Much of the senior civilian and military leadership attended, and Dr. Hamre, the Deputy Secretary, presided. Anyone who doubts Secretary Cohen s commitment to realizing his goal of building a seamless Total Force needs to take a closer look at what has happened since September 1997. Integration is being taken seriously at the highest levels of the Department. Major Generals Davidson and McIntosh have begun advising Chairman Shelton on Guard and Reserve matters. Their talent, experience and energy will help advance Total Force integration by giving the Reserve components new voices at the senior levels of the Department.
Integration continues on the resourcing front as well.
The development of the FY99 budget marked unprecedented involvement by the Reserve components. For the first time, each Reserve component Chief was invited to participate with senior DoD leaders, including Secretary Cohen and Deputy Secretary Hamre, in the deliberations of the Program Review Group and the Defense Resources Board. This participation has had a very positive impact on the process. It resulted in adjustments in Service budgets to increase readiness funding for the Reserve Components. The Services are now working hard on developing their respective POMs Program Objectives Memoranda which lay out their proposed resourcing priorities and levels for the next six years, FY 2000-FY2005.Both the Army Guard and the Air Guard are integrated into this process with their own respective parent Service.