and they had to cut a bunch of volunteers 

and then eliminate some programs. And I notice we did fund your 

account. Is that account a permanent account that just deals with 

fluctuation of the dollar? 

General NICHOLSON. Yes, but the chief financial officer can give 

you a real detailed explanation of that, but the answer is yes. 

Mr. FARR. Does it earn interest or anything? Is it a fenced account? I knew nothing about it, though. I just read the testimony. 

Mr. GREGORY. Alan Gregory, the chief financial officer. 

Funding for our Foreign Currency Fluctuation Account is appropriated every year, and it has been for the last 4 or 5 years. It was 

established by Congress in 1988 and seeded with $3 million, but 

up until that time, there wasn’t much fluctuation, much need for 

use of a premium to operate overseas. 

As General Nicholson said in his testimony, about 80 percent of 

our funding is spent overseas. We operate with a premium that 

costs, right now, 30 percent extra spend for goods and services and 

contracts overseas. So that the account stabilizes our cost requirements. 

And—but the way that the account works, we can move money 

from the foreign currency account to our Salaries and Expenses account. And if we ever needed to move it back, which we don’t, we 

could move it back to the foreign currency account. The account 

doesn’t draw interest. Our statute limits us from obligating directly 

from that account. 

Mr. FARR. So you just draw from the account. You have a maximum amount of money that you can draw. 

Mr. GREGORY. That is correct. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Any additional questions? 

If not, thank you both. Thanks to the entire staff and all your 

representatives for the work you do. Thank you. 


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General NICHOLSON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. See you, General. 

General NICHOLSON. You bet. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Take care. 

Members, we are now going to review the Department of the 

Army’s Civil Works Program for Cemeterial Expenses. Our witness 

today is Secretary Terrence Salt, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. 

Mr. SALT. Sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Secretary, it is good to have you here. And accompanying him, as we know before this subcommittee, Mr. John 

Metzler, the second generation of his family as superintendents of 

Arlington National Cemetery. We are grateful you are both here. 

And Mr. Secretary, I would like to recognize you for 5 minutes 

of opening comments and we will certainly put your entire statement in the record. 

STATEMENT OF TERRENCE C. SALT

Mr. SALT. Thank you, sir. I would also—with me today also are 

Ms. Claudia Tornblom of our staff at the Army, Mr. John Parez, 

also from my staff and other staff from Arlington National Cemetery. 

Sir, since the administration has not yet released a detailed 

budget for fiscal year 2010, my testimony is limited to providing an 

update of our various ongoing projects and activities. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Oh, come on, you can tell us. [Laughter.] 

Mr. SALT. You have to ask me first. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We won’t put you in an uncomfortable position. I 

understand. 

Mr. SALT. Sir, there are two items that are of particular significance that I would like to highlight for the subcommittee. The first 

is the Millennium Project which consists of the development of 36 

acres of land into gravesite areas, roads, utilities and columbarium 

walls; actually approximatly 14,000 additional gravesites and 

22,000 niches will be provided when this development is complete. 

In the long term, this project is very important to extend the useful life of Arlington Cemetery. In the short term, it will alleviate 

crowding at funeral services that is occurring in concentrated areas 

of the cemetery. 

The subcommittee staff recently visited the cemetery to get a 

first-hand look at this project. I certainly would extend an invitation to the entire subcommittee for an on-site briefing. 

As I made my trip the other day, there were 32 funerals going 

on and they are all concentrated in this one area. It is just a very 

concentrated part of the cemetery. 

The second item that we are considering is the development of 

a new master plan for Arlington Cemetery. The current master 

plan was published in 1998. Due to post–9/11 force protection 

issues regarding Fort Myer and other considerations, a new master 

plan is being considered to evaluate a full array of options to address the management of the cemetery in the future. 

The options would include capital development, land management, burial eligibility and consideration of another burial site. 


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This master plan would be developed in a transparent process with 

the public and with full consultation with the Congress. 

In conclusion, I would like to thank the subcommittee for its 

strong support to maintain Arlington National Cemetery and the 

Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery, to provide services for our many visitors, make capital investments needed to accommodate burials and most importantly, to preserve the dignity, 

serenity and traditions of the cemeteries for the nation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify on behalf of these cemeteries. We will be pleased to respond to your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Terrence C. Salt follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And Mr. Metzler, 

again, thank you for you and your father’s labor of love in Arlington Cemetery. What a legacy in life to be a steward in the most 

hallowed of hallowed grounds in our nation. 

I would like to begin by bringing up an issue that I know Secretary Geren has raised with each of you. And I would like to ask 

unanimous consent to have entered into the record two notes; one 

is a memorandum for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil 

Works, subject ‘‘Niche Wall at Arlington National Cemetery,’’ from 

Secretary Geren and then the other is a letter to me from Secretary 

Geren on this issue. 

If there is no objection, we will enter that into the record. I 

would like to read part of the letter because frankly it reflects my 

thinking on this and then we will go from there. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Secretary Geren’s letter in part says that Arlington National Cemetery is a treasure that is a final resting place of 

legions of our nation’s most cherished sons and daughters. It is 

their final resting place, but it is that and more. 

It is our nation’s most sacred memorial. A memorial to those 

who, but for their service and sacrifice, there would be no nation. 

In our stewardship of ANC we must do justice to both missions: 

honor the fallen and comfort their families, and maintain the memorial that is ANC so that it will forever speak to future generations of the debt we owe to those who have borne the battle for us. 

Pending the development of the new master plan, I have directed 

that any cemetery construction along the perimeter be accomplished in such a manner that the existing viewscapes must not be 

compromised further. I have done this to ensure that we properly 

consider and weigh both missions of Arlington, burial and memorial. 

Let me just say for now that I do not know all of the facts involved in the process of deciding to build the niche walls. I don’t 

know all of the future plans. I intend to go out and visit in person 

sometime soon to go over that. 

I always, on any issue, maintain an open mind to hear all points 

of view and all facts before making any conclusions. But let me say, 

long before I spoke to Secretary Geren I have made it the habit for 

the last 5 years that every day when I drive to the Capitol rather 

than coming down George Washington Parkway, McLean to the 

14th Street Bridge, I purposely exit at Memorial Bridge because I 

am inspired every single morning by the sight of that hallowed 

ground and those who hallow it. 

Long after I am gone, I want to be sure that tens and tens and 

tens of thousands of people who drive that road daily, many of 

them men and women who have served in the military and continuing to serve at the Pentagon, are not prohibited from being inspired as I feel inspired every single morning when I drive by the 

cemetery. 

And I just want to say and I am just speaking for myself here 

that I feel very, very strongly and we may consider putting this 

into our appropriation bill, too, but just what Secretary Geren has 

done that I would like to see no additional encumbrance of visual 

access to that hallowed ground from the public’s point of view until 

we have had further discussions on it. 

And I know there is always a balance. I know there are sometimes competing needs, but I wouldn’t want a wall built around Arlington Cemetery anymore than I would want a wall built around 

the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial or the U.S. Capitol. And frankly, of the four sites I consider Arlington Cemetery 

more hallowed than all the others. 

MILLENNIUM PROJECT

Having expressed for the record my strong and passionate views 

on this, I would welcome any insights you might have. But I would 

like to specifically ask you whether there is any intention in any 

way in the months ahead to move ahead with any additional construction other than that which has already been completed? 


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Mr. SALT. At the present time, we have one project that is being 

worked on and that is the Millennium Project. Now the Millennium 

Project is adjacent to Fort Myer, inside of Arlington Cemetery to 

develop the last 36 acres of property that we have on the western 

side of the cemetery. 

That does call for a niche wall to be placed onto that boundary 

as well. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Do you have a map for the cemetery with you? 

Mr. SALT. I have maps—certainly. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. FARR. What do you mean by niche wall? 

Mr. SALT. A traditional stone wall and on the inside has columbarium features so that you would be able to place remains at 

that location at the same time. 

Mr. FARR. But this is not a force protection wall? 

Mr. SALT. No. These are not force protection walls. If you go to 

the top of the map where you see the blue dots, number two, Fort 

Myer, that is the area that we are referring to. And that hash 

mark right below the blue dots, is the Millennium Project. Now 

this is a combination of three pieces of land, the old picnic area on 

Fort Myer, our old warehouse and then part of the National Park 

Service property which was transferred to us a few years ago. 

So this particular area has been designed. It has not been fully 

funded yet so we are working on that with our budget submissions 

to the committee. The rest of the cemetery as you look around it, 

these are all proposed areas and as you look where the solid red 

lines are we would not be able to put additional niche walls there. 

The existing wall would stay or it would be improved if you will. 

These are all very old walls. So only where you see the blue dots 

are potential areas for additional niche walls. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So significant areas. How high would that niche 

wall be in the Fort Myer area? 

Mr. SALT. Approximately six feet from the road and then when 

you go on the inside, it is a different height than it is on the outside. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Which is part of the problem. Some of the roads— 

depending on which side of the cemetery you are on, a six-foot wall 

might as well be a sixty-foot wall in terms of you know tens and 

tens if not hundreds of thousands of people a day having an opportunity to see this hallowed ground. 

Do you interpret, Mr. Metzler, or Mr. Secretary, do you interpret 

Secretary Geren’s memorandum as a prohibition on the building of 

this niche wall until—— 

Mr. METZLER. I think we obviously need to revisit the issue. 

Mr. SALT. Sir, I spoke to the Secretary this morning on this. I 

received his memo last night. To me it is very clear that my guidance and my direction to Jack will be that we build no niche walls 

that interfere with the viewscape. 

And so we will go back and we will re-look at all of our plans 

for niche walls and we will ensure that there are places where the 

road is, the terrain is such that you don’t have a view of the cemetery anyway. And there are places where it would be appropriate 

to have a wall there with a niche wall. 

There are other places where the cemetery is lower, and a niche 

wall would interfere with the view that you were talking about. 

And that is what the secretary is talking about, right? 

Mr. EDWARDS. So your interpretation is the secretary—does the 

secretary’s memorandum have policy effect? 

Mr. SALT. What, sir? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Or is it just seen as just a recommendation or is 

it seen as a policy that Secretary—— 

Mr. SALT. No, this is direction; this is the policy direction. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. So to be clear that means that as you interpret 

that directive of the secretary, this niche wall could not be built unless there is a change in the policy? 

Mr. SALT. Could not be built—only that part could be built that 

would not affect the existing viewscape. That would not affect, the 

point that you made earlier—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. What would be the earliest possible time if you 

didn’t have Secretary Geren’s directive in place? Mr. Metzler, what 

would be the earliest possible time that the niche wall along the 

Fort Myer area would be built? 

Mr. METZLER. Well at the present time, there is a need for an additional $35 million to move forward with this project. So until 

that funding is in place, nothing would be done. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. METZLER. It has been designed but no construction has been 

done. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Now am I correct in understanding that $35 million would come from this subcommittee—— 

Mr. METZLER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Or do you have any other source of 

funding that would pay for that? 

Mr. METZLER. It would come from this committee. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. SALT. And just in context, the funds for this year are largely 

for earthwork on the site and so I don’t know what the schedule 

would be when you get to the wall, but it is in the out years which 

haven’t been identified for funding yet, sir. 

Mr. METZLER. Sir, we are not going to put a wall up there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I want to spend a lot of time on this but in the 

meantime until this full subcommittee has had a chance to carefully review this and listen to all perspectives and interests, I 

would like to see nothing further done. You know for example, this 

area along 110 to me that is one of the most moving areas of the 

cemetery to see. And I see that is a proposed wall there. 

Would that be proposed at six feet? 

Mr. SALT. It would be. I mean if we were to build any niche 

walls, the only height would be a six-foot height. That is the standard if you will for this type of development. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And the purpose of niche walls is to be able to 

place cremated remains there? 

Mr. SALT. That is correct, and to continue the life of the cemetery 

for burial. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well that is the intended purpose. The intended 

or unintended result is to block visual access to this hallowed 

grounds for an awful lot of Americans. 

Mr. SALT. Well, the Secretary’s guidance says we are not to do 

that and so we are not going to—and there are two parts of it. 

There is the initial part of don’t—we are instructed, we are directed not to build any walls that would interfere with that view. 

And number two, as I mentioned in my testimony or my oral statement about the master plan, that we will be looking at options in 

the master plan that would also try and address that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. And I hope again I know you are—I am so 

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ton National Cemetery. And I know, as you know, one goal is to 

provide as much possible space for as many possible burials. 

But I hope in the master planning, I hope part of the process 

takes into account that important value of this hallowed ground is 

to be a cherished memorial for Americans and an awful lot of them, 

tourists and otherwise. People working at the Pentagon drive by 

that every day. And add me to that list. They are inspired every 

single day. 

But anyway I think you answered my question. I appreciate that 

and I look forward to sitting down with you and talking about it. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Well I had also talked to Secretary Geren, Mr. Chairman, and your words, your sentiment and your inquiry were exactly mine. So I have really nothing else to add except that everything you said was exactly where I was going, exactly what I was 

going to say. 

But I also feel like there is a keen awareness of the sensitivity 

of this for everyone, but I do think we all play a role to make sure 

that the right thing is done over time. And I think you said it extremely well and I stand with you 100 percent. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. In this master plan, do you have to adjust 

anything for force protection requirements? 

Mr. SALT. I will start and then I will let Mr. Metzler finish. The 

existing master plan included some assumptions for land acquisition at Fort Myer that had been affected by BRAC decisions and 

force protection requirements at Fort Myer. And so that is one of 

the key reasons for the initiation of a new master plan to deal with 

that change. 

Mr. FARR. There is one type that call for force protection. As we 

get others, it is sort of risk analysis and they are fortressing in the 

middle of my town. 

Mr. SALT. Sir, this is more of a consolidation of joint—— 

Mr. FARR. So it is all dealing with you having to comply with all 

of the security—— 

Mr. SALT. Sir, it is mainly facilities required as a result of the 

BRAC process and the consolidation of facilities at Fort Myer and 

to operational requirements that are needed for those facilities. 

Now—— 

Mr. FARR. That is not additional security. 

Mr. SALT. If I may, sir? Inside the cemetery we are not dealing 

with force protection issues. We are not hardening the cemetery. 

Mr. FARR. Okay. 

Mr. SALT. It is the result of Fort Myer and what they are concerned about is they are our neighbor and we share a fence line. 

So what Fort Myer does has an effect on us. Some of the lands that 

we may have looked at in the previous master plan that may have 

been potential expansion areas now are being used as setback 

areas and they don’t want to develop that land because of their 

needs for force protection. 

It has nothing to do with Arlington Cemetery—— 

Mr. FARR. But they are not going to use that land, right? They 

are just going to leave it as a setback. 


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Mr. SALT. Part of it is they are going to use as their mission on 

Fort Myer is changing since the master plan was developed in 1998 

and part of it is that they—— 

Mr. FARR. But do you still have to then or you have to access the 

cemetery through Fort Myer. 

Mr. SALT. We do. We have a checkpoint—— 

Mr. FARR. So if they make it more difficult to get into Fort Myer, 

it is going to make it more difficult to get into the cemetery. 

Mr. SALT. As Fort Myer improves its force protection, the people 

who are entering the cemetery through Fort Myer have to go 

through whatever Fort Myer sets up to get to the cemetery. 

Mr. FARR. And as I read here, you expect in fiscal year 2009 an 

estimated 4,170 interments. And you don’t do those on weekends, 

do you? 

Mr. METZLER. No, sir. We are averaging about 27 funerals a day. 

Mr. FARR. Yes. And you are going to have, you know between 17 

and 27 a day assuming you do it every single day of the week—— 

Mr. METZLER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. For a year. And all of those targets as I 

have had to do have been at two funerals out there. I mean isn’t 

there another way to get into the cemetery. Isn’t there a better way 

to get the families and parties into the cemetery? 

Mr. METZLER. The challenge is when you use Fort Myer for your 

funeral at the chapel or for your reception after the funeral, you 

have got——- 

Mr. FARR. (OFF MIKE) 

Mr. METZLER. Right. And you are forced to go onto the Fort Myer 

property, and then do whatever force protection issues they have. 

If you stay in the cemetery or if you only just go to the chapel and 

don’t go back to Fort Myer, then it is much easier to go in through 

the cemetery and you don’t have to go through the vehicle inspection and all the things Fort Myer makes you do. 

Mr. FARR. I know I have heard various officials tell me what they 

think. I think the purpose of the master plan is to flush all of that 

out and to come back to the committee to have a public process to 

go through these very issues. And our part of it is the cemetery 

master plan process. Some of the issues you are raising are concerning. 

Okay. The security that the base is going through is one-size-fitsall and it just doesn’t make sense. To require these people and families to come in to go through the military checkpoint—I mean it 

wasn’t very hard for us but I had a congressional flight. 

I hope in the master plan you will think about that access and 

egress. Maybe the chapel ought to be in your domain and not in 

the force domain. 

Mr. METZLER. Well it was the reception afterwards back at the 

officer’s club or back to the community center. That presents its 

own unique problem because then you are trying to get back to the 

cemetery—— 

Mr. FARR. Why don’t we build one for you? 

Mr. METZLER. Sir, whatever your direction—I mean that typically is not what we do. That is typically not our mission to have 

receptions and such at the cemetery. 


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Mr. FARR. But it is also awkward there. You have got a club. It 

has, you know, it has got a bunch of rooms in it and there are other 

parties going on. 

Mr. METZLER. I guess the overall challenge, too, is we have very 

limited space left in the cemetery, and our focus has been to try 

to maintain the open space that you have for burial and not get 

distracted from other things that would take away from it. 

Mr. FARR. I guess it is a good thing we are going to do a master 

plan. 

Mr. METZLER. Sir. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you—— 

Mr. METZLER. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Can I ask, who will be on the master plan committee? Do you actually have names of members of that committee 

now? 

Mr. SALT. I don’t know that we do. 

Mr. METZLER. We don’t. What the normal process would be is 

that we would hire the Baltimore Corps of Engineers to develop a 

master plan. In turn, they would hire engineers, landscape architects, the right team. They would put a team together, issue them 

a contract and then we would go through a set of specifications 

where we would address the various issues that this master plan 

should address. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And will there be military retirees on this? Will 

there be—— 

Mr. METZLER. It will be stakeholders. We would—once we developed a team, we would then develop a list of stakeholders and that 

would include local representatives, obviously this committee and 

anyone else who is showing an interest. We have had other stakeholder meetings in the past and we would dust those lists off and 

incorporate those individuals as well. 

The National Park Service, the Commission of Fine Arts, National Capital Planning Commission are typically members of this 

committee. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you can keep us in close touch, Mr. Metzler, 

with, you know, how that process is going, who is involved at each 

stage, when you know who is involved. I would love to stay involved in that. 

TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

And my final question is what is the status of the Tomb of the 

Unknown Soldier and potential renovations there? 

Mr. SALT. Sir, we are planning this year to grout/re-grout the 

cracks. Later this spring, Mr. Metzler will go to inspect a possible 

block of marble that is being considered as—possibly be donated. 

We are not sure about that yet. But this—— 

The intention is to possibly bring it back and to store it in a secure site. Obviously, there is a lot of interest and views as to that; 

the issue as to what we might do with that. And we have made 

no decision beyond seeing that this particular block is suitable or 

not. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay—— 

Mr. WAMP. I have no additional questions—— 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Well, let me end as I began. Thank each of you 

for your—— 

BURIAL EXPENSES

Mr. FARR. Excuse me, sorry. I just wanted to ask you whether 

the burial expense is adequate? If not, is $300, is that an adequate 

amount? And it may be outside your lane but—— 

Mr. METZLER. It actually does not apply to us at Arlington Cemetery. We charge no money for anything that is done inside the cemetery. An honorable discharged veteran who is entitled to a ground 

burial at Arlington Cemetery is not charged nor is their family 

charged. 

So everything we do at the cemetery is a benefit without cost to 

them. 

Mr. SALT. What you are referring to is if you bury someone in 

a private cemetery, the Department of Veterans Affairs, if you are 

eligible, would pay up to $300. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In fact, that raises a quick question I would like 

to ask. Do I understand that Secretary Geren or the Army may 

have changed the policy in terms of burial of enlisted personnel? 

Mr. METZLER. What has changed, is not the burial policy for enlisted personnel, but the military honors. 

Mr. EDWARDS. The military honors? Okay. 

Mr. METZLER. On January 2nd, 2009, Secretary Geren issued a 

policy that directed us that anyone who was killed in the line of 

duty by the enemy would now be entitled to full military honors 

if the family so chose. The difference between full military honors 

and standard honors, if I will, standard honors would be the firing 

party, the casket team and the bugler. 

If you were to have full honors, it would be the Caisson Military 

Band and an escort in addition to the elements of standard honors. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And that is all paid for by you. 

Mr. METZLER. It is all paid for by the Department of the Army. 

So again, there is no cost to the family. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is that in every cemetery or just—— 

Mr. METZLER. Arlington Cemetery is only the one that has that 

opportunity to provide those honors. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Prior to that policy change, you could have died 

in combat; If you were enlisted receive posthumously the medal of 

honor but you would not have been given—— 

Mr. METZLER. Well the medal of honor was one area—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. That was an exception. 

Mr. METZLER. That was an exception. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Silver Star and you would not get full military 

honors. 

Mr. METZLER. That is correct. You would get the standard honors 

based upon your rank for enlisted people, firing party, casket team, 

bugler. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Are there any budget implications for your budget 

on that policy—— 

Mr. METZLER. No. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. METZLER. It is really a scheduling issue for us. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Well again let me just end as I began. 

Thank you both for your dedicated service to protecting this hallowed ground. And we are grateful you are here and look forward 

to following up with you on the wall issue. 

Mr. SALT. Certainly. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. SALT. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. METZLER. Look forward to your visit. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. METZLER. Just make sure it is a vertical visit. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Cox, welcome. Welcome back. Is it Mr. 

McManus? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Welcome to our subcommittee. 

Members will now have testimony, Armed Forces Retirement 

Home. The witness, once again before the subcommittee, will be 

Mr. Timothy C. Cox, the Chief Operating Officer, and he is accompanied by Mr. Steven McManus, the Chief Financial Officer. 

Mr. Cox, good to have you back. Your entire testimony will be 

submitted for the record, but I would like to recognize you for 5 

minutes for any summary comments you would care to make. 

Mr. COX. Great. I do have some. Just trying to turn off my phone 

here so it doesn’t go off, right? Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You bet. 

STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, as the Chief 

Operating Officer of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, I thank 

you for the opportunity to appear before you today. 

Since the administration has not cleared me to discuss the detailed fiscal year 2010 appropriation request, we can only talk 

about the work that is ongoing within our home. I also want to update you on our progress that we evolved to meet the needs of a 

next generation of heroes. 

AFRH is modernizing to promote this aging-in-place philosophy 

and to uphold the central promise to care for our residents. Under 

our controls and financial performance—couple of points for you— 

we are particularly proud that, for the fiscal year 2008, AFRH has 

once again received an unqualified audit opinion from an independent external auditor. 

This marks the fourth consecutive year AFRH has received this 

distinction through our partnership with the Bureau of Public 

Debt, starting in the middle of 2004, our financial statements have 

had no material weaknesses since our very first audit in 2005. Our 

successful audits are a reflection of renewed emphasis on internal 

controls. 

We experienced a stable financial year throughout 2008 despite 

an array of changing economic conditions all around us. We have 

consistently shown market growth in our trust fund over several 

years. In fiscal year 2008, the trust fund balance reached $167 million, and is expected to reach $171 million in 2009. This is quite 

a rebound from its lowest level of $94 million in 2003. 

The Scott project we discussed last year: we continue to need 

modernization in the D.C. campus—$5.6 million in trust fund 


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money was requested, and approved, to begin planning for the design/build phase of our dormitory called Scott, built in 1954 and 

has had no major renovations since that point. 

Completion of the Scott project will provide significant operational savings. About 54 percent of O&M now go into that building on our campus. We appreciate the $800,000 asked and provided—appropriated to 

us by Congress in fiscal year 2008 for the study of funding sources 

for the trust fund to determine the long-term viability of that trust. 

Thanks to your support, we are modernizing our Washington campus and rebuilding our Gulfport campus. Our team of key experts, 

consultants, through government as well as private industry, the 

final design concept for Scott, rather than rehab, as we talked 

about last year, is to replace. 

Replacing it with a new commons building and a new health center, it shrinks our campus and also gives us a building that will 

be LEED-certified at least silver, if not higher, and reduced the 

footprint of that building by about half, which is appropriate for 

the size of who we are. 

The opening of Gulfport is also part of our ongoing efforts. I am 

pleased to let you know that we remain within budget and on track 

for a July 2010 completion and resident occupancy in October 2010. 

Design is 100 percent complete. Finishes and final color selections are being reviewed. Furniture, fixtures and equipment procurement packages are being prepared. We had a topping-off party 

for construction workers, community leaders and others on February 27th. 

An update on our master plan here in D.C.: External forces are 

at work in our local, as well as global economy. We are mindful of 

these developments and want to update you on where we are for 

that financial challenge in our master plan. 

We reached a major milestone in 2008 with the approval of our 

master plan from the National Capital Planning Commission. However, with the changing market, new challenges came up. We had 

selected a professional preferred developer, and we decided to stop 

negotiations because the benefit to the veterans was diminished in 

what they were offering us. 

So we have a plan that is approved. We don’t have an agreement. 

We didn’t have an agreement with the developer. At this point, we 

are talking with the two hospitals that are neighbors to see if we 

should just do our master plan by parcel rather than doing it all 

at once. 

And last point, we recently were awarded a 5-year accreditation 

for the first time by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, known as CARF, a nationally recognized agency responsible for accrediting facilities and providing continuing care retirement communities. 


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This, along with the DOD Inspector General’s Office preparing to 

come in this September, because the DOD Inspector General is required to come on the years we don’t have a national accredited 

body accreditation inspection. They will come in September to do 

the same thing. 

And I thank you, committee members and all of Congress, for all 

the support you give us, and I am honored to serve the veterans. 

[The prepared statement of Timothy Cox follows:] 


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HOMELESS VETERANS

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you, Mr. Cox, for your testimony. 

Mr. COX. You are welcome. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Where are we on the homeless issue that came up 

last year? 

Mr. COX. About the homeless issue that came up last year; those 

residents were all placed in appropriate D.C. facilities with the 

voucher that Councilman Barry worked on for them. So they aren’t 

in the temporary building anymore on our campus, and all have 

been placed. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

REVENUES FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. SITE

On the development issue at the Washington site, you weren’t 

projecting any revenues from that until 2013 or 2014. 

Mr. COX. 2014. That is correct. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So it doesn’t put any immediate financial pressure 

on you. You don’t feel any immediate financial pressure to do a fire 

sale agreement? 

Mr. COX. None whatsoever. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I mean, it would be good for a developer to do a 

deal in a down market, but not good for the—— 

Mr. COX. Correct. No, and that is why we backed off. It wasn’t 

a fair deal for the veterans that we serve. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, so you feel no further pressure to do a deal 

until you feel—— 

Mr. COX. No. We did our long-range study through 2018, and we 

show a dip because of potential funding that may come out of that 

for a project we can’t talk about. But through 2018, we see the 

curve going back up. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. COX. So yes, so we can very well sit on that, and that is 

where you are going on that, and not have to develop it at this 

point. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Good. 

Mr. Wamp. 

WAITING LISTS

Mr. WAMP. Well, I have been at both of these sites. I was down 

on the Speaker’s trip when we went to the Gulfport site, and I was 

amazed at how impressive it was, even after the storm, and I knew 

we were building it back. Now, we built it back with supplemental 

funding, right? 

Mr. COX. That is correct, sir. We did. 

Mr. WAMP. And it houses how many veterans when you re-open 

July 2010? 

Mr. COX. Five hundred eight-six. 

Mr. WAMP. About 586. And the waiting list is how long? 

Mr. COX. We have four different categories of a waiting list. OneA and B are people who lived in Gulfport and moved up with us 

since the beginning. Two and three are the categories of people who 

maybe didn’t move with us, but came back. We had a deadline that 


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they had to live in D.C., so we would move them back by December 

of last year. 

And then, category three are people who were there but chose to 

live somewhere else because they left before Katrina. Category four 

is just a waiting list. We have over 600 people on those four waiting lists. 

Mr. WAMP. Right. So, it is a prized possession in the veteran 

community to be able to go there and live. 

Mr. COX. Yes. 

Mr. WAMP. And it is probably 10 times nicer than it was before, 

and it was nice before. 

Mr. COX. It is, 100 percent. The rooms are—— 

Mr. WAMP. It was built back under these new hurricane standards, I assume? 

Mr. COX. Hurricane V standards? Yes. 

Mr. WAMP. And everything else on the Coast there is, too, probably by now, including all the casinos that are now all masonry 

and built to last? 

Mr. COX. When I was down there at the end of February, it 

looked like everyone is building up at least a level for a washthrough. 

Mr. WAMP. And so what kind of waiting list do you have on the 

Washington side? 

Mr. COX. Washington, about 6-month’s worth. And again, Washington now we have a thousand. When Gulfport goes back, we will 

do the new Scott project, it will be about 600 here, 600 there. 

HOMELESS VETERANS

Mr. WAMP. Now, the other issue that came up last year, and this 

is my last question, the overall homeless issue, not just Washington, D.C. Sam Farr and I have talked a whole lot at these meetings about how unfortunate it is, whether the number is 140,000 

or 100,000 or 180,000. It is somewhere in that range of homeless 

veterans down on the streets of our country. 

But beyond the two facilities that you run and that we support, 

any other action to try to open up other facilities or modify other 

facilities for the veteran population that is on the streets? 

Mr. COX. Because we are an independent agency, we don’t go 

through the VA for those things. But we actually have some proposals through DOD to talk about changing our way to be able to 

appropriately serve many more veterans. 

Mr. WAMP. Okay. That is all I have. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Sam. 

Mr. FARR. In dealing with DOD, can you work on that? I mean, 

I don’t know what the answer is. I know that some of our local 

communities build homeless shelters. And I mean, for a small community, we have done an incredible job out of local money, but I 

have heard that they can’t get reimbursement because of some 

kind of veteran department issue. 

And it seems to me, if we are going to be dealing with permanent 

care of veterans, whether it be done in the homes or being done by 


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somebody else providing it, there ought to be some way of giving 

some financial aid for that housing cost. 

You know what we do with people that are on the street, when 

you can get them into care, what you do is you enroll them, even 

if they are indigent. It is indigent care. There is money to pay for 

that. They may qualify for Medicaid, and the providers want to get 

that reimbursement. 

But to me—and maybe I need to do some more homework in this 

area, but I think that we don’t do that for homeless veterans. They 

may be eligible for the healthcare needs, but they are not eligible 

for the housing needs. 

Mr. COX. That is correct. 

And unfortunately for us, Congress set the four criteria of admission. So if they don’t fit our four criteria of admission, we can’t help 

them no matter what, because our rules are pretty narrow. 

But there are several ways, and we actually have some suggested 

legislative language out there. 

Mr. FARR. (OFF MIKE) 

Mr. COX. In DOD, as a ULB right now. 

Mr. FARR. Can you get me some copies of that? 

Mr. COX. As soon as I know—yes, I can. I can. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. COX. As a draft? Just as a draft from my agency? 

Mr. FARR. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. COX. Yes. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. COX. You are welcome. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Do you need additional questions? 

Mr. WAMP. No. 

GULFPORT FACILITY

Mr. EDWARDS. You answered several of my questions. And the 

one question—just one last question about Gulfport. The cost of rebuilding that is how much? 

Mr. COX. The cost is $240 million, of which $20 million will come 

from the trust fund, because we were going to build 64 new units, 

and we set aside that money in the trust fund. We did the design 

work, but we didn’t start that building, so Congress asked if we 

would contribute that toward it. 

We haven’t contributed that toward yet because that is the last 

part to go, but so far they are on budget, and the budget is expected to use that money. 

Mr. EDWARDS. They are on budget? 

Mr. COX. Yes, so they are on that budget, and the $20 million 

is part of that budget. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Future hurricanes, as you referenced earlier, it will be able to withstand the wind and floods? 

Mr. COX. Yes. Category five, so that is wind and as well as 

floods. 

Mr. MCMANUS. I believe it is 35-feet high. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is it, 35-foot tidal swell? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Where the main body is. It will wash through. 

There is stuff on the ground level. I will call it the ground level, 

but it will wash through that. 


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Mr. COX. There is no living. There is no kitchen. There is no storage like we had in the old facility. Our generators are much higher 

up than that. So we should be able to survive. 

Mr. WAMP. The problem is, now that the barrier islands are 

gone, every storm that comes ashore is going to be devastating because you are right there. 

Mr. COX. Right. 

Mr. WAMP. The barrier islands is what used to slow it down as 

it came in and allowed for less protection, but they don’t have any 

choice. If you stay there, you have to build there now. 

Mr. COX. Well, we have a lot of gun-shy residents who actually— 

staff was working with Camp Shelby down there to look at a place 

to have safe evacuation when it is a hurricane category three or 

more. And of course, there is a funding issue, things like that, but 

they certainly have the space to do it. Because we could survive, 

like you said, in the building, but there will be no support services 

if it is a bad storm. So we don’t want—— 

Mr. WAMP. With all due respect, you all need to see this building. 

Anybody that qualifies would be crazy not to go. 

Mr. COX. Thank you. We appreciate your support. Thank you 

very much. We have worked hard to get there. We look forward to 

hosting any time. 

Mr. WAMP. Great. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I have no additional questions. We will have some 

written questions to follow up with. 

Mr. COX. Great. 

Mr. EDWARDS. But if the members have no other additional questions, we will stand adjourned until tomorrow morning, when we 

have General Petraeus. 

Mr. WAMP. In the other room, in the big room. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes, in the big room. 

Thank you. 

Mr. COX. Thank you. 

[CLERK’S NOTE.—Questions for the record submitted by Congressman Wamp.] 

CAVC 

Question. Could you explain further the temporary increase in judges for CAVC? 

Is there a reason why the increase in judges is temporary and not permanent? 

Response. The statute governing the composition of the Court (38 U.S.C. 

§ 7253(a)) states that the Court shall be composed of ‘‘not more than seven judges.’’ 

That provision, however, was amended in October 2008 to authorize the number of 

judges on the Court to increase to not more than 9, effective December 31, 2009. 

That amendment makes the expansion temporary by also stating: ‘‘Effective as of 

January 1, 2013, an appointment may not be made to the Court if the appointment 

would result in there being more judges of the Court than the authorized number 

of judges of the Court specified in subsection (a).’’ 

When requesting authorization from Congress for additional judges, the Court did 

not request that these positions be temporary. My understanding is that there was 

some disagreement as to this request, and the temporary provision was the result 

of a compromise. There is precedent in some Article III courts for having temporary 

judgeships. The Court will certainly assess its needs as the sunset provision approaches, although based on current trends we do not anticipate a decrease in the 

number of appeals filed over the next several years. 

NEW CAVC COURTHOUSE

You say in your testimony that GSA is looking into a property that it owns in 

Southeast D.C. for the new courthouse. 


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Question. When do you anticipate their study on that property to be complete? 

Response. Although we do not yet have a time line of events, in May 2009 the Court transferred $7 million to the General Services Administration (GSA) and I 

met with the GSA Regional Commissioner for the National Capital Region to discuss the ‘‘next steps.’’ GSA reported to me that over the next several months it will 

draft a ‘‘scope of work’’ document, identify a project manager, identify the specific 

requirements for the program, and set out a milestone schedule for the project. The 

GSA project manager will then orchestrate necessary studies including the development potential of the parcel in Southwest, D.C.; a massing study to determine possible setback and building site configurations; and an investigation into possible soil 

contamination on this site and 50 526 1955 any necessary environmental remediation. During this same time, the Court will engage the services of an in-house 

project manager who will oversee the Court’s participation in the process. Accordingly, it is my hope that in the fall of 2009 we will have a much clearer sense of 

the project costs and timing. 

Question. The GSA also recommended that the CAVC courts be located near other 

Federal courts. Have all location options near other Federal courts been ruled out 

as possible locations for a new courthouse? 

Response. Over the past 5 years the Court has worked, both in collaboration with 

GSA and independently, to investigate possible courthouse sites in the Judiciary 

Square vicinity. That search has included consideration of commercial, federal, and 

D.C. owned buildings and land, keeping open the possibility of new construction or 

refurbishing or retrofitting an existing structure. Although we have investigated 

several potential sites, no option adequately meets the project goals of providing an 

appropriate setting to convey the Nation’s gratitude and commitment to veterans in 

a courthouse of adequate size, with appropriate accessability and security, in a fiscally responsible manner. 

When I met with the GSA Regional Commissioner last month I discussed this 

subject with him. We discussed the unique configuration and build out requirements 

of any courthouse, and how the Court’s unique space and layout requirements make 

finding and retrofitting an existing office building a challenging and expensive proposal. GSA assured me, however, that until a location is definitively selected, they 

will continue to assess other potentially suitable sites in the Judiciary Square area. 

Question. When would you be able to give us a cost estimate for the construction 

of the new courthouse? 

Response: Because of the unforeseeable contingencies and studies that may be involved in the advanced planning stage we are currently in, I am not able to predict 

when I will have a cost estimate for the courthouse construction. As previously stated in my testimony and in my written response above, I am hopeful that by the 

start of fiscal year 2010 I will have received from GSA a more concrete sense of the 

costs and timing of the project, and I will certainly provide these details to the Committee as soon as I get them. 

ELECTRONIC MANAGEMENT/ELECTRONIC CASE FILING SYSTEM

The electronic management and filing system went live 7 months ago. 

Question. How many of your cases use this system? 

Response. The Court’s electronic Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ 

ECF) system has 2 components—case management and case filing. All cases currently pending at the Court use CM/ECF; however, to what degree depends on the 

parties. 

As to the case filing component, as of October 2008 when CM/ECF was fully implemented, all represented parties, absent a waiver from the Clerk, are required to 

register as ‘‘Filing Users’’ and to electronically file all documents with the Court. 

These documents become a part of and are accessible through the Court’s electronic 

case record. The Secretary of VA, who is a represented party in every case, is always 

a Filing User and required to file electronically. 

Self-represented appellants, unless they are granted permission by the Clerk to 

become a Filing User, are required to file all pleadings and documents conventionally. The Court then scans those documents to create an electronic record that is 

entered into CM/ECF and that may be electronically accessed. The Court transmits 

its orders and decisions to Filing Users electronically through CM/ECF. For self-represented parties, the Court prints its orders or decisions and serves them in hard 

copy. Generally, between 20–25% of the Court’s cases include a self-represented appellant. Therefore, in approximately 75% of our pending cases, all filings are received electronically and all decisions are issued electronically. With regard to the 

case management component, the Court uses CM/ECF for every pending appeal. 

Question. How has it helped in managing the Court’s caseload more efficiently? 


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Response: The Court and its practitioners have seen several gains since implementation of CM/ECF. Both have benefitted from reduced mailing and courier costs, 

and the reduced Court storage space now needed to retain records has been a welcome hiatus for our public office, which has been bursting at the seams for several 

years. The benefits to all users of remote 24-hour filing access, the opportunity for 

multiple simultaneous authorized users, and the efficiencies of instant filing and notification are self evident and allow our employees and practitioners more flexibility 

in ‘‘when’’ and ‘‘where’’ they can accomplish tasks. We are confident that as our staff 

and members of the Court’s bar become more familiar with CM/ECF, we will reap 

further administrative benefits. 

Question. How many more cases will the courts be able to handle this year due 

to the electronic management/electronic case filing system being in place? 

Response. The Court currently ‘‘handles’’ all appeals that are filed, and as stated 

above, all current cases are entered into CM/ECF. Thus, the phrasing of this question does not request an accurate measure of the benefits of CM/ECF. Although perhaps not easily quantified, the goal of CM/ECF is to create smoother case processing 

for the parties and the Court. It is our hope that we will then see a reduction in 

the overall time from case filing to case disposition, resulting in shorter waits for 

veterans to receive decisions on their appeals. It is our hope that the efficiencies 

of electronic filing will save resources and also enable Court employees and practitioners to complete tasks more quickly and efficiently. 

AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSION FY 2010 BUDGET REQUEST

Question. Now that the dollar has rebounded somewhat against the euro can you 

tell the Committee how much the Commission will use under the Foreign Currency 

Fluctuation Account for the current year? 

ABMC Response. Since the annualized trend of the US Dollar and the Euro is 

expected to be slightly lower than estimated, the Commission expects to use approximately $15,500,000 from its Foreign Currency Fluctuation Account to offset exchange rate losses and to satisfy expenditures relating to our overseas operations 

during FY 2009. 

Question. What is the FY 2010 estimate for the Foreign Currency Fluctuation Account? 

ABMC Response. Based on amount requested by the Commission for its FY 2010 

Salaries and Expenses Account, the Commission estimates that it will need 

$17,100,000 appropriated in FY 2010 to replenish its Foreign Currency Fluctuation 

Account. 

Question. How many projects, including maintenance, were planned for FY 2009 

at our European battle monuments? 

ABMC Response. ABMC currently has 71 projects planned at all sites for FY 

2009. 

Question. Will a stronger dollar allow the Commission to increase the number of 

projects that it will carry out in FY 2009 at our European battle monuments? If so, 

how many? 

ABMC Response. 

No. The number of projects that the Commission can initiate is dependent on the 

level of funding appropriated into our Salaries and Expenses Account. 

The purpose of the Commission’s Foreign Currency Fluctuation Account (FCFA) 

is to offset the cost of exchange rate imbalances. If, however, the Commission did 

not have access to funds in its FCFA to offset currency exchange rate imbalances, 

then the relative strength or weakness of the US Dollar would have a profound affect on the number of projects that could be undertaken during the fiscal year. 

DOD CEMETERIAL EXPENSES/ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY/FY 2010 

OVERCROWDING

Question. Last year Mr. Metzler testified that mitigating the overcrowding of ceremonies was a high priority for ANC. With an average of 27 funerals per day, this 

is understandable. How has that situation changed, if at all? 

Answer. Mitigation of overcrowding, primarily of funeral services, remains a high 

priority for ANC. The number of funerals and ceremonies has remained about the 

same over the past year. ANC continues to have an average of 27 funerals per day 

and over 3,000 ceremonies a year. Overcrowding is primarily a problem with funeral 

services (not the other ceremonies) that are held from Monday through Friday because the funerals are concentrated in the southeast corner of the cemetery where 

most of the open land is available for in-ground burials and where niches are located for the placement of cremated remains. Construction of the Millennium 


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Project has begun in the northwest corner of the cemetery and Phase II is scheduled 

to be awarded this fiscal year (FY 2009). However, based on the current schedule, 

this project will take approximately seven years to complete. Until the project is 

completed, overcrowding will continue to increase. 

TOMB OF THE UNKNOWNS

In your testimony, you mention that the Army is looking at a donated block of 

marble to replace the block currently on the tomb. The August report on the condition of the current block stated that it was unknown when the current marble block 

would be beyond repair; however, it also stated that the kind and size of marble 

needed may not be available further down the road. 

Question. If the donated marble meets the requirements, what would happen 

next? 

Answer. If the donated marble is determined to be suitable as a potential replacement for the original block of marble, the Army intends to take possession of the 

donated marble in order to secure and protect it. However, no decision to replace 

the original marble has been made, and any such decision will be made in accordance with the provisions of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. 

Question. If it is to be replaced, what would happen to the block currently on the 

tomb? 

Answer. No decision regarding the disposition of the existing marble has been 

made, should replacement be selected for the long-term treatment of the Tomb 

Monument. Any decision regarding the disposition of the existing marble will be 

made in accordance with the provisions of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. 

TOTAL CEMETERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM/DIGITIZING RECORDS

Question. The idea of digitizing records at Arlington is a great one. Where does 

Arlington stand on the implementation of the Total Cemetery Management System? 

Answer. The Total Cemetery Management System is approximately 35 percent 

complete. Version 3 of the Interment Scheduling System will be launched in July 

2009. This system will upgrade ANC’s funeral scheduling application that will allow 

ANC to provide funeral tasks to the military services electronically and to order 

headstones from the Department of Veterans Affairs in an automated manner. Completed projects also include the scanning of all burial records and grave cards. All 

of the cemetery burial records have been entered into a database and will be used 

for the next phase of the plan. 

Question. As of today, is there a way for the public to look up records and/or geographical information of burial sites electronically? If not, is that something ANC 

is considering? 

Answer. Currently the public can look up burial records that date from April 1999 

to the present by using a locator/kiosk in the visitor’s center. The system provides 

the location but does not provide geographical information at this time. 

In FY 2010 ANC will start a triple validation process to validate burial records, 

grave cards and burial maps against the actual physical location of each gravesite. 

Each grave site will be able to be located by using the Global Positioning System. 

After the project is complete this data will be available for the public on the ANC 

website. 

WASHINGTON D.C. CAMPUS

Question. Your testimony states that the partnership with a developer at the 

Washington Campus fell through. What is your plan going forward for the mixeduse development at the Washington Campus? 

Answer. The approved AFRH Master Plan will serve as the blueprint for the redevelopment of the AFRH campus. At this time, AFRH is seeking development partners for implementing the plan, and is considering numerous options, including incremental development of the site with multiple developers. Despite the difficult 

market conditions, there is still significant interest in the site from the development 

community, and AFRH is diligently working to assess the best opportunity to move 

forward with. 

SCOTT DORMITORY RENOVATION (D.C. CAMPUS)

Question. How will the DC Campus handle the rebuild of the Scott Dormitory 

with the least disruption to the Washington campus population? 

Answer. Working with the Resident Advisory Committee (RAC) we are forming 

new committees for the Gulfport Stand up and Scott Projects. These committees will 


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serve as a voice for the residents and be critical to our efforts. Coordination will be 

critical and, because the two projects are so interconnected, many of our same staff 

members will be working on both projects. Again, good communication will be extremely important in keeping these two projects balanced and moving forward. The 

Scott Project, unlike moving into the new facility in Gulfport, will involve the movement of residents and services from the Scott building while it is being demolished, 

and establishing temporary quarters or places of operation. Demolition and construction will be taking place around us, as we go about the business of our day, 

so we will stress and be mindful of safety. Placement of services such as dining, the 

wellness center, the library and other activities will be temporarily displaced to our 

Sheridan Dormitory and Sherman building, which are easily accessible to residents. 

We will use multiple means of communication, such as the newly established committees, our in-house television station ‘‘Channel–99’’ for updated information, the 

Weekly Bulletin, monthly Communicator, AFRH website, and flyers and notices will 

be used to get the word out about changes going on in and around our Home. 

Question. In your testimony you alluded that the Gulfport facility will be reopening at about the same time the Scott Dormitory will be closing for renovations. Do 

you intend to move any residents from the Scott Dormitory to Gulfport? 

Answer. Yes. Over 200 prior Gulfport residents have requested to move back to 

Gulfport. These residents have rooms in both our Scott and Sheridan dormitories. 

ADMISSION CRITERIA

Question. Last year you testified that spouses are not allowed to come into a facility unless they independently qualify. Has there been a re-evaluation of the criteria 

by the Armed Services Committee? 

Answer. No, to the best of our knowledge there has not been a re-evaluation of 

the criteria for spouses by the Armed Services Committee. 

FRAUD AND ABUSE

Question. Last year there was concern about healthcare management and oversight to GAO which led to the development of the fraud and abuse hotline. How 

many calls has the hotline received in the last year? 

Answer. The AFRH hotline has received 13 calls for assistance or to report an allegation of fraud, waste or abuse from May 2008–May 2009. In all cases, either assistance was rendered or an investigation was conducted to bring each case to a resolution. The AFRH hotline was initially established in 2004, prior to the concern 

that was reported to the GAO. Reports of fraud, waste or abuse can be reported 

through the AFRH hotline, email or face-to-face to the AFRH Inspector General. Information pertaining to the reporting of fraud, waste and abuse is posted in every 

common area in the buildings at the AFRH, as well as on the AFRH website. 

Question. What is the annual cost to operate the hotline? 

Answer. The annual cost to maintain the AFRH hotline is $192.60. 

FINANCIAL STABILITY

Question. With regard to your financial stability, how has the current economic 

situation affected your facilities? 

Answer. The current economic situation will slow Trust Fund growth, but should 

have limited impact on our facilities as a result of reduced infrastructure costs. 

Over the years AFRH grew and spread across over 272 acres of infrastructure and 

historical buildings. The infrastructure was engulfing our resources and funding. 

Multiple studies had been completed between 1995 and 2002. Every study focused 

on the excessive cost at the Washington Home and recommended changes for success. At the heart of each study, results focused at excessive staffing and infrastructure costs. Over the past five years AFRH redefined our ‘‘footprint’’ on the Washington Campus. Our buildings began to serve multiple purposes. Administration 

buildings were vacated. Slowly we vacated numerous buildings totalling over 600 

thousand square feet across 102 acres. After completion of the Scott Project we will 

have vacated over one million square feet. By reducing our ‘‘footprint’’ we began to 

realize savings we had not experienced before. The overall impact was sustained 

growth to the Trust Fund. In five years we have been able to grow the Trust Fund 

by $73 million with a Fiscal Year 2008 ending balance of $167 million. 


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FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009.

CENTRAL COMMAND 

WITNESS 

GENERAL DAVID H. PETRAEUS, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND, UNITED STATES ARMY 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS. Good morning. I would like to call the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee to order. 

General Petraeus, welcome to our subcommittee. It is good to 

have you here. I want to thank you for your 35 years of distinguished military service to our Nation and especially for your leadership at this time of great challenge in such a critical region of 

the world. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is twofold. First, we want to hear 

General Petraeus’ strategic overview of operations in Central Command’s Area of Responsibility. This information will assist the subcommittee as we begin to mark up the fiscal year 2009 Supplemental Appropriations bill and the 2010 Military Construction Appropriations bill. Second, we want to review the $947 million supplemental request by the administration for military construction 

funding for CENTCOM. Of the 45 projects requested, all but one 

are to be located in Afghanistan. 

I would like to recognize our ranking member, Mr. Wamp, for his 

opening comments. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Well, I want to thank the chairman first for this 

hearing and for his leadership here on the Military Construction 

and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee. Most of all, I thank General 

Petraeus for his presence here today. 

I want to thank you on behalf of all the people of Tennessee 

where you have a storied history as well, everything from commanding the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne to having the 

surgery at the hands of Senator Bill Frist and a little bit of everything, I think, in between. 

I have had the privilege in the last 15 years to meet kings and 

to become personal friends with prime ministers and with Presidents and to hold Mother Teresa’s hands and pray with her in the 

Capitol, and I consider your presence here today one of those high 

moments in my service. We are honored. You are one of America’s 

greatest living citizens, and we are so grateful for your service. You 

are the premiere soldier of our generation, and we thank you for 

what you have done and for what you continue to do and for your 

willingness to head up CENTCOM at a critical moment where success is imperative and where our presence in the world is very necessary. I thank you, and I look forward to your testimony and to 

the questions and answers. On behalf of everyone on our side and 

on our subcommittee and in the Congress, we will stand with you 

in a bipartisan and unified way until you are successful on every 

front. 


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Thank you, General. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well stated. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

General Petraeus, your full written statement will be submitted 

for the record. Now I would like to recognize you for any opening 

comments you care to make. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL DAVID H. PETRAEUS

General PETRAEUS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Wamp, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you, not 

just for the opportunity to provide an update on the situation in 

the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility, but thanks to 

each of you for all that you have done for our soldiers and their 

families over the years, in recent years in particular. 

I would like to begin this morning by discussing the way ahead 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as these countries contain the most 

pressing transnational extremist threat in the world and, in view 

of that, pose the most urgent problems set in the Central Command Area of Responsibility. I will then discuss Iraq and the status of our major efforts elsewhere in the Area of Responsibility. 

Disrupting and ultimately defeating al Qaeda and the other extremist elements in Pakistan and Afghanistan and reversing the 

downward security spiral seen in key parts of these countries will 

require sustained substantial commitment. The strategy described 

by President Obama several weeks ago constitutes such a commitment. Although the additional resources will be applied in different 

ways on either side of the Durand Line, Afghanistan and Pakistan 

comprise a single theater that requires comprehensive whole of 

governments approaches that are closely coordinated. 

This morning, I will briefly discuss the military aspects of the 

new strategy, noting, however, that, while additional military 

forces clearly are necessary, they will not by themselves be sufficient to achieve our objective. 

It is equally important that the civilian requirements for Afghanistan and Pakistan be fully met. To that end, it is essential that 

the respective civilian elements be provided the resources necessary to implement this strategy. In particular, I urge Congress 

to fully fund the State Department, USAID, the Office of Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, and the interagency Civilian Response Corps to enable this overall strategy. 

Achieving objectives in Afghanistan requires a comprehensive 

counterinsurgency approach, and that is what General David 

McKiernan and ISAF are endeavoring to execute with the additional U.S. and Coalition resources being committed. 

The additional forces will provide an increased capability to secure and serve the people, to pursue the extremists, to support the 

development of host nation security forces, to reduce the illegal 

narcotics industry, and to help develop the Afghan capabilities 

needed to increase the legitimacy of the national and Afghan local 

governance. These forces will also, together with the additional 

NATO elements committed for the election security force, work 

with Afghan elements to help secure the national elections in late 

August and to help ensure that those elections are seen as free, 

fair, and legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people. 


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A major focus of our efforts in Afghanistan is building the Afghan security forces so that they are capable of assuming full responsibility for their country’s security over time. Your support for 

generating, training and equipping Afghan national security forces 

continues to be critical to our long-term success, just as your support has proven to be of such importance in the case of the development of Iraqi security forces. 

As was the case in Iraq, additional forces will only be a value if 

they are employed properly. It is vital that they be seen as good 

guests and good partners; not as would-be conquerors or superiors, 

but as formidable warriors who also do all possible to avoid civilian 

casualties in the course of combat operations. 

As additional elements deploy, it will also be essential that our 

commanders and elements strive for unity of effort at all levels and 

integrate our security efforts into the broader plans to promote Afghan governance and economic development. We recognize the 

enormous sacrifices of the Afghan security forces since 2002 and by 

the Afghan people over the past three decades, and we will continue working with our Afghan partners to build the trust of the 

people and, with security, to provide them with new opportunities. 

The increase in our forces in Afghanistan has created new critical infrastructure requirements. Expanded contingency construction authorities for Afghanistan and across the AOR serve as important interim solutions because they push construction decisionmaking authority to our engaged commanders in the field. 

We appreciate your support for expanded CCA, and increasing 

the operations and maintenance construction threshold for minor 

construction in support of combat operations would also be helpful. 

The situation in Pakistan is, of course, closely linked to that of 

Afghanistan. The extremists that have established sanctuaries in 

Pakistan’s rugged border areas not only contribute to the deterioration of security in eastern and southern Afghanistan, but they also 

pose an ever more serious threat to Pakistan’s very existence. Al 

Qaeda’s senior leadership and other transnational extremist elements are located in Pakistan and have carried out an increasing 

number of suicide bombings and other attacks. In addition, they 

have carried out terrorist attacks in India, in Afghanistan, and in 

various other countries outside the region, including the United 

Kingdom, and they have continued efforts to carry out attacks in 

our homeland. 

In response to the increased concern over extremist activity, the 

Pakistan military has stepped up operations in parts of the tribal 

areas. Everyone recognizes, however, that much further work is required, and the events of recent days underscore that point. Given 

our relationship with Pakistan and its military over the years, it 

is important that the United States be seen as a reliable ally in assisting with that work. 

The Pakistani military has been fighting a tough battle against 

extremists for more than 7 years. They have sacrificed much and 

have suffered very tough losses in this campaign, and they deserve 

our support. 

The U.S. military will focus its assistance in two main areas: 

First, we will expand our partnership with the Pakistani military 

and help it build its counterinsurgency capabilities by providing 


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training, equipment and assistance. We will also expand our exchange programs to build stronger relationships with Pakistani 

leaders at all levels. 

Second, we will help promote closer cooperation across the Afghan-Pakistan border by providing training, equipment, facilities, 

and intelligence capabilities and by bringing together Afghan and 

Pakistani military officers to enable coordination between the 

forces on either side of the border. These efforts will support the 

timely sharing of intelligence information and will help to coordinate the operations of the two forces. 

These efforts to build the capacity of the Pakistani military 

would be aided substantially by the Pakistan Counterinsurgency 

Capability Fund. Pakistan is a unique situation that requires 

unique and nuanced authorities. Ambassador Holbrooke and I have 

determined that we need both foreign military financing and PCCF 

to accomplish our mission, along with the other categories, such as 

1206, 1207 and 1208. PCCF will allow us to focus, as well as expand our security development plan with Pakistan. 

In addition, we support the continued use of Coalition support 

funds as a tool for supporting the operations of our Pakistani partners as they confront extremists who operate in Afghanistan as 

well as in Pakistan, and we believe the expansion of outreach and 

exchange programs will enable the establishment of stronger relationships with Pakistani leaders at all levels as well. 

Within the counterinsurgency construct we have laid out for Afghanistan and together with the support provided to Pakistan, we 

will, of course, continue to support the targeting, disruption, and 

pursuit of the leadership basis and support groups of al Qaeda and 

other transnational extremist groups operating in the region. We 

will also work with our partners to challenge the legitimacy of the 

terrorist methods, practices and ideologies, helping our partners 

address legitimate grievances to win over reconcilable elements of 

the population and supporting promotion of the broad-based economic and governmental development that is a necessary part of 

such an effort. 

As we increase our focus on and efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we must not lose sight of other important missions in the 

CENTCOM AOR. There has, for example, been substantial 

progress in Iraq, but numerous challenges still confront its leaders 

and its people, and we have seen some of those in the past couple 

of days. Although al Qaeda and other extremist elements in Iraq 

have been reduced significantly, they do pose a continued threat to 

security and stability and, again, we have seen that recently. 

Beyond that, lingering ethnic and sectarian mistrust, tensions 

between political parties, the return of displaced persons, large detainee releases, new budget challenges, and the integration of the 

Sons of Iraq, as well as other issues, remind us that the progress 

there is still fragile and reversible, though less so than when I left 

Iraq last fall, especially given the conduct of provincial elections in 

late January and the recent election of the Council of Representatives Speaker. 

Despite the many challenges, the progress in Iraq, especially the 

steady development of the Iraqi security forces, has enabled the 

continued transition of security responsibility to Iraqi elements and 


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has enabled further reductions of Coalition forces and the steady 

withdrawal of our units from urban areas. We are, thus, on track 

in implementing the security agreement with the Government of 

Iraq and in executing the strategy laid out by the President at 

Camp Lejeune. 

A vital element in our effort in Iraq has been congressional support for a variety of equipment and resource needs, and I want to 

take this opportunity to thank you for that. In particular, your support for the rapid fielding of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles and various types of unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as for 

the important individual equipment and for the Commanders 

Emergency Response Fund, has been of enormous importance to 

our troopers. Your continued support for these programs, capabilities and equipment, as well as for the expanded intelligence and 

IED defeat capabilities, will continue to be important as we expand 

our operations in Afghanistan. 

Iran remains a major concern in the CENTCOM AOR. It continues to carry out destabilizing activities in the region, including 

the training, funding and arming of militant proxies active in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq. It also continues its development of nuclear 

capabilities and missile systems that many assess are connected to 

the pursuit of nuclear weapons and delivery means. 

In response, we are working with partner states in the region to 

build their capabilities and to strengthen cooperative security arrangements, especially in the area of shared early warning, air and 

missile defense, and the establishment of common operational pictures. 

Iran’s actions and rhetoric have, in fact, prompted our partners 

in the Gulf to seek closer relationships with us than we have had 

with some of them in some decades. We are also helping to bolster 

the capabilities of the security forces in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, 

Yemen, the Gulf States, and the Central Asian States to help them 

deal with threats to their security, which range from al Qaeda to 

robust militia and organized criminal elements. 

In addition, we are working with partner nations to counter piracy, to combat illegal narcotics production and trafficking, and to 

interdict arms smuggling activities that threaten stability and the 

rule of law and often provide funding for extremists. Much of this 

work is performed through an expanding network of bilateral and 

multilateral cooperative arrangements established to address common challenges and to pursue shared objectives. 

As we strengthen this network, we strive to provide our partners 

with responsive security assistance, technical expertise and resources for training, educating and equipping their forces, and for 

improving security facilities and infrastructure. Exceptional funding programs that provide training, equipment, and infrastructure 

for our partner security forces enabled our successes in Iraq, and 

are of prime importance if we are to achieve comparable progress 

in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Lebanon and Yemen also warrant 

similar attention. We believe significant gains result from these activities, and we appreciate your support for them. 

Finally, in all of these endeavors, we seek to foster comprehensive approaches by ensuring that military efforts are fully integrated with broader diplomatic, economic and developmental efVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 00990 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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forts. We are working closely, for example, with former Senator 

Mitchell and Ambassador Ross as they undertake important responsibilities as Special Envoys in the same way that we are working together with Ambassador Holbrook and the United States Ambassadors in our region. 

In conclusion, there will be nothing easy about the way ahead in 

Afghanistan or Pakistan or in many of the other tasks in the Central Command area. Much hard work lies before us, but it is clear 

that achieving the objectives of these missions is vital, and it is 

equally clear that these endeavors will require sustained substantial commitment and unity of effort of all involved. 

Over 215,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast 

Guardsmen are currently serving in the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility. Together with our many civilian partners, they have 

been the central element in the progress we have made in Iraq and 

in several other areas, and they will be the key to achieving 

progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the many other locations where serious work is also being done. 

These wonderful Americans and their fellow troopers around the 

world constitute the most capable military in the history of our Nation. They have soldiered magnificently against tough enemies during challenging operations in punishing terrain and extreme 

weather, and they and their families have made great sacrifices 

since 9/11, as I know the members of this subcommittee know very 

well. Nothing means more to these great Americans than the sense 

that those back home appreciate their service and their sacrifice. 

In view of that, I want to conclude this morning by noting my 

gratitude for the extraordinary support the American people have 

provided to our military men and women and their families and by 

thanking the members of this subcommittee for your unflagging 

support and abiding concern for our troopers and their families as 

well. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, General Petraeus. 

[The prepared statement of General David H. Petraeus follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. In terms of the process, we will abide by the 5- 

minute rule, which will include the time for the questions, comments and the answer. 

General, if I gavel you down, please finish the thought. So if a 

member wants a 15-second answer, he or she can ask a 4.75- 

minute question, but we will try to adhere to that in order to maximize the number of questions, of answers, and discussion. 

To all here, let me say everyone is welcome. This is a public, unclassified hearing. We welcome everyone. I would only ask that you 

respect the process itself, and allow the testimony to move ahead 

expeditiously. 

AFGHANISTAN

General Petraeus, let me begin my questions with the issue of 

enduring installations in Afghanistan. Our policy in Iraq was to 

have, technically, no permanent U.S. bases. Obviously, concrete 

lasts a long time, but the idea was that we would not be permanently in Iraq, and we wanted the world and the Iraqis to understand that. There has been some discussion of potentially two enduring installations in Afghanistan. 

If that is correct, if that is the policy, could you explain whether 

the term ‘‘enduring’’ means physically the construction of the bases 

will be such that they might last for decades, whether we are there 

or not; or does ‘‘enduring’’ mean you would expect a permanent 

U.S. presence in Afghanistan? 

General PETRAEUS. It would be the former, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, the fact that concrete might endure a lot of C–17 landings 

and hopefully endure beyond our departure, in fact, does not reflect 

any kind of commitment to an enduring basis or enduring presence. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Good. May I ask you about benchmarks? 

Where are you in terms of public benchmarks so that a year from 

now, this subcommittee and the Congress, 2 years from now or 3 

years from now, can judge whether we are making the progress 

that we would hope to make in Afghanistan? 

General PETRAEUS. There is, in fact, a process ongoing, Mr. 

Chairman, in the administration to develop a set of benchmarks 

that will be done in consultation with the Congress. It is an interagency effort. We have visibility involvement in that from 

CENTCOM. The Intelligence Community is also very highly involved with it. I talked to Admiral Blair about it, for example, the 

other day, and at that point it had been agreed with all the interagency and on the Hill, and I am sure that those will be brought 

forward. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. On military construction vis-a-vis the supplemental appropriation bill, I will never ask you in public whether 

the funding request is adequate. The request has been made. That 

is official administration policy. 

I would like to ask you, in terms of process between now and the 

time we get to the conference report on the supplemental appropriation bill, if conditions change in Iraq or Afghanistan in a way 

that you would on short notice see need for new construction 

projects that were not envisioned when you put together the supVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01034 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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plemental request, would you feel at ease to make those additional 

proposals to the subcommittee? 

General PETRAEUS. I would, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Great. 

Finally, let me ask, in terms of roads, much of your supplemental 

construction request for Afghanistan is for roads. Are roads in your 

opinion an effective way to protect the lives of our troops from 

IEDs? 

General PETRAEUS. First of all, roads are important in a host of 

different ways, not just to ensure that you can spot where it has 

been disrupted and an IED has been planted, but also in terms of 

the comment that, where the road ends, the insurgency begins. Of 

course, with the ability of the road to tie together the revival of 

commerce and business and so forth, Afghanistan, for example, has 

substantial mineral reserves. The challenge is their extraction and 

then getting them to the market that could use them. So, again, 

roads are important. 

With respect, Mr. Chairman, let us provide you, again, if we 

could, those items that will be constructed with the supplemental 

funds in particular, because the bulk of them really, I think it is 

correct to say, are for logistical infrastructure. I suspect we are 

putting as much concrete into runways as we are into ramp space 

and pads for sleeping accommodations for our troopers and mess 

halls and so forth, actually, as we are with that. I think the funding for roads may be a good bit more on the AID side and in other 

categories, actually, than in the construction, which we are really 

doing to accommodate the additional forces that are coming into Afghanistan. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Great. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, two days ago at Harvard and in your testimony today, you seem to feel the need to prepare Americans for the 

next 12 to 18 months as we transition from Iraq to Afghanistan. 

You have mentioned the issue in Pakistan, Somali pirates, Iran, 

other elements in the region. 

Can you lay out what our objectives are and what Americans can 

expect in the next 12 to 18 months, particularly in Afghanistan? If 

we are successful with this surge of troops, what are the opportunities that we might see there in terms of longer-term security when 

we are successful? 

General PETRAEUS. Congressman, our foremost objective in Afghanistan is to ensure that transnational extremists are not able 

to reestablish the kinds of bases and safe havens that they had and 

from which they were able to conduct the 9/11 attacks. That is, obviously, a vital national interest for us that was highlighted very 

clearly in the President’s explanation of the strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Again, it is imperative that we ensure that conditions not return 

to the way that they were where, again, transnational extremists 

were able to establish that kind of presence—training camps, essentially—the global headquarters, if you will, for that particular 

movement. 


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Clearly the security situation has deteriorated in Afghanistan 

over the course of the last 2 years, particularly in certain areas of 

the Pashtun insurgency, the Pashtun belt in eastern and in especially southern Afghanistan. It is important that we stabilize those 

areas, that we arrest the downward spiral of security and, indeed, 

then roll back in some respects and improve the security for the Afghan people so that the other progress—and there has been considerably a great amount of other progress, whether it is in telecommunications, again, road construction, access to health care, 

the spread of education, you name it—but in many areas of this, 

in particular Pashtun, insurgency has been challenged and/or reversed. 

To do that, we are obviously deploying additional forces. We are 

accelerating the development of the Afghan National Army and its 

expansion. There will be an increase in the police forces, and there 

is an increase in the NATO security forces as well, especially for 

the upcoming elections that will be held on 20 August. 

As all of these forces are brought to bear on this problem and on 

this situation, they are going to have to take away from the 

Taliban, take away from the extremist syndicate in the east, safe 

havens and sanctuaries that have been established in some cases 

in league with the illegal narcotics industry and traffickers. As in 

Iraq with the surge, when we deployed additional forces and those 

forces began fighting to take back those sanctuaries and safe havens that al Qaeda in Iraq and some of the militia extremists had 

established, they will fight back; and so this will be a tough road 

that lies ahead, but it is also a vitally important road that lies 

ahead. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I will come back during the next 

round. I do not want to exceed my 5 minutes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, thank you for your public service, for your career and 

particularly for your emphasis on academic training. 

I began my public service in the Peace Corps. I now represent 

the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute. I have been very interested in my years in Congress to try 

to create a civilian capability in the U.S. government made up of 

the best and brightest civilians we have to do stabilization work. 

I authored the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act, that you have mentioned, to authorize the State Department to set up the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization, 

and we created this Civilian Response Corps. 

I just want to personally thank you. We would not have gotten 

that bill out of the Senate if you had not made the phone call to 

a certain Senator, and it amazed me because I did not know you 

were aware of the bill. It was Senator Coburn, actually, who told 

me that you had made a call, and I want to just personally thank 

you, because I really think you appreciate and understand the need 

to build this civilian capability. 

General Abizaid, years ago before this committee, said something 

that I think was really profound. He said, America will never be 

able to sustain the peace until we learn to cross the cultural divide. 


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I think you understand that extremely well, probably better than 

anybody else, as to what it takes to cross that cultural divide. So 

my question is, has the military and CENTCOM Area of Responsibility worked or partnered with the State Department’s Office of 

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization? To your knowledge, what is your assessment of the work that they are doing? Is 

it slow in getting started, particularly in being able to pull together 

a Civilian Response Corps? Do you have some ideas for the training 

expertise that you think they ought to have? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, Congressman, I am actually very 

strongly committed to this, as you noted, and we are working with 

the Office. We did seek to encourage people to support its construction, and the reason is that, frankly, when I was on the ground as 

a division commander, as a major general in northern Iraq, I 

turned around and said: Okay, where are all these folks who were 

going to help us, who were talking to us when we were down in 

Kuwait before we went through the berm? Where are all the experts? Where are all the assistants? 

There were not many. In fact, there were none for a while, and 

the pool that eventually emerged was thin, I think, and that is why 

our soldiers ended up doing nation building. It was necessary. We 

embraced it. We had to do it. We got after it. 

We appreciate your enabling us with CERP, for example—which 

proved to be a hugely important component of that because we had 

such a vastly greater capability and capacity to actually do nation 

building than did the elements of our government that arguably 

could be said to actually have that as their primary mission rather 

than as an additional duty. 

So, again, we want the Office to succeed. We want the Civilian 

Response Corps to grow rapidly, to expand. We want to see the 

kind of education, training and preparation for deployment that I 

think we have worked very hard in the military and have had a 

reasonable degree of success with. 

Although I want to go on with this because, as you may know, 

I actually supervised DLI when I was the commander of the Combined Arm Center, we were in charge of all of the commissioned 

and noncommissioned officer education courses, the National Training Center scenarios, the doctrine. That is how we were able to do 

the Counterinsurgency Field Manual. DLI was actually under us in 

that role, and I was a huge proponent of it. And frankly, we desperately need the language skills; and to that degree, the cultural 

skills are also trained out there because, as you know, it takes 

more than just a sheer academic knowledge of the language. You 

have to have an understanding of the context and the culture in 

which you actually employ that language. 

I actually went to Admiral Blair the other day after we did the 

CENTCOM assessment, the overall assessment that we took several months to do with a couple hundred people looking at the 

overall region, the subregions, the functional areas. In the functional area of intelligence, the major finding was that we do not 

have the capacity nor do we have the capability in the Afghanistan 

and Pakistan region in particular, and we shared that with Secretary Gates; with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral 

Mullen; and with Admiral Blair. 


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Admiral Blair is going to take steps to appoint a very senior individual to oversee that effort. He agrees with it completely. As you 

know, he also has a very strong commitment to learning as well 

as doing. He is a Rhodes scholar and, again, an extraordinary and 

intelligent man on top of all the other qualities. So we need to expand that. 

We also, actually, need to expand just the basic knowledge of Afghanistan and Pakistan among our forces. We were, over time, able 

to do this in Iraq. We were able to have recurring assignments, repeat tours, bring units back, sometimes actually where they served 

before, and to develop the kind of nuanced and granular understanding that eventually enabled us to do the kind of sophisticated 

reconciliation processes that turned out to be so important in Iraq. 

Some of those will necessarily have to take place in Afghanistan. 

You cannot kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength 

insurgency such as we had in Iraq or such as exists in Afghanistan. 

So, again, you have to have that kind of real feel and appreciation and sophisticated understanding of the local context, and that 

can only come by experience, by study, by continued learning, and 

by capturing information and sharing it. 

We will take steps, in fact, to develop this pool of people and 

then to try to keep them in that field while still ensuring their professional development and promotion and so forth. Over the long 

term, we have to get very serious about the true long-term development so we are not just filling slots right now and then keeping 

them in it for the short midterm. We need to make a much bigger 

commitment. And I think that is reflected in Secretary Gates’ overall concept for the defense budget. It was also reflected in guidance 

that he gave last year to develop the real language expertise and 

the cultural understanding and, again, the assignment process that 

allows us to develop the experts in the State Department, in AID 

and in the military, so that we can be as effective as is possible 

in local conditions. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Judge Carter. 

TALIBAN

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, welcome. We are really proud to have you here today. 

General, there is a story out today that the Taliban forces consolidated control of two northwestern Pakistan districts and went 

into a third district. These districts are within 60 miles of 

Islamabad. Do you have the necessary tools to counter the Taliban 

as they move closer to the capital city? Your comments on this. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, Congressman, first of all this highlights, I think, and it underscores the importance of what Secretary 

Clinton has said on the Hill in the past 2 days, and that is the imperative that the Pakistani leaders not only recognize that the 

most important, most pressing threat to the very existence of their 

country, is the threat posed by the internal extremists and groups 

such as the Taliban and the syndicate of extremists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. That is the most pressing threat 

that they face right now. 


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Not only is it important to get that, if you will, intellectually, but 

then of course you have to act on it. The institutions have to reflect 

that. Military forces, over time, have to be configured for that kind 

of fight, for that kind of threat, rather than strictly focused on the 

conventional threat that has been traditionally the focus of the 

military to their east, in India. 

In fact, one reason that we have requested the Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Fund is to have a source of funding similar to that provided by the Iraqi Security Forces Fund or the Afghan Security Forces Fund that has the flexibility and responsiveness that the Office of Defense, Representative, Pakistan, needs in 

the same way that the training equip elements had, again, in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. That does not mean that we do not need, again, 

the traditional mechanisms with the same kinds of authorities for 

DoD when it comes to 1206, 1207, 1208. We do not need Coalition 

support funds or FMF or access to FMS. All the rest of these are 

certainly very much needed. IMET, again, is another one. 

The fact is we need, again, a source of funds that has this responsiveness, that has the flexibility, that can enable us to focus 

the effort on the training and equipping and development of forces 

that will conduct counterinsurgency operations as their primary objective. And we have been doing that on a small scale, providing 

assistance to the forces, for example, of the Frontier Corps and to 

the 11th Army Corps, which are the elements operating mostly in 

the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and in the Northwest 

Frontier Province. 

In fact, there was a small element of those forces, 300 to 350 

members of the Frontier Corps, that moved to Buner, which is one 

of these districts in which the Taliban had located. So this capability will help us enormously. Again, that is why we requested it. 

Mr. CARTER. Do you perceive that there is a will to start a 

change of direction in as far as the counterinsurgency effort is concerned so that our money will be well invested? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, there is certainly a will on the ground 

among those troopers who are fighting, again, in the FATA. I mean 

they know what this enemy represents, and they have sustained 

very substantial losses. So, again, the Pakistani Army has taken 

significant losses in this fight over a number of years now, and that 

is why in my statement I said they deserve our support. They not 

only need it. I think they have earned our support. 

What we need to see, of course, over the weeks and months 

ahead, is the kind of whole-of-government approach that would result from a complete commitment by the Pakistani senior leaders 

to enable their forces. So, again, you do not have a situation where 

it is only the Frontier Corps and the Army that are doing counterinsurgency operations. That is not possible. Again, military by 

itself cannot do it, and they are actually studying our counterinsurgency manual. Their director of the joint staff is working with their 

interagency to develop a counterinsurgency concept and policy. 

There is encouragement in that. But, again, what has to happen 

is we have to see that actually manifest itself. We have to see it 

operationalized over time and to see the kind of commitment and 

will that will be necessary to face up to what is, again, an existential threat to Pakistan. 


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Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Judge Carter. 

Mr. Salazar. 

AGRICULTURE POTENTIAL IN AFGHANISTAN

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, thank you so much for everything you do for this country. We are very proud of you. 

I was an Army man myself and never got to the four stars, but 

I was an enlisted man. 

Mr. DICKS. You got to Congress, though. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Yes. 

Let me just ask you—I know, the last time that we were in Iraq 

and you were still there, we visited about the potential in Afghanistan in reference to agriculture. I understand that we have to build 

an economy before you can actually really build a society. 

Could you maybe comment about that potential and what you 

are seeing and what role the USDA could actually have in helping 

you achieve those goals? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, it could have an enormous role. In fact, 

Ambassador Holbrooke and I are very seized with the agricultural 

potential in Afghanistan and in helping them redevelop it. As you 

know, this was once a very fertile country until it entered 30-plus 

years of war. The irrigation systems, the vineyards, the fields—all 

of these that take years or sometimes decades to fully mature and 

develop—were destroyed over the course of that time. And there 

has been an enormous effort to rebuild those, but it still has a very 

long way to go. 

So we are very keen to see the kind of interagency support for 

this that can help it. But we have already, in fact, again gone to 

our uniformed services. In this case, the National Guard stepped 

forward and said, you know, we have folks in our ranks in agricultural States who are willing to volunteer to give their agricultural 

expertise to the Afghan people and to the Afghan farmers. These 

agricultural teams have been of enormous help and of enormous 

value over there. In many cases, these are true agricultural experts. They are both farmers and academic experts who can do the 

kind of soil analysis, crop analysis and then end-to-end market 

analysis that could enable real progress if we can ensure that the 

security situation does not disrupt it. 

So, again, Ambassador Holbrooke and I are very, very keen on 

this. It is a recurring theme if you hear him talk about Afghanistan, and we hope very much that the interagency can contribute 

substantially to it. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Well, thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back so that other members can ask questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, General. I am sorry I missed you at the 

Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. I have a subcommittee that 

I have to chair myself, so there was a total conflict. 

I remember going over with Congressman Lewis in 2003 when 

you were commanding the 101st, and then came back in 2007 when 

you were getting ready to do the surge with General Odierno. I just 


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want to compliment you on your extraordinary work. If we had followed the lead of what you were trying to do in the north throughout the country, I think we would have been in better shape. 

ILLEGAL DRUGS IN AFGHANISTAN

I want to ask you one thing about the drug issue, you know, the 

heroin. I see this as just a cancer that is in Afghanistan, and we 

have not been dealing with this forthrightly, I believe. And I hope 

that the new administration is going to have an aggressive strategy 

to deal with this issue. 

The other thing I will mention, just to follow up on Mr. Farr, is 

I have been a supporter of the Olmstead program, of which General 

Abizaid took a year off as an Army officer, went to a country, 

learned the language, learned the culture. And I thought this was 

such a great program. Then I asked the Army how many people 

are in the Olmstead program. I think they said six or seven. So 

that is of concern. 

Because of Mr. Edwards’ sharp eye on time, I would like to know 

what you think about this piracy problem. What do you think we 

should do about it? How do we respond to this? 

Thank you. 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, first of all, the illegal narcotics industry 

in Afghanistan is a cancer, and it not only eats at the rule of law 

of Afghanistan and provides substantial resources to the insurgency, as do some other activities, but it is one of the top two or 

three primary sources of funding for the insurgency. It also, of 

course, causes enormous problems throughout the entire region. It 

is, in fact, one of those areas in which we actually have common 

interests with Iran and with Russia and certainly with all of the 

other Asian states, none of whom want to see the already substantial numbers of addicts that they have in their countries increase 

nor to see the expansion of the illegal aspects of this and the 

Mafia-related types of activity that it gives rise to. 

By the way, with respect to these opportunities for our soldiers 

to go to foreign countries for school and experience and to graduate 

school and all the rest of that, really to provide them, out of their 

intellectual comfort zone experiences, which are so important when 

you are doing the kind of work that our troopers are doing in Iraq, 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, I hope that as our end strength increases and as we are able to bring our numbers down in Iraq that, 

again, our officers, in particular, can take more advantage of this, 

but also some of our noncommissioned officers and warrant officers 

as well. 

PIRACY

With respect to piracy, there are a number of actions that need 

to be taken. Among them, it is important that the maritime shipping industries get more serious about this problem. I have just reviewed with Vice Admiral Gortney, who is the Naval component 

commander for Central Command—it is his forces, by the way, that 

were on the Bainbridge that were augmented by the Navy SEALS. 

Mr. DICKS. And we want to compliment the SEALS and the 

whole operation. 

General PETRAEUS. So they did a magnificent job. 


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The work by the crew of the Bainbridge, by the conventional sailors and our special operations sailors was fantastic, and I saw 

some of their leaders yesterday, I might add. 

With respect to this problem which, of course, stems from the 

fact that you have an ungoverned space, essentially, at this point 

in time, and that has severe poverty and economic problems and 

a lack of rule of law and all the rest of that, those are the conditions, of course, that give rise to this kind of illegal activity. But 

we need the maritime shipping companies to do more than they 

have. 

We started off by saying, if you would just speed up when the 

pirates approach you, that will help. If you take evasive action, 

that is even better. If you unbolt the ladder that allows the pirates 

to climb onto your ship before you set sail, you get extra credit for 

that. These were not being taken before. This was strictly viewed 

as a business proposition up until recently. They figured, well, we 

will go park if, you know, only less than 1 percent of the ships get 

pirated. Anyway, if it is, they have insurance, and it would just go 

and park off Somalia, and they would negotiate. 

Well, that price is going up, and of course the violence is going 

up, and the pirates have moved farther and farther and farther 

out. As you know, originally it was in the Gulf of Aden, just south 

of Yemen and between the Horn of Africa. Now they are as far out 

as 450 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia proper. 

So I think that they are going to have to take a very hard look 

at not just taking additional defensive preparations in terms of just 

simple things like Concertina wire to make it hard to climb over 

the side or, again, up over a railing, but also in looking at the employment of armed guards or security forces on those. We have put 

them on many of the ships that have our equipment on them. 

Again, I think that is something that they are going to have to look 

hard at. 

There is no way that the limited number of vessels from the 

U.S., the Coalition maritime force that we have, NATO, EU, and 

even others is going to be enough, given the thousands of vessels 

that transit that area and the vast size of it. There are disputes 

about how many times the size of Texas that actually is. I would 

defer to the Chairman on that. Again, this is a problem that we 

have to get much more serious with. 

Also, you can do a risk analysis. You can look at the ship. There 

are certain characteristics of a ship that make them more vulnerable to piracy. Again, I think the maritime shipping industry is 

going to have to look very hard at whether they keep those ships 

going through these particular waters. And there is a variety of 

others. We are going to do a review of this with the leadership in 

the Pentagon over the course of the next couple of weeks and with 

the interagency, and then we will propose going back. 

Mr. DICKS. What about training the crews? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, sir, you could. Of course, some crews 

have been trained. You heard about that in the case of this Maersk 

ship. 

Mr. DICKS. Yes. 

General PETRAEUS. The arming of crews is another aspect. Of 

course, they need to be trained in the use of those weapons then 


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as well. That has to be another element of this. Certainly, the defensive preparations can work. You can have water hoses and others that can make it more difficult. But as someone observed the 

other day, it is tough to be on the end of a water hose if the other 

guy is on the end of an RPG. So you have got to think your way 

through that calculation as well. 

Mr. DICKS. I yield back my remaining time. 

INTERAGENCY INVOLVEMENT

Mr. EDWARDS. I thank the gentleman. 

General Petraeus, you have spoken today in your testimony, orally and in writing, and repeatedly that you cannot win a counterinsurgency effort by simply a military effort alone. You have to 

have civilian support. You have to win the hearts and minds of the 

people of that region or of that country. 

You spoke of the need for full funding of State Department, 

USAID, perhaps USDA, the Department of Commerce, and other 

programs. Is funding the constraint? I guess what I would ask is: 

If you have the funding, do we still have problems with getting 

those people from those particular agencies to go to Iraq and Afghanistan? 

General PETRAEUS. It is a mix, Mr. Chairman. Based on my experience when I was a commander in Iraq and, before that, the 

training equip commander—because we drew on a number of the 

different interagency elements during that time—there are certain 

organizations that are ready to help. 

I have to single out the Department of Homeland Security, for 

example, which was willing to provide border tactical officers, customs agents, and other experts on border security, which was 

something that was desperately needed in Iraq, even as it is of 

course needed in our own country. But they had those assets. They 

had the capabilities. They were willing to provide them, but they 

ran into both authority and authorization issues. 

I think they did not have the funding for it, and I am not sure 

they had the authority to shift other funding to do that. So, in 

some cases, we were able to use training equip moneys for that, because it fit the language that was provided by Congress for that; 

but in other cases, we did not, and we just had challenges with 

that. 

There are other cases with other interagency elements where 

they just do not have the capacity to provide the people, and that, 

I think, is a serious challenge. It may well be. 

There have been reports, public reports—and I think that Under 

Secretary of Defense Flournoy talked in a conference about this the 

other day—that as the augmentation of civilian members of the effort in Afghanistan goes forward, that it may be necessary to provide some uniformed members to augment that effort. We had to 

do that in Iraq as you will recall. You know, it is just a lot faster 

to give someone in the military an order, one who is already prepared for deployment and who has weapons training, preparation 

and so forth, or who can get that in relatively short order, than it 

is to bring someone in from the outside and go through the entire 

process and clearances and everything else if they are contracted 

or hired in some other fashion. So it may be. That is certainly an 


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option that Secretary Gates is looking at, although there has not 

been a commitment or numbers assigned to it yet. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Do you have any kind of broad estimate today in 

Afghanistan and in Iraq, if you had all of the civilian employees 

from the various Federal agencies—USDA, the Department of 

Commerce—as to how many military troops you could free up for 

their military mission? 

General PETRAEUS. I think, in truth, that freeing up would be 

relatively small in number because, again, if you come back just for 

example to the agricultural area, we could send home a few agriculture teams if we had more agricultural experts. In many cases, 

though, I think what it would do is it would enable our soldiers to 

focus more on their primary responsibilities of providing for the security of the people, securing and serving the people, and focus less 

on these other duties that they end up having to get into because 

of the lack of additional capacity in the civilian arena. 

AFGHANISTAN

Mr. EDWARDS. Clearly, our goal ultimately is to have the people 

of Iraq and Afghanistan be self-sufficient and providing for their 

own security. It has taken an awfully long time to try to build up 

the forces, the police and security forces in Iraq. 

Is there any reason to believe, for whatever differences or learning curves or experiences in Afghanistan, that we will be able to 

move that process forward more quickly than has occurred in Iraq? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, we have certainly tried to take lessons 

from Iraq and apply them appropriately with an understanding of 

the significant differences in Afghanistan. In many respects, Afghanistan represents a more difficult problem set. It does not have 

a number of the blessings that Iraq has in terms of the sheer oil, 

gas, land of two rivers, the human capital that Iraq built up over 

the years, the muscle memory of a strong government, albeit one 

that was corrupted over time by Saddam Hussein. But, again, it 

had a large number of advantages and extraordinary natural blessings in comparison to Afghanistan, which is much more, obviously, 

landlocked, mountainous, rugged, rural, with a 70 to 80 percent illiteracy rate. You have the challenging situation of policemen who 

cannot read or comprehend the laws that they are enforcing. These 

kinds of difficulties make Afghanistan very, very hard. 

We have seen that, and we will continue to see that. This is why 

up front I said this is going to take a sustained substantial commitment, and I have provided that in each of the testimonies that I 

have had on this, and certainly to the military and civilian leadership of our country. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To follow up on that line of questioning, General, there is no 

question the surge was successful in Iraq and that great gains have 

been made, but your testimony said that those gains are ‘‘fragile 

and reversible.’’ As I said to you earlier today in my office, my 

nephew is a marine right now, and I am interested in the question 

of Iraq. 


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There was a bombing there yesterday of significant proportion, 

still. Yet some Members who have been there in the last 3 weeks 

have said that the policing versus the warfighting is the primary 

problem, and that law enforcement there is more the issue than a 

lack of our warfighting capabilities. 

So, as we transition more and more out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, give us a feeling, from your perspective, of how much security 

and warfighting capability is still necessary for us in Iraq to leave 

it in the condition that those security forces in Iraq will be able to 

maintain the progress that has been made so that it is not fragile 

and reversible. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, that is a very good question. Again, obviously, there has been, clearly, very substantial progress in Iraq. 

When you go from 160 attacks per day to now an average of 10 to 

15, obviously that represents a significant degree of progress. 

Having said that, for all the reasons that I mentioned in my 

opening statement, which include the resilience of al Qaeda in 

Iraq—although considerably diminished, it retains a capability, and 

it does retain a desire to reestablish its networks, and it does periodically still have the capability to carry out the kind of horrific attacks that it carried out yesterday. 

I talked to General Odierno, in fact, not long before coming over 

here. They are obviously going through the intelligence, doing, you 

know, a very, very rigorous job of trying to determine which network was reestablished, how it was able to carry out the attacks 

that it did. In some respects, some of this is actually a bit of the 

result of the relaxed security, to some degree, over the very, very 

tight security and the innumerable checkpoints and walls and barriers and all the rest of that, some of which has been taken down 

over time as, in fact, the security has been improved. 

General PETRAEUS. And so, maintaining the vigilance and the 

discipline in the actions, particularly of local Iraqi Security Forces 

who are the ones on the checkpoints and securing these very sensitive locations, is very important. 

We have seen in this case, we do know that, for example, a network that provides foreign fighters from Tunisia through Syria to 

Iraq was reactivated or reestablished after the foreign fighter network inside Iraq was damaged very significantly over the course of 

the last 6 months or so. And we know that, for example, four of 

the suicide bombers in the past couple of weeks were Tunisians 

and we captured one of the facilitators. There may be some others 

that have come through. 

Again, this is the kind of intelligence focus that is taking place 

to determine again what network has been able to carry these out 

and what actions need to be taken against them. 

Those actions will be taken though with considerably larger and 

more capable Iraqi Security Forces. They are carrying out the vast 

majority of the security operations at this point. We are well into 

the process of withdrawing additional forces, the remaining coalition forces going home, gradually coming out of the cities in anticipation of the deadline this summer in the security agreement, and 

continuing on with the other aspects of security agreement. 

The Iraqi Security Forces number some 600,000 now. Again they 

are considerably more capable than they were just a couple of years 


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ago. But there will be continued attacks of this type over time. It 

is going to take a considerable time for Iraq to eliminate all of the 

remaining elements and you see in fact in that region periodic attacks of this type even in countries in which there are relatively 

small cells of extremists, and so forth. 

So this is why we say the progress continues to be fragile and 

reversible, and it is why we say that it requires continued vigilance 

and continued effort. And again we think the policy adopted for 

this is the appropriate one, it is something that General Odierno 

and I and Ambassador Crocker supported. 

Mr. WAMP. I want to pursue Pakistan and FATA, but I will do 

that on the third round. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I want to continue with the discussion 

of crossing that cultural divide. I think you are able to understand 

the need to do that better than anyone. It’s ironic that there are 

protest signs in this room that say ‘‘no military solution’’, and you 

are essentially saying the same. There is no military solution. It 

has got to be a civilian solution, and we need to work on diplomacy 

and it ought to be in the future words, not war. 

So this hearing is really in the interest of trying to find how do 

we for the first time really begin that transition of developing the 

civilian capacity. 

The Naval Postgraduate School has a center for post conflict stabilization and reconstruction. Where they do exercises with people 

from the U.N. and NGOs, U.S. civilian agencies and military, and 

foreign military officers. The exercises try to find out help plan how 

you really do stabilization and reconstruction in a war torn areas. 

There is also a course being offered to military officers in that 

field, but there is very little interest in going into it because there 

is no MOS. There is nothing to do with this degree and expertise 

that you are developing. Yet you established in your answer to the 

first question that there is lack of expertise. I think we agree we 

need to develop it, but the Department of Defense is not yet there 

in developing the career path for these specialists. 

Are you using FAOs, and are they well trained? Is there something beyond that specific to linguistic and culturally expertise, region by region around the world? And do these teams train together so that they—as we do in a disaster mitigation—can go in 

and do the ounce of prevention before we need the pound of cure. 

I am interested in your thoughts about how we can further develop that professionalism. And is the State Department coordinator for reconstruction in dialogue with you? 

General PETRAEUS. The answer to that is yes. If I could go back, 

because you have actually touched on an area that I have enormous interest in actually. When you talk about changing an institution, which is what we are talking about here, to appreciate the 

need for a particular skill set in vastly greater number than we 

have right now. Any time you change an institution, though, you 

need the big ideas and then you have to of course educate the organization on the big ideas and hopefully they embrace the big ideas. 

And if they don’t, you help them put their arms around the big 

ideas and squeeze them with them. 


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And then you implement the big ideas, if you will, in the military 

we practice them, sometimes we implement them in real operations 

if those are ongoing, as they are right now, and then you have a 

feedback mechanism. And we actually proposed an interagency engine of change in a briefing one time to an interagency—and I 

would be happy to provide that whole briefing to you—on how you 

would go about that. 

We were talking about actually getting the interagency to embrace the concept of counterinsurgency because in my view and another the biggest of the big ideas that came out of the CENTCOM 

assessment was that the construct, the intellectual construct for 

the war on terror, at least within the CENTCOM area of responsibility, needs to be a counterinsurgency construct, not a narrow 

counterterrorism construct, counterterrorism being, as you know, 

special mission units, precise intelligence, intelligence agency activities, and very specific operations. It needs to be much broader 

than that. It needs to be not just special operations forces, but conventional forces, indigenous forces, and it needs to be broader that 

that. It needs to be economic, political, diplomatic, informational, 

educational and all the rest of that. And that is the ANACONDA 

slide that we briefed to the Congress in April of 2008 when we 

were explaining that within Iraq you couldn’t do in al Qaeda in 

Iraq with just counterterrorism forces. It took a holistic approach. 

It takes corrections, too, by the way, because you have to separate 

the irreconcilables from the reconcilables there as well. 

But I think what you are talking about, I mean, you have the 

big ideas right there, and the question is how to get the institution 

in a sense educated, the organizations educated on them and then 

to actually implement them, and then to follow it up and have lessons learned, then to help you refine the big ideas and the education of those and any implementation. 

With respect to the FAOs, we do have very good FAO programs. 

They involve language training, oftentime in a country or a region 

before they actually serve, and then repetitive tours in those. If 

anything, though, I think we have to be careful not to eat our 

young in this field, and make sure they don’t run up against glass 

ceilings where all of a sudden they can advance to a certain point 

but now they can’t go beyond that. There are exceptions to that 

and some significant ones, and I think we have to ensure that we 

do enable that kind of opportunity and embrace again people who 

have had these out of their intellectual comfort zone experiences. 

As you may recall, 2 years ago there was a promotion board, and 

the Secretary was pretty clear about who was on the board, and 

there was a reason I think to ensure that certain kinds of officers 

were in fact selected, although of course there is very clear instructions, there is a legal process, and so forth. 

So we have to again ensure that there is real opportunity for 

these individuals that they feel highly valid. It is ironic that just 

yesterday afternoon I sent an e-mail to the Chief of Staff at 

CENTCOM down in Tampa, and I said I want you to look at the 

coding, the personnel coding, of the spots in the J5 section, which 

is plans and policy and strategy, and make sure that they are FAO 

slot coded so that we are using the FAOs and the experts, so we 

don’t bring in somebody who has never been the country and is all 


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of a sudden the country director for our plans and policy. Instead, 

we need the folks that are the experts. 

Now you need both of course, and you also need the operational 

experience piece has to inform this, and we have to get a balance 

in there as well. But again obviously this is something that I feel 

pretty strongly about, and I appreciate the opportunity to—— 

Mr. FARR. The point is you are going to need some career development there and you are going to need some of those MOSs, as 

you say, developed. 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, again when it comes to the conflict prevention that one I have to put my thinking cap on and figure out. 

We are actually pretty good now in the FAO field, and again there 

is a revamping in the Army personnel system some years back that 

again does pretty well up to certain levels. But we have to take it 

beyond those levels, I think, as well. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Petraeus, I like 

to read history and I have been reading a little bit of Afghanistan 

history, it seems to me that the Afghan people don’t like invaders 

very much, and they certainly don’t like conquerors, the entire population turns on the conqueror. I think the junkyard Soviet equipment that is in Afghanistan today gives a pretty good indication of 

that. 

As we ramp up forces in Afghanistan, how do we do that without 

giving that perception that we are an invader. I think right now 

we are still perceived as a helper, but I think that is a fine line 

that has to be walked. I am asking you if you perceive any indication of that in Afghanistan and in turn what assets or infrastructure you might need to assist us, assist our forces so that we are 

able to continue to be perceived as helpers and not as invaders. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, you are exactly right, Congressman, 

that the Afghan people do not take kindly to conquerors and they 

have shown that over the centuries. And so that is why it is not 

just having additional forces, it is employing those forces properly. 

And they cannot be seen to be there as invaders or conquerors. 

They have to be there to be seen as helping to secure and serve 

the people, to be partners and, while being tough warriors, still 

being very sensitive, for example, to civilian casualties, which is 

probably the single most important issue and the single most challenging issue and sensitive, because in fact the Taliban in particular will literally create conditions in which there is a high prospect of civilian casualties, disregarding the risk that they are putting the civilian population of a local area to by their actions in certain occasions. 

So it is something that we have to be keenly sensitive to. And 

in fact General McKiernan and I issued tactical directives on this 

issue. And his recently released counterinsurgency guidance highlights this, I think we gave a copy of this to all the members before 

the hearing. If not, I will make sure that we get it to you right 

after this. 

Mr. CARTER. The last time I was over there, the only smiles I got 

from people were when they were traveling down a new highway 

that was being built or under construction and then you saw it. 

They don’t smile a whole lot over there, but they were smiling 


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about that. So I happen to agree with the discussion that as we 

ramp up our forces and we do them intelligently, and I trust you 

very much to do that, we also need to make sure that they think 

we are there to help because then it will be different. Alexander 

the Great was the first one to learn this lesson, and everybody has 

been learning it ever since. 

General PETRAEUS. Absolutely right. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Judge, thank you. Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. SALAZAR. General, the transition from our soldiers in Iraq to 

Afghanistan, what additional training are you putting them 

through? I know we face different challenges and the preparedness 

may not be the same as what it was in Iraq. We are fighting in 

different territory. Could you address the challenges that we might 

have? And how can we help you better prepare our soldiers for 

that? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, Congressman, we actually—the best example of this I think is to look at the National Training Center at 

Ft. Irwin, California, which is one of the primary sites at which we 

prepare units. That is where we conduct the—in a sense the final 

exercise, graduation exercise, the culmination to the road to deployment, which now starts, by the way, with a counterinsurgency seminar, and that has been the case now for a couple of years. And 

that seminar is tweaked, but then the entire road to deployment 

is tweaked to have an Afghan focus, rather than an Iraq focus. 

At the National Training Center it is a much more rural setting 

for these kinds of exercises, rather than for in Iraq where we have 

literally built up a lot of small urban areas in the desert, in the 

Mojave Desert, to get them up into the mountains there more, out 

again in the Mojave Desert which has some pretty good little peaks 

out there as well. Everything is done and I mean literally of course 

we have Afghan natives, often Afghan Americans, but the Afghan 

Americans replace the Iraqi Americans. In every respect that we 

can, we try to replicate the situation in Afghanistan rather than of 

course the situation in Iraq. 

Needless to say, there are always going to be limits. We haven’t 

found a way to bring 10,000 and 12,000 foot peaks into the Mojave 

Desert, but they do have again have several thousand foot peaks 

out there and they can get the sense of that as well. 

There are language differences again for those that are going to 

get some of the language training; the cultural training again is obviously different. And again this is all hugely important, because 

what worked in Iraq where we literally would move into a neighborhood, right into the neighborhood, right into a deserted house 

or a deserted factory or a looted governmental facility. In Afghanistan out in those rural areas that is not done, and so you literally 

have to sit with the tribal elders, with the local mullahs, and work 

out an arrangement. Typically we provide the security, the persistent security presence that is so important in partnership with 

the Afghan forces by being just outside a village rather than right 

in the center of it. 

So again, that is the kind of changes that we make to ensure 

their soldiers are prepared for that. 

Now in some cases we have had to send soldiers literally from 

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ment plan from Iraq to Afghanistan. Needless to say, the sooner we 

can do it the better, but inevitably there are requirements that 

emerge, and we just went through that. We just had a period 

where General McKiernan requested additional forces and those 

that had the sufficient dwell, the only ones were either in Iraq or 

en route to Iraq, and we had to make some very, very tough decisions, and we did it in coordination with General Odierno and with 

General McKiernan in full visibility to the Secretary and the 

Chairman, but at the end of the day had to make some very difficult choices and had to send 3,500 or so over in a couple of different decisions of so-called enablers. And these are the very highest demand, low density elements, construction engineers again to 

get the infrastructure going, route clearance teams, joint tactical 

air controllers, military working dogs, a whole host of intelligence, 

command and control, and other elements that again with dwell 

time the only place we could find them was in Iraq or en route to 

Iraq and we had to divert some of those to Afghanistan. 

This, by the way, is what the Secretary’s budget is designed to 

address. His budget is, as has been observed, a warfighter’s budget 

and it gets at the shortages and the enablers in particular, these 

forces that everyone needs. 

I met with the Special Operations Command Commander yesterday, Admiral Olson, and the most important topic of that conversation was again these enablers that the special operations forces 

need from the conventional side to help their forces be effective. 

They are also the same ones that are needed by conventional units 

to ensure that they can be effective. 

And again, that is the concept of the Secretary’s budget. Also, 

then those items that everybody can’t get enough of, such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, and a variety 

of other intelligence-related items. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Secretary Gates said—when he was out at Camp 

Lejeune, he said that the civilian side of this equation is not coming into place. This is the same problem we had, as you talked 

about earlier, in Iraq. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. DICKS. And now the same thing is happening in Afghanistan, 

according to Secretary Gates. How do we deal with this? How do 

we get the State Department and these other agencies to come up 

with the people that we need or are we going to just have to rely 

on reservists to volunteer? How do we deal with this? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, in part this is again Vice Chairman 

Farr’s point of developing the capability and the capacity, much 

greater of each in the interagency, and in particular in those agencies that have as their primary mission some of the tasks that we 

were having to do with folks in uniform. That is the first issue. 

Mr. DICKS. Is there anybody inside the government to get people 

together to try to work out a strategy about how we are going to 

do this? 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, that is going on. Again, this is very much 

ongoing. It started, I think, a couple of years ago. In fact, I think 

this conference that I talked about at which we presented the idea 

of the interagency engine of change was in fact one of the early 


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catalysts for that overall effort, and it is actually gradually coming 

together. 

But the other issue, that is an issue of just having the sheer capacity and capability. The other effort is then having the 

deployability on fairly short notice, and that is a quality that the 

military has of course that is fairly unique. We have that ability 

to either take someone who is already serving or could be called up 

on very short notice and in a very smooth deployment process. 

They already have all their paperwork done and clearances and 

basic levels of training and equipment and everything else. And 

you can just add to that, relatively short order, as you know, put 

them through an existing deployment process and then get them 

down range. And that is part of that, the overall effort that needs 

to be looked at as well. 

PAKISTAN

Mr. DICKS. Now, you know there was a lot of objection on our 

side when the government of Pakistan made this arrangement in 

Swat and put their forces in the barracks. Are those forces still in 

the barracks in Swat? And is this what has led to this collapse? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, there was an agreement again to allow 

essentially sharia law, and at the heart of the dispute had to do 

with the lack of what is termed speedy justice, and there was a 

complete and utter dissatisfaction with the pace of resolution of relatively small level conflicts, but ones that were tying local communities in knots. And that was not provided, and over time that led 

to, that was the cause on which the Taliban was able to build, 

among some others. In fact, there is a very good article, I think in 

the New York Times the other day, that talked about the other social situations, inequities, and so forth, that persisted there on 

which the Taliban was able to play and to generate local support 

for them assuming greater control over the area than the governmental authorities whose control was eroding. 

And then it was also pursued with some considerable employment of threats, force, intimidation, murder, and so forth. All of 

that combined to enable them to get in a position where they could 

push this agreement through, and then the greater political dynamics in Pakistan led eventually, after considerable stalling and 

regret, I think frankly, to an agreement to it. 

And then the big concern after that was the movement beyond 

that particular Swat district into Buner and some of the other 

areas, from which they supposedly have now withdrawn with the 

arrival of the Frontier Corps Forces. 

IRAQ

Mr. DICKS. I am going to give you this article. I am not going 

to get into it, but it says rape, beatings and bribery, Iraqi Police 

out of control. The London Times story of April 24th. It sounds 

very, very discouraging about their police force, their security people. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, again the police in Iraq do have first 

of all a checkered history. They were part of the sectarian violence, 

as you will recall. The national police when we went in with the 

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ly, not just his support, but he was the one that pushed this 

through, replaced the national police commander, both division 

commander, every brigade commander, and 80 percent of the battalion commanders, and then had to replace those replacements a 

couple of times in some instances. 

Over time they became a considerably better force and a much 

more effective force, but the memories that some of them have of 

how to do things are bad, and the practices that were employed in 

history, going back into the time of Saddam and so forth, which is 

what many of them know, those are certainly not in line with the 

rule of law as we understand it and as the Iraqis want to implement. And so again there is no question that there is more work 

that needs to be done. 

Having said that, I think it is only fair to acknowledge the enormous sacrifices that have been made by the Iraqi security forces as 

they have taken considerably many times more casualties than our 

forces have in the course of the effort to reduce the security threats 

and challenges in that country. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

KYRGYZSTAN

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

General and members, I believe we have time for one more round 

of questions, and let me begin by asking regarding the supplemental appropriation request. There is a $30 million request for 

Kyrgyzstan, given that government’s decision to remove U.S. forces 

from Hamas airbase. Can you tell me what the rationale is for that 

request? 

General PETRAEUS. First of all, Chairman, if of course it came 

that we were to leave obviously we would not invest in that particular air traffic control improvement. I don’t want to get ahead 

of things, but we need to give this time still, I guess would be the 

best way to say. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, that answers the question. There was another additional $36 million funded last year from our subcommittee to improve the airfield there, and that has been put on 

hold, as I understand. So if there is an opportunity to continue discussions with the government—— 

General PETRAEUS. It is our hope, Chairman. In fact, it is our 

hope that actually all parties in the region, and this includes Russia, could see that the great game, the new great game in the Central Asian states should be replaced with a broad partnership 

against transnational extremism and the illegal narcotics activities. 

It is in everyone’s interest to unite in that effort, and we think that 

that can be done. There are some signs of recognition of that. Certainly I visited every one of the Central Asian states as part of the 

effort to establish the northern distribution network with—together 

with the TRANSCOM Commander who did a phenomenal job with 

his team there and our joint logistics teams. 

We have now, for example, three different routes into Afghanistan from the north. Russia is allowing—two of those routes go 

through Russia. They will ultimately end up going through 

Uzbekistan, which why it was important I had that visit that I 

talked to you about in your office. And it is our hope that all the 


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countries again in the region are going to see the wisdom of working together against these common threats rather than competing 

for influence in a continuation of a zero sum approach that has 

characterized activities in the region in the past. 

DRAWDOWN OF TROOPS IN IRAQ

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. My last question would be in regards 

to the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq. Do you have a timetable 

at this point of when our forces will be out of various locations in 

Iraq? And also what is the implication in terms of Camp Victory, 

for example? Do we still have some forces there or will all forces 

be removed from Camp Victory? 

General PETRAEUS. Sir, we are actually in the process right now. 

There is quite an aggressive process of either handing off to Iraqis, 

after removing everything that we can that would be serviceable 

and useful and so forth and all of that process, of either handing 

off to Iraqis or closing out in some cases the dozens and dozens of 

patrol bases, combat outposts, joint security stations, and so forth, 

that we built during the surge and during the embrace of the counterinsurgency principles about securing the people by living with 

them. 

For example, in Baghdad alone we created 77 additional locations in which our forces were located to ensure the security of the 

people with our Iraqi partners. And we do indeed with a very detailed schedule that shows when we will either close out or hand 

off these various small installations. We are doing that with some 

of the bigger and medium size as well and gradually pulling to 

some of the—and I don’t use the term ‘‘enduring’’ to imply again 

an enduring commitment or an enduring presence, but again there 

are places in which we will be until our eventual withdrawal from 

Iraq. And of course you are familiar with the time line in the security agreement in that regard. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. Thank you. Mr. Wamp. 

INDIA

Mr. WAMP. To set up my final question, let me say that we heard 

from the Pacific Command a few weeks ago how pleased we were 

with India’s response to what happened in Mumbai on their western edge. 

But then Pakistan on your eastern edge is my greatest concern 

in the world having been on the ground there a few months ago, 

because they are the sixth largest country in the world they have 

nuclear weapons and from Zardari to Gilani the leadership is not 

as secure as it should be. And as a result you get to the FATA and 

you see sharia law and you talked about the education levels. The 

closer to the heart of the troubled areas you get, the less they are 

educated. I mean it goes down to a level at which they are frankly 

not at all educated. 

So knowing your capabilities and your success and I think I am 

reading clearly what our Commander in Chief desires, I believe you 

can win in Afghanistan, but what concerns me is the FATA, and 

how in the world you ever leave that situation secure enough that, 

speaking of fragile and reversible, you would not invest this kind 

of commitment in Afghanistan and ultimately have to leave it even 


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more fragile and reversible. And I know that is a $64,000 question, 

but that is my last one. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, Congressman, it is very important, first 

of all, to come back to what you highlighted at the outset. In fact, 

there are people who have rightly said that Ambassador 

Holbrooke’s title should be Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Now 

let me just tell you his portfolio very much includes India, and in 

fact the Central Asian states and the other neighbors there. But it 

is very important to reduce the tensions between India and Pakistan so that again Pakistan can both intellectually and physically 

focus on the most pressing threat to their existence, which again 

is the internal extremist threat rather than the traditional threat 

of India, and especially when you look at the number of forces tied 

up with that, the percentage of their defense budget that is devoted 

again to that standoff in the same way that we sort of had a standoff with the Warsaw Pact for so many years. 

India did indeed show impressive restraint in the wake of the 

Mumbai attacks. That was a 9/11 moment for them, and in fact 

they did not ratchet up the tensions. And in fact, I think many observers correctly assessed that they played a very constructive role 

in avoiding further increase in tensions that might have been understandable, in fact, given the death inflicted on their innocent civilians in their financial capital. 

Ambassador Holbrooke and I have in fact met with the Indian 

National Security Adviser, the Indian Foreign Minister, others. 

And we obviously work very closely with the PACOM Commander 

when we are doing this on the military side. But Ambassador 

Holbrooke’s first trip to the region, for example, didn’t include just 

Afghanistan and Pakistan; it then continued on into India. He had 

my deputy with him for those and then it brought the PACOM deputy out in fact to do the final two stops. So we worked that very 

hard. 

But we should observe that the Lashkar-e-Taiba, LET, that carried out the Mumbai attacks, again we think they are trying to do 

more damage and they are trying to carry out additional attacks. 

And one would think that again extremists that are trying to cause 

that kind of tension and also to take the focus off of the internal 

extremist threat would indeed strive to do that. 

The FATA, as you mentioned, is indeed the location of al Qaeda 

senior leadership headquarters. It is the location for the other 

transnational extremist groups that form the syndicate with them. 

That is the syndicate that is of most concern outside the borders 

of Pakistan. It certainly causes significant problems in Afghanistan, although obviously the Afghan Taliban is also a huge concern, 

as are some other elements. But it is the organization that of 

course has carried out attacks in the U.K. And is trying to plan 

and execute attacks in other countries, including our own. 

And over time, dealing with that, again is going to become a real 

bellwether, if you will, for the—not just the capacity and capability 

of the Pakistani forces, but also frankly the seriousness of the overall effort focusing on the internal extremist challenge that they face 

and that we all face. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 


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Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, I was impressed 

with your opening remark asking this committee to make sure that 

we fully fund the State Department’s needs as well as the Department of Defense. Unfortunately, that account is not in this committee, and I hope that you will make that same recommendation 

to Mr. Murtha’s committee. 

General PETRAEUS. I did, sir. 

Mr. FARR. I don’t know whether you are going to be up here before Chairwoman Lowey’s committee. She is the Chair of Appropriation Subcommittee on State Department and the Foreign Ops. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. FARR. That is where the money is. I am interested in following through to build that civilian capability. I don’t know what 

is in the President’s budget. We haven’t seen those numbers yet. 

But it seems to me that we are right on the edge of developing that 

skill set. 

A couple of questions. What are the skills that you need from 

your civilian partners that you don’t have right now? Is it numbers 

or is it specific skills? And secondly, you have of the 215,000 military personnel serving in CENTCOM, many of those are National 

Guard and Reserves. Do those folks receive the same kind of cultural awareness and foreign language training that the active duty 

soldiers and officers receive? 

So essentially what I am looking at here is the skill development 

both from the military side and from the civilian side that will enable you to make this transition, working ourselves out of Afghanistan and out of Iraq? 

General PETRAEUS. Mr. Vice Chairman, again I think you are 

right that there is recognition of the need for these skills for the 

capability, for the capacity. And in answer to your question, I think 

we need all of the above. I mean, we need, clearly need more numbers, but in those numbers we need individuals that have the kind 

of technical expertise in certain functional areas. So in some cases 

it will be health, it might be education, it may be local governance, 

there will be financial kinds of treasury skills, and again really all 

of the different governmental organizations. And then as you work 

your way on out to local levels, again sufficient expertise for those, 

but then to be effective in another culture it is not enough to know 

about those functional areas or have that technical expertise for 

our system or our cultures. It is important to know how they work 

in the culture in which you are actually going to operate. So there 

has to be this—and it has to be very significant in some cases. For 

example, in the Iraq situation, Iraq has a very good legal code actually. Yes, Saddam perverted it for his own use during his time as 

the leader there, but the basic foundation was quite solid, but we 

needed the expertise in it. I mean we literally needed people who 

were certified, you know, the equivalent of the Iraqi bar or something like that, but we needed some of them from our own side. 

And then it was an enormous plus if you could get someone who 

had all of that and was a near native Iraqi Arabic speaker, and 

that is sort of the trifecta when you get that, and those individuals 

are extraordinarily valuable. 

Now, with respect to the preparation of our reserve components, 

we certainly do provide culture and language and that kind of 


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thing. But again, I can’t sit here and say that an active force in 

which there is a yearlong, say, road to deployment, that all of that 

that is done during that time can be compressed into the shorter 

period of preparation for our reserve component units. And I think 

we have to just be again forthright as we assess that to ourselves, 

and then ensure that we provide them everything that we can as 

they are in their final preparation, in their left seat, right seat ride, 

and then in their early months because they will develop expertise. 

The fact is once you are down range and you look at a soldier, airman or Marine, there is no difference. You can’t look at someone, 

you can’t even see them operate and say necessarily this is clearly 

a reservist. 

Mr. FARR. The Post yesterday said that we were perhaps going 

to use the Guard and Reserves as the civilian—— 

General PETRAEUS. Oh, I am sorry, that is a different—I thought 

you were talking about just in strictly the military tasks. I was 

talking about combat—unit combat service support, what have you. 

No, there is—and we did do this for Iraq as well. In our Reserves 

in particular, but in the National Guard as well, but in the Reserves we have people that actually are city administrators, they 

are certainly lawyers. We have construction expertise in those 

units. It is really extraordinary and of course they do it full time. 

So you take someone who really does this all the time, put them 

in uniform. But you do then need to give them the kind of preparation that is required, and that is something again that we work to 

do, but I am sure that we could do that better frankly. Again, there 

has to be an investment in them. 

We have a limit with the reserve clock, and we have to keep that 

in mind, and I think that we have limited it to a year right now. 

And so every bit that we take off the front end of that for 

predeployment, you are going to pay back in terms of the amount 

of time on the ground. And so you have to do a real weighing again 

of the risks. Is it better to get the individual out there, allow him 

or her to get on the ground and just experience it, and learn on 

the job, and particularly if you can get a long right seat, left seat 

ride where the person he or she is are replacing is going to be 

there. That is the ideal situation, I think. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I am going to have to ask the police to remove 

anyone who would interrupt the proceedings. I appreciate the respect with which the citizens here have allowed us to continue on 

with this hearing. 

Judge Carter. 

KASHMIR

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Petraeus, going 

back to what Mr. Wamp was talking to you about, it seems that 

someone has some vested interest in keeping the Kashmir dispute, 

the old historical dispute between India and Pakistan, going because of the Mumbai attack and others. As we were talking before, 

I was thinking, is there anything we could do to beef up of the Pakistani forces for counterinsurgency if we could get an international 

diplomatic effort to try to solve the issue in Kashmir? 

General PETRAEUS. I think that that is—first of all, it is something that is being looked at, and of course if you could resolve that 


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conundrum or even again reduce the tensions, again that could 

contribute to an ability to focus more again intellectually as well 

just sheer forces physically on the internal extremist threat. 

Now there are some organizations though that of course want to 

prolong that. They have built their existence on the basis of the 

need, if you will, to continue to carry out violent activities. So 

again, if that could be done, frankly in the same way that we look 

at the Mideast peace process, frankly. That colors everything that 

takes place in the CENTCOM AOR, certainly in the western portion of it. And we are very encouraged frankly to see the appointment of Senator Mitchell, met with him on several occasions already, and supporting very significantly one of his deputies as well. 

The kinds of political overarching issues that so affect everything 

that we do, when those can be resolved or even attended to, they 

can help enormously. 

Mr. CARTER. I agree, that seems to be something that ought to 

be tried. This is a quick final question, as we draw down in Iraq, 

there is going to be some presence that is going to be, at least some 

kind of short-term presence of American troops over there. Are we 

leaving enough infrastructure in place for them to have the recreational, medical and housing facilities they are going to need? 

General PETRAEUS. Absolutely, absolutely. Look, I have to tell 

you that the medical infrastructure in particular that you all have 

provided for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines has been extraordinary. And I think the number now is something like 90 percent of those who are hit survive, which is the highest in history, 

and it is because of advances of course in battlefield medicine, but 

also the facilities that are available within that golden hour and 

the whole Medevac process and the equipment and training of our 

medical personnel. 

As you may know, we have also provided a substantial number 

of additional helicopters to Afghanistan because of concerns in fact 

that we ensure that we have that same kind of responsiveness 

there, which is even more challenging given the very rugged terrain and the high altitude. And one of the large elements of the additional forces is an entire combat aviation brigade, of which we 

only had one in the country before, and then also some additional 

Medevac aircraft on top of that particular brigade. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you very much for this really tough job that 

you are doing. We appreciate it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Judge Carter. Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. Chairman, I don’t really have any more questions. I just wanted to thank the General. Thank you very much 

for your service. 

And I will yield my time to you, Mr. Chairman, if you have any 

additional questions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. And thank you all, all 

members for being here. General Petraeus, thank you for your 

service. And I would like to finish my comments as you finished 

your opening testimony by saluting the men and women who serve 

under you and your command, not only those who wear the uniform, but those married to the uniform and the children who sacrifice every day. And how grateful I am that because of them and 

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zens can come to an open forum and even in their own way express 

their personal opinions that might agree or disagree with the opinions of those of us that sit on this subcommittee. 

Thank you. And any way we can continue to work together 

please let us know. The committee now stands adjourned. Thank 

you, General. 


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WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009. 

ARMY BUDGET 

WITNESS 

GENERAL GEORGE W. CASEY, JR., ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. Good morning to everyone. I would like 

to call the subcommittee to order. We are privileged today to have 

with us the 36th Chief of Staff of the Army, General Casey, and 

also the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army—thank you very 

much for being here today. 

I am going to be keeping it very brief in my opening statement 

just so we can maximize time for questions and answers. 

Chief, let me thank you for your leadership during such a critical 

and challenging time for the Army. I don’t know of any other institution, public or private, that could have handled facing multiple 

warfronts, transformation, growing the institution as much as 

growing the forces has meant to the Army—global reposition, that 

amount of change, given we are facing multiple warfronts, it is a 

real testament to you and every soldier that serves under your 

command, from general officers and to privates. And we thank you 

and everyone you represent here by your presence here today. 

It is good to have you both here, and we look forward to the testimony and questions and answers. 

At this point I would like to recognize Mr. Wamp our ranking 

member. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Casey, Secretary—thank you for being here, thank you 

for what you do for every soldier in the United States Army. They 

have taken more casualties, done more, growing still, asymetrical, 

many challenges. You have served us incredibly well. 

General Casey, you are a good man. I appreciate our relationship. We have had a good one. And it carries forward. I know that 

we can’t talk about everything in the budget request today, but I 

am looking forward to hearing as much as we can hear today. 

I need to say for the record, Mr. Chairman, that tomorrow morning, 8:30, my son graduates from college in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

And there is really bad weather coming tonight, and I may have 

to miss the hearing this afternoon, in order to make sure that I am 

there. If I have to crawl, I am going to be there—we will make sure 

that we have someone in this chair this afternoon in the event I 

am not here. I want to say, for the record, early, it is for a good 

cause—thank you Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You bet. Congratulations. Thank you, and I congratulate you for putting first things first for your family. 

You have been an incredible partner in this entire process. I 

don’t think you have ever missed a committee hearing—— 

Mr. WAMP. Not yet. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. For the entire time serving together 

as partners. I wish you a safe, safe trip. 


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General Casey, your full testimony will be submitted, without objection, for the record, but I would like to recognize you now for any 

opening comments you care to make. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL GEORGE W. CASEY, JR. 

General CASEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman—Thank 

you for the kind words on the performance of the men and women 

of your Army, but I will tell you, we couldn’t do what we have done 

were it not for the support of this committee. And I welcome the 

opportunity to give you an update on what we have done over the 

last year and to talk a little bit about a way ahead. 

You may recall from last year’s testimony that I said that the 

Army was out of balance, and I have really been saying that since 

the summer of 2007. And by ‘‘out of balance,’’ I mean that we are 

so weighed down by our current demands that we can’t do the 

things that we know we need to do to sustain this all volunteer 

force for the long haul and restore strategic flexibility to do other 

things. 

In 2007 we put ourselves on a plan to put ourselves back in balance by the end of 2011, and it centered on four imperatives: sustain our soldiers and families, continue to prepare our soldiers for 

success in the current conflict, reset them—when they return, and 

then continue to transform for our uncertain future. 

I would like to just give you an update where we are on the six 

major objectives that will put us back in balance and then say a 

little bit about some programs we have in each of the imperatives. 

First of all, our first objective was to finish our directed growth 

that the President directed in February, 2007—taking the active 

Army to 547,000 and increasing the Guard and Reserve by 8,000 

and 2,000, respectively. 

Originally our plan was to complete that by 2012. With the Secretary of Defense’s support we moved it to 2010. I can tell you that 

as of today, each of the components of the Army has met their endstrength targets, and that is a big lift for us. Now, we still have 

to build units to put about 20,000 of those soldiers in, but having 

completed that growth is very important for us. 

Two other aspects to that: First of all, one of the reasons it is 

important is it allows us to begin moving off the stop-loss this year, 

and the Secretary of Defense has announced our plan to do that, 

and the Reserves will begin coming off, deploying units to that 

stop-loss in August, the Guard in September, and the active force 

in January of 2010. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So it means you can’t call up Congress—— 

General CASEY. This is one of our key objectives, because all 

along, as we convert to modular organizations operating on a rotation cycle, our goal has been to be able to deploy units without 

stoporders. And so we will meet that goal, I believe, by 2011. 

The other thing I know may cause some concern to the members 

of this committee—as part of this budget the secretary has announced that we will not build the last three brigade combat teams 

that we were originally scheduled to build. 

Members of the committee should know that there has been no 

final decision on where those brigades will come from, and we will 

address that as part of the ongoing quadrennial defense review as 


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part of our overall force mix discussions. And we recognize that 

some of the communities that were expecting to receive those units 

have already made some significant investments, and we surely 

will take that into consideration as we finalize our decisions. 

Second key point, and that is to increase the time the units 

spend at home between deployments, and this is critically important from three perspectives: One, it gives them time to recover; 

two, it allows them to have a more stable preparation period for 

the next deployment; and three, frankly, it gives them even more 

time to equip and train them so that they are properly trained and 

equipped. 

Originally, I expected with our growth and holding demand 

steady at about 15 brigades. I expected that we would not quite get 

to 1 year out, 2 years back in 2011. 

With the president’s drawdown plan, if that is implemented as 

scheduled, we would get to almost 21⁄2 years back in 2011. And 

that is a very positive thing for us, because if we have to increase 

the time the soldiers spend at home if we are going to sustain this 

for the long haul. 

Third, we are well on track and moving ourselves away from 

Cold War formations and organizations to organizations that are 

far more relevant for the operations that we are conducting today. 

We are 85 percent done with the conversion of the Army to modular organizations. That is about 300 brigades that have been or 

will be converted by 2011. We are 85 percent done with that. 

We are almost two-thirds of the way through rebalancing our 

force away from Cold War formations, again, to formations more 

relevant in the 21st century. An example—we have stood down 

around 200 tank companies, artillery companies, and interdefense 

companies. And we have stood up an equivalent number of engineers, military police, special forces, and civil affairs units. It is 

their units that have been directing that today. 

Together, that is the largest organizational transformation of the 

Army since World War II, and it has been done at a period where 

we are deploying 150,000 soldiers over and back every year. So it 

is a significant accomplishment, and we are on track to deliver on 

that. 

Fourth, we are posturing ourselves and we are putting the whole 

Army on a rotational cycle, much like the Navy and the Marine 

Corps have been on for quite a while. This is a big change for us. 

Before September 11th we were largely a garrison-based Army 

that lived to train. Now we are rotating on a cycle, and we are 

going to have to sustain this rotation for a long time to ensure that 

we can provide trained and ready units for whatever contingencies 

come up, but also to give soldiers and families a predictable and 

stable deployment level, and we are on our way to doing that. 

Fifth, we are about halfway through our basing and realignment 

effort, and I think the committee knows what a significant accomplishment this is because when you take realignment and closure, 

and the modular and the growth of the Army, that affects about 

380,000 soldiers’ families and civilians—and again, your timely 

funding of all of those accounts has enabled us to keep this on 

track. All of that is very tightly and closely interwoven. 


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And lastly of it all, is to restore strategic flexibility, and to have 

units trained for the full range of missions. And the longer we have 

units at home—18 months or more—the more they will have time 

to begin training for other things. 

So I would tell you that we have made good progress toward all 

six of our objectives, but we are not out of the woods yet. And I 

expect the next 12 to 18 months to continue to be tough as we actually increase the number of forces we have deployed as we shift 

from Iraq to Afghanistan— 

So that is just an assessment of where we are: good progress, but 

not out of the woods yet. 

A few quick words on each of the imperatives: First of all, sustaining soldiers and families. This is the area where the military 

construction budget really, really makes a difference, and the support that we get in housing, barracks, child development centers, 

youth service centers, work transitioning units, and administrative 

facilities, is absolutely critical, and it sends such a strong signal to 

the men and women of the Army and all the armed forces that the 

country is concerned about their welfare. 

And so this budget gives us what we need from the military construction side to continue to put this Army back in balance by 

2011. We continue our focus on families. In October 2007 we issued 

the Army Family Covenant and we doubled the amount of money 

we put towards family programs. We have sustained that investment in the 2010 budget. 

On the prepare side, we have continued to make great progress 

in equipping our soldiers and training them for the realities of combat they are going to encounter. I will tell you, probably the most 

significant accomplishment since the last time I spoke to you is the 

fielding of almost 10,000 MRAPS in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

And I was in Afghanistan a week or so ago, and got direct testimony from the soldiers about the value of it. Sometimes they don’t 

like the way they handle off road, but anyone who has been blown 

up with an IED and survived thinks they are pretty good. We have 

got enough there now where we are actually beginning to bring 

some back to the United States for training, and that is an important plus. 

On the reset: We have adopted a 6-month reset model, where the 

soldiers come home and they basically stand down for 6 months 

and they are manned and equipped at a level that begins—starting 

their training at the end of that period. This is part of putting the 

whole Army on this rotational model, and we are making pretty 

good progress with that. 

Lastly, transforming: We believe that we, as a country, are facing 

an era of what I call persistent conflict: protracted confrontation 

among state, non-state, and individual actors who are going to continue to use violence to accomplish their political and ideological 

objectives. 

And we are posturing the Army to deal with that. And I believe 

we are going to have a substantial number of ground forces—Army 

and Marine Corps—deployed for the next decade or so. And so we 

have to set ourselves up to do that. 

And we are building a versatile mix of brigade combat teams and 

enablers that can leverage mobility, protection, information, and 


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intelligence in precision buyers to accomplish any mission across 

the spectrum, and we are well on our way to being able to do that. 

Let me just wrap up here by saying that the secretary of the 

Army and I have designated this year as the year of the non-commissioned officer. Because as we looked around the Army it was 

clear to us that our non-commissioned officers are the glue that is 

holding this force together at a critical time and allowing us to accomplish the near-impossible every day. And one of the members 

of this committee is non-commissioned officer Bill Young—he is an 

Army non-commissioned officer—and hopefully you can all join us 

on the 19th of May when we recognize all the members of Congress 

who have been non-commissioned officers over at Fort Myer. 

To give you an example of a non-commissioned officer that we 

have today, let me just tell you a story about a young sergeant who 

won the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in Baghdad in 

April of 2007—Staff Sergeant Christopher Waiters. He was on a 

patrol when a Bradley in front of him hit an improvised explosive 

devise and caught fire. 

He suppressed the enemy that was surrounding the site, realized 

there were two men trapped inside that burning Bradley, ran 

across 100 yards from the Stryker, pulled two of them out and 

dragged them back to his Bradley all under fire. He realized after 

he treated them that there was still another soldier left on the vehicle. 

He ran back into the burning vehicle, this time while the ammunition was cooking off off inside. He found the soldier dead. 

Back to his vehicle, picked up a body bag, and went back and recovered his fallen comrade and dragged him out of the burning vehicle. That is the kind of men and women that you have in your 

armed forces—and that is the kind of non-commissioned officers 

that we have in our Army. 

So thanks very much, Mr. Chairman and all of you, and I look 

forward to taking your questions. 

[The prepared statement of George W. Casey, Jr., follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, General Casey. And what a compelling story of heroism, which is one of the reasons the members of 

this subcommittee are so deeply committed to quality of life issue, 

to see that soldiers and their families are treated with the dignity 

that they have earned and deserve. 

BRIGADE COMBAT TEAMS

I may start with the questions, and we will use a 5-minute rule 

here today, as we do, traditionally, in this committee. Let me ask 

your thoughts in terms of how we handle military construction for 

fiscal year 2010, given we have had the uncertainties of 45 brigade 

combat teams that you referenced, rather than 48, and then we 

have the uncertainty of what the Army is going to do with the two 

brigade combat teams in Germany, whether they will be left in 

Germany or not. 

Certainly the last thing we want to do—well, two things we don’t 

want to do: We don’t want to have troops come back home and not 

have housing for them and quality facilities for them; at the same 

time, we don’t want to spend money for housing or other facilities 

that won’t be needed. Can you tell me what the timing in the QDR 

is and whether the administration’s 2010 budget is going to somehow take into account the possibility of not needing certain facilities that have been projected? 

General CASEY. We are very cognizant of the timing of the funding, especially for the projects that are on there in 2010. What I 

would ask, Chairman, is that we work with the committee here to 

figure out which one of those budgets need to continue, because 

they are all the requirement on all three of those installations for 

forces that are on the books for later—for 2011, 2012, and the out 

years. 

And I believe we can work together to prudently look at what is 

on the books and determine what needs to continue and what 

doesn’t. But I would ask that we guard against the notion that just 

because those three brigades may not go to those bases, we should 

take all that money and put it someplace else—there are still valid 

construction requirements on all those installations that can be 

met though projects that are on the books. So I just ask to work 

with you—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. We would like to work with you. If there is anything we can do—smart planning, things that have to be done, 

whether or not a combat team moves to an installation or not—to 

start construction on a housing project, for example—— 

General CASEY. I would hope—by the summer—we would have 

a much clearer picture of where we are with regard to the base—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. By the end of the summer—and then the time of 

the QDR—when does that QDR—— 

General CASEY. Yes, yes. It is not due back here until February 

of 2010, but there is a push to get it done by the end of the summer so that we can influence the 2011 budget. So, we will see 

where that goes. We need to come to closure on this, and we recognize that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. My second and last question on this first round 

is—Army hospitals. I am very proud of the fact that this subcommittee has taken initiative—not the Senate or the administraVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01079 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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tion, but this subcommittee has taken the initiative to modernize 

our Army hospital system, our DOD hospital system. 

In the last 10 months we have put in two separate bills $2.3 billion for new hospitals. As you know, Riley and Denning and Hood 

have been selected for those three projects for the Army. We are 

looking at making an effort in the supplemental appropriation bill 

and additional funding for more hospital modernization. 

My question to you would be, is there still a need out there. Certainly Bliss is going to be going immensely, and I don’t know how 

a hospital designed for 18,000 soldiers can meet all the health care 

needs of installations two or three times that size. I visited Knox, 

where, you know, they had 400 soldiers in the middle of the summer, and through the cafeteria and then outside to get an MRI because the hospital infrastructure is so old it can’t even support an 

MRI. 

HOSPITALS

Could you address, generally, is there still a need for more modernization of Army hospitals out there? 

General CASEY. There is. And I will tell you that the committee’s 

efforts in this regard are recognized across the Army. And when 

you look at five hospitals over the last 25 years, and five in the last 

2—speaks volumes to what you have been able to do for our soldiers and their families. So we very much appreciate that. 

As you mentioned, as we look to the future our priorities are Fort 

Bliss—phase one of that is funding for women and child care center, and that is wonderful—but we need to look at the long-term 

replacement for Beaumont medical facility out there. 

You also mentioned Hood. There is a phase one program on that, 

and I believe we need to continue that. As you know, that is one 

of our larger bases there that supports quite a large number of 

families. 

Our third priority would be upgrading Landstuhl to allow them 

to accomplish a UCOM, AFRICOM, and Central Command mission 

that they do. We are not looking for the wholesale refurbishment 

of the hospital there, but they perform significant mission for those 

three combatant commands because of where they are located in 

Germany. 

And then lastly, Fort Irwin and Fort Knox would be our fourth 

and fifth priority. Fort Irwin because of its isolated location and 

Fort Knox because of the state of its facility that you already mentioned. But, yes, there is still a need there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much. 

Zach. 

UNFUNDED REQUIREMENTS

Mr. WAMP. General Casey, I know you can’t talk about some of 

the specifics—but is there anything that is a priority for you that 

is not in this request? 

General CASEY. Not an immediate priority, Congressman. As I 

said, this 2010 request BRAC military construction what is in there 

for family housing allows us the flexibility to keep our plan on 

track with—obviously anything like barracks, training barracks, 


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family housing, is going to get done over time, but right now I believe we are funded at an appropriate track. 

BASE REALIGNMENT AND CLOSURE

Mr. WAMP. You talked about BRAC—in your opening statement, 

is there anything on BRAC from the Army’s perspective that we 

need to know about? We had studies, hearings a month ago where 

our 2011 deadline is going to be met for the most part, but there 

are some sites that are going to slip, somewhat. We found that out 

along the way. But from your perspective, BRAC is on track, and 

the Army has what it needs in terms of the realignment? 

General CASEY. We do. And the only thing I would ask the committee to look at is, we need the 2010 BRAC funding on schedule. 

If we get that on schedule we will meet the target. 

Mr. WAMP. On time. 

General CASEY. On time—in October. 

SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE RATIO

Mr. WAMP. And you talked about predictable performance. Catch 

us up. We had General Petraeus several weeks ago and how the 

Commander in Chief made the decision that he has made relative 

to Iraq and Afghanistan. Catch us up on what you foresee where 

ratios of performance for men and women in the United States 

Army, this year, next year, the year after. I know last year you 

said 3 to 1 is what is sustainable. We are nowhere near that. When 

do we get there? When can we get to a more sustainable performance ratio for our troops based on the new paradigm in the Obama 

administration based on the published statements that we know or 

the changes that we have already seen? 

General CASEY. I alluded to that a bit in my opening statement, 

Congressman, but our original plan was that we would sustain 

about 15 brigade deployed—based on that plan and on our 

growth—we estimated that we would get not quite to 1 year out, 

2 years back ratio. 

If we execute the President’s plan, we will actually, we would be 

about the same in 2009, in terms of ratio—we will actually get almost to 2 years back and almost to 21⁄2 years back in 2011. It 

doesn’t quite get us to the 1 to 3 that I would like to be at, but 

it gets us to a more sustainable ratio faster than I thought we 

would. Now, you always think that there is something else out 

there, and we know that other combatant commanders have requirements for forces to do things that they have not been able to 

meet because they have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

So that is where we have work to balance. But right now, knock 

on wood, draw-down plan executed about on schedule—we are in 

a much better position from a ratio—than we would have been 

without it. 

Mr. WAMP. That is it for me. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Farr. 


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IMPACT OF DECLINING CONSTRUCTION COSTS ON MILITARY

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, General Casey, for your lifelong career and public 

service in the military and for your leadership, and frankly, for 

your really well and concise briefing of the committee this morning. 

I wanted to follow up on the chairman’s question on the FYDP. Is 

there going to be some slippage of construction projects that will 

be needed in a timely fashion. 

When will we know that, because what we have been able to do 

in the past is move other projects up? And I guess intertwined with 

that is, what is the impact of the economy on this as far as the decline in construction? How is that affecting the cost of military construction? 

I think it was just last year that you were talking about the fact 

that the prices of materials had just accelerated along far greater 

than the bids and expectations, and I wondered, now, is that a reverse now? Are those prices coming down? Is it more affordable to 

do construction now? 

General CASEY. If I could ask you to take the second part of that 

question—on the first part. What we would like to be able to do 

is sit down with the committee and look at the installations. And 

that these three brigade combat teams are going to go to and identify the projects that need to continue. Basically, could be in effect, 

going forward from the out years—still needed to billet soldiers and 

units at those installations. And then probably by the end of summer, I would hope, we would be able to come back with a final, a 

more final basing plan. So that we could effect the rest of this. But 

we would like to work with you on that as we go forward. 

Mr. FARR. When do you think we will know that? I mean, before 

our final markup? 

General CASEY. When do you plan to mark? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, we don’t know for sure, but our goal, for the 

reasons you have mentioned in terms of the importance of timing, 

our goal is to definitely have a bill to the president by the first of 

October. So we will do markup possibly some time this month. Do 

we have a date set up? Okay, more likely, then, June, for markup, 

but we will still have time in conference committee to adjust that 

as late as, potentially, September. 

General CASEY. I would think that by September we should be 

able to have a more concise laydown of where we are going to go 

with this. I believe that we can work together to do the right thing 

for the—and the installations—and the soldiers so those places are 

not at a disadvantage. 

JOINT DOD-VA CLINIC IN MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

Mr. FARR. We believe so strongly in the quality of life and talk 

about it in this committee. We have probably 6,000 or 7,000 uniformed people on the Monterey Peninsula who are either going to 

DLI or to the Naval Postgraduate School. And we have been trying 

to develop a joint clinic with the Veterans Administration and 

DOD. I would really appreciate it if you could put in a good word— 

this clinic is really cost effective. The Army is doing a cost analysis 


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right now. The VA is going to build it, and I would really love to 

see it as a joint clinic. But there are questions of whether you are 

going to do this jointly. 

It makes a lot of sense to be built right in the footprint of where 

the Army community is, where the military community is, and it 

really is part of providing full service to the families of the soldiers 

there. 

General CASEY. I know that we have been looking at it. I know 

there was a team out there in April—working with the V.A. I am 

told that by June we should be able to take this to the next level. 

Mr. FARR. Okay. Thank you. By June? 

General CASEY. By June, that is what I am told. 

Mr. FARR. Maybe you can put in a good word and move it up a 

little. Thank you. 

I have some other questions regarding DLI, and Naval post-graduate school, but I will put those in the next round. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Casey, first of all I want to say how glad I was to see 

you in Germany—and had a nice visit, and that was very nice. 

General CASEY. Were you on the broken plane? 

Mr. CARTER. I was on the broken plane. We appreciate the visit 

we had. 

We thank you for what you do. You do a great job. 

I think this is part of what they are saying, I couldn’t hear what 

people were saying on this and, so I guess I am getting old. 

ARMY FUNDING PRIORITIES

The—expenditures we are talking about—BRAC implementation 

grow the Army, and FCS—I couldn’t hear what you were saying. 

You were talking about prioritization of those sometime in the fall, 

so we can get some idea of how the Army will prioritize these 

major programs? 

General CASEY. I would tell you, Congressman—BRAC is the 

law, so we are going to do that before we do anything else. But I 

would tell you, the BRAC, the new posturing, the growth of the 

Army, and the modular conversions are all so tightly intertwined 

and on such a tight schedule of units deploying over and back that 

it is really hard to prioritize beyond that. And we are really at the 

point now where we are executing, and any change to the priority 

or inside of that model has second-and third-order effects; it just 

will drive us crazy. So we are in execution mode right now, and all 

of this is so closely tied together, and we can deliver on the schedule that we are looking for here, getting BRAC done by 2011. 

ARMY POLICY ON PROSELYTIZING

Mr. CARTER. Well, I appreciate that answer. I guess they are all 

priorities, is what you are saying, and that tells us where we have 

to go. And I appreciate that. I am going to have to recognize the 

quality of life issue that came up today in conversation in a meeting I had. About the fact that the United States Army seized a 

bunch of bibles—in Afghanistan and destroyed them. Can you tell 

me the Army’s policy on destroying religious works of all faiths? 


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General CASEY. I am not familiar with the event. Our policy in 

the Army is certainly not to destroy bibles. The issue—— 

Mr. CARTER. Actually—I raise the issue with a soldier who 

shipped bibles to Afghanistan—he brought them to a bible study— 

printed in the Afghan language—they were seized and shredded 

and burned, I understand. So I was wondering if there is a policy 

to destroy religious works if they are being used for proselytizing? 

General CASEY. I would absolutely check on that. 

Mr. CARTER. We need to be fair across the board with all religious documents. I do have a problem with destruction of these bibles. 

General CASEY. I will look into it and get back to you—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is that all—okay. 

Mr. Salazar. 

AFGHANISTAN

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And General Casey, thank you so much for your service to our 

country. I think you and I have visited a little bit about, you know, 

what your thoughts are on the stay in Afghanistan, how long it has 

going to be, or what your thoughts are on that. 

Do you see us building permanent medical facilities in Afghanistan over the next few years? And also, if you could also address, 

during this transition time do we have adequate medical facilities 

to treat our soldiers—warriors? 

General CASEY. I don’t see us building any permanent facilities 

in Afghanistan. I believe we may upgrade some of the medical facilities that are there now to a more durable commission. But our 

policy is not to build any permanent facilities. 

With regard to your other question—is there adequate medical 

support there—I believe there is, and I believe with the addition 

of the additional troops there will be sufficient medical assets that 

come in with them to make sure that all soldiers in Afghanistan 

have adequate medical support. 

You should know that we have been working on issue on 

Medivac and whether or not the same—there was a similar standard in Afghanistan to Iraq and what the ongoing combat—brigade—there are additional medical evacuation helicopters with 

that unit that will help us to get the ratios—and so, we the services, pride themselves in their battlefield medical care. And 90 percent of the men and women who make it to a medical facility survive their injuries. And it is major improvement, and it is absolutely critical to sustain this force over the long haul. And so I am 

confident that we will have the appropriate medical facilities there 

for all of the forces that go in. 

Mr. SALAZAR. And, sir, do you think we are doing an adequate 

job of transition of our soldiers here and training them properly to 

go to the new front of Afghanistan? I mean, it is a kind of different 

warfare than it was in Iraq, so—— 

General CASEY. I do. In fact, I was at the joint-readiness training 

center less than a month ago looking at one of the units that had 

been remissioned from Iraq to Afghanistan. And I just visited in 

Afghanistan the 3rd brigade of the 10th mountain, who was the 

first unit to be remissioned from Iraq to Afghanistan, and they 


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were already there. And we were able to adapt their training plan 

after they had been through their major training exercise, to give 

them the skills they needed. And the leaders that I have talked to 

have felt that they have had the skills to succeed in Afghanistan. 

The environments are different, but the ways of operating and 

the tactics are quite similar. And the other thing that helped the 

3rd brigade of the 10th mountain was that a third of the folks had 

been there before. And so they understood the environment. We 

continually adapt our training at our training centers to ensure 

that they stay relevant to the environment the soldiers are going 

to. I am confident that our soldiers are getting the training that 

they need. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Well, we appreciate that very much. And also, I 

just want to commend you on the importance of our soldiers being 

able to stay home for a certain period of time before they are redeployed, and I do appreciate that very much. I know it is really important to many of our troops. 

Once again, thank you very much, and I yield back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

JOINT CARGO AIRCRAFT

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, thank you 

for your service. It is awkward since you don’t have the numbers 

for the—this year’s budget. It is a little disappointing—we are 

going to hear from the Navy this afternoon too without having 

budget numbers. 

I know you can’t talk specifically about things, but I want to ask 

you—there is a program called the Joint Cargo Aircraft—and it is 

about a $3 billion program. There are a lot of rumors flying around 

that it is only going to be funded at maybe half the level—half as 

many airplanes as originally talked about. And it is a joint program between the Army and the Air Force, and the Army, it is 

probably more important, and I think the Air Force is going to be 

in charge, and the rumor is that the Army should be in charge— 

that you have to have as many planes under the supervision of the 

Air Force. But, can you tell us, how, in your view, what requirements, what needs that the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) fill. 

General CASEY. I can’t, and you are right, I can’t confirm or deny 

the rumors. The requirement was designed to fill what we call the 

last tactical mile. The ability to get into a smaller airfield than a 

C–130 with supplies to resupply our brigades. That requirement for 

the Army still exists. I will tell you my personal view, and it is one 

I have shared with the chief of staff of the Air Force, is that I don’t, 

the Army, I don’t necessarily need to fly those missions; I just need 

to have the service. And so there has been the discussion, really 

for the last 18 months or so between us and the Air Force about 

what is the best way to do this. And we have not resolved that, but 

we are continuing toward that. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. We would, I guess, in Afghanistan, it would be, 

in places like that, really important—— 

General CASEY. Absolutely. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. The helicopters—they don’t do it as well—there 

is so much demand—— 


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General CASEY. We are spending about $8 million a month to 

contract with that type of aircraft support in Afghanistan. And so, 

again, the requirements exist. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. So nothing is really—nothing has changed in 

terms of your requirements and needs. 

General CASEY. That is correct. 

ARMY NATIONAL GUARD

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. A quick question about the National 

Guard. Actually, about how important they are to the Army’s allvolunteer force. And their undertaking a lot of missions that we 

didn’t ever imagine them undergoing. It is an incredible job. And 

also I can tell you, from states like Florida, they have a lot of work 

that they need to take care of back home, in terms of disaster relief, hurricanes. I don’t think we would have recovered from the 

hurricanes we had had it not been for the National Guard. 

Can you tell us—we talked about the equiping levels for the National Guard—to about 60 percent. Has any progress been made? 

And what would you say the equipment level is today? 

General CASEY. Progress has been made, Congressman. And I 

would just tell you that we could not do what we are doing today 

without the contribution of our Guard and reserves. And there are, 

I believe the average is between 60 and 70,000 Guardsmen and reservists mobilized over the last year. And it has been that way for 

several years—45 percent of our Guard and reserve are combat veterans. That is a fundamental equivalent. And we are working 

closely with the Guard, particulary, on their equipment. We have 

developed a program of identifying what we call ‘‘dual-use equipment.’’ And that is equipment that we need to work on mission, but 

also used for state needs. And that has been our priority. And I 

want to say we are about 80 percent—so we have got to about 80 

percent of the dual-use equipment average across all of the states. 

We are headed toward at least 90 percent, and we believe when we 

get there, that combined with something that we are trying to do— 

and this is really hard—but we are trying to array the Guard units 

on the rotation chart in a way that leaves a sufficient proportion 

of soldiers in every state in the event of state emergencies. 

And that is a Rubix Cube. So I commit to working on that. It is 

not going to be 100 percent. But those two things, I think, combined, are going to give the governors the support they need to do 

missions while we continue to employ the Guard overseas. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Bishop. 

AFGHANISTAN

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. 

Welcome, again, General. I would like to follow up on Mr. 

Crenshaw’s inquiry regarding the C–27, the Army and the Air 

Force. 

You mentioned $8 million a month for contractors. Is that adequate in order to provide a timely supply for our troops, particularly in Afghanistan? 


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General CASEY. Our troops are getting the supplies that they 

need. 

Mr. BISHOP. At the additional expense? 

General CASEY. At additional expense. And frankly, we are doing 

a lot of it with our CH–47 helicopters. And so, any kind of fixedwing support takes the load off of our helicopters. Now with the 

new aviation brigade going into Afghanistan, there will be more of 

those available, as well. 

I am not concerned with an immediate problem of improving support to our troops in Afghanistan. They are getting the support 

that they need, and that is a good thing. 

Mr. BISHOP. All right. We will visit at another time. 

BASE REALIGNMENT AND CLOSURE

Back to BRAC. In your testimony you describe in detail how important BRAC is to the effectiveness of the Army for the future, 

and I agree with you. But I am concerned that the Department of 

the Army has somewhat ignored and underfunded some of the 

major infrastructure needs, particularly school construction for 

communities, that are upticked as a result of BRAC. 

This has grown repeatedly urgent as the time comes and as our 

troops are beginning to move and their families are beginning to 

move. Yet we still seem to be in a logjam with the Department of 

Defense and what they are doing to help these communities with 

school constructions. Can you tell me whether the department really feels that it is its responsibility or is it being passed off to somebody else? Because it would seem that there is a moral responsibility on our part and on the department’s part to help these local 

communities. 

General CASEY. Well, we don’t have a direct role in—all of these 

installations that are affected by BRAC—what I have is a very 

good joint effort between the base and the community in terms of 

identifying numbers of children coming in and out. 

Mr. BISHOP. Right. But the amount of Impact Aid is minuscule 

compared to what the community needs are, and that is the point. 

The Education Subcommittee controls Impact Aid; Defense and 

MILCON deal with the other parts of the logistics. 

Somehow we must break that logjam. I think this subcommittee, 

along with Defense, is really working on it, but I just want to keep 

it on the table. 

Let me move to another—— 

General CASEY. And are very supportive of that, because educating our children is a critical element in terms of sustaining this 

force. 

Mr. BISHOP. That is quality of life, and it relates to a lot of the 

other issues—suicide and mental health for child dependents of our 

military. 

HOSPITALS

The other matter I want to touch upon is the recently funded rebuilding of Martin Army Community Hospital, which is one of the 

oldest in the Army’s ongoing inventory. There is a large veterans 

population in that area, and Mr. Farr mentioned the co-location of 

DoD and V.A. facilities. 


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We have been in discussions with V.A. as well as with the Army 

about the possibility of expanding the mission of Martin Army to 

be a co-located hospital for the DoD, the Fort Benning community 

for active duty and retired and families, as well as for V.A. Can I 

get you to put in a good word for that, also? 

General CASEY. As a result of the war transition effort, we work 

very closely with all of our hospitals in the Veterans Administration. I am not particularly familiar with the relationship at Fort 

Benning, but I will put in a good word for that. 

Mr. BISHOP. We have talked with the military medical folks and 

the V.A. medical folks about it. They all seem to consider it an idea 

worth exploring. An inquiry by you as chief of staff of the Army 

would be helpful, and certainly a good word, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, General. I am sorry I missed your opening statement. 

First of all, I wanted to say that we appreciate very much the 

funding for the Warriors in Transition Complex at Fort Lewis. 

I guess it is in the supplemental, right Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is correct. 

Mr. DICKS. In the supplemental. And, you know, we have the 

same problem out at Fort Lewis that Congressman Bishop is talking about. We have a growing force; we have schools that were 

built by, I think, the military. I think we have the Office of Economic Adjustment coming out there. 

These schools now are 50 or 60 years old, and they need to be 

repaired, or they need to be fixed or replaced. So I think this is a 

bigger issue than can be handled by Impact Aid in the defense 

budget, which is about, what is it—$15 million. That is not anywhere near adequate to take care of the problem. 

So I am concerned that we have to focus on this. You know, 

whether we have to go into authorization or how we have to do 

this, but we are getting to a point where these schools are no 

longer adequate, and these are the schools that the Soldiers’ children are going to. 

And there have been issues about ownership, that some of them 

are owned by the Department of Education and some of them are 

owned by the local school district. The bottom line is, this is now 

becoming a problem that I think deserves your attention. So I want 

to weigh in with this, because it is a big problem at Fort Lewis. 

The other thing I just wanted to mention, something I have been 

interested in over the years, is the George and Carol Olmsted 

Foundation. Are you aware of this? Olmsted. O-L-M-S-T-E-D. 

As of 2008, the foundation has a goal of selecting 10 officers each 

from the Army, Navy, and Air Force and five from the Marine 

Corps. I think they selected a smaller group. But I would just mention some things about the Olmsted scholars. Abizaid was an 

Olmsted scholar. 

They learn a foreign language fluently, experience a foreign culture in depth—they spend a year in the country—study formal subjects broadly, earn a master’s degree routinely, travel a foreign 

country and region extensively, meet foreign citizens continually, 

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pare thoroughly to be effective as future leaders, Abizaid being an 

example. What do you think of this program? 

General CASEY. I think it is a great program. I think it is one 

of a number of programs that we are actively seeking to put our 

junior officers in. Because as we look at the complexities of the security environment that we are facing now, and we are sure to continue to face in the future, we need leaders that aren’t just competent in their core proficiencies, but are broad enough to do a 

range of things. And everything you mentioned that those fellows 

do, it speaks of a broad vision. And that is exactly the type of officer that we are trying to create. 

Mr. DICKS. Is the foundation completely supported by the family 

foundation, or does the government put some money into this? 

General CASEY. I don’t know the answer to that. I can find out. 

Mr. DICKS. It just seems to me this is a worthy program. This 

might be something that would benefit from some federal support— 

and no one has ever asked me to even consider this—but, I think 

this is a great program. I think for a small investment we might 

be able to ensure this opportunity is available even if the value of 

the foundation declines because of the economic circumstances. It 

might be something that we can help from the Government’s perspective. But you take a look at that. 

What about future combat system? You have been a huge supporter of it. You know, the Secretary of Defense has made certain 

statements. What can you tell us about where we are with this program? 

General CASEY. I can’t tell you more than the secretary has said 

publicly until you get the budget. But he has directed us to continue with what we call the spin outs. Basically, continue with the 

network and anything in the program except for the manned 

ground vehicle—and he has directed us to stop the manned ground 

vehicle and relook the requirement and then restart it. And so that 

is what we are doing. As you can see from his statements, he was 

not convinced that we had fully taken into account the lessons of 

7 years at war in building the manned ground vehicle. 

Again, he supports every other element of the program but that. 

And so that is the direction that we will proceed. And we are on 

a track to redo that requirement, starting from a blank piece of 

paper—not completely blank—because we have leveraged significant technological insights from the program. And we know what 

the safe technology with respect to any kind of ground vehicle technology. So we will build on that, and we will develop a requirement 

by the end of this year and put it out for contract. Meanwhile, we 

will continue with the rest of the program. We feel the rest of the 

program will affect all of our brigade combat teams, which I think 

was one of the major sticking points when we started in this program. We intended to spend an awful lot of money for fewer than 

15 brigade combat teams. And as we looked at that ourselves, that 

didn’t appear to be the right way to go. So now we are affecting 

every brigade combat team in the Army with the technologies that 

have come out of this program. So we have got an awful lot of good 

out of this. We will get a ground combat vehicle from the program 

with the restart. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 


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DRAWDOWN OF TROOPS IN IRAQ

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

We will now begin the second round. 

General Casey, let me ask about the present timing of the drawdown of soldiers from Iraq. I assume that was not built in the fiscal 

year 2009 budget request, because the new president still was not 

in office and had not put in place the policy that we have. 

Did the fiscal year 2010 budget assume the present drawdown 

rates of our troops in Iraq, mitigated by the buildup in Afghanistan, in terms of troop housing and barracks? Fundamentally, what 

I want to get to is this: Are we are going to have troops coming 

back from Iraq that don’t have barracks to live in and adequate 

housing? 

General CASEY. No, let me explain. First of all, the assumptions 

in the 2010 OCO take into account the—levels of the drawdown. 

I am pretty sure of that. We are actually getting, this week, from 

General Odierno, the specifics of, and we will then take that back 

and put it against our construction plans and to do exactly what 

you say. I can’t tell you 100 percent that we are there yet because 

we are just getting the specifics of the details. 

Mr. EDWARDS. By the way, for the record, one of the reasons 

sometimes we have these so-called commercial earmarks is, military conditions change from the time the administration budget is 

put together and our commanders on the ground support the need 

for adjusted budgets, but because it wasn’t in the formal annual 

administration budget request it is defined as an ‘‘earmark,’’ and 

some of the citizens against government waste groups then accuse 

Congress of adding unneeded projects. So, I couldn’t pass up that 

opportunity to get that into the record. 

IMPACT AID

On Impact Aid, let me just follow up on what Mr. Bishop said 

and Mr. Dicks said, because I know Judge Carter has faced the 

same situation at Fort Hood as I did when I had the privilege of 

representing Fort Hood. We have been kicking this can around, 

and nothing has really happened as a result. 

I remember at Fort Hood, for example, the cities of Killeen and 

Copperas Cove literally were at the state maximum tax rate allowed by state law. They couldn’t increase the tax rate anymore, 

and so while Impact Aid provides funding once the students are in 

school and buy Part A, Part B reimbursement, there is not part of 

Impact Aid that has any significant funding for construction. 

And perhaps we need to work with the Department of Health 

and Human Services, or the Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee to figure a way through this, because while it 

is not under our jurisdiction, it certainly, as you have referenced, 

it certainly impacts the morale of Army families. They come back 

home from their third tour of duty in Iraq and their kids are having to sit in a classroom of 45 students rather than 25 students because there just wasn’t the local construction budget. 

So I hope we can work through this. I think there has been a 

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lems are real; I have just not seen any solutions yet, and your leadership would help there. 

Finally—I will wait until the third round, if we get to that, because there is not enough time. My question in the third round 

would just be to get your general analysis, having commanded both 

the national forces in Iraq, 2004 to 2007, what is your overall analysis is of where we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But I will 

defer that to the third round. 

Mr. Wamp. 

UNSOLICITED ASSISTANCE

Mr. WAMP. In January when I visited General Chiarelli—your 

lovely wife, General Casey, and others, where we discussed the 

statutory impediments to outside groups, nonprofits, and businesses, in our country that want to help both wounded warriers 

and military families. And it was actually said as we were talking 

about ways for our free enterprise system, besides the employers 

of the Guard or reservists, that very much want to help our military families, knowing that this is an ongoing struggle with 

unsustainable rotations in deployment. And they want to help. 

Apparently, there are still some impediments in the statute. And 

I was wondering if this is the year for us to try to include language 

or even a new free-standing bill that would actually break down 

some of those barriers so that outside entities can support our military if they want to. Now, we have asked the Army to give us some 

language, and we have looked at it. But there is still concern, I 

think, about sole source contracting, and things that they are 

afraid it might violate. And so, Public Law 109–148 in DoD 5500 

7–R—enables injured and ill service members and their family 

members to receive unsolicited gifts from nonfederal entities. 

We know this is law and no one argues this, but apparently it 

is not enough. And that is what I want to try to get through here. 

So we want to know what else the Congress can do to remove these 

barriers to enable support. And then ask you, General Casey, if you 

are able, when things are provided, to provide logistics or transportation, lets say, if somebody gives Little Debbie snack cakes. I don’t 

know, that is what my district does. But are you then able to support the transfer of these goods to our military families or to our 

wounded warriers. 

Those are two groups that I know from listening that a lot of 

people want to help. But apparently there are some impediments 

in the law. And are we at a point yet of knowing exactly how we 

can take that down. I know that the language that you provided 

basically gives the authority to the secretary to allow these 

things—— 

General CASEY. You are exactly right. And I would like to work 

with you to figure out what we need to do to change it. Because 

I get this all the time, traveling all around the country. Folks want 

to help. And we tie ourselves in knots because of the laws that you 

refer to. 

I would like to work with you personally to break these barriers 

down. Because we have been doing this 7 years, and we ought to 

be able to figure it out. 


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Mr. WAMP. And I still think the biggest issue is solicited versus 

nonsolicited. I mean you can’t go out ethically and ask for a bunch 

of stuff. But if comes unsolicited, I mean, that is where there is just 

a pent-up demand of assistance. And I know that we can take more 

help. And when I go out and meet the military families, there are 

a whole lot of needs that a lot of people could fill without us having 

to appropriate the money. And I sure would like to help close this. 

Mr. Secretary, do you have a comment on this? 

VOICE. We will take it back and work on it. The appearance of 

conflict issue—we haven’t crossed—— 

General CASEY. Let’s do this. It will take us—we have been playing with this for too long. 

Mr. WAMP. Let’s try to do it this year. We have the same problem here. The pendulum swings back and forth. So long as there 

is transparency. It is ridiculous that we can’t go to lunch with certain people, but that is the way it is. The pendulum swings back 

and forth. Let’s try to find some logical middle ground. And then 

write some language that allows these outside groups to contribute 

to these unbelievable Americans and their families. Which is the 

main thing we are all about is the families. You have got the troops 

under your command, we are supposed to support these families. 

This is one way to do it. 

Okay. We will work together. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. Good idea. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Yes, just to follow up on that. I hope you will look into 

donations, for example, like books for schools, if there is space 

available on aircraft. 

We really had a hard time getting some books to schools in the 

Peace Corps. Sometimes the military could take it and other times 

it couldn’t. I would appreciate it if you looked into that. 

LANGUAGE TRAINING

We have had some interesting hearings. We had General Abizaid 

here a few years ago, and he said something really profound that 

I think you would agree with. He told the committee that we can 

not win the peace until we learn to cross the cultural divide. 

And there is a lot of, ‘‘Now, interesting, but how do we cross the 

culture divide?’’ One is by understanding the languages and the 

country. 

General Patraeus was here a couple weeks ago and saying the 

same thing. There is this whole of government effort to build the 

civilian reconstruction and stabilization corps, and corps competency. 

The military and the Army, for a long time, has had foreign area 

officers, FAOs. The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey has a 

center for FAOs. Do you know where you are training Army FAOs 

and is there any possibility that you could look into sending more 

of those folks to the Naval Postgraduate School? With the Defense 

Language Institute also located in Monterey, albeit with different 

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We also have a Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction Studies there so it seems to me, that we need to get them all integrated 

and what we need is the Mos. I wonder if you have any thoughts 

on, do you know where the FAOs are trained now by the Army? 

General CASEY. Well, as a former FAO, I can speak from personal experience. I was originally, actually, scheduled to go to BLI 

for Japanese language training right out of grad school. And about 

half way through grad school I get changed to go to Yokohama, at 

the foreign service institute there, to study the Japanese language 

there. I didn’t wind up going, but that is the kind of the things that 

we do. I will get back to you with exactly where we train our candidates for language training, but I think we try to—— 

Mr. FARR. It is not just language training. It is the area studies 

as well. 

General CASEY. For example, in my area of studies, I went to— 

and I would prefer to do that because of the exposure that it gives 

to things outside the military. And, I know we graduate students 

at a lot of different schools. 

Mr. FARR. The Navy school has been curious to why the Army 

hasn’t sent more students. 

General CASEY. We actually, special forces has a program where 

they send special forces out there—— 

Mr. FARR. The other issue, I was briefed on earlier in this year 

by the Army civilian leadership is that in the out-year projections 

for the DLI starting in 2011 and 2012, there is going to be a student enrollment decline. I can’t imagine why there would be declining enrollment in a time when we need these languages more than 

ever. And to grow the Army, I think this is part of your ad,—— 

General CASEY. My staff passed that on, and I checked it, and 

there is no—— 

Mr. FARR. It is a rumor? 

General CASEY. I would categorize it as a rumor. Again, I 

checked the data and was told that they are not expecting to be 

in decline. 

Mr. FARR. I would hope that we would be growing linguists. How 

do you feel about this contracting out for linguists. This is becoming very controversial. 

General CASEY. Right now, I don’t think we have any choice; I 

guess we build up our pool of people who have the critical attributes. One of the interesting programs that we have just started 

here is being able to enlist with us soldiers, people who are green 

card holders, who have critical language skills in the critical areas. 

And bring them, and allow them to come in immediately for citizenship. And I just enlisted about a dozen of those folks up in 

Times Square in New York about a month ago. These are folks that 

have, out of a dozen, there were four masters and eight baccalaureate degrees. And they all spoke at least two languages. So it 

is a good deal. 

Mr. FARR. Good. Congratulations. I appreciate that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Farr. 

Members, just to clarify the order of questioning on round two, 

we will go to Mr. Crenshaw next, then Mr. Dicks, then Judge 

Carter, and then Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 


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Mr. CRENSHAW. I have nothing to add. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Why don’t we go to Mr. Bishop? I think he was ahead 

of me. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. In round two we base it on what order you 

appear, but if you—— 

Mr. DICKS. I would yield to him. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. DICKS. He had a grimace that I was worried about. [Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Bishop. 

EVACUATION TIME FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN VS. IRAQ

Mr. BISHOP. I was unaware of the grimace. But thank you, Mr. 

Dicks, for yielding. 

General Casey, I would like to ask you to discuss for a moment 

the medical evacuation pertaining to our wounded warriors in Afghanistan as compared to Iraq. For some time now, we have been 

aware of the fact that, because of the terrain and the district’s requirements in Afghanistan, the evacuation time to get wounded 

warriors to the hospital is significantly longer in Afghanistan than 

in Iraq. 

We were informed that steps were undertaken to shorten that 

timeframe. Could you update us on where we stand on that now? 

How will that be impacted by the additional flow of troops? 

General CASEY. This is something that the secretary of the Army 

actually picked up on, oh, 5, 6 months ago. And, frankly, there 

were not enough helicopters in Afghanistan to allow them to meet 

the standards. But having done this in Iraq, it is just a function 

of helicopters. It is where you position your surgical teams, and it 

is how you risk assess every mission. 

And so with the deployment of the second combat aviation brigade into Afghanistan, the resources that they need to bring the 

time from pickup to the level one station will come down. So we 

will be in much better balance. 

Mr. BISHOP. You have had to utilize, for the Army and the Marine Corps, call service like Air Force medevac units. Is that not 

so? 

General CASEY. Sure. We want to use all of the capabilities that 

are available to us. 

Mr. BISHOP. That will deplete the capacity for those particular 

units to perform their Air Force missions, would it not? Do we need 

to concentrate more on that? Do we have enough personnel? Do we 

need more people to specialize in that in the Army, or do you think 

that the joint supply is okay? The Air Force is now beginning to 

be stretched also, with regard to the deployments of medevac units, 

which takes them away from some of the other missions that they 

have been working on. 

General CASEY. I can’t speak for the Air Force, but I—two 

months ago directed a study of—basically it was a relook of the 

whole Army aviation package, based on the lessons that we have 

learned in the last 5 years. We did one in 2003. And that was pretty good. But boy, as you suggest, we have learned an awful lot over 

the last 5 years, and so I thought we needed to take a look at it 


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and update it, and medical evacuations by helicopters is one of the 

elements. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. 

Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Casey, back to what Mr. Crenshaw was talking about a 

minute ago. We have just come back from a dialogue with the EU, 

and it proves that we are still the sole military aircraft for manned 

troops for NATO and the EU, many of which have a large portion 

of that duty, but doesn’t the United States military provide that 

service for our allies? 

General CASEY. I can’t speak to whether we do it for all the allies. I know we do it for some allies. That is why I couldn’t speak 

to the scope of what you were addressing. 

MILITARY HOME SALES AND BENEFITS

Mr. CARTER. But there is a conversation in the EU about whether or not they should start buying those kinds of airplanes. 

Another thing, I met with some folks on Saturday night, and 

they were talking about home ownership among our soldiers—and 

the fact that they are being transferred. We recently put together 

a mortgage package that was passed through this Congress,—and 

it is my understanding that language in the package—restricts our 

soldiers from qualifying to get the $8,000 new house benefit because they lived in the old house less than 3 years. 

They are being transferred because of BRAC and other reasons. 

They bought a house less than three years ago and are having a 

hard time disposing of that house. Then they move to the new base 

and they are not getting the benefits of the mortgage package that 

we in Congress put together. I was wondering if you had heard of 

anything about the saleability of their homes, and if they could 

take advantage of some of the benefits we put forward in our most 

recent mortgage package or their inability to utilize those benefits? 

General CASEY. I have not heard that specific problem. I have 

heard of folks having challenges, particularly with that July 2006 

date, where you had to buy your house prior to that—— 

Mr. CARTER. The fact that you have to have bought the house before that. That is a real issue because an awful lot of them bought 

after then, and yet they are required to move and sell and get back 

into the market. 

General CASEY. Yes. I have heard that. I know that we are working on the implementation instructions in the Army Corps of Engineers, there is the executive agent for the department, and I think 

we expect to have those things out shortly. 

Mr. CARTER. You think that should be something we should address, maybe try to amend what we did? 

General CASEY. Let me get you the particulars so that we don’t 

launch on something here that is maybe taken care of in the instructions. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Very good. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Carter, any questions? Okay. 

Now the very sensitive and emphatic Mr. Dicks is recognized. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. Thank you. 


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General, on page two of your statement you go though a discussion of the situation we are facing with failing states and terrorism, and we know that our forces are being trained for counterinsurgency, basically. What isn’t being done? I mean, when you 

talk about readiness to fight a major conventional war, do we have 

any unit in the Army that is training to do that, or is everybody 

training for counterinsurgency? 

General CASEY. No. The majority of folks are working on counterinsurgency. But, in Korea, I visited the—— 

Mr. DICKS. Yes. Of course. 

General CASEY [continuing]. Standard North Korean scenario, 

conventional scenario. I visited them up in December and saw their 

after action revue. Recently, General Sharp conducted at one of his 

major annual exercises, the 3rd Corps from Fort Hood, went over 

there and played the counter-attacking corps. And so we are taking 

the opportunities when we can to keep those high-end conventional 

skills trained. 

Mr. DICKS. But it is pretty minimal, at this juncture—— 

General CASEY. Absolutely. 

Mr. DICKS. I mean, of these 45 brigades, how many of them have 

trained for full spectrum warfare, or conventional warfare? 

General CASEY. By—first of all, at low levels, company platoon 

and below, combat is pretty much combat, and so, we have a combat-seasoned force. And boy, there is great, great value in that. 

Where you get into the significant differences is at battalion level, 

lieutenant colonel level, colonel level and above. Where in counterinsurgency operations things play out very slowly, and you have to 

figure out trends over time rather than making snap decisions 

against an ememy formation that is attacking you. And you mass 

your fires very precisely against individual targets, where in conventional war you mass them against enemies and enemy formation. Those are the high-end integration skills that we are not 

training. 

Mr. DICKS. Things like artillery, I think, would that be part 

of—— 

General CASEY. Artillery integration is a great example of that. 

And so as we get more time at home, what I have told the Army 

is that if you are home for 18 months or less stay focused on the 

regular warfare. If you are home for 18 months or more, take some 

time to rekindle your conventional warfighting skills. But to do it 

in simulation because we have very good simulation—do it in a 

way that doesn’t drag the troops back out to the field, unnecessarily. 

And so, we will, as we expand our time at home, we will gradually rekindle those skills. But it will be faster, because this is combat-seasoned force. 

Mr. DICKS. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

Members, I think we have time for one more round. I still want 

to ask about Afghanistan-Pakistan, but something Mr. Wamp was 

talking about, citizens who want to help, prompted me to think 

about something I have wondered about for some time now, and I 

am not sure of the answer. Is there any federal program, or DOD 


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program that ensures college tuition for the children of the troops 

killed in combat or in service of the country? 

General CASEY. Beyond the V.A. benefits that come for schooling 

in general, I couldn’t say that there is one—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. So if they haven’t qualified with the new G.I bill— 

maybe they died, maybe they are a private and maybe they died 

after only 2 years of active duty, and they wouldn’t qualify for the 

new G.I. bill. 

I was just at an event several weeks ago where we dedicated a 

new Post Office in honor of the Marine veteran Sergeant John 

David Fry, and after he finished his tour of duty in Iraq, seven 

days from going home, he volunteered to go out and diffuse one 

more bomb—and the third bomb he diffused the enemy had hidden 

another bomb underneath that third bomb, and after serving, finishing his duty, his bags were packed, he gave his life for the country, his three children, all of whom were under the age of 10 when 

he died what about their college education if they choose to go to 

college. 

So I may follow up on that. It wouldn’t be under the direct jurisdiction of this committee, but again, this committee is so committed 

to quality of life issues. So it is something that maybe we could put 

together a public or a public-private partnership on that. 

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

With the 3 minutes I have, I know that is not much time, but 

could you give us an overview of your analysis of where we are in 

Afghanistan and in Pakistan? 

General CASEY. Well, I think what we are seeing in Afghanistan 

are the beginnings of the shift of emphasis from Iraq—emphasis of 

priority from Iraq to Afghanistan. The first of the brigades that 

were sent in to ensure that, to secure elections this August, is already on the ground there—and I must say, the folks on the 

ground there did a great job of preparing their bases, preparing 

their equipment, because they came in on the planes, got on their 

equipment, and went right into the fight, and made a significant 

difference. 

Down south, in the Khandahar area, the forces are continuing to 

come in. They will be in there prior to the August elections. 

Based on my experience, I believe that we have put sufficient 

forces there to ensure that there are secure elections in August. 

And I think that that will be a big plus for the Afghanis. 

As I look to the future, the Afghan army is about, size-wise, is 

about where the Iraqi army was in 2005. They are the same size 

country and about the same size population. The police, in Iraq, in 

2005, were about a year behind the army. In Afghanistan, they are 

several years behind the army. So we have a way to go to build 

up their security forces. There has been money put against that, 

so I would expect that to proceed. I expect it will take us 3 to 5 

years to bring the Afghan security forces to the point where they 

can take over. And the additional forces that we have there plus 

the existing Afghan forces, I think, can hold the levels of violence 

down to acceptable levels so that progress there can continue. 

On the civil side, and there has been some discussion about the 

civil support here, I mean, we need the political and economic inVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01097 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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vestments there to move the whole process forward. We have all 

been saying for years, you are not going to do this by military 

means, alone. And we need that political and economic investment 

to help them move along. 

Afghanistan is a several decade proposition. So my thought is 

that we need to bring the Afghan security forces to the point where 

they can take over. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Just to clarify, you don’t mean massive or significant numbers of U.S. troops being in Afghanistan for several decades? 

General CASEY. I don’t. But that is what I am saying. We have 

to bring the Afghan security forces up so that we don’t have to do 

that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General CASEY. You mentioned Pakistan. That is a critical part 

of the Afghan-Pakistan strategy. It is a much tougher nut, on the 

one hand because of the Pakistani desires for sovereignty. It is a 

sovereign country. And so they are wrestling with how much of our 

help they can accept. And they are going to have to do things their 

own way. And so it will just be a tougher challenge. My Pakistani 

counterpart was here a month or so ago. We had some discussions, 

and he is focused on doing more in the frontier provinces there 

against the terrorists. You read the papers like I do, and you can 

see what is happening there now. It is something that we all have 

to watch carefully. 

That is probably the toughest change that we have on the security front for the country. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you for your overview. I know it is limited 

time, but that overview is very helpful. 

Mr. Wamp. 

CASUALTIES IN IRAQ

Mr. WAMP. General Petraeus said to us—based on the increase 

in troops in Afghanistan the situation will get worse before it gets 

better. 

[Off mike] 

How many KIAs have we had since Memorial Day—how many 

combat related? Are we still sustaining in Iraq? It seems like the 

bombings are mostly directed at civilians and not necessarily our 

troops. 

General CASEY. The casualties in Iraq are significantly down. I 

can’t tell you in exact numbers, but everybody sees that, that they 

are significantly down. We are over 4,000 killed and 31,000 wounded since the war started there. And we all appreciate the sacrifices 

of the men and women both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. As you 

suggest, the casualties in Iraq are down substantially from where 

they were a year ago. 

Mr. WAMP. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

IMET

Mr. FARR. I had one question. It was interesting reading your 

background. How important to our Defense Department is the 


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International Military Education Training program, where foreign 

officers come to study here? 

General CASEY. It is hugely important. Every time I have a foreign counterpart visit, they ask for more folks. And I have focused 

on getting majors into CGSC and getting lieutenant colonels and 

colonels into our war college. 

Mr. FARR. General Patraeus said the same thing, and everybody 

says the same thing. The problem we have is that program for foreign military officers that is not funded by the Defense Department. It is funded by the State Department. We passed a budget 

that really squeezed the State Department’s budget. And I just told 

Norm that maybe we ought to use some Defense money to pay for 

the IMET program. 

General CASEY. General—from the Pakistani—chief of staff, is a 

graduate of Leavenworth. We just inducted him in the Leavenworth hall of fame. And he went out there, I think with 10, 12 of 

his classmates, and inducted him in. And that is the kind of relationships that we have—well, we just got lucky on that one. But 

there are many, many more like that out there. 

Mr. FARR. Well, the king of Jordan studied at the Naval Postgraduate School under that program—and I think it has incredible 

benefits, and I would hope that you might want to speak to Secretary Clinton about it because it is in her budget. And we need 

to figure out a way to get that program funded and without squeezing other programs. 

Along that same line, we have created—the military got ahead 

of the State Department in being able to create this Center for 

Training Stabilization and Reconstruction using NGOs, using our 

civilian forces and military, both ours and foreign military officers. 

You have got to come see this program. Send more officers for 

training. 

What is interesting is the Postgraduate School has this course 

set up for getting a Master’s degree in S&R, and there is a lot of 

interest particularly for officers coming back from Afghanistan and 

Iraq, because they see this program as a good career investment. 

The problem is the military hasn’t created an MOS for thie career parth. And what I keep hearing is, we have got people who 

want to come and then they look at the future and they say, ‘‘I got 

a master’s degree and this incredible background. Where do I go?’’ 

General Patraeus said it is a real problem for him because they 

want to get that training. And I wondered if you would look into 

that. I talked to Secretary Chu about it and he said, ‘‘You know, 

you have just got to figure out a way to—career in MOS’’—it is like 

an FAO—— 

General CASEY. It is kind of civil affairs. 

Mr. FARR. But it is not. 

General CASEY. But it is not exactly—— 

Mr. FARR. I would appreciate it if you could look into trying to 

get an MOS for people that have a master’s degree in Stabilization 

and Reconstruction studies. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you—— 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Bishop. 


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AFRICOM

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just ask you about the Africa Command, AFRICOM. Last 

budget cycle I think we funded some renovations to the headquarters in Germany, which were not all expended, as I understand, partially, because there is no decision made regarding 

whether the headquarters there will be permanent. 

I understand that the construction money will remain there. I 

am told by General Ward that regardless of whether AFRICOM 

moves to another location for headquarters, some utilization will be 

made of facilities there, thus justifying leaving that construction 

money in place. Of course, I am concerned about how that construction money will be spent. Also there were conditions for the 

ARCs—the area centers within Africa Command—but none of 

those countries was willing to allow us to do it; I understand whatever construction funds are there for those are not expended either. 

What do you see as the developing importance of the Africa Command, and how do you see the military construction needs developing in light of the 3-D policy—defense, diplomacy, and development? How will that impact us in terms of funding construction? 

General CASEY. I think the short answer is—I don’t know. But 

I was with General Ward in Mombasa, Kenya 10 days ago. And we 

were participating in a seminar with troops of armies from 

Kazakhstan all the way down to—and it was a handoff meeting between the African countries from Central Command, who were now 

moving over to Africa Command. 

And he personally has been all over that continent talking to the 

leadership, explaining to them that Africa Command does. And I 

thing you know they got off to kind of a rough start because people 

thought we were coming in to take over. And he has been tamping 

that down, and I think making very good progress. 

I went from there up to Djibouti to the Joint Task Force on Africa. And there are about 1,400 folks there and they are affecting 

every country in the Horn of Africa by deploying small teams of, 

really, noncommissioned officers, out there—treating cattle, treating people, drilling wells, and it struck me that that is the role of 

AFRICOM. I think that is where—— 

Mr. BISHOP. For development and diplomacy? 

General CASEY. Development and diplomacy. But small numbers 

making a big difference, and I have been very impressed with that. 

We talked briefly about the long-term plans for the headquarters, 

and I think, at best, I think that they are not done. At that time, 

Kip didn’t give me any indication that they were any closer to finding a place to go. Either for headquarters or for the regional commands on the continent. So I think that will probably be some 

time. But I don’t want to speak for him. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Members, any additional questions—— 

If not, General Casey, thank you for your distinguished 39 years 

of service in the Army and your leadership as the chief of staff of 

the Army. You were here as a resource witness today, and we know 

how hard you have worked every day on behalf of the quality of 


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life and military construction issues that we deal with, so we look 

forward to continuing to work with you. 

Thank you both for being here. We are adjourned. 


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WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009. 

U.S. NAVY, U.S. MARINE CORPS BUDGET 

WITNESSES 

ADMIRAL GARY ROUGHEAD, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS 

GENERAL JAMES T. CONWAY, COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I will call the subcommittee to order. 

And, Admiral Roughead, General Conway, thank you both for 

being back here. You certainly don’t need any introduction to this 

subcommittee. 

The only thing I would add to that is just, on behalf of our subcommittee and my family and all our families, thank you both for 

your incredible lifetimes of service and leadership to our country. 

We are deeply grateful to you. 

And, by the way, you would have been thrilled. Right after our 

morning meeting with General Casey, we had 32 World War II veterans in Texas that had come to Washington. 

There is a group that helped pay for them to come and see the 

World War II memorial, those that have never been here, never 

seen the World War II memorial. And I now know how we won 

World War II. Those guys are incredible, incredible—but you carry 

on in that tradition. And thank you. 

I would like to recognize Mr. Crenshaw, the ranking member, for 

any comments he would care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to add my words of welcome to you all. General, Admiral, thank you for your years of service. 

For me, in my district, the Navy and the Marines have a strong 

presence, I get to see these guys from time to time. And I appreciate all you do for the Navy and Marine Corps community. 

I think this subcommittee, everyone knows, tries to work together in a bipartisan way. Last year, we finished on time, and we 

look forward to doing that again. 

I must say, I am a little disappointed that we are having this 

hearing when we don’t have the Fiscal Year 2010 budget request, 

but that is just a function of the way things are going. But I am 

sure we will have a good discussion, and I look forward to working 

with you all to develop the kind of bills that we have in the past 

that provide for the families and men and women, our heroes. 

So thank you again. And I look forward to your testimony and 

questions. 

Thank you. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

And for the record, your full testimony will be submitted for the 

record. I would like to recognize Admiral Roughead for any opening 

comments you would care to make. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And then we will get into questions and answers. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL ROUGHEAD

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Chairman Edwards, thank you. And—Mr. 

Crenshaw, thank you. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. You can call me the ranking member. [Laughter.] 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Okay, the ranking member. I will do that. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. You know, I don’t get called that very often. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I will intersperse my comments many times. 

But it really is my honor to appear before you today and represent 

the dedicated Sailors and the civilians and our families of the 

United States Navy. 

And I appreciate the opportunity to testify about our Navy’s 

shore infrastructure and how essential it is to carrying out our 

Navy’s mission. Our families thrive, and our Sailors deploy, and 

our ships sail from our infrastructure ashore. 

For years, our increased operational demand, rising manpower 

costs, and aging fleet has compelled us to underfund shore readiness. Today, as a result our future shore readiness, particularly the 

recent recapitalization of our infrastructure, lags behind where I 

would like to be. 

This year’s military construction budget prioritizes critical requirements focusing on fleet readiness, quality-of-life issues, the 

elimination of excess infrastructure, quality standards across all installations, the maintenance required to achieve service life and 

low life-cycle costs, and, finally, the integration and refinement of 

shore planning capabilities and processes. 

On the issue of quality of life for our Sailors, Navy civilians, and 

Navy families, I am very thankful for your support and pleased 

with the progress that we have made in housing for our families. 

I am also extremely pleased to report the opening of our first unaccompanied housing privatization project, Pacific Beacon in San 

Diego. 

These quarters, Pacific Beacon, are the best enlisted bachelor 

quarters I have ever seen in my time in the Navy. With your support this year, we will construct new bachelor housing at Naval Air 

Station North Island, as well. 

I also want to thank you for your strong support for Navy children. Our Navy is leveraging Overseas Contingency Operations 

funding, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the fiscal year 2009 budget to build 17 new childcare development centers. 

In addition, with commercial contracts and military-certified inhome care, we will be able to increase childcare spaces by 7,000 

and respond to requests for childcare within 3 months and at 


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25,000 hours childcare and youth services, a resource that is invaluable to the families of our deployed Sailors. 

Beyond quality of life, our bases must adequately support the 

most sophisticated fleet in the world. We will perform major repairs for drydocks, Navy operational support center facilities, barracks, airfields, and utility infrastructure throughout the Navy to 

keep our shore facilities ready. These projects are possible thanks 

to your tremendous support throughout the—or through the ARRA. 

I will also be personally involved as we conduct our Quadrennial 

Defense Review, as the Navy considers Naval Station Mayport as 

a carrier homeport. This review in no way diminishes my support 

for either Norfolk or—of course, none of our infrastructure or 

equipment would run without energy. We have focused on energyrelated projects that will develop alternative and renewable energy 

sources and improve energy efficiency in all of our facilities. 

Most recently, the Recovery Act has enabled us to begin installation of advanced photovoltaic systems in Hampton Roads. We are 

going to continue to invest in energy research and development. 

With the 2010 budget, we will have the necessary resources to 

maintain the readiness of the fleet. 

I thank you again for your time today and for your continued 

support of our 600,000 Sailors, civilians, and our families who support us back at home. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Admiral. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Roughead follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. General Conway. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL JAMES T. CONWAY

General CONWAY. Sure. Chairman Edwards, ranking member, 

and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies. Thank you for 

the opportunity to report to you on the state of your Marine Corps. 

Our pledge is always to provide you a candid and honest assessment, and it is in that spirit that I appear before you today. 

Since testimony before your committee last year, progress in the 

Anbar Province in Iraq has been tremendous. Indeed, we think our 

Marines there are moving into the most long-awaited phase of operations, the reset of our equipment and redeployment of the force. 

In February, we had a Change of Command of the Multi-National Force-West in Anbar province. The commander of the MultiNational Corps, who was present at the event, commented that he 

believed this will be the last rotation of Marines in Iraq. We tend 

to agree. 

Having recently returned from a trip in theater, I am pleased to 

report to you that the magnificent performance of our young Marines and Sailors in the province, regardless of their task, continues. 

In Afghanistan, however, the Taliban have increased their activity. The 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, a force that will number over 10,000 Marines and Sailors, is en route and will meet the 

30 May latest arrival date. 

The 2nd MEB is deploying as a Marine Air-Ground Task force. 

They will operate under Regional Command South, primarily in 

the Helmand province, where 93 percent of the country’s opium is 

harvested and where the Taliban have been most active. This part 

of the country also includes a wide open stretch of border with 

Pakistan. 

We consider the operating environment in Afghanistan as well 

suited to our expeditionary ethos of being fast, austere and lethal, 

with emphasis on the austere. As our numbers grow in Afghanistan, Marines and their families have refocused their resolve to yet 

another crisis area on the map. 

There are many challenges ahead, but your Marines understand 

the effects of operations there will make this country safer. 

Our force remains resilient, despite an average deployment to 

dwell tempo that is slightly better than 1 to 1 in most occupational 

specialties. With your support, our growth of the force by 27,000 

Marines has proceeded ahead of schedule. We will easily reach the 

level of 202,100 Marines in our active component before the end of 

the fiscal year. 

Our growth has been achieved with no change in standards. Indeed, more than 96 percent of the young men and women who enlisted in our Corps during fiscal year 2008 had earned their high 

school diploma, a rate that exceeded the standard for the Department of Defense, at 90 percent, and our own self-imposed higher 

standard of 95 percent. 

We attribute our accelerated growth to four factors: quality recruiting; exceptional retention levels; reduced attrition; and, not 


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least, an incredible generation of young Americans out there who 

welcome the opportunity to fight for this country. 

The growth of our force does not just include personnel. It includes infrastructure, as well. In the past, we have placed operational priorities ahead of good housing for all Marines. With your 

support, we have recently been able to reverse that trend by expanding our efforts in military construction. 

Our warriors have no hesitation about life in an austere and expeditionary environment when deployed; however, they want their 

families to enjoy quality housing, schools and facilities while they 

are away. Single Marines rightfully expect to have clean and comfortable quarters when they are back home. 

Our number-one priority in military construction is now building 

new barracks to provide adequate bachelor housing for our entire 

force by 2014. We do appreciate the continued support of Congress 

toward this effort. 

We are deeply committed to the care and welfare of our wounded 

and their families. Our Wounded Warrior Regiment reflects this 

commitment through all phases of recovery. 

To assist in the rehabilitation and transition of our wounded, injured or ill, and their families, we have a Wounded Warrior Battalion on both coasts, at Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune. The 

headquarters of our Wounded Warrior Regiment is in Quantico. I 

would like to thank you all for your personal visits to our wounded 

warriors around the country and also overseas. 

Our great young patriots have responded magnificently and have 

written their own page in history. They know, as they go into 

harm’s way, that our country is behind them. Military construction 

that is commensurate with their needs and demonstrates a commitment to their families and is a tangible way of recognizing their 

sacrifice. 

On their behalf, I thank you for your enduring support. We 

pledge to be good stewards of the resources you provide and remain 

committed to the defense of this great land. 

Thank you once again for the opportunity to report to you today, 

sir. 

[The prepared statement of General James T. Conway follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. General Conway, thank you. And I am going to 

take part of my opening 5 minutes just to mention the name of a 

great Marine. You mentioned al Anbar Province, and—great young 

Marine in my mind. We dedicated a post office in his honor just 

a few weeks ago in my district, just a few miles from where I live, 

Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry. 

And he was a demolition expert, went out during his time in 

Iraq—I think he defused literally hundreds of bombs. And he had 

his bags packed, was less than 7 days away from coming home, had 

three children under the age of 10. And the call came in asking for 

a volunteer to go out to al Anbar Province and defuse some bombs 

that had been located at a roadside there. 

And he went out. And the third bomb he defused had a fourth 

bomb hidden underneath, which killed him. And as I looked at his 

three young children that day at the post office, I just thought this 

was why every one of us is so dedicated to supporting the quality 

of life for these great Americans. 

We know we can’t ever begin to replace those little children’s father or that widow’s husband, but we are going to do everything 

we can to provide the kind of quality of life that their families deserve. So thank you. 

I know that reflects the kind of spirit that we see in the Navy 

and the Marines throughout our country and throughout the world. 

INADEQUATE HOUSING

I just have one question that I would begin of each of you, and 

that is, do you have a number in terms of number of barracks and/ 

or family homes that don’t meet your respective Navy or Marine 

standards for—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. We, in the area of our family housing, have made the investments that we will be able to rectify all 

of the inadequate housing with the investments that we have 

made. So family housing, we are in good shape. 

With respect to the substandard category for our unaccompanied 

housing, I put that at about 42 percent. And that doesn’t mean 

that the accommodations are unsanitary or unsafe. They may be 

not sized properly or the square footage that we want, but I put 

the number at 42 percent of bachelor enlisted housing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And on the present budget glide path, when do 

you think the money will be committed to bring those up to standard? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. My intention, Mr. Chairman, is that we will 

have that done by 2016. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I hope, with some good luck, maybe this committee could compress that. I certainly hope so. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

General CONWAY. Sir, about 96 percent of our family housing at 

this point is PPV (Public-Private Venture). Of those units transferred, approximately 4,400 remain that are considered inadequate 

and these are being renovated, replaced or otherwise demolished by 

our partners. When completed in 2014, there will be no PPV housing units deemed inadequate. Of the remaining Marine Corps 

owned inventory, only two would by definition be considered inadVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01130 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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equate. These are General Officer quarters, deemed inadequate by 

definition that they require more than $50,000 for repairs, but are 

fully habitable. 

And we estimate that we have roughly 2,700 spaces which constitutes less than 4 percent of our total inventory that we would 

label as inadequate. As I said in the statement and as you have 

heard me say before, that has become a real priority for us, because we have waited until we were in extremis, I think, to respond to needs. We have over the FYDP about $1.52 billion of requests for construction associated with our barracks and family housing. If those 

requests are supported, then we will solve our problem, we think, 

by the end of the 5-year plan. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In fact, Admiral Roughead, if you wouldn’t mind, 

if you could give me a similar number for the Navy. What would 

it take to get all of your bachelor’s quarters up to Navy’s standards? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. It would sure be nice for us to know what that 

goal is. And perhaps we can compress some of these—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Sir, the figures that we are using is on or 

about $85 million in MILCON and then about $80 million a year 

throughout the FYDP for the maintenance costs that would be associated. So it is not an insignificant amount of money. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Crenshaw. 

HOMEPORTING NUCLEAR CARRIER AT NAVAL STATION MAYPORT

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Not only the ranking member this afternoon, but 

a great member of this subcommittee. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you very much. 

We are going to start out, Admiral Roughead, you mentioned in 

your opening statement the decision that the Navy made to homeport a nuclear carrier at Naval Station Mayport. 

And I know you made that decision after a 2.5-year study. You 

weighed all the strategic, operational, environmental consequences 

of the decision. 

And that report stated in pretty strong language that it is in the 

best interest of national security to have a second nuclear carrier 

homeport on the East Coast and that Naval Station Mayport was 

the best place to do that. 

I was a little disappointed—I got a call right before Easter from 

the Deputy Secretary of Defense that said that, in spite of the 

Navy’s decision, that that decision was going to be further reviewed 

as part of the Quadrennial Defense Review, (QDR), which is disappointing, because of all the study had gone into, decisions made. 

Last time I got a phone call like that was right before Christmas 

a few years ago, when the former Deputy of Secretary of Defense, 

who at the time was the Secretary of the Navy, called me to say 

that they were thinking about decommissioning one of the carriers 

and it could very well be the one that was in Mayport,—so when 

I get these kind of phone calls right before holidays, I have a new 


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policy at my office now. They don’t accept calls from high-ranking 

military officials anywhere near a holiday. 

But I know that the nuclear homeporting decision is going to be 

made as part of that QDR. And we don’t know exactly when we are 

going to get that. And we don’t know whether there will be some 

budget requests this time, because we haven’t seen it yet, in terms 

of some of the upgrades needed. 

But if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you just a couple of questions about that. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to just see if it is possible to submit 

the Navy Record of Decision in final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed homeporting of additional surface ships at 

Naval Station Mayport, Florida, in the official record? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. CRENSHAW. I am going to give you a couple of quotes from 

that report and just to see if that is still your view, if that is okay 

with you, sir. 

One, there is a quote that says, ‘‘Homeporting a nuclear carrier 

at Mayport would reduce risks to fleet resources in the event of a 

natural disaster, manmade calamity, or attack by foreign nations 

or terrorists.’’ Now, do you still believe that statement to be accurate? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir, I do. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I don’t want to sound like a lawyer, but it is 

hard for you to comment on a lot of these things, because they involve a bunch of FY 10 budget requests. 

Just two more questions. One other quote, it says, ‘‘The aircraft 

carriers of the United States Navy are vital strategic assets that 

serve our national interest in both peace and war. The President 

calls upon them for their unique ability to provide both deterrence 

and combat support in times of crisis.’’ 

‘‘Utilizing Naval Station Mayport to homeport a CVN enhancing 

operational readiness. Operational readiness is fundamental to the 

Navy’s mission and obligation to the commander-in-chief.’’ 

And I guess my question is: Do you still believe that statement 

is accurate and correct? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. I believe the ability for us to have 

flexibility in the positioning of our force is a good thing. Much of 

my perspective is based on having commanded out in the Pacific, 

where there were several options for basing a variety of our ships 

out there. And I think that flexibility is a very good thing. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. And this last statement alludes to that, as well. 

It says—the quote is, ‘‘The consolidation of CVN capabilities in the 

Hampton Roads on the East Coast presents a unique set of risks. 

CVNs assigned to the West Coast are spread among three 

homeports. Maintenance and repair infrastructure exists at three 

locations, as well.’’ 

‘‘As a result, there are strategic operations available to Pacific 

Fleet CVNs should a catastrophic event occur. By contrast, Naval 

Station Norfolk is a homeport to all five of the CVNs assigned to 

the Atlantic Fleet, and the Hampton Roads area is the only East 

Coast location where CVN maintenance and repair infrastructure 

exists.’’ 

‘‘It’s the only location in the U.S. capable of CVN construction 

and refueling. There are no strategic options available outside the 

Hampton Roads area for Atlantic Fleet CVNs should a catastrophic 

event occur.’’ 

And so the question, again, is: Is that still your view? Is that accurate? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir, it is accurate. All of our nuclear 

carrier infrastructure is now—on the East Coast—is now all in the 

Hampton Roads area. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. And time for one more question? Before I came 

to Congress, I was involved in providing financing for various companies around the country. And one of the things that we always 

used to look at was a cost-benefit analysis, and it involved evaluating risk. 


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And so the question, based on that report that took 2.5 years to 

come up with and was very thorough, the question becomes, when 

you decide—and we don’t know the number yet, because we don’t 

have the budget request, but, it is not inconsequential the amount 

of money that it is going to take to upgrade Mayport to be the 

homeport for a nuclear carrier. 

But is cost part of your risk analysis? I think I have figured up 

somehow, if you take the total cost of our carrier fleet, the total 

cost for MILCON and recurring cost is less than 1 percent. It 

would be less than 1 percent of the total value of our aircraft carrier fleet that you would be spending to avoid some of the risks 

that you talked about. 

Does that make sense to you in a cost-benefit analysis? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. Those are the similar numbers to 

what we looked at as we were going through our analysis. And, 

clearly, I think the QDR will dig into those numbers, and the analysis will be further examined. 

But those are the similar numbers that we developed as we were 

going through our—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. And I assume all that will be part of the QDR 

review, all the hours—that is great. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Admiral and General, good to see you again. 

Tell me, what was the—where did the Mayport CVN homeporting decision—how did that get started? What is the history behind this? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, the history behind it, Mr. Dicks, as I 

mentioned, having served out in the Pacific, and put some thought 

into the strategic dispersal of our forces out there, and I was involved in the decision as to where the additional aircraft carrier 

that was moving to the Pacific would go. 

So when I came back to the East Coast, to Fleet Forces Command, and then on to my current position as Chief of Naval Operations, I wanted to take a look at not just the distribution of our 

forces throughout the Navy, but also a similar look on the East 

Coast. 

And that is when I got into looking at where the various types 

of ships were based and particularly the aircraft carriers, because 

of the one base structure that we used in Norfolk. So that—— 

Mr. DICKS. Well, I think that is a very legitimate matter. We are 

all concerned about military construction costs, how much it costs 

to do these things. But I think what we did on the West Coast was 

the right decision. So I better understand it. 

GUAM

Congresswoman Bordallo—I have been meeting with her, trying 

to help her a little bit, as Chairman of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee. Guam is going to be under a great deal of 

pressure, and I am very concerned about it. 

I understand that the Joint Guam Program Office held an industry forum on Guam last week. You know, we are going to put a lot 


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of troops into Guam, and I am just worried that we may not have 

the infrastructure there to deal with it. 

And, you know, and people would say, ‘‘Well, the government of 

Guam should do it.’’ They may not be capable financially of doing 

it. 

Has anybody looked at this from the Navy? And the Marine 

Corps is involved in this, too. 

Do you have any concern about this? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, my interests for Guam are primarily 

to be able to support the Marine Corps, but also an interest that 

I have in some flexibility for carrier—what I call a hub, where you 

could put a carrier in for short periods of time that would be operating out in the western Pacific. But I think the bulk of the—— 

Mr. DICKS. You have got the SSGNs there, too, coming in. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. We do. The SSGNs come in. But the bulk 

of the activity is—— 

Mr. DICKS. The Marine Corps. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD [continuing]. Really supported by the Marine 

Corps, so I—— 

General CONWAY. Sir, there are several issues, as you highlight. 

And it is going to be examined, I believe, in the Quadrennial Defense Review. This whole issue of global laydown is one of the topic 

matters, and there is a group already working it. 

The question will be, how much overseas infrastructure can the 

Nation afford? There are issues in Korea. There are issues in Europe and, of course, the Guamanian issue. 

Our estimate is that the early estimates are way short. We have talked in terms of $4 billion cost to the U.S. government. We think 

it is going to be much more than that when you look at all the considerations, infrastructure, training opportunity, all those types of 

things. 

So I think—in the first instance, the Department is going to have 

to come away with a prioritized list and a certainty with regard to 

what—more of a certainty as to what those costs may be. 

You are exactly right with regard to the ability of Guam to support our early estimates. And these are also some of the JGPO estimates, is that to stay on the timeline that we are on, which would 

have completion roughly around 2014, that there needs to be about 

$3 billion a year of contractual effort that goes into work there. 

Our estimate is that the territory itself can only do about half 

of that. So we are already concerned that we are not going to make 

the timelines that are established out there. 

And there are other issues. We are going to put potentially 8,000 

to 10,000 Marines out in the middle of the Pacific. We have got to 

make sure we can train out there. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

General CONWAY. The USD policy has promised us that they will 

see to our concerns and that the proper EIS will be accomplished 

before we conduct some of those moves that would land us in a 

place without the ability to train. 

But we are concerned about that. And we are going to engage 

very strongly, I can assure you, in the QDR with those concerns. 

Mr. DICKS. And some of these are pretty serious environmental 

issues. They have got a dump that has to be closed down and a 


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number of other things. I just was worried, that, you know, we are 

really committed to Guam, apparently, and it doesn’t look to me 

like they have the capability to do all the things that I think we 

are expecting them to do. 

So I hope you all will get the Department motivated to look at 

this. And I just want to also say that, on the housing, we still— 

we don’t have anybody living on—I mean, the enlisted people still 

living on—what were those things? 

The one at Birmingham was called the ‘‘Guppy.’’ You know, this 

is where they—the Sailors, when they came in, they get off the 

ship. They go there. I think we have them all in barracks now. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, we—throughout the Navy, we do not 

have all of our Sailors who are afloat, we do not have spaces for 

them ashore, all of them. At the end of the—— 

Mr. DICKS. What is the shortfall? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. It will be 5,000, Navy-wide, at the end of 

2010. So we have a plan to make the investments in bringing our 

Sailors ashore. We will be investing in that throughout the FYDP, 

and the objective is to get all of our Sailors off the ships by 2016 

so that all of our Sailors who are afloat have a place ashore. 

Mr. DICKS. Has my time expired? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. 

Mr. Farr and then Mr. Kennedy. 

STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION MOS

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

General Conway and Admiral Roughead, thank you very much 

for your service and for your leadership. Welcome to the committee 

where every member thinks they are a garrison commander. 

I want to commend your leadership and mention that in previous 

hearings we have had here—Admiral Mullen before you and General Petraeus—we have created a Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction studies at the Naval Postgraduate School. 

Its capability—it has been doing a lot of gaming in the sense of 

bringing together NGOs, international NGOs, U.N., our military, 

foreign officers that are there through the IMET program, and so 

on, to look at how you deal with issues of stabilization and reconstruction. 

NPS has designed a training program and offers a master’s degree in it. We are finding a lot of officers who are coming out of 

Iraq and Afghanistan who really want to get into this career. It is 

a new career. 

But the Defense Department hasn’t created an MOS for it yet. 

And General Petraeus was saying we really need these skill sets. 

And I know you have indicated your interest. I am asking all the 

combatant commanders and the commanders here to do what it 

takes to create a career path. 

I have talked to Secretary Chu about trying to get a sub-specialty code designation for stabilization and reconstruction career 

positions. I had hoped that you could bring that up as an issue to 

discuss, because the desire to get the training and master’s degree 

is there, but why get it if you don’t have a career path? 


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S&R AND FAO EDUCATION AND TRAINING

And it is kind of intertwined with the FAOs. And I know the 

Navy and Marine Corps are sending students to NPS for FAOs 

education. But I don’t think that there is any requirement that 

they go through this stabilization and reconstruction training. 

I think there needs some sort of leadership here to bring the two 

together. They are both at the same school. Well, one is funded 

under Homeland Security. Excuse me. The Stabilization and Reconstruction program is funded by an earmark. And the FAO is in 

your budget. 

I would like to see how the Navy could bring those two programs 

together using the Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction as 

part of the curricula for your FAO positions. 

And, also, I am asking the Navy to POM the Center for CivilMilitary Relations. It is of high value to you. 

So if you could look into that, I would appreciate it. 

I wondered if you know whether the demand for Navy FAOs 

matches the number of students that are in the pipeline. Admiral 

Mullen’s was encouraging people to get this training, and then— 

I don’t know. Do you—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, we have placed a significant emphasis 

on our Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program. And we have—— 

Mr. FARR. These are Foreign Area Officers. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Foreign Area Officers. And their training 

will be a combination of language training and then assignments. 

I know that, within the Navy, I have caused our major headquarters to look at restructuring their organization so that we have 

a career path flow for Foreign Area Officers. 

I have been in the Navy long enough to have seen us attempt 

FAO programs on a couple of occasions, and they have not succeeded simply because we didn’t provide for the career progression 

for these young men and women who have a passion for the regions 

in which they are going to work and then not being able to realize 

the type of career progression. 

So we are working on that. But I am pleased with where we are 

with our FAO program. In fact, we are getting ready to do another 

screening board for FAOs here in June to select another group of 

Foreign Area Officers. And I believe that we are on a good 

path—— 

Mr. FARR. Would you be able to name the naval postgraduate 

school the Center for FAO Education, if you could designate that. 

I don’t know what it takes, but—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Sir, well, I would say—we don’t send all of 

our officers to P.G. school. Some—— 

Mr. FARR. Go to regular—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD [continuing]. Go to other colleges and universities. And then, as we get into, particularly in the FAO program, 

I think being able to tailor where those individuals can go based 

on their backgrounds, future assignments. 

But I do believe that the post-graduate school is an extraordinary 

capability—— 

Mr. FARR. See, you have the DLI there, the Defense Language 

Institute. 


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Admiral ROUGHEAD. Exactly. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Monterey Institute of International Studies—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. You have this consortium of intellectual capacity in 

Monterey that could really do well in producing the curriculum and 

adjusting it to global needs. And if you created the FAO center 

there, I think we could really get a better bang for our buck. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. 

General CONWAY. I certainly support the idea, sir, of the stabilization and reconstruction degree. And I think that we—our approach is a little different. Because our commanders have wound 

up doing this so often in the absence of other elements of American 

power, we tend to decentralize the effort, and we give everybody 

some. 

I could still see the value of a special staff officer that had this 

MOS, though, and this capability. So we certainly, I think, want to 

take a look at that. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

General CONWAY. Our FAOs go to different places for language 

school. Many do go out to NPG, but some study right here in Washington, D.C. So we would have to look at percentages, I think, before we could perhaps build the lever on that beam, a center for 

all FAOs, unless we have different qualifications or qualities in our 

officers. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

Mr. Kennedy. 

DDG–1000

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Chairman. 

Thank you, and welcome. Admiral Roughead, it is a pleasure seeing you. General Conway, thank you both for your service to your 

country. 

Admiral Roughead, first, if you could, just comment briefly on 

General Gates’ plan to truncate the DDG–1000, complete the third 

ship, and what you envision to be the future service combatant 

moving forward with the technology that we have invested in so far 

in that ship. How do you foresee us moving forward for the Navy, 

in terms of that future service combatant ship? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. As you know, Secretary Gates, in 

his announcement, he mentioned the truncation of three ships and 

then the restart of DDG–51 line. And that also included an alignment of the work, the construction work, with the ships, the DDG– 

1000s going to bath for construction, to be able to take advantage 

of the efficiencies that are there. 

As I have discussed before—and we have had the opportunity to 

talk about it—I think the technologies that are in the DDG–1000 

are going to help us inform not just future combatant classes, but 

I think we will be able to inform other ship classes with that. 

Improvements that can be made to the DDG–51 will also allow 

us to take that information, what we learned from the DDG–1000, 

and help us better approach future combatant designs. So that is 

how I see that playing out in the future. 


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NAVY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Mr. KENNEDY. Terrific. I know what a champion you are of education. Obviously, professional development is so crucial. 

Can you tell us a little bit about how you see the evolution of 

professional education in the Navy, as we see special warfare becoming so much a bigger part of modern warfare, and how your 

leadership is bringing in and ushering in a whole new sense of 

kind of strategic thinking, in terms of the individual Sailor, and 

how they have critical development skills and how they have leadership training skills and the importance of having that as opposed 

to just the doctrine training that they have had maybe in the past? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. And I am very proud of the institutions that are in the United States Navy that get to that. All the 

service—or all the services have their Service Academies, and I am 

very proud of what we have done with the Naval Academy. 

But what we have done with the Postgraduate School of what I 

call raising all boats, let the rising tide raise all boats, getting some 

more structure at postgraduate schools, standing it up as a Naval 

Station so that we can focus on the educational and development 

process and work the infrastructure with another piece. 

But I am also extraordinarily proud of what we have been able 

to do with our Naval War College, which I consider to be the center 

of maritime thought in the world and naval thought in the world. 

We have at the War College established a new look at the operational level of war, the training that we have going on there. 

We have put significant emphasis into our international program 

at the War College. And in fact, just last week, I hosted all of the 

international students here in Washington. That experience and 

what we are able to expose our personnel to is absolutely extraordinary. 

And as you know, we are going to be hosting the International 

Seapower Symposium up in Newport, make all of that as part of 

an educational process. 

What we have also done in Newport is that we have taken our 

Senior Enlisted Academy and aligned it more with the War College. Not that I am trying to teach every master chief how to become the greatest strategic thinker in the world, but rather to be 

able to take that educational and intellectual effort that takes place 

at the War College and have our senior enlisted benefit from that. 

We are also incentivizing additional language capability among 

our force. We talked about the FAO program and aligning our command structure so that, when somebody comes out of the field, they 

have a place to go and apply that which they have learned. 

So I think that the way that we are coming at our intellectual 

and development of our Sailors is to take those—what I consider 

to be three extraordinary institutions—and make sure that we are 

looking at them as a set, resourcing them in ways that allows them 

to maximize the value they have to the Navy and the nation. 

And so that is what my approach has been. And I think, in the 

year-and-a-half that I have been CNO, we have made some significant changes at the Postgraduate School. We have made some significant changes at the War College. 


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But it all has to tie together, and that is what I have charged 

my Vice Chief of Naval Operations who now sits on a coordinating 

board to make sure that we are not just doing each’s, but that we 

have this incredible capability and we are using it in unison. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I really, again, once again, appreciate your 

service. And thank you for that description. I think you are absolutely right. It is really proving to be a big success. 

I also appreciate your work for diversity in the Navy and in the 

special forces, too, seeing the importance of that, and it is being reflected, and it is very important. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

HIGH RATE OF DEPLOYMENT IMPACT ON MORALE

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. This is maybe a question for both of 

you all. This higher rate of deployment, obviously, impacts the Soldiers, the Sailors, their families, the equipment, operational facilities. 

And so the first question, I think, is just maybe could you comment on how the morale of the Sailors and the troops have been 

impacted by this high rate of deployment? Let’s start with—— 

General CONWAY. Sir, we are pretty pleased. We check about a 

dozen what I call indicators or metric each month to determine resiliency of the force, and we are pretty pleased with what we see. 

Now, I would offer that we have some cultural advantages over 

the Army, which is the other ground force and whose deployment 

to dwell approximates ours. And we do 7-month deployments, and 

our troops really like that. Our families really like that. 

And after a Marine has been in the operational forces for about 

3, maybe 4 years, we rotate them out to do something else. We 

send them to the headquarters or to a training command or to recruit or something else. And that is giving them a break and having them spend some time with his family and his children, so that 

when he comes back at the end of that time, he is sort of raring 

to go. And that seems to be working very well for us. 

The leading-edge indicators, I think, as to whether or not we are 

accomplishing what we want to do are re-enlistments of both the 

first-term force and the career force. And I can point to with some 

pride, I think, that we closed out our first-term re-enlistments 2 

months ago, and last month we closed out our career force. That 

is on the fiscal year. 

So halfway through the fiscal year, you know, we are getting all 

of those that we want. And those numbers are way up compared 

to what they used to be. They used to be about 25 percent of the 

first-term force. Now it is about 35 percent. 

So it tells me, the families are happy. They are enduring it well. 

They sense that we care. We are building the types of things to 

make quality of life satisfactory for them. And so that is sort of the 

good news side of the story. 

Now, I will tell you that there are some trends that we see 

with—very recently with divorce, which is slightly up this year. In 

the 7 war years thus far, we have led the other Services with the 

lowest percentage of divorces, but suddenly this year we are leading them in the other direction. And I want to watch that closely. 


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Suicides were up last year. It runs a bit of a sine wave, but last 

year we had 42 suicides, most of them as a result of failed relationships. 

And I will be honest with you: just in preparation for coming before this committee, I note apparently alarming rise in what we 

consider driving under the influence. So it may be that our Marines 

are drinking more. 

Whether or not that is related to dep tempo and the war, I don’t 

know yet. The DUI at this point encompasses two categories. One 

is, you know, you had too many sips of champagne on the way back 

from the wedding and you got pulled over because one of your 

lights was out. The other one is, if you had a .20 and you in no 

way should have been on the road. We have got to cull those stats 

down to see what is what here. 

But there are a couple of things that we have got to dig into to 

make sure that we keep a resilient force and we don’t embarrass 

ourselves. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Admiral. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. We watch our deployment ratios very closely. And for us, by and large throughout the Navy, we are deploying 

and providing the time back home for our Sailors that meets a very 

good standard for us. 

There are some communities that we have that are being pressed 

harder than others. Clearly, our SEALs are very busy. Explosive 

ordnance disposal are busy. Intelligence officers are in great demand, because they are able to support more than just the Navy. 

But I am pleased with what we have been doing and how the 

tone of the force is reflected in surveys that we do quite frequently. 

Similar to General Conway, good positive trends. Retention is extraordinarily high. Attrition is down. I will also tell you that the 

economy is a factor in that. But we see trends that really go beyond 

the economy. 

In our case, for some of the things that General Conway mentioned, we have seen a slight rise in suicides. And in the month of 

February, we had more than we had seen in any given month, but 

now we are back down to the norm. 

So I have a group that looks at that from many different perspectives, and we are trying to better understand it, because our suicide demographic is very different than the other services. It tends 

to be more senior. And we are getting our arms around that. 

We have seen significant declines in vehicular accidents, remarkable declines in vehicular accidents. And we have also, you know, 

contrary to the Marine Corps, we have seen a drop in our DUIs in 

recent months. 

So the trends that I see are good. And the tone of the force is 

good. I never take it for granted. We always have to be looking, 

and then, whenever we begin to see an indication, we have to get 

into it, peel the onion back, and figure out what is going on. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. When you have got these kind of strains in 

terms of deployment, does it leave you in a position, say, with infrastructure or operational facilities where you are asking for funds 

for higher combat priorities? Do you sense there is any less money 

for some of the infrastructure or some of the facilities? 


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It is a question I would ask you—I can’t ask you to comment on 

a budget request, but are there things that aren’t in there that 

maybe ought to be there because of the way the priorities are right 

now, in terms of combat deployment? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, I would say that the—through what 

this committee has been able to do, you know, taking care of our 

kids is huge. And what you have allowed us to be able to do to increase the number of childcare facilities is significant. 

We have taken extra money because of the strains that we have 

seen not just on deployments, but also kind of anticipating the economic effects on our force. We have increased in our Family Service 

Centers the number of counselors, and we have seen the utilization 

of those counselors go up. And as a result of that, we have seen 

our people, I believe, making better decisions. 

So we are trying to lead the target, get the things in place that 

allow our families and Sailors to better address the issues that 

they face as a member of the U.S. military and just as an American 

citizen. 

So I think we have been able to target those investments in ways 

that we have been able to minimize and mitigate some of these 

pressures that they are under. 

General CONWAY. I will give you a two-part answer, sir. There 

is not a Marine that wears this uniform that doesn’t want to go to 

Afghanistan now, and that includes our married guys. 

But we realize all along that the families are the most brittle 

part of this whole equation. I mean, the Marine will go do what he 

is trained to do, but our families determine whether or not we keep 

that resilient force because, if they are going back to Texas, they 

put young Johnny in a heck of a strain, you know, to decide, does 

he go or stay? 

So we have probably put more resources than ever before against 

our families and against quality of life and professional family 

readiness officers, increased childcare center, base infrastructure 

that makes quality of life that much better, you know, while the 

Marine is gone. 

And it sent a strong signal. I mean, it is a psychological signal 

as well as a tangible signal when they see that crane, you know, 

over the site. 

But all in all, I think it has been very healthy for us. And it is 

because money has been made available, I think, commensurately 

recognizing the need. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

DOD HEALTH CARE SYSTEM MODERNIZATION

General Conway, this subcommittee—and I am proud of this— 

took the initiative to see that we need to recapitalize, modernize 

our DoD health care system. So it wasn’t an OMB request, but it 

was this committee’s request. I think it reflected the needs we were 

being told by commanders in the field for new hospitals. 

Part of that $2.2 billion is going to Pendleton and Lejeune, as 

you know. Would you just say for the record whether that money 

is needed and those hospitals do need modernization? And will that 

be a significant service to your Marines and their families? 


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General CONWAY. Happy to do so, sir, because it is a tremendous, 

first of all, capacity that our families will be able to take advantage 

of at our two major bases throughout the whole Marine Corps. 

Secondly—and it gets back to the ranking member’s question— 

it sends a tremendous signal to our families that, hey, we get it. 

The Navy is doing wonderful work for us, forward-deployed as 

they are, with the docs and the corpsmen. They are right where we 

need them to be. 

But in the meantime, our families are suffering a little bit. The 

specialty doctor that is tough for the Navy to contract to go to Jacksonville, North Carolina, is just not always there. 

The lines are longer for virtually any kind of care because the 

numbers of providers are less. So I think that these hospitals are 

going to be tremendous adds to our Marine Corps and Navy community that live there with us. And it is money, I think, very wisely spent, is the way I would categorize it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you for that. 

GUAM

My final question would be to follow up on Mr. Dicks’ questions 

about Guam. The increased cost for infrastructure at Guam, has 

that been reflected in deliberations on the fiscal year 2010 budget 

request? I know you can’t tell us what is in that budget request officially, but will those numbers reflect that additional cost? Or is 

there going to have to be more work done and then later adaptation to what the real costs are going to be? 

General CONWAY. You are right, sir. We were asked not to speak 

about the budget. I think it drops soon, and we will be able to talk 

more. 

But there was X amount of money that was applied to Guam. 

And I think that money is—pending the discussion and QDR. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General CONWAY. I think, again, as I answered Congressman 

Dicks’ question, there are competing priorities. The department is 

going to have to decide, in conjunction with the national treaties 

and agreements and so forth, which should take priority and which 

need to be funded. 

So the real costs are in the out-years. And so nothing, I think 

it is fair to say, would be done in 2010 that would anchor us one 

way or another. So the QDR discussion, I think in that regard, is 

very timely. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Good. Thank you. 

Mr. Farr. 

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION TRAINING PROGRAM

Mr. FARR. How important is it to both of you to have the International Military Education Training program, where we bring foreign officers to study at—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Hugely, Mr. Farr. There, in my mind, as we 

seek to work with other militaries around the world, there is probably no other program that allows us to be able to develop the 

types of relationships that we need with foreign militaries. 

I was in the Pacific when the tsunami of 2004 hit. As you know, 

we had had a hiatus with our IMET with Indonesia. That was the 


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largest relief operation the U.S. military has ever undertaken, and 

we had people that we knew, that we had worked with, that we 

had built up trust with in the various countries in the region that 

we could call. And it set the wheels in motion. 

When we tried to contact individuals in Indonesia, it was as if 

we didn’t even know where to start. And it is the trust. You cannot—there isn’t—the only switch there is for trust is to turn it off, 

but you just can’t flick a switch and turn trust on. It is built over 

time. It is built over lifetimes. And I can’t endorse IMET enough. 

Mr. FARR. Our problem is it is funded through the State Department, not through the Department of Defense. And that budget has 

been so squeezed and competes for everything else the State Department is doing. I just passed a note to Mr. Dicks that I think 

it is important for the DoD to fund it. 

General CONWAY. If I can, sir, I will emphasize the point with 

a negative. I visited General Kiyani twice in Pakistan. And it is 

considered that we have lost, in his terms, a generation of Pakistani officers who have cordial or even friendly relationships with 

the United States because we did not do that for a number of years 

with the country of Pakistan. Now, look to how important that 

country is to us today. 

The military undergirds relationships when, you know, our relationships with other nations may be rather sine wave. That military connectivity is always there. It is always pretty good. And it 

sometimes takes time, but it almost invariably comes back. That is 

the value to it. 

And where it does not occur, such as in a situation like Pakistan, 

we find ourselves scrambling to try to regain it. And there is always going to be a little bit of reluctance do that because the trust 

just isn’t there. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I hope that you will also make your concerns 

known to Secretary Clinton, whose budget has it. 

You have the Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century 

Seapower, which speaks to fostering and sustaining cooperative relationships with international partners. I wondered what you are 

doing to increase the student enrollment in that program. They 

both go to the War College, following up on Congressman Kennedy’s statement, and to the Naval Postgraduate School, and what 

we need to do to get more countries to be sending students to that 

program. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Sir, I would say that it is—when I look at 

the navies with whom we work, I encourage them to take advantage of the Postgraduate School. For many of the countries, that 

can be a fairly expensive proposition. So I think, you know, how we 

can reach out to those countries who perhaps don’t have the resources and then how they can be funded—— 

Mr. FARR. And that is funded separately from IMET, right? That 

is in your domain, in the Defense Department’s domain? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I would like to get back to you on all of the 

specifics, because there are many different—I have someone to lay 

out all of the various funding mechanisms that we have to engage 

with foreign countries. And it becomes a pretty complex roadmap. 

But I think there is—what we do at the Postgraduate School is 

important, the international program at the War College. We have 


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started our Surface Warfare Officer’s School, an international 

course for department heads. That is extremely important, because 

that brings them in at the lieutenant level. That means that they 

have a whole career of having a relationship with the United 

States Navy. 

I have also invited navies to participate in even some of our 

shorter courses, executive business courses, where we can bring 

some of their young leaders in to see how we do things within our 

Navy and in the business of the Navy. 

We also have foreign officers that go through flight training. So 

we are always looking for opportunities to do that. Moreover, we 

have been deploying ships—for example, right now, off the west 

coast of Africa, we have one of our large amphibious ships that we 

call Africa Partnership Station. For 6 months, it is working with 

the regional navies there. 

The hospital ship USNS Comfort is now on its way down into 

South America. All of those add up in this building trust and building cooperation that I think is so important for our future and for 

the future of all countries around the world. 

General CONWAY. That is the point I would make, sir. It needs 

to be outside just the formal education process. It has to be constant. It has to be in earnest, and you have got to work at it. 

We recently had a sea-basing conference, which we think is an 

exciting new concept, and we invited 16 different nations to come 

in, because we think that coalition warfare is the way of the future 

and that they ought to understand what we are doing and see if 

it has value to them. 

I think in every case we got good comments from these people 

in terms of how they might see the value of seabasing, how they 

might plug in, and it has caused us to alter our thinking some, in 

terms of how we would fold in a coalition type of effort. 

So it is those types of things just repetitively across the calendar 

and throughout the Services that I think really start to cement 

those bonds. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I appreciate it that support I have learned in 

Congress that we always fund warfare, but when you get down to 

the educational component, that is at the bottom. 

And I think what is becoming increasingly clear in the last few 

years is that we need to plus up our education, the relevancy of 

education, and the training to go with it. And it is a challenge because it is not the way we designed these programs to be on top 

rather than on bottom. And I think it is going to take your leadership to prioritize it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Well said. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Admiral, I wanted to also say, we appreciate your 

coming out to the state of Washington on a couple visits. And it has 

been very well received out there. 

And, at the Bangor base, we not only have a lot of Sailors, but 

we have some very good Marines, by the way, General. 

General CONWAY. I was out there about 2 months ago. 

Mr. DICKS. Yes, and they have increased the numbers out there 

because of the security issues. And it is very interesting to see how 


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you are protecting those submarines going in and out of the Trident Base. I think it is a good plan. 

USS HARTFORD

Let me ask you this, Admiral—what plans does the Navy have 

in place for repair and return to service of the USS Hartford? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. The USS Hartford is making her way back 

from the gulf. She is in the Mediterranean right now. USS Hartford is the submarine that collided with the USS New Orleans. 

And we have been looking at a series of options for her and the 

cost of that repair to her. And she will likely be repaired in a private facility. That is the way we are leaning now. And the contractual vehicles will be firmed up. 

Mr. DICKS. The submarine force has realigned its focus to the Pacific AOR by implementing a 60/40 split on homeporting plans. 

Does the surface force intend any kind of similar realignment? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. What we have looked at, Mr. Dicks, as you 

know, we have realigned our carriers, realigning the submarines. 

This look that I did on our strategic posture, we believe that the 

surface ships right now are about right. 

MAINTENANCE

Mr. DICKS. Okay. A recent INSURV inspection indicated that 

Navy maintenance at its currently funded level may not be keeping 

pace with the increasing strains imposed by our tempo of operations. Does the Navy intend to increase its—well, you can’t talk 

about that. I mean, are you concerned about that? Do you think we 

are keeping up with naval maintenance? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. What I would say, sir, is that the INSURV 

report that is being discussed in the press is one that is on its way 

up to me now. But when you look at some of the information, the 

trends and the performance is not alarming. It is pretty consistent 

with where we have been. 

But one of the things that we have done, a few years ago, we did 

away with the organization that took an engineering life cycle approach to our surface ship maintenance. We have a very structured 

way of looking at our aircraft carrier maintenance. We have a very 

structured way of looking at our submarine maintenance. And we 

stopped doing that with the surface ships. 

Because of some things that I was seeing as a fleet commander 

and then coming into this position, I have re-established that structure and that organization, and we are now going to be putting our 

conventional surface ships into that engineered approach. 

I do believe that, once we get into that, it will likely indicate that 

we will be seeing more resources required for ship maintenance. 

But I want it based on a good engineering approach. 

Mr. DICKS. And one final thing. You know, I come from Bremerton, Washington. We have the shipyard there. You know, I think 

we have done a lot on buildings and there is a lot of concern about 

earthquakes in our part of the world. That is serious—but I worry 

a little bit about it. Are we modernizing the shipyards with the 

kind of equipment that is necessary to do the work in the future 

years? Do you think we are putting enough into that, I mean, kind 

of the infrastructure of these yards? 


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Admiral ROUGHEAD. I believe that our investment plans for our 

industrial facilities are keeping pace with the ships that we are 

doing, the types of maintenance that we are doing. We are always 

looking for new technologies, better ways to do it. 

And I think as those technologies and approaches become available, we should take advantage of it, because we have to look at 

total life cycle cost. We simply just can’t ignore that. 

So I will continue to look to ensure that we are making the right 

investments for our shipyards. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you. 

I have two parochial questions, but some general ones, too. The 

general ones are on the Medical Corps, whether you have concerns 

about whether you are getting enough doctors, nurses, and so forth 

in the Medical Corps to serve your Sailors and Marines. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Yes, sir. A couple of years ago, we were 

challenged with our medical recruiting. That has turned. We put 

a tremendous amount of effort into that, and we are seeing really 

good numbers this year. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Good. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. So, again, we have to keep on that. Plus, we 

are also growing our medical capabilities for Marine Corps growth. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Terrific. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. So right now, we are doing quite well. 

EDUCATION

Mr. KENNEDY. You know, my good friend, Sam Farr, was talking 

about it, education. It seems as though we do so much to educate 

the best and brightest in our country in the military. It would be 

so great to think about ways to keep them in some way after they 

leave the military and tying them into civil service of some kind 

and ways of—and education system and tying them to our communities. 

I know so many of them continue to serve our communities in 

so many ways. But to make sure that we keep track, we are trying 

to navigate the transparency just in medical records between, obviously, the active DoD and the V.A. But it would also be great to 

have transparency between our servicemen and women who we 

have invested so much in and we put such great stock in, as the 

continuing assets that they are for our country, after they have 

served us in the armed forces, to continue to be there as an asset, 

if you will, in civilian life in some form. 

With this great, new national service bill that we passed, it 

might be interesting for us to look at ways that we might be able 

to tap into all that they have to offer, in terms of the great education that they have received and all that they have to offer, in 

terms of their experience leadership-wise, you know, and education-wise. 

When you think about all of the young people in our communities 

who could benefit from them as role models, it would just be tremendous. I know just in the mentoring area, we are working so 

hard in our inner cities to tie up some of our—you know, young 


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people into mentors in the community, if we could just facilitate, 

if you will, some of these veterans with some of these kids who are, 

maybe in need of a role model. 

It would just be terrific. And it might not be anything more than 

just making that introduction to a local Boys and Girls Club or 

something of that sort. 

I know that the Junior ROTC program is fantastic in my—Newport you would think is, white bread and America’s first resort. We 

have the highest public housing in the state, and it is the greatest 

opportunity for kids who never would ever—you would never have 

the opportunity to see the ocean, to get out there and go sailing all 

summer long. 

And if it weren’t for the Navy’s base there, there are many kids 

in the inner city, and they consider Newport inner city. They would 

not otherwise go to the shoreline. 

We actually have kids from Providence come down and participate in the Navy ROTC program, never would otherwise have a 

chance, in a state that is called the Ocean State, to participate in 

being able to sail on Narragansett Bay. 

They learn discipline, and they learn leadership, and they get an 

introduction to the United States Navy. So I would just encourage 

continued Navy ROTC. To the extent that you can do it in areas 

where there isn’t maybe, easy access for, folks that may have a legacy of Navy—maybe like my community—but maybe other communities of diversity, that would be great, because we all know that 

we need to have more diversity wherever we can, especially for the 

newer demands on our Navy that will invariably come in the developing world. 

We need to look like the developing world that we are going to 

be going into and, working in. With the countries that we are going 

to go to, we need to look like those countries that we are going to 

be going into. 

And so it basically behooves us to inculcate early that—and I can 

tell you, 85 percent, 90 percent of my applications for the Naval 

Academy are all legacy kids who have been—whose parents and 

grandparents and great-grandparents were in the Navy. And that 

is great. 

But I want to see more kids from the inner city who have never 

heard or had one of their family members been in the Navy before 

think about the Navy as an opportunity in terms of their future 

and the opportunities that it holds out. 

If the Navy ROTC was out there more, I guarantee that more of 

them would think about the Navy as an opportunity. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Sir, if I could, this past year—because I 

share your passion on this—I took some money from our personnel 

account and I stood up 20 additional Junior Navy ROTC—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you so much. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. A modest number, but we targeted those 

areas that you are talking about exactly. Where can we allow 

young men and women to see the Navy, see the opportunity that 

the Navy offers? Whether they elect to come in or not, that is their 

decision. But at least they are exposed to it. 

We also sponsor a program called Starbase Atlantis—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. 


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Admiral ROUGHEAD [continuing]. That brings middle-school kids 

in to expose them to space and aviation. 

And there is another program that I am very interested in working with the initial organizers of it. It is called Naval Operations 

Deep Submergence, where you take middle-school kids and teach 

them about what it takes to operate submarines, not the warfare 

aspect, but navigation and oceanography and things like that, because I really do believe that we have great things to offer young 

people. 

Those are the ways we do it. And I have been able to realign 

some money, and I am very pleased to—— 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Members, let me ask you. We can do this two ways. We can submit any additional questions in writing and adjourn. There will be 

three votes. Or, if anyone has a question you would like to follow 

up with in person, I will be glad to come back. 

What is your—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I would be happy to submit the questions in 

writing. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Anybody have any questions you would like to ask 

them first? 

If not, Admiral Roughead, thank you. 

General Conway, thank you for—— 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. And, Mr. Chairman, if I could, earlier question I said that we would be beyond our substandard BDQs by 

2016. That is when we are going to have everybody ashore. And I 

would like to take for the record when we will have cleared that, 

but I just wanted to correct that before—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you for that. 

We stand adjourned. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards to Admiral Roughead] 

BARRACKS

Question. Will you formulate a master plan for buying down the 42 percent of barracks that have been assessed as substandard? When will such a plan be completed? 

Answer. I will formulate a master plan to address substandard barracks in PR– 

11. My objective is to eliminate substandard barracks by 2020, however that will 

depend upon balancing available funding with competing Navy priorities. 

Question. What is the Navy’s definition of standard barracks? 

Answer. The Navy uses the DoD standard for permanent party barracks, which 

sets a minimum of 90 square feet per person and requires each Service member to 

have his or her own sleeping room. 

Question. Do you have a target date for bringing Homeport Ashore barracks up 

to the DoD standard of 90 square feet per person? 

Answer. Our current priority is to achieve the Homeport Ashore goal of getting 

all Sailors currently living aboard ships into accommodations ashore by 2016 at the 

Interim Assignment Policy (IAP) standard of 55 square feet per person. The Navy’s 

long-term bachelor housing goal is to comply with the DoD standard of providing 

a private sleeping room for each Sailor at a minimum of 90 square feet per person. 

Our plan to achieve that standard will be developed in POM12. 

Question. Will you seek an expansion of barracks PPV authority beyond the three 

authorized projects? 

Answer. To date, the Navy has executed two of the three authorized PPV pilot 

projects and is conducting a business case analysis to determine the most cost effective approach to meeting projected Bachelor Housing requirements through the 


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third PPV project. The business case analysis will inform future decisions regarding 

additional PPV authority. 

EAST COAST CVN HOMEPORTING

Question. With regard to CVN homeporting on the east coast, what specifically 

will the QDR address? Is it simply a question of validating the Navy’s preferred alternative? 

Answer. The 2010 QDR will address the need for strategic dispersal of the carrier 

force in the broad context of future threats, future Navy force structure, and cost 

effectiveness. 

Question. What is the Navy’s most up-to-date one-time cost estimate of implementing the preferred alternative? Please break down your response by military 

construction, OMN, PCS, etc. 

Answer. The Final Environmental Impact Statement, issued in 2008, estimated 

one-time MILCON costs for implementing the preferred alternative at $456M, including: 

P–187; Dredging ($48M) 

P–186; Foxtrot Wharf Improvements ($39M) 

P–250; Controlled Industrial Facility ($139M) 

P–251; Ship Maintenance Support Facilities ($157M) 

P–502A; Parking Garage ($28M) and P–503; Road Improvements ($15M) 

Planning and Design ($30M) 

P–187 channel dredging would provide dredging of Wharf F, the Mayport turning 

basin, entrance channel and Jacksonville Harbor Bar Cut 3 to a depth of 52 ft to 

allow safe navigation and vessel maneuverability for all ships that currently dock 

at Naval Station Mayport. The cost of this project was updated and included in the 

FY2010 President’s Budget Submission for $46.303M. 

In addition to the one-time MILCON costs, there is an estimated $85M one-time 

maintenance cost for Management & Industrial Plant Equipment and an estimated 

$24M one-time cost for Permanent Change of Station associated with relocating personnel. 

Question. What are the new recurring costs of the preferred alternative? 

Answer. The Final Environmental Impact Statement, issued in 2008, estimated 

the total recurring costs would be $20.4M. This amount includes Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization/Base Operating Support (SRM/BOS), operations, and 

maintenance costs and also reflects a reduction in BAH as compared to housing the 

CVN ship’s crew in Mayport area vice Norfolk area. 

END STRENGTH

Question. On April 6, 2009, Secretary of Defense Gates announced a series of 

budget and policy decisions for the Department, which included a decision to halt 

reductions in Navy end strength. What was the Navy’s planned end strength, and 

how does the decision by Secretary Gates affect that? 

Answer. In FY09, Navy’s active duty end strength was on a planned glideslope 

to 322,000 personnel by the end of FY13. The FY10 National Defense Authorization 

Request seeks to stabilize the force at an active duty end strength authorization of 

328,800 personnel for Navy. 

OUTLYING LANDING FIELD FOR EAST COAST CARRIER LANDING PRACTICE

Question. When does the Navy expect to produce a Record of Decision for the new 

OLF site in Virginia/North Carolina? 

Answer. A Record of Decision for the new OLF is currently planned for the latter 

half of 2010. Navy is currently working with multiple federal and state agencies to 

complete data collection and analysis to ensure we have done the due diligence necessary to make an informed decision. 

Question. What is the Navy’s target date for commencing operations at the new 

OLF? 

Answer. The target date for commencing operations at the new OLF is CY 2015. 

[Questions for the record from Chairman Edwards to General 

Conway] 

BARRACKS

Question. What is your total deficit (after accounting for all currently funded military construction) of adequate barracks spaces? 


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Answer. The Marine Corps’ total requirement for bachelor enlisted quarters 

(BEQ) is 93,300 spaces. With the $1.168B and over 12,000 spaces funded by Congress in FY 2009, the Marine Corps’ remaining adequate BEQ space deficit is approximately 7,000. 

Question. As you noted in your testimony, you will meet your target end-strength 

of 202,000 by the end of fiscal year 2009. Clearly the Grow the Force military construction program has not proceeded at the same pace. How will you accommodate 

the bigger force until the GTF MILCON program is fully completed? Will you seek 

to accelerate your barracks modernization program? 

Answer. The Marine Corps is handling the acceleration of its force growth 

through use of temporary facilities and other measures such as delaying demolition 

of older facilities. With the increased retention rates, the enlisted demographic within the Marine Corps has shifted to a more senior force with the ability to live on 

the economy. Additionally, at their discretion, local commanders may use tools such 

as allowing junior NCOs to live on the economy or assigning more than two Marines 

per room for temporary periods. Current deployment cycles have also helped alleviate ‘‘space crunches’’ across our installations. 

The Marine Corps is accelerating its barracks modernization program and will 

soon reap the benefit of an aggressive FY 2008 and FY 2009 construction schedule. 

Question. Do you have a standard for training barracks? If so, what is the deficit 

of adequate training barracks spaces, and what is the estimated MILCON requirement to buy this down? 

Answer. An adequate barracks for recruits is an open-bay barracks in good repair. 

Congress has provided both MCRD Parris Island and MCRD San Diego Military 

Construction funding in FY 2009 for Recruit Barracks. At MCRD Parris Island the 

funding will complete the replacement of the 3rd Recruit Battalion barracks and 

provide additional recruit barracks spaces that will support the increased throughput generated by our end-strength growth. At MCRD San Diego the Recruit Support 

Barracks and the Recruit Remedial Fitness Center will free-up recruit barracks 

space at MCRD San Diego by consolidating injured recruits into their own barracks. 

We are grateful for the additional recruit barracks you added to our program in FY 

2009. 

Approximately $140 million in Military Construction is proposed in FY 2010 to 

complete the improvements at our recruit depots to fully support recruit quality of 

life. These improvements include two additional barracks projects and a new mess 

hall proposed at Camp Pendleton, Edson Range (where we also train recruits from 

MCRD San Diego) as well as a mess hall addition at MCRD San Diego. Thank you 

in advance for your support of our FY 2010 program. 

At the completion of these projects (approximately 2012) all barracks at MCRD 

Parris Island and MCRD San Diego and Edson Range at Camp Pendleton should 

be adequate. 

GUAM

Question. You stated in your assessment that the U.S. MILCON share of the realignment of Marines from Okinawa to Guam will be ‘‘much more’’ than $4 billion. 

What specific needs have been underestimated, in your opinion? 

Answer. It is important to understand the context of the original $10.27B cost for 

relocating Marines to Guam. This cost estimate represents only the infrastructure 

and facilities development costs for the relocating Marines. It was developed at the 

very early stages of the proposed relocation before any significant planning had occurred or comprehensive assessment of the existing conditions on Guam, including 

detailed project site locations or engineering and environmental data. 

As planning has advanced, we have been able to more completely identify many 

of the costs involved in the relocation. These costs remain fluid as we continue our 

planning and environmental efforts. With regards to construction costs, for example, 

the compressed construction timeline (7 years to 4) along with the need to import 

many of the construction workers requires workforce housing and logistics support 

for the massive workforce that will be required on Guam during the short duration 

construction build up. This is anticipated to cost approximately 8% of the primary 

and supporting facilities costs. Additional construction costs include the new Navy 

requirement that all new facilities in the Department of Navy be constructed to a 

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification. This 

requirement typically increases the facilities construction costs by approximately 

8.5%. There is also a Guam Gross Receipt Tax assessed on all construction projects. 

This may result in an assessment of 4% on the sum costs of the total primary and 

support facilities for all construction projects. Finally, as the planning develops, it 


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appears as if the project will require major improvements to existing roads and utilities. 

In addition to these additional construction costs, as we have evaluated alternatives and assessed their various impacts as a consequence of preparing the Environmental Impact Study, we may have unknown mitigation costs and the need to 

acquire additional land to insure adequate training capacity for the force laydown 

for the associated training ranges and infrastructure, and to compensate for environmentally protected lands. Finally, there are the numerous requests by GovGuam 

that remain undefined, with much or all of the discussions being interagency. 

It is anticipated that the net change from all of the above will add up to several 

billion dollars in construction costs over the original $10.27B estimate. Since GOJ’s 

investment is capped, all additional construction costs will be funded via the U.S. 

government. 

Question. What specific questions will the QDR address with respect to the Guam 

realignment? 

Answer. The SECDEF has directed the QDR’s Global Posture working group to 

consider two issues related to the Guam realignment: 1) The Asia-Pacific Training 

shortfall, to include shortfalls on Guam, as well as, joint training shortfalls across 

the Pacific and 2) Grow the Force implications on the Guam agreements and 

PACOM. 

BLOUNT ISLAND

Question. The Marine Corps has indicated a need for about $125 million in 

MILCON improvements to Blount Island. What is the importance of this installation and the identified requirements? 

Answer. Blount Island is a national strategic asset and key to Marine Corps expeditionary capability and future force regeneration. 

The Marine Corps’ acquisition of Blount Island in 2004 offered the Marine Corps 

substantial opportunity for realizing the full potential of the installation and its logistics support facilities. The Marine Corps has already expanded the use of the installation from its traditional role as the ‘‘home of United States Marine Corps 

prepositioning’’ to service as the logistics hub for all Marine Corps equipment returning from OIF/OEF. Additionally, it has most recently served as the deployment 

platform for Marine Corps equipment deploying to OEF utilizing the facility as the 

Seaport of Embarkation as well as the Seaport of Disembarkation. 

Blount Island will play a major role in Marine Corps equipment reset efforts. The 

most important facility requirements to support reset efforts at Blount Island include approximately $155 million of projects to improve existing operational capacity 

and maintenance operations, provide adequate storage and supply space to properly 

account for equipment, improve efficiency of ship on load and off load operations, 

and increase throughput capacity. 

These construction projects are tied directly to the war effort and are consistent 

with the projected volume. Construction improvements include wash rack expansion, hardstand expansion, container staging space, warehousing, hazardous material handling, expansion and improvements to ship berthing and additional depth 

dredging in order to accommodate larger ships. These requirements were previously 

identified in the installation’s long range facilities plan to improve the installation’s 

efficiency in executing its preposition mission. However, these projects are needed 

sooner to support critical near term reset efforts. 


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WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2009. 

SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

WITNESS 

HON. ERIC SHINSEKI, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I would like to call the committee to 

order and want to welcome Secretary Shinseki and your leadership 

team to our subcommittee. It is good to have all of you here, and 

thank you for the work you do on behalf of America’s veterans. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to hear the administration’s 

budget request for fiscal year 2010. We have seen the raw numbers 

on that and look forward to hearing some of the specific details behind those budget numbers. 

I will make a very brief opening comment before recognizing Mr. 

Wamp and Mr. Lewis for any opening comments they would care 

to make. 

Let me begin by saying, it is the responsibility of this subcommittee to ensure that we are not only saying thanks to our heroes, but providing for their earned needs, as well. I am proud of 

the work this subcommittee has done on a bipartisan basis since 

January of 2007. 

I want to thank Mr. Wamp for his close partnership a every step 

of the way. 

With this, we have been able to increase health care and benefits 

funding for veterans over the past 2 years by $17.7 billion, $9.9 billion more than requested by the administration. These funding increases will mean a number of things: improved access to needed 

health care services at our V.A. medical facilities. It will mean all 

Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom veterans will be screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. 

The increase will mean that the Department of Veterans Affairs 

will be able to address its significant backlog in facilities maintenance to ensure that our veterans are cared for in a safe and 

healthy environment. 

It will mean fewer veterans will be homeless, and I know we all 

long for the day where there is not one homeless veteran on any 

street of any city in America. 

Our increases over the past few years will mean our veterans 

will receive the benefits they have earned much sooner than otherwise. And it will mean that this generation of veterans will receive 

a greater education benefit than at any time in our history. 

Yet, despite all of that work together, we know that much work 

remains to be done. 


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I would like to, again, thank all the members of this subcommittee on both sides of the aisle for our work over the past 2 

years and look forward to continuing that work together as we 

craft in the weeks ahead the fiscal year 2010 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2010 totals on 

the discretionary side $53 billion and an additional $55.8 billion in 

mandatory spending. On the discretionary side of the ledger, the 

amount requested represents an increase of $5.4 billion over the 

fiscal year 2009 appropriation, an increase of over 11 percent. 

And, again, we look forward to hearing more of the details and 

the rationale behind those budget proposals. 

At this time, it is my privilege to represent our partner in this 

effort, Mr. Wamp, our ranking member, for any comments he 

would care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership 

and for that partnership. 

And, Mr. Secretary, I always like it when you come, because we 

get to come to the big room here as opposed to the smaller room 

over in the Capitol, as much as we enjoy that. 

And I want to first applaud President Obama for your selection, 

which I think was a very wise one and an early one. And, of course, 

you had a long and storied history before the Military Construction 

and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee here in all aspects of your life. 

And for your whole team, we are grateful for your service to our 

country. 

I also want to say that I thought that Secretary Peake did a very 

good job. Both of you have unique skill sets and experience and 

knowledge and understanding that is very, very helpful to all of 

our veterans. And I think, frankly, this is somewhat of a seamless 

transition, even though change is underway. 

I also want to say what I said to a group of realtors that were 

just in my office when they asked me about this privilege I have 

to be the ranking member on the subcommittee that I am grateful 

that, in a bipartisan way, we can say that we are doing more and 

more for our veterans, in terms of funding, creating efficiencies and 

more accountability in the V.A., and in a bipartisan way we have 

met at the water’s edge, so to speak, on this issue and continue to 

do so. 

And I applaud our chairman and the leadership of the Congress 

and the executive branch over the last 3 years particularly, as is 

manifested in this budget request, making a greater commitment 

to our nation’s veterans at a time where it says all the right things 

and it actually does all the right things. 

And there are many fears out there that our country is not honoring our veterans. And I can actually look people in the eye today 

and say, ‘‘That is changing rapidly.’’ And I really believe that. And 

that is a good thing. 

Now, in your testimony, Mr. Secretary, you mentioned 28 times 

some form of the word ‘‘transformation.’’ So I want to ask you a little later about that, because I do think that sweeping changes are 


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still in order and I do like that spirit that you are coming in, that 

you want to change things and transform the V.A. 

I am a little puzzled still about what this administration’s position is on advanced appropriations. We, as appropriators, think 

that there is a lot of value in this annual process of scrutinizing 

budget requests and that, frankly, that is how you bring accountability. And without it, the executive branch could just run the 

country without any oversight from the people, which was guaranteed under the Constitution. 

And I would like for you to clarify that as we go through today 

and then maybe even speak to some of the new positions that you 

have proposed and created in the V.A. 

The V.A. is a very necessary, very necessary agency, but it is a 

large bureaucracy. And one thing I would like to see is that it 

doesn’t get any larger when we have so many new and efficient 

ways to deliver health care, particularly to our nation’s veterans. 

Growing programs might not necessarily be the way. 

But having said all of that, I just can’t thank you enough for 

your service to our country for so many years in so many different, 

very valuable ways. And I do stand united with the leadership of 

this Congress, committed to every man and woman that you represent as you sit here and testify today. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp, for your comments and for 

your work day in, day out on behalf of America’s veterans. 

It is certainly a privilege when we have the opportunity to have 

the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Lewis, here. He is 

no stranger to anyone who has ever worn our nation’s uniform, because he has spent so many years of his life in Congress fighting 

for servicemen and women, their families, our veterans, and their 

families. 

He is now the ranking member of the full committee, having 

served as chairman of the full committee, chairman of the Defense 

Appropriations Subcommittee. 

And, Mr. Lewis, we are honored to have you here, and I would 

like to recognize you for any opening comments you care to make. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I don’t intend to make an extended statement, except to say that, 

unfortunately, I am going to have to go to the Rules Committee in 

a while—the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor tomorrow. 

But I did want to come to recognize the great people who are beginning to lead this agency in a new direction. I think my colleagues would be interested to know that the first time I met Eric 

Shinseki was when he—the day he was being sworn in as chief of 

the Army. And he and his wife, Patty, and Arlene and I have become friends over these many years. 

I really do believe he has the experience and the capability of 

giving an entirely new direction to the agency, which I think really 

does need that new direction. 

So it is a pleasure to be with you. I may have a chance to ask 

a couple of questions in a moment. 

Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 


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General Shinseki is no stranger to this subcommittee or any of 

us on the committee, but this is his first time here as Secretary 

Shinseki. So, for the record, let me briefly introduce him in saying 

that he is the seventh secretary of veterans affairs, sworn in on 

January 21, 2009. 

As Mr. Lewis referenced, he served as chief of staff with the 

United States Army from June 21st of 1999 until June 11th of 

2003. He retired from active duty on August 1st of 2003 after 38 

years of service. 

And thank you and Patty both for those many years of service 

to our Army. 

His previous assignments as a leader in the Army included commanding general, U.S. Army Europe and 7th Army, commanding 

general of NATO Land Forces Central Europe, commander of the 

NATO-led stabilization force in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

He served two distinguished tours of service in Vietnam and has 

a degree from West Point, 1965, and a master’s degree from Duke 

University. 

And as Mr. Lewis referenced, his wife, Patty, I think their family 

commitment to our troops and their families is indicated by her 

leadership in creating the Military Childhood Education Coalition, 

which has been a very, very important and effective voice on behalf 

of the children of our servicemen and women who make so many 

sacrifices every day, even as we speak. 

Mr. Secretary, your full printed testimony will be submitted, 

without objection, into the record. I would like to recognize you 

now. Thank you for bringing your leadership team with you. I 

would like to recognize you now for any opening comments you 

would care to make. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ERIC K. SHINSEKI

Secretary SHINSEKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you Ranking Member Wamp and the other distinguished members of this committee, for holding this hearing and 

allowing us to be here. 

And, Mr. Wamp, thank you for those kind remarks for Jim 

Peake. He is an old friend. I picked him to be the Army Surgeon 

General while I was still serving, never regretted that choice, and 

he went on to do great things here. I am honored to be following 

him and continuing many of the good things he started. 

I am pleased, also, to be joined today by V.A.’s senior leadership. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, if you don’t mind, 

I would like to take a moment to introduce them. 

I will begin on my far left, Undersecretary Pat Dunne from Benefits Administration. Next to me, Dr. Gerald Cross, acting Undersecretary for Health, Acting Assistant Secretary for Management Rita 

Reed, Acting Undersecretary Steve Muro from the National Cemetery Administration, and Acting Assistant Secretary Steph Warren 

from the Office of Information and Technology. 

I thought having all of us here would enable us to address many 

of the questions that may come up today. 

I would also like to acknowledge the leaders of our Veterans 

Service Organizations who are also part of the audience and partners and advocates for our nation’s veterans. 


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We thank you for this opportunity to present the President’s 

2010 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Let me also 

thank you for your unwavering support, as the chairman indicated, 

on this committee for our veterans through previous generous appropriations to our budget and for the stimulus funds you authorized for the department. 

V.A. has begun to lay down the groundwork to implement President Obama’s charge to us to transform V.A. into a 21st-century organization. V.A.’s 2010 budget request increases V.A.’s resources to 

nearly $113 billion, up 15 percent from our 2009 resource level, the 

largest percentage increase for V.A. requested by a president in 

over 30 years. 

With this budget, V.A.’s transformation begins by increasing our 

investment in information technology, by undertaking organizational reforms, by ramping up the training and leader development 

of our workforce, and by other initiatives which are intended to improve the ways in which we serve veterans. These are essential if 

we are going to improve client services and enhance responsiveness 

to veterans’ needs. 

Information technology is vital to achieving the president’s vision 

for a 21st-century V.A. I.T. enables almost everything we do at Veterans Affairs. More than $3.3 billion in funding is needed to support our I.T. requirements and will allow V.A. to invest in new and 

emerging technologies to create an informational backbone which 

will enable efficient, effective and client-focused services. 

The 2010 budget provides resources to establish a new office for 

the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, 

the importance of which is underscored not only by the budget’s 

$1.9 billion in capital funding to resource it, but by the more than 

$13 billion in products, services and V.A. contracts that are handled each year. We need this office to bring all of that together in 

a smart way. 

There are few higher priorities before us than to ensure a seamless transition from active military service to civilian life. V.A. will 

continue to collaborate with the Department of Defense on transition initiatives, including development and implementation of a 

joint, virtual, lifetime electronic record, a presidential priority. 

This budget request funds health care for a new and changing 

veteran demographic. Women veterans, for example, are increasingly reliant on V.A. The budget provides $183 million to meet 

their specific health care needs. 

The budget includes $440 million to improve access to care for 

veterans in rural and highly rural areas and $5.9 billion for both 

institutional and non-institutional, long-term care services. 

This budget makes important commitments to newly qualified 

priority group eight veterans and to the expanding numbers of 

combat veterans from ongoing operations. We are requesting $2.1 

billion to meet the health care needs of veterans who served in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. 

And thanks to the leadership shown by Congress and the commitment expressed by President Obama, we will implement an expansion of eligibility to health care for priority group eight veterans 

beginning in this summer through the next 4 years, implemented 

over time. 


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Our 2010 budget requests nearly $4.6 billion for expanded outreach and enhanced services for mental health and traumatic brain 

injuries. This budget also provides $47.4 billion in total resources 

for V.A. medical care, an 11 percent increase over the 2009 resource level. 

And, importantly, it increases V.A.’s investments in research, patient-centered health care, and technology to support our commitment to client-focused health care services. 

The president is committed to expanding proven programs, which 

include joint initiatives with other cabinet agencies and nonprofit 

organizations to combat homelessness and requests $3.2 billion to 

address the estimated 154,000 veterans who sleep on our streets 

every night. The $1.8 billion provided to the Veterans Benefits Administration is 25 percent higher than in 2009. Our primary focus is to 

strengthen our investments in a paperless infrastructure to leverage ways to decrease waiting times for veterans’ claims processing. 

V.A. provides continuity of care until veterans are laid to rest. 

To properly honor them, the president’s budget request includes 

$242 million in operations and maintenance funding for the National Cemetery Administration. 

Veterans are V.A.’s sole reason for existence. In today’s challenging fiscal and economic environment, we must be diligent stewards of every dollar if we are to deliver timely, high-quality benefits 

and services to the men and women we serve. 

While we recognize that the growth in funding requested for 

2010 is significant, we also acknowledge our responsibility for 

being accountable and showing measurable returns on this investment. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I assure you I will 

do everything possible to ensure that the funds Congress appropriates will be used to improve the quality of life for veterans and 

the efficiency of our operations. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of the Honorable Eric K. Shinseki follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. 

We will begin questioning under the 5-minute rule. 

Mr. Lewis, I know you have responsibilities at the Rules Committee. I don’t know how tight that schedule is, but I would be 

happy to recognize you if you would like to begin the questions, 

which would free you up to—— 

Mr. LEWIS. Let’s go to the ranking member. Regular order is fine. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Are you sure? 

All right, I will begin with Mr. Wamp. 

Go ahead, Mr. Wamp. 

TRANSFORMATION

Mr. WAMP. Well, I just want to jump right in with what I said, 

Mr. Secretary, on the transformation and exactly how you see that 

playing out. You know, my history here goes back to having high 

expectations with CARES and what it might lead to and had hoped 

that maybe, by perception at least, some of the more antiquated facilities in places like the Northeast, where veterans still live, but 

more used to live, and then they move to places like where I live, 

where the land is cheap, and water is abundant, and the climate 

is good, and—a little Chamber of Commerce promotion there, but 

we are growing in our veteran population in the southeast, in the 

mountains and lakes of East Tennessee. 

And we don’t have the facilities that they do in other parts of the 

country. And as I said to you in my office when you honored me 

and came last week, we had hoped that CARES might lead to more 

facilities. I know that the CBOC approach is very helpful, very 

good. Super CBOCs move in more and more programs and benefits 

into the super CBOCs for the veterans. 

But how does the transformation, you know, from CARES to 

what your plans are now going forward, how does it play out? What 

are the big initiatives? How does it shape the infrastructure and 

the face of the V.A. for the veteran, in terms of what they will see 

and the benefits that they will actually derive? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I would say transformation is a journey. It 

is hard to describe it as a destination. And I will tell you where 

we are starting. 

We start by looking at everything we do, every line of operation, 

to make sure we understand what the relationship is to the mission we have, which is care of veterans. 

And we know we have some hiccups here. We don’t process 

claims quickly enough; there is an inordinate amount of waiting 

time for veterans. 

We know that—at least in our house, I.T. is sort of the elephant. 

So much of what we do is tied to I.T., whether it is electronic 

health records, which has been a tremendous shot in the arm for 

not just V.A.’s medical services, but for folks who have also borrowed that electronic health record, it has been very helpful. 

But there are so many other aspects of what we do in V.A. that 

is still paperbound and caught up in processes. We don’t know how 

to get beyond that until we put in I.T. backbone that fully links 

what we do and what we say we should be doing. 

Part of looking internally is also looking at ourselves and ensuring that—I wouldn’t call it efficiencies, but it is that what we do 


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day to day counts towards the execution of that mission. I can tell 

you that, in the 3 months here since our arrival—we cancelled 

some conferences and meetings that didn’t quite meet that definition. 

And so we have begun to strip away some of those probably good 

ideas at one time and maybe a good idea at some time in the future, but for right now, for where we are and what we expect out 

of our own organization, we are challenging all the assumptions 

about what we do, how we spend money, and what the payoff for 

the mission is. 

Internal to that look is looking at how we develop our people. 

The V.A. is not unlike some of our service departments where people come in at an entry level and stay for a career, 20, 30 years. 

I met a lady who was in the elevator the other day that has been 

there 50 years. 

The challenge to us is to understand that we have a development 

process, a training program, an education effort that takes people 

who are going to be with us for that extended period of time and 

grow them, leader development skills, and prepare them for upward mobility in the organization so that we are gaining from their 

experience of serving with us. 

Nothing magical here. Good organizations do this. They invest in 

their human resource element, they grow their talent, and they 

benefit over time from those investments. I think that is the start 

point. 

We have asked questions about why 40 years after Vietnam we 

are still adjudicating Agent Orange, why 20 years after the Gulf 

War we are still wrestling with Gulf War illness. My sense is that 

these answers are best derived—at least we think that historically 

we felt that they are best derived through the scientific method, 

which is collecting a lot of data, writing papers, having discussion, 

and at some point agreeing that this is probably service-connected. 

Unfortunately, that invests a lot of time. Veterans, on the other 

hand, don’t have all that time. About 3 years into their first reunion after combat operations—Agent Orange stopped being used 

in Vietnam in 1970—my sense is, the veterans who sat around the 

table and compared personal notes realized they had afflictions 

that were similar, and probably came to a conclusion much faster 

that something was wrong. 

It has just taken us much longer to come to the same conclusion. 

And over that 40 years, we have acknowledged that soft tissue sarcoma, respiratory cancers, on and on and on, are, yes, tied to Agent 

Orange. 

So part of challenging our assumptions is going to be, is this the 

way we want to continue to do this? Because we know where history has brought us, still adjudicating Parkinson’s disease today as 

a connection to Agent Orange. 

If it is the way we choose to continue to do this, then 20 and 40 

years from now, the injuries from this war will still be being adjudicated. And I think we owe veterans a better response, a quicker 

response. And this is part of this effort to transform—it is to challenge the assumptions we have been operating with for 40 years. 

Mr. WAMP. I will follow up in the next round. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 


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Mr. Farr. 

INTEROPERABILITY

Mr. FARR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to follow up on Mr. Wamp’s questioning. We are really going to miss him when he leaves this committee. He really, I 

think, senses where the rubber meets the road. 

I just want to think through the big picture. A person cannot be 

in your files in the veterans department unless you have first been 

in the files of the Department of Defense, right? I mean, it is an 

assumption that there is a starting point in the Department of Defense, and after you get out of the Department of Defense, you get 

into the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

So a lot of the initial data is really there. And it seems to me 

that is the area that the VA is very much aware of, but we in Congress need to know more how we can push to make that data interoperable. 

Interoperability is a big word around here. You coined it many 

years ago in the military, then it got into the civilian side through 

law enforcement. Essentially, it means you could have communication that works between law enforcement and fire and other kind 

of first responders. 

I think it is also now carried to the next phase of information 

sharing. It seems to me that we have not yet made the Department 

of Defense’s information interoperable with the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

You told us the VA is the world leader in setting up electronic 

medical data, and yet when you go to get all the medical information from DoD their files won’t move over. 

I am really interested because, as I see Operation Enduring 

Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, soldiers come back—and 

they are going to go back to these communities all over the United 

States and in our territories—are you assessing what that impact 

is going to be on the ground? And how do you do that? 

And, for example, if you decide to build a CBOC clinic that Mr. 

Wamp was talking about, how long does it take to get that clinic 

online? What can we do to make sure that this process can be improved? How does the V.A. handle the excesses in demands in the 

meantime? 

And if, indeed, we were going to provide services to priority six, 

seven and eight veterans in fiscal year 2010, would there be sufficient funding for the CBOCs to handle the increased demand? And 

how long would it take the V.A. to meet that demand? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Let me take the question about CBOCs. The 

amount of time I think is a function of—it depends, the size of the 

facility and the demand. It can be as quickly as a couple of years 

start to finish in the process, where patients are being seen. I think 

2 years, there is a fast-track method for doing this. 

But otherwise, if it is a normal, routine decision to stand up a 

CBOC and it fits into a pattern, it will go into the queue and could 

be a little longer than that. 

Mr. FARR. Yes. Will every veteran you receive, say, for medical 

purposes have with them the military medical record? 


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Secretary SHINSEKI. First of all, Mr. Farr, not every member of 

the military leaving the service necessarily comes to enroll as a 

veteran. And hence, this is part of the effort—to answer your question, they do have one—my recollection of my own time, we carried 

around our own paper set of records as a backup. 

Both DOD and V.A. have electronic health records, but they are 

not totally integrated. You can take information out of one, but 

they are not totally useful in terms of passing records. 

Having said that, however, Secretary Gates and I have personally been working on this issue. We have met four, maybe five 

times and have set into motion the process by which our agreement 

to create something called uniform registration, where a member 

joining one of the military services today is automatically registered—— 

Mr. FARR. That is cool. 

Secretary SHINSEKI [continuing]. In the V.A—— 

Mr. FARR. That is smart. 

Secretary SHINSEKI [continuing]. That decision, that agreement 

between us is really a forcing function for both departments to put 

their assets and their brain power together to come up with that 

single, joint virtual electronic record that President Obama publicly 

announced here a couple of weeks ago with both Secretary Gates 

and I present. 

The intent is to have exactly what is being described here, and 

this is the seamless transition. The problem has been that seamlessness between midnight or the day the uniform comes off and 

8 o’clock the next morning doesn’t exist. And so we are attacking 

it over time. 

When that youngster puts on the uniform, some have asked, why 

is the V.A. reaching so early to create this joint record? Well, when 

that youngster puts on the uniform, servicemen’s group life insurance that is mandatory for every member in uniform, administered 

by the V.A., if that youngster chooses to take out a college loan and 

get education on their own, administered by the V.A., guaranteed 

home loans, administered by the V.A. 

So the perception that you suddenly become a veteran with entitlements to benefits and services when the uniform comes off is a 

little misleading. Those entitlements are there well before that, 

which argues that we ought to have this sharing of information. As 

we do this, we will begin to solve some of the issues that you 

are—— 

Mr. FARR. And then to bring those CBOCs online, how long does 

that take? 

Dr. CROSS. There are several types of CBOCs. If we were doing 

what we call an outreach clinic, which is really run by the VISN, 

the regional command, so to speak, they can do that fairly quickly, 

perhaps even in less than a year, and have a small part-time clinic 

and a leased facility located in that area. 

But typically, as the secretary said, a couple of years in the planning process, the budgeting process, hiring, setting up the clinic, 

getting the outreach to our veteran population to let them know 

where it is going to be situated and so forth. 

And may I say, sir, I am a patient at the V.A. And you talk about 

the interoperability. Progress has been made. And on my last visit, 


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they pulled up my military record and my lab tests from when I 

was in Georgia as a soldier and compared it to my current test, and 

that was very valuable. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Farr. 

Mr. Lewis. 

HOMELESS VETERANS

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Some years ago, Mr. Chairman, I had the privilege of essentially 

chairing a piece of this committee when I was responsible for V.A.- 

HUD. And during those days, I probably didn’t have the best relationships with the VSOs as I might have wanted, in no small part 

because it was my view that, while we had very fine bipartisan 

support here within the Congress to get funding for veterans’ efforts, servicing our veterans, we had great difficulty following the 

money down to where the veterans lived, to the hospitals, et cetera. 

And the VSOs did a great job here with us, but the need for following to the community and insisting that there be real change 

has taken a long time. I am pleased to say there has been progress 

there. 

It took us a long time, for example, within our committee, also, 

to get the Navy and Marine Corps to be able to communicate with 

each other. We have made progress there, but we are far from perfect, so that the effort that you are talking about, communicating 

with those who are serving the soldier in uniform and the veteran 

who overnight changes his position, is a very worthwhile effort, but 

a very, very big challenge. 

I must say that, in your testimony and in the chairman’s comments of concern about the homeless, there is demonstration there 

of an area where we might make great, great progress. In California, we made a big change, because we used to solve people’s 

mental problems by throwing them in hospitals. We decided that 

we would make it tougher to put people in hospitals with the promise that there would be clinics in the communities where they could 

get their medication and thereby begin to rebuild their lives. We 

made it tough to enter the hospitals. We never built the clinics. 

This is a place where, in terms of the homeless, your administration could have a huge, huge effect, if we take our basic hospital 

system and make clinics more readily available with a design to 

deal with those soldiers who long served who now are in a desperate circumstance, we might get a very significant percentage of 

those homeless off the street. 

So I would be interested in your reaction to that. And I think you 

know—it is my intention to have us work very closely together. 

Thank you. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Lewis, thank you for that question. 

The homeless issue is a particularly vexing one. I mean, I can 

tell you that 154,000 veterans are homeless tonight—today, men 

and women, and veterans from every generation, including the 

ones who are currently in operation in Afghanistan and Iraq, so 

that is devastating, this area is. 

Our effort is to prevent the first step of homelessness. And so it 

isn’t just about, going and finding the ones that are on the street 

today. It is, what are we doing with VBA’s home loans to prevent 


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foreclosures and working with veterans who are in the financial 

tough times, sometimes not of their making, just the economic conditions, giving them every option to stay in their habitations? If we 

can do that, we have prevented that first step. 

But once we are dealing with folks who are homeless, they fall 

in a category of joblessness, homelessness, depression, substance 

abuse, potential suicide. Veterans lead the country in those statistics. 

And in the past several years, we have been successful in reducing the homeless number. And this is an estimate; I will grant you 

that. It is 240,000 down to 154,000 today. 

We have made progress and we think we have some good ideas 

on how to break the cycle of homelessness, 80 percent of them after 

the first year are still living—after they finish our 2-year program—are still living successfully independently. 

So we think we have opportunities here, and we do intend to go after that. We are putting $3.2 billion against this area in 2010 

budget. But we know we can’t do it alone. 

This is one of those issues that sitting in an office in Washington 

with a 1,000-mile screwdriver to fine-tune something does not 

work. We have to reach out and create partnerships with people in 

the communities that deal with these issues. Every community in 

this country has part and parcel this larger issue. 

Twenty-six million dollars we are going to use to partner with 

Housing and Urban Development, with Labor, with Education, 

Health and Human Services, Small Business Administration to put 

together a package of tools in which we get folks off the street, we 

wean them off whatever substance may be there, and then we 

begin the process of bettering this 80 percent record a year later. 

Mr. LEWIS. I believe that the veterans base of personnel could be 

a fabulous place, of course, to make breakthroughs relative to medical research, providing better service to all Americans, but particularly to veterans. Like you, veterans often come out of service and 

their paper—all their background stuff is in paper in a folder. 

Well, it wasn’t so long ago in my own veterans hospital that our 

staff found that veterans were walking around the hospitals with 

those same folders and there was no real information base. They 

didn’t get service because the records weren’t straight and nobody 

could ever find them. 

That is changed. It is very significant that we have seen that 

change. 

Well, I would hope that we recognize that dollars do not reflect 

all of our solutions. And if we can better coordinate, as you suggest, 

with NIH, with the research hospitals, as the Pettis Memorial Hospital does with Loma Linda, the work they are doing in terms of 

breakthroughs for prostate cancer and breast cancer treatment, for 

example, is pretty phenomenal, and it is because of the exercising 

of work between the veterans being served and research hospitals. 

So with that, the thrust of your testimony is very pleasing to me, 

and I would hope you would exercise those pathways. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Thank you. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. Israel. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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Mr. Chairman, I would like to follow up on Mr. Lewis’ eloquent 

words about homeless veterans. And, Mr. Secretary, I want to 

thank you for visiting my office 2 weeks ago. I enjoyed the visit immensely. 

You know, when we talk about 154,000 homeless veterans, I 

think it is important to put a face on that, because it doesn’t really 

resonate. People can’t appreciate the scope of the problem unless 

they understand what a homeless veteran is all about. 

And I told you the story, Mr. Secretary, of Joe Sukup, who came 

to my office on Long Island. He had fought in Vietnam, had PTSD, 

received medals from his service in combat in Vietnam, but ended 

up living in a truck, and on Valentine’s Day, on a snowy night, decided to kill himself. 

And whether it was divine intervention or maybe something else, 

he decided to drive to the Northport V.A. And he went into the 

Northport V.A., and he said, ‘‘I was thinking of killing myself tonight.’’ And a caseworker there said, ‘‘Joe, we are going to help 

you.’’ 

And to this day, he would say that is the first time somebody 

from government said, ‘‘We are going to help you.’’ And they put 

him on a trajectory to get help, and we got him his retroactive payments. And Joe Sukup is actually now, Mr. Chairman, organizing 

clinics for veterans on Long Island who have PTSD. 

So that is a story of failure turned to success, but that is only 

1 out of 154,000. 

I commend you, Mr. Secretary, and the administration for putting this critical focus into homeless veterans. One of the concerns 

I have is that $3.2 billion, is it enough? Of the $3.2 billion, $2.7 

billion is going to health care and $500 million will go to supportive 

services. 

In a climate of tight budgets and fiscal responsibility, I understand the pressures to make sure that we are safeguarding every 

dollar. But it seems to me that homeless veterans ought to be an 

absolute priority. And are there other things that we could be 

doing, in your view? 

Are there innovations that we should be looking at? Could you 

do more if this committee or subcommittee were to increase the 

level of resources that you have to make sure that all of the Joe 

Sukups are being treated, identified, and put on the trajectory that 

he found? 

Dr. CROSS. Sir, I appreciate those remarks. There is always more 

that can be done. Our view is that no veteran should be homeless, 

no veteran needs to be homeless. We have the programs that, if we 

can bring them to bear for that veteran, we can do something about 

that. 

The core issues, of course, are mental health and substance 

abuse, and those are what we have to address. That is the typical 

reason why they are homeless. 

Two broad categories of things that we are doing relate to Grant 

and Per Diem and the work that we are doing there, but particularly I want you to know that in transition housing we are moving 

from—we now have 11,000 beds and are expanding over the next 

several years to 15,000 beds. 

And in the HUD–VASH program, our plans are right now—— 


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Mr. ISRAEL. I am sorry. The HUD—— 

Dr. CROSS. HUD–VASH, V-A-S-H. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Okay. 

Dr. CROSS. Expanding from about 10,000 to about 20,000 in the 

near term, I think that will make a difference. And as the secretary 

said, I think we have already made some progress over the past 

couple of years as we measure it, and it is hard to measure it. 

But this is something that we are committed to and that everyone of us, I think, on the staff feel that no veteran should be on 

the street. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Israel, if I could follow up, I think the 

reason that the allocation of funds goes the way described here is 

so much of it what appears to be medical services, it is because 

that is the first step in beginning the process of recovery. 

If we can’t get through the substance abuse and some of the 

other mental health issues that may be present, it is hard to get 

to the education, the job counseling, and the rest of this. And so 

it essentially begins as a sort of a medical services issue. 

Mr. ISRAEL. Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. I know this 

is a front-end investment, and I am sure that most, if not all, of 

my colleagues are interested in continuing to work very closely 

with you so that we can grow our focus on homeless veterans from 

here on. 

And I thank you very much for your leadership. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Israel. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

TRANSFORMATION

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here today. I know that 

you have got a tremendous background of dedication and taking 

care of the men and women in uniform, and I know you are going 

to take that same dedication and commitment in this new job. So 

thank you for all of that. 

And it is really good to hear you talk about transformation. 

There is an old saying that change is inevitable, but growth is optional. And I think you recognize that in the sense that, change is 

going to come, but it is what you do with that kind of change. 

And I think the growth part is the transformational part. And I 

think, as you pointed out, when you have got a big bureaucracy 

like you have got, you have got to start looking at yourself and 

looking from within. 

And one of the things I saw that you are going to have is a new 

office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Construction and 

Logistics. 

And so I wanted to ask you, in terms of this transformation, this 

new office, this new department, can you tell us what your, view 

of the role it will play. Maybe tell us what some of the functions 

are that are being taken care of by existing departments—and, obviously, some are going to be brand new—and then maybe talk 

about how, what kind of control you will have within that to make 

sure that it is conducting oversight. 


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Secretary SHINSEKI. This is to formalize a new office that was 

stood up here recently where acquisition, logistics and construction 

are co-located as a subject area. 

We contract in a variety of places. We do acquisition in different 

formats and different places. And we need a single point where we 

can see what our priorities are, how the money is being invested, 

and what the returns are. Right now, that is a little difficult to see. 

And I am used to a structured acquisition process in which there 

are objectives to be met prior to a decision to acquire something 

and then there are deliverables over time. 

When you don’t have that kind of a process, you go 3 or 4, 10 

years, and you find out something doesn’t work. And there has 

been just one too many example of that in the history of our experience. And we need not to do that anymore. 

And we need to put together a disciplined acquisition process 

where all of this comes together, you have to make your case for 

why this is important, what it is going to cost, and then deliver. 

But it is to discipline our processes. 

We are looking at 16 people for this—to be added to this office, 

to create this new office for the assistant secretary. And we have 

provided some budget resources for them to begin to stand up the 

office. 

But it is to discipline our process that covers 152 hospitals, 755 

outpatient clinics, 230 vet centers, and 50 mobile vans, and 57 regional offices. We need to discipline the way we see our priorities 

and also how we spend money on acquisition. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. So it would be fair to say right now, some of that 

happens, but it is piecemeal, and this is trying to bring things together, have one office specifically review and analyze all those 

projects and bring about a better result? 

Well, thank you, sir. And I think that is a great program. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Salazar. 

FITZSIMMONS ARMY MEDICAL CENTER

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. And appreciate all 

your hard work over the last several years and your dedication to 

this country, and always want to tell you that I appreciate your 

promptness when we call you for a meeting or a phone call, as well 

as Undersecretary Muro. 

Let me just ask you—and thank you, first of all, for the Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. I guess we will be breaking ground on 

that shortly, or you have already broken ground? And can you tell 

me where we are on the fiscal year 2010 budget for that facility? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. This is the Denver hospital? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Fitzsimmons, yes, sir. 

Dr. CROSS. Sir, we have for funding for 2010 $119 million in the budget. Future funding would be $493 million. And that is the information. 

INFORMATION SECURITY

Mr. SALAZAR. Okay. I do appreciate that. 


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And one other thing. I know that my work through the Veterans 

Affairs Committee over the last several years, we have encountered 

some problems in V.A. with identity theft or with identity compromise, where we had lost those computers—one of the members. 

With your push on I.T., what are we doing as far as cybersecurity? Could one of you address that? 

Dr. CROSS. We are working closely, sir, with our I.T. colleagues 

to make sure that security among our physician staff and our 

nurses, where that hasn’t always been the foremost concern that 

they have focused on, it does become something that they think 

about, that we make it a part of our culture. 

And I think that is the key for us. We are making a difference 

in terms of the people who use the I.T. in terms of their culture, 

making this something that they think about that is a routine part 

of their practice every day. And that has been a bit painful at 

times, but we are working through that, and I think we have made 

some progress. 

Mr. SALAZAR. So are you committing certain resources to the security portion of the I.T.? 

Mr. WARREN. Yes, sir. To give you a laydown on how we are approaching information—how we are dealing with cybersecurity and 

information protection at the department, there is approximately 

$120 million in the fiscal year 2010 request to fund those programs, not just at the technical level of putting systems and controls into place, but also training for the staff, so having annual security awareness training and privacy training for all employees at 

the department so they understand that obligation to be a steward 

of the veterans’ data. 

The approach that we have taken is fixing the liabilities that we 

are aware of, the things that have been identified as a result of I.G. 

investigations, of GAO audits, monitoring our systems to understand if we are in an insecure condition and what we need to do 

to protect it. 

So active monitoring, we have a network and security operations 

center that monitors 24/7 what is happening at our perimeter, are 

folks doing bad things, and then responding to that. 

We are standardizing our desktop computers and our systems to 

make sure that, when things get out of balance, when you have all 

these different unique systems, it is hard to protect them. So standardizing those so we can put the controls in place to make sure we 

are able to secure them and secure them at a reasonable cost. 

We are controlling the use of sensitive data in terms of tracking 

where it is and putting policies and procedures in place to make 

sure that the employees understand, if you are sending something 

that has personally identifiable information in it, we need to 

encrypt it when you send it and you do not send it off to somebody 

who is not an employee or is not authorized to access it. 

Again, I spoke to enhancing training and awareness, a very active engagement with the staff, national training programs, videos, 

trying to be creative in reaching out to the V.A. employees so they 

understand it is very, very important to husband that information 

and to protect it. 


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We are also making sure that, as we develop new systems, that 

we are building security into them, that they are not an afterthought. 

Hopefully that gives you a sense of how we are taking on information protection at the department, sir. 

Mr. SALAZAR. So how have you changed it from or has it been 

changed from, you know, 2 years ago? 

Mr. WARREN. The way we have taken on your question of what 

has changed, when the incidents took place, there was a dearth of 

policy, in terms of how you should approach it. It was very fragmented. So with some areas, it was understood how you need to 

deal with it. In those areas, there may have been policy, but no 

procedure, or even folks not doing what they needed to do. 

So tremendous effort went into making sure policies were put in 

place to explain to folks obligations, and then procedures to change 

how we do things, and then down to the level of at the sites making the changes and fixing the systems. 

I have a dashboard on my desk that tracks all the open findings 

and progress made location by location, where are they, so I have 

a constant update, what is happening, and if I see things going out 

of kilter, being able to reach in and say, ‘‘You are missing your 

focus here. You need to get into that.’’ 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, I would just add a comment 

here to Mr. Salazar’s questions. Two things: We begin our day, 8 

o’clock every morning, with an update on exactly these kinds of 

issues. It is a daily brief on where we stand, what do we have to 

do the rest of the day to assure information security and our links 

are working? 

If I might, let me go back to the question you initially asked 

about Denver, just give you a little more information: $119 million 

this year, but in the near future, in order to stay on our timelines 

to deliver that hospital by summer of 2013, we will have to work 

project funding for another $493 million in order to complete the 

project. 

Site acquisition is complete. They begin moving dirt shortly, if 

they haven’t already started. Vertical construction begins fiscal 

year 2010. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. 

Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

MEDICAL CARE FOR VETERANS IN RURAL LOCATIONS

Mr. Secretary, it was great talking to you in the office the other 

day. When we were talking, we spoke about the possibility of adjusting the rural clinic eligibility circles, bringing the V.A. health 

services to more underserved communities like Stephenville, Texas. 

We also spoke about the possibility of use of part-time or mobile 

outpatient clinics. 

I see the budget includes a request of $440 million to continue 

improving access to medical care for veterans in rural areas. Can 

you talk about how that money will be spent toward the goal of 

bringing services to rural veterans without having them to drive 

100 miles or more? Is there a plan to utilize some of that funding 


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to re-analyze the VHA strategic planning process through which 

the community-based outpatient clinics’ locations are selected? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I can’t answer specifically for that location, 

but I will have a better answer for you. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, really I am just looking at a rural veterans 

in general, and what plans do you have for those folks who are a 

little outside the circle? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Yes, I just would like to tell you that the 

budget includes $440 million to improve access to medical care for 

veterans in rural and highly rural areas, including the use of 

health resource centers that may be available out there or mobile 

clinics, rural health consultants, and outreach clinics. 

And the whole intent is to ensure that we are not medical center—and that has been the migration over the last decade. Great 

medical centers, but then, how do we get that moved out to where 

veterans live? 

And there are three definitions that sort of, in the V.A., governs 

the geography of this country. There is urban; there is rural; and 

there is highly rural. So two-thirds of our definitions acknowledge 

the fact that we are dealing with an unusual circumstance, smaller 

numbers, but we still owe them the services we provide in the 

urban centers, and this is part of our attempt here to close that 

gap. 

Mr. CARTER. I not only have an interest in this area because of 

what we talked about with Stephenville, but on the Transportation 

Subcommittee, of which I am a member, we discussed the servicing 

of rural areas with a transportation network, up on the East Coast 

and the New England area, and it is really designed to get veterans places, because they are scattered out in small counties 

around everywhere. And they use a bus system. 

I sat down with a map of Texas, and in reality, there would be 

no profitable bus system that could go pick up one veteran in one 

county in the western part of our state. 

So we have got to be aware that there are a lot of veterans in 

west Texas, but they are scattered out over a wide area. 

I thank you for what you can do, and we discussed it at length 

in my office. W have to take care of the veterans that also like to 

buy land and get away from things, as a lot of them do, but we 

are still responsible for their health care. 

So I know you will keep that on the front burner. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Judge Carter. 

I believe we have time for Mr. Dicks to finish his questions before we need to recess for three votes. 

Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Secretary, we have a great confidence in you, and 

I appreciated our chance to talk the other day. And I also appreciate the fact that we put in a clinic in Port Angeles, Washington. 

It is not a full-fledged clinic, but it is a partial clinic. We have one 

in Bremerton, too. 

A lot of veterans, though, have to get up at 2 o’clock in the morning up at Clallam Bay and drive all the way to Port Angeles, all 

the way down across the Hood Canal Bridge into Seattle. It takes 


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about 5 or 6 hours. And all they have is a volunteer—to drive the 

truck. 

So I don’t know if we can do any better than that. I think we 

put—I think the administration put money in here to keep working 

on this rural issue. People really appreciated the clinic. We didn’t 

have one in Port Angeles, so for a lot of those people, being able 

to go there was a big step forward. 

I think there was also a clinic—another small area at the Elwha, 

an Indian reservation. They just put in a new health care clinic, 

and we are using that as well. 

BACKLOG

You and I talked about backlog. And I know there has been a 

tremendous effort to get the backlog under control. What is the 

backlog on people who were trying to get in to the hospitals—and 

how long do they have to wait? I am sure it is different by district 

or VISN area. And I think we are VISN 21. 

Do you have any idea what those numbers are? 

Dr. CROSS. Yes, sir, we do. We measure nationwide. We measure 

by VISN and by locality. And I can certainly have my staff or I go 

over it with your staff any time and give you the very specific numbers that we have. 

[The information follows:] 


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But our standards are for mental health that a new patient is 

to be evaluated within 24 hours. And that may be done by phone 

or it may be done in person, and that is 7 days a week, and that 

is our standard. 

Our second standard is that, once that is done, they are to have 

a comprehensive mental health evaluation by a mental health clinician within 14 days. 

We are measuring that right now. And across the board, including your area, 95 percent of the time we are meeting that standard 

of 14 days. 

Now, for primary care and specialty care, across the board right 

now, it is running 97 percent and 98 percent, primary care 98 percent, specialty about 97 percent, meeting our 30-day standard. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, that is good. I know you are working on that 

and trying to keep that at a high level, which we appreciate. 

HOMELESSNESS

You know, we just built or revitalized a facility at Retsil, Washington, and I know they now have a capability to handle some 

homeless veterans. Do you do that a lot with the states, I mean, 

when they are building their veterans homes, state veterans 

homes, to have them make it accessible to homeless veterans? Or 

should we be doing that? 

Dr. CROSS. Well, we have a couple of programs. We have the Per 

Diem program, where we work with a local community to provide 

transitional housing, and then we work with the HUD–VASH program to provide vouchers for what we want to be long-term solutions. 

Mr. DICKS. See, this is a state veterans home. 

Dr. CROSS. State veterans nursing homes are based on medical 

conditions and those situations more so than being homeless. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, in this one, they must have worked out some 

way to do it, because they do have homeless veterans there, as 

well. I think using the existing facilities, if you can, makes sense. 

This was a $35 million upgrade of this facility. It is a very nice facility. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. We have used a number of venues using excess capacity, and dedicating it to a homeless population is one. 

Another is, we partner with some of the nonprofits out there, 

Catholic charities. You know, in Chicago we have got a terrific 

partnership working, and it just so happens that that homeless 

shelter is next door to one of our outpatient clinics. 

So the availability of health care for those homeless veterans, 

good fit. And then, on a second floor, we have a vet center, which 

is run by vets, and so they have this camaraderie effect. And inside 

the vet center, there is a bank of computers for job searchers in 

which there is a counselor helping folks with that part of it. 

So dealing with the homeless issue has many hats to it. And we 

find great success when we can bring to include folks in the community together to help us. We get a better return on the investment. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 


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Members, we have got about 6 minutes, but not many members 

have voted yet, so we have got time to get over. We will stay in 

recess until after the end of the third vote. If we could try to get 

back as soon as possible, for those that can come back, we would 

appreciate that. 

Thank you 

[Recess.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. I would like to call the committee back to order. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you, and all of you, for the inconvenience 

of having us go vote. I have often said this job would be a good job 

if it weren’t for having to vote. But we appreciate you staying here. 

ADVANCE APPROPRIATION

I would like to begin my first round of questioning by addressing 

the issue of forward-funding for the V.A. A decision has not been 

made as to whether in the fiscal year 2010 budget we will also include forward-funding to fiscal year 2011, but the administration 

supported that, and the budget resolution allows that. 

Mr. Wamp has raised a question that I would like you to address. I think it is a legitimate and important question to ask, and 

that is, what would be the impact of congressional oversight of the 

V.A. budgeting process if we went to forward-funding like that? 

I would like to ask you, if we are going to do this, we obviously 

would need input, detailed input from the administration over the 

next few weeks as to what we would propose for fiscal year 2011. 

Could you say for the record where the V.A. is in that process of 

looking at a budget submission for fiscal year 2011? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, I would just reinforce with 

you that both the President and I feel very strongly that funding 

for Veterans Affairs and the impact that has on our veterans who 

come to us for health care shouldn’t be hindered. 

And, you know, timely budgets are a great thing, but if we look 

at our history, they are a rare event. And a continuing resolution 

has created a host of other issues for us. And for that reason, he 

and I have agreed that advanced appropriations is—you know, is 

a reasonable way to look at this. 

I think you know that, within the V.A., we have a modeling process that looks forward. It is based on the Milliman model. We contracted with them. This model looks out 20 years. And I would say 

year one is great. Year 20 is probably not worth much. 

But we have gone and looked back at the second year of that 

process, went back and looked at how the second-year modeling, 

compared to what was enacted and executed, very favorable. So we 

think we have the basic tools to be able to look beyond the first 

year. 

Timing and implementation—I mean, this would be significant. 

When we did take this step, we would hope that all the details had 

been worked out. And what I would like to do is come back and 

work with you and the committee and your staff on exactly what 

that implementation timeline would be so that it would be a good 

fit the first time we do it. 

But in terms of modeling, the information is there. For 84 percent of, you know, what we do in VHA, that modeling is there. And 

then the other 16 percent, we have to do other efforts. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. I would welcome that. And the sooner you 

could do it, the better, once you have the data you need, because 

if we are to implement this for fiscal year 2010 and 2011, we would 

have to see those numbers pretty quickly. 

In fact, you know, taking a look at those numbers might allow 

us to determine which way we want to go. If we feel good about 

the numbers and believe we could continue oversight with the V.A., 

despite a 2-year budget, then we might move ahead. If we feel the 

numbers are rushed and not well put together, then it might cause 

us to second-guess that. 

And Mr. Wamp might want to have some follow-up comments on 

that. 

I would like to read one thing into the record that usually we 

don’t talk about. Mr. Muro, with Memorial Affairs and your representation of that important part of the V.A., I am very proud— 

and I hope everyone that works in Memorial Affairs at the V.A. is 

proud of the fact that, according to the records I have, that the 

V.A.’s national cemetery system has received the highest rating in 

customer satisfaction for any federal agency or private-sector corporation ever surveyed as part of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a 95 out of a possible 100 points. 

Is that a correct statement of the facts? And when did that rating occur, if it is? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I would just like to affirm that that is accurate, but let me let the individual who is responsible for much of 

that provide some detail. 

Mr. MURO. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. 

Yes, it is accurate. And we actually accomplished it two times, 

in 2005 and in 2007. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, I want to compliment you. And please pass 

on this subcommittee’s compliments to everyone who had a hand 

in earning that level of respect from—I am sure the vast majority 

of those in customer satisfaction survey were family members of 

veterans. And what a great show of respect to our service men and 

women. 

In a town where you only make the front page of the Washington 

Post if you have done something wrong, how refreshing it is to be 

able to at least speak publicly in this committee hearing about the 

V.A. having done something that no other federal agency or private-sector corporation has done. 

Thank you. And I salute you in the V.A. and its employees for 

that. 

My final question will be asked in the next round. I am going to 

try to follow the 5-minute rule. 

I would like to recognize Mr. Wamp for any questions he might 

have. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have basically three lines of short questions, but I want to first 

read into the record quotes from the GAO study, April 29, 2009, 

about advanced appropriations, just so the committee and the secretary can absorb what an independent analysis of this request 

might entail. 

It says the provision of advanced appropriations would ‘‘use up’’ 

discretionary budget authority for the next year and so limit 


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Congress’s flexibility to respond to changing priorities and needs. 

While providing funds for 2 years in a single appropriations act 

provides certainty about some funds, the longer projection period 

increases the uncertainty of the data and projections used. 

If V.A. is expected to submit its budget proposal for health care 

for 2 years and lead time for the second year would be 30 months, 

this additional lead time increases the uncertainty of the estimates 

and could worsen the challenges V.A. already faces when formulating its health care budget. 

It says providing advanced appropriations will not mitigate or 

solve the problems we have reported on regarding data, calculations, or assumptions in developing V.A.’s health care budget, nor 

will it address any link between cost growth and program design. 

Congressional oversight will continue to be critical. 

So you make a great point, but just because the Congress has not 

done its job funding programs in a timely manner doesn’t mean 

you have to go and change the constitutional process of annual 

oversight and appropriations from the legislative branch. 

I think we need to be real careful here, but I also think we need 

to use this as an incentive with the leadership to remind them, relative to these most important Americans, the men and women who 

put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf and stand between a 

threat and our civilian population, the most important Americans 

cannot have their needs met unless we do our work on time. 

And this chairman has done that. And this leadership right now 

has done that. But it has to continue or this becomes a real wedge 

issue between the executive branch and the legislative branch. 

And I know, when we were in the majority, I was more inclined, 

obviously, to try to support the administration, all their requests, 

and now you have that burden, Mr. Chairman. But I hope that you 

will remember always the importance of this legislative prerogative. And it is not just a prerogative. It is a requirement. So that 

is all I will say about advanced appropriations. 

TRANSFORMATION

Let me go back briefly to the transformation piece that you were 

talking about, because when you were answering my first question, 

I got a lot of process response on the transformation, and I am really looking more for the bigger piece, like contracting. I want to 

know where that fits in to any transformation you have. 

And I used to think of contracting—of adding options to veterans’ 

toolbox for their benefits. And I am not talking about a voucher, 

because I know that is like taboo, but I know that my veterans will 

say this in Chattanooga, Tennessee: ‘‘Man, we love our outpatient 

clinic, and it is better than ever, and they are so needed, and we 

get great benefits, and you are expanding it, and thank you, and 

we love it, and we need it, and don’t take that away.’’ 

And they say, ‘‘And the hospital in Murfreesboro is necessary. 

They do just about everything. And you have got long-term care, 

and mental health services.’’ And you talked about one of your employees. There is a person in the long-term care wing of 

Murfreesboro that has been there over 60 years. A person has been 

in that hospital for over 60 years. 


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So it is an amazing benefit. So I am not talking about in any way 

eroding the V.A. delivery system, because that should be guaranteed for our veterans that they have this. But there are cases 

where contracting makes a whole lot more sense than driving 2 

hours to get inpatient care. And it is a huge burden on the family 

to have to drive 2 hours to see their loved one who is inpatient, 

receiving the treatment. 

And if we are not going to build new facilities because we can’t, 

and because the new model is, take the health care system to the 

veterans through CBOCs and the new facilities, okay, I understand 

that, but what about those other cases where contracting services 

are creating an additional option for the veteran makes more 

sense, is that part of your transformation? 

Dr. CROSS. A couple of comments—— 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I will bat clean-up here. 

Dr. CROSS. A couple of comments related to that. The transformational model that will have an impact on this is the HCC, the 

health care center, an example of that being in Harlingen, Texas. 

And the idea is that we shouldn’t have to drive 5 hours to get to 

get a colonoscopy. 

Mr. WAMP. Right. 

Dr. CROSS. And, by the way, if you have to go through the preparation for that and then drive 5 miles, that is not a good day. So 

if you are having a heart attack or something like that, in this 

HCC concept, you would get it taken care of locally, because that 

is a time-related element. 

If you have something like a knee replacement or something that 

can be scheduled, that is scheduled long in advance, you make all 

of the arrangements, well, certainly we would want to centralize 

that on a regional basis and take care of that for the veteran. 

But it is a combination of those factors: working with the local 

community, but still preserving the veteran system—health care 

system in its regional basis, providing primary care locally, as well. 

So it is primary care locally, time-sensitive things go to the local 

community in that HCC concept, other things that are planned 

long in advance can be regionalized. 

Mr. WAMP. Are you keeping a healthy inventory of specialists in 

the V.A., from radiologists to other people that you need? How is 

that going? 

Dr. CROSS. Well, thanks to Congress and the physician and dentist pay bill, we have been very, very successful and had the best 

years in hiring for the past couple of years that we have ever had, 

as far as I know. And I think last year we hired, at least for part 

time, over—probably about 1,500 physicians and over 4,000 nurses. 

Mr. WAMP. Wow. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Wamp, if I could just add to that, if we 

were to go up 50,000 feet and look down on our health care delivery system, I hope that what you would see are, a population of 

veterans and then, within that, a medical center, first-rate medical 

center some place in the midst, and then a health care center that 

is a step below that, and the difference being all the same services 

are provided and just no inpatient care. 

And then, below that, the large outpatient clinics, and then the 

community-based and veterans, and then—vet centers, and then 


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the mobile vans, all of that intending to address the problem you 

are talking about, which is access. And for the last decade-plus, the 

effort has been to reach out. 

In those communities where patients would have trouble making 

the drive, be it in the wintertime or be it anytime just because of 

the long distances to get to the medical center where specialized 

and inpatient care is available, there is an opportunity to provide 

on a fee-basis arrangement contracting in the community, where a 

quality hospital may also provide inpatient services, and so that arrangement is there. 

I guess the only hitch here is that we would try to provide V.A. 

services, because we know what our standard is and we are pretty 

meticulous about it. But where that standard is also available in 

a community and it is to the benefit of the veteran not to have to 

make that drive, I mean, that option is there. And we do, do that. 

There are some communities and rural areas where they don’t 

have that capability. And so we try to put a larger facility in that 

area or, ultimately, you know, we have to ask them to make that 

long drive for just the inpatient care. 

Ninety-five percent of what veterans would need on a day-to-day 

basis—shots, lab work, medication, x-rays—is handled by any of 

these other than medical center facilities. So the attempt is to address those needs and those concerns. 

ADVANCE APPROPRIATION

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Farr, before I recognize you, I would like to 

follow up on something Mr. Wamp said, a couple of points that I 

think were very important, one on the advanced funding. I think 

that is an important decision to make, and I would reiterate, we 

have not made that decision. And I think we need to sit down with 

our respective staffs and go through that, once we see some numbers on what fiscal year 2011 would look like, and then talk about 

the question, do we delete our oversight authority? 

And on the second point—that I think is a good point—when you 

say there is a natural tendency as a Democratic chairman of this 

subcommittee to want to work with the administration, I think I 

would use the analogy of a spring scrimmage for football, a college 

football team. They are all on the same team, but to make themselves better, they play against each other and challenge each 

other in spring scrimmage. 

And so, while I have the greatest respect for everyone at this 

table and have known Secretary Shinseki since he was at 1st Cav 

Division at Fort Hood, what we are—maybe 90 percent of the time 

we are absolutely partners on the same team, on the same side of 

the line, I do take seriously, as I think we all should, the relative 

balance, checks and balances our founding fathers intended in the 

Constitution. 

So I think we ought to be very vigorous on a bipartisan basis in 

not necessarily attacking, but in challenging the administration to 

show the facts, show the data. 

And one area that you brought up, I think, would be a perfect 

example is with some of the proposals, the innovations to bring 

about transformation, you do propose several new offices. And I 

would hope, at the end of the first year, there would be some 


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metrics by which we could judge. Do we just create new bureaucratic positions, or did they actually meet metrics of saving taxpayers’ dollars? 

I am glad the ranking member brought up these points. I think 

they are both very important points, and I look forward to working 

with you on that. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, may I just add—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Please, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary SHINSEKI [continuing]. I would just offer to you—and, 

you know, to Mr. Wamp’s point, there is great value in the competitive arena where people with initiatives and want to compete for 

funding need to come and present their case. You know, I 

couldn’t—I am a firm believer in that based on previous jobs I have 

had. 

But I do think that you would expect me not to take the attitude 

that, if advanced appropriations were to be enacted, that there is 

a bye on the second year. You would expect and you could count 

on me to provide the arguments for what validates what is being 

asked for in that second year. You will have a chance to look at 

that. It is a competitive process. 

I would also offer that, as good as we might put together this implementation plan, the second year is always challenged with the 

unknowns, you know, whether it is an H1N1 virus or whether it 

is a Katrina. And so I would look for an opportunity to find a way 

to create a mechanism for the second year that could be adjusting 

for those unknowns, unanticipated, or maybe even bonehead calls. 

What we want to do is get it right for our veterans. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Farr. 

VA/DOD JOINTNESS

Mr. FARR. Thank you. 

I am very pleased to see that Admiral Dunne is here. Admiral 

Dunne was the superintendent, the commander of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey before his retirement. And what I 

want to—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is that in your district? 

Mr. FARR. You wouldn’t know that, would you? It is probably 

mentioned in every hearing. 

What we have at former Fort Ord is the Defense Manpower Data 

Center. And I don’t know if anybody in V.A. knows about it, but 

it is essentially the Department of Defense’s one-stop for every 

kind of information need on any personnel in the Defense Department and the families of the soldiers and the defense contractors 

who are maybe overseas. 

And it seems to me that that I.T. is something that maybe the 

veterans department could work on. I am really keen on jointness, 

because essentially—and I am working on how we can work with 

you on this—I mean, the Defense Department has the luxury of essentially operating out of bases. So all the personnel are assigned 

to a base, and they operate out of a base. 

But when people get out of the Defense Department and go into 

the veterans department, they are scattered all over the world. And 


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then your line of support isn’t on campus, on base. Your line of support is in the community. 

And I think that is the thing that Mr. Wamp and I are really 

keen on, is how can we integrate more what is good in a community, sort of in the civilian sector on community support systems 

and specialists that are there. Then, when veterans do need some 

help, we don’t have to go hundreds of miles in order to get that 

help. We could find that there are resources in their own community. 

And along those lines, what I would just like to have you comment on, we still have over 6,000 uniformed personnel on the Monterey peninsula either at the Defense Language Institute or the 

Naval Postgraduate School, or at the Navy lab, or at the Fleet Numerical. I mean, it adds up. We have seven different military footprints on the Monterey peninsula. 

We have just finished all the housing on the RCI housing, and 

we are now trying to do a joint clinic with the DOD. And the V.A. 

is leading the effort here. 

And I would just like to have you tell us the importance of meeting this critical, unmet health care need for both the local veterans 

population and the active-duty dependent beneficiaries through 

using your new health care center facilities act, the private-sector 

funding. I mean, I know you have mentioned that. 

But what I see is, we couldn’t get this facility built without using 

that modality, because the line to be in the FYDP would take too 

long, several years. And we are going to incur a lot of costs, unnecessary costs. 

And with this critical ability to get it privately funded, it just 

seems to me a win-win. And I wondered if you had any comments 

now, that doesn’t work in every community, but where you do have 

significant Defense Department presence and a significant veterans 

community living there, we ought to have that jointness. 

They have the jointness when they go on to base to use the privileges of the P.X. or use the privileges of a gas station. But they 

don’t have that, privileges to go into a joint medical facility. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, I will let Dr. Cross talk about the Fort 

Ord health care system. But I would just lead into this by saying, 

we have a history of DOD–V.A. joint facilities. We do it in New 

Mexico with the Air Force; Alaska with the Air Force; Leavenworth, Kansas; El Paso, Texas, with the Army; Key West, Florida. 

So there are a number of these that suggest we have a history 

of doing this and doing this well. And in the case of Chicago, Great 

Lakes, Naval and Northern Chicago V.A. Medical Center, we have 

integrated it to the point where a V.A. director and an active, serving naval captain are working together. One is the director; the 

other is the vice director, if you will, fully integrated. And we hope 

that that partnership is going to, you know, go forward this fall. 

With that as background, we have some history here. We have 

some experience on how to do this right. Let me ask Dr. Cross to 

talk about the potential here. 

Mr. FARR. The key to this is you have a new methodology of having private-sector funding for the facility—— 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Right. 


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Mr. FARR [continuing]. Which is essentially what we did with 

RCI housing. 

Dr. CROSS. Mr. Farr, there is good news here. And although this 

project did not go forward as a JIF project for a joint clinic between 

DOD and V.A., we are moving forward with this as a lease project 

in the V.A. 2010 budget. And this is to make it a new health care 

center, just as I was describing it for the Texas venture. 

And this project will construct a new health care center to provide primary care, specialty care, mental health, expanded 

diagnostics, and ambulatory surgery, and activation is expected 

probably by the end of fiscal year 2012. 

Mr. FARR. Admiral Dunne, it is nice to have you back on the 

team. 

Mr. DUNNE. It is great to be here, sir. And I would like to take 

the opportunity to thank you for all your efforts to make sure that 

the Postgraduate School could celebrate its 100 years this year. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And, Admiral, let me assure you, he doesn’t pass 

up an opportunity to emphasize the assets of that—— 

Mr. FARR. You are all invited to the celebration. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Farr. 

Mr. Carter. 

CLAIMS ADJUDICATION

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I sent out 220,000 questionnaires to my constituents. And there was a line of that questionnaire that says, ‘‘If you 

aren’t able to communicate some of your concerns, you are welcome 

to call the congressman.’’ 

Last night, I spent my time talking to these constituents, and 

one of them was a veteran. In fact, there usually are quite a few 

veterans who take advantage of calling me or me calling them. 

And I promised him, if I ran into you all, I was going to talk to 

you about this, so I will. It is just luck that it happens to be today. 

He served in the military for 20 years or 30 years, and then went 

to work for the Texas Veterans Commission, which helps veterans 

work through the system. Now he is working a claim through the 

system for himself, and he says the perception is—he believes it to 

be a reality—that the people who process claims, adjudicate claims, 

are working on a piecework quota system that they have to do so 

many claims to get promoted to the next promotional level and 

they have to meet a quota every week. 

He is convinced that, when they get behind in the quota, that 

sometimes they just deny a claim to get the number of cases dealt 

with that week to meet their quota, which throws it into the appeals system, which then, he says, the V.A. can stretch out for a 

year or 2. In his case, it was almost 2 years, to which he had only 

60 days within which to reply. 

He thinks that something should be done about the fact that 

there is a quota on these case workers, which would cause them, 

rightfully or wrongfully, to think, ‘‘Well, a couple of them that I 

just let slide by will be taken care of in the appellate process, but 

I will be able to get promoted.’’ 

I would like a comment, maybe from you or one of the other people, about whether that system or his perception of that system is 


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a reality. He claims his issue was arthritis. The reason he questions this whole process is that he first went in for arthritis, they 

said traumatic arthritis. He appealed it and said, ‘‘I have never had 

a trauma,’’ and they did a restudy and came back and agreed with 

him. And they awarded him for arthritis in both his elbows and 

then later in his neck for congenital arthritis. 

Then it had moved into his shoulders. When he made this request, once again, he got ‘‘traumatic arthritis’’ and was thrown into 

the appeal system again. He said it was so easy to see, if they had 

just taken the time to read the records, that he had been through 

this whole process on his neck and both elbows, but he felt like 

they just did it because they were in a hurry and not because they 

were trying to deny him his claim for any other purpose, but they 

were just in a hurry. 

So I promised him I would raise this issue. I know it is specific 

to one veteran, but it is important to him, and I gave him my word. 

Mr. DUNNE. Sir, even if one soldier feels that way, we have got 

more work to do. There is what is called a performance standard 

for the rating representatives that work in the regional offices, but 

there is also a quality standard. 

And part of that quality standard is that the cases that they 

work are reviewed periodically on a random basis. And if they were 

to deny a claim that otherwise should have been awarded, they 

would be held accountable for that. And so that information would 

be back to their supervisor and factored in, as well as the—simply 

the amount of cases that they do. 

So from a supervisory level, simply volume itself is not enough 

to achieve success. And we want to make sure that every veteran 

who comes to us to get their claim adjudicated, that we do it accurately, and that we do it right the first time, and that there is no 

need for our veterans to appeal because they feel that they didn’t 

get a right—a properly adjudicated claim. 

Mr. CARTER. I will call him tonight and tell him that. 

Mr. DUNNE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. You bet. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Judge Carter. 

Mr. Kennedy. 

MENTAL HEALTH

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, all of you. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome. Thank you. 

Secretary Shinseki, as you know, with Monday’s tragic events at 

Camp Liberty underscoring the critical epidemic of mental illness 

amongst a number of our military and veterans, too, climbing suicide rates and shortage of mental health professionals and broken 

families seem to be common themes that are always appearing in 

our newspapers for our veterans and their families. 

And the stories are constantly—we cannot afford to wait any 

longer to staff up and reach out to those who are in need. Could 

you tell us, how, with the integration with the DOD, we are going 

to make sure that every single soldier that is going to have the 

face-to-face interview coming out of the Department of Defense, 

and every Guard and reservist and the like, to get a face-to-face 


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interview, so that when they are coming into the V.A., we have a 

full assessment of their needs and are able to hopefully prevent 

any onset of PTSD from ever happening? 

Dr. CROSS. A key point for us is, first of all, to make sure that 

we have the people, the expertise in place to take care of these veterans. And that is why, over the past several years, we have added 

almost 5,000 new mental health professionals. We have also expanded our vet centers. 

But regarding the interview, I think that is very key. And what 

we were finding was that, when they first got back from overseas, 

that if we talked to them right then, didn’t get much of a response. 

They were focused on one thing and one thing only, and that was 

going home. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right. 

Dr. CROSS. So DOD actually took the initiative to do 90 to 180 

days later the post-deployment health reappraisal. That was actually a very successful initiative. 

We wanted to buy into that, so I have taken our local V.A. staff 

and our vet center staff, but mostly our vet center staff, to be physically there, to be face to face with the individuals when the units 

go through the PDHRA. We have done boatloads of those now. 

They often end up making referrals right then and getting them arrangements to get them into care after that. 

They are much more sensitive at that point. You have a much 

better conversation, and it really did make a difference. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Kennedy, may I just add to that? 

Mr. KENNEDY. You bet. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. One of our efforts in establishing this relationship with DOD for the single joint electronic record is to, first 

of all, have a registration for every serving member in the military. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. As you know, right now, not all who leave 

the service come to enroll with the V.A., but this would be automatic, so we now have a population that we can identify and deal 

with. 

And then, between DOD and the V.A., this face-to-face interview 

that you talk about is what we intend to do. Some of this may be 

done prior to the uniform coming off, but certainly, for those that 

have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, that is our priority, is to talk 

to them face to face and to get this identification and begin the 

tracking process, even if at that time there was no definite determination that PTSD was a factor. If it crops up 6 months later, at 

least we have got a point of reference to look back at. 

Veteran service-connected PTSD has increased from 120,000 in 

1999 to today we are carrying on our rolls 344,000 folks, not all of 

them Iraq-Afghan veterans. These are PTSD cases that have occurred over time. Vietnam veterans are probably the hardest hit 

with this factor, just didn’t know enough, and they weren’t being 

screened, and many of them are still carrying those burdens. 

Out of that number, as of February, about 53,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been validated for service-connected 

PTSD. So where we are able to get to that face-to-face, there are 

assets in our health care system to be able to make those determinations and begin the treatment process. 


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What we do know is, if diagnosed, we can treat. If we treat, 

things generally get better. If we don’t diagnose or treat, they don’t. 

Invariably, they get worse. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Obviously, we are in the midst of health care reform. I am told that the best treatment for PTSD is prevention and 

that it is really simply a matter of making sure that they don’t get 

PTSD. There are real known protocols to take to keep people from 

falling into getting PTSD. 

Rather than waiting for them to get it and then come in and get 

treated, we ought to be pre-empting them from getting it by having 

a welcome home strategy for them, a plan of action, where we say, 

‘‘A, B, C, D, these are the things that we know work to make sure 

you get yourself back on the ground and rolling, and you get yourself surrounded by loved ones and friends and community and family, and welcomed back home properly.’’ 

When you follow this protocol, your incidents of PTSD will just 

drop, precipitously. And we just know that through the study of 

PTSD. 

But if you don’t have those support systems in place, your incidence, the possibility of your suffering from PTSD is just going to 

skyrocket. 

Now, why we would wait, one way or another for a soldier or a 

veteran to fall into one of those categories where they are lucky 

enough either to have a supportive family or not so lucky enough 

to end up without a job, without a supportive community, and 

without—when we, the V.A., and our country can, set it up to me 

is beyond me, especially when it is going to be—cost us a fortune, 

just financially, let alone, morally we shouldn’t be allowing it to get 

as far as that. 

We should have this set up in advance, where we connect them 

right away to whatever they need. We take the stigma right away 

from it. We just say, ‘‘You know, here’s the Rolodex. Here’s the one, 

two, three, four.’’ Then it is not about PTSD; it is about connecting, 

these are the things that we are told that make you, have the best 

chance ever of, getting your feet on the ground. 

That brings me to my next question is, why don’t we have best 

practices for mental health in our health care system in the V.A.? 

We have best practices for every other health disease group in the 

V.A. health system but mental illnesses. 

Dr. CROSS. We do. 

Mr. KENNEDY. No, you don’t. I have been to two dozen of your 

health clinics, and you do not have metrics base for substance 

abuse, PTSD, anything. You practice different types of treatment 

for substance abuse, for everything else. You don’t have a one-sizefits-all for—in terms of programs that you know work that you take 

to scale like you would for MRSA, for cancer, for cardiovascular disease. The same does not hold true for mental health system-wide 

in your mental—— 

Dr. CROSS. I certainly agree with you, Mr. Kennedy, that one size 

doesn’t fit all. That is why we do have different types of programs. 

We are leading the way. We worked with the Academy of Sciences 

to decide, what is the very best type of treatment for PTSD? We 

are the leader in that. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And it is prevention, am I right? 


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Dr. CROSS. For treatment, it is exposure therapy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. But it is prevention, to surround people—people 

are the best solution to PTSD, loved ones, community, and we are 

doing nothing to prevent PTSD. You have got wonderful little clinics with 24 people in them. How are you going to—you can treat 

people when they have acute PTSD, but we have got to prevent 

them from getting PTSD to begin with. 

Dr. CROSS. I certainly agree with that. And I think, actually, prevention occurs before deployment. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Okay, all right. How is the aversion therapy 

going? 

Dr. CROSS. We trained 1,600 of our providers in this, based on 

what the IOM recommended. And we are going to expand from 

there. We are going to be into the thousands. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Good. Well, if you could submit to the committee 

how that is going and whether you feel like you are going to keep 

pace with the need, that would be great. 

Dr. CROSS. I would be very pleased to do that. 

[The information follows:] 

RESPONSES

1) Provide Rep. Kennedy a report on aversion therapy usage by VA. 

Aversion therapy involves repeated pairing of an unpleasant stimulus with production of an undesirable behavior, such as giving a patient in alcohol treatment 

an electric shock each time he or she tastes alcohol. The only aversion therapy we 

use is the drug disulfiram (Antabuse) in VA’s alcohol treatment program. According 

to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (http:// 

www.dpt.samhsa.gov/medications/disulfiram.aspx), disulfiram is ‘‘[t]he first drug 

ever approved for treating problem drinkers. Antabuse (disulfiram) interferes with 

the metabolism of alcohol, causing unpleasant side effects when alcohol is ingested.’’ 

Although approved by the Food and Drug Administration, its use has largely been 

supplemented by other medications and therapies. However, some providers and patients find it useful. Over the past 12 months, VA filled 11,979 prescriptions for 

disulfiram for 3,741 Veterans. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And, Mr. Chairman, if I could indulge just one 

more—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. KENNEDY [continuing]. Question, are you co-locating your 

TBI clinics with your other Centers of Excellence in epilepsy and 

the like, neuroscience clinics? 

Dr. CROSS. We are working on some new Centers of Excellence 

for epilepsy. I think, in the plan that we have at the moment—I 

am not sure if it is the final plan—at least one or two of them 

would be co-located with the polytrauma level one centers. Some 

other ones would probably be elsewhere. 

Mr. KENNEDY. The only concern we have is, obviously, make the 

most of the dollars we are spending by co-locating those same 

neuroscientists. 

Dr. CROSS. I think that is a good point. Appreciate that. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

G.I. BILL

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. Certainly an important 

area to explore. 

Mr. Secretary, could I ask, where are we on the implementation 

of the new G.I. Bill? Are we on time and schedule? Will veterans 


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that have qualified for the G.I. benefits start receiving those on 

time this fall? And will they know soon enough to be able to make 

their plans for colleges or universities this fall? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I am going to let Admiral Dunne provide the 

detail, but, Mr. Chairman, upfront, in answer to your question, 

very, very tight timeline. And I won’t say lots of risk, but there is 

some risk in the process. And we learn something every time we 

put a new tool out there. 

But I have been to the training center. I can tell you that training has gone well. Highly motivated people, I asked them if they 

could do it. There was a standing, rousing applause. 

So on our end, you know, between leadership and providing the 

information technology that will enable us to do this first time as 

a manual process, assisted by computers, we are in a good line. The 

issue is, we have to keep that line going. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Mr. DUNNE. Mr. Chairman, we are definitely—it was never any 

doubt that we had the right people to execute this program. And 

they have been working very, very hard since last summer. 

We brought on board 530 new people on schedule, and we 

trained them on schedule in order to be able to process claims. We 

were able to start processing claims on the 1st of May. We already 

have received over 20,000 claims. They are coming in at the rate 

of about 3,000 claims per day. 

And so we are very pleased with the response that we are getting 

from the veterans. We are doing everything possible, we think, to 

communicate with them and make sure that they know it is better 

to submit your application early, as the sooner we get it, the sooner 

we can act on it. 

And we are moving along with the testing of the other I.T. systems that we need. And perhaps Mr. Warren could add more on 

the I.T. side. But our folks are performing very well at this point, 

and we are pleased with the response from veterans. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So bottom line is, there should be no veteran who 

is qualified for the benefits who would have a problem getting approval of the funding for classes that start in the fall, unless there 

are some bumps along the way between now and the fall? 

Mr. DUNNE. We expect that—we have got many challenges between now and the 1st of August, but we are on it every single day. 

And if a veteran gets his application, we are going to make sure 

that they get into class. 

HIRING OF VETERANS IN THE CLAIMS PROCESSING SYSTEM

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Could I also ask you, while I have your 

time, to address, how many people have you hired in the claims 

processing system since, say, in the last 2 years? I know we have 

provided enough funding, I think, to provide as many—if you count 

the stimulus bill—it was as many as 6,000 or 7,000 new claims 

processors. 

How many have you hired? How many yet to go? And I might 

ask also on that, are you out looking or are you exercising any outreach to look for combat veterans as potential employees, particularly wounded combat veterans, to serve as employees in the V.A. 

benefit system? 


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Mr. DUNNE. Absolutely, sir. The first increment in personnel, as 

you know, was 3,100. And we started that in January of 2007, and 

we have completed that phase. 

For 2009, we were authorized another 1,100, and we are in the 

process of hiring those now. We are about halfway through that 

hiring. 

In addition, as you mentioned, with the stimulus package, there 

was authorization for 1,500 temporary employees. We are in the 

process now of hiring those. We have got 44 who are already on 

board at the regional offices, another 86 who have report dates 

within the next 2 weeks. And the remainder of the jobs we are in 

the process of announcing and interviewing potential personnel. 

We are very anxious to—at any opportunity to hire a veteran 

into the V.A., because we know what good employees they are. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Mr. DUNNE. And when we have an announcement at one of our 

R.O.s, the first place they go is right to the VR&E office and see 

if there are any veterans who have completed their training and 

are perhaps interested in working in the R.O. 

I can tell you, as an example, I went to one of the RPOs after 

we hired the 530 folks for the G.I. Bill. And I asked how many in 

the room were veterans. And almost everybody in the room raised 

their hand. And I asked about the three that didn’t, and they said, 

well, they are either relatives or dependents of veterans. 

So I think we can always do better, sir. We always need to make 

sure we keep that focus on, that we are looking for veterans. But 

I think we are doing pretty well. 

VA SUICIDE HOTLINE

Mr. EDWARDS. That is good to hear. 

And my final question in this round, Secretary Shinseki, would 

be as a follow up to Mr. Kennedy’s questions about the mental 

health care issues and care. 

Obviously, suicide is of great concern to all of us. Could you update us on the status of the V.A. suicide hotline and how that is 

working? 

Dr. CROSS. Sir, it is one of our most successful ventures, quite 

frankly. We have received 120,000 phone calls since it was opened 

in 2007. Over half of those phone calls, however, were not veterans. 

We still help them. 

Now, the key thing is—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. How do they find out the number? How do 

they—— 

Dr. CROSS. The number—we tie it in—we decided not to go it 

alone with this. We tied in with Health and Human Services into 

an existing phone system. And so when you call up the number, 

273–TALK—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. How do you get that number? I am having a problem. I am literally thinking about committing suicide. How do I get 

that 273–TALK number? 

Dr. CROSS. We put it on the Internet. We put it on the buses. 

We put it on the Metro. We put it out to the VSOs. We put it on 

public service announcements. We have got Gary Sinise from ‘‘Forrest Gump’’ doing public service announcements, Deborah 


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Norville—every way that we can, we are getting that number out. 

And it must be working, because 120,000 people have called. 

So they call the main number. And then it says, ‘‘If you are calling about a veteran or you are a veteran, press one now.’’ So 

120,000 people pressed one. 

Then, out of that, the key number I would like you to remember, 

we have done over 3,000 rescues. What that means is, while the 

veteran was on the phone, while the caller was on the phone, we 

sent an ambulance or police to the location where they were at that 

very moment. 

And I have just—if you would bear with me for a moment—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Please. Take whatever time you need on this. 

Dr. CROSS [continuing]. The most spectacular thing happened 

about 2 weeks ago. We got a call from a mother, and she was talking to her son through her computer using, I think, a program 

called Skype. And she was very upset, because her son told her on 

the computer he was going to commit suicide, had a gun in his 

hand. 

And she called the hotline, the V.A. hotline in Canandaigua, New 

York. And they called the Pentagon. The Pentagon worked with the 

local Red Cross and their contacts. And 20—I think it was roughly 

about 23 minutes later, she watched or heard while a person arrived, talked to her son, took the gun out of his hand. The soldier 

in this case was in Iraq. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Oh, my God. What an incredible story. Thank you. 

Thank you for that. And I am so glad to know that the hotline is 

being used and literally saving lives. Thank you for that. 

Mr. FARR. Can you just call 911 and get the same response? 

Dr. CROSS. Well, they would get the police. But many of these 

cases that call the hotline are not calling because they are immediately suicidal. Some of them just want to talk. And then we put 

them in contact with our suicide prevention coordinators that we 

have now located at every one of our medical centers and sometimes several of them. 

I think our hotline is the best, because we—instead of using volunteers, we use psychologists, social workers, nurses who have 

mental health experience. These are people who are very experienced. 

The second reason why we are the best, I think—and I admit my 

pride in this—if it is one of our patients, we can pull up their 

record electronically while they are on the phone, and that has actually helped us save lives at times, because sometimes they didn’t 

want to tell us exactly where they were at or what their situation 

was. And with a little detective work, we were able to trace that 

back. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, thank you for that. I hope those kind of positive stories of saving America’s veterans and, in this case, an active-duty serviceman, those kind of stories need to be told. 

Mr. Wamp. 

CLOSING OF CEMETERIES

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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My final question of the day is on the cemetery front. And, Mr. 

Muro, the chairman rightly gave you a high compliment earlier 

based on the customer satisfaction. 

And it is such a well-stewarded recognition, these national cemeteries across the country of the sacrifices that have been made. And 

they are solemn places. I will be there in 2 weeks to keynote the 

commemoration at Chattanooga National Cemetery for Memorial 

Day. And I am there often, several times a year. 

But our cemetery, which has Civil War soldiers and many, many 

storied internments there, is set to close on your schedule in 2019, 

which I used to think 2019 was a long time from now, but I used 

to think 2009 was a long time now, and it got here really fast. 

So that is a short period of time. Now, they have done studies 

of ways they could change things around and extend that somewhat, but there is also 15 acres that could be available next to it. 

And it can only grow in one direction because of streets and rightof-ways. 

I don’t know if you specifically know about this issue, but I am 

interested overall in what the posture is of the V.A. This is something that, at a time of war, people are really keyed into. Are we 

going to guarantee this ultimate resting place? And I don’t mean 

in the next state over. I mean in the area. I know you have like 

100-mile, 120-mile circumference of each—— 

Mr. FARR. Seventy-five miles. 

Mr. WAMP. Seventy-five miles. Okay, 75-mile circumference of 

where these could be. But this is obviously a national cemetery in 

Chattanooga, Tennessee, that would want to keep open and preserve. 

Can you give me an update about where we are with the study? 

Assistant Secretary Turk was very, very helpful, in the last administration. He came and physically toured the site. The city is willing to cooperate in any and every way to take the lead on assembling any land. 

[The information follows:] 

4) NCA should reach out to the local Veteran community to explain its plans for 

extending the service life of the Chattanooga National Cemetery. 

NCA’S OUTREACH PLAN

In the summer months following Memorial Day 2009, NCA plans to hold a series 

of Town Hall type briefings for the local community and stakeholders to explain the 

preplaced crypt process being implemented at the cemetery. This process will gain 

an additional 25 years service from the existing cemetery property, extending burial 

availability to the year 2044. 

In addition to cemetery and Memorial Service Network (MSN) staff, Subject Matter Experts from the NCA Office of Field Programs and Office of Construction Management will attend the briefings to explain the process and to answer community 

questions and concerns. 

I have almost seen a posture around the country as I have studied this that you wait until you are 5 years away from closure to 

begin to act. And, obviously, that is not the way to do business, in 

terms of long-term planning. It is much more beneficial to begin 

the process much in advance of closure so that you can take the 

necessary steps to actually secure the available land. 


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Plus, if there is available land, you would want to secure it while 

it is still available before somebody goes and builds a new building 

on top of it. 

Do you know anything about the Chattanooga Cemetery expansion. 

Mr. MURO. Yes, sir. Right now, we actually have, because of our 

new burial policy and practice of pre-placed crypts, we actually 

have enough land to last an additional 25 years above 2019 before 

we have to worry about looking for other land in the area. 

So we are good 2019 plus 25. And we are already going to start 

planning the process to install the crypts there so we don’t run out. 

We try to stay—we have changed our policy. We are trying to stay 

2 to 3 years ahead of closure or—so that we expand so that we 

don’t close the cemetery. 

And if we are going to close because there is no further land to 

use, then we are looking for land. And last year, there was appropriation for funds for that. So we are trying to stay ahead of it. 

Mr. WAMP. Well, I appreciate that. I would say, with the VSOs 

in the room, that I hope you will communicate effectively with the 

VSOs so that their membership will understand what you are 

doing, because usually they don’t find out except after they make 

enough noise and their member of Congress then engages as to 

what any policy may be that you were in the middle of enacting. 

And I can assure you that the veteran community that lives 

there, they don’t really believe this extra 25 years within the fence 

because your stated closure date was 2019, and then, all of a sudden, kind of miraculously, well, they can start pulling rocks out of 

the ground and make room for more. 

So help us, if you will, convince the veteran population that you 

are going to stand behind keeping this cemetery open at all costs, 

because that is basically all they care about. Please assure them 

of that. 

And then, if there is any way to go forward to secure that land 

or even allow the city to hold the land until which time you need 

it, that would be wise if there is any possible way within your 

budget constraints to do so. 

We appreciate your cooperation on that, and I yield back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am amazed that Mr. 

Wamp and I have had the same questions on all day. I want to talk 

about veteran cemeteries. I want to also thank you for your career 

in this field and for your public service. 

Mr. MURO. You are welcome. Thank you. 

VA CEMETERIES

Mr. FARR. I would really encourage you, Mr. Secretary and staff, 

to look at this 75-mile policy. It has been in concrete for so long, 

and it is a dumb, dumb policy. 

The population of California lives along the coast. So in this wisdom of developing a 70-mile radius, and because of congressional 

earmarks, you are building your veteran cemeteries in the middle 

of the San Joaquin Valley. There is no history of military in the 


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San Joaquin Valley. You are building three of them. One of them 

is already there. It is in Santa Nella, which is a truck stop, no hotels, no people, no town, no mayor, nothing. 

And we are within 75 miles of that, the Monterey peninsula, the 

oldest piece of military real estate in the United States. It started 

with Spanish occupation, the Presidio of Monterey. And Fort Ord, 

the land was acquired for the military in 1919, still has a military 

presence there and a huge veterans presence, and that is why you 

are going to build a clinic there. 

But we can’t build a cemetery. We have had to go to the state 

of California. The state of California says, ‘‘We don’t do state cemeteries.’’ So we are going to a third process, is we are going to try 

to get a private developer to put up money, we are going to give 

him some of the cemetery land, put enough money in the pot so 

that the state can file for a state application. 

Now, I want to just think outside the box a little bit, because I 

understand that—and I am sort of interested in this—that of the 

128 cemeteries that you maintain in 39 states and Puerto Rico, as 

well as 33 lots and monument sites, it is the Department of Army 

that maintains two of the cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery 

in Virginia and the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National 

Cemetery in Washington, D.C. 

There are also a number of state cemeteries. And the Department of Interior maintains 14 veteran cemeteries. If I knew I could 

go to the Department of Interior and the Department of Army and 

maybe gotten them to build a cemetery, I would have done that, 

but I didn’t know. 

I don’t know why it is that, one, that all of these cemeteries 

aren’t under just one—you know, under your department. Maybe 

administratively they are, but why are they being maintained by 

the Department of the Army and the Department of Interior? 

And why can’t we think outside the box to figure out a solution? 

The land is there. The title is in the Department of Defense. The 

feasibility study for it is there. It is going to take us forever to find 

a third party to put up enough money to build the cemetery. 

You have got the Presidio Monterey, the Naval Postgraduate 

School. It is a destination, tourist area. People want to be there. 

There are a lot of people that are holding ashes in their home waiting for this cemetery to be built. 

And, I mean, this is where California history began. It began 

with military history. And it is still there. And I would like to try 

to see if we could work some way to work in a cemetery by your 

department or whether I have to go to the Department of Interior. 

Mr. MURO. Let me try to answer some of your questions, Congressman. 

First of all, San Joaquin Valley, when that cemetery was built, 

the national cemetery system could only build on property that was 

either donated or transferred from DOD. We didn’t have the funds 

at that time to purchase land, so San Joaquin Valley, San Joaquin 

National Cemetery was a donated piece of property and—— 

Mr. FARR. The Bureau of Reclamation? 

Mr. MURO. Correct. So that—hopefully that answers that one. In 

reference— 

Mr. FARR. When President Kennedy, his uncle, was president. 


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Mr. MURO. Oh, all right. 

Mr. FARR. It had nothing to do with anything functional for a 

cemetery. It was just federal land in the middle of nowhere. 

Mr. MURO. Right. And it was donated. 

The other question, in reference to the Fort Ord cemetery and 

the state project that we worked with the state to build the other 

one, which is up in Redding, California, we are working closely 

with the state, and they do have an application in right now for 

that. So they are working with that organization to try to get it. 

Mr. FARR. For which? 

Mr. MURO. For Fort Ord. 

Mr. FARR. They have an application to you? 

Mr. MURO. Yes, they have got the pre-application in right now, 

and we are waiting on state legislation to pass it. And then we—— 

Mr. FARR. No, wait a minute. State legislation passed it, saying 

that they have to put the money up into an account with the state 

before they will exercise it. And the Shasta veterans department, 

that was a state senator. He insisted that they couldn’t pass a state 

budget unless they made that his cemetery and up in little, old 

Shasta County. In a weak moment, the legislature and the governor signed the bill, and then they hired him as the secretary for 

veterans affairs in California. 

So it was a real sweetheart deal. And the state said they would 

never do it again. And Schwarzenegger says they won’t do state 

cemeteries, unless, in this case, the money is put up by the private 

sector. 

Mr. MURO. The other question was in reference to how V.A. received the cemeteries that we have. In 1973, Congress passed a law 

and transferred certain cemeteries over to V.A., was where we 

started, and kept—Army kept DOD in the Soldiers’ Home. 

Mr. FARR. The Interior Department doesn’t run any cemeteries? 

Mr. MURO. They run—yes, they have 14 total cemeteries. Two 

are open for internments; the rest are closed. They are Park Service. 

Mr. FARR. We will work on something, okay? 

Mr. MURO. Okay. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Farr. 

Mr. Kennedy. 

NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE BENEFITS

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If we could go back, Mr. Chairman, your question about mental 

health, extent of services. The concern I have is the Guard and Reserve, because their benefits really aren’t as great as, obviously, the 

standing military. 

When they come out, they often don’t have the access to the 

TRICARE benefits. When they go back to their job and so forth, 

they don’t have access to the same benefits. And, of course, their 

dependents, their family don’t have any access to benefits. 

And so the—the real question is, a lot of those families and 

Guard and Reservists are getting their services through states, 

through their community mental health centers and the like. 

What I am interested in is what we are going to do as a committee, given the fact that states are shedding all of their mental 


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health services because they are all in a free fall economically, 

what are we going to do as a committee to respond to the need at 

these community mental health centers of those veterans who go 

into those community mental health centers looking for services? 

Because there are no services for them at the V.A., because they 

are ‘‘weekend warriors,’’ but they aren’t. They are now part of our 

total force. But because of the nature of them being Guard and reservists, they don’t enjoy the same package of benefits that the regular service does. 

So can you all kind of answer for me, what are we going to do 

about this whole new group of veterans that may not have all the 

service-connected injuries and the like that are going to allow them 

to get access to the V.A.? How are we going to manage to make 

sure they get the necessary health care that they need? 

Dr. CROSS. I strongly agree with you that, yes, that is a real concern of ours, that the Reserve and National Guard come back, they 

don’t go to a military post. They don’t stay with their active-duty 

colleagues. They go off into the small communities across the nation and the cities, and that is where they live, and trying to return 

to their previous lives. 

Congress, working with the V.A., just fairly recently created a 

new benefit, and that was that returning from a combat deployment automatically granted 5 years of eligibility. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right. 

Dr. CROSS. That was a tremendous help. And we really appreciated that. 

It did several things. It also expanded the dental capability by 

our timeframe, as well, from 90 to 180 days. That made a difference, because it gives time now for that new veteran to try and 

obtain eligibility through the C&P process, they have got plenty of 

time. 

They are still covered for their health care. They can still be seen 

and taken care of, as long as it is anything that is even quasi-related to their service overseas. And I want to thank you for that. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Secretary Shinseki was talking about back in the 

Vietnam War, there was always a challenge to Agent Orange because there was a question, was this a real thing or not? With this 

war, the combination of TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder, being 

the signature wound, are we going to have a bureaucratic process 

of challenging veterans when they come in and saying, ‘‘prove it’’? 

Or are we going to have an assumption that, if they have been 

to three tours of duty, they have been out in their combat, they 

have been out on the driving outside the Green Zone every day, 

which we know would take any normal person, knowing that they 

are taking their lives in their hands every day when they drive outside that Green Zone, that that is going to put any normal person 

in a position where they could suffer from post-traumatic stress 

and say that they are going to be eligible for veterans benefits, access to the health care system? 

Dr. CROSS. For the health care component, we are happy to see 

them. It is not a matter of trying to prove that they need to be 

seen. If they say they need to be seen, they need to be seen. And 

then, during that 5-year period, they have the eligibility to do so. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Okay. 


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Dr. CROSS. And I think, as I mentioned earlier, that gives them 

time to engage with my colleagues in VBA, as well, to start the 

process. 

I will ask Admiral Dunne. 

Mr. DUNNE. From the benefit side, we are, of course, charged 

with evaluating the need for compensation based on the medical 

evaluation that is provided. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Right. 

Mr. DUNNE. And we are looking very carefully right now at the 

process that we go through to—when a veteran claims PTSD, the 

evidentiary requirements that are in place, we are evaluating those 

to make sure that they are sufficient to ensure that, during the 

time period when they have straight access to VHA, that we are 

able to complete the medical evaluation that is required so that, if 

necessary, we can ensure that they get their compensation benefits 

in a timely manner. 

VOUCHERS

Mr. KENNEDY. One of the concerns I hear about homeless vets is 

that, while we are increasing the number of permanent vouchers— 

and thank God. Finally we have permanent vouchers instead of 

these temporary vouchers for these endemically homeless vets. 

We need more support services for these vouchers. In other 

words, we need administrative personnel. I hear there are a lot of 

vouchers in a lot of these different places because there aren’t 

enough staff on hand in various places to administer these vouchers and get the support services wrapped around these veterans 

who need these vouchers. 

One case in point, my cousin, Bobby Shriver, is on the council 

out in Santa Monica, says that there is a number of excess vouchers. I had a hard time believing it, knowing the number of homeless veterans out there. And he says it is because there are not 

enough veterans, staffed to help administer those vouchers. So 

maybe you could take a look at that. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Let me take a look at that and then come 

back to you with an answer on—— 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. KENNEDY. And if you could—— 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I was not aware of excess vouchers. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Okay. If you could also look at what percentage 

of our V.A. medical centers, what the timeline it is for folks to get 

help for mental health services and what the shortage is for mental 

health professionals in all these outpatient clinics and mental 

health centers. 

We had those. There was a big study from—McClatchy did a couple of years ago about how long it took for someone to get served 

in a V.A. clinic. And in some places, it took X number of days. 

Other places, it took just a few days. And it would be nice to know 

kind of how that has gotten evened out, now that we have plused 

up the accounts. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Sure. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thanks. 

HEALTH CARE STANDARDS

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. 

Members, I think we are getting close to a series of votes. And 

I only have two other quick points. 

One, I would like to ask Secretary Shinseki, either you or Secretary Warren, whomever is appropriate, to address the question 

of, as you are trying to develop DOD and V.A. medical records that 

can communicate with each other and be passed seamlessly back 

and forth, how does that work in with the country trying to set up 

some sort of national standard for private profit and nonprofit hospitals? 

I assume we won’t have V.A. and DOD accepting one standard 

and the rest of the country going another way, because we need 

records to be able to transfer from a V.A. hospital or DOD hospital 

to a private hospital. 

And is the development of a national health care reform bill and 

a standard, does that slow down the DOD–V.A. process in coming 

up with a medical records, electronic record systems? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. This is an important question, Mr. Chairman. The agreement that Secretary Gates and I have made and 

which the President publicly announced, that there would be one 

standard, now begins the hard work of exactly what is an electronic 

record, what is the electronic health piece of it and what is the 

electronic administrative or personnel piece of it, what does it look 

like, and make that come together. 

There is great interest in doing this quickly. And part of the interest is to be able to come to an agreement on exactly that requirement and be able to share perhaps with HHS, ‘‘Here is, you 

know—those of us who have been at this for a while, here’s a good 

start point for you,’’ so that there would be some synchronization, 

some linkage between the opportunities that they will have to decide for the rest of the country and the work that V.A. and DOD 

has already done for a couple of decades. 

A lot of hard lessons learned, some disappointing ones, but we 

have come a long ways here. And so as we create this single, joint, 

virtual electronic record, I think it is important for us to link in 

with the secretary at HHS and just offer up a model to consider. 


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HEALTH CARE INNOVATION

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

And my final point would be this. We don’t do earmarks in the 

V.A., in many ways that is very fortunate. But what happens as 

a result is that some of us, perhaps because we serve on this subcommittee, have private entities, entrepreneurs come to us and say, 

‘‘Here’s a great idea that can help the V.A. provide better medical 

care at a less cost to taxpayers.’’ 

We don’t really have the ability to evaluate whether those make 

sense. And maybe 9 out of 10 of those proposals wouldn’t make any 

sense, but 1 out of 10 might be the one that could save the V.A. 

millions of dollars and help save lives and provide better care. 

Does the V.A. have a system for evaluating good ideas and separating those from bad ideas, in terms of health care innovation? 

And, secondly, on that same point, is there a system by which you 

can fund innovative ideas that might help the whole country without taking that money out of the hide of the O&M budget of the 

local V.A. hospital or the VISN? 

I could see that if I am a VISN director, and I don’t want to take 

money out of my VISN or out of my hospital to fund what could 

be a national pilot program that could help the entire V.A. health 

care system. 

I haven’t found a thorough process. Maybe I heard it at some 

point the secretary for health has some kind of a discretionary 

fund, but is there any kind of a formalized process for you? 

Mr. KENNEDY. Effective research. We should have it in our CMS, 

too. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Do you have a system of comparative effective research at the V.A.? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Actually, I am interested in what the acting 

undersecretary for health is going to say to answer this question. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Dr. Cross. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. But it is—just to eat into this, it is part of 

the reason why I am hoping that we will get your support in setting up an office for an assistant secretary for acquisition, so that 

we will have a single place where good ideas can come and be vetted and, you know, avoid being dissipated or being discouraged or 

frustrated, but where it gets a professional vetting, because right 

now these things do go on, but they go on in multiple places in the 

V.A. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. And is that, Mr. Secretary, where these 

ideas would be placed in the future, when you create that office? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. In the future. If we were able to stand up 

this office, this is where this kind of innovative thinking, creative 

thinking would have an opportunity to be aired, evaluated, and 

then shared. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Let me let Dr. Cross answer what we do 

today. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Dr. CROSS. I am looking forward to hearing what I am going to 

say, as well. [Laughter] 


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No, seriously, sir, there is some formal process. And let me—it 

is a little bit different from what you might expect. 

We do a lot of innovation, in terms of pharmaceutical, new drug 

treatments, new surgical treatments, vaccines, the herpes zoster 

vaccine, the shingles vaccine, worked with civilian medical schools 

and the V.A. to make that a reality. And it is now FDA approved 

and out there and used every day. 

We worked with DARPA. And you may have seen the ‘‘60 Minutes’’ TV show recently where they talked about the DARPA arm 

that the V.A. is working with them on a new prosthetic, far more 

advanced than anything that we have seen before, an ability to manipulate objects. 

So in terms of research, we do a great deal too—you know, but 

particularly on the health side, it is really pharmaceuticals, new 

treatments, new devices. You know, sometimes—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. What office evaluates those under the present system, without the new acquisitions office in place? 

Dr. CROSS. What—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is that the undersecretary’s office? Do you have 

particular staff that do that? Or do you subcontract that out to various parts of the country within the V.A. system? How do you 

evaluate that? 

Dr. CROSS. The kind of things I am talking about go through research protocols. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Dr. CROSS. And our research office handles that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. What if it is not a new drug, you know, it is somebody coming in with a system for telephoning veterans to be sure 

they take their drugs this morning and, if they don’t call back— 

that is one that came into my office, for example. I have no idea 

whether it made sense or not. 

But, you know, and if the veteran doesn’t call back, then it keeps 

calling them until they call back and say, ‘‘Yes, I took my prescription drug this morning.’’ I mean, how about that kind of device or 

other projects that aren’t, you know, the kind that you mentioned? 

Dr. CROSS. I think I know that project, by the way. Two ways 

that that happens. Number one is they go to the local facility, local 

VISN, and say, ‘‘Listen, I’d like to try this out locally. Would you 

be interested?’’ 

Number two, they come to the central office and talk to some of 

my staff and say, ‘‘Listen, I have got this great idea, this great 

product. Can I get a briefing?’’ We do accept those briefings, and 

we do accept some of these proposals after the staff have looked at 

them to see if it makes sense. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. In the future, will that go through the office 

of acquisitions? If, in the future, somebody like this calls our offices, who should we refer them to? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. That would be my preference, for all of this 

to come into one location, and then from there to be shared with 

the experts elsewhere on the staff. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. A discipline process for evaluating the goodness—they are all good. They are well-intended. But where is the 

fit? 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Thank you for that answer. 

Mr. Wamp, do you have any additional questions? 

Mr. Kennedy. 

SERVICE DOGS

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, Mr. Chairman, really cutting-edge piece of 

high tech, and that is dogs. We talked about, Mr. Chairman and 

Mr. Secretary, these dogs that help our veterans, particularly, not 

only the guide dogs for those who are physically impaired, but also 

those who are suffering from PTSD, that take them out, so they 

have to go out for a walk, help them calm their nerves when they 

are feeling an anxiety attack and the like, that they can be trained 

in the prisons by prisoners. 

What is your feeling about us expanding the use of these kinds 

of animal—use of animals to help out those many, many veterans 

that you have identified as, having issues, anxiety issues and 

PTSD issues? 

Dr. CROSS. The answer I am going to give you is a little bit 

mixed, in terms of how we are responding to this. And so I want 

to be frank that this is how we are approaching it right now. I 

don’t want to paint a picture that is different from reality in any 

way. 

Guide dogs have been part of our program for a long time. Everybody knows that. We will accept it and often support it. 

So now we are talking about a different category of dogs called 

service dogs. Service dogs, we support them in a limited fashion for 

physically and hearing disabled veterans under a case-by-case 

basis. 

We have worked with an organization—I believe it is called the 

Assistance Dogs International. And we have an information letter 

that we drafted to inform the field that only these accredited dogs 

organizations who do not charge for the dogs or their training 

should be utilized. V.A. then, in that circumstance, will pay the 

veterinary bills and any hardware the dog may require while performing the designated tasks. 

I don’t know how many that we are supporting at this time. I 

don’t think it is a large number, Mr. Kennedy, certainly not compared to guide dogs. But I would be happy to have our staff talk 

to you about this. 

Mr. KENNEDY. That would be great. I would love to get a briefing 

on that. Thank you. 

[The information follows:] 

3) Provide Rep. Kennedy’s staff a briefing on the dog assistance program for Veterans. (PCS) 

Thank you for your inquiry of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regarding 

the provision of service dogs to our country’s Veterans. The Prosthetic and Sensory 

Aids Service will be happy to provide a briefing at your staffs convenience. Please 

coordinate this request through VA’s Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs 

office. Below is a summary of our service dog program. 

VA has provided guide dogs specifically for the blind since 1961. In 2001, Public 

Law 107–135 provided VA the authority to provide service dogs for physically and 

hearing disabled Veterans. Over the past seven years, VA has studied the effectiveness of service dogs versus assistive devices. These studies focused on a dog’s effect 

to a Veteran’s health, function, mobility, and independence. These studies also focused on industry standards for service dogs, how the dogs are trained, and how 

a Veteran best learns to work with a dog. On January 14, 2008, the Secretary of 


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Veterans Affairs signed a decision memo approving a plan for the provision of service dogs to our nation’s physically and hearing impaired Veterans. 

VA is working with an international accrediting body, Assistance Dogs International, to help develop standards for the provision of these dogs. In the interim, 

individuals are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and may be provided a service dog 

if they are able to demonstrate that a service dog would effectively perform a task 

that cannot be achieved through assistive technology or daily living aids. To remain 

consistent with the existing model of procurement in attaining guide dogs for the 

blind, VA will acquire service dogs through non-profit agencies who do not charge 

for their animals, services, or lodging. VA will provide veterinary care and hardware 

required for the dog to perform its tasks such as a harness or a backpack. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, with that, let me thank you all for being 

here. 

Secretary Shinseki, we look forward to working with you and 

each of you, Admiral Dunne, Dr. Cross, Secretary Reed, Secretary 

Muro, Secretary Warren. Thanks to each of you for your dedication 

to our veterans. 

And we may have finished our formal questioning, but one of our 

colleagues who has done so much on behalf of veterans, Mr. Buyer, 

from Indiana, who is the ranking member on the Veterans Affairs 

Committee, former chairman of the V.A. authorizing committee. 

And it is good to see Mr. Buyer here. And even saw in the Washington Post, I believe, today about new legislation you have introduced, Mr. Buyer, to help widows of those who have served in combat and given their lives for our country. We are glad to have you 

here and welcome you to this subcommittee any time you are here. 

So thank you for coming and what you do to support our servicemen and women, and particularly the members of the Guard. 

Thank you. We are honored to have you all here. 

With that, we will stand adjourned. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards] 

CONSTRUCTION COMPETITION/PRICING

Mr. Secretary, a recent New York Times article highlighted contract saving being 

experienced in the highway sector of the economy. In part, the article noted: 

‘‘Construction companies, hungry for work in the dismal economy, have slashed 

their prices to try to win the first round of public works projects being paid for by 

the federal stimulus package. 

‘‘Pennsylvania officials said contractors competing for their first round of road and 

bridge projects had offered bids 15 percent lower than the state had expected. Utah 

officials said some of their bids were coming in 25 percent lower than expected. And 

a bid to build a 4.7–mile extension of Interstate 49 from Shreveport, LA, toward the 

Arkansas state line came in at $31.1 million, about $4.7 million less than the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development had estimated the project 

would cost. 

‘‘Officials in many states see the low bids as a sign that they are in a buyer’s market. A few years ago transportation officials in Utah, concerned that there was little 

competition for their construction work, put together a team to try to entice more 

companies to bid for the jobs. Now, as the first stimulus projects get under way, 

they are getting a half-dozen bids for each job—and many are coming in at 25 percent below their estimates.’’ 

Question. Is the Department finding similar competition for construction jobs and 

a similar increase in the number of bidders on contracts? And are bids coming in 

at lower than your estimates for the work? 

Response. VA has been experiencing increased competition by firms competing for 

major construction contracts in about one-half of the markets where we have awarded major contracts during this fiscal year. 

The increased competition has produced favorable pricing which has enabled a 

contract award of the full design without taking any deductions. In some cases, 


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where designs had been restrained to accommodate the prior robust economy, we 

are able to consider restoration of items previously deleted from the design. 

These recent experiences, coupled with periodic analysis being done in the markets where we will be planning to procure major construction services, have informed the estimates developed for the FY 2010 budget. For the estimates used in 

the FY 2010 budget, we have included significantly less escalation than would have 

been used in the FY 2009 budget, for example. 

TRANSFORMATION REVIEW

Question. The budget submission includes funding for several programs that you 

have identified as part of the Department’s transformation process. It is my understanding that the transformation review is still ongoing. It is likely that, as this review moves toward completion, additional issue will arise and changes to Departmental operations will be identified. How do you think this will impact the 2010 

budget request? 

Response. The comprehensive organizational and management reviews in process 

will generate additional transformation initiatives. Departmental leadership will 

apply conclusions from these activities that may result in adjustments to the budget 

request within the 2010 topline during the next several months. The results of this 

ongoing management decision-making process—in partnership with Congress—will 

be a budget that starts VA down a path toward becoming a 21st Century organization. 

SUSTAINABILITY AND ENERGY

Question. The fiscal year 2009 budget request and subsequent appropriation included funding within the Construction, Major Projects account for ‘‘sustainability 

and energy’’ projects. This year there is no budget request for this effort. Can you 

tell me why there is not a budget request and what that tells us about the Department’s energy efficiency program? 

Response: VA did not request this line item in FY 2010, as the sustainability and 

energy efficiency/renewable energy requirements of major projects are now factored 

directly into the project design and construction costs. 

The Department’s Energy Program is very robust and continues to grow each 

year. For example, since 2006 VA has added approximately 90 facility-level energy 

engineers to serve all VA facilities. VA benchmarks its medical and benefits office 

facilities quarterly using EPA’s EnergyStar Portfolio Manager, and is one of the few 

organizations doing so via electronic data transfer. Twenty-seven VA medical centers have earned EnergyStar labels since 2002. Five VA facilities have won energy 

or water management awards since FY 2005. 

VA is committed to expanding the use of renewable energy and energy efficient 

technologies. In FYs 2009 and 2010, VA plans to obligate approximately $126M for 

the following types of energy projects: 

• Renewably-fueled cogeneration 

• Solar photovoltaic 

• Wind 

• Geothermal/ground source heat pump 

• Energy infrastructure improvements 

• Facility metering 

• Environmental management systems 

In addition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided the 

Department with $1 billion in the medical facilities account (for non-recurring maintenance projects). Approximately $400M (40%) of these funds will be dedicated to 

projects that feature an energy efficiency or renewable energy component. 

DEPARTMENTAL ADMINISTRATION

Question. The budget request for Departmental Administration has an increase of 

over 17% compared to the fiscal year 2009 appropriation, and an increase of about 

6% in the number of full-time equivalent personnel. Included in personnel increases 

are increases of 45% in the Office of Policy and Planning and 31.5% increase in the 

Office of Congressional Affairs. What would justify such significant funding and personnel increases in administrative offices? 

Response. A significant portion of the funding and staffing increases in General 

Administration are needed to directly support a number of vital transformation initiatives. VA will create a reliable management infrastructure that expands or enhances corporate transparency at VA and places much greater focus on improved 


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client services and enhanced responsiveness to the needs of Veterans and all VA 

stakeholders. 

Transformation initiatives supported by the 2010 budget are: 

• $8.5 million and 6 FTE to expand the VA-DoD Joint Collaboration Office in the 

Office of Policy and Planning. This office will provide oversight for the joint governance and strategic planning process, and provide analytical information to support 

analysis of policy and program issues that affect VA–DoD collaboration efforts, including joint responsibilities in the continuum of care and services from service 

member to Veteran status. • $1.5 million and 9 FTE to establish a Corporate Analysis and Evaluation function that would analyze investment options for the Secretary and provide an analytical basis for making investment decisions on current programs and new initiatives. 

• $645 thousand to fund the new Office of Acquisition, Construction, and Logistics 

which is responsible for overseeing the resources, services, and projects that comprise VA’s capital facilities program, and directing the Department’s acquisition and 

logistics activities (Supply Fund). The necessity of this office is highlighted by the 

$1.921 billion in capital funding in our 2010 budget request. 

• To implement VA’s Paralympic program pursuant to Public Law 110–389, $5.5 

million is budgeted for grants to local providers to help implement the program and 

for direct subsistence payments to participating Veterans and service members. This 

program will be administered by the Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs. 

• $2 million for Enterprise-wide training and Corporate-level HR programs in the 

Office of Human Resources and Administration. VA’s Corporate Senior Executive 

Management Office is being established to recruit, develop, and retain a cadre of 

people-centric and results-oriented senior managers committed to serving Veterans 

and VA’s mission. VA will also move forward on establishing a Human Resource 

Corporate Consulting Center. The corporate approach will allow VA to move from 

a transactional based process to a consulting center that provides expertise on training, adult learning, workforce and succession planning, performance measures and 

evaluation, and VA’s business acumen. 

• $2.8 million and 24 FTE for crises management exercises and VA readiness programs in the Office of Security and Preparedness. This funding will allow VA to prepare and validate VA’s ability to perform mission essential functions during crises; 

provide for a Personnel Security and Suitability Office to strengthen background investigations; strengthen VA’s police inspections program; provide for a Personal 

Identity Verification (PIV) program office at Central Office; and strengthen VA’s 

special access program for classified information. 

• $1.7 million and 12 FTE for the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs 

to be able to respond to Congress in a more timely way to the increasing number 

of requests from Congress and stakeholders. 

FEDERAL RECOVERY COORDINATORS

Question. Witnesses at the House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on April 

28th indicated that there was a great need for the assistance of Federal Recovery 

Coordinators for our seriously injured veterans even after they had transitioned 

from the DoD health care system to the Veterans Health Administration. 

1. Can you tell me if the fiscal year 2010 budget submission includes funds for 

additional Federal Recovery Coordinators? 

Response. The FRCP received over $4.4 million from Patient Care Services (PCS) 

for Fiscal Year 2009. The funding from PCS enables FRCP to increase its budget 

should the need arise. This is the first year that FRCP’s budget has been tracked 

independent of the PCS budget. As such, by the end of FY 09 we will know the total 

costs of this program, including travel and training. Right now, it would appear that 

FRCP’s current funding of over $4.4 million is more than sufficient to support its 

current operations. 

Currently, FRCP has 14 Federal Recovery Coordinators. We are in the process of 

hiring a third FRC to fill a current vacancy in the National Naval Medical Center, 

Bethesda. This will fill all slots that are currently in place for the program. FRCP 

is constantly assessing its workload and with a weekly census of its clientele, is able 

to closely monitor if the program will need more FRCs. The funding permits such 

hiring should it be deemed necessary. 

2. Can you tell me if you plan to provide Federal Recovery Coordinators for all 

seriously injured veterans? 

Response. The program is designed to assist severely wounded, ill or injured recovering service members, Veterans, and their families access the care, services, and 

benefits provided through the various programs in the Departments of Defense and 

Veterans Affairs, other federal agencies, states, and private sector. Program eligiVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01258 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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bility criteria were approved by the Senior Oversight Committee and include those 

service members or veterans who are: 

1. Receiving acute care at military treatment facility; 

2. Diagnosed with: 

a. Spinal Cord Injury, 

b. Burns, 

c. Amputation, 

d. Visual Impairment, 

e. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and 

f. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); 

3. Considered at risk for psychosocial complication; 

4. Self referred based on perceived ability to benefit from a recovery plan; and 

5. Command referral based on perceived ability to benefit from a recovery plan. 

In addition, the program has a strategy to reach out to those who went through 

the system prior to the program’s inception and who might still benefit from a recovery plan and care coordination. 

MEDICAL RESEARCH

Question. Mr. Secretary, I note that the budget request includes a substantial increase of $70 million this year for medical research, an increase of over 13%. The 

recent review of the Medical Research account by the VA Office of Inspector General 

confirmed that the research areas funded by the Department relate strongly to the 

diseases and injuries most prevalent in our Veterans population. 

1. Can you please discuss the Department’s plan for the $70 million increase for 

Fiscal Year 2010 and how it relates to our Veteran populations? How do you measure the success of VA research? 

Response. VA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) funded studies are relevant to our Veteran populations and address research questions related to improved understanding, treating, and preventing diseases and injuries, as well as improving healthcare delivery and services. The additional funding requests are specifically targeted for areas of high importance in which further studies are necessary 

for specific needs including: 

• New research initiatives are planned that are related specifically to the newest 

Veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq (Operations Enduring Freedom 

(OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF)), and VA requests $20 million above the current 

base spending of $279 million for this component. These initiatives will be directed 

towards further understanding and treating physical and mental health problems 

prevalent in OEF/OIF Veterans including National Guard and reserve populations; 

however, many of these studies will provide results that can be generalized to all 

Veterans, e.g., if a new therapy is shown effective for PTSD or TBI. 

• New initiatives are planned to increase research to improve access to healthcare 

and to better address rural healthcare needs. This effort will be relevant to all veteran populations who need readily available access to healthcare services wherever 

they live. This request represents a $14 million increase above the current base 

spending of $24 million. 

• Personalized medicine research initiatives represent an additional $14 million 

above the current base of $40 million. These studies will also be relevant to all veteran populations, as results will better inform both the basis for disease and an individual’s treatment response to drugs that consider genetic make up. Discoveries 

from personalized medicine research will transform health care in the very near future, and research in this area will have a direct impact on the health of all Veteran 

populations. 

The remaining $22 million of the requested increase will cover pay raises and inflationary costs associated with conducting medical research. 

VA research success is measured both internally and externally. Internal evaluations include competitive renewals of programs that have been evaluated as successful, research audits, and inspections, e.g., recent OIG finding that VA research is 

strongly relevant to Veterans’ needs. Examples of external evaluations include peer 

reviewed publications and evaluations by the Office of Management and Budget. An 

example of success from VA’s research program is improved health care options for 

Veterans. Following ORD supported research on PTSD among women Veterans, 

VA’s Office of Mental Health Services is now supporting a national rollout of training in a therapy called prolonged exposure therapy, which has shown real results 

in treating women Veterans who suffer from PTSD. Women who received this therapy were more likely to no longer meet PTSD diagnosis criteria and were more likely to achieve total remission. 


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2. The Department of Defense has recently received significant increases in research funding for TBI, PTSD and prosthetics. What mechanism exists to ensure 

the two Departments leverage their research dollars to achieve the maximum impact in shared areas of interest? 

Response. While there is no formal mechanism for leveraging funding between the 

Department of Defense (DoD) and VA, both agencies have benefitted immensely 

from a close collaboration on research efforts in the areas of TBI, PTSD and prosthetics, which is fostered through regular meetings of VA and DoD research leadership and investigators alike. The following are some key examples of these collaborations, which are intended to prevent overlap in research funding and extend, as 

far as possible, the valuable resources allocated to the respective agencies for research: 

• VA ORD staff serve as advisors to the DoD research offices, developing requests 

for proposals in the area of TBI and PTSD, as well as provide advice for identifying 

key priority areas for funding announcements. VA has worked closely with DoD 

Center of Excellence for TBI and Psychological Health (DCOE) and Congressionally 

Designated Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) on developing research programs. 

• VA ORD staff serve as advisors on the Executive Advisory Board for the newly 

funded DoD Clinical Consortium and is thus informed about new clinical trial proposals and potential areas for collaboration. The Director of the Executive Advisory 

Board is a VA scientist. 

• The Deputy Chief of Research and Development serves on the Board of Directors for the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. 

• Key DoD research leaders participate actively in meetings of the VA National 

Research Advisory Council. 

• VA staff have attended the strategic planning meetings for the DCOE, including 

serving in working groups to develop research targets and goals. 

• VA staff regularly participate as reviewers for DoD scientific proposals—as peer 

review committee members, as secondary level reviewers, and as Integration Panel 

members. All of these roles serve to integrate the research efforts between the funding agencies. 

• VA and DoD have jointly sponsored large integration conferences for TBI and 

Psychological Health (PH). One recent effort was a conference designed for eight 

working groups to develop recommendations for common data elements for TBI and 

PH, so that data definitions and measures are more standardized across studies. 

The results of this conference will be available during FY2010. 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROCUREMENT

Question. Please provide the Committee with an assessment of the state of procurement at your department. 

Response. VA has implemented several significant steps to improve the state of 

its procurement operations. As of May 1, 2009, VA is midway through a process to 

implement several major organizational changes, many of which are derived from 

the results of a comprehensive study conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC). 

As a result of the study, VA is implementing a plan to improve both the efficiency 

and effectiveness of the acquisition function within VA. The major tenets of this 

plan are as follows: 

• Leadership: In an effort to consolidate one central authority for all VA acquisitions, the Secretary created the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction. In 

addition, the Secretary has requested legislation to establish an Assistant Secretary 

who will oversee all Department-wide procurements. 

• Personnel: While not directly attributed to the study, VA established clearer 

lines of authority within the VA Central Office buying units. In addition to existing 

offices in Austin, TX; Hines, IL; Denver, CO; and Frederick, MD, a Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) in Eatontown, NJ was established to focus primarily on 

managing information technology (IT) contracts. 

• Training and Development: In August 2008, VA launched the first civilian acquisition academy, whose size and scope is second only to the Defense Acquisition 

University (DAU). Using OMB’s Federal Acquisition Certification (FAC) standards, 

the Academy will focus on all aspects of acquisition workforce training which include: Contracting Officers, Contracting Officers’ Technical Representatives (COTR), 

and Project and Program Managers (P/PM). 

Further, in FY 2010, VA will launch a Competency Assessment Center (CAC) as 

a precursor to any training and development. Ultimately, a key measure to assess 

effectiveness is the degree to which an acquisition professional closes a specific competency gap(s). The Office of Personnel Management is working closely with VA to 


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1 Based on FY 2007 data from the Federal Procurement Data System—Next Generation 

(FPDS–NG). 2 It is noteworthy that continued growth in dollar obligations and transactions is anticipated 

given the importance of VA’s mission to serve America’s growing Veteran population. 

develop the CAC since the concept revolutionizes the way VA (and government) targets training opportunities and tracks the competency of the workforce. • Technology: VA has enhanced its contract management systems with state-ofthe-art technology in two primary areas. The first area is the contract writing system, which systematically guides contracting officers (CO) through the development 

of all contractual documents. COs are mandated to use this system for all contract 

actions over $25,000 and cannot issue a contract unless several key data fields are 

entered. These changes alone will significantly improve the quality of contracts and 

ability to track performance. 

The second change is with reporting capability. By adding business intelligence 

capability to the system, VA now has the ability to: 

a. Measure process efficiency (e.g., timeliness), 

b. Assess compliance with acquisition laws and policies, and 

c. Predict whether a specific program is behind schedule so corrective action 

can be taken. 

These enhancements are being used successfully to manage and report progress 

on over 1,300 separate procurement actions under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. In FY 2010, the technology and process changes will 

be expanded to all procurements managed by VA. In the future, VA will integrate 

the contract management system with the Department’s financial management systems to ensure that proper reconciliation is done between commitments and obligations. 

• Structures and Processes: As the second largest civilian federal agency, VA employs over 1,300 GS–1102 contracting officials, obligates over $15 billion annually, 

and processes nearly five million contract actions.1 Since 2003, VA has experienced 

exponential growth (see Table 2) in both contracting actions (98 percent) and obligations (280 percent). 

Conversely, the total number of GS–1102s has increased at a significantly lower 

rate.2 This growth in volume and obligations without an equivalent increase in the 

number of contracting officials has put a significant strain on the workforce and on 

the acquisition system. 

Therefore, VA has instituted aggressive strategies to change its internal structures and processes to improve workflow efficiencies and to implement a staffing 

and workflow plan that improves the quantity and competency of its workforce. The 

primary goals are to ensure that: 

1. VA COs are highly competent and qualified to manage the burgeoning workload. 

2. VA is structured in a manner that reduces process inefficiencies and workload 

redundancies. 

Given that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) manages nearly 80% of all 

procurements within VA, one task in the PwC study was to recommend an optimum 


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organizational structure to improve the quality and efficiency of VHA’s procurement 

function. Of the several recommendations provided by PwC, VA adopted the one 

that realigns VHA’s acquisition management function from a largely decentralized 

structure to a more centralized model. Under this recommendation, VHA’s leadership hierarchy will consist of seasoned acquisition professionals. 

Headquartered in Washington, D.C. the new structure will have three regional directors with line authority over VHA field activities (e.g., Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs)). This is a significant departure from the former decentralized 

organizational structure where the VISN procurement officers reported directly to 

local leadership. Under the new model, the Department’s Senior Procurement Executive delegates all authority and has oversight responsibility over VHA’s procurement operations. 

By creating a contracting-centric organization and reporting structure and requiring that senior VHA leaders be well trained and experienced in the procurement 

field, the quality of acquisition within VHA should improve significantly. 

In addition to the organizational realignment in VHA, VA realigned procurement 

operations within the VA Central Office (VACO). To help attract talent from those 

non-VA procurement professionals who may live in the Maryland area and do not 

want to commute into Washington, VACO’s operations are being transitioned to our 

Center for Acquisition Innovation co-located with the VA Acquisition Academy facility in Frederick, MD. Table 4, submitted in response to question number 3, shows 

each buying unit, the FTE count, and the major customers. 

Eventually, all buying for VACO customers will reside in that facility. In addition, 

the aforementioned TAC in New Jersey will focus primarily on IT purchases, an 

area that will experience significant investment and growth over the next several 

years. The addition of the TAC will help to relieve the significant IT workload which 

currently resides in Austin, TX and the Cleveland Business Center. 

Under the realignment, the National Acquisition Center (NAC) in Hines, IL, will 

continue to focus on purchases for medical and surgical equipment through delegated federal supply schedule authority granted by the General Services Administration. The NAC supports the needs of VA hospitals as well as the Departments 

of Defense and Health and Human Services. Further, through a world-class intern 

program, which hires up to 30 interns annually, VA firmly believes that building 

a new generation of acquisition professionals is the soundest long-term strategy. 

This new talent will receive high quality training, development and on-the-job experience. The goal is to teach the interns new and innovative ways of managing procurements. More importantly, they will be nurtured and molded for increasingly 

complex leadership roles in the future. 

The major changes to the structures, processes, measurement systems and information technology represent transformational steps toward improving how goods 

and services are procured in VA. 

Question. I understand that some of the procurement offices (Austin and Cleveland) have stated that they will not handle any new information technology procurements for the remainder of FY 2009 because they do not have the capacity. Is this 

true? 

Response. Historically, program offices have randomly assigned work to various 

acquisition offices without prior planning and acquisition strategy. A consolidated 

strategy has been developed to meet the priority information technology procurements for the remainder of FY 2009. The Center for Acquisition Innovation (CAI), 

in Austin, TX, is slated to execute 111 contract actions for an approximate total of 

$355M for the remainder of FY 2009. However, executable requirements packages 

have not yet been received for some of these actions, jeopardizing the timely award 

and obligation of funds. CAI Austin, in coordination with interns from the VA Acquisition Academy, will additionally award several simplified acquisitions in support 

of the Office of Information Technology. CAI Austin does currently have 16 vacancies and recruitment efforts are underway to identify and retain qualified contracting professionals. As requirements continue to emerge, there is a real possibility that we will need to work with GSA to accept contracting requirements to execute on behalf of VA. 

Question. For the record, please submit to the Committee a list of all procurement 

offices, which offices they service, as well as the number of filled positions and vacancies for each. 

Response. Profile of VA Workforce 

Table 3 shows the distribution of the GS–1102 operational contracting officers/specialists across the Department and the planned number of new full time equivalent 

(FTE) positions. 


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TABLE 3—TOTAL NUMBER OF GS–1102S BY FISCAL YEAR (2003–08)* 

Category 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 

Total increase 

between 

2003–2008 

Total projected for 

2009* 

Total GS–1102 Workforce ....................... 766 786 808 851 909 1167 +401 1407* 

% increase from previous fiscal year .... .......... 2.6 2.8 5.3 6.8 28.4 52.3 17.1* 

*Includes 160 new positions at the TAC, 30 additional interns and approximately 50 positions in VHA. 

Table 4 provides a breakdown of the total number of contracting officials. Note 

that VHA represents over 65 percent of the total GS–1102 workforce and approximately 82 percent of total dollars obligated. 

TABLE 4—DISTRIBUTION OF THE GS–1102 WORKFORCE (AS OF MAY 1, 2009) 

Administration/Office 

Number of 

authorized GS– 

1102s 

On board Number of 

vacancies 

VACO 1 ......................................................................................................... 407 192 215 

VHA 2 ........................................................................................................... 871 739 132 

CFM 3 ........................................................................................................... 17 15 2 

VBA 4 ........................................................................................................... 24 23 1 

NCA 5 ........................................................................................................... 19 16 3 

TOTAL GS–1102s ................................................................................ 1,338 985 353 

1 Includes VACO staff offices, OALC Field elements (i.e., National Acquisition Center, Denver Acquisition and Logistic Center, and the Centers 

for Acquisition Innovation), VBA, VHA, and most major systems procurements for OIT. 2 Includes purchases for energy, local medical center procurements. 

3 All major construction VA-wide. 

4Most buying is within the simplified purchasing threshold and orders under IDIQ contracts. 

5Manages services to support the national cemeteries and non-recurring maintenance. 

Question. I understand that an effort is underway to assess and prioritize IT procurements. What is the status of this effort, and what is the way forward to ensuring that crucial IT procurements are handled expeditiously? 

Response. As a result of recent meetings between the Office of Acquisition and Logistics (OAL) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT), we have identified 625 

OIT requirements for an estimated $896M for FY 2009 execution. OIT Development 

has prioritized its requirements and continues to work with the OAL to ensure that 

all priority one requirements are assigned and executed. Joint acquisition planning 

and execution efforts are ongoing, and OAL is pursuing additional capacity through 

assisted acquisitions. 

Question. What is your FY 2010 request for the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, 

and Construction—how many new positions are you requesting? Is this adequate 

given the continued emphasis on complicated information technology procurements? 

Response. The Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction’s (OALC) FY 2010 budget request is $50.7 million. Of this amount, $645 thousand is to support the 

Office of the Executive Director OALC, and $50.1 million is to support the Office 

of Construction and Facilities Management (CFM). The requested budget authority 

is an increase of $5,485,000 from FY 2009 and adds 16 new FTE. The additional 

staff is to support the increased major construction and leasing workload in CFM. 

The Office of Acquisition and Logistics (OAL), which has the primary responsibility of supporting the information technology procurements, is funded through a 

self-sustaining revolving account known as the Supply Fund which is non-appropriated funds. The FY 2010 budget reflects that the Supply Fund will support 662 

FTE, an increase of 30 FTE over 2009. The increases are primarily due to the establishment of the Technology Acquisition Center and additional acquisition interns at 

the VA Acquisition Academy. These resources are adequate to meet our current information technology program and mission needs. 

TECHNOLOGY ACQUISITION CENTER

Question. I understand that your Department is working with the Department of 

Defense to establish a Technology Acquisition Center. Would you please give the 

Committee a brief overview of this new Center? What do you hope to gain from this 

activity, and when will it be fully operational? What is its mission—will it handle 

only IT-related procurements? 

Response. VA has recognized for some time the need to increase its contracting 

officer population and has taken significant steps, both near term and long term, 


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to accomplish this. In addition to enhancing its recruiting activities to draw from 

the ever-shrinking pool of trained contracting professionals in the Federal workplace, VA’s most significant near term solution to increase quickly its number of 

seasoned contracting officers is both resourceful and unique. 

VA is establishing a Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) near Fort Monmouth, 

New Jersey. The U.S. Army post, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, will be closed in 

2011 under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 implementation plan. 

Fort Monmouth is home to one of the premier Contracting Centers in the Army. 

This contracting workforce contains an experienced core of contract specialists and 

other acquisition professionals that are dedicated to the acquisition of IT. VA has 

moved swiftly to hire the current Army acquisition staff that desire to remain in 

the area and continue their Federal service. By creating the TAC in Eatontown, NJ, 

VA will acquire the skills and abilities of 167 acquisition professionals (over 80 of 

which are contract specialists) in a very short period of time. This initiative is expected to be fully staffed by August 2009 and the TAC will have three distinct functional areas. These areas include contracting; an Acquisition Rapid Response Office, 

which will assist in the development of acquisition documents; and a Program Management Office, which will assist VA Program Managers in the management of their 

programs. The staff will support the entire acquisition lifecycle, not just the contracting piece as is traditionally found in procurement organizations. 

OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY HIRING FREEZE

Question. Would you please tell the Committee why there is a hiring freeze, when 

it was instituted, and what impact it is having on the Department? 

Response. There has been a hiring freeze within OI&T beginning in early February 2009. The hiring freeze was implemented within OI&T because funding for 

payroll was insufficient to cover on-board staffing through the end of the fiscal year. 

As a result, VA requested a reprogramming of $28 million within the IT Systems 

appropriation to support payroll requirements. We appreciate the Committee’s support of VA’s reprogramming request. The Department could not maintain its strong 

commitment to Veterans to provide high quality and effective IT operational services and development without obtaining the $28 million reprogramming and lifting 

the hiring freeze. 

Question. For the record, would you please submit to the Committee a list of all 

offices within OI&T, as well as the number of filled positions and vacancies for each 

office? 

Response. The organizations within OI&T are as follows along with the current 

staffing on-board as of April 24, 2009, and current critical vacancies associated with 

each that have not been filled: 

• Office of the Assistant Secretary for Information & Technology: 1 staff, 0 

vacancy 

• Office of Quality, Performance & Oversight: 200 staff; 2 vacancies 

• Office of Information Protection & Risk Management: 580 staff; 29 vacancies 

• Office of IT Enterprise Strategy, Policy, Plans & Programs: 44 staff: 7 vacancies 

• Office of IT Resource Management: 92 staff; 2 vacancies 

• Office of Enterprise Development: 879 staff; 53 vacancies 

• Office of Operations & Field Development: 4,965 staff; 250 vacancies 

Question. I am slightly perturbed at hearing about this hiring freeze, because we 

tried to help you last year. Last year, our Committee pointed out to VA that OI&T 

had a staffing requirement to hire 1,990 additional FTEs, most of these in the field 

providing IT support in the many medical centers. However, in responses back to 

the Committee, the Department stated that VA only needed ‘‘to hire an additional 

247 staff in FY08 . . .’’ and you requested only 94 additional FTE. 

Response. The 2010 budget request includes funding to support an additional 800 

FTE. In addition, OI&T, as part of VA’s transformation to the 21st Century review 

process, is completing a staffing analysis to determine/validate the staffing needs of 

OI&T. See Table 1 below. 

Question. I understand that your FY 2010 request includes funds to hire 600 more 

IT people for the field, and another 200 IT for the VA Central Office. Does your 

budget include enough funds to hire these 800 new people? Is 800 new staff enough? 

Response. As shown in our budget submission to Congress, 600 FTE will support 

Enterprise Operations and Field Development IT support. Other field personnel include field development staff as well as field security and information protection 

staff. 25 FTE of the 800 FTE is attributable to VA Central Office. Sufficient funding 

is included in the FY 2010 budget request to fund 800 additional FTE as well as 


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correct the payroll funding shortages (correcting the base) experienced in FY 2009. 

In addition, OI&T, as part of VA’s transformation to the 21st century review process, is completing a staffing analysis to determine/validate the staffing needs of 

OI&T. 

TABLE 1—OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY 

[FY 2009–2010 FTE Distribution] 

FY 2009 BA FTE FY 2009 

FTE reimb. 

FY 2009 

total 

FY 2010 BA FTE FY 2010 

FTE reimb. 

FY 2010 

total 

Total increase/decrease 

Enterprise Operations and Field 

Development (EOFD) ............... 4,747 1,781 4,925 5,347 178 5,525 600 

Enterprise Development ............... 801 64 865 912 64 976 111 

Information Protection & Risk 

Management (IPRM) ................ 620 0 620 684 0 684 64 

OI&T Corporate Administration .... 370 0 370 395 0 395 25 

Total OI&T FTE .................... 6,538 242 6,780 7,338 242 7,580 800 

HEALTHEVET INTEGRATED MASTER PLAN

Question. What is the status of this effort and when does VA expect to have a 

comprehensive Integrated Master Plan (IMP)? 

Response. For over 18 months, the Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) 

and Veterans Health Administration (VHA) have worked closely to develop a 

HealtheVet integrated program plan (IPP). In the wake of the issues that arose 

from the Replacement Scheduling Application (RSA), VA is engaging in a full review 

of all HealtheVet modules, materials, and plans. The outcome of this evaluation will 

provide VA sufficient information to establish authoritative completion dates for an 

Integrated Master Plan (IMP). 

Question. Do enhancements and modernization projects allow for more modular 

services or SOA type approach allowing for best of breed modules which could be 

internally developed or purchased and then integrated? 

Response. VA recognizes the many benefits of implementing Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as part of enhancements and modernization projects, and moreover, is in the process of incorporating SOA into VA’s planning and implementation 

activities. Implementing a service oriented architecture offers VA significant benefits from both a business and IT perspective. Among the major advantages of using 

SOA at VA are greater flexibility and efficiency, as well as quicker reactions to 

changing governance and compliance requirements and business processes. 

VA is currently in a strategic and sequential process of moving to a service oriented architecture. The first major instance of VA’s use of SOA is within the longterm efforts of the Post-9/11 GI Bill implementation, commonly called the Chapter 

33 program. The Chapter 33 program will be the first reference implementation of 

SOA. VA is currently developing a detailed roadmap and plan for SOA implementation. VA anticipates completion of this roadmap by December 2009. 

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FROM CHAIRMAN EDWARDS: INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

QUESTIONS

Question. What projects are underway that define the VA’s approach to moving 

to a new hardware platform? 

Response. OI&T has projects underway on several fronts to replace the legacy 

hardware platform for the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology 

Architecture (VistA). There are three primary components of the solutions which 

will be addressed separately. These are the application servers, those on which client sessions run, database servers, those which fetch data and return it to the client 

applications, and the storage platform which holds the patient data. Efforts to modernize these platform components are tightly integrated into the National Data Center Project (NDCP), and the sequencing of these initiatives is coordinated with the 

migration of VistA systems into the NDCP. 

The specifics of these projects to upgrade this hardware platform are as follows: 

Application Servers—testing has been completed on commodity x86 server technology running both LINUX and Windows. Production systems running Windows 

are in place in VISN 23 and being finalized for testing in the data center environment in Region 4. Production systems running LINUX are in limited operation in 


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the Sacramento Data Center. Regardless of the operating system chosen to run on 

these platforms the commodity nature of x86 platforms has been validated as providing exceptional stability and performance for this component of the VistA hardware solution. 

Database Servers—testing is underway for the migration of this component off of 

end-of-sale HP Alpha and on to Itanium technology. This strategy will allow OI&T 

to continue to leverage the OpenVMS operating system which offers the least complicated path for migration. A production instance of VistA at the Cleveland VAMC 

has been brought online with Itanium and is being evaluated. The results are early 

but impressive. OI&T has begun to explore alternative platforms for this hardware 

component to verify the best technology to provide this solution. Current plans are 

to continue with Itanium while analysis is completed. 

Storage—the current storage infrastructure utilized for VistA spans a series of 

mid-life and end-of-life technologies, based on when the last facility-based technical 

refresh was executed. These disparities will be addressed as VistA systems are migrated into data centers. The current storage platform in the data center solution 

is mid-life and has support and capacity for expansion, but is mid-tier and cannot 

effectively scale to meet future demand. Testing has been completed on an enterprise-class storage platform and funding to begin the implementation of this more 

technically appropriate solution has been budgeted in FY10. 

Question. What is the Plan to modernize VistA, and will this plan help coordinate 

software development efforts that would enable reuse of existing legacy VistA components deemed valuable to the organization? 

Response: HealtheVet is the technological plan to modernize VistA. Joint efforts 

between the internal Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) and Veterans 

Health Administration/Office of Health Information (VHA/OHI) have been established to validate and document the scope, business architecture and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the HealtheVet System-of-Systems. These collaborative 

efforts are assisting with the development of a comprehensive strategic plan that 

will execute this major IT program, including cost models and respective Integrated 

Master Plan/Integrated Master Schedule (IMP/IMS) necessary to manage and sustain HealtheVet projects/products. Items in this plan will not only allow the organization to understand the necessary development efforts, but it will also eliminate 

duplication of functional services, ideally maximizing the resources at VA and of 

HealtheVet. At this time, we have identified some improvements to Vista Legacy 

to support the immediate and critical needs, as well as continue to define the future 

direction of HealtheVet. 

Question. Is the VA looking at commercial best practices for implementing clinical 

systems and integration of disparate systems in the private healthcare sector? 

Response. Yes. HealtheVet targets commercial best practices for implementation, 

integration and evaluation. 

Question. What is the incremental technology roadmap, starting in 2009, for sequencing modernization of the hardware and software for IT modernization supporting VHA? 

Response. The slides at attachment 1 present a high-level technology roadmap for 

modernizing the software supporting VHA. 

Question. What is the plan for improving VHA’s ability to acquire needed services 

like systems integration and customization for VistA enhancement as well as modernization? 

Response. VA’s strategy for improving acquisition of systems integration and 

customization is shifting to address not only the acquisition process itself, but also 

new approaches to development and program management. VA is working to establish project management methods that center around agile development, frequent 

testing, and substantial end-user involvement. Several pilot projects are underway 

that utilize these processes, and initiatives like the HealtheVet governance model 

and HealtheVet Acquisition Strategy include heavy involvement from both technical 

and business staff. 

VA continues to face acquisition and staffing challenges, both of which impact program timelines. OI&T is working to adopt an Integrated Project Team approach to 

software development, which features not only technical, engineering, and business 

involvement, but also representatives of key functions including human resources 

and acquisitions. This approach engages acquisition staff earlier in the development 

process, facilitating a more strategic approach to the acquisition process that will 

help mitigate some of the challenges faced to date. Challenges to IT acquisition remain, however, and VA continues to investigate better and more permanent solutions to these issues. 

Question. What VA contract vehicles and VA contracting officers are available to 

support maintenance and modernization efforts for hardware, software and services? 


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Response. Available VA contracts: Currently, VA has few ‘‘internal’’ contract vehicles for the procurement of information technology (IT) hardware, software, and 

services. In accordance with federal acquisition regulations, VA makes maximum 

use of existing Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) and the General 

Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Supply Schedules. Recently however, VA 

has determined that the award of enterprise wide contracts would enhance our ability to leverage our acquisition workforce and provide us the opportunity to establish 

better terms, conditions, and pricing than are generally available through existing 

non-VA contracts. VA intends to begin the process of developing these new contracts 

in fiscal year 2010. 

Current VA contracts include: 

a. Ten Global Information Technology Support Services (GITSS) Contracts—ordering contracts for a full array of IT services 

b. Blanket Purchasing Agreement (BPA) awarded under GSA IT Schedule 70 for 

lease of desktop computers, monitors, maintenance and installation services 

c. Eight BPAs awarded under GSA IT Schedule 70 for VistA Contractor Services 

to maintain and support VistA legacy systems 

In addition to these VA-awarded contracts, VA makes significant use of the following GWACs and GSA contracts/schedules in acquiring IT hardware, software, 

and services: 

a. GSA Veterans Technology Services (VETS) GWAC, which is a ‘‘preferred’’ 

source for acquiring IT services per VA policy 

b. NASA Solutions for Enterprise Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV GWAC, which is 

a mandatory source for acquiring VA hardware, software, maintenance and installation services per VA policy 

c. GSA Federal Supply Schedule 70 for IT equipment, software, and services. This 

is probably the most widely used IT procurement vehicle throughout the Federal 

government. 

VA contracting Officers: VA’s Office of Acquisition and Logistics (OAL) is the principal contracting activity within VA for the procurement of hardware, software, and 

information technology (IT) services. Within OAL the main organizations focused on 

the procurement of IT are the Center for Acquisition Innovation (CAI), Austin, 

Texas campus; and the newly created Technology Acquisition Center (TAC), located 

in Eatontown, NJ. 

VA has recognized for some time the need to increase its contracting officer population and has taken significant steps, both near term and long term, to accomplish 

this. In addition to enhancing its recruiting activities to draw from the ever-shrinking pool of trained contracting professionals in the Federal workplace, VA’s most 

significant near term solution to increase quickly its number of seasoned contracting 

officers is both resourceful and unique. 

The U.S. Army post, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, will be closed in 2011 under 

the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 implementation plan. Fort Monmouth is home to one of the premier Contracting Centers in the Army. This contracting workforce contains an experienced core of contract specialists and other acquisition professionals that are dedicated to the acquisition of IT. VA has moved 

swiftly to hire the current Army acquisition staff that desire to remain in the area 

and continue their Federal service. By creating the TAC in Eatontown, NJ, VA will 

acquire the skills and abilities of 167 acquisition professionals (over 80 of which are 

contract specialists) in a very short period of time. The TAC is expected to be fully 

staffed by August 2009. The TAC will have three distinct functional areas. These 

areas include contracting, an Acquisition Rapid Response Office which will assist in 

the development of acquisition documents and a Program Management Office which 

will assist VA Program Managers in the management of their programs. The staff 

will support the entire acquisition lifecycle not just the contracting piece as is traditionally found in procurement organizations. 

Through the VA Acquisition Academy (VAAA) in Frederick, MD, VA is training 

a cadre of acquisition interns for the future. The first class of interns has successfully completed its first year of intensive acquisition training, while VA is in the 

process of selecting suitable candidates for its second intern class which is slated 

to start training during the Summer of 2009. The VAAA has made significant 

progress to ensure that future VA contract specialists/contracting officers have the 

requisite training and certifications to support critical program execution. In addition to the FAC–C training, the VAAA is developing a project and program management development program that exceeds the minimum FAC-Program/Project Management (FAC–P/PM) requirements. The VA’s FAC–P/PM program will be applied 

learning based and address all levels of expertise with an expanded set of competencies to ensure the VA’s project and program managers are capable of delivering 


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the best value to the taxpayer. The VA’s FAC–P/PM program is addressing information technology project/program management issues first. 

The combined strength of the CAI and TAC contracting activities will exceed 220 

acquisition professionals focused on supporting the IT requirements of the Department. In conjunction with VA’s continued recruitment and retention initiatives, and 

the development of its future acquisition workforce through the VAAA, this number 

is considered adequate. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Ranking Member Zach 

Wamp] 

TRANSFORMATION

Question. How will this transformation occur? Will transformation occur in-house 

using policy directives set by you, or will you be working with this Committee and 

the authorizing Committee on legislative proposals to transform the VA? What role 

will Veterans groups have in the process? 

Response. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has begun to lay down the 

groundwork for transforming into a 21st Century organization that is Veteran-centric, results-driven and forward-looking. The approach used to transform VA will 

employ leadership directives, suggestions from Veterans and their families, Veteran 

Service Organizations, employees, unions, and work with Congress and its key committees to develop and enact legislative proposals to accelerate and support transformation. Laying the foundation for transformation began during the presidential 

transition period in listening to the concerns and ideas from Congressional committee staff, Veteran Service Organizations, and VA employees. It continued in February when VA started developing a new vision statement with valuable input from 

key stakeholders. VA interviewed Senate and House authorizing and appropriating 

committee staff, conducted focus groups of Veterans and their family members, and 

surveyed over 16,000 VA employees to learn more about their vision and expectations for a transformed Department. 

Numerous ideas have been proposed by employees and other stakeholders. Several of these insights have been inserted into the work of the Transformation Task 

Force (TTF). The TTF drives the transformation initiatives through the VA governance process using an iterative approach so that each proposal can be discussed, improved, and ultimately approved. The governance process is a transparent method 

allowing every organization in the Department to participate in the decision making 

process on transformation initiatives. 

Question. Give us an example of something as it is at the VA today, and what 

it would look like under transformation? 

Response. The development and implementation of a joint, virtual, lifetime electronic record, which will ultimately contain administrative and medical information 

from the day an individual enters military service throughout their military career 

and after they leave the military. Today, VA relies on reams of paper, which is difficult to locate, housed in various locations, and is not integrated with data owned 

by the Department of Defense. 

This disparate and inefficient approach leads to negative experiences when Veterans interact with VA and the possibility for inaccurate responses and decisions. 

In the future, regardless of where a Veteran is located his or her complete record 

would be available for use by the Veteran, VA, and DoD. 

Question. Your testimony says that resources are included in the budget for this 

transformation that will take more than one year to complete. How much is in this 

budget that is directly tied to the transformation and what does it get us? 

Response. The FY10 budget request submitted to Congress includes funding to 

begin developing VA into a 21st Century organization. This includes $144 million 

to continue moving toward the President’s goal of reforming the benefits claims 

process to make VA’s claims decisions timely, accurate, and consistent through use 

of automated systems. It will strengthen service to Veterans by providing them the 

capability to apply for and manage their benefits on-line. It will also reduce the 

movement of paper files and further secure Veterans’ personal information. As additional transformation initiatives are identified as a result of the organizational and 

management reviews, more funds within the budget topline will be denoted as part 

of the VA transformation over the next several months. 

Question. Does transformation buy us a new Assistant Secretary for Logistics, Acquisition and Construction? Is this just another layer of bureaucracy? 

Response. The FY2010 budget request contains funding for new approaches to 

meeting emerging needs that will change the way VA does its work. Funding for 

the new office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Construction 

is one of these new approaches. Currently, VA contracts for goods and services in 


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a variety of places, using a variety of methods, which leads to little available enterprise data about the use and purpose of funds. The new office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Construction is designed to minimize added bureaucracy by elevating an existing office that is charged with managing this portfolio for the Department. Establishing the new office of the Assistant Secretary 

brings the needed discipline to VA’s acquisition, logistics and construction processes, 

harvests efficiencies to spend VA budget dollars more effectively, and improves management results for all organizations in VA who use contracting services. 

ADVANCED APPROPRIATIONS FOR VA MEDICAL CARE

Question. When does the administration plan to submit its advance appropriations 

for medical care proposal to the Congress? What is the current thinking on what 

the proposal would be? 

Response. The VA is currently working to finalize the details in its plan for advanced appropriations. We will work with the Congress to execute the plan this 

year. 

VA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RISKS

Question. How do you reconcile the substantial request for IT with the testimony 

the IG provided to this Committee just a few weeks ago that we should be concerned 

about VA’s ability to effectively identify and manage its IT capital investments, and 

ensure that annual funding decisions make the best use of available IT resources? 

Response. VA will address OIG concerns through the implementation of an IT 

Multi-Year Programming Process. Our IT Multi-Year Programming Process begins 

with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) publishing official multi-year Programming 

Guidance, over his signature, to key business stakeholders and subordinate deputies. The Programming Guidance addresses investment priorities based on the VA 

Secretary’s strategic goals and objectives in the respective out-years. 

Once new program or increased investment proposals are submitted to the Office 

of Information Technology (OI&T), the CIO convenes the Programming and LongTerm Issues Board (PLTIB), comprised of both business stakeholders and OI&T 

staff members, to deliberate and provide a Program proposal to the IT Leadership 

Board (ITLB), chaired by the VA Deputy Secretary. Once the ITLB approves the 

Multi-Year Program, budget year guidance is provided to the Budget and NearTerm Issues Board (BNTIB) to develop the VA Secretary’s budget request for IT to 

the Office and Management and Budget (OMB). The BNTIB is comprised of essentially the same organizations (business stakeholders and OI&T staff members) as 

the PLTIB. 

This process lays out a capital investment planning process that provides a multiyear view, involves all stakeholders in the process, and ensures the oversight of the 

senior leadership in the Department regarding all long-term IT investment decisions. 

Question. If you could pick one, what is the highest priority increase in the VA 

IT Budget? 

Response. Providing post-9/11 GI benefits by August 2009 and supporting this initiative in FY 2010 remains the top IT priority. However, the funding request for 

Paperless Delivery of Veterans Benefits is the highest priority increase in the FY 

2010 request, as the funding increased from $1.5 million in FY 2009 to $143.68 million in FY 2010, the largest funding increase for any single initiative in the budget 

request. 

Question. Do you believe that the proposed increase to the VA IT account will 

‘‘right-size’’ the IT budget request and that you will not require a reprogramming 

of funds into IT in fiscal year 10? 

Response. At this time, the increase will support VA’s OI&T budget requirements 

for FY 2010. The Secretary has initiated a transformation process to prepare the 

Department to operate in the 21st Century. This transformation process will take 

place over the next three months, and may identify a potential reallocation of resources to support new initiatives. 

Question. How does this budget request better meet the IT needs of VA? 

Response. With the resources requested for FY 2010, VA will strengthen collaboration with the Department of Defense with the goal of improving patient safety and 

care, and expediting benefit claims processing; automating the educational benefits 

assistance system to handle the expanded benefits passed in the Post 9–11 Veterans 

Educational Assistance Act of 2008; continue to develop Financial and Logistics Integrated Technology (FLITE) as the next generation core financial management system; and strengthen our IT workforce as well as our aging and fragile IT infrastructure. 


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VA IT STAFFING (FTE) QUESTION

Question. How long will it take to hire, train, and fully integrate 800 new FTEs 

into the VA IT organization? 

Response. It will take approximately a year to first hire, and then train and fully 

integrate 800 new FTEs into the VA OI&T organization. 

VA BENEFITS CLAIMS BACKLOG

Question. Mr. Secretary you have been at the helm of the VA for a few months 

now, and undoubtedly you have heard from various constituencies about the claims 

backlog at the VA. Part of the issue is there seems to be an inconsistent definition 

of what a backlogged claim is exactly. We have put funding in this bill over the last 

two years to hire an additional 3,000 claims processors. What is the current claims 

rating backlog? Have you been able to establish a common definition? 

Response. The Veterans Benefits Administration’s entire inventory of disability 

claims is frequently—and incorrectly—referred to as the ‘‘claims backlog.’’ While 

there are approximately 400,000 claims in our inventory, the majority of these 

claims are not ‘‘backlogged.’’ The pending claims inventory is dynamic rather than 

static. It includes all claims received, whether pending for just a few hours or as 

long as six months. Completed claims are continuously removed from the inventory 

while new claims are added. We are averaging over 82,000 new claims added to the 

inventory each month during FY 2009. 

VBA’s strategic target for completing disability claims is 125 days. The target allows for necessary time awaiting evidence or expiration of statutory requirements 

including the Veterans Claims Assistance Act. VA defines ‘‘claims backlog’’ as the 

number of claims that have been pending longer than the 125–day goal. As of the 

end of April 2009, 138,415 claims (34% of the inventory) had been pending longer 

than 125 days and should therefore be considered ‘‘backlogged.’’ 

Since 2007, the number of field claims processing employees has increased by 

more than 3,400 FTE. The increased staffing level is having an impact, and performance improvements are being achieved. The average days to complete claims 

Fiscal Year To Date (FYTD) 2009 is 164 days, the lowest level since the hiring initiative began in January 2007. In April, we completed over 86,000 claims in an average of 156 days. Our production this fiscal year is 10 percent above the same period in FY 2008. However, while we are completing more claims, the incoming 

claims volume through April 2009 is up 13 percent over last year. 

SPECIALTY MENTAL HEALTH CARE AND RURAL HEALTH OUTREACH AND DELIVERY

Question. Why does the budget request propose to eliminate bill language in the 

Medical Services account that sets a spending floor of $3.8 billion for specialty mental health care and $250 million for a rural health outreach delivery and initiative? 

Response. A spending floor of $3.8 billion for specialty mental health care was not 

requested by the VA in the FY 2009 budget request, but was inserted by Congress 

in Public Law 110–329. The VA would prefer not to have a specific spending floor 

established in law but rather to ensure that the policies established in the Uniform 

Mental Health Services in VA Medical Centers and Clinics Handbook are extended 

to every Veteran to whom we provide mental health care. The FY 2010 budget request of $4.564 billion is our current estimate of the cost of that care. 

The bill language of $250 million for rural health was also not requested by the 

VA in the FY 2009 budget request but was inserted by Congress in Public Law 110– 

329. The VA would prefer not to have a specific spending floor established in law 

but to increase access to rural health services for those Veterans who live in rural 

and highly rural areas. The FY 2009 funding is available for obligation until September 30, 2010 (two year funds), and the VA anticipates that $60 million of this 

amount will be obligated in FY 2009. The balance of $190 million will be obligated 

in FY 2010. The VA has requested an additional $250 million in the FY 2010 budget 

request, for a total of $440 million available for rural health initiatives in FY 2010. 

RURAL HEALTH OUTREACH AND DELIVERY

Question. Please provide the Committee with the status of the Rural Health Outreach and Delivery program that was funded at $250 million for FY’09. 

Response. 

• December 2008: Office of Rural Health (ORH) allocated $21.75 million to Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs). 

• On May 21, 2009, VA announced that it had provided $215 million in competitive funding to improve services specifically designed for Veterans in rural and highVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01270 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ly rural areas. After a careful review, the Office of Rural Health selected 74 programs, many of which were either national in scope or affected multiple states. The 

press release for the award of these projects is at attachment 2. 

Question. How much of the funding has been allocated? How much do you plan 

to allocate this fiscal year? 

Response. VA allocated $21.75 million in December of 2008 and will allocate the 

$215 million by mid-June 2009. We plan to obligate $60 million of the $250 million 

by the end of FY 2009. 

Question. For the record, please provide FY ’09 funding allocations by state and 

provide a short summary of Rural Health outreach and delivery initiative projects 

that have been/will be funded for FY 09. 

Response. The $215 million for the rural health initiatives at attachment 3 was 

distributed by Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) and Program Office. A 

short summary of the Rural Health outreach and delivery initiative projects is at 

attachment 4. A state-by-state breakdown is not available at this point. 

Question. How do you justify increasing this program by 663 percent in fiscal year 

2010 when you only expect to spend about $60 million out of the $250 million appropriation in fiscal year 2009? 

Response. The Department’s budget reflects the obligation of FY 2009 appropriated funds for rural health initiatives over a two-year period. VA appreciates the 

operational flexibility Congress has provided to ensure the most effective use of 

these funds. VA is using a two-year execution process to allow for deliberate planning and execution. In FY 2009, we expect to provide $237 million to the VISNs 

and Program Office which represents 95 percent of the appropriated amount of $250 

million. The remainder of $13 million (5 percent) will be provided to the VISNs and 

Program Office in FY 2010. However, we anticipate the VISNs/Program Office will 

only obligate $60 million of the funding they receive in FY 2009 and will obligate 

the remaining $190 million in FY 2010. 

Question. Does the VA have the capacity to effectively grow this program by such 

a large amount? Why has it taken so long to launch the FY’09 program? 

Response. Yes, ORH has this capacity, as shown by the fact that the office has 

completed the establishment of a rigorous selection process for rural health initiatives. 

The FY 2009 program took more time because the office had to create the process 

to ensure VISNs and VAMCs, as well as VHA program offices submit projects and 

programs using very strict established guidelines. ORH also created a very rigorous 

review to identify the most innovative projects to enhance the health care of rural 

Veterans. Now that ORH has a proven process for selection, FY 2010 obligation/execution will begin earlier in the fiscal year. 

CHATTANOOGA CBOC REPORT

Question. The VA completed a report that said that the VA (TVHS) was going to 

initiate efforts to re-establish contractual relationship with local hospitals for some, 

if not most inpatient services in the Chattanooga area. I know that the target date 

for the issuance of that solicitation was October 1, 2008 but that slipped to April 

3, 2009. Can you tell me what the current status is of the solicitation and has the 

contract been finalized? Please provide the contract deliverables for the record. 

Response. The contract has not been finalized; however, the contract proposed 

statement of work and other initial documents were completed on April 3, 2009. 

Currently, the solicitation is under development, and once completed will go through 

the required review process for legal and technical approval prior to being issued 

for bids. The anticipated release of the solicitation is in August 2009. 

POST-9/11 GI BILL IMPLEMENTATION QUESTIONS; SUBMITTED BY RANKING MEMBER

WAMP

Question. What are the issues that caused the delay? 

Response. During a National Training exercise conducted on March 25, 2009, the 

Chapter 33 Front End Tool (FET) returned error messages which caused many 

users to lose access to the system. The errors began when the number of concurrent 

users exceeded 400. Modifications were made to the server and database the 

evening of March 25. On March 26 two additional exercises took place. In the first 

exercise, error messages which caused many users to lose access to the system 

began when the number for concurrent users reached 500. Further modifications 

were made to the server and database before the second exercise that afternoon. 

During the second exercise, the number of concurrent users peaked at around 560. 

Only isolated error messages were reported. 


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Question. How is the VA working to resolve those issues or have they been resolved? 

Response. The issue has been resolved. 

Question. Has the testing of phase 1 development and deployment been completed? 

Response. Phase I of the Front End Tool (FET), was successfully deployed on 

March 9, 2009, to the four Regional Processing Offices (Atlanta, Buffalo, Muskogee, 

and St. Louis) delivering the capability to accept applications and electronically 

store eligibility and entitlement information that claims examiners enter manually. 

Phase I of the Front End Tool was completed on April 10. Beta testing was complete 

on April 17. 

Question. What were the results? 

Response. The deployment was successful. The performance issue with the FET 

Phase I was resolved and tests show response times within or below the acceptable 

range of 5–8 seconds. 

Question. Is there a comprehensive staffing plan in place? 

Response. Yes, there is an Integrated Project Team in place. 

Question. When will the Long Term Solution be put in place for distributing these 

benefits? 

Response. The Long Term Solution is scheduled to be put in place for distributing 

benefits by November 2010. 

Question. How does the budget request better meet the VA’s needs in meeting the 

processing needs under the new GI Bill? 

Response. VA recognizes the difficult economic choices our Veterans must make 

every day and seeks continued improvement in providing quality service and secure 

access to our Veterans. As such, implementation of Chapter 33 strives to ease the 

reentry of new Veterans into civilian life by providing timely and accurate decisions 

on education claims and continue payments at appropriate levels to enhance Veterans’ and service members’ ability to achieve educational and career goals. 

The IT solution for the Chapter 33 program is of critical importance to VA. The 

budget request will ensure that resources can be consistently and seamlessly applied to the program’s initiatives, which is on target to meet the interim solution’s 

August 1, 2009, deadline. With the funding included in the budget request, VA resources and the Chapter 33 IPT will continue to work to ensure that the long-term 

solution is deployed in FY 2011. Planned accomplishments for FY 2010 include developing and testing the long-term solution. 

VA/DOD INTEROPERABILITY PLAN

Question. What are the key interoperability issues facing VA and DoD at this 

time? 

Response. The key interoperability issues facing VA and DoD include working to 

meet the mandate for full interoperability required in Section 1635 of the National 

Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Additionally, VA and DoD are working to build 

upon the already significant progress achieved toward sharing electronic health information. This work includes enhancing the types of clinical information shared 

through current data exchanges, such as the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE). This work also includes identifying and implementing more robust 

data standards that will support sharing interoperable information. 

For the long term, VA and DoD are working to implement the Virtual Lifetime 

Electronic Record to improve the integration of health, benefits and personnel data 

to better support the full continuum of DoD and VA shared operations (e.g., health 

care, disability adjudication and claims processing, personnel and pay issues). This 

work will rely in part, on updating existing infrastructure and technology, and identifying and implementing a common services and architecture approach. 

Question. How are you working with the DoD to resolve them? 

Response. To resolve key interoperability issues, per the mandate contained in the 

2008 NDAA, VA and DoD formed the DoD/VA Interagency Program Office (IPO) in 

2008. The IPO is operational and providing joint management oversight of health 

and administrative interoperability activities. The IPO works closely with the execution offices within the departments to identify potential risks involving the coordination, approval and development of information sharing requirements and key interoperability activities, including development and implementation. 

In addition to the coordinated working relationships between VA, DoD and the 

IPO, the departments remain fully aligned with the national efforts led by the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Coordinator for Health 

Information Technology. VA and DoD partner with both government and private 

sector resources to identify and/or define information standards that will support 


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nationwide interoperability of health information. Additionally, the departments 

continue to provide staff to key working groups within standards development organizations and industry led panels to ensure that VA/DoD accomplishments are fully 

leveraged in national efforts. 

Joint initiatives that are identified and approved are managed at the highest levels of both Departments by the DoD/VA Joint Executive Council and the Joint Strategic Plan (JSP). The JSP contains those milestones and measures by which senior 

leadership can ensure the Departments continue to make forward progress toward 

achieving interoperability goals. 

Question. Has there been any progress in hiring the Director and Deputy Director 

at the Integrated Program Office? 

Response. Yes, in VA, the formal hiring solicitation for the Deputy Director closed 

on April 17 and resulted in the identification of several qualified candidates. VA officials are now convening a Senior Executive Panel that will conduct interviews and 

select a final candidate. 

Question. Will the VA and DoD have full interoperability by September 30, 2009 

as required by law? 

Response. Yes. VA and DoD are on target to meet the September 30, 2009, ‘‘full 

interoperability’’ target mandated by the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization 

Act, Section 1635. VA and DoD have already achieved a level of health information 

interoperability unprecedented by other providers. To define ‘‘full interoperability,’’ 

VA and DoD formed an interagency board of VA and DoD clinicians to identify the 

capabilities necessary to support the full continuum of health care between DoD and 

VA. This board, the Interagency Clinical Informatics Board (ICIB), determined that 

DoD and VA are already sharing almost all essential health information in viewable 

electronic format through existing data exchanges (e.g., FHIE, BHIE and CHDR). 

To achieve ‘‘full interoperability’’, the ICIB determined that six additional capabilities must be achieved. Of the six capabilities, VA and DoD have achieved the initial 

capability for two; the other four capabilities are in progress. 

• Initial capability completed: 

• Social History—begin sharing the social history data that is currently captured in the DoD HER with the VA—initial capability completed. 

• Separation Physical Exams—Provide initial capability to share DoD electronic health record information that supports the separation physical exam 

processes with the VA—initial capability completed. 

• Remaining capabilities on target: 

• Expansion of Questionnaires/Self-Assessment Tools—provide all Periodic 

Health Assessment data stored in the DoD electronic record to the VA in such 

a fashion that questions are associated with the responses—requirements completed. 

• Expansion of Essentris implementation in DoD—DoD expansion of 

Essentris to at least one additional site in each military medical department— 

ongoing. 

• Demonstration of initial Trusted Partnership Gateways (Secure Network to 

Support Health Data Exchange)—Demonstrate the operation of the Partnership 

Gateways in support of joint DoD-VA health information sharing—migration to 

two gateways completed. 

• Document Scanning (initial capability)—Demonstrate an initial capability 

for scanning medical documents of service members into the DoD electronic 

health record and forwarding those documents electronically to the VA—ongoing. 


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TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2009. 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

WITNESSES 

ROBERT F. HALE, COMPTROLLER 

WAYNE ARNY, DEPUTY UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE (INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT) 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I would like to call the committee to 

order and want to thank Secretary Arny and Secretary Hale for 

being here. We know how busy you are these days. 

I think the subject matter of this hearing is very important to 

discuss: the Department of Defense fiscal year 2010 budget request 

for military construction, family housing, BRAC, and other programs under our jurisdiction. 

I want to thank you both for your long-time service to our country and our military and our military families. 

And, Secretary Arny, I don’t know if we know how much longer 

you are going to be in your position, whatever time period it is, you 

spent a lifetime here, with 40 years of service to our military and 

our country, and I want to thank you for that. 

And through this position and your previous position overseeing 

installations and the environment for the Navy, you literally have 

done something many of us don’t do in Congress most days or most 

lifetimes, and that is leave a lasting impact that will improve the 

quality of life for some great Americans 20, 30, 40 years from now, 

when we are old men on canes—so if that is not what public service is all about, I don’t know what is. I think it is. 

So thank you for that. And I wanted to say that today. 

At this point, I would like to recognize our ranking member, Mr. 

Crenshaw. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER (PRESIDING) 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you both for being here today. 

And I will dispense with most of my opening statement, but I 

wanted to—when I read, Mr. Hale’s testimony, the points that you 

did—the FY10 budget is going to be talking about, one, reaffirming 

commitment to take care of our all-volunteer force. I think that is 

great. 

Rebalancing programs to institutionalize and enhance capabilities to fight today’s wars and defend against scenarios we are likely 

to face in years ahead. 


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And, finally, reforming how and what we buy with a fundamental overhaul in the way that DoD makes procurements and acquisitions and in contracting. 

And I want to ask you a little later on, you know, exactly what 

that means and what the impacts are, but the one thing, Mr. 

Chairman, that I am concerned about and—I think it is probably 

something you are concerned about, too, that we have all these 

projects that we are going to consider today, but we don’t know 

how they fit into the so-called FYDP, the future years defense plan. 

And as I understand it, this may be the first time that we have 

had to consider projects that we are going to consider for this year’s 

budget, but we don’t know how they are going to fit in long range. 

So I am going to ask the witnesses—and I think they will probably 

tell us—how all that fits in, because what we don’t want to do is 

end up—I would hate to see a project today that we don’t see as 

part of a 5-year plan or a future plan. 

So we are looking forward to the testimony, looking forward to 

working with you all. And, again, thank you for your service. And 

this subcommittee is committed to getting our work done on time 

and meeting the needs of our military. And thank you for the role 

you play in that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. And I do look forward 

to getting into the issues that you raised. 

I won’t offer a long introduction, but since this is Secretary 

Hale’s first visit to our subcommittee in his present position, let me 

just mention, by way of background: he served as the Assistant 

Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller, 1994 to 2001, led the national security division of the Congressional Budget Office for 12 years, and served for 3 years in the 

Navy as an active-duty officer, and former executive director of the 

American Society of Military Comptrollers, graduate of Stanford, 

and holds an MBA from George Washington. 

And in terms of introducing Secretary Arny, this is his third appearance this year before our subcommittee. The only thing I am 

going to add to what I have said is this: Thank you for continuing 

your legacy of your family’s service to the country, with your two 

sons serving in the Navy. 

Where are they stationed right now? 

Mr. ARNY. The oldest is here in town getting ready to go to Warsaw as a naval attache in a year-and-a-half, and the other is in the 

pipeline to be the commanding officer of—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is great. I have two sons and hope I can be 

as proud of them someday in their career choices as you have a 

right to be of your sons. 

Both of your testimonies will be submitted for the record, but I 

would like to recognize each of you for an opening statement for 

any summary comments you care to make—— 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT F. HALE

Mr. HALE. Can I start by associating myself with your remarks 

about Mr. Arny? Wayne has been very helpful for a lot of years, 

but also in the last few months. And I appreciate his staying 

around, particularly appreciate him being here today with all the 

knowledge he has. 


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I want to start by thanking the committee for all the things you 

have done on behalf of the men and women in our armed forces. 

We really do depend on members of Congress to get the resources 

we need to meet our nation’s national security requirements, and 

it is appreciated. 

I am going to provide just a very brief overview of the overall 

budget with a focus on military construction, and then I will ask 

Mr. Arny to give you a few more details. 

As you know, the President’s base budget asks for $533.8 billion 

of discretionary budget authority, a $20.5 billion increase or, 4 percent, which after you adjust for inflation, amounts to a 2.1 percent 

increase. 

This is a reform budget. I have worked with defense budgets for 

a long time now, several decades, and I know we sometimes use 

that term loosely or other similar terms, but I believe this budget 

is one of a handful that really does qualify as a reform budget. If 

it is enacted, I think it will change the way we do business in the 

Department of Defense. 

The base budget puts into action the three key themes that Mr. 

Crenshaw mentioned. Let me just add a little meat to them. It does 

reaffirm our commitment to take care of people, particularly the 

all-volunteer force, clearly, the highest priority of Secretary Gates 

and the chairman. 

For example, it fully funds personnel costs of a larger force in the 

base budget, avoiding—or minimizing the kind of more volatile 

wartime budget. Second, the budget reshapes priorities to focus on 

the kinds of wars we are fighting today, especially regulation and 

conventional, but maintains a balance of conventional capability. 

We have added personnel to special operations with significant 

increases in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. And, of 

course, there is a cost to those initiatives. The budget does complete the program of record and terminates production of the F-22 

and C-17 aircraft. 

And, third, it reforms what we buy and how we buy. There is a 

personnel side to that, and we can talk more about this, but increasing the capability of our Acquisition Corps is a key theme in 

this budget, as well as moving the pendulum back in terms of the 

focus or the use of contractors; therefore, we have an in-sourcing 

initiative in this budget. 

And there is a hardware side to changing kind of what we buy, 

looking at troubled programs, and we have—where we felt we had 

enough information, chosen to terminate a number of them, and do 

some major restructurings, like the missile defense program and 

Future Combat Systems. 

Turning to military construction, the Department requests $23 

billion for MILCON and family housing. I think this request assists 

or supports all of the themes, but perhaps particularly taking care 

of people and the reshaping and modernizing. 

Overall, the request represents an 8.4 percent decline in military 

construction. That sounds ominous, but it really reflects successful 

achievements in the Base Realignment and Closure account as well 

as housing privitization. The BRAC request is down by 14.8 percent, and family housing is down 38 percent, as a result of housing 


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privatization success. If you take out those two categories, there is 

a 3.1 percent increase in the MILCON, portion. 

The Department’s base budget meets our key goal for military 

construction: investing in facilities that support and grow the force. 

We are close to completing that goal. The force has grown. The 

Army and Marine Corps have their target end strength, barracks 

brigade complexes, and quality-of-life projects funded in this request. 

The request also includes significant investment in recapitalizing 

medical facilities and schools, and a substantial investment in 

what we call a global defense posture, which includes moving 8,000 

Marines from Okinawa to Guam. 

Before I leave the base budget, let me mention the FYDP issue. 

We want to provide a FYDP; however, we don’t have a plan beyond 

fiscal year 2010, and this is not without precedent. It happened in 

2001 and also in 1993. We need to complete the Quadrennial Defense Review and the fall program budget review in order to develop a 5-year plan. We will submit one next year in its entirety, 

but for the moment we don’t have one. I also wanted to talk about 

a couple other portions of the budget. 

The overseas contingency operations, or OCO—I like to call it Washington’s newest acronym—we are asking for $130 billion for 

overseas contingency operations. This is part of the budget. It is 

not a supplemental. We do not plan on submitting a supplemental 

in fiscal 2010. But if policies or the wartime situation changes, we 

need to retain the authority to recommend one, if we need it. The OCO budget includes $1.4 billion for military construction, 

all for projects in Afghanistan. Given the limited pre-existing infrastructure over there, we need to do a lot, construct facilities to sustain, protect and house the troops. The request funds operational 

facilities, runways, parking aprons, and the like. I also want to express my gratitude to the Congress for the $7.4 

billion we received in the American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act, ARRA, easier to call it the stimulus bill; $4.3 billion for facilities—and modernization, $2.2 billion for military construction, 

homeowners assistance program, and some energy investments, as 

well. 

This funding will allow us to improve facilities we wouldn’t have 

been able to do otherwise. And I am happy to report that there are 

4,200 projects identified for stimulus funding in DoD in all 50 

states, a few territories, and the District of Columbia. All the 

projects have been identified, and we are moving as quickly as we 

can to implement them. 

Projects will not only stimulate the economy; they will also improve, we think, quality of life and let us catch up on some of the 

backlogs—or reduce them, I should say—that we wouldn’t have 

otherwise been able to do. 

And lastly, Mr. Chairman, I remind the committee that we recently submitted—and now both houses have acted on or the House 

has acted on in the supplemental request—covering the remaining 

expenses of the war effort for 2009. 

There is $0.9 billion in MILCON in there for Afghanistan and 

another $1.4 billion for a variety of critical construction improvements, such as more warrior in transition complexes. 


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We stand by to assist members and staff however we can on the 

supplemental and on the fiscal 2010 request. And to help our 

troops, we ask that you enact it by Memorial Day or as soon thereafter as you can. 

Again, on behalf of the men and women of the department, let 

me thank all of you for your strong support and thank you for the 

opportunity to testify. After Mr. Arny’s statement, I will be glad to 

try to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Robert F. Hale follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Hale, thank you very much. 

Secretary Arny. 

STATEMENT OF WAYNE ARNY

Mr. ARNY. Chairman Edwards—I am honored to appear before 

you today. I am just going to make some summary comments. 

In the last 10 to 20 years, the Department has come a long way 

in improving the facilities and infrastructure in which our military 

and civilian workforce and their families work and live. And we 

could not have progressed as far as we have without the continuing 

support of Congress and in particular this subcommittee. Today, we manage over 500,000 facilities worth over $700 billion 

located on approximately 29 million acres. In comparison, about 10 

years ago, we had 115,000 more facilities, which is in part a testament to our continuing efforts to right-size the Department’s infrastructure—to match our operational needs. 

The principal program that has allowed us to do that has been 

the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) authority. And using 

that, over the entire round, we have closed 121 major installations 

and realigned 79 major ones after five rounds. 

In the 2005 round alone, we affected over 800 locations that included 24 major closures, 24 major realignments, and 765 lesser actions. As of the fiscal year 2010 request, BRAC represents a $35.2 

billion investment just over the period 2006 to 2011 and $4 billion 

in annual savings after full implementation. 

However, it is not enough just to close bases and move functions. 

At the same time, we have to try to focus on how we conduct business so as to become more efficient caretakers of the taxpayers’ resources. 

An excellent example of our efforts towards efficiency is joint basing. As part of BRAC 2005, we were required to form 12 new joint 

bases from 26 separate existing locations so that installation management functions will be provided by one component, not two or 

three, as it is currently. 

The joint basing implementation process is complicated. Almost 

50 different areas of responsibilities on these bases have been identified for consolidation, including food services, environmental management, child and youth programs, facility maintenance, and 

many others, but I can report that we are well on the way to 

achieving success. 

In January 2008, we began issuing a series of joint basing implementation guidance documents and, for the first time, established 

a set of common definitions and standards for the installation support to be provided at each joint base. 

We established a schedule that was divided into 12 planned 

bases, joint bases, into two implementation phases. Each joint base 

will develop a detailed implementation plan, including the personnel and financial arrangements for the combined base. 

Five joint bases involving 11 installations were placed into phase 

one with an October 2009 milestone established for full implementation, which includes the transfer of personnel and funds to work 

the joint base. 

The remaining seven joint bases, involving five installations, 

were placed into phase two with an October 2009 Initial OperVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01284 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ational Capability (IOC). The services have assigned implementations for all five phase one installations. We have reached IOC on 

those installations and are scheduled—on schedule for reaching 

Full Operational Capability (FOC). 

The remaining seven joint bases will reach IOC this October and 

meet FOC milestones in October 2010, way ahead of the statutory 

deadline in December 2011. 

And this is just the beginning of where I see the Department 

going in the application and full funding of common levels of service across all our bases and between all the services. 

Switching to housing, a decade ago, we maintained over 300,000 

family housing units, two-thirds of which were deemed inadequate 

by the Military Departments. At the time, most people felt that 

only—Services could provide housing that our families needed, but 

with your help and vision, we put housing privatization authorities 

in place. 

The private sector responded by delivering modern, affordable 

housing and, with appropriate oversight, we ensured the federal 

government’s needs are met. With this year’s request, over 98 percent of DoD’s housing inventory in the United States will be funded 

for privatization. 

With regard to barracks, it was about 17 years ago that the Military Departments began an ambitious modernization program to 

increase the privacy and amenities in permanent party bachelor 

housing funding. Using military construction funding and a traditional government-owned business model, much progress has been 

made, but there is still a need for almost $15 billion to complete 

the permanent party buyout. 

Even at the current program end state, a single family—a single 

member quarters will pale in comparison to family housing, due in 

part to building designs that do not have the space and amenities 

of comparable private-sector housing and also due to the challenges 

in adequately funding facility sustainment. 

For these reasons, we are looking to see how we can leverage the 

success of family housing privatization by tapping into private-sector experience to build, revitalize, operate and maintain our bachelor housing. 

We have seen recent innovative concepts where the Army has 

added bachelor officer quarters and senior enlisted bachelor quarters to its existing family housing privatization efforts at Fort 

Bragg, Fort Stewart, Fort Drum, and Fort Irwin. A fifth project is 

planned for Fort Bliss. 

In contrast to the Army, the Navy is mainly focused on—focusing 

its—on company housing privatization efforts to bring shipboard 

junior enlisted sailors ashore using a special pilot authority. 

The first unaccompanied housing project was awarded in December 2006 in San Diego. The second was executed December 2007 

in Hampton Roads, Virginia. And a third project is underway in 

the Jacksonville Mayport area that is under consideration. 

Both of the awarded Navy projects—pilot projects have demonstrated that, with the authority to pay junior enlisted members 

less than full housing allowance, privatization of single junior enlisted housing is less costly on a life cycle basis than a traditional 

government-owned model. 


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I view this as just a starting point and ask for the subcommittee’s support in the department’s continued progress in shifting towards those models. 

This year’s budget signals another banner year for installations 

with about $23 billion in military construction and about $8 billion 

in facility sustainment, restoration and modernization. The $23 billion in military construction program is very robust, especially compared to the $8 billion to $9 billion levels we were receiving just 

about 10 years ago. 

Similarly, our sustainment budget this year is also more robust 

as compared to 10 years ago. In those days, we used a percentage 

of unsubstantiated maintenance and repair backlog to come up 

with our budget request, but it didn’t work. 

Although much remains to be done, we have already made 

steady headway over the last decade to improve the overall condition of our facilities’ inventory by using a programmatic model. The 

development and use of the facility sustainment model has given 

us a sound target to measure our sustainment budget, and we have 

been able to defend for the first time our requirements and increase overall funding in spite of significant competing demands. 

Recapitalization is more challenging. We moved away from believing a single recap rate expressed in years applied across a myriad of categories could provide a funding level that was rational or 

defendable. We witnessed separate initiatives, like what—when I 

was the Navy secretary, I personally observed the inaccuracy of the 

recap rate as Hurricane Ivan hit Pensacola, Florida. 

The sudden infusion of restoration funds skewed the recap rate 

for the Navy to a lower number than the targeted 67 years, and 

yet we all knew that the condition of the rest of the Navy’s facilities across the board did not improve. 

Since I was dissatisfied with the previous 67-year metric—and 

others were, as well—I asked my staff to go back to basics and reopen the dialogue on facility condition indices that the Federal Real 

Property Advisory Group mandated federal agencies including their 

real property records. These quality ratings, or Q ratings, represent 

the health of our facilities. And I firmly believe they have been long 

ignored. 

This summer, my staff will be working with the Military Departments and Defense Agencies to set up program guidelines for determining which facilities require priority for funding, reassessing 

how Q ratings are conducted and their frequency, and, most importantly, re-establishing how the department views and uses master 

planning at the installation level. 

Also, in cooperation with our policy secretary, the Joint Staff, the 

combatant commands, and the services, we hope to initiate joint installation master plans at each overseas COCOM region, as well. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I sincerely thank you for this opportunity to highlight the Department’s management of installation 

assets. And we are ready to take questions. 

[The prepared statement of Wayne Arny follows:] 


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FYDP

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Arny. Thank 

you for all your work leading to so many of the improvements that 

you referenced in your opening comments. 

Secretary Hale, let me begin by asking you, do we not have a 

FYDP because the administration wants to propose a reformed defense budget and, therefore, it didn’t want to basically put into 

place the FYDP? Obviously, there is a FYDP within the system 

that the administration could have projected in this budget proposal. 

Is it you are afraid of locking in—was the administration—— 

Mr. HALE. No. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Not wanting to lock in to the status 

quo and that is why it didn’t put forth a FYDP? 

Mr. HALE. No. I mean, the problem is, we feel we need to go 

through the quadrennial review and the program budget review in 

the fall in order to develop a FYDP. We don’t have a plan beyond 

fiscal 2010 that is worked out. Obviously, we have extrapolations 

off last year that we are using as a base, but none of them accord 

to either fiscal guidance or the out-year policies of the secretary. So 

they don’t represent current administration policy. 

You know, there is a time element to this, to be candid with you. 

It takes 6 to 9 months to do this typically. We had about 3. You 

have a choice. Either don’t do a very good job, to be honest, or an 

in-depth job, and this secretary clearly wanted to make changes. 

And that meant, I think, we needed to focus on fiscal 2010. 

As I mentioned, the same thing happened in 1993 and 2001, 

where there was not a current FYDP submitted. I understand it is 

a problem. If I had it, I would be glad to give it to you. It is not 

that we are trying to withhold it. We don’t have it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Does the law not require it, 10 U.S.C. Code 221? 

Mr. HALE. It does, and I like to obey laws. But I just don’t have 

a plan. I mean, I suppose if we were pressed hard enough, we 

would say, go back to 2009. You have that one. It is just that it 

doesn’t reflect current policy or fiscal guidance. That is the best we 

have. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We are going to have to work closely with the administration then. Because it makes it difficult when you have a 

request for, you know, $800 million for an NSA project, we don’t 

know what the end cost is or what future requests are coming in. 

It does create some problems. 

Mr. HALE. We can certainly try to work with you on a projectby-project basis. I mean, I think MILCON is an area where it is 

particularly helpful to have a FYDP for a variety of reasons. If I 

had one, I would give it to you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. As well, there are certain areas that changes are 

going to be made. There are other enduring installations where you 

know what you are going to do, regardless of what the Quadrennial 

Defense Review—— 

Mr. HALE. I think we can work with you on a case-by-case basis 

and try to provide information. 

Mr. EDWARDS. All right. All right. 


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BASE REALIGNMENT AND CLOSURE

Let me ask you about BRAC, Secretary Arny. The original proposal was $21.1 billion. The proposal you mentioned today, the 

budget number is at $35 billion-plus. Why did we go from $21 billion to $35 billion? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. By the way, as you are looking at those numbers, 

I saw in the testimony—the written testimony that it said the 

model used for projecting the original costs for BRAC wasn’t intended to be a budget-accurate model. I don’t recall ever being told 

that in the process. 

Maybe we ought to put a huge asterisk on BRAC—going to say, 

‘‘Here is our budget projection. This is the cost we will use to determine a cost-benefit analysis, but this isn’t’’—we know there always 

has to be fine-tuning. We live in the real world, and we respect 

that, but to go from $21 billion to $35 billion is—— 

Mr. ARNY. Let me explain—— 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. A huge increment. 

Mr. ARNY. A lot of that—it does not have to do with the Cost of 

Base Realignment Actions (COBRA) model. Now, the COBRA 

model is not budget level in that a particular bill—what it is designed to do is compare apples to apples in a short period of time. 

So when the folks studying BRAC say, ‘‘Okay, I am going to build 

an admin building,’’ so the model gives them, you know, an admin 

building, and they can say, ‘‘Okay, if I go to this base, I need this 

kind of admin building. If I go to another, I need another one.’’ 

They can compare apples to apples. 

Now, because when you look at adjusting COBRA for the model 

output for inflation, of the $14.3 billion, that was $1.3 billion. So 

we had a problem in that COBRA locked us into, I think, 2003. So 

by the time we got—when we are working the 2006 budget, those 

numbers were 3 years old. So we had regular inflation to account 

for. 

Also, the building that we ‘‘designed’’ with the COBRA model 

doesn’t have the refinements of location that, when the engineers 

go out to actually design the building, we will get cost increases because of that. 

But let me hit the big number. Of the $14.3 billion, $10 billion 

of the number—so almost—probably 70 percent of it—was for the 

construction of additional facilities that were not included in the 

initial BRAC we had. 

We had the forces coming back from Europe, which were not included in BRAC, plus, for instance, at Bethesda, we added almost 

$1 billion to Bethesda for wounded warrior and items like that that 

were not part of the original BRAC model. 

So I can give you the specifics. We had program management 

costs that are not included in BRAC. It was like $600 million. And 

another thing we do not include is environmental, because we 

never include environmental in making a decision of whether or 

not to keep a base open or to close it for a couple of reasons. 

One is, we have the responsibility of cleaning it up no matter. 

Secondly, we don’t want people to—you know, you could envision 


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where they might try to pollute a base in order to have to get it— 

to keep it off the BRAC closure list. So we just take that out. 

And there was—I think the environment was—environmental 

restoration was almost $500 million. And we had extraordinary 

construction industry inflation, if you recall, during that time, especially at some of the Navy locations down in the southeast that 

amounted to another $1 billion. 

But, again, $10 billion out of the $14.3 billion was because we 

added construction for other capabilities to the BRAC bill that were 

not part of the BRAC decisions. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, it makes me wonder if we underestimated 

the facilities that were needed. And I want to go on. We are going 

to try to stick as close to the 5-minute rule as we can. 

But one of the things I might ask you in the second round or 

third round of questions would be, what lessons learned do we 

take? Maybe we will be digesting BRAC 2005 for the next decade. 

And there may not be another round in the next decade. Who 

knows? But if there is, it seems a lot like this is fresh in our mind. 

We can come up with all the rationales, but we ought to bill those 

changes into future BRAC models so that—I mean, if you are going 

to do a—if BRAC is based on a cost-benefit analysis and your costs 

are off by nearly 100 percent, then, you know, that would change 

even some of the decisions you would make. 

So I would welcome your ideas, having gone through this process, 

or your suggestions for the future. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just go back with the FYDP. My concern is that we end 

up having projects in the President’s request that, by the time you 

finish the FYDP, they are not part of the FYDP anymore. So I 

guess the question is, are you fairly certain that all the projects 

that are in the request this year will still be in that—plan? 

Mr. HALE. Well, first, it is my understanding that, for projects 

that are in 2010, the budget documents will give you the full outyear costs of them. And if they don’t, then we will supply those. 

Are you thinking of phase-funded projects, Mr. Crenshaw? 

Mr. CRENSHAW. No, just in general. I mean, as long—well, there 

will be—the future requirements will be part of the—— 

Mr. HALE. If we started something—and especially if it is phasefunded, that, I think—plans for the out-years. And, yes, I would 

anticipate we will finish it. I mean, we are not going to stop in the 

middle. 

The problem is—and I know you used the FYDP, and it is good 

that you used the FYDP to look for the changes you might make— 

not that we advocate those changes—but if you are considering 

them, I understand that is a problem. And the only thing I—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, how do you decide what the requests are 

this year? 

Mr. HALE. For 2010? Well, we went through a full review on fiscal 2010 in all parts of the budget. And if you would like, I can go 

through that process, but it certainly included military construction. 

So what you have in fiscal 2010 is worked out. It is consistent 

with the administration’s priorities. It is consistent with the budget 


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guidelines. So that is done, and we hope you accept it. But it is 

2011 and beyond that are the problem. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. But if you looked at the 2009 FYDP, are there 

projects in your request that were not part—— 

Mr. HALE. I am sure there are. I mean, there are always lots of 

puts and takes. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. So I would assume there are not some things 

that were in—— 

Mr. HALE. Yes, I am sure. I am sure. I mean, it—unfortunately, 

the 2009 FYDP is—I just can’t sit here and say it is consistent with 

the administration’s policy, not necessarily. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I understand. Everything is going to—— 

Mr. HALE. On the other hand, there are some projects in there 

I am sure that we will go forward with, too. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. But you are going to overhaul—— 

Mr. HALE. We will make changes. 

Mr. ARNY. But, also, Congressman, there were—and I don’t know 

the specifics, but I will venture a wild guess that there were 

projects in the 2010 column of the 2009 FYDP that those of us who 

were putting the budget together before the administration came 

in, changed when it went to 2010, as well. 

So I am convinced we probably did not accept the 2010 column 

when we moved it from the 2009 FYDP to the 2010 FYDP. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Could we just, for the record, have those—the 

projects that were in the FY09 FYDP that aren’t included in the 

FY10 budget and then that are included that were not in? 

Mr. HALE. What I can give you is the 2009 FYDP. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. No, just for the record. 

Mr. HALE. Well, but if what you had in mind—I mean, there 

were some notional plans done at the end of the last administration. And those are just that, notional. And I think those are predecisional, in our view. So that information I wouldn’t want to supply. 

We can give you the 2009 FYDP. We will give you the out-year 

costs of anything that is in the 2010 budget. If it is phase-funded, 

we owe you, I think, a description of how the phases would be carried out, because, after all, we are asking you to approve the first 

phase. 

Beyond that, the only thing I can suggest is if you have particular projects, come to us and we will try to give you our best 

sense. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. The only thing I am trying to get at is if there 

is going to be an overhaul of what we have bought and how we buy 

it and how that affects the MILCON projects. Can you give us an 

example of this? 

WORKFORCE

Mr. HALE. I actually was thinking about that last night when I 

wrote this. And I don’t—it is not MILCON that we are primarily 

looking at in terms of process. 

It is more the Acquisition Corps. And there is a people side of 

it, as I mentioned. We need to rebuild or reinvigorate our Acquisition Corps. We are going to add about 20,000 government civilians 

over the next 5 years to the Acquisition Corps, so I am adding 


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about 9,000, adding to its size, the rest replacing contractors. And 

we are also looking at an in-sourcing initiative. 

Although contractors are and will always remain important to 

the Department, we think the pendulum swung too far in terms of 

their use. So we are for contractor support services moving back 

from the level of about 39 percent today to more like 26 percent. 

I am not aware of any significant MILCON process changes—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I got you. 

Mr. HALE [continuing]. That are being considered. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Great. 

Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Farr. 

SUPPORT TO ALLIES

Mr. FARR. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Congratulations—filling some incredible shoes in the history of 

that job. 

Wayne Arny, thank you for coming back and being here today. 

I just wanted to make a comment that we have one of the 

projects at the Defense Language Institute that is on that FYDP. 

It has fallen off, but in discussions with your staff, there is perhaps 

a way of getting it back on. 

I want to shift to something else. I have been consistent in all 

my hearings here with all of the combatant commanders on several 

programs that I am interested in, and a lot of them are based at 

the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. 

We have this incredibly equipped military force that can go anywhere at any time and do anything that it needs to do, but has a 

very difficult time winning the hearts and minds. 

One of the programs that we do have in this country that is very 

impressive is the International Military Education Training program, where we bring foreign officers over. For example, the king 

of Jordan had a semester at the Naval Postgraduate School. 

That program, I didn’t know until this year, is not funded 

through DoD, yet it only benefits the Department of Defense, 

NATO, and our allies around the world. It is educating foreign 

military officers. 

It is funded under State Department, which is a very underfunded budget. 

And according to the people who administer IMET, a lot of poorer countries are not able to participate. If you are a wealthier country, you pay full scale to come. If you are a poorer country, we subsidize it. Unfortunately, there are just fewer and fewer foreign military officers because of lack of financial resources, not because of 

lack of interest in the program. 

And I wondered if there was any way DoD budget could provide 

additional resources to IMET, if there has been any thought about 

transferring some DoD money over to the State Department? 

Mr. HALE. Well, I can answer the question broadly. I can’t go to 

the specifics; I will need to take that one for the record. 

[The information follows:] 

The International Military Education and Training (IMET) Program is one of the 

State Department’s foreign assistance programs. Specifically, it is a security assistVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01330 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ance program authorized by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and 

funded through Department of State’s annual Foreign Operations Appropriation. 

Like other security assistance programs, IMET is funded by the Department of 

State (DoS) and executed by DoD. 

Without specific authority, DoD cannot transfer money to DoS for the IMET program. Such authority currently does not exist. DoD’s ability to transfer funds to 

other agencies for non-DoD missions is very limited. 

However, DoD can use its own limited authorities and appropriations to conduct 

specific training and education for foreign military personnel in certain areas such 

as training and education provided under the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP). 

As Secretary Gates has said on many occasions, the United States should provide 

more resources to the State Department for programs like IMET. IMET is very important at multiple levels throughout DoD. Your effort to increase funding within 

the IMET account is the best way to accomplish this objective. 

It is imperative that we make every attempt to tie DoD programs, such as CTFP, 

to DoD’s mission, which is narrower than that of DoS under the IMET program. 

I recommend you support the Department of State in securing additional resources for IMET and to support funding for DoD programs that support capacitybuilding required to maintain Combatant Commander missions and other DoD objectives. 

But the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, has been emphatic in saying that he believes there needs to be more funding 

on the state side. He is thinking not so much IMET, but more 

broadly in terms of support to our allies who are working with us 

in our various wartime activities. 

And he went so far—I believe he made a call—he is proud of saying this, so I don’t think he would mind repeating it during the 

budget resolution, asking that the budget be protected. I think he 

was at least partially successful. 

On IMET, I need to take that one for the record. I am not 

aware—— 

Mr. FARR. I am not even sure why it is in the State Department. 

It seems like it ought to be a DoD function. But, anyway, it is—— 

Mr. HALE. Well, I think we execute it, obviously, or do the training. It must be on a reimbursable basis. Is that—— 

Mr. FARR. It is a highly successful program, and it is suffering, 

and we shouldn’t let it suffer in this time of international friendship building. 

The other thing that I wanted to talk to you about was a program to train civilians. We have a lot of civilian capabilities in the 

military reservists. 

And General Petraeus talked about using those Reserves and 

Guardsmen who have specific skills—skills that would help in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. 

Is there any program being developed in DoD to use the Guard 

and Reserve force, first of all, and secondly, how you would coordinate them with the civilians that the State Department and other 

federal agencies are putting together as part of a whole of government stabilization and reconstruction effort? 

Mr. HALE. The answer there is yes, and in particular with regard 

to Afghanistan. We are actively looking at using some Reserve personnel and perhaps some of our own civilians to—we call it the civilian surge—to provide assistance in Afghanistan and everything 

from agricultural support to financial support. 

I am trying to figure out the numbers and working with the 

State Department on kind of who pays what—— 


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Mr. FARR. So you are coordinating that? There is going to be 

some transfer? You have a soldier going in there because of the security issues, but the win-win can be the soldier and that civilian 

surge. 

Right behind that soldier is somebody coming out of the State 

Department—USAID or other appropriate federal agencies—who 

could assume those responsibilities. Is there beginning to be a coordination of those—— 

Mr. HALE. We think that is starting to happen. I mean, I notice 

a great deal more—certainly, there is a lot more of what we call 

soft-power funding now that really didn’t exist when I was in the 

building the last time. And consequently, I think we are starting 

to work more closely with the State Department. 

We have a ways to go, to be candid, in terms of full coordination. 

And some of that debate is being played out with regard to the 

Pakistan counterinsurgency fund right now in the Congress. 

Mr. FARR. But what I—— 

Mr. HALE. We are committed to doing it better. And I think we 

are moving in that direction. 

Mr. FARR. I would really appreciate it if you would look into this 

and see if additional resources are needed for this transfer to civilian agencies. The manpower DoD is providing—the military reservists who are carrying out the civilian surge—need to transition to 

civilians being coordinated by the State Department. 

Mr. HALE. Right. Just if I can add one more point that may be 

relevant here. On the military side, my understanding is—and we 

will use this authority—that we can pay reserves to provide civilian skills. We can pay those out of the DoD budget. 

There are civilian employees. I think, unless we got specific authorization, we would probably need to be reimbursed by the State 

Department. 

But we are working with them. I am meeting later this week, actually, with some of my counterparts at the State Department just 

to try to, frankly, get to know them better and to try to build up 

our capability to work with them financially. And, of course, our 

policy organization works a lot with the State Department. 

Mr. FARR. But we need some interoperability. 

Mr. HALE. I hear you. We have a ways to go. I mean, your point 

is well taken. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Farr. 

Judge Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Thank you for what you do 

for our country. 

HOMEOWNERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Mr. Arny, the DoD guidance for Homeowners’ Assistance Program, HAP, to permanent change of station, PCS, or BRAC-related 

military home sales require soldiers to have purchased their home 

prior to July the 1st, 2006. When I asked about this issue during 

the March 12th family troop housing hearing, the response I received was that the stimulus request was put together in a short 

amount of time and that issues like this could be resolved in the 

rulemaking process. 


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However, it appears as though this criteria has survived and is 

now part of the guidance portion of the DoD HAP Web site. This 

is of great concern for numerous soldiers at Fort Hood who have 

to sell their homes to move to Fort Carson with the 4th Infantry 

Division. I am sure the problem will also detrimentally impact 

other BRAC-affected installations and numerous soldiers, sailors 

and airmen throughout the DoD who have to PCS. 

Can you explain the rationale for using the date? And how many 

BRAC- and PCS-affected soldiers do you anticipate this criteria 

may exclude from HAP assistance? 

Mr. ARNY. The date that we were given was statutory, so we had 

no control over that, although I believe it was kind of the peak of 

the market, but I am not sure. I would have to get back to you on 

why they chose that date, but it was the date—— 

[The information follows:] 

July 1, 2006 is the cut-off date identified in the statute. The Standard & Poor’s 

(S&P)/Case-Shiller and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Home Price 

Indices indicated a sustained, rapid, and steep decline from peak home price levels 

in early 2006. People who bought homes before this date were buying during a rising or stable market and could not reasonably have known how or when home 

prices would decline. Conversely, individuals who bought homes starting in July 

2006 knew (or should have known) that the national home market was in a broad 

and steep decline. 

Mr. EDWARDS. And if I could clarify—language DoD gave the 

Congress in putting together the bill, so Congress—— 

Mr. CARTER. Was it? 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Wrote in the date and statute that— 

suggestion—— 

Mr. CARTER. From DoD? 

Mr. ARNY. I will check on it, because there is, if I recall, in the 

many briefings we have had on this, there was a logic to that. 

What we tried to do in allocating the funding for that is to 

prioritize the recipients. Priority one was wounded warriors and 

surviving spouses of military personnel killed in action. Second was 

BRAC. 

Now, the HAP program has been around for a while. It was used 

in prior BRAC rounds, was my experience with it. But in those 

rounds, in order to qualify for HAP, you had to prove that the 

downturn in the market was caused by the BRAC decision. 

In this round, because, first of all, the markets were down all 

over, so you—the lawyers would not attest that a particular downturn was due to just BRAC—it may have been due to the general 

market—so there was confusion there. 

Secondly, in prior rounds, most of our closures were due to a 

base being closed. I mean, most of the market impact was due to 

a base being totally closed. This was the first round where we had 

a number of movements from a base that stayed open to another 

base that was already open. So this, I think, helps bring some equity within the BRAC range. 

Then, third priority was people on Permanent Change of Station 

(PCS) orders. Now, you will notice in the HAP regulations for PCS 

orders only, I think the deadline was December? December 31st is 

the deadline for the move. So the system is not perfect. There will 

be some haves and have-nots. But we tried to catch people who 

were affected in those three areas. 


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You have to be in a market using a general standard that is acceptable across—you have to be in a market that dropped by 10 

percent over that period of time. And surprisingly, some markets 

did not. And your own home has to have gone down by 10 percent 

before you qualify. 

Now, we do not make up 100 percent. We make up 90 percent 

of the loss, and that loss goes from the price you bought it to the 

price you sold it—other aspects of that. 

Because we retain money to—in the pot to make sure we cover 

all the wounded warriors and their surviving spouses and also 

BRAC—we will get the PCS orders first. 

I will also say that this is—we have no numbers to go on. These 

are just pure estimates from the Corps of Engineers who does the 

HAP program for the department. They are the executive agency. 

So a lot of this is guesswork in terms of—calculated guesswork. 

I was given—here are the numbers. We think there will be 540— 

again, pure estimates—in wounded warriors and surviving spouses, 

3,000 for BRAC, and 4,500 for PCS. 

Now, what we have also said is we are going to continue meeting 

on a monthly basis and taking a look at the corps’ data as they 

begin to execute the program to see if we are meeting trends or exceeding trends. And we will come back to you to let you know 

which way it is going. We are trying to do our best—the program. 

And, again, I will come back to you on the 2006 date. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, I think I understand your analysis of it, but 

I am going to start with that date of July the 1st, 2006. How can 

you make an estimate of a market’s decline or increase, where the 

peak is, in this so-called recession we are in right now, it just hit 

Texas about 2 weeks ago, okay? 

So, if you are going to set a deadline based upon what happened 

on the East Coast, Florida, and the West Coast, then that day 

would have been so askew to have anything to do with Texas, because it would have been about 8 to 10 months off. 

We are just now starting to feel the effects of this economic decline that we are seeing in the country right now. Someone should 

do a market analysis on a regional basis, to make a determination 

of a drop-dead date, because there is no way you can compare the 

West Coast real estate market with anybody else’s real estate market in the United States. 

It is just so skewed on the West Coast. Florida is close to the 

same position. The real estate market in Florida goes through the 

ceiling and sometimes it goes through the floor. It went through 

the floor a long time before we had any reduction in cost in central 

Texas, where Fort Hood is located, which is what I care about. 

Secondly, you are talking about these soldiers who are standing 

up in harm’s way on our behalf, you are talking about their credit 

rating. You are talking about what it does to their next possibility 

of buying private housing at the next stop. 

With the analysis we made with our presentation to BRAC, there 

is a substantial difference between the housing market at Fort 

Hood, Texas, than Fort Carson. It is like a 20 percent or 30 percent 

difference in the market. 

So those who qualify in Texas with decent enough credit to qualify, they are looking at a 30 percent increase to even attempt to 


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qualify in Colorado. Then if they fall after the drop-dead date, they 

have credit issues. 

I just wonder how we are protecting those soldiers and how they 

cannot be worrying about themselves and their families while they 

are standing over kicking in doors in foreign country. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, as to your—as to the problem with going from 

one area to another, there is a higher—I faced that as a junior officer. We all wrestle with that. 

But in terms of your credit rating, what we have tried to do as 

fairly as we could is provide some relief, because—and it was surprising to me—if a soldier goes bankrupt, declares bankruptcy, 

then he is in danger of losing his clearance, which I find amazing. 

I am working to try and get that changed. I mean, it is a legal 

proceeding. You go into it. You should not lose your—as a matter 

of fact, I would think if you are that close to bankruptcy, you need 

to use those legal procedures in order to protect yourself and your 

family, that should not be a detriment to you and—in your clearance and stuff. 

So we are trying to prevent that from happening and also trying 

to change those rules. 

Let me ask the Corps of Engineers to come over, and we will 

come over with them, to give you a specific briefing on how we got 

that. We know it is not perfect, and we are going to have to refine 

it as we go along, but we thought it was at least a good start at 

trying to protect some of the soldiers and sailors—— 

Mr. CARTER. Because it looks like to me that maybe you could 

work out some kind of recapture of the department’s money if you 

more liberalize this program, because ultimately, I am talking to 

realtors who are telling me that we have thousands of soldiers that 

are going to be affected by this at Fort Hood because of that date 

and that the real boom of the market in Texas came after that 

date. 

Our soldiers were closing and getting into those houses after that 

date. They can’t do anything with it. It would seem to me, those 

houses are going to be stagnant on the market for a while, but it 

is not going to be forever. 

When that market comes back and those houses are resold, 

maybe the department could figure out a way that would capture 

some of the money that they used to protect the soldier, as he made 

that move. It is not his fault that they made a decision to move 

him to Colorado. That decision certainly wasn’t his. 

I think it is a crime to create a class of people to whom we would 

be automatically saying, ‘‘Congratulations, you are in the Army. 

You get to go bankrupt.’’ 

When we fight a war, we recruit soldiers, but we retain families. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, we will look at the Fort Hood situation, because—— 

Mr. CARTER. I am not just talking about Fort Hood. I just happen 

to live there and am dealing with that. I know our market very 

well. 

I am sure that market isn’t the same in Florida, because they 

have real issues in the Florida market. You can buy condos now 

for about $125,000 that sold close to $1 million a while back. 


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There is a lot going on in the world, and we need to start thinking about how we are going to really care about what happens to 

our soldiers and our military. 

Mr. ARNY. I was reminded that date is statutory, so we will take 

a look at the effect. 

Mr. CARTER. As the chairman points out, that statutory—provided by the Department of Defense. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Judge Carter. 

Mr. Bishop. 

SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION FUNDING

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me 

welcome you gentlemen to the committee. 

Mr. Arny, once again, I am still concerned about BRAC and the 

impact that it has on our communities living at Fort Sill, Fort 

Bliss, Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, and, of course, Fort Benning that I 

represent, among the many that will be impacted upwards, in 

terms of BRAC and the influx of personnel and dependent children 

for schools. 

Mr. Arny, when you were here before, I think it was after I had 

left the room. You were asked about DoD and the authority to pay 

for community improvements such as schools. You did not believe 

that DoD had any authority to do that. 

You were going to verify that. Have you found that to be the 

case? 

Mr. ARNY. We do not have the authority. 

Mr. BISHOP. I respectfully disagree with you. I believe the law is 

found at 10 U.S.C. 2391(b)(2) for community impact assistance. 

And the funds do flow through the Office of Economic Adjustment 

to communities, as long as DoD gives the money to OEA. 

The authority is there. In fact, it has been done in, with respect 

to Kings Bay in the fiscal year 1991. 

That bill contained $10.3 million for construction of off-base 

schools at the Kings Bay submarine base. It resulted in approximately $60 million of construction. There was extensive testimony 

by then-Representative Lindsay Thomas before the Armed Services 

Committee justifying that. 

In your BRAC account for the 2005 closure, you reduced your request from 2009 of $9 billion to $7.5 billion, roughly. We are very, 

very concerned about the impact on communities affected by this 

influx. 

I don’t know how you reconcile the lack of authority with that 

particular code section and the precedent. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, sir, because I did check on the Kings Bay, and 

that was done strictly through special legislation that was in addition to 10 U.S.C. 2931, 2931’s grant authority, which we use quite 

frequently for planning money for communities all over the country, but we are not allowed to build schools. 

Mr. BISHOP. Sir, it says the Secretary of Defense may make 

grants, conclude cooperative agreements, and supplement funds 

under federal programs administered by agencies other than the 

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ments in planning community adjustments and economic diversification. 

Mr. ARNY. I agree with you on that. And—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Not just planning money. 

Mr. ARNY. Grants for—and most of that was economic planning 

and—to the adjustment, but not to build schools. Kings Bay was 

specifically—if it is put in legislation, we will build it. But Kings 

Bay was specifically put in legislation that we did not request. 

Mr. BISHOP. Are suggesting that we simply need to get the authorizing legislation? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BISHOP. I am—— 

Mr. ARNY. I understand. And I have gone through this a number 

of times with my folks. And the Kings Bay one was the only one 

we found where we built the school outside of the DoDEA system. 

And that was on—strictly done by legislation outside of our normal 

process. 

Mr. BISHOP. We will revisit that, sir, because there are a number 

of communities across the country that are impacted—that are very 

concerned—who have come to us and said, ‘‘This is something that 

the Department of Defense has visited upon us. We are not complaining, but we need help.’’ The Office of Economic Adjustment 

was set up to provide that help. 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir, it was. And they work for me. But they are 

set up to—and they provide tons of grants to communities for planning—bases that are closed, but bases that are realigned. And 

that—like I say, their money is quite extensive. 

Mr. BISHOP. But (b)(2) says community impact assistance or special impact assistance is not otherwise available, meaning they 

can’t pay. It says it is not just for planning. 

Mr. ARNY. I believe it is historically what we have done is mostly 

planning and getting ready for the—— 

Mr. BISHOP. But it is not that you didn’t have the authority. 

Rather, you interpreted planning in that limited way so that you 

didn’t have to do it based on your interpretation, not that it 

couldn’t have been—— 

Mr. ARNY. We have—in a number of situations of which I am familiar, we have provided land for schools. We have allowed community schools to build on our bases. But we have never built those 

schools, unless they were in the DoDEA system, both in the United 

States and obviously overseas. 

Mr. BISHOP. Except in the case of Kings Bay. 

Mr. ARNY. Which we had special legislation. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Any additional questions? 

Mr. BISHOP. No, sir. We will probably need to revisit that and 

work with the authorizers to make sure that we can collectively— 

with the appropriate subcommittees and authorizing committees— 

get the necessary legislation. This is a big problem not just for our 

area, but for a number of areas across the country. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In fact, I might follow up, Mr. Hale, and say that 

since this is your first time before our subcommittee in your position, this is an issue that has come up repeatedly. 

And, obviously, communities that are upsizing are thrilled, but 

I saw in years past when I represented Hood before Congressman 


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Carter started representing it, that you had literally the local communities that have a low income tax base, and they were at the 

state mandated maximum for the local property taxes. 

So even if they were willing to double their local taxes, they 

couldn’t raise their taxes one dime. And a lot of the impact aid, 

particularly part A, if it is on post, starts reimbursing at a significant amount once the students start the school there, there is just 

not the help there for these communities to build the schools. 

And it seems to me that the Pentagon’s approach is then, you 

know what? That is the community’s responsibility. But the problem is that people who pay the price are the service men and 

women, many of whom are on their third tour of duty in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, when they move to a base that has been BRAC increased. 

And if I were such a parent and all of a sudden my third-grade 

kid were put in a classroom with 45 students or put in some makeshift classroom, it would certainly impact my morale. And somehow 

we have to just stop kicking this can down the road and take action. We would like to do it with the administration’s help and 

ideas. 

What would be a rational approach? You know, you could perhaps even maybe forward-fund impact aid, which comes through to 

primary education, and perhaps the school districts have to repay 

that over time. But they need the upfront help on the construction 

costs. 

I think Congress may just take the initiative and move ahead on 

this. But if I could just say, if we could get cooperation from the 

administration, we would like to do this in a rational, reasonable 

way. We don’t want the Pentagon building every new school at 

every military installation, but there are certain circumstances. 

When you have Bliss going from—well, more than doubling or 

tripling in size, you have Benning increasing in size, it seems to 

me we could put parameters around it, and that is where we would 

welcome your help. Without that help, we may just do what Congress does, take the initiative, do the best we can. 

But I think we could do a better job—— 

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. So if people could work with us on 

that, we would welcome that. 

Yes, Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Chairman, the particular law that was cited 

does have some parameters in terms of the number of personnel 

that are added to extend the size of the bases, which provides some 

degree of definition regarding how much of an impact there has to 

be in order for the Office of Economic Adjustment to step in, in 

these circumstances. 

As the chairman correctly suggests, if we were to work closely 

and cooperatively with the department, I am sure that we could 

formulate some workable criteria by which we could do that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. If you will take that responsibility, grab any other 

members that have a direct interest in it, let’s see if we can work 

cooperatively with the administration and get some help there. But 

either way, let’s try to move forward. 


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Mr. HALE. I understand your point. I mean, I would ask for parameters. There are limits on what we can spend, so if we spend 

it here, we are going to have to do something—something somewhere else. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. Well, we look forward to working with you. 

We don’t want to keep putting this off, because the BRAC bases 

are about, you know, about to explode. 

LESSONS LEARNED FROM BRAC

So, Secretary Arny, let me just take a minute-and-a-half or so in 

the time I have remaining on my second round of questions, go 

back to BRAC and lessons learned. What lessons could we apply, 

in terms of the factors that caused this to go from $21 billion to 

$35 billion on the BRAC estimates? 

How can we apply those lessons to any future BRAC rounds? We 

need a 20 percent, you know, fudge factor to say, historically, the 

real costs have been 20 percent more than the COBRA model. I 

could see us a few years from now just going back to the COBRA 

model and making the same mistakes again. 

Mr. ARNY. One point I missed in my earlier discussion is that the 

decisions were based on the military value, not on the cost particularly. Cost was secondary to the military value of the particular 

base. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Was cost ignored or cost a factor? 

Mr. ARNY. No, cost was not ignored. It was a factor, and it is 

compared, because you do look at—you know, will you save something by going from X to Y? I won’t name the particular bases, but 

a friend of mine who ended up being significant in the BRAC called 

about a particular base and said their military value is higher than 

another base over here. And I said, ‘‘But the problem with Base A 

is it is not in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.’’ 

So it is location. It is the military—it is the—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sure. 

Mr. ARNY [continuing]. Military value for the services. And, 

again, I go back to, of the $14 billion increase from the $21 billion—I mean, to the $34 billion or whatever, $35.4 billion, is $10 

billion of that was cost that we added to it that you should take 

out of your comparison, because they were things that not—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. What, were they training facilities needed that 

weren’t in BRAC? Or were they administrative offices, those—— 

Mr. ARNY. No, they were—if we had done—if we had taken the 

$10 billion out, it would have—and built that—what the $10 billion 

was for, a huge portion of that was for forces coming from overseas, 

which are not part of your BRAC discussion. 

BRAC is only in the 50 states and the territories of the United 

States. So we—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. But you are saying the overseas movement, that 

all those costs are included in the $35 billion figure? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. Yes, sir, that we did during this—for this part 

of this round. We may move other things outside of that, but—and 

I could probably give you—I know we have plenty of data. I could 

show you which of those moves were. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In fact, could you send us the list of what specific 

facilities add up to the $10 billion? 


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Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

[The information follows:] 

The FY 2010 President’s Budget request will reflect an investment of $35.2B over 

the FY06–11 implementation period ($34.2B for appropriation within the BRAC Account, $0.8B funded by the Army and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from 

outside the Account, and $0.3B for the FY09 supplemental request). This is a 

$14.1B (67%) increase over the original $21.1B estimate which supported BRAC 

2005 decision making. 

While the dynamics causing the $14.1B delta overlap and are, therefore, not discrete, they can be characterized/estimated as follows: 

Adjusting the ‘‘COBRA’’ model output for inflation ............................................ $1.3B 

Additional inflation from slower implementation of this round compared to 

the faster profiles of the previous rounds assumed in COBRA ...................... 0.5B 

Extraordinary construction industry inflation since 2005 .................................. 1.0B 

Environmental restoration not included in COBRA ........................................... 0.4B 

Program Management Costs not included in COBRA ........................................ 0.6B 

Additional O&M to support fact of life cost increases ........................................ 0.2B 

Construction for additional facilities to enhance capabilities and/or address 

deficiencies—BRAC as a recapitalization engine ............................................ 10.1B 

Total ................................................................................................................. 14.1B 

A breakdown of the $10.1 B where BRAC is used as a recapitalization engine by 

improving facility configuration, equipment and capabilities is as follows: 

• The Army increased its implementation investment by about $4.0B, about half 

to recapitalize infrastructure to support larger Army units, training ranges, and 

Quality of Life with the remainder for furnishings and information technology. Adjusting that amount to correct for double counting the factors above yields an actual 

increase of about $2.9B. 

• When the Army submitted its FY10 Budget Estimate Submittal, it reflected the 

need for an additional $800M in FY10 MilCon construction. Reasons for this cost 

growth include: an increase in unit costs (42 percent); and increase in construction 

scope (21 percent); additional requirements (14 percent); and, other increases associated with land acquisition and the shifting of MilCon projects between fiscal years. 

They subsequently added an additional $53M in new MilCon requirements for Fort 

Lee. 

• The Navy and the Air Force added approximately $0.8B and $0.4B, respectively, to support facility scope increases and operations and maintenance activities 

(such as funding information technology improvements, and equipment purchases). 

• Defense Agencies experienced similar facility and support cost increases: 

• WHS added about $0.8B for scope and additional facilities for relocating 

OSD organizations to Fort Belvoir (parking, remote delivery facility). 

• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency added approximately $0.7B for specialized equipment and facility outfitting costs. 

• DLA added approximately $0.5B for information technology improvements, 

additional storage facilities, and disposal of excess inventory. 

• TMA increased its funding by $2.4B for larger, specialized medical facilities 

and their outfitting costs in the NCR and the San Antonio medical complex. 

• Scope increases to enhance and accelerate the schedule for the Walter Reed 

initiative add $0.7B, primarily for construction/renovation at Bethesda and Fort 

Belvoir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In fact, if you had the information on just the full 

cost overrun, how much was inflation. You know, I am not here to 

beat up anybody. BRAC is an imperfect process. And you are right: 

Military strategy drives it. But I don’t think we can ignore the cost 

factors, and you are not suggesting we should. 

But, for example, it is close to home to me. You have Fort Hood 

that is an underutilized installation. And if we knew what the 

full—and the BRAC commission knew what some of the full costs 

were of making some of these changes, who knows? It might have 

saved taxpayers a few billion dollars by fully utilizing the present 

installation rather than expanding some others. 


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And could I ask, why are they now considered BRAC-related and 

funded through BRAC as opposed to regular MILCON, the overseas budget items? 

Mr. ARNY. What my counsel says is that the BRAC round prepared—because we knew they were coming, and so we prepared for 

it, but they weren’t actually part of the BRAC decisions. So we 

knew the forces were coming in, so that we were to prepare the 

bases. And let me get you a more specific—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. I am not here to beat up on anybody for what happened in the past. A lot of good things have happened from BRAC. 

But I think we need to—as the military often does, lessons learned 

and apply that. 

Mr. ARNY. And I do believe that one of the lessons learned is we 

have to—we have to go into it understanding that the COBRA 

model is going to be 2 or 3 or 4 years late in terms of inflation and 

those factors, and just because of when you freeze the model to 

make your decision and when you actually have to start building 

buildings. 

We have another factor of—I think it was $500 million, in that 

we made assumptions in the planning that we would do construction early. But in order to fit it in properly, the construction moved 

a couple years later. So there is another $500 million just because 

you delayed. It wasn’t money you didn’t—you know, you had to 

spend more because inflation had caught up with you. 

And I will give you those factors. But I really do think that the 

$10 billion represented decisions that were made that were not in 

those continental states and territory issues where you are bringing forces in. 

You know that the base—that the BRAC commission—or the 

BRAC in the building is looking at, are we going to have room at 

these particular facilities to bring them? But those facilities were 

not included as part of the U.S.—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. So you are saying we had, in effect, $4 billion—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Cost run in BRAC rather than $14 

billion or $15 billion? 

Mr. ARNY. And of the $4.3 billion, $1.3 billion was adjusting the 

model for inflation from the time we froze it until the time we did 

it. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I think OMB dictated a ridiculous inflation factor 

that didn’t pass the laugh test. Does OMB still determine inflation 

factors for military construction? 

Mr. HALE. Yes, they do. Unfortunately, we have solved that problem, though, Mr. Chairman, with the recession, I am afraid. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. 

Mr. HALE. At least temporarily, but, yes, I mean, we generally 

follow OMB’s inflation factors. What is extraordinary—— 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Of the time when oil prices were $4 

a gallon, and that drove everything else up, and it didn’t even pass 

any—— 

Mr. ARNY. What we have done is worked with them to get them 

to allow us to do more parametric planning before we put our stuff 

in the budget and accept that inflation. 


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And, again, part of the problem during BRAC was, we hadn’t 

done a lot of parametric. We were doing stuff on the fly. And so 

they said, look, you can only use—unless you have hard data, you 

can only use a flat inflation rate. And that hurt us in some—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. If I could ask, if time permits and resources permit, if before you leave your present position, if you could do a 

summary, to give us a sense of your lessons learned so that we can 

benefit from the next BRAC round, if there is one. Thank you. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Arny, you would probably be disappointed if I didn’t 

ask you a question about Naval Station Mayport, which is in my 

district. 

AFRICOM

But before I do that, just a quick question about AFRICOM. In fiscal year 2008, we put $20 million—they were going to fix up 

some of the facilities at Stuttgart. And that was going to be headquarters for AFRICOM. 

And I have heard rumblings that was going to be moved to Africa. Can either one of you all give us what your plans for the future 

are? Because I don’t know if that money has been spent or if we 

are going to need some more money for a new headquarters, but 

give us your idea of where we are headed. 

Mr. HALE. Well, let me comment on it. I think there is no question that they would like to move their command to the theater of 

operation. I mean, there are political issues there that need to be 

resolved, and I don’t think they have been, so I—maybe, Wayne, 

you can discuss the funding at Stuttgart. 

Mr. ARNY. I can get you a specific funding number, but that 

number was used to convert buildings so they could move into the 

space. And now the building is going—and we will look at it in the 

QDR—on where is the ultimate location to have AFRICOM? 

I agree with Mr. Hale. Everybody would love to have it in Africa, 

but since this is—you are taking your dependents and stuff, there 

are very few places that you could do that kind of command. And 

if you have CENTCOM in southern Florida managing the war halfway around the world, there are a number of places you could put 

the command and still be effective. So that money is pretty well— 

if there is a change, there will be additional—— 

Mr. HALE. And it won’t be next year. It will be a longer time- frame. Because I am told there is $100 million we have spent in 

Stuttgart, including $25 million in fiscal 2009 provides temporary 

facilities that will take care of them until some more permanent arrangement is made. 

MAYPORT NAVAL AIR STATION

Mr. CRENSHAW. Right. Well, I was hoping I wouldn’t ask any 

more questions about Mayport because, I think as you all know, 

the Navy conducted a 2.5-year study, looked at the environmental 

impact, strategic impact, concluded that, in pretty strong language, 

115-page, that we ought to have another nuclear carrier homeport 

on the East Coast that can handle a nuclear carrier, Mayport 

should be the place. 


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The CNO submitted his report. The Secretary of Navy signed a 

Record of Decision—Secretary Gates wrote a letter saying we have 

three homeports on the West Coast for nuclear carriers. It certainly 

makes sense to do it on the East Coast. 

And then, about a month ago, I got a call from the new Deputy 

Secretary of Defense, who said we are going to put that decision 

under the QDR. And I said, ‘‘Well, you are not reversing the decision?’’ He says, no, we are just going to put it under the QDR. I 

said, ‘‘Well, wasn’t there already a record of decision?’’ He said, yes, 

but we view that as a recommendation. 

So I thought it was over and I was never going to have to ask 

you a question about it, but so it is still a question. And I was disappointed to learn that, but that is the way it is. 

Is the QDR going to be the firm and final decision to that question of whether we need a second nuclear homeport? 

Mr. HALE. I think we will make a decision. I mean, we need to 

decide one way or another and move ahead. 

The secretary has said that he stands by his letter, but the fact 

that the price seems to be increasing substantially led us to believe 

that we should look at this again. There is $46.3 million, if I recall correctly, of dredging money in 

the fiscal 2010 budget, so carriers will be able to get in and out. 

The question is, do we build a repair facility that will allow it to 

be a true homeport? That could be quite expensive. Hence, part of 

the reason that we would like to look at it again. But, yes, I expect 

we will make a decision. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Where does it fit? I know the QDRs are generally pretty—they are a general report. And I am a little concerned that it maybe—that it is not going to fit—— 

Mr. HALE. Well—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Here is the big question: If that decision doesn’t 

come out, when you are ready for the FY 2011 budget, and let’s assume that they reaffirmed what they decided all along, then you 

have lost a year-and-a-half, because there is some planning and design money that is on hold right now. 

So, A, where does it fit? And, B, will we know something—because as I understand it, the key to—you have a preliminary answer in general sometime late summer, early fall, that if you said, 

yes, that was the right decision, if you made that decision, you 

would only lose about 6 months, in terms of the plan design. If you 

wait until February and submit the 2011 budget, you would lose 

a year-and-a-half. 

So, A, where does it fit? And, B, do you think we will know something in time to keep on track? 

Mr. HALE. I would anticipate—I mean, the QDR, we hope it will 

provide recommendations by July to feed into the fall program and 

budget review. But I think the final decision, as most final decisions, are made in that fall program budget review. 

So I think we probably won’t have a final decision on Mayport 

until the fiscal 2011 budget. And we may lose some time, I understand, but that would be my expectation. But I think, by 2011, we 

need to make a decision one way or the other—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW [continuing]. Was—is it $46 million or—I think 

that the estimate was $48 million for the dredging and some—obviVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01343 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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ously, there are some other costs. And there is, $46 million in this 

year’s request—— 

Mr. HALE. $46.3 million, you are right. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Is that a better estimate than $48 million? Any 

particular reason why it is not what was in the EIS? 

Mr. HALE. I need help. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Probably just—maybe a better—estimate. 

Mr. HALE. We will get that one for the record. I am not sure. I 

mean, I assume it is based on the corps’ estimate. I hope so. That 

was the intent. 

[The information follows:] 

The original estimate of $48 million for dredging was modified due to a pricing adjustment by the Department, and was subsequently requested at $46.3 million in 

FY 2010. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. There is also money in the request, as I understand it, to upgrade one of the wharfs, not the one that would be 

the maintenance wharf, but the other wharf. 

And in just—again, for the record, I think right now a nuclear 

carrier could spend the night at Mayport. 

Mr. HALE. I am told they can only get out at high tide. That 

sounds like not a very good arrangement, so—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. It was just—one was just there to pick up some 

folks to go to Norfolk, but I don’t think the question on the EIS was 

whether or not you can park one overnight. I think it was a question of whether you ought not put all your eggs in one basket, that 

you ought to have—— 

Mr. HALE. I understand. I mean, this is a first step that would 

at least give us some emergency berthing for them if something 

bad happened at Norfolk. And that was the intent of the dredging 

and allow you to get in and out with confidence. 

But I think you can expect a decision with the 2011 budget. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Farr. 

CENTER FOR STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION STUDIES

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate getting back 

to some of these issues that are on the cost of these programs and 

how they can be better programs. 

The fiscal year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act specifically named the Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction Studies (CSRS) at the Naval Postgraduate School as one of two existing 

public institutions that will provide training for the newly established active response corps, the standby response corps, and the 

civilian response corps, the whole government of field components 

of the State Department’s Office of Coordinator for Reconstruction 

and Stabilization. 

And since DoD policy recognizes the need for the stabilization, 

reconstruction, education and training and CSRS is the only classroom that brings together all the actors who are in the field together, the military, the civilian agency partners, the foreign military, the NGOs, and the I.O.s, can you help me get this POM’d? 

Because it has had to survive on an earmark. 


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Mr. HALE. Well, you know, help in the sense of get it introduced? 

Yes. Help in the sense of, say, ‘‘Absolutely you have to do this’’? I 

think that is not the right solution for the comptroller. I mean, it 

needs to compete with others. And I don’t know enough about this 

one specifically to know why it has not made it. 

But I don’t want to sit across the table from you and tell you I 

am going to go and say, ‘‘You absolutely have to fund this.’’ I think 

that wouldn’t be appropriate to my job. 

Mr. FARR. Well, can you tell me how that process works, to work 

with it? You know, the combatant commanders come in here—— 

Mr. HALE. Sure. I mean, there are a number of inputs into—normally we do a bottom-up process with the services making proposals. And I could speak in more detail from the Air Force, since 

I was there for many years. That one comes up through their commands. There are a series of review processes. 

Mr. FARR. Is this something Admiral Roughead has to do? Or it 

is a—— 

Mr. HALE. Well, he can certainly play a role. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. School within a school that has all—— 

Mr. HALE. Again, he can certainly play a role. But I would hope 

he would say, if he were sitting here, the same thing, that he 

would want to hear what other priorities there are. 

Mr. FARR. Well, as you have heard, everybody loves it and talks 

about it, but then it comes back to having to get an earmark. 

Well, we will have some further discussions about it. 

Mr. HALE. Okay. 

Mr. FARR. Also, I don’t know if you are aware, but the House of 

Representatives has created—I guess it is a relatively new committee. It is called the House Democracy Assistance Commission. 

It is not a standing committee of the House, but its role is to work 

with our counterparts in other countries, those countries’ congress 

members, so to speak. 

We also have learned that the Center for Civil-Military Relations 

at the Naval Postgraduate School has a highly relevant expertise 

and connections with all the countries that HDAC is assisting. 

What I want to know is how we can bridge the gap between your 

shop and specifically the Center for Civil Military Relations and 

HDAC, because you have developed a lot of education and research. 

Members of Congress are working with the legislatures in Mongolia, East Timor, Indonesia, which is a big IMET program now, 

and Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, and others. 

So with each of these countries, the Civil-Mil Center already has 

relationships. So I am trying to see how we might get a better bang 

for the buck. 

Mr. HALE. If I understand you right, you are looking to use an 

existing program and have this committee have access to it or—— 

Mr. FARR. Yes, I think CCMR can be very helpful to the work 

of HDAC but CCMR needs to get reimbursed. 

Mr. HALE. Okay. Well, have them get a hold of my legislative 

folks, Blaine Aaron and Pam Bain, and we will figure out how we 

can get you in touch with the right people. I mean, there is no reason we shouldn’t try to be helpful. 

Mr. FARR. I am not chairman of the committee, but—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. You are pretty close. 


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Mr. FARR [continuing]. But David Price is. And he is, I know, 

keen on that. 

Mr. HALE. Glad to try to be helpful. 

DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE

Mr. FARR. Another question the Army is funding this private 

company called the Rosetta Stone, which is a Web-based foreign 

language program. 

Several years ago, the Army briefed that DLI, the Defense Language Institute, which is your training center for foreign languages, and develops the teaching material and the evaluation materials—would provide oversight for the Rosetta Stone to make 

sure Rosetta Stone meets the military needs. 

And we were just told by the Commandant running the school 

that the DLI does not have oversight over the Rosetta Stone. There 

is a lot of money being spent for this contract for Rosetta Stone. 

And I don’t know how beneficial it is. 

Because DLI is really good at developing the quality and the effectiveness of language training, I am just interested in ensuring 

that Rosetta Stone is supporting the mission requirements and 

maybe requiring DLI at least to have some role in it. 

Mr. HALE. I am going to need to take that one for the record. I 

am not familiar with it, but I understand your point. Let’s see if 

we can find out who has oversight on this issue. 

[The information follows:] 

Two organizations within the Army provide oversight of the Rosetta Stone ® program. The Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS) is 

responsible for the delivery of commercially-developed online training programs for 

our Soldiers. The Army’s Director of Training, also the Army’s Senior Language Authority (Brigadier General Richard C. Longo), is responsible to ensure online language training provides the necessary content to meet the needs of the Army. The 

Senior Language Authority (SLA) is advised by his staff (including seasoned foreign 

language professionals) and the Army Language and Culture Enterprise (ALCE). 

The purpose of the ALCE is to provide advice to the Army SLA on all matters pertaining to foreign language and cultural training. The Defense Language Institute, 

Foreign Language Center is a principal member of the ALCE. 

Rosetta Stone ® is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) training program available 

to all Active, Reserve and National Guard Soldiers, and Army Civilians and has the 

potential for well over one million users. Employing the COTS software required 

neither R&D resource expenditure nor delay in the immediate execution/deployment 

of foreign language training online. The intent of this online language program in 

e-Learning is to provide foreign language familiarization instruction to the non-linguist. The latest cumulative statistics (April 2009) show 219,904 unique registered 

users, 208 average daily new registrations, and a total of 1,095,419 hours logged 

training online. During the month of March 2009, over 3,500 users studied the ‘‘war 

zone’’ languages of Arabic, Pashto, and Farsi. Additionally, hard discs with multiple 

user site licenses are shipped to requesting units for use in theater where no Internet access is available. Rosetta Stone ® developed a military Arabic module for inclusion in the Army program that is not available to commercial customers. 

By offering Rosetta Stone ® on Army e-Learning, Soldiers have a tool at their disposal for enhancing their operational skills as well as a tool for self-development. 

Courses offered through e-Learning are tracked by the Army Training Requirements 

and Resources System (ATRRS). Upon successful completion of Rosetta Stone ® modules Soldiers earn points toward promotion to the ranks of Sergeant and Staff Sergeant. A total of 31 language courses are available including English. The English 

module has experienced over 36,000 users and 65,281 hours. This is a valuable tool 

for Soldiers who speak English as a second language to improve their skills. 

As an aside, the contract for online foreign language training is currently out for 

proposals. Throughout the contract process we will continue to provide online language instruction to the non-linguist. The future vendor will be selected based upon 

a fair and open competition process. 


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OVERSEAS HEALTH CARE

Mr. FARR. And do we have any reports—would your office have 

any reports on the health care for civilian contractors in Iraq and 

Afghanistan? The Washington Post came out saying that the cost 

is more than $1 million a month for private contractors providing 

health care to our military. 

Mr. HALE. I am going to need to check that one, too. I am sorry. 

You are asking me questions I just don’t know. And that is probably our personnel and readiness folks. 

[The information follows:] 

The military provides emergency healthcare for all US personnel—soldier, sailors, 

airmen, marines, civilian employees and government contractor employees—at theater medical treatment facilities. While some legacy contracts still permit ‘‘free’’ 

healthcare to contractor employees, all contracts are being standardized to comply 

with the policy that allows for the provision of, and seeking reimbursement for, 

emergency healthcare. The provision of healthcare in theater is a military Service 

specific responsibility, funded with Overseas Contingency Operations funding, and 

as such requires the Services to develop billing process, protocols, data systems, info 

systems, etc. that do not currently exist. The Comptroller and Assistant Secretary 

of Defense (Health Affairs), the stateside medical billing experts, are assisting the 

Services in developing the process to ensure that prospective and retrospective billing can occur. The implementation of this new process and the enforcement of contracting terms that comply with the policy will ensure that the Department is fully 

reimbursed for the provision of these medical services. Since DoD policy does not 

permit provision of primary care services, several large contractors have established 

primary care clinics in theater, and may have tried to pass on the costs to the DoD. 

To date, any costs to establish these clinics would be imbedded in the overall contracts and not easily identifiable. The contracting officers are aware of this practice 

and continue to look for any indication that these costs are being passed thru to 

the DoD. 

Mr. FARR. Well, part of it was that the DoD had failed to collect 

payment for over the last 2 years from military contractors for the 

emergency and primary health care. I guess we are providing— 

they have their own—— 

Mr. HALE. Right, we provide it there. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. They have it in their own contracts, in 

their own health care programs, but we are providing for them—— 

Mr. HALE. That part I should be able to check out. I mean, that 

is an accounts receivable. And I know we have had problems collecting, not necessarily just from those contractors—— 

Mr. FARR. But you are trying to collect from them? 

Mr. HALE. Yes, I mean, we track our accounts receivable regularly. You may not think of that, but we do. We have a number of 

people who owe us money. 

Mr. FARR [continuing]. Didn’t know whether you had any—indicate whether any effort had been made to collect that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Sam. 

INCREMENTAL FUNDING

Secretary Hale, let me ask you about incremental funding versus 

phased funding. Tell me what the administration’s new policy is 

and how that differs from the past and why you are putting—— 

Mr. HALE. Well, I don’t think it is a new policy. I mean, first off, 

I support full funding in almost all cases. I think it is the right way 

for both the Department of Defense and Congress, in that it insists 


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on transparency and accountability. It forces us to face the full 

costs. 

You know, there are probably rare circumstances, but I think 

they should be rare, where we have pursued incremental funding 

and, maybe even rarer, phased funding, although I think, particularly in the phased funding, we have to worry about whether we 

are affecting the efficiency of the operation and we are building 

four air conditioners rather than one because we are doing it in a 

phase is something we want to avoid. 

But, in general, I believe we should fully fund military construction projects, in the Department of Defense budget. I would like to 

see the Congress do it, too. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We might need some more discussions on that, because—well, for various reasons. But in terms of the phased funding, you said you would like to avoid phased funding whenever possible, but I think for the new health care facility down at Lackland, 

you know, you have four distinct phases. And I asked some of the 

people involved, does that literally affect the architecture of the 

building itself? 

And yes. I mean, you literally have to—four—as they are proposing, four separate buildings now. And in San Antonio, where 

land is relatively cheap, maybe in abundance, maybe that is not all 

the problem, although I don’t know. In a theoretical case, someone 

is going from primary case over to inpatient, I am not sure I want 

to walk out in 103-degree heat in San Antonio if I am a wounded 

warrior, military service man or woman, or their families. 

Have you had a chance to look at the phased funding and maybe 

use that as an example of, does this really make sense? And I am 

not a building contractor. I was in commercial real estate for a little bit back in the 1980s, but not enough to learn the economics 

of contracting. 

But I had to think that, you know, if I were to use an analogy, 

contracting out to get somebody to fill the foundation for my new 

home, and then, when that is finished, getting somebody to build 

the walls, and then somebody else to build the roof would be far 

more expensive than being able to make that commitment up front 

and taking advantage of economies of scale. 

And it seems to be just the opposite of the—what the administration has proposed and Congress is looking at on V.A. funding. We 

want, you know, the economic advantages of knowing what is going 

to be funded and not. 

Any thoughts? I know it is not perfect no matter which alternative you pursue, but do you have some—— 

Mr. HALE. Well, let me answer in general, and then I am going 

to ask if you talk about Lackland, because I don’t know the details. 

I said, I believe we should fully fund these projects up front. There 

may be rare circumstances where something is so large that it 

would cause such spikes in the budget as to be a problem, but I 

would like to avoid incremental funding and I think, in general, 

phase-funding. 

So let me ask you, Wayne, if you would comment on Lackland. 

Mr. ARNY. Well, Lackland was a case where it was originally— 

again, I agree with Mr. Hale. If we could fund the whole thing 

right up front, it would be the best way to do it. 


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But we were told not to do an incremental funding, so in order 

to make it fit in the—within the budget constraints we had, and 

given that we could do complete phases—and you won’t have to 

walk outside; there will be walkways between them—it was designed as four phases. 

Mr. EDWARDS. OMB, I guess, has adopted this policy of no incremental funding, perhaps in rare cases. Instead of having incremental funding, where you could have some economies of scale, 

going to phase-funding? I don’t understand that rationale there. 

Mr. ARNY. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sure. I understand. 

Mr. ARNY. Again, we would not have phased funded this—funded 

Lackland. Part of it is to avoid our phases, keep the phases small 

enough that, when it comes to the Hill, they don’t get chopped and 

used for something else. Ideally, the total of this would get $72 million—call it $450 mil- lion—$467 million. We would rather just—fund that in one year, 

and let it spend out. 

And, frankly, as I have mentioned to you before, prior to coming 

into the MILCON world, I just assumed no one did incremental 

funding. In the 1980s, we tried to incrementally fund the carrier, 

and we were kicked out of the Senate. 

And so when I found that we were doing incremental funding, I 

was a little surprised, but I will say—and I have tried to convince 

OMB—that it does work in the MILCON world. They want to stick 

with no incremental funding. 

So in this particular case, with a building in which you can— 

thank you—we pay like a 5-percent premium, but we can phase 

this building, because we have the land available to stretch out. 

They will be connected. No one will be walking outside. 

I think where you are really going to see it hurt us is when we 

send over, probably in 2011—we have a big nuclear pier up in Congressman Dicks’ district that is probably going to be $600 million, 

$700 million, $800 million. 

And I have talked to the Navy. And something like that—I said, 

‘‘Why can’t you phase it? Give me 100 feet every year or whatever.’’ 

They said, ‘‘No, I can’t. That is not the way we build piers. We set 

all the pilings in. And at the end of a phase, it is not complete and 

usable.’’ 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Mr. ARNY. Whereas, with the hospital at Lackland, each phase 

will be complete and usable. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. We might need to talk to OMB. You know, 

I will give you an example of where the philosophy of no incremental has hurt. We are so badly undercapitalized, in terms of hospital modernization, in DoD. And the reason was, Secretary England said, nobody ever presented to me in any of these 

supplementals since the Iraq war began a need to do a hospital at 

their base, so I concluded we just didn’t need any new DoD hospitals. 

The reason is that commander would have been laughed out of the room or kicked out of the room for offering a $500 million, $1 

billion project in one year in a supplemental. Consequently, we 

have service men and women being taken care of in hospitals that 


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are so damn old that they can’t even put MRI machines at Fort 

Knox. They have to go out in 95-degree heat in the summer and 

over to a trailer, their wounded soldier out there. 

So I don’t know. I guess we need to sit down with OMB. And is 

this an OMB policy basically? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HALE. Yes. 

Mr. ARNY. Again, we could adapt to no incremental funding, because we said no incremental funding, and we know, because as 

you well know, we put an $800 million project into the budget, 

when it comes over to Congress, Congress has said—all four committees have said—subcommittees have said, ‘‘It is our prerogative 

to incrementally fund.’’ 

And so the danger we face is we know that, you know, out of an $800 million project, $650 million is going to go someplace else, and 

then next year we are going to have to cough up that money again. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

Mr. ARNY. We will go either way. 

INADEQUATE HOUSING

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, we will follow up on that. 

And one last thing if I could ask your shop to do, I want to support the new administration. I also want to hold them accountable. 

Could your folks put together as accurate as you possibly can the 

number of actual troops living, their families or singles, living in 

housing that doesn’t meet the respective service’s standards? 

[The information follows:] 


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We kind of get numbers all over the place. If you could get me 

a hard number. I am not interested in whether the process is in 

place to build them a new home 15 years from now or 5 years from 

now. It seems to me that should be the metric we ought to look at 

each year. Are they living in housing? 

For example, in your testimony, when you said, 95 percent with 

this year’s budget will be housing—and I assume you were talking 

about family housing—— 

Mr. ARNY. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Will be funded for modernization. I 

don’t know how that applies to, say, Chaffee Village at Fort Hood, 

which I visited recently. And, I mean, I went into these houses and 

they were not anything I would want my family living in, much 

less a family sacrificing as much as our soldiers. 

And if it weren’t for the base commander taking that issue up 

and pushing it and renegotiating with—the plan was to modernize—to build those new homes in the year 2032. 

So I come to this committee and I hear, you know, we are 98 percent funded for modernization, I go out in the real world, and I 

see—— 

Mr. ARNY. Let me check—I asked on the Chaffee housing, because I asked about that. And, in fact, we may not—it may not be 

required after a certain period of time. 

And I know in San Diego, the Navy faced a problem where we— 

we can’t do this all in—we can’t do all the modernization in a week. 

And the Marine Corps especially was in bad shape, but the Navy 

out in San Diego had some bad housing, real housing that actually 

got some bad press. 

And I had been out there right before. And it wasn’t the best 

housing, but the private-sector partner had gone through and had 

cleaned it up, put new appliances, done carpeting, done painting, 

and what was missed in the article was the families that chose to 

go into Cabreo knew ahead of time that, if you choose to go into 

Cabreo—which doesn’t meet our standards, but we are trying to do 

the best we can—you have first choice as we build the new buildings. 

So we are trying to make sure everybody is accommodated as we 

make the shift. I mean, Congressman Farr is seeing what we have 

done with the housing out in Monterey. So it is not all there yet, 

but we are getting there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I think we have made tremendous progress in 

family housing, and, clearly, barracks is an area we are farther behind. It seems like every service has a different number, every witness has a different number. Some of the numbers assume, well, 

based on the present process, there is funding available—— 

Mr. ARNY. That is exactly why I changed. The money is in place. 

I know how you feel about that. I don’t want to say that everybody 

is living in a perfect house. They are not, and we are moving there. 

But we have the money to privatize 98 percent of our housing in 

the United States. So some of it is not going to get privatized because it is in really oddball locations, but there is not much left 

that is not going to be privatized. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Chaffee Village has been scheduled for 2032. And 

that—they had some money for fixing it up a little bit, but you talk 


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about, you know, a waste of money. Fixing up those houses, in my 

opinion, was truly a waste. 

Part of the reason I want the metric is we ought to be able to 

tell the taxpayers all the improvements we have made and how 

many fewer. But it seems like we need to have one clear definition. 

To the service man or woman and their family, the only thing 

that matters is, am I living in a decent house or not? The process 

doesn’t matter. The plans might matter in the future, but today it 

is, am I living in decent housing or not? 

Do we have the ability to provide those numbers? ‘‘Are you today 

living in decent housing or not?’’ 

Mr. ARNY. We can tell if it is inadequate or adequate by the service’s standards. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Even though I disagree with the service’s standards, at least so we have a metric, and each year we can clearly 

compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

JOINT CARGO AIRCRAFT

Let me ask you all about this joint cargo aircraft program I think 

between the Army and the Air Force. They were going to buy 16 

of those new aircraft, and then the request this year, I think, in 

the budget is for 8. And I was told that they are going to transfer, 

I guess, the control from the Army to the Air Force. I don’t know 

if that has been done or not. And then there was going to be an 

assessment of the overall program. 

And I guess the question is, what is the assessment going to involve? Are they going to conclude—is that going to be part of the 

QDR? Will they conclude we ought to buy the original 16 or we are 

not going to buy—we are only going to buy 8? 

I mean, what is going to be involved in that assessment? What 

is the reason for the assessment? And when will that kind of be 

finalized? 

Mr. HALE. Well, first, we won’t change the fiscal 2010 budget. 

The issue is the overall objective. 

First, I think this is a good news story. We had the chief of staff 

of the Army actually go to the chief of staff of the Air Force and 

say, ‘‘This is an issue, and I think you can do better, or at least 

I would like you to take over,’’ because, frankly, we have underutilized C–130s in the United States Air Force today. 

And if I remember the figure right, the C–130s can land at about 

99 percent of the runways that can be used by the C–27, the JCA 

aircraft. So the Air Force is going to be able to achieve some commonalities that will benefit the taxpayers. 

With that in mind, we lowered the overall inventory objective for 

the JCA from 78 to 38. That decision may get revisited in the QDR, 

that is the overall inventory objective. And I realize there are some 

important basing decisions here. I am mindful of that issue. 

But from the taxpayer standpoint, I think what we are doing is 

getting better utilization of the overall assets that the Air Force or 


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the DoD has available. And that, in my mind, and I think in Secretary Gates’ mind, is a good news story. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. One of the—I know we had General Casey before 

us. And we were kind of ramping up in Afghanistan. I can’t remember the exact figure, but I think he said we are spending about 

$8 million a month leasing kind of airplanes that are like the joint 

cargo. And that is a lot of money. 

And so I guess you have the National Guard. If C–130s can do 

all that, I don’t know why they are not doing it right now. But 

maybe I think I would just be interested in hearing what the rationale—it is kind of like the aircraft carrier, when you say, ‘‘Well, 

we may have changed our mind.’’ 

Nobody said you changed your mind. You just said, ‘‘We are just 

going to further review it.’’ And then people say, ‘‘Well, maybe the 

cost has gone up.’’ I don’t know of anybody that said the cost has 

gone up. I have heard it from you, but the Navy did a study. They 

went through the cost—I mean, have they changed their minds, 

said, ‘‘No, it is going to cost more than’’—when I hear you say— 

I hadn’t heard—I think I heard—— 

Mr. HALE. That is in Mayport now, right? 

Mr. CRENSHAW. In terms of change in—the Joint Cargo Aircraft 

(JCA). You say, ‘‘Well, we are going to build 16. No, we only need 

8, because C–130s do it.’’ But we are leasing planes that do what 

the (JCA) is going to do. 

It just confuses me a little bit to hear you say—maybe explain 

to me—where did the change in costs come from, whether it is— 

we will say the (JCA), and also the nuclear carrier in Mayport. 

Where did the change occur in terms of the cost? 

Mr. HALE. I mean, my understanding on Mayport is that our latest cost estimates are significantly higher. And—— 

[The information follows:] 

I would like to retract my statement, ‘‘I mean, my understanding on Mayport is 

that our latest cost estimates are significantly higher.’’ I misspoke. Our cost estimates for Mayport are not significantly higher. 

The FY 2010 President’s Budget request for the Joint Cargo Aircraft program reduced the total number of JCA from 78 to 38 and transferred the direct support airlift mission supporting Army’s Time-Sensitive/Mission-Critical (TS/MC) air delivery 

to the Air Force. These changes maximize the robust capabilities of our existing C– 

130 fleet and ensure that the Department meets all intra-theater airlift requirements. Adjusting roles and missions and assigning the Air Force greater responsibility for delivering Army time-sensitive, mission-critical cargo will free up Army assets such as CH–47 helicopters and crews that are critically needed for tasks that 

only rotary aircraft can perform. The FY 2010 President’s Budget acknowledges that 

changes in the way the Air Force and Army operate will yield efficiencies that reduce the requirement for combined Army-Air Force intra-theater airlift compared to 

how we execute today. The budget reflects improved effectiveness, increased joint 

synergy and minimized duplication of effort between the Services to maximize the 

utilization of the Department’s intra-theater airlift assets. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. But did you—tell me about those costs. Did you 

do a new study? 

Mr. HALE. I am not sure. I will need to—anybody—do you know 

the Mayport situation in terms of the—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I would love—if you could supply those new cost 

estimates to the committee—— 

Mr. HALE. Sure. 

Mr. CRENSHAW [continuing]. Show the new costs? 

Mr. HALE. We will be glad to. 


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Mr. CRENSHAW. Because I think they considered the costs, and 

they said, ‘‘Look, you know, it is expensive, but we are talking 

about national security.’’ 

Mr. HALE. Right. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. And to make sure that we keep our carrier fleet 

safe, we think it is a good idea—— 

Mr. HALE. Let me also run down the leasing in Afghanistan. You 

may be thinking of the—we are leasing some commercial aircraft 

to provide communications capability. And I am not sure that is 

something the Sherpas could do, but I need to check—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Yes, I just remember him talking about that we 

are doing more in Afghanistan. 

But I think we are all trying to save taxpayers’ dollars. And if 

there is a demand—for any kind of cargo craft, whether it is a National Guard—I know in Florida they do a great job. They bring in 

supplies, hurricanes, things like that. And they feel like there is a 

need for that. But I don’t know if that is built into the requirements document for that kind of aircraft. 

But that would be great, if you could, just to help us get a better 

idea of what all these costs are. 

Mr. ARNY. Also, sir, in answer to your earlier question, we did— for 2010, we do a repair to wharf Charlie at $29.7 million. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. And that—I think that is the Charlie wharf 

where, a carrier just was there to come in—so that thing—I know 

that is in the budget for that repair. And I think the maintenance 

wharf is—and the controlled industrial still—those are the big 

items that, I don’t think their costs—I am not aware of any new 

study that said the costs had gone up, but if there is one, we would 

love to see it. 

Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Farr. 

Mr. FARR. Yes, just a couple questions. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Arny, in our discussion on how much money could be used 

for cleaning up closed BRAC bases, I think you indicated that the 

department was maxed out and the capacity out there was being 

fully utilized. 

We received a letter—Chairman Edwards received a letter on 

May 12th laying out what the capacity was by the National Association of Ordnance and Explosive Waste contracts. I think what 

you indicated is that the amount is about—approximately $500 

million that is allocated, but the capacity for clean-up within the 

industry is currently about $1.5 billion, about three times as much 

as we are putting out. 

It is just that if we are looking at the future and thinking that 

we are meeting capacity, we are not. And, you know, a lot of it is 

from—where the little bases are interested in getting them cleaned 

up. 

The other thing I wanted to revisit with you is the Treasure Island, because you said something that struck me last time that I 

thought was very interesting, that they couldn’t qualify for an EDC 

because there weren’t enough permanent jobs being created. How 

many permanent jobs does one need to create to get an EDC? 

Mr. ARNY. I believe—I don’t know the numbers of that. 


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Mr. FARR. Is there a threshold? 

Mr. ARNY. Under the rule—we will work with you on this. But 

under the rules, they had to have permanent jobs and a last—because they initially were looking at a no-cost EDC. 

Mr. FARR. Yes. 

Mr. ARNY. So let me get back to the record. 

[The information follows:] 

In determining whether to grant an Economic Development Conveyance (EDC), 

the Secretary concerned is to determine whether the EDC is needed for purposes 

of job generation, including the extent of short- and long-term job generation. There 

is not a threshold or a minimum job creation requirement for an EDC due to the 

considerable variability of our surplus properties and local markets impacting redevelopment activity. Rather, the Secretary concerned has discretion and flexibility to 

structure an EDC that can be tailored to local needs to assist local job creation/recovery activities and base redevelopment. This is done in close collaboration with 

the Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA). Specifically, as set forth in the governing 

regulation (32 CFR 174), the Secretary concerned will consider the following factors, 

as appropriate, in evaluating the application and the terms and conditions of the 

proposed transfer: 

(1) Adverse economic impact of closure or realignment on the region and potential 

for economic recovery through an EDC. 

(2) Extent of short- and long-term job generation. 

(3) Consistency with the entire redevelopment plan. 

(4) Financial feasibility of the development, including market analysis and need 

and extent of proposed infrastructure and other investments. 

(5) Extent of state and local investment, level of risk incurred, and the LRA’s ability to implement the plan. 

(6) Current local and regional real estate market conditions. 

(7) Incorporation of other Federal agency interests and concerns, and applicability 

of, and conflicts with, other Federal surplus property disposal authorities. 

(8) Relationship to the overall Military Department disposal plan for the installation. 

(9) Economic benefit to the Federal Government, including protection and maintenance cost savings and anticipated consideration from the transfer. 

(10) Compliance with applicable Federal, state, interstate, and local laws and regulations. 

Mr. FARR. I have an—they say that they can get—they are going 

to have 2,629 permanent jobs. Those are not—in addition to whatever the construction jobs, which are huge. 

And I think you indicated maybe it was when we were walking 

back to the office that there wasn’t any firm appraisal on Treasure 

Island. 

Mr. ARNY. There is a firm Navy appraisal, yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. There is a GSA-confirmed appraisal. 

Mr. ARNY. Right. 

Mr. FARR. We are—$250 million? 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. Which I think the city has offered to pay. This is what 

I understand. It is not in my district, but it is up the street a little 

bit. But they—— 

Mr. ARNY. I don’t believe so, but let me get back to you on the 

details of that. 

[The information follows:] 

The City of San Francisco has not offered to pay the appraised Fair Market Value 

of $250M for Naval Station Treasure Island. The Navy has offered payment terms 

at below market interest rates for the appraised Fair Market Value to be paid starting in the later years of development and paid over a period of two to three years. 

The City’s compensation offers have been centered on profit participation models 

where the Navy is compensated after the developer realizes an 18–25% profit. The 

City has offered to take over the remaining limited environmental work, estimated 


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at $19.3M, as part of the compensation under profit participation models. Nevertheless, the Navy believes that the models of profit participation offered by the City 

would likely result in little or no return for the Federal Taxpayer. 

Mr. FARR. We want to try to get this thing moving. 

Mr. ARNY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FARR. That is it. Thank you. 

BRAC SAVINGS

Mr. EDWARDS. My last question will just be for the record. Secretary Arny, you mentioned that there are $4 billion in annual 

BRAC savings. I haven’t looked at those numbers in quite a while. 

My general recollection is that we know the costs of BRAC are very 

hard, building buildings, moving people. The savings sometime are 

a little bit soft, in terms of efficiencies. 

But someone came up with that $4 billion number. Could you 

please ask your office to send over to our subcommittee the list of 

how that $4 billion figure is derived? If we are saving that much 

in the real world, we need to brag about it. If we are not, we need 

to know that. 

And, Mr. Crenshaw, do you have any additional questions? 

GUARD AND RESERVE FUNDING

Mr. CRENSHAW. Just real quick. The Guard and Reserve I noticed last year was like $1.5 billion. This year it is down to $1 billion. That is $500 million less, 30 percent reduction. And they are 

still pretty active. 

A, what is the reason for that? B, is there anything this subcommittee can do, you know, to kind of help in that regard? Is 

it—— 

Mr. HALE. I think if you go back and look at the trimble, we actually submitted for the Guard last year—we have increased that 

amount. The Congress typically does add money for the Guard, 

which is your prerogative. And so we submitted, I think, a little 

less than a billion in 2009. You made it $1.5 billion. 

We have increased our submission, because we feel it is the right 

amount for the Guard. I understand that we propose, you dispose. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Got you. I think we ought to—I didn’t realize 

that we had bumped it pretty good, but I think that is something 

we ought to think about, because—I think they are still very, very 

involved. Unless there is some kind of reduction in their operation, 

they are going to need that kind of support. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You bet. You know, and I think traditionally over 

the years administrations, Republican and Democrats alike, tended 

to underfund Guard and Reserve MILCON knowing Congress 

would add to it. The problem is, with the budget situation being 

what it is, it is more and more difficult for us to, you know, routinely add $1 billion, $1.5 billion—— 

Mr. HALE. I do—at least say for the record, we don’t think we 

underfunded. I understand. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I understand. 

Mr. FARR. Are any of those—interoperable, Guard, Reserve and 

active duty? So can you go train on a National Guard base? Does 

it meet your standards? 


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Mr. ARNY. I think it depends. I mean, I had to leave my own 

plane in Savannah International. And there were a huge—it is a 

C–130 Guard operation, and there were a huge number of F–15s 

and F–16s that were doing exercises out of there. And right down 

the road, there is the Hunter Army Airfield. So they are training. 

Mr. FARR. Well, I am sure the Air Guard is, because they are 

constantly flying, but it seems to me that those bases in my district—I have a Reserve base, I have a Guard base, I have an active 

duty base. And I don’t know that they are even—— 

Mr. ARNY. I know, when I was on active duty, we would go from 

base to base and get training. And sometimes you would have to 

pre-position equipment, like our F–4s couldn’t use Air Force F–4 

starters, but we would train at other people’s bases. It depends on 

the facilities and what you are looking for. You don’t necessarily go 

to your own base. 

Mr. FARR. No, but I think it is a MILCON responsibility—maybe 

there is some report language we can look at to see whether these 

bases are interoperable rather than just expanding them, getting 

them to be used more efficiently. 

Mr. ARNY. We did an entire air wing operation—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Makes sense. 

Mr. ARNY [continuing]. Out of Naval Station Mayport. I mean, 

we have the entire airway, because the ship sank at the pier, but 

that is another story. [Laughter.] 

Mr. EDWARDS. Any other additional questions? If not, let me finish as we began. 

Thank you both for being here and for what you are doing for 

our country. Secretary Arny, we wish you Godspeed and all the 

best to you. And let your sons know we appreciate their service to 

the country, as well. Thank you for the legacy you leave through 

your many years of public service. 

And, Secretary Hale, we look forward to working dollars and 

cents with you in the years ahead. 

Mr. HALE. Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

We stand adjourned. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards:] 

INFLATION

Question. For the record, what is the construction price inflation factor built into 

your FY 2010 budget request, and how does this compare to the rates used by the 

private sector and other Federal agencies? 

Answer. The construction price inflation factor built into the FY 2010 budget request is 1.5 percent for FY 2010. The annual inflation rates used by other federal 

agencies (as reported to DoD) range from 2.6 percent to 9.0 percent. Engineering 

News-Record (a common industry source for cost indices) predicted an increase of 

1.8 percent for its Building Cost Index for calendar year 2008 (published in December 2007), and a decrease of 0.5 percent for calendar year 2009 (published in December 2008). 

MISSILE DEFENSE

Question. Congress approved $151 million in FY 2009 to begin construction of the 

bases that constitute the Ballistic Missile Defense ‘‘third site’’ in Europe. By last 

year’s estimates, about $690 million was required to complete construction. I understand that you are not requesting additional funds for this initiative in FY 2010, 

as the 2009 funds have not spent due to a lack of parliamentary approval from the 

host nations. What is your intention going forward on this project? 


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Answer. The Department is currently conducting the Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR) which will, among other things, review the rationale and requirements for the third site and explore alternatives that may exist. No final decisions 

have been made. The FY 2010 budget preserves the Administration’s flexibility to 

arrive at a future decision on missile defense in Europe. Remaining FY 2009 funding will be sufficient for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to begin work on the 

sites in the Czech Republic and Poland, should the Administration make the decision to do so. 

Initial review results will be available later this year and a final report will be 

submitted to Congress in January 2010. 

OVERSEAS CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS REQUEST

Question. The FY10 request includes $1.4 billion in additional MILCON projects 

for what is now called Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO. Nearly all of this 

money is specifically for Afghanistan. However, there is also $192 million for 11 

MILCON projects in Afghanistan included in the regular part of the budget. How 

do you determine which Afghanistan projects are included in the main base budget, 

and which are included to the OCO? 

Answer. The construction projects in the FY 2010 base budget support peace time 

mission requirements at locations where we expect to have a presence after the contingency operations, such as Bagram in Afghanistan and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. 

The Afghanistan construction projects in the FY 2010 OCO request are synchronized to the troop announcements made by the President and reflect requirements driven by wartime urgency. Although some of these requirements are at enduring locations (Bagram and Kandahar), these projects are in direct support of 

troop announcements/movements or require acceleration in support of troop increases/movements. For example, the housing at Bagram in support of the enduring 

requirements for the base population is funded in the base budget. However, the 

troop housing to support the force increase is funded in the OCO request. 

BRAC 

Question. During the hearing, you suggested that the overseas-to-U.S. realignments encompassed in the Global Defense Posture Review should not be included 

in a comparison between the original COBRA estimates for BRAC and the current 

estimates. Yet the Department incorporated these realignments and their costs into 

the BRAC program primarily through Recommendation #10, Operational Army 

(IGPBS) and Recommendation #4 for Fort Bragg. Could you please clarify what you 

meant by this statement? 

Answer. Yes, to the extent the costs associated with these recommendations result 

from stateside relocation activities, they have been incorporated into the BRAC program. The costs associated with closing overseas units and transportation of forces 

to U.S. soil have not been charged to the BRAC account, but rather have been more 

appropriately absorbed by the operational accounts. 


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WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2009. 

FISCAL YEAR 2010 AIR FORCE MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, FAMILY HOUSING AND BASE REALIGNMENT 

AND CLOSURE PROGRAMS 

WITNESSES 

GENERAL NORTON A. SCHWARTZ, CHIEF OF STAFF, USAF 

MAJOR GENERAL DEL EULBERG, THE AIR FORCE CIVIL ENGINEER, 

USAF 

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. EDWARDS [presiding]. I would like to call the subcommittee 

to order. 

General Schwartz, General Eulberg, thank you both for being 

here. 

And, General Eulberg, I see in my notes that you are retiring 

this summer after 36 years? 

General EULBERG. Sir, 35 in uniform. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thirty-five, 35 years of military service. And I 

want to thank, on behalf of all of us in Congress, you and your 

family for your service to our country over those years. You made 

a real difference, and we salute you for that service. And thank you 

for being here today. 

General EULBERG. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I would like to just make a few very brief opening 

comments, and then I am going to turn to Zach Wamp, our ranking 

member, for any opening comments he would care to make. And 

then we will proceed with the testimony. 

We are here today to receive testimony in the Air Force’s fiscal 

year 2010 budget request for military construction, family housing, 

and BRAC. 

Over 1 year ago, the prior chief of staff of the Air Force told this 

subcommittee that the Air Force had chosen to accept what he 

called ‘‘manageable risk’’ in facilities and infrastructure funding. 

Although the active Air Force military construction request of $1.145 billion represents an increase over both the fiscal year 2009 

request and the fiscal year 2009 enacted level, it is still more than 

$200 million short of what last year’s FYDP projected for 2010. It, 

therefore, would appear to me that the Air Force is still accepting 

some degree of risk in facilities to meet other priorities. 

I also am concerned that the Guard and Reserve MILCON budgets are not keeping pace with the possible needs out there. 

The Air Force certainly has many challenges and budget issues 

to balance, so my goal today is to hope to better understand the 

Air Force’s views in relation to MILCON and family housing in the 

context of all the other pressing needs that you have. 


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Before I introduce our witnesses, I would like to turn to Mr. 

Wamp, our ranking member, for any comments. 

STATEMENT OF THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you for your 

extraordinary leadership. 

I welcome the chief today and certainly commend General 

Eulberg for his outstanding career. 

I want to thank Mr. Crenshaw, in his absence, for subbing for 

me yesterday and for your understanding, Mr. Chairman. I happened to have my 24th wedding anniversary Monday night, and as 

many of those as I have missed over the last 15 years, I got one 

in. 

Mr. EDWARDS. You should not miss any of those for any committee hearing. 

Mr. WAMP. It was very worthwhile, and I am grateful for the opportunity. I just want to say briefly—I don’t want to repeat anything the Chairman just said, looking at the reduced funding levels 

I too am concerned about the level of risk the Air Force is taking 

on. 

I want to thank the Air Force for all that they do and continue 

to do for our national capability. And I want to especially thank 

you for allowing one of your finest, Major Juan Alvarez, over my 

right shoulder, to actually help staff me this year. 

He has served the Air Force and his country extremely well and 

certainly gives me a full and new, even better appreciation of the 

United States Air Force and the quality of the men and women 

that serve our country through the United States Air Force. 

So thanks for your presence today. I look forward to a good hearing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

General Schwartz, since this is your first time before our subcommittee in your position, let me just read into the record a very 

brief introduction. 

General Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, 

became Chief of Staff in August of 2008. He has served for 36 

years—that is where I got the 36 years, Major General Eulberg— 

36 years of service since graduating from the Air Force Academy 

in 1973. 

And thank you, General Schwartz, for those years of service and 

leadership. 

He previously has served as commander, U.S. Transportation 

Command, director of the Joint Staff, commander of the 11th Air 

Force, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Special Operations Command, Commander of the 16th Special Operations Wing. 

And he is a command pilot with more than 4,400 hours in C– 

130s, MH–53s, and MH–60s. It is a little bit different from the 

1,100 hours I have in a single-engine Cessna 210. General 

Schwartz also served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert 

Storm. 

I want to, again, welcome both of you to the committee. We will 

accept for the record your complete statements, but I would like to 


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recognize you now, General Schwartz, for any opening comments 

you care to make. 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL NORTON A. SCHWARTZ

General SCHWARTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman 

Wamp. 

Thank you very much for allowing me to appear before you 

today. The Air Force is dedicated to its role as a trusted member 

of the armed forces. 

And our infrastructure investment strategy supports our core 

functions and ensures that the investments reflect stewardship of 

the taxpayer’s dollar and achieves strategic balance in our current 

fiscal circumstances through five priorities, the first of which is reinvigorating our nuclear enterprise; the second is partnering with 

the joint coalition team to win today’s fight; third, to develop and 

care for our Airmen, their families, and importantly, our wounded; 

fourth, to modernize our air and space inventories and training capabilities; and, finally, to recapture acquisition excellence. 

With this in mind, I would like to update you on military construction, family housing, and BRAC as a part of our comprehensive strategy to support the national defense with global vigilance, 

reach, and power. 

As you indicated earlier, I am accompanied by Del Eulberg, our 

Air Force Civil Engineer, and I will have a few more comments, if 

I may, at the conclusion of my remarks on that, as well, who will 

sort of round out the details of the strategy. 

And as we continue to focus today on today’s fight and to modernize our air and space inventories for tomorrow’s challenges, we 

recognize that we cannot lose focus on critical Air Force infrastructure programs. 

Air Force installations are key to delivering game-changing air, 

space and cyber capabilities to our combatant commanders. And 

our fiscal year 2010 investments directly contribute to maintaining 

the infrastructure necessary to accomplish these many missions. 

At the same time, we are committed to quality of service for our 

people. And that is consistent with the contributions and sacrifices 

they make on behalf of our nation. 

While the fiscal year 2010 budget for MILCON, BRAC, and family housing and facility maintenance requests is in the neighborhood of, as you indicated, $1.5 billion or thereabouts for MILCON 

and $4.9 billion for the entire program, which is somewhat less 

than last year’s projection, we intend to mitigate the difference in 

MILCON and facility maintenance by intensifying our efforts in 

restoration and modernization of existing plans, and managing our 

resources from an enterprise portfolio perspective, optimizing facility utilization. 

In addition to targeted demolition and aggressive energy saving 

initiatives, we will continue to privatize family housing and modernize dormitories, as well, to assure Airmen’s quality of service. 

Air Force MILCON, family housing, and BRAC initiatives will 

continue to directly support these overall priorities that I outlined 

for you, sir. And we appreciate and we thank you for your continuing support of our Air Force, and particularly our Airmen and 

their families, who are devoted, I think, to defending the nation. 


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I do look forward to your questions. With your permission, sir, 

I would like to make off-script comments. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

General SCHWARTZ. One relates to an observation for your consideration, as I have traveled since moving into this position last 

August, that on two trips to the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility, on both occasions, the limitation—the threshold of 

$750,000 for construction in the contingency areas is too low. I 

would ask you to consider—and Del can reinforce this—that in the 

neighborhood of $2 million to $3 million is probably the right 

threshold for—given the cost of construction, the availability of the 

material, and so on, not asking for broader application of that elevated threshold, but simply to the warfighting AOR. 

The second point, sir, is, as you indicated, Del moves on here 

shortly. He has brought a fact-based, analytical approach to our 

civil engineering discipline, leadership to our engineers and explosive ordnance disposal personnel. 

His service has been truly notable, and Suzie and I honor your 

service, as well. In fact, Del’s wife is packing out today, as he is 

here testifying before the committee, so another indication of how 

this is a team sport. 

So, Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for your compliment. And I 

double your compliment to Major General Eulberg, sir. 

Thank you. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, General Schwartz for your leadership 

and service, for your comments today, and for honoring General 

Eulberg. 

General Eulberg, most of us in Congress realize that, the day 

after we retire, announce our retirement, the question then about 

us is, who is going to replace us? And we are forgotten pretty 

quickly. You will have left a legacy, in terms of housing, quality of 

life, as well as training facilities that will be serving our servicemen and women for decades to come. 

So thank you to you and your family for the difference that you 

have made. 

INADEQUATE HOUSING

As we begin questioning, I might ask a question I like to routinely ask all of our service chiefs and civil engineers, and that is, 

do you have a number, in terms of how many Air Force personnel 

are living in housing, whether it is barracks or family homes, that 

are determined as inadequate, using the Air Force’s own standards? Not how many are planned to be brought up to adequate, or 

the funding is in the pipeline, or the process is ongoing, but, as of 

tonight, how many Air Force families and single personnel would 

be going to bed in a home or a barracks that doesn’t meet your 

standards? 

General EULBERG. Sir, if I might address that question. As you 

are well aware, each time we testify before this committee, who has 

great support for our quality of service of our Airmen and their 

family, both of the dormitory plan, as well the housing, the Air 

Force has a dormitory master plan that we update every 3 to 4 

years, as well as a family housing master plan that formed the 

basis for assessments of existing homes, as well as the investment 

needed to ensure that they are up to the standards that our Airmen and their families deserve. 


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So with that as a preamble, we have just updated our dorm master plan for 2008 and our family housing master plan, which allows 

us to answer that question specifically. 

In the 2008 family housing master plan, we have 9,000 homes 

that are currently inadequate, of which—— 

Mr. DICKS. That people are living in? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. And we have a plan most of which— 

the majority of those homes have already been funded. In fact, they 

all have been funded either with the overseas investment that we 

are making in this upcoming fiscal year, as well as what we have 

funded with housing privatization. 

We have a significant effort in the coming year with funds that 

we already have to privatize roughly 16,000 homes. And with that, 

we will have taken care of all inadequate family housing that are 

currently a part of the family housing master plan. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Can I ask you about that point—— 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Barracks? For example, we had testimony regarding the Army, and they said, ′′Oh, you know, we are 

taking care of these needs with the funding that we have.′′ 

But I visited Fort Hood recently, and they always call it Chaffee 

Village. And under the public-private family housing partnership 

program, it wasn’t scheduled—those homes weren’t scheduled for 

demolition until the year 2032. 

So you could say we have a plan in place to take care of all the 

soldiers of Fort Hood to see they are living in adequate housing, 

but if you look at the details of it, that is not very comforting to 

somebody that hears Chaffee Village won’t be improved until 2032. 

And those homes, in my opinion, probably should have been torn 

down already. 

When you say they have been funded or plans to fund, did you 

mean that the dollars are in the pipeline to see that, within, what, 

the next 2, 3 years, or next couple of years, or next year, that they 

would all be living in housing that meets Air Force standards? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. Great question. Let me just go back 

and correct my last statement. 

I had 9,000 right, but there are 9,000 scheduled for privatization 

and about 2,000 overseas. So the total is 11,000. I apologize. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. No, that is okay. 

General EULBERG. I had 9,000 in my head—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. All right. 

General EULBERG. But your question is a good one, in terms of, 

how long does it take once funding is in the pipeline? What we 

have found is it takes, on privatization, the developer typically is 

given seven years for a development plan to take place. 

What we have seen over the last decade is the privatization developer accelerates construction and renovation and our average is 

about four years. Right now, our plan is that we will have all 

inadequates’ construction complete by 2015. 

Mr. EDWARDS. 2015? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Is that for families and barracks? 

General EULBERG. No, sir, just families. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. Just families, okay. And then since I interrupted 

you on the family housing issue, in terms of barracks, what are the 

numbers? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. Let me just back up. The dormitory 

master plan was just completed. We have 966 dormitories in the 

United States Air Force. Of those, 106 are categorized as tier one 

dormitories. 

We do a tiering system. Tier one is our worst condition dormitories, which we would classify as inadequate, 106. 

Now, as I testified last year—and as you have been and the committee has been a great supporter in dormitories—in our 2004 

dorm master plan, we were on a glide path to do away with all 

inadequates by this year, which we accomplished based on that 

plan. So the commitment to our single Airmen remains as strong 

as ever. 

So what we did in the proceeding years is expanded the criteria 

in our dorm master plan. We have added a permanent party officer 

living in unaccompanied housing, as well as contractors, because 

contractors—all you have to do is visit Thule Air Base, Greenland, 

which is supported by contractors. They have been there, part of 

the mission, for a very long time. And so we have to address those 

living conditions, as well, especially in remote and isolated places 

like Thule Air Base, Greenland. 

So by adding those additional categories to our dorm master 

plan, we have 106 dormitories that are currently inadequate. Out 

of the—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is not 106 individual units; that is 106 

dorms. 

General EULBERG. Dormitories. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So that could be—how many rooms would that actually be, just approximately? 

General EULBERG. Sir, it varies. We build them on different 

sizes. Usually it is—our standard is 96 rooms per dormitory. Now, 

sometimes they are larger. For example, as you know, our request 

includes pipeline dormitories, as well as normal dormitories. 

Mr. EDWARDS. But using that number, approximately ballpark— 

we don’t need the exact number—10,000? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Personnel living in inadequate? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir, that is inadequate, ballpark figure. 

We will submit for the record the exact number. But that is roughly the figure. 

[The information follows:] 

AIRMEN LIVING IN INADEQUATE QUARTERS

3,140 Airmen are living in Tier 1 ‘‘inadequate’’ dormitories. 400 contractors are 

living in Tier 1 ‘‘inadequate’’ dormitories. The Air Force has 8,000 bed spaces in 

eight Basic Military Training dormitories at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas that 

are designated Tier 1 ‘‘inadequate.’’ 

The Tier 1 designation means that the facility has reached the end of its useful 

life and is scheduled to be replaced or renovated. The Tier 1 designation is not an 

indication of habitability. Tier 1 dormitories are maintained to be safe and comfortable. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, thanks to you, the numbers are a lot less 

than they were several years ago. I know we salute the progress 


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for that. But we want to keep track of those that are still living 

in inadequate dorms or houses today, the fact that we made 

progress doesn’t mean much to you, other than maybe the guy 

down the street has a better home than you do. But thank you. 

You were going to say something else? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir, if you don’t mind. The Air Force has invested about $1.4 billion in dormitories in the last nine years. We 

have another $1.3 billion programmed in the Future Years Defense 

Plan (FYDP). But it doesn’t stop there, in military construction, 

now. 

We have also developed what we would call a bridging strategy, 

is where we have targeted restoration and modernization funding 

against those dormitories to ensure we don’t take risk in that area. 

As you saw in the preceding four years, we had some deterioration 

in the condition of facilities, so we want to make sure we stop that. 

So what has happened, since the end of last fiscal year, the Air Force has invested $188 million in the last year alone in O&M dollars, maintenance and repair funds. We have also set aside $100 

million a year for the next two years in O&M restoration and modernization funds with a $50 million from then on out in the FYDP. 

These will be targeted towards the tier one dorms that I discussed earlier, so what we are doing is a balanced approach between O&M, maintenance and repair funds, and MILCON funds to 

make sure that we stay on top of this critical quality of service 

area. 

General SCHWARTZ. The strategy, I guess, could be explained in 

a few words, is that the good ones stay good. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. That is important, obviously. 

My last question would be, you said 2015 is a scheduled date to 

have everybody in standard family housing or better, adequate 

housing. What would be the date for the dorms at your present 

glide path? 

General EULBERG. Sir, we have the same goal. By 2015, we will 

have all inadequate dorms addressed either through military construction or O&M funding, with one exception. 

Right now, the funding that we have in will address all of them 

except for Thule Air Base, and that is the unknown. Of the 106 inadequate dorms in our inventory today, 41 are at Thule Air Base. 

And we have asked for some help from the Army Corps of Engineers to come up with a new design standard, because our standard dorms for Airmen, the quad concept, does not work at Thule 

Air Base, Greenland. 

And so we have asked for some help. That was built in 1951, as 

you may know, sir, and that is a unique environment. So we have 

asked for some support from the corps on coming up with a standard just for Thule Air Base. 

So with that as a caveat, not knowing when we are going to be 

able to do that and how much the cost is, by 2015, we will have—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. We will see if we can get Mr. Dicks up there in 

February to take a look at that. 

Mr. DICKS. I will be glad to—I have been there. 

Mr. EDWARDS. In February? 

Mr. DICKS. We went to the North Pole. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thanks. 


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Thank you very much, General. 

Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

For the second straight year, Chief, the request has been explained lower in somewhat the same verbiage. When you say ‘‘mitigate potential shortfalls in MILCON facilities and maintenance 

funding by bolstering our restoration and modernization programs 

as much as possible,’’ it almost sounds like one of our press releases when something back home doesn’t go right, the way we explain it. 

And I just wondered if this is a Pentagon, or OMB decision. 

What filter is this coming through? I know that is a tough question 

for you to ask. 

General SCHWARTZ. No, it is our approach. And this didn’t have 

anybody else’s English on it. 

You know, the budget—our facility effort here is part of a larger 

tapestry of trying to deal with both people issues—that is clearly 

the first priority—modernization demands and so on. 

And so we think we have achieved a reasonable balance. And it 

is true. If we had more funds, we might well invest additional resources in infrastructure. But as you are well aware, we have to 

make choices. And I think that the way we have postured infrastructure certainly is solid relative to some of the other choices we 

have made, let’s say, on the innovation side. 

So I think this is a responsible proposal for your consideration, 

sir. 

GUARD AND RESERVE COMPONENTS

Mr. WAMP. Well, you give a good report on housing. And I applaud your leadership there, given the resources that you are working with. 

Let me ask you about reserve components, particularly. You have 

30,000 Airmen total deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. The Air National Guard provides almost 

half of the Air Force’s tactical airlift support, combat communication functions, aeromedical evacuations, and aerial refueling, and 

has total responsibility for air defense of the United States. 

The Reserves, 33 flying wings, 7 groups, across 63 locations, 100 

percent of the Air Force aerial spray and weather reconnaissance 

capabilities, 60 percent of aeromedical evac, 46 percent strategic 

airlift capability. 

And according to the Commission on National Guard and Reserve, the shares of the total U.S. Air Force budget, though, for the 

Guard and Reserve are 6 percent and 3 percent. 

So, based on your operationalized reserve components and their 

contributions to this persistent conflict, what guarantees are in 

place to ensure that both the Guard and Reserve MILCON requirements are carved out and represent a fair and equitable share of 

the entire construction request? 

General SCHWARTZ. There are three approaches on this that I 

think are worthy of note. The first and most important is, if there 

is new mission, if it is Air National Guard—and, for example, there 

are several new unmanned aircraft systems—new mission requirements for which the Air National Guard in California and in AriVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01387 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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zona, if I recall correctly, are getting MILCON. New mission gets 

MILCON regardless, without consideration to component. 

The second aspect of this has to do with the amount of physical 

plant. Now, when you are maintaining plant, you know, we have 

an approach to try to maintain investment as a percentage of the 

plant replacement value. And we do, I think, a credible job in ensuring that the Air National Guard, as well as the Air Force Reserve, obtain their fair share, if you will, of that plant replacement 

value, relative to what the active duty receives, too. 

The third part, I think, is that there are new efforts underway 

that really will make this problem less of an issue as we go forward. It is called the Total Force Initiative. And, for example, 

where the active duty and the Air National Guard or the activeduty Reserves share the same facilities, whether it be security 

forces or whether it be flying operations or what have you, that the 

days of independent facilities on the same installation are behind 

us. 

And so where the components increasingly share facilities, they 

will have exactly the same—you know, enjoy the same quality of 

service as does their other component. Those are the three major 

pieces of our effort, sir. 

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I have other questions, but I will wait 

for the next round. We have three other members on the other end 

of the table. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Dicks. 

JOINT BASING

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, General, good to see you again. I appreciated your coming 

by to have a conversation. 

Let me ask one general question. In our state of Washington, 

McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis are going to be combined 

into a joint base. And I know the Air Force had some concerns 

about this; Secretary Anderson came in to see me several times. 

Can you kind of give us a status on this and how the Air Force 

feels about these joint bases? And the concerns that were expressed, about whether this would adversely affect your ability to 

do your mission? And I would just like to know kind of how you 

feel since you have taken over about this issue. 

General SCHWARTZ. We start big and get small—— 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

General SCHWARTZ [continuing]. Sir. I favor those bases. It never 

made sense to me on why we would have at Fort Dix, and McGuire 

Air Force Base, or at McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis, or 

other—Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, essentially adjacent 

installations, why we would have two separate refuse contracts or 

two separate this or two separate that, when there was the opportunity to have one contract that served the adjacent military installation, presumably at some savings to the taxpayer. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

General SCHWARTZ. And there are many opportunities in this regard, which I think are certainly a positive outcome from joint basing. 


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Additionally, the reality is that each of the services is looking for 

ways to maximize their installation dollar. And partnering is a 

good strategy for achieving that outcome. 

Now, the bottom line is, is that the platform—that, for the Air 

Force, for sure—and this is probably what former Assistant Secretary Anderson shared with you earlier—is that our Air Force 

bases typically are the platforms from which we operate, you know, 

the Army to a somewhat lesser extent, the Navy to a somewhat 

lesser extent, so we worry about our airfields and the places from 

which we project the nation’s power. 

And early on, before this thing matured, there were some issues 

with regard to, how prominent would mission be on a joint base? 

Would it be accorded the same prominence that we felt was necessary? 

I think we have—the process has matured. We now have common output standards for—that all the Services must meet, regardless of who is in charge. And as you are aware, sir, there are six 

joint base initiatives, six of which the Air Force is in charge and 

six of which others have. 

And in the case of Fort Lewis specifically, there was a recent 

meeting in April where the two teams had reached agreement. 

They will forward the memorandum of agreement, which codifies 

this understanding between the two installations, on who does 

what, who is in charge of what, who invests, who supports, and so 

on, will come to the building at the end of this month for final approval. 

And my sense is that we are on the right glide path. I will be 

candid: There was some anxiety that a three-star over a colonel in 

the chemistry was—might be a problem. I think we have sort of 

settled that. 

You know, there is—we have enough attention on—the Army has 

made an extra effort to ensure that the colonel commander of the 

62nd Wing at McChord Air Force Base has full access over at Fort 

Lewis and can have his needs in the base and the Air Force requirements presented and dealt with in a responsible way. 

So long answer to your short question is, my sense is, we are on 

a good glide path there. And I favor the joint basing initiatives. 

Mr. DICKS. Good. 

General SCHWARTZ. Yes, sir. 

MODULAR CONSTRUCTION

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask one quick question concerning modular 

construction, The Army is using it. We are using it at Fort Lewis. 

It looks fantastic. Now, there has been some issue raised about how 

long it will last. What is your take on that, General? 

General EULBERG. Sir, as you well know, modular construction 

has improved drastically in the last 10 years. And so it just depends on a lot of factors on whether or not you use it. The Army 

is pushing it for a number of reasons. 

Mr. DICKS. They are doing it at Fort Lewis, and they are probably going to do it at McChord, I would think. 

Mr. EDWARDS. What kind—— 


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Mr. DICKS. It looks fantastic. I went in these units. General 

Soriano and the wives of the sergeants, they have said it is the best 

housing they have ever had over 25 or 30 years in the Army. 

General EULBERG. Sir, if you are specifically talking about the 

housing at McChord-Lewis, as you know, through your leadership, 

we now have a joint venture, if you will, with McChord Air Force 

Base part of Fort Lewis. 

The construction there, they had some early on issues with modular construction at Fort Lewis. The developer has corrected those 

problems. We are getting a quality product, and the Air Force is 

very happy with it. 

Mr. DICKS. So you think this will be okay for McChord, too? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir, we do. As a matter of fact, we have 

150 Army families living in Air Force houses now. And as you 

know—— 

Mr. DICKS. See, I wouldn’t let them tear them down, General. I 

just thought that the numbers of houses to be demolished were too 

extreme. It was like 900 units. They were going to go to 250, and 

I said, no, wait. You have too many people who want this housing. 

And now the Army is in that housing, and some of them, we had 

to take down, but we worked it out. 

General SCHWARTZ. And this is what—— 

Mr. DICKS. It wasn’t easy, by the way. 

General SCHWARTZ. No, sir, I understand. 

Mr. DICKS. It was like the Air Force was fighting the last battle. 

[Laughter.] 

General SCHWARTZ. As is often—change is difficult. I mean, 

change is hard. And, you know, you have to get the right people 

with the right mindset and the right oversight. 

Mr. DICKS. I told the colonel out there, I said, ‘‘Have you ever 

been to Fort Lewis? Have you ever seen this housing?’’ And he said, 

‘‘No.’’ And this is—he told me later, he said, ‘‘I drove down there, 

and I was prepared just to hate this housing, and it was terrific.’’ 

General SCHWARTZ. One quick input, sir, just quickly. Modular 

also has a potential place in administrative spaces. And, again, it 

depends on how long you want the thing to last, what its purpose 

is, and so on. So, again—— 

Mr. DICKS. What about that, on the life cycle? Is there a difference between modular and other forms of construction, in terms 

of how long they last? 

General EULBERG. Sir, as a general rule, modular has 

sustainment issues over the life cycle. Yes, sir. And so there is—— 

Mr. DICKS. But this new stuff—it looked pretty good to me. 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. It is. And as I mentioned, a lot of the 

quality issues, which you join certain parts of the building together, 

is a critical aspect. And they have worked all those issues out. So 

I don’t anticipate any long-term problems. 

Mr. DICKS. Good. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. How much cheaper is it to build a modular home, 

the ones we are talking about, compared to the conventional construction? 


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General EULBERG. Sir, it depends on location. However, as a general rule, it is cheaper, anywhere from 8 percent to 10 percent 

cheaper. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Eight percent to 10 percent cheaper? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. DICKS. It was cheaper in this case, but people thought it was 

better than anything they had ever had before. 

Mr. EDWARDS. That is good to hear. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. Crenshaw. 

JOINT CARGO AIRCRAFT

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for being here today. I just have a question 

about Joint Cargo Aircraft that originally was the Army and the 

Air Force program together. And the 2010 budget made some major 

changes, transferred, as I understand it, from the Army to you all 

to head it up, and that they reduced the number of planes they 

were going to buy by half. 

And I think they wanted to buy 16 this year, and now the request is for 8, and then, again, transferring the program to you all. 

But they said that there was going to be an assessment done. 

And I wondered, well, what is the assessment going to do? Is it 

going to tell you how many you should buy? Or is that going to 

come in the QDR? But why all those changes and what do you 

think is going to be the outcome? 

General SCHWARTZ. Congressman, thanks for the question—what 

is going to transpire is a couple of things. First of all, the Army 

and the Air Force have to get together on fundamentals, which is 

transferring program responsibility. That is not an instantaneous 

effort. That probably won’t occur until the fall of 2010. 

So the Army is going to continue in the lead on the procurement 

actions for this program, and we will be on their wing. And then 

later, in 2010, there will be a transfer of responsibility. 

The other aspect of this is how the Air Force will support the 

Army. In the end, that is what this is about. It is time-sensitive, 

mission-critical re-supply of elements, and we typically as an Air 

Force have operated on the notion of something called general support. 

General support is a very efficient way to run a railroad, if you 

will. You look for full airplanes or the fullest possible airplanes. 

You run an airline in a way to be as effective and as efficient as 

you can. 

On the other hand, direct support is dedicated support to a particular maneuver unit, typically. And that maybe is not as efficient, 

but it satisfies the need of that maneuver commander. 

We need to be flexible as an Air Force enough to do both. And 

my commitment to General George Casey from the Army was that, 

if this thing unfolds as it has, as the Secretary of Defense decided, 

we will do the direct support mission in the fashion you need it 

done, not the way we are comfortable doing it necessarily, but the 

way you need it done. That is the second piece. 


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The third piece—and I know there is a lot of angst about this— 

there are 18 locations that had some stake in the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA), 12 Army National Guard and 6 Air National Guard. 

And, obviously, when we went from 78 aircraft to 38, there was 

some concern about what the footprint is going to be. And we don’t 

know the answer to that yet; that is still under discussion both between ourselves, the Army, and the National Guard Bureau, General Craig McKinley. 

But I can tell you that the number 38, it is not less than that. 

There will be ample opportunity through the QDR and in followon efforts here that we have to do to decide what the right number 

is. 

The Secretary of Defense’s view was that we could use existing 

C–130s to do some of this work. He is probably right. But we need 

to confirm how much that is. I am not sure it is just 38 JCAs. So 

there is still more—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. So there is still—because again, we heard yesterday—from Mr. Hale, the new DoD Comptroller, he said—I asked 

him a similar question. He said, ‘‘Well, 99 percent of the work can 

be done by C–130s.’’ And I am thinking—— 

General SCHWARTZ. If that were the case, you know, the helicopters wouldn’t be working as hard as they are and we wouldn’t 

have quite as much contract lift—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. That is the other thing General Casey said when 

he was here. I think they are spending $8 million a month leasing 

this kind of aircraft—and, of course, I think General Casey would 

say, look, it is not my job to figure it out. I just know what I need. 

General SCHWARTZ. That is right. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. And somebody else has to decide whether to 

build them or lease them. But if we are spending that much 

money, then I think your point is that we are probably going to 

need them. 

General SCHWARTZ. The number 38 basically came from replacing the existing C–23 Sherpas. So there are 42 Sherpas in the inventory; 38 was considered a fair sort of replacement. Whether it 

is more than 38, though, I think it is still to be—— 

Mr. CRENSHAW. But is that—do you know—I don’t know what 

assessment means, we are going to assess it. Do you think they 

will come up with this assessment before the QDR? 

General SCHWARTZ. It will certainly be a result that will affect 

the fiscal year 2011 budget process. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. I got you. 

General SCHWARTZ. Without a doubt. 

Mr. CRENSHAW. Thank you very much. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Crenshaw. 

Mr. Bishop. 

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you very much. 

Welcome, Generals. I am particularly interested in Moody Air 

Force Base. We have had a number of difficulties down there with 

the construction of the privatized housing at Moody, a real, real 

problem, especially for some of the subcontractors who were not 

paid. And, of course, the completion has been delayed. 


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It is my understanding that it is back on track now and that 

some local contractors are being utilized to fulfill many of the work 

opportunities resulting from the contract. 

Can you give us an update on the status of how the claims under 

the previous contract were resolved, and what the current status 

is of the performance and the completion of the project? Are small 

or disadvantaged contractors being utilized? Overall in the Air 

Force, to what extent are small and disadvantaged contractors utilized? 

General SCHWARTZ. Go ahead, Del. Why don’t you—— 

General EULBERG. Sir, thank you for that question. And as you 

know, there is a long history with this project, and we have now 

awarded a new one. There was—or rather a sale of the project. It 

is called the Air Force Falcon Group. And they took over the—or 

the sale took place in November of last year. 

It is part of a four-base group. Moody is one of them. All the 

claims associated with all four bases that have been justified 

through the contracting process and legal process, all claims have 

been paid. 

And the good news, also, is, is the contractor is making great 

progress at all four bases, both Hanscom, Little Rock, and Moody, 

and Patrick Air Force Bases. And specifically at Moody Air Force 

Base, they are completing the site work on units that were stopped 

in progress by American Eagle, so those are underway. 

General SCHWARTZ. Same is true at Little Rock Air Force Base. 

General EULBERG. Same thing at Little Rock, Hanscom, and Patrick Air Force Bases. So great progress, and the contractor is doing 

a good job with all of that. 

Sir, does that address your question? 

Mr. BISHOP. Yes. I understand from the local folks that there are 

local contractors participating as subs. 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir, there are. 

Mr. BISHOP. Regarding utilization of small and disadvantaged 

businesses, I would be interested in hearing what is happening at 

Moody and what is happening overall in the Air Force there. 

General EULBERG. Sir, we will have to take that for the record. 

General SCHWARTZ. We will get that back to you, the exact performance, both respect—with respect to this particular project, but 

more broadly. 

[The information follows:] 

SMALL AND DISADVANTAGED CONTRACTOR UTILIZATION

Housing privatization is authorized by the 1996 National Defense Authorization 

Act (Public Law 104–106). Projects under housing privatization are real estate 

transactions, and not federal contracts; therefore, they are not subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations. Although the project owners, which are private businesses, 

may subcontract with small and disadvantaged businesses, there is no obligation to 

do so, nor are they required to provide the Federal Government with information 

regarding the extent to which their subcontractors are small and disadvantaged 

businesses. In these circumstances, the Air Force has no authority to mandate 

quotas or goals, or direct project owners to utilize small and disadvantaged businesses on housing privatization projects. 

The data below represents the Air Force utilization, in contracted dollars, for 

small businesses (SB) and small disadvantaged businesses (SDB) at Moody Air 

Force Base, Georgia and Air Force wide for fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2009 

year to date (YTD): 


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Eligible dollars Awarded to SB % Awarded 

SDB % 

Fiscal Year 2008: 

Moody AFB .................................... $48,743,916 $39,638,936 81.3 $19,621,069 40.3 

Air Force Wide .............................. 57,181,926,908 9,345,356,505 16.3 3,556,482,418 6.2 

*Fiscal Year 2009 YTD: 

Moody AFB .................................... 27,446,624 19,968,129 72.7 6,957,782 25.4 

Air Force Wide .............................. 40,909,206,246 5,197,461,346 12.7 1,843,956,787 4.5 

* The Small Business and Small Disadvantaged Business utilization percentages for the first nine months of fiscal year 2009 closely match 

the utilization percentages for the first nine months of fiscal year 2008. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, thank you for your service. General Schwartz, I noticed you did two tours at Little Rock. 

General SCHWARTZ. I did. 

Mr. BERRY. It is good to hear that—— 

General SCHWARTZ. I married—my wife comes from Little Rock. 

Mr. BERRY. Is that right? 

General SCHWARTZ. That is right. 

Mr. BERRY. Well, I trust she turned out to be a good Arkansas 

girl. 

General SCHWARTZ. She is still a Razorback fan and, in fact—Razorback football—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BERRY. But we do appreciate your concern and commitment 

to the quality of life of our men and women in uniform. We appreciate that very much. It is good to hear that we have pretty much 

resolved the issues with that American Eagle crowd. 

General SCHWARTZ. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BERRY. It is good to know that it is back on track and moving in a good direction. We appreciate what you do for Little Rock 

Air Force Base. And I know that the men and women that serve 

there appreciate it very much, and we thank you. 

NUCLEAR-RELATED FACILITIES

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Berry. 

General Schwartz, in your written testimony, you talked about 

one of your priorities is to reinvigorate the Air Force nuclear enterprise. And you say, ‘‘A critical aspect to this effort includes the infrastructure and facilities providing that necessary life cycle installation support to this vital mission.’’ 

I think you go on to say you are conducting facility condition assessments of all nuclear-related facilities. Could you—obviously, 

this is a terribly important responsibility of the Air Force. We are 

all aware of some of the issues that cropped up over the past year. 

So where are you in that assessment? And is any of that incorporated into your 2010 military construction budget? Or will additional facilities or improvements in facilities be pushed out to the 

2011 or later budgets? 

General SCHWARTZ. I think the short answer on the mission facilities specifically, launch facilities and so on, that assessment is 


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complete but we are still working assessments for weapons storage 

areas and other nuclear related facilities. We know the status of 

each of our missile launch facilities that control facilities that are 

associated with it and so on, and likewise at the bomber bases. 

And we are okay on those mission facilities. In other words, there 

is no major requirement other than maintenance and standard 

maintenance required for those at the moment. 

There are a couple of areas that are not in the MILCON. Now, there is $45 million in the 2010 proposal, recommendation to you, 

for this particular mission area. About four items are included in 

that. 

And, for example, at Minot Air Force Base, there is a training 

facility MILCON, and also at Minot Air Force Base, there is a munitions item involved. But there is also a substantial commitment 

of $73 million, if I recall correctly, that is related to and involves 

both security, armored vehicles, weapons related expenses, and 

minor facilities renovation related to the weapons storage area at 

Barksdale Air Force Base. 

We are reopening the weapons storage area at Barksdale Air 

Force Base. And that is not MILCON dollars. That will be essentially O&M or aircraft procurement, sort of special equipment dollars. 

But that is the angle that we are on. We have assessed the mission facilities. We know what the status is. We have a plan for 

maintaining those facilities and in the longer term, perhaps, to replace them. It is not required right now. Right now, the focus is 

on getting Barksdale Air Force Base re-established with its weapons storage area, for example, and taking care of some of the needs 

at Minot Air Force Base. 

F.E. Warren Air Force Base and Malmstrom Air Force Base are 

okay for the moment, sir. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. So there are no important, immediate needs 

out there? I would ask if those needs arise, given the pre-eminence 

of that responsibility to be good stewards of our nuclear weapons, 

if there are any needs that pop up after the 2010 budget has been 

put to rest, please—— 

General SCHWARTZ. Understood. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Please let us know, because we know 

that does happen when you have to start putting these requests together months, if not a year, a year-and-a-half before, and things 

change. And particularly in that area, we don’t want to cut any corners. 

General SCHWARTZ. And we won’t cut corners. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We don’t have time to get into all the details of 

storage of nuclear bombs. We are in an unclassified setting, so 

there are probably some things you can’t say. 

But normally would you have tactical weapons in the same storage area as nuclear weapons? Normally those would be—— 

General SCHWARTZ. Segregated. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We segregate them. 

General SCHWARTZ. Absolutely. 

Mr. EDWARDS. So you have all the—— 

General SCHWARTZ [continuing]. And you have training devices 

also separated from the real ones, which was a problem we had in 


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one of the episodes last year. So, you know, that was not so much 

a facility issue as it was a compliance issue—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. Okay. So subject to any additional concerns 

that are raised by an ongoing review of facilities and operations, 

you have what you need, in terms off facilities—— 

General SCHWARTZ. We do. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. To protect our nuclear stockpile? 

General SCHWARTZ. And, in fact, in the broader sense, we made 

sure that 100 percent of the requirements, whether it be for facilities or operations, or whatever it was, training, you name it, 100 

percent funded. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

General SCHWARTZ. So, I mean, we were not going to take any 

risks there for obvious reasons. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. 

I reserve my other questions for additional rounds. 

Mr. Wamp. 

ENGINEERING

Mr. WAMP. General Eulberg, while we have you, I want to hear 

from you about engineers. Obviously, this budget—and the chief is 

right having you here to present this budget. This is principally an 

engineering budget. And I think you have 60,000 people within the 

Air Force Civil Engineering career field, and you have 3,000 civil 

engineers deployed between Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I represent the Y–12 National Security Complex, speaking of the 

nuclear piece of the deterrent. But we have a guy there named 

Kevin Smith, who has done an extraordinary job of bringing young 

people into the military with a commitment that, if you go and 

serve and get your training at the highest level, you have a job 

here when you come back. 

And we had the STEM initiative on science, math and engineering, where we are just grossly deficient as a nation. And I would 

think the United States Air Force may be better than any other organization that is prepared to help us meet those needs through 

the training, the experience that you actually provide. 

Give us the state of engineering right now, as you go off into the 

sunset, I hope to enjoy the rest of your service to others, but that 

has got to be a big thing, especially in your heart, given your background. 

General EULBERG. Sir, thank you very much for that question. 

We do have 60,000 personnel assigned in Air Force Civil Engineering. They are part of an Air Force team and also part of a joint 

team. And as you mentioned, we do have 3,000 engineers deployed 

currently in the area of responsibility doing various missions, 43 

percent of which are doing joint expeditionary tasking alongside 

their other Service brethren. 

So it is truly a joint undertaking. There has been a number of 

initiatives on the joint side that—with the other engineering services chiefs, we have been able to make great headway in the last 

couple years. 

But the civil engineering corps, as you know, is about half civilians, and as well as enlisted and officer corps, and as well as our 

contracting partners. And we are able to do what we can, is beVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:47 Jul 08, 2009 Jkt 050526 PO 00000 Frm 01396 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A526P2.XXX A526P2

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cause it is a team of civilians, military, as well as contracting support. 

So as we go forward, I will tell you, I am very, very proud of the 

Air Force engineering community and their contributions to the 

missions that our nation has asked us to perform. The dedication 

of the young men and women are just phenomenal. We have a 

number of wounded warriors coming back, as well as those killed 

in action—— 

General SCHWARTZ. In fact, I met one on Sunday evening who 

came back who was in explosive ordnance disposal, a young man 

who stepped on a landmine dealing with unexploded ordnance in 

Afghanistan, an engineer. And he is thankful that his wife was 

with him. It was good to get him back. 

But it is an example of what these kids are doing. They are on 

almost a one-to-one dwell. In other words, for the period of time 

they are deployed, that is with their home, and they are back into 

it again. That is a high-stress career field. 

They are highly valued, particularly now as we build in Afghanistan. There is not enough concrete in that country to put the air 

down, and it is not just Air Force air. It is Army air. It is Marine 

Corps air. 

And so, in particular, the engineers are, again, with their brothers, the Seabees and the Army folks, again, they are doing horizontal construction. And I think it is a tribute, again, that, you 

know, the people like me tend to get the credit for what happens, 

you know, flying airplanes or whatever it is. And the truth of the 

matter is, it is the—you know, it is the folks that lay concrete that 

make is possible. 

Mr. WAMP. But, General Eulberg, are more young airmen interested in the engineering side than in the past? Do we see a trend 

there? 

General EULBERG. Sir, we have been very fortunate in the Air 

Force, is that we have been able to meet all of our recruitment targets and accessions across all enlisted Air Force Specialty Codes 

(AFSCs), as well as in the officer corps. And so we have been able 

to maintain that. 

And so I don’t see any problem in that. We went through a retention issue a couple of years ago, where we had less than 50 percent 

of our captains staying in. It has improved since then. But I don’t 

see any major problems now or in the future, sir. 

General SCHWARTZ. Just one example, Congressman. The new 

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, Chief Roy, who will take 

over the responsibilities at the end of June, is a civil engineering 

guy, just a case in point. That is where he started out. 

DONATIONS

Mr. WAMP. General Schwartz, I have asked all of our services 

about this problem that I learned of from General Casey, and that 

is some of the kind of regulatory hurdles of just—of benefits being 

provided to wounded warriors and our military from the private 

sector. And you have probably heard about this. 

But the joint ethics regulation enables injured and ill-served 

members and their families and their members to receive unsolicited gifts from non-federal entities. 


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Do you know of anything else that Congress can do to remove 

barriers to enable support for our wounded warriors from non-federal entities? And are you able to provide minimal logistical support—transportation, donated items, warehousing, or donated 

gifts—to assist these entities when they provide resources to our 

wounded warriors? 

General SCHWARTZ. Congressman, I think there is a balance in 

this. There are some things we don’t do. We don’t solicit. We can’t 

do that. And, likewise, we don’t take cash donations. I mean, there 

are some things we won’t do. 

But absent those sort of black-and-white sort of distinctions, 

what we do now is simply run the proposal by our ethics people. 

And unless there is some, you know, cause for concern, we are 

okay, we are good to go. 

So the way we practice this is the obvious things we—you know, 

that are black and white, we won’t do. And then we do engage our 

ethics counselors to make sure that it is okay. 

Now, with respect to transportation, I do have some experience 

in this area. You know, we can’t package things and so on. We can 

deliver stuff to the theater—there are certain exceptions to that, 

for example—movements, and if we move some stuff to Afghanistan for Afghan refugees, and we will probably do the same thing 

for Pakistan here coming up. 

But in terms of donations for things that go forward, we do provide minimal logistics support. And I think, you know, there is no 

lack of willingness to do so. 

Again, it is just trying to make sure that we don’t favor one category of donation or one agency more than another. I think that 

is the basic sensitivity. 

Mr. WAMP. Let me just say, as I close, I am in my final term, 

eighth term here in the House, and I have not done too much traveling, but I have done a significant amount. And I think it is important that members of Congress fight through the public disdain 

for that, because it is important that we have 535 ambassadors for 

our country around the world, instead of just the executive branch, 

making friends and building relationships and understanding 

needs. 

And so I have probably done a moderate amount of travel, but 

I just want to thank all the men and women of the United States 

Air Force for the way that they deal with members of Congress, as 

we go and see the world. 

You know, we are criticized for it, but it is unfortunate that we 

are, because it is really, really important. And the United States 

Air Force just does an extraordinary job taking us places that we 

need to be. 

And I have been to tough places like Islamabad, and it is sometimes not easy to get in and out. But I have never had a bad experience, and I have always been amazed. So I am grateful. 

General SCHWARTZ. Well, sir, it is our Service. It is what we do. 

I would mention, though, that I agree with you. 

And I travel some, as well, because you do not—someone once 

said that Washington, DC is the only city in the country that is 

surrounded on all sides by reality. And so the effort to get out of 

town and get ground truths is vital for me and, of course, vital—— 


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Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Chief. Well said. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Wamp. 

Mr. Berry. 

And let the record show that Mr. Berry, in his previous comments, said that, in good years and bad years, he is always with 

the Razorbacks. Right? All right. I just want to be sure the transcript—accurate statement that the gentleman—— 

[Laughter.] 

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE

General Schwartz, let me ask you about Lackland, where you do 

your training for your Airmen. As I understand, earlier this week, 

the Air Force announced that the preferred site for the 24th Air 

Force would be Lackland. Could you further explain where we are 

on that process? And then add to that, at what point we would 

know whether there are any additional military construction needs 

tied into that decision? 

General SCHWARTZ. Sir, the key thing is that we announced last 

week that, as you indicated, that Lackland Air Force Base is our 

preferred alternative—Colorado Springs, Peterson Air Force Base, 

is a viable alternative for environmental assessment purposes. 

That environmental assessment is underway, and we should have 

that back in the July timeframe. 

And as you are aware, I know that there is a 30-day comment 

period which follows the finalization of the environmental assessment. And then, at that point, if there are no major hiccups, in the 

August timeframe, we will finalize the decision. 

The process we have in the Air Force—and, frankly, it is a maturing process—what we do, we have a set of criteria that we use 

to sort of examine options for bedding down either a new mission 

or relocated mission. 

And it includes things like mission synergy that is one place 

more conducive to performing the mission than another. What are 

the facilities on an installation that could accommodate it at least 

cost? Is there transportation access? Is there human capital on the 

installation or in the adjacent community that would, again, support that particular mission? 

Those are the kinds of considerations. And what we do is, we go 

to the major command that is responsible for that activity, in this 

case, the Air Force Space Command. And they got the criteria. 

They gave the Secretary of the Air Force and myself a short list 

of installations that they felt were in the ballpark with those criteria. 

And there were six. And we went out and subsequently, after the 

secretary brought into those six, to do actual site surveys to assess 

physically the capacity of the installation to absorb the mission, 

and so on and so forth. 

That comes back up through the major command as a recommendation, and, based on a criteria and a way to sort of objectively score the assets and the liabilities of each of the installations, comes back up to the headquarters for an executive review, 

and then ultimately the Secretary of the Air Force and I get together to make a call on what we think is the best place. 


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And as you indicated, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, 

was identified as the—what we think is the best place for this new 

mission, subject to environmental analysis and so on. 

What I would also like to mention, though—and this came out 

of the preceding announcement on Global Strike Command, that— 

in an effort to be transparent and open, one of the unintended consequences of that was we began—when we had this shortlist, we 

have created an incentive, unintentionally, for communities to compete against each other. And that is not a good thing. 

And so what we are trying to do is to figure out a way to be open 

and transparent, but to manage expectations in a way that it 

doesn’t force communities to mobilize and spend funds, and do lots 

of different things to try to persuade us where to go. That is not 

a good thing. 

And so what we are going to try to do is thread the needle on 

this, be objective, be as transparent as we can, and also keep folks 

sort of breathing through their noses on not being too aggressive 

in trying to market or sell their communities, I mean, because 

what we want to avoid having a situation where people feel like 

they desperately lost. And so we want to manage this in a way that 

minimizes that likelihood. 

So it is objective, sir. It does—the senior leadership does apply 

some judgment. We did that in the global strike case. And it was— 

the 24th Air Force case was much more clear-cut. The scoring was 

not close. And, therefore we made that announcement. 

And, again, we think that we will have—the environmental assessment for Global Strike Command was complete on the 12th of 

May. We put that out for a 30-day comment period. So mid-June, 

we should have a final on global strike. And I would say probably 

mid-August, toward the end of August, we will have a final on the 

24th Air Force. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay, mid-July. Thank you. 

So you don’t foresee, then, any MILCON requests—— 

General SCHWARTZ. No. 

Mr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Tied into that need for fiscal year 

2010? 

General SCHWARTZ. If there is anything—yes, sir, if there is anything that we didn’t get in that initial site survey, it will be in 

2011. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

General SCHWARTZ. Part of the decision process was minimizing 

MILCON requirements. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Okay. 

BASE REALIGNMENT AND CLOSURE

My final question deals with BRAC. I am constantly learning 

new aspects of BRAC. Let me just hypothetically say you are at one 

installation, and BRAC 2005 moves you to another installation. 

The BRAC process itself didn’t necessarily require the Department of Defense, did it, to replace hangar for hangar, facility for 

facility? I mean, for example, you could have X number of aircraft 

with hangars at your present site in some location in the world or 

in the country—say it is CONUS—and then you are asked to move 

to another location. 


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Does the BRAC process, by requirement, have to replace that 

same number of hangars? Or could you end up being—whether it 

is hangars or whether it is other facilities, if we were fully funding 

BRAC, you could still end up short facilities that you need. Is that 

my understanding? 

General SCHWARTZ. Well, I can only—and Del probably can give 

you the expert advice on this—but in my personal experience, when 

we were at Scott Air Force Base at U.S. Transportation Command 

and one of the BRAC moves was the Army component to U.S. 

Transportation Command—it is called the Surface Deployment and 

Distribution Command—and relocated from three spots in Virginia 

to Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General SCHWARTZ. That was a fully-funded initiative, but the 

definition of that initiative took some negotiation. You know, there 

is some push-and-pull involved in that. And all I can tell you is that we ended up with an $84 million 

facility at Scott Air Force Base for the new Army command and 

some growth that we had within U.S. Transportation Command 

that was quite satisfactory. 

And, Del, would you like to expand on that? 

General EULBERG. Yes, sir, if I might. Sir, relative to the BRAC 

process, as you know, when we worked with the commission and 

developed the recommendations for BRAC, it is done with a very 

small planning staff, and they make assumptions to the best of 

their ability. 

But one of the fundamental assumptions is, it is not a one-forone ‘‘build here, move there’’ or ‘‘move here and replicate.’’ It is 

based on capacity. 

And so the services spend a lot of time analyzing and providing 

input to say, ‘‘What is the capacity of this particular base to accept 

a new mission?’’ So that analysis is quite rigorous. However, it is 

based on assumptions. 

And, as General Schwartz mentioned, whenever the final list is 

released, we go out and actually then begin the detailed site surveys. And that is where you begin to actually leverage some great 

ideas. 

And I was personally involved with U.S. TRANSCOM and the 

consolidation efforts there. And a lot of great ideas came forward 

as a result of that to make it even more effective. 

And so bottom line is that is why we have—and I appreciate the 

Congress’s support on this—BRAC is not line-item managed, per 

se, like the MILCON budget. And that gives the Services some 

flexibility to leverage great ideas and to put the funding where it 

is most needed. 

But as a general rule, the business plans as developed are fully 

funded. And there is some give-and-take, but—— 

Mr. EDWARDS. And to be clear, the definition of fully funded 

might mean that you have some unfunded needs when you move 

to a new installation? For example, you are doing maintenance on 

aircraft outside. That is not a good idea in most parts of the country, so that, in effect, BRAC—we are trying—the point I am trying 

to get to, we are trying to take lessons learned from BRAC so we 

can apply those to the future. 


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So am I correct in understanding that maybe one of the things 

Congress should do is look at the projected BRAC costs and maybe 

question whether you are really building all the hangars you need 

at the new station? You can call it fully funded, that is semantics. 

It is not truly fully funded in the real world outside of Washington, DC, if you have needs, basic needs, hangar space, administrative space, other things? 

General EULBERG. Sir, you are fully funded relative to the business plans and the assumptions made at the time, fully funded. 

And as you rightfully point out, one—as I mentioned, there are 

some great ideas under—General Schwartz, when he was 

USTRANSCOM commander, came up with good ideas on how to 

consolidate a number of functions. Those were different assumptions than just moving people, so it required additional funds. And 

so we did an internal process. 

But you highlight a great point, if the process was a little more 

open—because this is a multiyear effort. And as you move major 

units around, you discover things that weren’t part of the business 

plan up front. 

And I will give you just a real simple example. You move an 

Army unit to a base that requires a whole motor pool complex. So 

your road structure, your gates have to be realigned. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. 

General EULBERG. Well, if you didn’t catch that up front, then 

you are going to have to give up mission facilities in order to provide the infrastructure. So if there was a way we could provide updates to Congress that would allow that process to be adjusted, 

without opening the entire BRAC legislation, it would be most 

helpful. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you for that, that insight. Thank you. 

Mr. Dicks. 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Mr. DICKS. One of the issues that I know has been very important to you, General, is improving the way the Air Force handles 

nuclear weapons. I don’t know if you have talked about this or not 

yet. 

Mr. EDWARDS. We talked some about it. I asked him, but proceed—— 

Mr. DICKS. McChord Air Force Base took an exam up there and 

did very well on this nuclear issue. And I know that Secretary 

Gates has made this an ultimately high priority. 

So could you tell us a little bit about how you are approaching 

this, you and the secretary, to get this thing under control? 

General SCHWARTZ. Sir, there are three major components to it, 

but, again, to start at the strategic level. Over time, we lost focus 

on this mission, and there are lots of reasons for it, I mean, some 

of which are understandable. 

We had two wars going on in the U.S. Central Command Area 

of Responsibility. We had, within our Air Force being deployed, had 

greater acceptance and a sense of value than being deployed in 

place, like the folks who do the missile work in Montana, Wyoming, 

and North Dakota. And, frankly—and this was department-wide— 


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the whole notion of deterrence sort of had less traction than it has 

had in the past. 

And for those reasons and a number of others, we, frankly, got 

a little too casual. We lost the discipline and the focus needed to 

do this right. I mean, perfection is the standard, and good intentions are not good enough in this mission area. You have to perform. 

So one of the things we did, Congressman Dicks, was to re-emphasize the cultural piece of this, compliance. You know, you don’t 

want to stifle imagination or stifle innovation, but there are some 

things in the Air Force where you do it the Air Force way. And that 

is certainly true in the nuclear realm. So that was one part. 

The other part was establishing this command we spoke of earlier of the Global Strike Command. Global Strike Command will 

consolidate all the nuclear parts, operational pieces of the Air 

Force, into one organization, both the missile piece and the bomber 

piece. It will have a single three-star commander who will be responsible and accountable for nuclear readiness. 

Mr. DICKS. So you are going to bring all the weapons there, all 

the missiles—not the missiles. They are in the silos. 

General SCHWARTZ. Right, right. And—— 

Mr. DICKS. But there are some—— 

General SCHWARTZ. And the wings, and the operations, the folks 

that do the nuclear operations, both in the missile wings and the 

bomber wings, will be subordinate to this major command. 

The second piece of this was recognizing that there was a 

sustainment part to this nuclear business, as well as the operations. We had sustainment distributed in four commands in the 

Air Force. Bad idea. 

So we consolidated that, as well, in an organization called the 

Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. And the end result now is that you have one accountable party 

on the operations side, one accountable party on the sustainment 

side, and their two belly buttons are very close together. They are 

the folks that will keep us pristine in the nuclear mission. 

Mr. DICKS. There weren’t any issues, really, with the missiles—— 

General SCHWARTZ. No. 

Mr. DICKS [continuing]. The silo-based missiles? 

General SCHWARTZ. No, sir. There was not. This was a process, 

procedures and compliance issue with respect to—one of the occasions, you will recall, we moved weapons from Minot Air Force 

Base to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana—— 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

General SCHWARTZ [continuing]. And lost track of them. Not a 

good thing. And then the second incident had to do with what we 

call—it is—I forget the exact name. In other words, these are nuclear-related materials, but they are not nuclear themselves, that 

this was the thing about the fuses that went to Taiwan, you may 

recall. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

General SCHWARTZ. They weren’t nuclear themselves, but they 

were related to a weapon. And so, you know, they get the same attention, except this time. Well, no more of that. 


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And in another example of what we have done, over time, we allowed the Defense Logistics Agency to take over some of the responsibility for logistics oversight of that material. No more. We 

are bringing it back into the Air Force at two dedicated facilities 

at Ogden Air Logistics Center, at Hill Air Force Base, and at Tinker Air Logistics Center in Oklahoma City. 

And we are managing all that ourselves now, not contracting out 

to anybody else. We are accountable. We are going to do it. 

Those are the major features, sir, of how we are going about to 

rectify the problems and to sustain the culture that we need. 

Mr. DICKS. Did the Air Force do this by itself? Or did it have 

oversight from the Department of Defense? 

General SCHWARTZ. These were largely internal initiatives which 

certainly were vetted all the way up to the Secretary of the Air 

Force and brought into by the Secretary of Defense. And, incidentally, there were a couple of outside panels, including the Schlesinger panel, that I am sure you are aware of—— 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

General SCHWARTZ. They vetted this, as well, and indicated that 

they thought this was a sound strategy. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. Wamp, do you have any additional questions? 

I have no further questions, so, General Schwartz, thank you 

again for being here today and your leadership. 

General Eulberg, we hope we got you out early enough to go back 

and help your wife pack up boxes. I don’t know what is worse, 

packing boxes at home or testifying before Congress. But thanks to 

your 36 years of service. And we wish you all the best, and Godspeed in the years ahead. 

And we will stand adjourned. 

[Questions for the record submitted by Chairman Edwards:] 

INFRASTRUCTURE FOOTPRINT

Your ‘‘20/20’’ plan to reduce both footprint and installation funding requirements 

20 percent by 2020 indicates that the Air Force has an excess of infrastructure. 

Question. Do you believe that the Air Force has an excess infrastructure footprint? 

Answer. Yes, the results of initial space utilization surveys in several major commands indicate the Air Force has excess infrastructure footprint. The Air Force is 

proceeding with standardized service-wide space utilization surveys to more completely describe our infrastructure utilization. The estimated completion date of 

these surveys is the end of fiscal year 2010. 

Your ‘‘20/20’’ plan to reduce both footprint and installation funding requirements 

20 percent by 2020 indicates that the Air Force has an excess of infrastructure. 

Question. If so, why did BRAC fail to reduce this excess? 

Answer. The Air Force fully intended to reduce excess infrastructure when it recommended the closure of ten installations (including three active duty installations: 

Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico; Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota; and 

Onizuka Air Force Station, California) and the realignment of sixty-two other installations to the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission. However, during 

their deliberations and in its report to the President, the BRAC Commission altered 

the Air Force recommendation and kept two of the three active duty and many of 

the Reserve component installations open and fully manned. 

Your ‘‘20/20’’ plan to reduce both footprint and installation funding requirements 

20 percent by 2020 indicates that the Air Force has an excess of infrastructure. 

Question. When you say that you plan to reduce ‘‘resources required’’ for installations, what specific Air Force accounts and activities are you looking at? 


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Answer. When the Air Force plans to reduce ‘‘resources required’’ for installations, 

the Air Force is specifically referring to reduced costs associated with facilities operations, facilities sustainment and facilities restoration and modernization. 

Your ‘‘20/20’’ plan to reduce both footprint and installation funding requirements 

20 percent by 2020 indicates that the Air Force has an excess of infrastructure. 

Question. Does your budget assume the savings leading to this 20 percent reduction by 2020? 

Answer. The Air Force budget request does not reflect savings based on the ‘‘20/ 

20 by 2020’’ plan. The ‘‘20/20 by 2020’’ plan is an acknowledgement of excess inventory and the lack of operations and maintenance funding to properly care for all of 

it. Over the past few years, the Air Force’s budget has assumed greater risk in infrastructure funding as it moved operations and maintenance to fund the recapitalization of our weapons systems. As a result of these funding reductions, the Air 

Force established the ‘‘20/20 by 2020’’ goal as part of the 2008 Air Force Civil Engineer Strategic Plan. The goal is to offset the reduction in funds available for installation support activities by achieving efficiencies and reducing by 20 percent the Air 

Force physical plant that requires funds by 2020. 

AIR SOVEREIGNTY ALERT

The GAO released a report this year raising concerns about the Air Force’s management of the Air Sovereignty Alert (ASA) mission. The GAO found that the Air 

Force had failed to treat ASA as a ‘‘steady state’’ mission for the purposes of planning and budgeting in accordance with DoD guidance. The GAO further found that 

45 percent of ASA unit commanders identified ‘‘facilities’’ as a significant factor affecting their ability to perform this mission. 

Question. Has the Air Force identified all of the facility requirements needed to 

support this mission? 

Answer. There are 18 Air Sovereignty Alert locations. Two of those locations will 

transition to the F–22 aircraft and four of those locations will transition to the F– 

15 Golden Eagles (F–15s with electronically scanned radar, infrared search and 

track, etc.). The decision on the other 12 locations is not final, but it looks like they 

should be F–35 locations, provided there is a high enough production rate in the 

program. At this point in time, we are addressing our facility issues through our 

standard military construction processes. Projects proposed in support of these sites 

compete against other existing military construction requirements on an annual 

basis for funding. 

The GAO released a report this year raising concerns about the Air Force’s management of the Air Sovereignty Alert (ASA) mission. The GAO found that the Air 

Force had failed to treat ASA as a ‘‘steady state’’ mission for the purposes of planning and budgeting in accordance with DoD guidance. The GAO further found that 

45 percent of ASA unit commanders identified ‘‘facilities’’ as a significant factor affecting their ability to perform this mission. 

Question. Has the Air Force identified all of the facility requirements needed to 

support this mission? 

Answer. No. The Air Force developed an Air Sovereignty Alert site activation 

guide identifying recommended facilities standards, but a comprehensive study to 

assess the facility requirements has not yet been undertaken at existing sites 

against these recommended standards. 

The GAO released a report this year raising concerns about the Air Force’s management of the Air Sovereignty Alert (ASA) mission. The GAO found that the Air 

Force had failed to treat ASA as a ‘‘steady state’’ mission for the purposes of planning and budgeting in accordance with DoD guidance. The GAO further found that 

45 percent of ASA unit commanders identified ‘‘facilities’’ as a significant factor affecting their ability to perform this mission. 

Question. How much MILCON is requested in the FY10 budget for ASA facilities? 

Answer. There are two projects supporting the Air Sovereignty Alert mission in 

the fiscal year 2010 Air Force military construction program. The munitions storage 

area at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland has one active Air Force project and one 

Air National Guard project which both support the ASA mission at a total cost of 

$23.3 million. 

AIR FORCE ROAD MAP

The GAO released a report this year raising concerns about the Air Force’s management of the Air Sovereignty Alert (ASA) mission. The GAO found that the Air 

Force had failed to treat ASA as a ‘‘steady state’’ mission for the purposes of planning and budgeting in accordance with DoD guidance. The GAO further found that 


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45 percent of ASA unit commanders identified ‘‘facilities’’ as a significant factor affecting their ability to perform this mission. 

Question. Has the Air Force updated this document, and if not, does it intend to 

update this document to reflect changes in aircraft procurement since that date? 

Answer. The Air Force generated ‘‘Road Maps’’ for 2009, but the data has not been 

updated to reflect fiscal year 2010 changes. Currently, the Air Force is finalizing 

the data for the force structure announcement which will reflect changes in manpower and aircraft, State by State. The announcement is scheduled to be released 

later this summer. 


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W I T N E S S E S 

Page 

Appel, Stanley .......................................................................................................... 784 

Arny, Wayne............................................................................................... 237, 558, 1284 

Baker, Kerry ............................................................................................................ 899 

Barnes, Joe ............................................................................................................... 728 

Billings, Kevin .......................................................................................................... 269 

Blake, Carl ............................................................................................................... 854 

Bottene, Cinzia ......................................................................................................... 791 

Campbell, Patrick .................................................................................................... 778 

Casey, General George W., Jr ................................................................................. 1061 

Casscells, S. Ward ................................................................................................... 503 

Cohoon, Barbara ...................................................................................................... 674 

Conway, General James T ...................................................................................... 1114 

Cox, Timothy C ........................................................................................................ 962 

Craddock, General Bantz J ..................................................................................... 374 

Daigh, John Jr ......................................................................................................... 129 

Eastin, Kenneth D ............................................................................................... 248, 577 

Ferguson, Kathleen ................................................................................................. 600 

Finn, Belinda ........................................................................................................... 149 

Greene, Chief Judge William P., Jr ....................................................................... 918 

Hale, Robert F .......................................................................................................... 1276 

Houlemard, Michael ................................................................................................ 801 

Jones, Rick ............................................................................................................... 742 

Keating, Admiral Timothy J ................................................................................... 317 

Kelley, Raymond ...................................................................................................... 867 

Kelly, Heather .......................................................................................................... 713 

Kent, Sergeant Major Carlton W ........................................................................... 29 

Kussman, Michael J ................................................................................................ 488 

Maupin, John E., Jr ................................................................................................. 757 

McKinley, Chief Master Sergeant Rodney J ......................................................... 62 

Melvin, Valerie ......................................................................................................... 152 

Needham, Christopher ............................................................................................ 881 

Nicholson, Brigadier General John W ................................................................... 930 

Nolan, Stephan J ..................................................................................................... 693 

Penn, B.J............................................................................................................... 259, 589 

Petraeus, General David H ..................................................................................... 987 

Preston, Sergeant Major Kenneth O ...................................................................... 7 

Redmond, Ben .......................................................................................................... 814 

Regan, Maureen ....................................................................................................... 150 

Robertson, Steve ...................................................................................................... 829 

Roman-Rodriguez, Jesse .......................................................................................... 722 

Roughead, Admiral Gary ........................................................................................ 1104 

Salt, Terrence C ....................................................................................................... 941 

Schwartz, General Norton A ................................................................................... 1363 


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Sharp, General Walter L ......................................................................................... 329 

Shinseki, the Honorable Eric .................................................................................. 1188 

Streim, Joel E .......................................................................................................... 661 

Toews, Galen B ........................................................................................................ 654 

West, Chief Master Petty Officer Rick D ............................................................... 48 

Williamson, Randall B ............................................................................................ 130 


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I N D E X 

QUALITY OF LIFE 

Page 

Accessibility and Availability of Healthcare .......................................................... 85 

Army Family Action Plan ....................................................................................... 104 

Army Medical Action Plan ...................................................................................... 119 

Basic Allowance for Housing .................................................................................. 107 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 1 

Cross-Cultural Exchange—Horn of Africa ............................................................. 112 

Cross-Cultural Training .......................................................................................... 100 

Demobilization Process ............................................................................................ 96 

Education Benefits ................................................................................................... 93 

Family Housing, Aging ............................................................................................ 109 

Family Programs ..................................................................................................... 120 

Financial Assistance Programs .............................................................................. 98 

Guard and Reserve Morale and Cohesion ............................................................. 84 

Guard and Reserve Quality of Life Issues ............................................................. 96 

Guard and Reserve, Employer Support for ........................................................... 97 

Healthcare ................................................................................................................ 103 

Homeowners Assistance Program .......................................................................... 89 

Homeport Ashore ..................................................................................................... 99 

Housing Entitlements, Single Soldier .................................................................... 126 

Housing for Redeploying Soldiers ........................................................................... 124 

Housing Privatization .............................................................................................. 111 

Iraq, Rebuilding ....................................................................................................... 103 

Kent, Prepared Statement of Sergeant Major Carlton W .................................... 30 

Kent, Statement of Sergeant Major Carlton W ..................................................... 29 

McKinley, Prepared Statement of Chief Master Sergeant Rodney J .................. 65 

McKinley, Statement of Chief Master Sergeant Rodney J ................................... 62 

Mental Health Counseling ...................................................................................... 86 

MilCon ...................................................................................................................... 97

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ............................................................................. 85 

Preston, Prepared Statement of Sergeant Major Kenneth O ............................... 10 

Preston, Statement of Sergeant Major Kenneth O ............................................... 7 

Quality of Life Issues, Top ...................................................................................... 106 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 2 

RCI Housing ............................................................................................................. 123 

Recruiting ................................................................................................................. 82 

Soldier Fitness, Comprehensive ............................................................................. 119 

Suicide Prevention ................................................................................................. 92, 118 

Suicide Rates ............................................................................................................ 81 

TRICARE Provider .................................................................................................. 115 

TRICARE .................................................................................................................. 104 

Web-Based Psychological Counseling ..................................................................... 91 


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West, Prepared Statement of Chief Master Petty Officer Rick D ....................... 50 

West, Statement of Chief Master Petty Officer Rick D ........................................ 48 

REVIEW OF VA CHALLENGES 

Accountability Goals ................................................................................................ 162 

Audits ....................................................................................................................... 137 

Backlog of Benefits Claims ..................................................................................... 222 

Benefits Claims Processing ..................................................................................... 209 

Budget Estimates .................................................................................................... 136 

Chairman, Statement of the ................................................................................... 127 

Claims Processors, Hiring of ................................................................................... 161 

Community-Based Outpatient Clinics, Vet Centers, and Contracted Care ........ 211 

Community-Based Outreach Clinics .......................................... 135, 139, 143, 147, 223 

Daigh, Statement of John D ................................................................................... 129 

Data Security ........................................................................................................... 162 

DoD/VA Computable Data ...................................................................................... 213 

DoD/VA Transition to Care ..................................................................................... 212 

Electronic Medical Records ..................................................................................... 144 

Enrollment ............................................................................................................... 159 

Federal Information Security Management .......................................................... 215 

Fee-for-Service Care ................................................................................................ 164 

Finn, Statement of Belinda J ................................................................................. 149 

G.I. Bill, New........................................................................................................ 160, 209 

Health Care Center Facilities ................................................................................. 224 

Homeless Veterans .................................................................................................. 140 

Identity Theft ........................................................................................................... 137 

Interoperability ........................................................................................................ 155 

Joint Incentive Fund ............................................................................................... 225 

Melvin, Prepared Statement of Valerie C .............................................................. 193 

Melvin, Statement of Valerie C .............................................................................. 152 

Mental Health Resources, Access to ...................................................................... 225 

Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panels........................................................ 158, 164 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ............................................................................. 133 

Prepared Statement of Office of Inspector General .............................................. 166 

Prescription Drugs ................................................................................................... 153 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 128 

Regan, Statement of Maureen T ............................................................................ 150 

Telemedicine......................................................................................................... 138, 147 

Transition Assistance for OEF/OIF Veterans ....................................................... 210 

VA Information Technology Risks .......................................................................... 214 

VA Medical Procedure Problems ............................................................................ 134 

VBA Claims Processing Operations ....................................................................... 213 

Williamson, Prepared Statement of Randall B ..................................................... 177 

Williamson, Statement of Randall B ...................................................................... 130 

FAMILY AND TROOP HOUSING 

Air Force Housing .................................................................................................... 295 

Arny, Prepared Statement of Wayne ..................................................................... 239 

Arny, Statement of Wayne ...................................................................................... 237 

Barracks........................................................................................................ 290, 296, 308 

Billings, Prepared Statement of Kevin W ............................................................. 271 

Billings, Statement of Kevin W .............................................................................. 269 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 235 

Committee Support .................................................................................................. 293 


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Eastin, Prepared Statement of Kenneth D ............................................................ 250 

Eastin, Statement of Kenneth D ............................................................................ 248 

Eglin AFB Housing Privatization ........................................................................... 284 

Family Housing ........................................................................................................ 307 

Financial Challenges ............................................................................................... 289 

Fort Huachuca/Yuma Proving Ground RCI ........................................................... 308 

FSRM Funding for Barracks .................................................................................. 312 

Government-Owned Family Housing ..................................................................... 312 

Grow the Force ......................................................................................................... 286 

Guaranteed Loss ...................................................................................................... 303 

Guard and Reserve .................................................................................................. 310 

Homeowners Assistance Program .......................................................................... 300 

Housing Privatization Standardization ................................................................. 283 

Housing Services ...................................................................................................... 308 

Housing, Inadequate ............................................................................................... 287 

Housing, Privatized ................................................................................................. 282 

Investments .............................................................................................................. 286 

Korea Housing ......................................................................................................... 302 

Marine Corps Barracks Modernization/Growing the Force ................................. 305 

Market Liquidity ...................................................................................................... 302 

Navy Unaccompanied Housing ............................................................................... 304 

Non-Military on Base Housing ............................................................................... 283 

Penn, Prepared Statement of B.J ........................................................................... 261 

Penn, Statement of B.J ........................................................................................... 259 

Pinon Canyon ........................................................................................................... 284 

Privatization of Army Lodging ............................................................................... 312 

Ranking Minority Member ...................................................................................... 235 

Standard Housing, Dollar Amount Needed ........................................................... 297 

Stimulus Funding .................................................................................................... 287 

Warrior Transition ................................................................................................... 311 

Wounded Warrior Barracks .................................................................................... 306 

PACIFIC COMMAND 

Accompanied Tours to Korea............................................................................... 361, 364 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 315 

Command-Sponsored Families ............................................................................... 371 

Guam Buildup .......................................................................................................... 365 

Guam ........................................................................................................................ 357 

Humphreys Housing Opportunity Program .......................................................... 370 

Keating, Prepared Statement of Admiral Timothy J ............................................ 320 

Keating, Statement of Admiral Timothy J ............................................................ 317 

Korea ......................................................................................................................... 356 

Korea, Force Levels in ............................................................................................. 371 

Naval Postgraduate School and Cooperation with Other Countries on Search 

and Rescue ............................................................................................................ 354 

Naval Postgraduate School Diversity ..................................................................... 353 

North Korea and Oceanic Cooperation .................................................................. 351 

Nuclear Powered Aircraft in Japan ........................................................................ 355 

Okinawa to Guam, Moving Troops from ................................................................ 348 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 315 

Realignment, Status of ............................................................................................ 370 

Schools ...................................................................................................................... 362 

Sharp, Prepared Statement of General Walter L ................................................. 332 

Sharp, Statement of General Walter L .................................................................. 329 


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South Pacific, Resources to the ............................................................................... 361 

U.S. Forces Korea Tour Normalization .................................................................. 348 

U.S. Dollar, Impact on the Value of ....................................................................... 359 

EUROPEAN COMMAND 

Afghanistan .................................................................................................. 467, 471, 474 

Ballistic Missile Defense—European Site .................................................................. 459 

Chairman, Statement of .............................................................................................. 373 

Command Structure at EUCOM................................................................................. 473 

Craddock, Prepared Statement of General Bantz J .................................................. 376 

Craddock, Statement of General Bantz J................................................................... 374 

DoD Education Needs in Europe ................................................................................ 475 

DoDEA Schools in Europe ........................................................................................... 482 

Economic Downturn ..................................................................................................... 461 

Force Levels/Demands in Europe................................................................................ 480 

Germany, Military Construction Implications in ...................................................... 453 

Infrastructure, Deployment and En Route................................................................. 483 

International Military Education in Training ........................................................... 458 

Missile Defense............................................................................................................. 485

NATO Contributions .................................................................................................... 463 

NATO Security Investment Program ......................................................................... 486 

NATO ............................................................................................................................ 470 

Privatized Housing/Quality of Life ............................................................................. 477 

Quality of Life ...................................................................................................... 455, 477 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 373 

Stabilization Corps .................................................................................................. 464 

Tajikistan ................................................................................................................. 476 

DOD/VA MEDICAL TRANSITION 

AHLTA—Upcoming Changes ................................................................................. 545 

Casscells, Prepared Statement of S. Ward ............................................................ 505 

Casscells, Statement of S. Ward ............................................................................. 503 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 487 

Congressioal Support ............................................................................................... 549 

Continuum of Care .................................................................................................. 540 

Disability Evaluation System Pilot Program..................................................... 530, 536 

DoD/VA Data Sharing—Interoperability ............................................................... 545 

DoD/VA Data Sharing ............................................................................................. 531 

DoD/VA Health Care Collaboration in Monterey .................................................. 547 

DoD/VA Medical Facilities ...................................................................................... 528 

Electronic Health Records ....................................................................................... 537 

Interoperability ........................................................................................................ 543 

Joint DoD/VA Facilities ........................................................................................... 534 

Kussman, Prepared Statement of Michael J ......................................................... 491 

Kussman, Statement of Michael J ......................................................................... 488 

Medical BRAC in the National Capital Region ..................................................... 532 

Mental Health Professionals ................................................................................... 546 

Mental Health .......................................................................................................... 529 

Network of Care Website ........................................................................................ 553 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 488 

Telemedicine ............................................................................................................ 543 

Warrior Transition Units ........................................................................................ 538 

Wounded Warriors/Military Families, Public Assistance to ................................ 552 


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BASE REALIGNMENT AND CLOSURE 

Arny, Prepared Statement of Wayne ..................................................................... 561 

Arny, Statement of Wayne ...................................................................................... 558 

Bethesda and Fort Belvoir, Congestion at ............................................................. 636 

Billings, Prepared Statement of Kevin W ............................................................. 602 

BRAC Acres Pending Disposal ............................................................................... 632 

BRAC Implementation ............................................................................................ 644 

BRAC Money ............................................................................................................ 628 

Brigade Combat Teams ........................................................................................... 621 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 555 

Cleanup ..................................................................................................................... 629 

COBRA.................................................................................................................. 626, 641

Communities, BRAC ............................................................................................ 619, 622 

Community Support and Quality of Life Projects ................................................. 644 

Cost Estimates for BRAC ........................................................................................ 613 

Defense Access Roads .............................................................................................. 643 

Discrete BRAC Actions ............................................................................................ 645 

Eastin, Prepared Statement of Kenneth D ............................................................ 579 

Eastin, Statement of Kenneth D ............................................................................ 577 

EDC ........................................................................................................................... 633 

Eglin AFB—Initial Joint Training Site for the Joint Strike Fighter .................. 641 

Eglin AFB—Relocation of the 7th Special Forces Group ..................................... 642 

Ferguson, Statement of Kathleen ........................................................................... 600 

Fiscal Year 2009 Army BRAC 2005 Construction Projects .................................. 646 

Fixed Deadline ......................................................................................................... 616 

Fort Detrick .............................................................................................................. 643 

Fort Ord .................................................................................................................... 617 

FUDS ........................................................................................................................ 638 

Impact Aid ................................................................................................................ 624 

Infrastructure ........................................................................................................... 618 

Joint Basing ............................................................................................................. 641 

Lessons Learned................................................................................................... 614, 625 

Milan Army Ammunition Plant .............................................................................. 644 

Milan Arsenal .......................................................................................................... 635 

Navy Business Plans ............................................................................................... 646 

Penn, Prepared Statement of B.J ........................................................................... 591 

Penn, Statement of B.J ........................................................................................... 589 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 556 

San Antonio Military Medical Center .................................................................... 641 

Savings and Reduction in Excess Infrastructure .................................................. 643 

Statutory BRAC Deadline ....................................................................................... 640 

Surveys and Investigations Report ........................................................................ 614 

Treasure Island ............................................................................................ 618, 632, 638 

Vision Center of Excellence .................................................................................... 634 

OUTSIDE WITNESSES 

Appel, Statement of Stanley ................................................................................... 784 

Baker, Statement of Kerry ...................................................................................... 899 

Barnes, Statement of Joe ........................................................................................ 728 

Blake, Statement of Carl ......................................................................................... 854 

Bottene, Statement of Cinzia .................................................................................. 791 

Campbell, Statement of Patrick ............................................................................. 778 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 653 

Cohoon, Statement of Barbara ............................................................................... 674 


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Houlemard, Statement of Michael ......................................................................... 801 

Jones, Statement of Rick ......................................................................................... 742 

Kelley, Statement of Raymond ............................................................................... 867 

Kelly, Statement of Heather ................................................................................... 713 

Maupin, Statement of John E., Jr .......................................................................... 757 

Needham, Statement of Christopher ..................................................................... 881 

Nolan, Statement of Stephen J ............................................................................... 693 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 653 

Redmond, Statement of Ben ................................................................................... 814 

Robertson, Statement of Steve ............................................................................... 829 

Roman-Rodriguez, Statement of Jesse ................................................................... 722 

Streim, Statement of Joel E .................................................................................... 661 

Toews, Statement of Galen B ................................................................................. 654 

COURT OF APPEALS 

Case Filings, Decrease in ........................................................................................ 930 

CAVC Courthouse, New .......................................................................................... 979 

CAVC ........................................................................................................................ 979 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 917 

Electronic Management/Electronic Case Filing System ....................................... 980 

Greene, Prepared Statement of Chief Judge William P., Jr ................................ 919 

Greene, Statement of Chief Judge William P., Jr ................................................. 918 

Judges, Increase in .................................................................................................. 930 

Ranking Minority Member ...................................................................................... 917 

Renovating Existing Building ................................................................................. 929 

AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSION 

American Battle Monuments Commission FY 2010 Budget Request ................. 981 

DoD Cemeterial Expenses/Arlington National Cemetery/FY 2010 Overcrowding ................................................................................................................ 981 

Foreign Currency Fluctuation Account .................................................................. 940 

Interpretive Techniques .......................................................................................... 938 

Nicholson, Prepared Statement of John W ............................................................ 933 

Nicholson, Statement of John W ............................................................................ 930 

Normandy Visitor Center ........................................................................................ 937 

Pointe du Hoc ........................................................................................................... 937 

Tomb of the Unknowns ........................................................................................... 982 

Total Cemetery Management System/Digitizing Records .................................... 982 

CEMETERIAL EXPENSES, ARMY 

Burial Expenses ....................................................................................................... 961 

Millenium Project .................................................................................................... 953 

Salt, Prepared Statement of Terrence C ................................................................ 943 

Salt, Statement of Terrence C ................................................................................ 941 

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier ................................................................................ 960 

ARMED FORCES RETIREMENT HOME 

Admission Criteria ................................................................................................... 983 

Cox, Prepared Statement of Timothy C ................................................................. 964 

Cox, Statement of Timothy C ................................................................................. 962 

Financial Stability ................................................................................................... 983 

Fraud and Abuse ..................................................................................................... 983 

Gulfport Facility ...................................................................................................... 978 

Homeless Veterans............................................................................................... 976, 977 


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Scott Dormitory Renovation (D.C. Campus) .......................................................... 982 

Waiting Lists ............................................................................................................ 976 

Washington, D.C. Campus ...................................................................................... 982 

Washington, D.C. Site, Revenues from .................................................................. 976 

CENTRAL COMMAND 

Afghanistan ...................................................................................................... 1034, 1044 

Afghanistan, Agriculture Potential ........................................................................ 1040 

Afghanistan, Illegal Drugs in ................................................................................. 1041 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 986 

India .......................................................................................................................... 1053 

Interagency Involvement ......................................................................................... 1043 

Iraq ........................................................................................................................... 1051 

Iraq, Drawdown of Troops ....................................................................................... 1053 

Kashmir .................................................................................................................... 1056 

Kyrgystan ................................................................................................................. 1052

Pakistan .................................................................................................................... 1051 

Petraeus, Prepared Statement of General David H .............................................. 992 

Petraeus, Statement of General David H .............................................................. 987 

Piracy ........................................................................................................................ 1041 

Ranking Minority Member ...................................................................................... 986 

Taliban ...................................................................................................................... 1038 

ARMY BUDGET 

Afghanistan and Pakistan ...................................................................................... 1097 

Afghanistan ...................................................................................................... 1084, 1086 

AFRICOM ................................................................................................................. 1100 

Army Funding Priorities ......................................................................................... 1083 

Army National Guard .............................................................................................. 1086 

Army Policy of Proselytizing ................................................................................... 1083 

Base Realignment and Closure....................................................................... 1081, 1087 

Brigade Combat Teams ........................................................................................... 1079 

Casey, Prepared Statement of General George W., Jr ......................................... 1065 

Casey, Statement of General George W., Jr .......................................................... 1061 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 1060 

Declining Construction Costs on Military Construction Projects, Impact of ...... 1082 

Hospitals ........................................................................................................... 1080, 1087 

IMET ......................................................................................................................... 1098 

Impact Aid ................................................................................................................ 1090

Iraq, Casualties in ................................................................................................... 1098 

Iraq, Drawdown of Troops in .................................................................................. 1090 

Joint Cargo Aircraft ................................................................................................. 1085 

Joint DoD/VA Clinic in Monterey, California ........................................................ 1082 

Language Training .................................................................................................. 1092 

Military Home Sales and Benefits ......................................................................... 1095 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 1060 

Sustainable Performance Ratio .............................................................................. 1081 

Unfunded Requirements ......................................................................................... 1080 

Unsolicited Assistance ............................................................................................. 1091 

Wounded Warriors in Afghanistan vs. Iraq, Evacuation Time ............................ 1094 

NAVY AND MARINE CORPS BUDGET 

Barracks............................................................................................................ 1181, 1182 

Blount Island ........................................................................................................... 1184 


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Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 1103 

Conway, Prepared Statement of General James T ............................................... 1116 

Conway, Statement of General James T ............................................................... 1114 

DDG–1000 ................................................................................................................ 1170 

DoD Health Care System Modernization .............................................................. 1174 

East Coast CVN Homeporting ................................................................................ 1182 

Education .................................................................................................................. 1179 

End Strength ............................................................................................................ 1182 

Guam....................................................................................................... 1166, 1175, 1183 

Housing, Inadequate ............................................................................................... 1130 

International Military Education Training Program ............................................ 1175 

Maintenance ............................................................................................................. 1178 

Morale, High Rate of Deployment Impact on ........................................................ 1172 

Naval Station Mayport, Homeporting Nuclear Carrier at ................................... 1131 

Navy Educational Institutions ................................................................................ 1171 

Outlying Landing Field for East Coast Carrier Landing Practice ...................... 1182 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 1103 

Roughead, Prepared Statement of Admiral Gary ................................................. 1106 

Roughead, Statement of Admiral Gary .................................................................. 1104 

S&R and FAO Education and Training ................................................................. 1169 

Stabilization and Reconstruction MOS .................................................................. 1168 

USS Hartford ........................................................................................................... 1178 

VETERANS AFFAIRS 

Advance Appropriation .................................................................................... 1228, 1232 

Advance Appropriations for VA Medical Care ...................................................... 1269 

Backlog ..................................................................................................................... 1224 

Cemeteries, Closing of ............................................................................................. 1242 

Cemeteries, VA ........................................................................................................ 1244 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 1185 

Chattanooga CBOC Report ..................................................................................... 1271 

Claims Adjudication ................................................................................................ 1235 

Claims Processing System, Hiring of Veterans in ................................................ 1240 

Construction Competition Pricing .......................................................................... 1256 

Departmental Administration ................................................................................ 1257 

Federal Recovery Coordinators ............................................................................... 1258 

Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center ........................................................................ 1220 

G.I. Bill ..................................................................................................................... 1239 

Health Care Innovation ........................................................................................... 1253 

Health Care Standards ........................................................................................... 1252 

HealtheVet Integrated Master Plan ....................................................................... 1265 

Homeless Veterans .................................................................................................. 1216 

Homelessness ........................................................................................................... 1227 

Information Security ............................................................................................... 1220 

Information Technology Procurement .................................................................... 1260 

Interoperability ........................................................................................................ 1214 

Jointness ................................................................................................................... 1233 

Medical Care for Veterans in Rural Locations ...................................................... 1222 

Medical Research ..................................................................................................... 1259 

Mental Health .......................................................................................................... 1236 

National Guard and Reserve Benefits ................................................................... 1246 

NCA’s Outreach Plan .............................................................................................. 1243 

Office of Information and Technology Hiring Freeze ............................................ 1264 

Post-9/11 GI Bill Implementation .......................................................................... 1271 


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Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 1186 

Rural Health Outreach and Delivery ..................................................................... 1270 

Service Dogs ............................................................................................................. 1255 

Shinseki, Prepared Statement of the Honorable Eric .......................................... 1191 

Shinseki, Statement of the Honorable Eric ........................................................... 1188 

Specialty Mental Health Care and Rural Health Outreach and Delivery .......... 1270 

Suicide Hotline ......................................................................................................... 1241 

Sustainability and Energy ...................................................................................... 1257 

Technology Acquisition Center ............................................................................... 1263 

Transformation Review ........................................................................................... 1257 

Transformation ............................................................................ 1212, 1219, 1230, 1268 

VA Benefits Claims Backlog ................................................................................... 1270 

VA Information Technology Risks .......................................................................... 1269 

VA IT Staffing .......................................................................................................... 1270 

VA/DoD Interoperability Plan ................................................................................ 1272 

Vouchers ................................................................................................................... 1248 

BUDGET OVERVIEW 

AFRICOM ................................................................................................................. 1342 

Allies, Support to ..................................................................................................... 1330 

Arny, Prepared Statement of Wayne ..................................................................... 1287 

Arny, Statement of Wayne ...................................................................................... 1284 

Base Realignment and Closure Savings ................................................................ 1358 

Base Realignment and Closure....................................................................... 1327, 1360 

Base Realignment and Closure, Lesson Learned .................................................. 1339 

Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction Studies ............................................ 1344 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 1275 

Defense Language Institute .................................................................................... 1346 

FYDP................................................................................................................. 1326, 1328

Guard and Reserve Funding ................................................................................... 1358 

Hale, Prepared Statement of Robert F .................................................................. 1280 

Hale, Statement of Robert F ................................................................................... 1276 

Homeowners Assistance Program .......................................................................... 1332 

Housing, Inadequate ............................................................................................... 1350 

Incremental Funding ............................................................................................... 1347 

Inflation .................................................................................................................... 1359 

Joint Cargo Aircraft ................................................................................................. 1354 

Mayport Naval Air Station ..................................................................................... 1342 

Missile Defense ........................................................................................................ 1359 

Overseas Contingency Operations Request ........................................................... 1360 

Overseas Health Care ............................................................................................. 1347 

Ranking Minority Member ...................................................................................... 1275 

School Construction Funding .................................................................................. 1336 

Workforce ................................................................................................................. 1329

AIR FORCE BUDGET 

Base Realignment and Closure .............................................................................. 1400 

Chairman, Statement of .......................................................................................... 1361 

Contractor Utilization, Small and Disadvantaged ................................................ 1393 

Donations .................................................................................................................. 1397 

Engineering .............................................................................................................. 1396 

Guard and Reserve Components ............................................................................ 1387 

Housing, Inadequate ............................................................................................... 1383 

Infrastructure Footprint .......................................................................................... 1404 


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Joint Basing ............................................................................................................. 1388 

Joint Cargo Aircraft ................................................................................................. 1391 

Lackland Air Force Base ......................................................................................... 1399 

Modular Construction .............................................................................................. 1389 

Moody Air Force Base, Georgia .............................................................................. 1392 

Nuclear Weapons ..................................................................................................... 1402 

Nuclear-Related Facilities ....................................................................................... 1394 

Ranking Minority Member, Statement of .............................................................. 1362 

Schwartz, Prepared Statement of General Norton A ........................................... 1365 

Schwartz, Statement of General Norton A ............................................................ 1363 

Æ 


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