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SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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House of Representatives,
Committee on National Security,
Military Readiness Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Monday, March 3, 1997.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:40 a.m., at Quesada Hall, 115 Thompson Street, Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, VA, Hon. Herbert Bateman (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HERBERT H. BATEMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. BATEMAN. The subcommittee will come to order.
I would like to welcome everyone here to this Readiness Subcommittee at this historic Air Force base. Conducting a readiness hearing at Langley is significant in that readiness can be seen, heard, and felt firsthand here. It is also significant that many of the military services operational bases are nearby.
I believe it is important to get out in the field and hear from individuals at all levels who are charged with making readiness work. We are here today, not so much to ask questions, but to listen to witnesses give their own personal perspectives on current readiness in their units.
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There are several reasons why it is important for members of the committee to travel to the field to hear about readiness.
As many will remember, 2 years ago, while the Pentagon leadership was claiming that U.S. forces were more ready than they had ever been, the committee found indications of a serious readiness problem in the military services. At that time, the committee determined the services were in the early stages of a long-term systemic readiness problem that was not confined to any one quarter of a fiscal year.
Some of the indicators that led us to an awareness of these problems were that all of the F–15E and two-thirds of the F–15C air crews based in Europe needed waivers from training requirements. Two of the 6th Army contingency corps units, the most ready force, reported significantly reduced readiness ratings; and 28 Navy and Marine Corps tactical aviation squadrons had to ground more than half of their aircraft during September 1994.
Although anecdotal, the committee believed these indicators were indeed warning signs that could not be ignored.
In response to these concerns, the Clinton administration began taking heed of these warning signs. They have given significant new attention to protecting military readiness as one of their primary objectives in the formulation of subsequent budget requests, including the fiscal year 1998 budget request that is currently before the Congress.
In an attempt to measure the administration's success these past 2 years, the committee staff conducted a comprehensive readiness review during the fall of this last year. In addition, I and a number of other Members of Congress have been meeting with members of the military services over the past few months.
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The preliminary results of the study and the meetings indicate that readiness is not improving and may be in a decline. In this context, it is essential that the Readiness Subcommittee test the Pentagon claim that the U.S. military is ''As ready as we have ever been.''
One of the possible reasons there is such a disparity in the established assessment of readiness by our military leaders and a more accurate real-world assessment of readiness may be found in the way we measure readiness.
The system currently in place to measure readiness does not take into account many of the indicators that give us a more accurate readiness picture. Some of these indicators may be the amount of time individuals are away from home, the stresses of working longer and harder and doing more with less, the quantity and quality of military training and other measurements that are not currently used to assess readiness.
The subcommittee will further review these concerns at a hearing later this month on how to improve in the way we measure readiness. Readiness is a perishable commodity. By the time you find out it is broken, it is already too late.
I believe this hearing will be one of the most important hearings of the subcommittee during this year. It is important that members of the subcommittee hear what is really going on from a cross section of our military service members who are in the know on these issues.
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Our aim today is to hear from those that have to deal with the day-to-day challenges with keeping readiness at an acceptable level. We are very fortunate to have three panels of individuals representing the four military services and from all levels of command and supervision.
The first panel is composed of commanders from major operational commands to give us their views for the big-picture point of view. The second panel will have commanders of individual operational units, some that have just returned from a deployment or getting ready to deploy and/or have been supporting several deployments recently. Our third panel will consist of senior noncommissioned officers from units represented on panel No. 2.
I am convinced that the views of senior NCO's, which many consider the backbone of any operational unit, are essential to an accurate assessment of readiness at the working level. I look forward to their unique perspective on these important issues.
Before we get into the hearing from our panel, I would like to yield to my good friend and neighbor, the Honorable Norman Sisisky, who is the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Readiness, for any statement he would like to make.
STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN SISISKY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. SISISKY. I join with Chairman Bateman in welcoming you to this hearing at this historic installation today. Your views on the readiness of forces you currently serve with are very important to the subcommittee as it seeks to perform its duties.
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I want to thank the Chairman for including this view from the field in the readiness hearings we will be participating in this session. Your views will help us to further understand the impact and implications of many decisions and actions taken that impact on force readiness.
I also want to take this opportunity to welcome my fellow subcommittee members to this region.
To date, we have heard the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testify before the committee that readiness remains their No. 1 priority.
I also note that readiness expenditures per capita is at an all time high, even higher than during the gulf-war era.
Force readiness is indeed a complex subject, and there are many issues that the subcommittee will address this session that will help clarify some of the questions and concerns expressed by the chairman.
I personally and particularly am interested in understanding the impact of some of these actions taken, and decisions made, that drive readiness. They include: The privatization initiatives being undertaken within the department that directly impact on readiness, the impact of the drawdown on the civilian work force on the ability of the maintainers to keep the equipment ready, and the adequacy of the budget topline as it relates to readiness matters.
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While I do not expect you to address these concerns for the department, you should be aware that they do impact on your unit's ability to perform; and I expect you to address these issues in subsequent hearings scheduled with the service Chiefs, service Secretaries, and other personnel responsible for making decisions and taking actions affecting readiness.
In that light, I look forward to hearing you address matters relating to the availability of noncommissioned officers and what you are doing to grow them, the impact of the drawdown of the civilian work force on borrowed military manpower, the availability of adequate resources at your level to perform the training and maintenance functions you must accomplish to sustain your military capabilities, and what can we do to assist you in achieving your readiness goals.
I thank you for coming. Your testimony here today will help us understand more about these pressing issues and, thereby, help ensure that we preserve our Nation's security. I look forward to hearing your testimony.
Mr. BATEMAN. Our first panel of witnesses consists of Gen. Richard E. Hawley, commander, Air Combat Command; Adm. J. Paul Reason, commander in chief, Atlantic Fleet; Lt. Gen. John M. Keane, commanding general, XVIII Airborne Corps; and Lt. Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, USMC.
Good morning, gentlemen. All of us on the committee are grateful for your attendance this morning and look forward to hearing the statements, and then perhaps we will have some questions for you.
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Thank you. General Hawley, I suspect we ought to turn to you as the host for our meeting.
STATEMENT OF GEN. RICHARD E. HAWLEY, USAF, COMMANDER, AIR COMBAT COMMAND
General HAWLEY. All right, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for coming to discuss readiness with us this morning. Obviously, it is a core issue for any operational commander. We thank you for this opportunity to discuss the current state of readiness in Air Combat Command. We are a command of about 120,000 of this Nation's finest young men and women, both uniformed and civilian. We operate about 1,500 active duty aircraft. We fly 43,000 hours each month and maintain 18 major installations in the United States, plus Howard Air Force Base in Panama and Lajes Field in the Azores.
For many years, our people have maintained continuous deployments to Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, Iceland, and Greece. Since the gulf war, we have added large commitments in southwest Asia and Turkey, as well as recurring commitments to Italy and France in support of the United Nations and NATO operations in the former Yugoslav Republic.
The strength of this command rests squarely on the quality of its people, and we should never lose sight of the fact that our first obligation is to maintain our commitments to the people that do the hard and often unpleasant work needed to secure this Nation's interests around the globe. Those commitments include fair and equitable compensation and benefits, adequate housing and community services, and an environment free from discrimination and sexual harassment.
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As I travel around this command, I find a certain unease concerning our commitment to sustaining that quality of life. They read of proposals to modify the retirement system or the way we manage their commissaries. They wonder about Tricare and how it will affect access to quality health care for them and their families. They feel the effects of our reduced investment in the facilities where they live, work, and play. But, despite these concerns, our people remain committed to the high standards of service that make this Air Force so much better than the one we knew two or three decades ago. Our people are smart, well trained, and highly motivated. They are a national resource that asks for nothing more than fair and equitable treatment and quality leadership. Give them that, and tomorrow's Air Force will be even better than the one that serves this Nation so well today.
Since the gulf war, we have assumed a variety of contingency commitments that today have 6,098 of our people and 186 aircraft deployed in southwest Asia, Turkey, Italy, and South and Central America; 344 of those people and 24 aircraft are from the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve. This force is working much harder than their predecessors, and they are doing so under much more difficult conditions.
We should not be surprised to find some readiness changes. But, despite those challenges, this is a very ready force. Eighty-eight percent of ACC units are reporting combat ready at either C–1 or C–2. Retention for the period 1 October 1994, through 31 December 1996, meets our goals of 55 percent for airmen serving in their first term of enlistment, 75 percent for those in their second term, and 95 percent for career. Aircraft mission capable rates are at or near our goals in most mission areas. Our safety record continues to be strong, with fiscal year 1996 being the safest ever for ACC people and aircraft.
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These indicators tell a good story, but I would be remiss if I did not point out some areas that are challenging us today and that argue for a continuation of the fine support that this committee and the Congress have given our readiness programs in the past.
Operational Tempo is stretching our capabilities and testing the commitment of our people. Although overall manning and retention is good, the averages hide some issues that are of some concern to our commanders and their people. Rated retention is on the decline, and the slope is fairly steep.
The airline industry projects 35,000 new jobs in large aircraft by 2005. The aviation continuation pay take rate, a leading indicator of pilot retention, has plummeted from 77 percent in fiscal year 1995 to 59 percent in 1996 and is projected to fall to 43 percent this year.
While overall retention of our enlisted technicians is good, some critical career fields fall well below our goals. For example, only 41.2 percent of avionics sensor maintainers and 42 percent of F–16 and F–117 maintainers decided to reenlist. Many career fields are overmanned in 3-level trainees and 7-level supervisors, while seriously undermanned in 5-level technicians.
Funding for military construction and real property maintenance by contract has been cut to the bone, and we are pressed hard to find the resources to maintain our mission-essential facilities.
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The good news in this area is the tremendous support that both the administration and the Congress have given to dormitory and family housing improvements over the past several years. If we can execute our current plans, we will say goodbye to ACC's last central-latrine-equipped dormitory in 1999.
In order to have an effective Air Force, you need quality training. But when a unit deploys to support a no-fly zone, they fly many hours that have very little training value. Commanders returning from these contingencies report a significant degradation in their combat capability.
A key ingredient which allows ACC to provide combat air power to America is providing the best air crews, in the best airplanes, a place to conduct their essential training. We at ACC are firmly committed to maintaining military preparedness through judicious use of the air space and ranges that we share with the American public, while simultaneously ensuring appropriate environmental stewardship of the resources entrusted to our care.
While we focus attention on today's readiness, we should also acknowledge the importance of our modernization programs to tomorrow's readiness.
One of the reasons we have been so successful in attracting and retraining those high-quality people who have made our military forces the envy of the world is that we have given them world-class tools with which to do their work. If we hope to sustain this high-quality force into the next century, we must keep our corps modernization programs on track.
The front-line fighters that have served us so well over the past two decades will have been in the force for more than 30 years when they are replaced by the F–22 and the Joint Strike Fighter.
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The men and women of ACC remain ready to fulfill their responsibilities in support of our Nation's security interests. They are the highest quality, most highly motivated, and best trained force ever to serve their country.
With your continued support, tomorrow's Air Force and Air Combat Command will be even better than today's.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to present this statement.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, General Hawley.
[The prepared statement of General Hawley can be found in the appendix on page 77.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Admiral Reason, we would be pleased to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF ADM. J. PAUL REASON, USN, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, ATLANTIC FLEET (CINCANTFLT)
Admiral REASON. Thank you, Chairman Bateman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
As the naval component for three Unified Commanders in Chief and a force provider to two others, I can certify to you that the Atlantic Fleet's capabilities are in high demand worldwide. The mission of the Atlantic Fleet, partnered with the Pacific Fleet, is to train, maintain, and equip naval forces for every CINC.
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Today's report is that the Atlantic Fleet is ready and able to execute its assigned missions. Fleet forces are trained and equipped to do every job.
Looking to the future, a growing challenge will be maintaining the force. Daily maintenance, long-term investment, and husbanding of assets all bear watching.
As you know, the Atlantic Fleet has downsized significantly since the end of the cold war. In the aggregate, war fighting force structure has been reduced by 33 percent since 1989. Atlantic Fleet manpower accounts were similarly reduced, from 201,000 military and civilian personnel in 1989 to 132,000 today.
Infrastructure has also been reduced; but, as anticipated, the rate of reduction has not kept pace with personnel or force structure drawdown.
An initiative that is having a positive impact on readiness is the fleet regional maintenance plan developed from a business case analysis. Consolidation of redundant functions within geographic areas, both intermediate and depot levels, will provide more actual maintenance on each ship for every taxpayer dollar invested.
Several unique naval capabilities are heavily tasked, despite the significant drawdown in force structure. Close attention is required to ensure that readiness is maintained. These capabilities are in high demand, both inside and outside the Navy.
For example, the Atlantic Fleet has only two ocean-going diving and salvage vessels. These ships, U.S.S. Grapple and U.S.S. Grasp, performed magnificently during the tragic TWA 800 recovery operations in support of the National Transportation Safety Board. One of these ships was sent to Long Island only 1 week after returning from a 6-month deployment. Although they number but two, they are vital national assets.
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Three other unique naval capabilities which bear watching are the multisensor open ocean surveillance aircraft, the P–3 Orions; Seabees bear watching, construction battalions; and sensors and platforms that perform submarine warfare.
These assets are in high demand for high-priority missions, from counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean to surveillance over Bosnia or surveillance over Central Africa. They support both military and peacekeeping missions.
As noted previously, my responsibility to train and equip the fleet, to be a force provider, is up to par or better. However, maintenance requires close monitoring and continuous effort to correct all material deficiencies within a constrained budget.
Ship steaming days and aircraft flying hours for units deployed overseas require close scrutiny, although not directly an Atlantic Fleet responsibility. The observed high tempo may prove not to be sustainable over the long term.
From the vantage point of this force provider, several factors seem to be key. Too many unified CINC's are competing for the same scarce assets. The Goldwater-Nichols Defense act put the Unified CINC's in charge but failed to give them a fiscal yardstick. Without a budget, more is always better.
One question begs to be asked: Since we are at peace, are we consuming these assets at too high a rate? Will they be ready when needed to respond to crisis?
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Ladies and gentlemen, recent naval operations offer proof that the sailors of the Atlantic Fleet are performing superbly, day in and day out. For example, U.S.S. Normandy launched Tomahawk missiles on target within hours of arriving on station in the Mediterranean. The extraordinary efforts of the sailors who, with their tools, supported TWA 800 operations are but two of many tales of a fleet that is ready.
Returning to this fleet after 2 1/2 years in the Pentagon has allowed me to observe evidence of excellence at every level. The readiness of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet is high. It is in tribute to the American sailor that I can make that declaration to you here today. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that opportunity.
Of course, I stand ready to respond to any questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Admiral Reason.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Reason can be found in the appendix on page 88.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Now General Keane, sir.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JOHN M. KEANE, USA, COMMANDING GENERAL, XVIII AIRBORNE CORPS, FT. BRAGG, NC
General KEANE. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members, thank you for the opportunity for me to represent the great soldiers of the XVIII Airborne Corps here today.
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I submitted a statement for the record. What I would like to do is just summarize some of the points in that statement, if I may.
First, a little bit about who we are. The XVIII Airborne Corps is a unique organization in the U.S. Army. It is the largest Army Corps, 85,000-plus soldiers. We have four divisions in that corps: the 3d Infantry Division at Fort Stewart—that used to be the 24th Infantry Division, if you recall, during Desert Storm—the 10th Mounted at Fort Drumm, NY; the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC; the 101st Airborne Division, Air Assault, at Fort Campbell, KY.
We have also 13 central brigades that support those four divisions in all the myriad of support functions that you can imagine—from aviation to artillery to logistics to medical and so on.
The XVIII Airborne Corps represents to the Army the Nation's strategic crisis response force. By that I mean we must be capable of being deployed in 18 hours anyplace in the world, fight upon arrival, and win. That has been our mission and history.
We are very versatile, to be sure, because the Army has 10 divisions in it, as you know, and right now we have four different types of divisions in the U.S. Army. All those different types of divisions are residents in the XVIII Airborne Corps. What that gives us is an enormous versatility and flexibility. We can operate on any type of terrain, from the desert to the jungle to mountains; and we can conduct any kind of mission for the Army, from peacekeeping, disaster relief, to obvious conflict and all-out war and have done so.
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The Nation's military involvement in the last 10 years has also been the history of XVIII Airborne Corps. From Just Cause in Panama to Desert Shield and Desert Storm, to Hurricane Andrew relief, to Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, and now Bosnia.
I will tell you up-front, in the XVIII Airborne Corps we are trained and ready to accomplish our mission today as I speak. However, we have got challenges, some real challenges.
When I look at readiness, I look at it in three ways. One is soldier readiness, equipment readiness, and training readiness. I would like to talk a little bit about each.
Soldier readiness, first of all, starts with the quality of the soldiers themselves. What we need are intelligent soldiers who have great moral values that reflect the American people and certainly commitment to something larger than themselves.
Despite all of our ever-increasing technology, the U.S. Army, in my judgment, certainly the XVIII Airborne Corps for sure, will never be any better than the quality of these soldiers. So retaining quality soldiers is also very important to me as the commander of the corps.
I am happy to report to you that last year we led the U.S. Army in meeting all of our retention objectives for young soldiers as well as our career force.
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I will also tell you, though, that we had to work awfully hard with the noncommissioned officers to meet those retention objectives, harder than in the past; and we were able to meet them; and, frankly, we exceeded them. I hope to meet those retention objectives again in fiscal year 1997. We are off to a good start. We are exceeding from the first quarter.
Of course, to maintain quality soldiers, we need the support of the American people and of the Congress of the United States.
Soldier readiness is also quality of life for those soldiers who are a part of our great Army. Frankly, this is my toughest challenge.
We have got an Army that has changed dramatically in 10 years. We are 64-percent married. That has increased 10 percent in the last 4 years. That has had some relatively dramatic impact on us. We find soldiers who walk in the door these days who are not only married but they bring a child and, in some cases, two with them. You can imagine the impact that that has on our institutions.
When you look at the life of these soldiers, frankly, they are living from paycheck to paycheck. They are having difficulty making ends meet. Most of them, frankly, are in debt. We have to compensate for that to some degree.
So what do we do? We find ourselves teaching them how to run a small business, which is what a family unit really is, given the fact they are away from their mothers and fathers and grandmothers and aunts and uncles who would normally help them with such a thing. We teach them how to deal with debt management. We help them with their income taxes. We help them to try to find affordable and available housing that is decent and in which you would expect young people to be living in.
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We also, frankly, help them make car purchases. Because, if we don't, there are some fairly energetic folks out there that will take advantage of them. So we work very hard.
But, frankly, there are real issues here in terms of adequate compensation for these young soldiers in my judgment.
Facilities. This is a significant problem for me and the XVIII Airborne Corps, not only at Fort Bragg but other installations. Frankly, far too many of our facilities are still inadequate. Our construction programs have been delayed when they should be accelerated.
I have far too many soldiers who are living in 1950's barracks that were started out as communal activities, as you know, where we had open base and communal latrines. We have got significant numbers of soldiers who work in World War II maintenance facilities, which were these temporary buildings that we made; and they were—if you recall, the plan was that they were going to be around for the duration of the war, 4 or 5 years. We are still in them 50 years later.
If you walked into these facilities—and some Members of the Congress have, and we are fortunate that they have—you will find soldiers in the wintertime cold, wearing jackets, brutally hot in the summer, poorly lighted and ventilated.
Our equipment is much too large to be taken care of in these facilities. Frankly, I am ashamed they are working in them. That is the awful truth of it. Every time I see them in it, I have a bit of an emotional experience just dealing with it and knowing that I am not capable of solving the problem they are facing totally myself.
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We also have significant amounts of our civilian work force who are working in administrative facilities that were built in World War II. While their conditions are not as dramatic as the maintenance facilities, they are certainly less than adequate.
You may ask yourself why is this? Well, frankly, our base ops funding has been insufficient for years. It was insufficient last year, and it is insufficient this year. What that makes me do and other commanders like me is I have to divert operational dollars to take some action to solve these problems.
I am doing it. I feel some obligation to have to get in there and do some repairs and renovation to those barracks to bring them up to an acceptable quality of life. I feel some obligation to build some other temporary maintenance facilities to get those soldiers out of them so I can get them into proper facilities that are safe.
I am using operational dollars to do that. The drain last year was 5.1 percent operational funds I moved. This year, I am moving 6.8 percent. I do that without any hesitation or equivocation, because quality of life for these soldiers and ability to work and live in a proper environment is all a part of readiness, in my judgment.
Family housing is also inadequate in many cases, far too many cases. There is not enough of it, and much too much of it is not sufficient. The Army is committed to a program we call whole neighborhood revitalization, which the Congress has supported, which has given us new housing on our installations.
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We are repairing the old housing and revitalizing it, but we also do not have enough of it—80 percent of our soldiers at Fort Bragg live off the installation, 60 percent at Fort Campbell. That puts them into an environment out there at times which can be bruising and harsh to them.
I have got 700 trailer parks around Fort Bragg, and I have taken every one of them on. I have inspected about 500 of those 700 and given them standards I wanted them to comply with. If they don't comply with those standards, they are off-limits. I have put 10 of them off limits. I have got their attention.
The good news is that most of them are bringing those mobile home parks up to an acceptable standards. We have 150 to go, and we are going to stick with it, and then we are going to start with some of the multifamily dwellings off the installation as well.
I am not sitting there waiting for dollars. I am trying to do something about a problem I have got and do it within the resources I have to deal with it. Certainly, we are looking for new privatization ventures that would enable us to get quality housing in sufficient numbers.
The admiral mentioned and the general also mentioned quality services for our Navy and our airmen. That is true for the Army. We need PX's and commissaries and child development services for our families and our soldiers, because it is part of the fabric of military life, to be sure. It enables them also to deal with military compensation, which is about 13 percent behind civilian compensation for equitable jobs.
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Now you may think that quality of life is not a readiness issue, but I think it is a significant issue. I don't see how you can separate it, because it affects the morale, the commitment to the institution as a whole.
If we have a soldier that is deployed and he leaves his wife in a mobile home that is something you would not want any of your children to live in yourself, then you can visualize some of these people; and he knows she is going to be there for an extended period of time. That has to have some impact on him in terms of his commitment to the institution and his ability to perform on a daily basis. Our judgment is that it does. So we worked very hard on this.
In fact, I surveyed our soldiers who are leaving the Army about 4 months ago; and I asked them, what would they change to make the Army a better career for them? Fifty-two percent of them said quality of life. That was the No. 1 issue. So in the U.S. Army, it is a big issue.
Another issue dealing with quality of life certainly is time away from home. The U.S. Army is 300 percent busier in the post-cold-war era, and yet we have got 36 percent less people to do it with.
Are we doing more with less? Of course we are. The numbers alone tell you that.
We have got to help ourselves on this issue. We have done some introspective looking at that as opposed to just saying it is too hard; what we have done is looked at our own selves and what we are doing within our organizations and seeing how we can do things better to provide more family time for our soldiers and more free time for our single soldiers as well.
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There are things we can do. We take a hard look at all of our exercises. Not all of them are as beneficial as each other. There are some that we have cut and cut for good reasons.
We have reduced our weekend training, except for essential training that must be done over weekends, and the simple thing, we established a standard duty day. You may say, what is so big about that. Well, the standard duty day is 0630 to 1700, and that is a fairly large period of anyone in America to work, but I am here to tell you without that standard duty day, I have got soldiers literally coming to work at 4:30, 5 in the morning, no exaggeration because I have seen it; and if they are a one-car family, that means they have a wife in the car and maybe a child or two sometime during the week when she needs that car.
We have got to stop that and give them a little more predictability in their lives, and that is what we are attempting to do to help ourselves. I have got concerns with time away from home to be sure, every military leader does. Our career forces are the force I am most concerned about because they bear the greatest burden.
Personnel is another part of soldier readiness, in my judgment. In XVIII Airborne Corps, frankly, we enjoy a priority when compared to the rest of the Army. We are sitting at 98.7 percent of what we are authorized in terms of personnel fill, and that is enviable for some of the units in the Army. Three of our four divisions receive the highest Army priority.
One division, the 10th Division and the 2nd Calvary Regiment and many of our separate brigades do have a lower priority of fill. Some of that lower priority of fill has happened as recently as the last year. While not all of that has hit yet, I have some concerns about it because I think it will stretch the capability of XVIII Airborne Corps in the future in terms of our mission and our ability to meet all our requirements.
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Turbulence is a significant problem for us in XVIII Airborne Corps, particularly for our majors and captains. They spend considerably less time on our installations than what they used to in the past and our noncommissioned officers are feeling the same crunch as well. They are driven to other assignments in the Army which have equal or higher priority based on the needs of the Army.
When I look at this whole issue of soldier readiness, what I am trying to tell you is we need quality soldiers in sufficient numbers with an acceptable quality of life experience. That is the heart of soldier readiness.
Our equipment readiness is in very, very good shape. Equipment-wise, we are much better than we were even during Desert Storm with the modernization that has taken place in the last 5 or 6 years. I won't dwell on that; if you want to pursue that I will answer that specifically in Q and A's.
We maintain a high readiness in XVIII Airborne Corps. We have no choice about that, we have got to; and our equipment sits at 90 percent or better on a routine basis. That is not just on paper, that is a fact. We maintain that readiness during all of our training and see that on a regular basis.
In terms of training itself, which is the bedrock of readiness in my judgment, in XVIII Airborne Corps we are a busy outfit. We do more joint training with the U.S. Army than anybody else. We do more combined training with other countries than anybody else.
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In the last 6 months, we have operated with United Kingdom, Egypt, Kuwait, and Jordan and conducted three major joint training exercises. But the heart of our training is live-fire training. By that I mean we do deal with realistic live-fire maneuver training, squad platoons, company level, with all the weapons that soldiers are supposed to use at that level, and we do it all at night.
You asked about, you mentioned training, Mr. Chairman, in your remarks. In my view, post Desert Storm, the quality of our training, and I have been involved in training nonstop since 1979 so I think I can make a comment on it, quality of our training has improved, because it is more realistic. And we have put a significant emphasis on that. It is not without its challenges. I have got Fort Bragg, NC, and Fort Campbell. Both have Army light forces and special operations forces on those installations and we do not have an adequate urban village to train in, that is a significant shortfall for us.
Three of our six installations have endangered species on them, which also limit our ability to train to some degree on those installations. In conclusion, XVIII Airborne Corps is a trained and ready outfit to go to war and fight and win, as I stated at the outset. We have done it before, we will do it today and we will do it tomorrow. We have never failed the American people, not one time, and we don't intend to. We have got challenges that I have mentioned to you.
Some of those we were helping ourselves with; frankly, some of those we need your help with, and I thank you for the opportunity to present some of this to you today and look forward to your questions, and I would also ask you to come see us at Fort Bragg or some of our other installations. We would be delighted to have you visit us and see our training and see some of these facilities. Thank you very much.
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[The prepared statement of General Keane can be found in the appendix on page 96.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, General Keane.
General Wilhelm, we will be pleased to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. CHARLES E. WILHELM, USMC, COMMANDING GENERAL, U.S. MARINE FORCES ATLANTIC, COMMANDING GENERAL, U.S. FLEET MARINE FORCES ATLANTIC, COMMANDING GENERAL, II MARINE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, CAMP LEJEUNE, NC
General WILHELM. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee and staff, good morning. I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to provide you my assessment of the readiness of Marine Forces Atlantic and its war-fighting component, the II Marine Expeditionary Force.
MARFORATLAN is a busy command of about 55,000 marines and sailors. It has a global mission and a global focus. In addition to providing rotational forward presence forces in Europe, in the western Pacific, and in Panama, the command maintains air and amphibious contingency ready forces prepared to deploy on a moment's notice to crisis anywhere in the world.
In discussing readiness with my subordinate commanders, I describe it as the nonnegotiable attribute of the command. The Congress has stated that it expects its marine forces to be most ready when the Nation is least ready, and the sign at the main gate of Camp Lejeune says we are expeditionary forces in readiness.
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I make it my first order of business to see that we live up to both of those pledges. In gauging the readiness of the force, I focus on two things: well-trained and motivated people, and combat-ready equipment. First, I would like to talk to you for just a minute or two about the people.
From the standpoint of force commitments, the past 3 years have been as busy as any in our history. Last year alone, on 105 occasions, we deployed units, not people, units, away from their home bases in coastal Carolina to meet forward presence requirements, to participate in contingencies, or to function as participating units in exercises. This equates to a unit departure every 3 1/2 days. Now, what does that mean to the individual marine or sailor?
In the case of our infantrymen, that means that they were deployed away from their home base 177 days last year. In the case of our fixed-wing aviation squadrons, they were gone 124 days of the year. Our helicopter community fared just a bit better at 108 days for the year, but the hardest pressed element of the force at all was our combat service support troops, the beans, bullets and Band-Aids people. They were gone 183 days last year, or an average of over 50 percent.
Though this level of activity was brisk, deployments are our culture. It is something that we do and we are used to it. Last year, I was able to meet the demands that were placed on the force, but only with the force structure that I have.
Looking ahead to 1997, I really see a carbon copy of 1996. Right now, the commitments I can forecast very, very closely parallel those which we experienced in 1996. We will again be equal to the task, but only if we retain the force structure that we have right now.
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While I am reasonably confident in the ability of our people to meet the challenges of the coming year, I am less confident about our equipment. Our gear is old. I made my first flight in the CH–46 helicopter, which is the mainstay of our helicopter transport fleet, when I was a first lieutenant in Vietnam in 1967.
The assault amphibian vehicle, which moves us from the ship to the shore and once we are there provides protected battlefield mobility for our troops, entered the inventory in 1971. Our fleet of just over 8,000 5-ton trucks is now in the 18th year of a 20-year service life expectancy. These are just three examples of aged equipment fleets. There are many more.
Now, we have embarked on modernization programs to replace these and other items. Gentlemen, as you all know, the V–22 Osprey is due to replace the CH–46 helicopter. We are in the process of developing an advanced assault amphibian vehicle to replace the 1971 vehicle, which I referred to earlier, and we are preparing to undertake a program to remanufacture the sturdy 5-ton trucks in the inventory to essentially turn their odometers back to zero. However, none of these programs will put new airplanes on the flight line or new trucks in the truck parks until sometime around the middle part of the first decade of the next century.
The modernization dilemma is a spreading stain which taints every area of our readiness. For the past 3 years, the operations and maintenance funds required to sustain these aging fleets have grown at a steady rate of 3 percent a year, so that is 10 percent over 3 years. Confronted with flat funding in the O&M account, I have had no other recourse other than to deduct money from training to maintain the aged equipment fleets.
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I mentioned the number of days on average that our people were deployed last year. When they are home, almost as a matter of routine, our troops and especially those in the hard-to-recruit, hard-to-reenlist maintenance areas, routinely work 6 to 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day on overlapping shifts to maintain the aged equipment.
This is the piece of the puzzle that I find difficult to explain to the families. They accept the fact that service in the Marine Corps entails numerous and lengthy deployments. The workload between the deployments is what strains the fabric of the force and the fabric of our families. A young wife put it to me very, very well last week, and I will quote her. ''I can accept the deployments; gone is gone. The children understand that. But it is difficult to explain why they never see their dad even when he is home.''
In my formal statement, I made the assertion that today's modernization problems are tomorrow's readiness problems. If I were to rewrite that statement, I might amend it to read yesterday's modernization problems are today's readiness dilemma.
In summary, at this moment, Marine Corps Atlantic forces is ready to carry out its assigned missions, but we are approaching a readiness crossroads. To sustain readiness over time, we must retain our force structure, we must receive adequate O&M funding to maintain our existing stocks of equipment, and most importantly, we must aggressively pursue a modernization program.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
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[The prepared statement of General Wilhelm can be found in the appendix on page 107.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you all, and your prepared written statements will be made a part of the record without objection, and we thank you for the statements as you have delivered them.
In recent past years, I suspect your successors in your position had some substantial difficulties with their O&M and readiness accounts because of your foreseen contingencies which were eating away at resources which had to be diverted from training, from maintenance, from base support in other areas. Are you experiencing those kind of difficulties or are the deployments you are now supporting being fully budgeted in the current budget?
General HAWLEY. We are essentially supporting contingency operations out of this year's O&M budget, which means we are forward financing them. ACC today, by our count—of course, everybody's count is a little different depending on where you sit—but by our count we were forward financing contingencies something to the tune of $300 million. I have got a $1.2 billion annual flying hour account so you can equate that to about 3 months of my flying hour program is being used to forward finance contingency operations.
Mr. BATEMAN. In other words, you are using funds which would be necessary for your fourth-quarter of the fiscal year in order to sustain things that you are doing now. I presume in the hopes and expectation there will be a supplemental appropriation coming along and you will get that money back before you have to start spending it? Is that the hope?
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General HAWLEY. That is exactly right.
Admiral REASON. Mr. Chairman, I think we all have that same fact of life. We are paying for contingencies with the money we have in hand. That is how we look forward to supplementals to put us back in balance.
General KEANE. The problem with that also is all of us, given the scale of our responsibilities, if you compared it to a civilian organization, it compares favorably to a major corporation itself. And we have got very sizeable budgets that we are dealing with and a sizeable work force. What I find so frustrating about it, my command has been taxed significantly in the last 3 years, and then you get paid back some or all of that. But it really, in terms of managing resources properly and planning, you just wouldn't run a corporation that way, because you, the degree of risk that is involved and what you are trying to do in terms of taking care of your people and your program. So in addition to the money, it is a significant management problem that is associated with that because you are not, you don't know for certain what you are going to get before the year is out.
General WILHEM. That question hit an exposed nerve with me. I just received a $12.2 million bill for contingency operations in Haiti. Quite frankly, I have no earthly idea how I am going to pay it. We do, in fact, get reimbursed for these contingencies in most cases in at least some percentage of what our outlays were.
The largest problem I have had, though, is the time I receive the reimbursement. Almost invariably it is toward the end of the year and I end up with executability problems. I spend the money, but not on the things I need the most. A steady stream of funding, some kind of a bishop's fund that would have contingencies as we go would greatly ease my management problems with the force.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Well, your shortfall or your billing is for the Haiti operation?
General WILHEM. Sir, that is just one example. That was a $12.2 million bill that came due last week.
Mr. BATEMAN. But it would seem that—that is not an unforeseen contingency. That is an ongoing deployment that presumably the Pentagon in putting together the budget should have funded without your all of a sudden getting dumped on for 12 plus million dollars.
General WILHEM. The bill itself is for services and support that are provided to the deployed troops, largely for contractors. We were not part of the negotiation process on that nor did we input any fiscal data into the operational planning. However, we did receive the bill and we did not budget for it.
Mr. SISISKY. I would just remind you that some of the supplemental is out of hide. It is not new money coming into the Department of Defense, and that is where the problem is.
The trend going through all of your testimony, the No. 1 trend is quality of life. We are asserting that, too, in Washington. I might say, General, that, you know, with the privatization, probably the only good thing that was privatized is in the housing field, and that 70 miles from here would be an example of real family housing at Fort Lee, VA.
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We are building new housing with four bedrooms, and large housing. You said 64 percent of the family is—I mean of the Army is married now, and, of course, what most people forget, have a lot of children. We are putting people in homes with four children that have two bedrooms, and sometimes maybe one bedroom.
I do worry that you are worried about the quality of life. Somewhere along the line, I don't know whether it is out of the military periodicals or statements that people make, we talk about commissaries, the fear of people—I don't think Congress is going to let that happen. And I want to assure you that no matter what you hear, I don't believe that Congress is going to let that happen in a way of life.
We do have a problem in health care. In this area, I might say, we are going to solve some of the problem with the Tricare, hopefully, with this brand-new hospital going up over in Portsmouth, which will be probably the finest medical facilities services I have seen. So that relieves some part of that. But facilities, of course, is a major problem, how we catch up.
We are so far behind that I don't even see the dawn of when we can catch up. But I have learned one thing since I have been in Congress, is that some way, and somehow, you have got to get this message, not only to Members of the Congress, really, but to the public. I worry about the OPTEMPO. I can't imagine, General, that we are 177 days a year? Now, I thought the Navy was something with 180 days, but at least they have a year, 18 months, and I don't think we are breaking that pledge.
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Admiral REASON. No, sir.
Mr. SISISKY. And I think that is important. It is hard for me to believe that we are asking people 177 days. That is unbelievable, too much to ask, anybody in a nonwar, quote. General, you have got the same problem, but let me just ask you a question. Are you concerned about this QDR that is coming up, because I am very concerned. And I, if that thing is based on bottom line budget things, and I think all of you are going to suffer with people. They are going to reduce the amount of people, and that would absolutely be a shame because if you have got a problem with OPTEMPO now and still have to maintain what we are doing now, I just cannot believe what could happen if we have to reduce personnel.
In the Army alone, in Germany, you know, used to be you get in the barracks in Germany and we had the cold war and everything was fine. Now, all of a sudden we are in Bosnia for a year, away from their family. So I am very concerned about this QDR, and I think you have got to keep hammering it and hammering it, is that the OPTEMPO for your services are great, and if it is diluted any, then you have really got a problem.
Admiral, I used the word ''privatization,'' you have heard me, and I really don't expect you—we have already gone through that with the people in the Pentagon, and I intend not to shake it loose, because I think there is some things we can privatize, but the bottom line should always, always, always, be national security. And I think not only do we have to keep the morale of our uniformed personnel, but it goes for our civilian personnel in the Department of Defense, too.
The uncertainty of their jobs and things like that has a real effect on people, and I think we have to build a confidence that we do have to have a civilian part of the Department of Defense, too, without any dilution. And with that, basically my statement, but you can answer to any part you want.
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General KEANE. Could I make a statement about the civilian drawdown. In the XVIII Airborne Corps we have received civilian drawdown steady for the last 4 years. And my thought certainly is we don't have our heads in the sand in the Army. We recognize that the Army should be drawn down given the threat that was diminished in Europe, particularly. But I thought the civilian work force would be able to compensate for some of that drawdown knowing that we could transfer some of the things that must be done to civilians. And quite frankly, the cuts that I am experiencing, I believe they are draconian cuts, and what I would like to see, I think you are familiar with how we run installations.
I have a fairly wide latitude to use money as we see fit, but my civilian pay account is managed by a dollar figure. So my number of civilians that I have is determined in Washington, DC. But what I would like to do is size that civilian work force to my installation based on my budget; let me determine my work force based on what my mission is, as you do with any other——
Mr. SISISKY. You are really talking FTE's, full-time equivalents.
General KEANE. That's right. Your comment on privatization, we applaud the effort of privatization, particularly in housing. I have some general skepticism with some of it, because as the Army moved into commercial activities, which is another word for prioritization, a number of years ago, one of the things we found out is that these, the contractors, while initially it appeared attractive from a cost perspective, over time, these costs creeped, creeped, and creeped, and what we found is those costs wound up being the same if not greater than what we experienced with our own work force. So that is the comment I have about privatization.
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General HAWLEY. You asked about our concerns with regard to the QDR——
Mr. BATEMAN. For those in the audience, that is Quadrennial Defense Review, QDR.
General HAWLEY. Most of us are operating forces so we don't have much to do with the work that is going into the QDR, but if I were to offer suggestions on what to worry about, we need to maintain a balance between our commitments and the forces that are available to execute those commitments. And then within the forces, we need to maintain a balance within our forces between readiness, force structure, and modernization. And sometimes we get skewed in one direction or the other, and every time we do, we pay a significant price someplace else. So my watch word would be maintain balance, balance within the forces and then maintain a balance between the forces that we have available, and the jobs we are asking them to perform on a day-to-day basis.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Riley—oh, Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, one of the themes that has come up several times in the remarks this morning has to do with the matter of the operations tempo and, Admiral Reason, you put your finger on a very important matter when you observed in your remarks that the military departments are now the force providers and the unified commanders in chiefs are the ones that actually call out the forces, and you utilize them in operations.
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Is there a policy problem herein that the people providing the forces are not the ones that have a voice in what is required to execute these programs that are under the purview of the unified CINC's? Something has got to be done about the operations tempo. Since each of you have commented about the level of time that your people are deployed, and we recognize that a lot of things have to be done. But somehow this matter has got to be brought under control. Because each of you says you are stretched as far as you can go, and we don't see anything on the horizons to try to modify the pressure. And I would like to hear from each of you, and in this case I will ask you to give me your individual, personal, professional military opinion about whether we need to do something policy-wise here, as far as the relationship between the CINC's and the military departments are concerned.
General HAWLEY. As I view this problem, and I share Paul's concerns in this area, we have gone through a transition from the cold war period to the post-cold-war period, which has had a significant effect on how we operate our services and our forces. We are still adjusting in that process, trying to establish the mechanisms that we can use to better manage this high obstacle that we are asking our people to sustain. And frankly, we can do better. We can do a better job, I know, in my command of tasking our forces in response to the CINC's requirements, and we are working very hard in exactly that direction, in order to make sure we consider all aspects of operational tempo. Because it is a lot more than how many days someone is gone each year. It has a lot to do with how hard they are working when they come back from deployments.
It has a lot to do with how closely major deployments are spaced from one another. It has a lot to do with how much time they have to prepare for the deployment and how much time they have to recover from it when they get back home before they are hit with an operational readiness inspection or an exercise. It has a lot to do with how many of their people are tasked to go on the exercise programs that all of our CINC's sponsor, which are a very heavy drain on our forces and, frankly, are much less palatable to the force than unit deployments, because people tend to get pulled away as individuals, and that is not very rewarding when you are a single person off in some staff someplace trying to support an exercise. So all those things have to be managed.
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So in ACC, we are establishing criteria for scheduling our units in order to try to make sure we spread the workload evenly across the entire force, not just Air Combat Command, but our forces in the Pacific, in the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve, as well, in order to make sure that no part of the force is too heavily tasked.
We are establishing criteria for what kind of intervals are appropriate between significant tasks, whether that be contingency taskings, exercises, or inspections, what kind of no-fly zones we need prior to and following major activities, so that we can give people the time they need to prepare for and recover from those events.
There is a process that is building that will help us in the future, I think, and is beginning to help us today, and that is the Joint Chiefs of Staff have adopted criteria with which to control the operational tempo of what we call low-density, high-demand weapons systems. I operate many of those in air combat command, weapons systems like the Rivet Joint, RC–135, the AWACS, the U–2, our combat search and rescue forces, the A–10.
Many of these systems are in high demand by the CINC's, so the JCS have established not-to-exceed criteria; and when the CINC's ask for more from that weapons system than we have determined they ought to have to give, then the JCS adjudicate amongst the CINC's in order to try to keep the total demand for those weapons systems down to a sustainable level.
I think what we are going to learn is what is a sustainable level. It varies by weapons system, frankly; one of the big drivers is how much stability and predictability we have in the deployment pattern.
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I find for some of my weapons systems, like the Rivet Joint and the U–2, where for many years they have sustained deployment patterns on the order of General Wilhelm's people, we have Rivet Joint and U–2 people who for many years are gone for 140 to 150 days every year. When I walk into one of those units and talk to those people, they can predict fairly well what their activity level is going to be for the next year, so they can plan their personal lives around those deployments.
That is not the case with many other parts of the force where they get very short-notice deployments and don't get a chance to plan their family lives around that tempo.
So there is a lot we can do, but in the end, I think we have to sustain that balance between the level of commitment and the force structure available; and frankly, I think we are stretched very thin today, no matter how well we manage the activity.
General WILHELM. In my experience, OPTEMP is really generated by three things, at least in my line of work—contingencies, forward presence, and exercises. I think in a great many cases we can fight and work a little bit smarter than we do.
We learned a bit last year when we were confronted with the simultaneous contingencies in Monrovia, Liberia, and Mbaiki in the Central African Republic. The second force that went in, I provided. It was a Marine expeditionary unit, about 1,800 strong. They maintained station off of Monrovia for about 2 months.
We analyzed the force there, saw that there were other needs for it in the Mediterranean and off of North Africa. We were able to replace it by a force mounted on a single ship composed of only 728 people.
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So I think we need to take a look at our contingencies. I think we need to make responsible estimates as to what force is required.
There is an old acronym we use, MET–T, mission, enemy troops, terrain, and fire support available—not the pattern of force based on the one that went before, but the force that is required today for a given mission.
In the case of forward presence, we are doing much the same thing. We kind of got into a set piece mold as to the exact composition of the forces we were putting out. Again, we are trying to analyze each piece of that and make certain that the forces that we commit are only the forces that are required.
We look at the exercise program. Now, that is certainly an area I think where we can impose some controls, and I think USACOM has done a good job on this. General Sheehan has been very strident in his statements that he doesn't want to put thousands of troops in the field to train a staff. I think that ACOM, through the unified endeavor exercise series and in the other ways that they have been fulfilling their mission as the joint force trainer and integrator, have helped that along.
One of the things we are looking at now with both the Southern Command, General Clark, and with the European Command, General Joulwan, is how we can pool exercises with forward presence so that we can accomplish both objectives with the same force.
To me, again, those are the three OPTEMPO generators, and I think there are some controls we can impose.
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Admiral REASON. Congressman Pickett, as you well know, this being away from home, meeting the needs of the war fighting CINC's, providing the forces to respond to contingencies, all of those and everything these generals mentioned, this is meat and potatoes for the Navy. This is what we do.
We provide forces all over the world to meet the demands of the war-fighting CINC's. And to be very frank, we cannot meet the demands of the war-fighting CINC's. That is why we have things such as the global naval force presence policy, which adjudicates—and we are talking about big groups of forces, new combinations of sailors and marines and carrier battle groups—we could do with more if we were going to answer all of the CINC's desires and needs, which are validated, legitimate needs. They are not whims.
So the question, as both of these generals have alluded, comes down to, what do we really need for exercises? We are not fighting wars right now, so why are we keeping this tempo at such a high level?
Well, there are many reasons, and they alluded to all of them. And the Navy rogers up for each of them, and we are very much involved in the exercises and the presence, all of those things that are required to support our national policy.
But the bottom line is, even when we are forward deployed, we are moving really fast. We are flying our airplanes hours and hours and hours and we would like, as a force provider, to see a lower level of operation. We are steaming our ships more miles with fewer days in port than we would like to for the longevity of the ships, for the maintenance required to keep them at full operating capability; and as a quality-of-life indicator for even those people who have gone from home, it is more rigorous to be at sea than it is to be in port.
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And we do many things to try to ease that burden. Some of them may seem very simple to people who have not spent their adult life at sea as I have. But to be able to call home from your ship is something that I never experienced in years of going to sea. Today's sailors can do that, and that is a major quality-of-life plus.
When you get in port now, you know, with good communications, we are able to arrange time and place where husbands and wives and children can get together away from home; and we have people who will work at it to get them there in an affordable fashion. So port calls where families can visit is a very positive step up.
Those run, if you will, almost counter to the almost overwhelming needs of the war-fighting CINC's to carry out their missions, because they need ships at sea and marines at sea, or marines on the ground in certain locations. Although we are not at war, the OPTEMPO is high.
So as a force provider, as a spokesman for the men and women of the fleet, I would like to see us do a little less with the assets that we have. I would like to see them run at a little slower pace. We need to drop the speed limit a little bit as opposed to necessarily growing the forces, because I don't think it is that season.
General KEANE. Congressman Pickett, the OPTEMPO from our perspective is a complex issue. When you look across my 85,000 soldiers, we all don't share in that issue equitably. Clearly, some of our force is based on the types of organizations. There are greater demands placed on them, while some other, quite different demands are placed on them. One of my commanders to talk to you today, Col. Bill Laramore from an Air Defense Artillery Brigade, whose forces are deployed, allotted more than other soldiers. I have another brigade commander who will talk to you from the 82d Airborne Division. He frankly deploys less than some other units in our corps, but spends considerable time away from home because of the training demands that are placed on him and the nature of their business right here in the States.
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So it is a complex issue. Wherever you find our soldiers deployed in the XVIII Airborne Corps on an operation or an exercise, despite the days, despite the frequency, morale invariably is incredibly high. When you talk to soldiers, also, they do expect to do some of this. This is part of being in the Army.
Quite frankly, they want to do their operational craft and they want to do it in as realistic a setting as can be, and that, by nature, is someplace other than the United States. There is great satisfaction that they draw from that.
The other thing is doing more with less is clearly operating out there. From my foxhole, which is too small to do what is being asked of us, it is too small.
We are the only major superpower. Nobody, I think, predicted the volatile nature of this world the way it would be post-cold war and that the United States of America would be called upon numerous times to help stabilize that situation. We can argue over every one of them to be sure, and it has been done, but to meet those requirements—assuming they will continue from my foxhole—we are too small to do it, not just in the Army, but throughout the rest of the services.
The other thing dealing with the policy issue, we do have too many exercises, to be sure, that we are participating in, from my perspective. I would like to see us prioritize those exercises a little bit better. We have discussed this in our chain of command in the Army and also before General Sheehan in an attempt for him to influence the Joint Chiefs on this. But the commander in chiefs, the CINC's out there, you can understand it from their perspective.
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First of all, they have never seen an exercise they don't like. So getting them to back away from something that contributes to their combat readiness and has contributed in the past is a difficult task, I would assume. So from that perspective, I truly understand.
But there are too many. We have got to reduce that, as well. Thank you.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Just a brief followup, because both Admiral Reason and General Keane have really hammered on one point, which is that we just don't have the resources to do what is being asked of us.
Does Congress need to provide some more policy direction here about what the force providers have to do in response to the CINC's requests? Or do you think there are enough relief valves here for the system to self-adjust if given adequate time?
Admiral REASON. Congressman, I think the system is pretty robust, and there are a lot of very thoughtful people involved in it at every level. There is no one that is going blindly over the edge of the cliff.
Probably as a force provider, what I see as being most detrimental is that the CINC's compete with one another for the forces. We have a lot of CINC's who really have needs for the same forces. Each CINC needs, in our view, all the time—a career battle group all the time.
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Maybe the answer is a vertical cut. Maybe we have too many CINC's that are competing. Maybe the answer is to have fewer CINC's; therefore, there are fewer AWR's.
Mr. BATEMAN. I think I am getting a message here, admiral.
Mr. PICKETT. General Keane, do you want to follow up on those remarks?
General KEANE. Our concerns are well known. I know for a fact that the chairman has been involved in this. I think we can solve this problem. I don't think we need to have the Congress direct it to be solved; we are aware of it and are getting on with it.
But it is still an issue, to be sure.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Riley, any questions?
Mr. RILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me thank you for having this today. For those of you who don't know, I am a freshman Member of Congress. I have been on the National Security Committee now for almost a month. I was just asking my aide, what is an OPTEMPO, what is a CINC, so that is the level I am starting at.
But I want to tell you how much I appreciate you doing this, because it does afford me an opportunity to learn the process.
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Being in business the last 32 years, General Keane, I was one of those people that you referred to as overly aggressive car people. Unfortunately, at that time, I did not have a military base close to my car dealerships, but I understand exactly where you are coming from, because I employed some of the very people that you mentioned.
But just as an overview, it seems each one of you gentlemen are taking your operational funds to fund your maintenance, and I would just like a comment from each of you, how does that affect your training for most of the people that you are supervising?
When you take—in most businesses when you draw down your operational funds, that has to come from somewhere, and I assume that is coming from your training. How does that affect the status of the readiness of your forces?
General HAWLEY. Well, Mr. Congressman, I guess I am the exception, because contrary to my partners here and how we fund our operations, for the past several years at least I have been funding my flying-hour count out of my other operational accounts, and I have been letting maintenance of facilities and similar programs degrade in order to fully fund the flying-hour counts. Because for each of the past several years, our estimate of what each flying hour was going to cost has been lower than what it actually cost, we have had to make up the difference out of our other accounts.
So my concern is a little different in that regard, and that is, I am seeing facilities degrade. I am seeing my ability to take care of the quality of life of the troops at my air bases degrade because we have had to move funds from projects that were designed to support the enhancement and sustainment of that quality of life to pay for the training that we continue to support. So it is a little bit different.
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General KEANE. From my own perspective, I clearly could take considerably more, given the seriousness of the problem I have on the base operation side, in terms of the installation. But frankly, I only take what I know I can afford to take in terms of risk and not reduce what the Army expects of me, which is to deliver a trained and ready force, ready to go at any time. I cannot back away from that.
So we create some efficiencies, to be sure, where there are some financial savings to compensate for that, so I am not taking the substantial risk involved. I will not permit that to happen. That is why some of those problems continue to grow on the installation as well, because I have got a huge backlog in terms of repair and maintenance of barracks and houses.
The 82d Airborne Division alone has got about 1,500 work orders that are backlogged that I am trying to fix, just for their barracks. I will not commit any more money to it than I have already committed, because if I do, I know I will have to take it out of their flying hours or reduce their exercises, and I don't want to do that. I will not be able to train a ready force.
So quality of life has been paying the bill, is the answer. I will not take any more money than what I have just discussed with you, which was about 7 percent, because of the risk involved in that.
Admiral REASON. Congressman, in the near term, whenever you have to try and balance—and we all do this daily—operations and maintenance and training and the resources to provide each of those, operations is a capital letter. We are obligated to support the war-fighting CINC's, we support their war-fighting needs, and that is operations, that is the highest calling.
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We somewhat will surge the maintenance accounts. Sometimes we have to be quite creative in how we do that, so that we can, in fact, not shortchange those forces which are going to forward deploy.
So it is a balancing act, but maintenance, yes, will be the accordion. It will be the surge tank to ensure that we always put out fully trained, high-caliber operational forces.
General WILHELM. Congressman Riley, I have to really approach that question from two directions since I train both in the air and on the ground.
I would echo what General Hawley mentioned about flight-hour costs. Going into the fiscal year, our estimate was that our flight hours would run us about $2,000 an hour; the actual cost is more like $2,800 an hour. This causes a variety of problems, not the least of which are a reduction in the total number of hours available to fly, and in some cases, deferred maintenance. We do not fly unsafe airplanes, but again it cuts into our flight training program.
This is a relatively painless subject for me to talk about, because I am talking about Admiral Reason's money. Admiral Reason, of course, funds my flight hour program.
In my opening statement and in the written statement that I submitted, I made mention of the fact that the O&M funding requirements for maintenance of our aged equipment fleets were increasing at the rate of 3 percent per year. And just as you stated directly in your question, I acknowledged that I don't have many places to go and get that money.
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One of the places that I did mention was the training line. How do we compensate for this?
One of the ways that we have done this is through increased use of simulators, but I throw up a caution there. You can only use simulators up to a certain point, and then you need to validate your training by live fire. I think probably Lieutenant General Keane would salute that flag as well.
So we do reach sort of an interesting crossroads here as we start to divert O&M funds from one purpose, training, to maintenance of equipment fleets. In my case, that is a very real, palpable problem for me.
Mr. RILEY. Mr. Chairman, if I could, one more question.
You mentioned a moment ago, General, that in certain instances you do favor privatization. Very briefly—and I know we are probably running behind right now, but if you can—if each one of you could tell me in what areas you think that privatization should be looked into, or are there areas that you just believe we should never privatize?
General KEANE. Well, the one that is most attractive to me is in the family housing area, because what I am hoping it will do for us is give us the opportunity to get significantly increased numbers of houses that will meet a quality standard for us, and obviously, therefore, are affordable for our soldiers and family members, and particularly those in the lower ranks is what I am most concerned about.
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Also because of the aging infrastructure that we have on some of the Army's installations, I do believe there are opportunities there to privatize some of the utility infrastructure so that a private corporation, if you will, is helping us with that aging infrastructure; because they are going to bear the cost of revitalizing it and renewing it, which is a cost that we are maintaining right now; and in the future it is going to get considerably higher.
So those are two areas that I believe we can probably make some progress in.
General HAWLEY. Our approach to privatization and outsourcing is to treat anything that is not required to support the deployment and operation of our forces in the support of either military operations other than war or war-fighting as a fair candidate for privatization.
We have gone through a lot of work to identify that base part of our force structure which is required to be in uniform in order to support those deployed in combat operations. We are looking at everything else. But what we find is that there isn't any one piece that works everywhere.
It depends a lot on the environment around the installation that you are talking about. Some places are pretty remote and isolated, there isn't much civilian industry or infrastructure to accomplish most of the work that we ask our people to do. Therefore, in those places, more of it needs to be in-house.
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In our Air Training Education and Training Command, we privatize whole bases. Reese Air Force Base is basically a contracted out operation. They do roads and grounds. They maintain the buildings. They maintain the airplanes. So it is unique, but it is a training operation. It doesn't have to deploy. So we are in the process of aggressively looking across the command for any candidate that meets those kinds of criteria.
I would agree with General Keane, housing is very attractive. In fact, we are a little frustrated because the process for taking advantage of some of the offers that we have found from entrepreneurs around our bases is pretty slow. We are not being able to be as aggressive as we would like sometimes in pursuing those opportunities. But it is coming.
We announced this past week a test case, and I expect to have a couple more test cases where we will be able to start taking advantage of the opportunities that exist in privatized housing in ACC pretty soon.
Admiral REASON. Congressman, pretty much like my Air Force counterpart, there is no task that we undertake that may not have some portion of three components involved in the solution or the accomplishment of that task. One is active duty Navy personnel.
I have a little separate twist that the other services don't see as readily, and that is, I have an obligation for sailors who go to sea to not keep them at sea for all of their lives in the Navy. I have an obligation to get them ashore at times, when they don't have to deploy every 6 months or every year or some period when they are only shore duty, where they can train, hone their skills, have family time, improve their ability, so that the next time they go to sea they are more capable than the last time they went to sea. So that is one partner.
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The second partner, of course, is our civil service work force, which in the highly technical areas, of which there are so many in maintaining ships, aircraft and submarines, we have to have that craftsman, that stream of experienced individuals that tides us from one year to the next—the corporate memory, if you will, on highly technical systems.
Of course, the third area is the private sector, which certainly in some of the high-technology areas is very prominent in doing our day-to-day task of maintaining our equipment and keeping them ready.
There is a mix that has a geographical twist to it. Some capabilities are available in Norfolk, which is pretty much a very broad spectrum across all of these tasks, but in some of our home ports, like Mayport or New London, you may not find the broad spectrum of technical capability that we enjoy here.
So it is a combination, a mix and match of all of those factors, that we view on a daily basis.
General WILHELM. Sir, I think each of my colleagues have delved fairly heavily into things that could be privatized. I think your question was were there any trends we were not comfortable with? So let me pick up on that and mention a couple things.
I am not comfortable with the strides that we have covered on medical. The emergency room at the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejeune was contracted out.
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Lo and behold, we came up with a need to expand the medical structure on some of our forward-deployed forces and we started running out of specialties, like emergency room technicians. The head of the Naval Hospital is in the process of trying to reverse that tide now to make sure we have the right medical disciplines covered. So a warning flag went up for me on medical.
Another area that comes to mind is security. Putting civilian guards on the gates to the base; at some bases that makes sense, but I think if there is an exposed nerve right now in the Department of Defense, it is force protection. What better way to train your security forces than on your own bases and installations?
We were talking in the gathering room at General Hawley's headquarters just before we came over here. There are three gates to the base at Camp Lejeune, manned 24 hours a day by Marines. We can lock the base down in 30 seconds. It is a good training ground for people involved in force protection, so I don't like to see us go too far in that direction. Military policemen are very, very useful.
The third thing is operational-level maintenance. There has been a trend in some areas at the first and second echelon to start to privatize portions of that. That concerns me. To me, at the lower levels of maintenance, operator level and second echelon, I want a guy in uniform or a gal in uniform there to maintain the piece of equipment. At medical and depot level, I think we are looking at a different proposition. So medical, security, and operational-level maintenance are three things I think we should be judicious about before too much privatization or outsourcing.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Riley.
We thank our panel of witnesses.
You have been extremely helpful to us and you have certainly fulfilled our expectations, and I think verified the merits of our coming here to hear from you rather than staying in Washington and have you come up to see us or have other people from the Pentagon come over and share their views.
We thank you very much. I wish there were more time to ask you questions, but I am afraid we must take a 5-minute break to set up the table for the next panel of witnesses. But again, thank you for being with us and for your testimony.
[Recess.]
Mr. BATEMAN. The committee will come to order.
We will now begin our second panel. And let me give you the list of the outstanding servicemen who are here with us this morning to share their point of view and give us their perspective as to the status of their forces and near-term readiness picture.
We have Brig. Gen. Steven A. Roser, U.S. Air Force, commander Airlift Wing, Charleston Air Force Base. We have Col. Mark Henderson, U.S. Army, commander of the 7th Transportation Group at Fort Eustis. We have Col. William Laramore, U.S. Army, commander 108th Air Defense Artillery, separate brigade, commanding a Patriot unit from Fort Bliss, TX. Col. David Petraeus—I hope that is somewhere near the correct——
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Colonel PETRAEUS. Petraeus.
Mr. BATEMAN. Petraeus—excuse me, colonel—who is U.S. Army, commander, 1st Brigade, 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. And Capt. Michael D. Malone, U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Enterprise, CVN–65.
Glad to have you, Captain.
Capt. Robert B. Shields, U.S. Navy, commanding officer U.S.S. Vicksburg, CG–69.
Delighted to have you, sir.
Capt. Kolin M. Jan, U.S. Navy, commander, the Carrier Air Wing 7 from Oceana; Col. William D. Carpenter, U.S. Air Force, acting commander, 1st Fighter Wing here at Langley Air Force Base; and Col. John F. Sattler, U.S. Marine Corps, commanding officer, 2d Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, NC.
Gentlemen, thank you so very much for being with us, and I suppose we should start with General Roser.
I am told we have something like 5 minutes allotted for each of you in your original opening statements in order that the committee might then have some opportunity for questions.
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I fear that the schedule is such that there will be more questions than we will have time to answer, but I look forward to an interesting contribution from you.
STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. STEVEN A. ROSER, USAF, COMMANDER 437TH AIRLIFT WING
General ROSER. Thank you for inviting me to today's hearing.
I am Brig. Gen. Steve Roser, commander of the 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston Air Force Base, home of two squadrons of the world's greatest airlifter, the C–17, and two squadrons of the venerable C–141, one of which is the Air Force's only C–141 Special Operations Squadron.
I have submitted an opening statement for the record. But in summary, Charleston Air Force Base is ready today to meet any worldwide contingency when called upon. We have some of the finest people in the Air Force today, operating the newest Air Force weapon system, and still flying one of the oldest.
Although I have some concerns about issues that may impact the future, I think the single-most critical thing we can do to maintain long-term readiness is to continue to modernize our weapons systems. There is simply no substitute for operating more modern, more capable, and more efficient aircraft.
I look forward to answering your questions.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Roser can be found in the appendix on page 123.]
STATEMENT OF COL. MARK HENDERSON, USA, COMMANDER, 7TH TRANSPORTATION GROUP
Mr. BATEMAN. Colonel Henderson.
Colonel HENDERSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the opportunity to address this committee.
My name is Col. Mark Henderson, and I command the 7th Transportation Group at Forts Eustis and Story. The 7th Group is the only one of its kind in the Active component. The priority mission of my unit is to facilitate force projection and sustainment. And we are a tried and tested component of our national power projection strategy.
We are responsible for receiving and sustaining our forces by operating sea and airports, rail and road networks, and coastal waterways. We are one of the first units to deploy and one of the last to return home, and the 7th Group was among the longest deployed units during operations in Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Haiti.
I, too, Mr. Chairman, have a statement that I have submitted to the record, and I look forward to your questions.
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Mr. BATEMAN. All of your statement will be made a part of the record as submitted.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Henderson can be found in the appendix on page 129.]
STATEMENT OF COL. WILLIAM F. LARAMORE, USA, COMMANDER, 108TH AIR DEFENSE ARTILLERY, SEPARATE BRIGADE, PATRIOT
Mr. BATEMAN. Colonel Laramore.
Colonel LARAMORE. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I command the 108th Brigade, which is at Fort Bliss, TX. It provides the air defense for the XVIII Airborne Corps, and I have my challenges being remoted from the XVIII Airborne Corps as well.
I currently have 750-plus soldiers in Saudi Arabia and they have been there since the week prior to Thanksgiving, so they have been there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.
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In order to deploy that unit there, because of a number of base realignment and closure moves within my unit, it was very challenging and it took soldiers from eight different units as well as across the XVIII Airborne Corps to put that unit in there with an increased mission that happened in September at an increased THREATCON level that also happened in September.
So my challenge, since I have been in command about 6 months now, has been to maintain that unit in Saudi Arabia, as well as 13 company-level commanders; and as of yesterday morning when two of them deployed to the National Training Center, I now have 10 of them deployed. And so therein lies my challenge, to maintain them, and to train. And from my statement that I submitted for the record, I would much rather be one of those soldiers deployed, than one of those soldiers who are remaining with me at Fort Bliss and doing all of the maintenance and all of the other things that are going on during a deployment.
Mr. BATEMAN. Interesting point.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Laramore can be found in the appendix on page 134.]
STATEMENT OF COL. DAVID H. PETRAEUS, USA, COMMANDER, 1ST BRIDGADE, 82D AIRBORNE DIVISION
Mr. BATEMAN. Colonel Petraeus.
Colonel PETRAEUS. Colonel Petraeus, Mr. Chairman.
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Sir, I command the 1st Brigade of the 82d Airborne Division, 3,200 paratroopers, whose mission is to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours of notice, to execute a parachute assault, conduct follow-on combat operations and win. We are ready to accomplish that mission, but we do have challenges.
I have been in command of the brigade for about 18 months, during which time we have had operational deployments of a battalion to the Sinai for 6 months, a battalion to Haiti for several weeks, and an infantry company to Haiti for 4 months, in addition to numerous training deployments throughout the United States and around the world.
I would like to summarize very quickly using the three components of military readiness that General Keane discussed earlier today. Starting with soldier readiness; we do have excellent soldiers. Our paratroopers are the best in the world.
In terms of personnel flow, we have what is authorized, except in some combat service support fields and some of our officer ranks. We are also experiencing increased turbulence in the officer ranks that results from demands for branch-qualified officers elsewhere in the Army and in joint headquarters. And that is a service concern because it means you have inexperienced staff in key positions in our battalions.
Our major concern in the soldier readiness area concerns quality of life. You heard General Keane already. He is the installation commander at Fort Bragg in addition to commanding the corps. But needless to say, we believe that the pay of our junior troopers is probably inadequate—not probably, it is inadequate—that life is especially tough for our young married soldiers.
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There is clearly insufficient housing at Bragg where there is a 12- to 20-month wait for housing for young married soldiers, and the single soldiers really don't fare much better, because the barracks were built in 1950, still gang latrines, and have chronic maintenance problems. This has been compounded by funding cuts in the infrastructure maintenance areas that General Keane talked about. It means we then have to use soldiers to augment the maintenance effort to chip away at what General Keane described as the 1,500 work orders backlogged on the division alone.
In terms of equipment readiness, we have what we are authorized. We are able to maintain our equipment at higher than the Army standard, but we do that only because we have great paratroopers that are willing to work very hard. They do their work in inadequate maintenance facilities built in the late 1950's. We will be in those for the foreseeable future.
Only one of the six major subordinate commands of the 82d Airborne Division actually has new barracks and maintenance facilities under construction. The others are well in the out-years. Additionally, as the earlier panel highlighted this morning, we are concerned about modernization, about what we will be maintaining in the future years, particularly in our case in the light force.
In terms of training readiness, the 1st Brigade is very well trained. We have participated in virtually all of the Army's premier training activities in the past 18 months, including the Joint Readiness Training Center, Battle Command Training Program, War-Fighter Exercise, the largest airborne exercise since World War II, and U.S. Atlantic Command, 18th Airborne Corps Indonesian Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises in CONUS and overseas.
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We believe that we will be able to maintain the high quality for the training for the foreseeable future, with one major exception, and that is in the area of flying hours; whereas, again, where General Keane mentioned earlier, there have been cuts to the tune of about 7 percent for UH–60's, Black Hawk helicopters, and about a third in the OH–58 Kiowa area.
This is of concern to the brigade commander in the 82d because, obviously, the air assault operation is how we achieve mobility once we are on the ground. These issues are being addressed by General Keane and others in my division headquarters, and we hope that they will be resolved soon.
Additionally, when we deploy one of the divisions to assault helicopter companies for Bosnia for relief for 6 months in a few weeks, that will obviously limit substantially the ability of our units to conduct air assault training.
Finally, as General Keane highlighted, there are some real training facility shortcomings at Fort Bragg. Despite the large number of special operations, airborne, and other national assets at Fort Bragg, we have no sophisticated, no decent site for training in military operations in urban terrain and we also have to grapple with some fairly substantial environmental restrictions that preclude us from helping ourselves by building some of our own ranges.
Mr. Chairman, despite the challenges I have described, we are trained and ready to accomplish the mission that we have.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Petraeus can be found in the appendix on page 142.]
STATEMENT OF CAPT. MICHAEL D. MALONE, USN, COMMANDING OFFICER, U.S.S. ''ENTERPRISE'' CVN–65
Mr. BATEMAN. Captain Malone.
Captain MALONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is my privilege to come before you as the commanding officer of the sailors and marines that are the heart of U.S.S. Enterprise. These young people, the majority of whom are less than 25 years of age, returned to Norfolk, VA, on December 20 after spending 6 months as the Atlantic Fleet's forward-deployed aircraft carrier.
Having recently completed a deployment and the required training exercises leading up to the deployment, I hope that Enterprise's experience will give you an accurate measure of the state of readiness of our forward-deployed Navy.
The measurement I chose to evaluate Enterprise's deployment experiences from a readiness perspective is borrowed from testimony presented to the members of this committee last year by Adm. Joseph Lopez, former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Resource, Warfare Requirements and Assessments. The substance of his response to a subcommittee question was that readiness of our Naval forces lies in three tiers: forward presence, response to crisis, and the ability to fight and win. It is from this perspective that I will discuss readiness and performance of Enterprise during our recently completed deployment.
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Enterprise assumed the position of one of our country's forward-deployed national assets on June 28 after undergoing the most complex refueling and overhaul in Naval history. Mr. Chairman, the investment in Enterprise was money well spent. Enterprise provided a forward presence in the Mediterranean for 3 months, including support of the implementation force in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
We later spent 2.5 months in the Arabian Gulf flying missions over Iraq in support of Operation Southern Watch. Our original schedule called for us to spend more time on station in the Mediterranean, but Saddam Hussein's actions in northern Iraq suddenly changed the equation.
On September 12, we were operating in the Adriatic supporting the implementation force ground troops who were preparing for the September 14 Bosnian elections. At 1800 that night, Enterprise was tasked to proceed at best speed to support the units of the Carl Vinson carrier battle group participating in Operation Desert Strike II, in the Arabian Gulf.
National Command Authority called on Enterprise for several reasons: First, U.S. land-based aircraft were denied overflight authorization of Turkey and Syria. Second, land-based United States aircraft in Saudi Arabia were also prohibited from flying missions in support of Desert Strike II.
Enterprise and its 50-strike aircraft could respond to the crisis without restrictions. We transited between two of the world's most critical regions in 6.5 days, covering 4,300 miles, at an average speed of 30 knots. This extraordinary speed was possible because nuclear power allowed us to move without slowing to refuel. Nuclear power allows our aircraft carriers to be the fastest, most mobile and flexible instruments of foreign policy on Earth.
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We responded to the President's call, and when we entered the crisis area, we were ready on arrival to fight and win. In fact, within 3 hours of arrival, we are launching aircraft over the Arabian Gulf.
Together with the Carl Vinson battle group, Enterprise and its escorts formed an awesome strike force of over 100 strike aircraft and 380 Tomahawk missiles. Realistic training received prior to deployment ideally suited Enterprise to instantly integrate with other carrier units in the area. Although it may have been a coincidence, shortly after Enterprise's arrival in the Arabian Gulf, hostilities in northern Iraq ceased.
Mr. Chairman, you would be proud of the heart of the Enterprise, our sailors, who made it all possible. The countless hours spent on the flight deck, the bridge, and engineering spaces and galleys are what visitors continue to marvel at when they see Enterprise sailors in action.
We owe it to these hard-working men and women to protect their pay benefits and quality of life.
Mr. Chairman, the sailors and marines on Enterprise were on station halfway around the world, away from their loved ones, responding to a crisis and were ready on arrival to fight and win. I submit to you that not having to wage war is testament to our willingness and readiness to carry out the fight.
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Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Captain.
STATEMENT OF CAPT. ROBERT B. SHIELDS, USN, COMMANDING OFFICER, U.S.S. ''VICKSBURG'' CG–69
Mr. BATEMAN. Next we have Capt. Robert Shields, Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Vicksburg.
Captain SHIELDS. THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE, FOR THE INVITATION TO APPEAR HERE TODAY.
I have one bit of good news. I just came up from Mayport where my ship is stationed and the temperatures were in the 80's on the beaches this weekend, and spring has been sighted and it is heading north.
I am a lucky man to command Vicksburg, and in my humble opinion, she is the finest cruiser in the fleet. I have been there 10 months now. I took command shortly after her last Persian Gulf deployment.
She is one of the last five Aegis cruisers and has all the upgrades as far as propulsion and comet systems. I have a 380-man crew; of that, approximately one-third have newly reported since my last deployment, including myself.
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It is the most capable and ready ship on which I have ever served. We have been getting ready for our third deployment, this time with the John F. Kennedy battle group. We serve as the alternate antiwarfare command in that battle group. We started to get ready a year ago, almost exactly, when our admiral called the major commanders together, and we have been training as an entity since then.
We have been able to accomplish all our required training exercises. We have had all of our training ammunition available to us. We are at our highest level of readiness, which is M–1, in all our training areas, with no waivers.
This past month we worked with the Marines off the North Carolina coast in preparation for our graduation exercise which will occur next month. JTFX will work with the Air Force and the Army in what we call JTFX.
We leave for the Med in April. We have a great battle group, JFK is a great carrier. They have a super airwing. They did the precision bombing in Bosnia, and it is the finest carrier battle group with which I have worked.
We have been working hard to stay ready. I mentioned this will be our third deployment. The interdeployment periods have been 15 months between the first and second deployment, and 13 months between the last deployment and this one.
We have had some structural improvement in the Atlantic Fleet, principally the creation of the Western Hemisphere group, which has taken some of the tasking, which we would have had to normally. They took counternarcotics operations, and, for example, between on the first and second deployment, we were tasked with three 6-week periods of counterdrug operations in that 15-month period, and also had to do refresher training in GTMO.
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Vicksburg has been able to concentrate on getting ready to sail with the battle group in these last 13 months, and as a result, our days out of port have been 1 in 4 in this 13-month period as opposed to 1 in 3 in the previous interdeployment period. Still, 13 months is 13 months, and my crew is working hard.
Other areas which the fleet commander has helped us in is that it has encouraged us to reduce duty sections consistent with the safety of the ship. Duty section is the portion of the crew that has to be on board at all times.
Previously we were in five sections, now we have gone to six sections. That has helped out incrementally. The crew expects to deploy periodically. The sailors enjoy it, but when they come home they expect to have some time off and we are looking forward to an extended in-port period after this deployment.
And one of the areas of uncertainty is we are scheduled for yard period, and the location of that is undetermined and it would be tough on my crew to have to do it out of Mayport. We are very concerned about O&M cuts we are experiencing on future readiness. Right now I am only slated to receive about 32 percent of the O&M which I received ultimately last year, and that is what we used to buy spare parts, paint, cleaning supplies, grease and oil, rope, everything it takes to run a warship.
Also a significant problem is we are only going to receive 57 percent of our money we used for off-ship, out-of-area training. Fortunately, this won't impact me too much because I am deploying most of this fiscal year and I am able to get most of the training required, but if I was to stick around, it would be a significant impact on me.
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Other areas, quality of life, that my master chief will talk about later, our housing. I know a lot of work has been done in Washington, but still there is a backlog of housing in the Mayport area. Traffic congestion is bad around the base and we have a lack of simple facilities, like a covered pool and an inadequate gym, which was designed for 8,000 people and we have 15,000 people in Mayport.
With that, sir, I stand by to answer your questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, Captain Shields.
STATEMENT OF CAPT. KOLIN M. JAN, USN, COMMANDER, CARRIER AIR WING 7
Mr. BATEMAN. Captain Jan.
Captain JAN. Good morning, I am Capt. Kolin Jan, Commander, Carrier Air Wing 7. When we are not embarked on U.S.S. John C. Stennis, the Navy's newest commissioned aircraft carrier, my staff and I are based ashore at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA.
My wing is nominally comprised of 76 aircraft and over 2,700 people as follows: At Naval Air Station Oceana, I have 2 F–14B Tomcat squadrons of 13 aircraft each; at Naval Air Station Cecil in Jacksonville, FL, I have 2 F–18C Hornet squadrons of 12 aircraft each, 1 S–3B squadron of 8 aircraft, and 1 detachment of 2 ES–3 Shadows. At Naval Air Station Jacksonville, FL, I have 1 H–60 helicopter squadron of 6 aircraft.
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Naval Air Station Norfolk, VA, I have one E–2C Hawkeye squadron of four aircraft. They are presently in counterdrug ops in Puerto Rico, and one detachment of two C–28 Greyhounds. Finally, at Naval Air Station Libby Island, WA, I have one EA–6B Prowler squadron of four aircraft.
As I said earlier, I normally have 76 aircraft in the wing. Right now I have approximately 44 aircraft. This is because upon completion of a deployment, we transfer aircraft to squadrons more in need of them. Some aircraft are put into modification, others are put into extensive modification or rework.
We returned last July from a 6-month Mediterranean Sea and Arabian Gulf deployment, embarked on the U.S.S. George Washington. Captain Malone and Enterprise relieved us, and his story and our story pretty much match up the same. Hence we have the fewer aircraft since we just returned from deployment last July.
We are now beginning our formal structured training programs to get us ready for our next deployment in February of next year. This will take us around the world, delivering John C. Stennis to the west coast.
I would like to say a few words about our last deployment and its relativity to today. I can state unequivocally we are ready for any tasking from the National Command Authority. Our full mission-capable rates were the best I have seen in my career, as a result of sortie-completion rates unheard of 10 years ago.
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This translates into training and combat readiness and confidence, confidence that if called upon we could deliver, and confidence from the chain of command that we could back our words with action.
It was immensely satisfying to walk to the fly deck knowing the aircraft I was about to strap on and launch, could do the mission, all the systems and subsystems functioning, so the operational or training objectives for that sortie could be met. This was assuredly not the case when I was deployed in the mid to late 1970's. We have come a long way since then, and that is the good news.
As you can tell from my description of my wing, we are quite spread out across this country. This presents some training challenges to me, not insurmountable, but it does require a lot of attention. I have spent time with each squadron since the new year, some squadrons several times, and can tell you they are as dedicated to being combat ready, as can be expected at this point in the cycle.
However, they are anxious to move into the next training phase, even though it means more time away from their families, because it means increased funding so we can fly aircraft more and train to our various missions. What this increased funding means to us is more aircraft parts to fix the broken aircraft.
We have enough gas money to fly at this point in our cycle. If we got more money, we couldn't fly; we don't have enough airplanes to do it with, but we don't have enough parts to fix the aircraft either.
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Training is particularly important today as the expectations of our combat performance have been raised in the last several years. We are expected to hit the target with accuracy, no collateral damage, and all aircraft returning safely to their launch point.
I can assure you this is extremely difficult, very training-intensive, and it takes time in the air to become confident. It is not the push-button form of casual warfare the casual observer might glean from CNN.
The bar has been raised in the last few years. We meet or exceed that challenge when deployed overseas but have difficulty in the initial stages of the turnaround cycle due to lack of parts and training funds.
I suppose I should caveat my remarks by saying I am paid to be a warrior and to train my airwing to be combat ready. From the simple stick-and-throttle viewpoint of a junior pilot in the ready room, he or she can't fly enough. It is why they joined and it is what they want to do.
My guiding words to them are borrowed from my last battle group commander: You can never be too good at war-fighting. They try hard to live up to that. The lean months in their log books are a significant negative when they consider future naval service.
As General Hawley said, the airlines are hiring, and it is a giant sucking sound right now, to quote Ross Perot. I have real concern for our future.
Another item is demographic changes, something we are trying to deal with. Senior people with children. I myself have a 2-year-old. I squadron CO's and XO's having babies. It is a changed word out there.
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The lack of parts at this stage of training has had a deleterious effect on the maintenance people, too. They live to see the aircraft fly and it is very disheartening for them to look at unflyable aircrafts in their hangars and on their flight lines. It is a dissatisfier when they are considering reenlistment.
Most the people who leave, leave to attend college. We have proven tiered readiness works, we have proven it every time the battle group deploys. The downside is that it is hard for the superb professionals who fix and fly the aircraft to live through the lower tier after living on the top tier for the large part of the previous year. This is my biggest challenge, to keep them focused during the lean months of the training cycle.
We have a saying in naval aviation: All good things come from up aircraft.
If I had one request, it would be for more parts. This concludes my opening remarks.
It would be my privilege to answer your questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much.
Colonel Carpenter.
STATEMENT OF COL. WILLIAM D. CARPENTER, USAF, ACTING COMMANDER, 1ST FIGHTER WING
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Colonel CARPENTER. We are the host wing here at Langley Air Force Base and are responsible for the worldwide rapid deployment and employment of 54 F–15 air superiority fighters in support of the commander of ACC, General Hawley, CENTAF and PACAF plans. We also control the geographically separated 1st Rescue Group located at Patrick AFB, FL, which maintains one HC–130 combat rescue squadron and one HH–60 helicopter squadron.
Our near-term readiness concerns revolve around reenlistment rates and also the resources needed to fly our F–15's, the same problems that Captain Jan just outlined for you. Our long-term readiness concerns are the retention of our pilots, the length of TDY's that our folks spend on an annual basis, and the aging of our infrastructure, in particular this ramp out here and our aircraft hangars.
I look forward to your questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Carpenter can be found in the appendix on page 147.]
STATEMENT OF COL. JOHN F. SATTLER, USMC, COMMANDING OFFICER, 2D MARINE REGIMENT, 2D MARINE DIVISION, CAMP LEJEUNE, NC
Mr. BATEMAN. Now, Colonel Sattler.
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Colonel SATTLER. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be here this morning. Congressman Sisisky grabbed me off to the side and said to please keep my comments short, so I will comply, sir.
There is not much I can add to what General Wilhelm already opened with, except to say the force at the 2d Marine Division, one of the forces which General Wilhelm owns, is, in fact, combat-ready today. That being said, if you were to ask any of my fellow regimental commanders what is their No. 1 and 2 concerns from the readiness point of view, without hesitation, they would tell you that their No. 1 concern is personnel, and their No. 2 concern is modernization.
On the personnel side, we are combat-ready, and we are prepared to answer the Nation's 911 call, but not in the case of all nine battalions at one time. When a battalion returns from its deployment, it goes into what we call within the division a post-deployment personnel death spiral. That particular battalion will go from a strength of approximately 900 officers and men to a figure closer to 600, or in some cases, I have one battalion down now to 532 marines and sailors, officers and enlisted in the battalion.
The thing that scares us is that this death spiral seems to be going deeper and seems to stay down longer before the personnel infusion, the marines and sailors infusion, into that unit to prepare them to do the next deployment.
We are playing a shell game, sir. You move folks when you come back from deployment. Those individuals who still have enough time to do before their expiration of active service, but don't have enough time to deploy again with that unit, are immediately transferred within 60 days, sometimes within 30 days, over to a new unit to flesh out the ranks. That gives us experience, and it does mean that battalion will have individuals who will have already one deployment under their belt when they go out for the second time, but it does not do much for unit cohesion or team building, two factors which weigh heavily in combat and sometimes turn the tide in the favor of the unit which does have the cohesion and well-built team.
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The second point they would tell you is modernization. In the case of all of the services, I know for a fact in the case of the Marine Corps, we received new equipment from approximately 1983 to 1987.
General Wilhelm talked about the V–22 Osprey. We definitely need that. He talked about the advanced amphibious assault vehicle. We need that to round out our triad of equipment to come over the horizon and maneuver from the seas. But the marines that ride in these vehicles, the advanced amphibious assault vehicles and the Osprey, the weapons that they hold in their hands are from anywhere from 10 to 14 years old today.
The M–16A2 rifle, the 9-millimeter pistol, new mortars, all that euphoria hit the fleet in 1984 to 1987. But a lot of the folks who remember that euphoria have moved on, and a lot of the new marines are starting to cite it as good equip, but it is aging, sir.
Right now there is enough operational maintenance equipment to keep that money up, and we stay above the 90-percent readiness factor based on the backs of our technicians and our mechanics. But as that equipment starts to age, and as General Wilhelm indicated, the flat line of operational maintenance funds, if I were to sit here today and you held out a bag of O&M money or a handful of marines and asked any commander within the division which one would you take, they would grab the handful of marines with a smile on their face. But that same question asked 5 to 10 years from now, they may have to take the O&M money, sir, unless we start to modernize.
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So I will close by saying as we look out to the year 2001, in the micro, we are in very good shape, sir. If you look at the macro, I would say we are eating our seed corn when it comes to equipment. If you don't start to take some money and put it into modernization or recapitalization, the O&M equation is going to swing drastically as the equipment starts to age.
With that being said, again, thank you very much for this opportunity. I definitely look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Sattler can be found in the appendix on page 156.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Colonel. Thank you all.
Let me touch, for the benefit of all of you, on this matter of modernization. Procurement, acquisition of materials is not the primary—or the function of this particular subcommittee. But we are very much aware on this subcommittee that future readiness and world fighting capability require that we address the capitalization and modernization of our weapons systems through all of the services.
It is a matter of great concern to us, and disappointment to us, that procurement dollars have gone down, down, down to, I think, dangerously low levels, and that we are creating a circumstance where we need so much that is so very expensive that we are creating incredible peaks and valleys that we are just having inordinate difficulty finding the money any more. It is much more desirable, and we recognize it as being desirable that we be on a higher level of procurement in order that we forestall some of those modernization and equipment failures that are clearly coming if we don't address modernization.
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It is fine for the long-range Pentagon projections to say we are going to start spending $60 billion in procurement 4 or 5 years from now, but we have got problems that I feel very uncomfortable with, with our services having to live in the hope and expectation that sooner or later on somebody else's watch we are going to begin to provide for the modernization.
I think a key question for me, for all of you, is: If we were having this session last year or 18 months ago, and if we had this session 18 months from now with what you presently see, are you more ready today than you were 18 months ago? Will you be as ready 18 months from now as you believe you are now?
Captain MALONE. Mr. Chairman, on Enterprise I see cuts coming in people. At the moment we are experiencing a cut in dollars, on maintenance dollars. We are at Newport News Shipyard now in a $70 million availability that is down 20 percent because my boss has to find a place to fund a $200 million shortfall in the flight hour program. So, I am concerned for the future. It makes me choose between things like air-conditioning workshops or repairing weapons' elevators. I have to make the weapons elevators' choice. So I am concerned about 18 months from now, sir.
Colonel LARAMORE. Mr. Chairman, we have been amongst the Army's most employed units. For us, a high operational tempo equates to a good training tempo. We come back from our operations well trained. So, if you look at 18 months ago, in answer to that question, yes; I wouldn't have been too worried. I would have presumed that trend was going to continue.
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However, if I look at my operating dollars that the Army has given me, that has been steadily declining over the last 3 years—for example, this year I have 18 percent less to operate with than last year. At the same time, the OPTEMPO has gone down. That means I have to take that OPTEMPO and substitute good training opportunities with those limited dollars.
As we heard General Keane and my colleagues talk about, those dollars are also necessary for quality-of-life improvements that don't continue on in other manners. In the post I live on, my soldiers live and work on, Fort Eustis, that post is not able to support my soldiers adequately. We are picking up some of the slack for that.
If I look out to the future, right now I am not convinced that I am not going to suffer continued degradation in the dollars I have. So, although I currently believe I can, in fact, meet my readiness requirements, the picture is for me bleaker than it was 18 months ago, and I am not confident that it will be rosier or I won't be sending up serious warning signals 18 months from now.
General ROSER. We are clearly more ready today than 18 months ago, because we have a whole new squadron of new airplanes. I am very concerned about 18 months from now. We were maintaining adequate numbers of pilots. As a matter of fact, we were in a luxury a few years ago.
When I see the numbers and I talk to the young captains and majors, they are not going to stay in. I suspect 40 percent of my majors are going to get out in the next year. That is, people 12 years in that, are your backbone. I have probably the most experienced fliers in the command, the C–17. We pull people very experienced to fly that.
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But they are getting out. It is not because they don't love the Air Force, but the airlines are hiring, and we just can't compete in the marketplace for pilots. They look us in the eyes and say, I am sorry, there is nothing wrong with the Air Force, but I have my family to consider.
There is no predictability in the air loop business. We could be called at lunchtime, CNN, something happens, the airlift, we have to be there in 12 hours. They don't want that life-style. Predictability is a major factor. They have an option of going to United Airlines to get paid more and be able to tell their wife they will be home for their birthday; and 18 months from now we will be in significant problems with pilot retention.
Colonel SATTLER. Sir, I would say we are at the same state of readiness today as we were 18 months ago, but if I look out 18 months, especially with the QDR hanging over our heads, and also with equipment being 18 months older, and the operational maintenance lines staying possibly status quo, if not going down, sir, I would say the individual that takes my job coming up here, or any of the other regiments in the corps, if he or she happens to lose more marines, we are at the point right now, sir, I know it sounds hokey, but it seems if you took one more marine out, the band would snap.
If we drawdown the force, keep our same operational commitments using older equipment without a longer or larger O&M tail, and that is where the lack of procurement comes out of your hide; sir, as the Readiness Subcommittee chairman, I would say it is a grim prediction. We are not going to fall off the face of the Earth, and we will still be combat-ready, but marines will be working longer hours, putting in more time to keep up aging equipment, and they will be coming back from one pump to another to go backfill an open space, sir.
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Colonel PETRAEUS. I think in the 1st Brigade of the 82d, we are slightly more ready than 18 months ago, largely because of the wonderfully terrific training opportunities that we have had. It has just been almost a unique period in that regard.
On the other hand, 18 months ago the quality of life continued to slide farther because the barracks and maintenance facilities and so forth keep getting older. We have had something new, which is some officer shortages and the slide in personnel strength of the people that support our operations in the combat service support fields who are critically important to us.
Eighteen months from now, I think we probably will have declined some, particularly if the personnel shortages that are emerging now are not reversed, if the turbulence in our officers and our captains and majors is not fixed. The Army is addressing that. The question is how quickly they can truly fix the situation, because it is really driven by requirements outside of the tactical units for all these officers that have been in tactical units.
Additionally, we are seeing some piecemeal deployments of forces from the 82d. That is the aviation companies that I mentioned earlier. We think there will be a couple of battalions sent to Saudi as well. We have a battalion in Panama. Funding next year is in question. We are particularly worried in the flying area, where the money is in a light task force.
A perfect example of the lack of modernization dollars is we will have lost the 82d Air Droppable Tank Battalion. That is 58 tanks that can be dropped into an airhead with the paratroopers and all the other equipment that we drop, the artillery pieces and so forth. That is being deactivated in the next few months because there was inadequate funding for the follow-on system, as you well know.
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Very, very tough decision for the Army as a whole, and we recognize that; but, again, you can't say that we are happy to lose 58 tanks that can be air-dropped. We can compensate, get M–1's flown in by C–17's, but that is a lot different than something that is dropped in with you, assigned to your brigade task force around the year and trains with you.
We really don't see much relief in the area of quality of life, which is our biggest readiness concern. Although there are some family housing units being built, the pace is not extraordinary, and there is certainly nothing on the horizon once this one barracks complex and maintenance facility comes in that is funded at the present time. It is a very, very long process that the troopers have to look forward to.
Captain SHIELDS. Mr. Chairman, 18 months ago, Vicksburg was deployed as an independent deployment to the Persian Gulf. As we were just about to embark on a ready deployment, our readiness is similar or slightly more advanced because we are trading up as a member of a battle group which is pretty sophisticated.
Looking 18 months ahead, Vicksburg is slated to receive the CEC, cooperative engagement capability, upgrade, and I think the Navy has plans for us in the theater ballistic missile defense arena, so I think the Navy will take good care of us.
One potential downside is that if I were not in a deploying status now, and I drew a part out of one of my storerooms, I would not be allowed to restore that storeroom. I will fall into that category when I get back if that policy still exists, and that will have long-term negative effects on my readiness.
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Captain JAN. Mr. Chairman, 18 months ago I probably would have given a rosier view than I did in my opening remarks. I think a lot of that was because we were living off the fat of the land, there were parts to drawdown, we had excess parts around and people to do the work. Now that we don't have the parts around, it is really showing and hurting. My conversations with junior pilots in the ready rooms, I echo what the general said and everybody else. It is tough keeping these people in when the airlines are beckoning, and they are thinking about their families.
The common thread is if we could fly them more, they would be a lot happier. If they could train in their craft, they would be a lot happier. But the TDY requirements placed upon us also impact us. As you heard from the generals earlier, the multitude of exercises, joint exercises, on the road constantly, really wears away at them, particularly when some of these exercises are a little bit dubious in their value for the individual. He shows up and doesn't have much to contribute, the morale starts to sink a little bit. So we pay the price for that. I predict we will be worse in the future mainly because of pilot retention.
I am not sure where we are going on the parts situation. Today I have two warrant squadrons; should have 12 airplanes. Inventory of parts drives them to six. I can keep about four flying in one squadron. To put one division in the air impacts our training level. It hurts. The junior officers see it. They start voting with their feet.
The same thing with the enlisted men. I have arguably the best helicopter squadron in the world right now. They won every maintenance award in the last couple of years. Last week I was down there; they had an aircraft sitting in the hangar that was a cannibalization bin. I was sick to look at it. I know the hours and hours of work it is going to take to get the airplane back up to fly again when the parts show up. I may sound like a broken record, but parts mean everything good.
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Colonel CARPENTER. Sir, our mission capable rate for the first time is below the ACC standard of 83 percent. For the first quarter of this fiscal year, we were at 81 percent; January, 76 percent; and this month, February, we closed out it looks like about 78 percent.
If you look back 6 or 9 months ago, we had 25 to 30 spare engines. We have got 12 out there today. We predict unless we get more cores, engine cores, from the depot by June, we will not have any spare engines. The end of June we start a rotation in Southwest Asia again. So parts are a big problem.
OPTEMPO-wise we have the opposite problem of our Navy and perhaps our Army friends in that when we go to Southwest Asia or to provide comfort, our maintainers and our pilots don't get the sort of training they need. So as General Hawley mentioned, when those folks come back, we try to give them a couple weeks off to be with their families, and then have to spin them back up to speed in their basic skills.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Sisisky.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You basically asked the question and all of you answered it. I can tell you I don't like the answer. It is not what we are hearing—I don't mean that personally to you—it is not what we are hearing in Washington.
Having said that, it is interesting if I smiled at Captain Shields and Colonel Sattler, because they are used to backing up the other people in Washington. It is great to see them again right on the firing line on what is happening.
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I would echo what the chairman said about procurement. I am extremely concerned. They have us getting our procurement back up to $60 billion in the year 2001 and 2002. I don't know where it is going to come from. We have got unbelievable procurement things. If you just look at the aircraft alone, we are talking about the F–22's and the F–18E's and F's, we are talking about $400 billion worth of aircraft alone. We are talking about the transitional carrier, CVN 77, which is a transition from the CVS; $5 billion, which, by the way, we could save about $600 million if we just brought it up a couple of years, which I can't get in my mind.
But these are the problems that we are having to keep the technical edge.
Of course, I never understood, you know, General, you talked about the C–17, and I can tell you, you are right, it is a great aircraft. But the trouble we had getting that damn airplane was just absolutely unbelievable. The contract was let in 1982. We are just getting it. It is unbelievable what happened in trying to develop the weapons systems, and with the new procurement system.
The biggest problem that I see right now coming out of this hearing, Mr. Chairman, is the shortage of airplane parts. That is unconscionable. I mean, we spent an enormous amount of money for airplanes, and all of a sudden we can't fly them. He has a different problem than you have. When you fly a C–17 or C–141, you sit there and fly. When you fly a jet fighter, I think the retention is probably easier if we can get them flying than even in your type of thing.
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But you have gotten my attention by your answers. I just don't know, maybe we didn't ask the question 18 months ago, but it is a very pessimistic outlook, and you are the people that are on the firing line, which really gives us reason for caution. I guarantee you we will do the parts thing up in Washington.
I might add, interestingly enough, we found the Army had 500 engines, and instead of using the depot down in Texas to fix them, they were using the private sector, and none of them were getting fixed. Five hundred engines. I am talking about helicopters. It is unconscionable what is happening.
So there are some problems that are taking place that may be administrative rather than just money; and I am just wondering whether those parts—we will ask the Secretary and the CNO in the Navy and other people in the Air Force and the Army why these things are happening. But I do appreciate you gentleman coming.
One other question now. Have you seen any problem in your training at all in the schools, in the different services? Have you seen a problem in your training schools?
We discovered in the Army 2 years ago I view the most serious problem I have ever seen, no promotions at NCO's. It was absolutely frozen in this committee, believe it or not. Started questioning top echelons, how in the world can you maintain good NCO's?
All of you don't have to answer, those of you who have something in the absolute training of people. I am talking about different schools they have to go through, technical.
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Colonel PETRAEUS. I will take that one, sir.
I think really across the board, the training that our troopers have participated in, both at the individual, the leader and then the collective level, all the way up to the brigade task force, is probably better now than it really ever has been. The sophistication of the Army's combat training centers is something that the entire rest of the world and even some other services, frankly, marvel at. In the collective area, the noncommissioned officer education system and the officer education system are both excellent.
The promotion issue that you talked about, again, I don't want to get too far into the Department's business, but, you know, the troops under me have seen some light at the end of the tunnel on that, and I think my first sergeant is here and could touch on that later as well. But they have begun working down these various lists that were out there, and noncommissioned officers are being promoted. The backlog is being reduced. So there is some optimism in that regard as well.
Colonel HENDERSON. I will add to that, sir. The individual training that our soldiers are bringing out of the training base and into the units is not suspect in my mind at all; absolute rock bed confidence in the NCO leadership out there.
I think the individual skills that soldiers have in today's environment consistently remain high. My concerns become our ability to bring all those individual skills together and operate as we need to do at company and battalion and brigade level in order to make an operation work.
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So what he or she does on a daily basis, the soldier, they are coming out of the training base well skilled.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to follow up with Captain Jan just a minute and ask is this parts issue, is that an availability matter or a funding matter?
Captain JAN. I think a lot of it is an availability issue. You have to couple it with funding, too. We are finding out—particularly I will talk about the Hornet. We solved the engine problems, and we have plenty of engines to put in the airplanes now, but there is one particular component we are having a problem with, hydraulic drive unit [HDU], that we don't have enough of. I don't know where it originated, but it is a sole source contract, and so we are at his mercy. You can throw all the money you want at it, but you are not going to get any more.
Rather than fill the bare firewalls with engines that don't have the component, we let the airplane sit there and then do it all at once so we don't burn the troops out.
These guys are supposed to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. We try to do everything we can to minimize that.
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Mr. PICKETT. The other question I have for this group, Mr. Chairman, has to do with the issue of retention. That is a very important matter that has been alluded to in the area of pilots. That skill is very much in demand by the airlines. It has been mentioned that the quality of life issue is often talked about when people don't reenlist and they get out of the service.
What kind of impact does this have on your readiness, and what do you think might be some answers that we could pursue and try to remedy this situation? I don't know that everybody needs to speak about this, but I would like to hear from each of the service departments at the very minimum.
Captain JAN. I can answer that right off the bat from talking to the guys in the radio room. It is a marvel for some of the senior officers to walk into an aviation ready room and hear junior pilots talk about mutual funds, stocks, bonds, the latest interest rates, et cetera. That is not what it was like when I was a junior officer. Where is the Corvette, where is the airplane, go for it.
Retirement has changed enough where we force them to think about it. They have to. That also plays into retention for pilots and what they are looking at down the road. When they look at retirement at 45 years old, not with the retirement pay we will enjoy sitting here at the table; they have to take a long-term view of it. That has a very big impact on them.
It translates also to the enlisted people. They are looking down the road. What do they have to offer, the civilian sector, versus education requirements, versus the benefits they will have when they retire, medical, retirement pay, et cetera, and it ends up being a dissatisfier for them.
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General ROSER. Recently I was talking with a master sergeant that works down in the fab shop. The C–17 has a lot of composites. This is an art form, to be able to work with the composites. We asked the master sergeant, I said, ''what are you going to do, what are your plans?'' He said, ''I am going to get out at 20, because I don't trust that my retirement won't be changed. I am going to get out while I still have it.''
He walks out the door, and I have an E–2 coming out of school that shows up. My documents will show I am 100 percent manned, but I will tell you I am 5 or 6 years away from somebody that I can trust alone to work on these composites.
The other day I was talking to my pilots, and I can't believe a captain standing up and saying, ''I can't believe my retirement is not the same as yours.'' How can I guarantee him it will not change again? And he knows United Airlines is not changing their retirement system any time soon. I assure them everybody is fighting for our retirement time in the military, but it is a concern, it is a big concern out there.
I was a captain. When I saw retirement in the ''Air Force Times,'' I turned the page. I didn't care. But now we have these people looking at these things, and their big concern is, it is going to change. They are getting out while they still have it.
Mr. SISISKY. Please tell them to understand, when we changed the retirement system, everyone was grandfathered in. If you joined on June 30, you got the same; if you joined July 1, it was different then.
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Mr. BATEMAN. And you can assure your people, while changes have been made, I can assure that none of us wanted to make the changes, but we have not changed anything from the retirement program that existed when anyone entered the service. Prospectively, unfortunately, yes, but I cannot envision that the Congress is going to adversely affect the retirement program of anyone who is currently in the service.
Mr. SISISKY. Mr. Chairman, could we hear from the Army on that last question?
Colonel LARAMORE. I have found, speaking just inside my little world, that I am not having difficulties with first-termers at this point for reenlistment. We, the big Army, have created several selective reenlistment bonuses that offer them—the soldiers I have in Saudi Arabia, I have two that just reenlisted for a $20,000 bonus that is tax-free while they are overseas. That is only available to our first-termers.
But it is our midtermers that I am having difficulty with in my particular brigade, and just listening here, I sat at a retirement ceremony the last day of February and watched 31 NCO's and 2 officers retire, and I found it astounding that 27 of those had exactly 20 years, 2 days. Generally speaking, the retirement ceremonies I attend, 22, 24, 26, 30, I just found it interesting that there were so many at the 20-year mark who were walking away at that point.
I am having difficulty in the midtermers. I think we will make all the goals we have set first-termers. They are still reenlisting for education, primarily, and I then think they get disenchanted when they don't have an opportunity to do that.
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Of the 700 plus soldiers in Saudi, 185 of them are returning to Saudi for this rotation, and 4 of them are returning for their fifth time. And when you think one of them is an E–5, only been in the Army—I mean, Desert Storm, and this is the fifth Saudi rotation since Desert Storm, and he has been there for 5 of them, and he is an E–5. And I have a captain who has been there for 4. And that is about 3 years plus, and if you throw in Korea, away from their family since Desert Storm, some of my soldiers have been gone from their families 3 or 4 years. And the midtermers say, we will take something different back home, and but I would rather be around a little bit more. And that is what I am walking into now.
Colonel SATTLER. Congressman Pickett, I guess I am stuck here as a Marine Corps infantryman. I can tell you the airlines haven't been knocking on our door. But since we do deploy as Marine ground task forces, when we go out as a composite where we take folks from our Harrier squadrons, our F–18 squadrons and our helicopter squadrons, and I would say it is on their mind, maybe not foremost in their mind, but as they look at their opportunity to command squadrons down the line, those pilots who are in it truly for command and to lead Marines possibly into combat, if they don't think their chances of commanding a squadron are that good, they do begin talking about the 20-year retirement and when they will still be, quote/unquote, marketable with the airlines. So it is out there. It is not a driving factor, but it is hanging.
We are about in the same boat as far as our junior Marines go. We are a young force. We bring in, for 174,000 Marines that we have, that is our authorized end strength, we bring in close to 36,000 recruits a year. So we are a very young force. So our retention, our goals aren't as high possibly as some of the other services, and we do meet those goals. But when you start getting toward the 20-year mark, as was just alluded to, it is shocking to see some of your master sergeants who are retiring at 20 years to take on a second career to make sure they are a little more stable and they have their family financially taken care of. And again, there are not that many, sir, but there are a lot more than there were 10, 15 years ago when I was a young officer.
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Colonel HENDERSON. Sir, I would like to stress one point. In the 7th Group, we have been very successful with our reenlistment over the years, but I think one of the key things that our soldiers are looking for, both the ones who make the decision to stay on active duty and to leave the service, it points directly to stability. Soldiers don't want to deploy over and over again, and if they are deploying, they want some degree of assurance that at least their family is stabilized.
And again in the 7th Group, we have been lucky. I have soldiers who have spent 17 of 20 years in the Fort Eustis-Fort Story environment simply because we are a unique outfit, and a lot of our skills are just in my units in that location. So I have situations where the same soldier has made the deployments that my colleague has talked about over and over again, but he will, in fact, reenlist because his family has been relatively stable, has established those roots, and is comfortable, and, by the way, has been through the trauma of that deployment with basically the same support groups, and it makes it a lot easier for them as well.
That is a tough enough nut for the Army to crack. I don't know how we get to it, but it is a key factor along with some other things as well.
Captain SHIELDS. I have a story that ties together some of the things we are talking about here. I have an outstanding second class operations specialist who wants to be an intercept controller, and as I mentioned, I only have 57 percent of my training budget for sending people away to school. To do that I have to send them up to DAMNETCARE for 6 weeks, generally at a cost of about $1,300. If he does get that, he will probably ship over for 4, 5 years. Somehow I am going to make that happen, but it is getting tougher and tougher to get the $1,300 to get this one good sailor to ship over.
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Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Riley.
Mr. RILEY. I would like to direct this to the general and to Captain Jan. You know, I can see how we can change an OPTEMPO, how it can be adjusted. I can see where we can fund parts, procurement, where we can more easily get the parts back into your hands. But if I understood you a moment ago, did you say that within the next 18 months it is possible that you might lose 30 to 40 percent of your pilots?
General ROSER. Forty percent of the majors that I have assigned now I think are going to be getting out in the next 18 months. That is correct.
Mr. RILEY. This seems like a problem that needs to be addressed very rapidly; is something that it seems to me would take more than 18 months to train a pilot, to get them proficient to come back to the point where they are operational. You know, this seems like a tremendous problem that I would just like to know how you plan to address that.
And specifically, what do the airlines offer in terms of pay? How does the pay compare to what your people make, fringe benefits? Specifically, what are they offering that we are not offering?
General ROSER. We will never compete with the airlines with pay. A couple-year-old data, and you would have to check with them, but a fifth-year copilot with United might see $96,000; a 747 pilot made about $228,000, and they work 11 days a month and have complete dental. So we can't compete directly on the pay. But we have to make it, have to pay them sufficiently enough that they are not embarrassed to stay in, that they can stand the spouse pressure about why don't you get out and get this kind of money.
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So money, we will never get up there and say we will pay our pilots the same. We couldn't afford it, but we have to give them enough incentive that they are not embarrassed to stay in. And I think that is why we need to look at an increase in flight pay, bonus, maybe making the bonus in 3-year increments instead of having to sign up all the way to 14. Things along those lines we have to address today.
I am sure many of us have been here through this pilot retention cycle, and it truly follows airline hiring. So we need to do something financially, and if you gave a pilot a couple thousand dollars more a year in bonus and you don't have to spend $1 million it takes to train them, it is money ahead.
I don't advocate competing with airlines because I have a lot of people who don't get flight pay, and if I have two captains out there, and one is working 12 hours fixing it and the other is working 12 hours flying it, and I have such a discrepancy in the pay, I will have problems on the other side. So we need to have enough financial incentive to keep them, and their options of flight pay, bonuses, things like that.
But we offer things airlines don't. Airlines take off and fly to Pittsburgh and fly back, and then they fly to Pittsburgh, and then they fly to Cincinnati. I think Captain Jan and I both say we offer an excitement flying that they can't get in the airlines. And we offer camaraderie and serving your country, and that is still a very viable thing. I like to serve my country, I stay in.
But we need to address that difference in pay somewhat, or we are going to have significant problems; and in the Air Force we used to have more pilots than we have today, and I don't think we have that pool of ready pilots to pull out of headquarters to put on the line. So I am a little concerned about it.
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Captain JAN. I can give you my own personal example. I made a couple deployments in the mid to late 1970's, came back and went down to Training Command Pensacola to be a flight instructor. I was averaging 65 to 70 hours a month flying. Life was great. I had also intended to go down there to build time to go to the airlines and submit my resignation, and I decided about 2 months before I was supposed to get out that I was getting out for the wrong reasons, that what I really wanted to do was fly jets off aircraft carriers. That is more fun than you can possibly imagine. A lot of people with a lot of money can't do what I do, and I take a lot of pride in that, and so do my friends who do it.
I decided to stay around the Navy, and I have been rewarded with a pretty rich life-style by doing that, making enough money to be comfortable; and my wife works. Some people with three and four children, their wives don't work, and it is harder for them financially. The airlines do offer them more money.
We are also looking at more senior people getting out because they hire, in the term, old guys. United Airlines right now is retiring a pilot a day, and they need to hire another 300 in addition to that. So they are looking for people to put in their cockpits. It is a big draw, as far as stability, where you can live, benefits that come with virtually free travel, all those kinds of things. Now, it is flying a bus, it is not very exciting, but then you don't miss your family for 6 to 8 months at a time either, and that is a real hard part.
How we can compete with that is giving them the flight time. I loved it when I was flying a lot. There are a lot of guys who will tell you that they will do it for free. It is not quite true, but that is the standard talk around the ready rooms. Guys and girls just love to fly the airplanes. It is why they are there. But if we don't allow them to do that, they might decide something else might take priority, and that is their families.
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Mr. RILEY. Evidently if we were losing pilots at this rate, we have to do something and very quickly. When you start talking about losing almost half of your majors within a year to year and a half, I think that is a thing this committee needs to look into and look into as soon as possible.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Riley.
Any of you gentlemen have any further observations you would like to pass off to us?
Colonel SATTLER. Mr. Chairman, if I might just add on, Congressman Riley indicated he is a freshmen Congressman and been on the committee for 2 months. I just wanted to pile on, camaraderie and esprit de corps across all the services and within your particular service is not an intangible, and there are many marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen who stay on and continue to fly for less pay, deploy from family and endure the hardships because of that camaraderie and esprit de corps.
And it sounds extremely schmaltzy probably, and it is tough to the sell to the families in some cases, but I would say in the latter number of years here, we have brought the families more into the equation so the families now understand where we go, why we go and what we do while we are there; and that, on November 10 when the Marine Corps birthday comes, everyone stands tall. Well, United Airlines doesn't have a birthday as far as I know. It is tough to market something like that, but not if you are in the organization. And I haven't heard the American Airlines song played with all the pilots locked at attention. When that ''Marine Hymn'' plays, I guarantee you are—whether you fly helicopters, whatever—you are standing tall.
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So we can continue to foster that, we can continue to drive that point home through our schools and through our mentors within our individual services. Again, it sounds schmaltzy, but there are plenty of people who stay because they look at their checkbook, and they look at their PONIO's, and they stay in the uniform.
Mr. RILEY. I think you are absolutely right. The esprit de corps probably is an intangible that none of us can put a value on. But on the other hand, when you have this rate of 35 to 40 percent of a group going out, I think that is something even with the esprit de corps, and I think the gentleman alluded to this a moment ago. There are intangibles. You want to fly off a carrier. I want to fly off a carrier. You and I need to talk.
Colonel SATTLER. That can happen, before the Sun sets.
Mr. RILEY. There are intangibles, but I also want to protect our military, and we have too much invested in time and equipment and people and personnel to let American Airlines or Delta or anyone else literally destroy a corps because we are not competitive, and we may never be competitive in pay. But the combination of that esprit de corps and that different pay scale, a different rate of flying, maybe we can make all of these combinations come together so we can alleviate some of these problems that you are having maintaining that pilot.
Mr. BATEMAN. Well, gentlemen, we thank you. Your testimony has been exceedingly interesting and I think invaluable to the committee as we try to wrestle with these problems; and certainly I know I speak for all the members of the committee here and on the full committee, our appreciation for what you do and our pride in you and the people that you lead. Thank you very much.
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[Whereupon, the subcommittee recessed at 12:30 p.m. to be reconvened at 2:05 the same day.]
Mr. BATEMAN. If the subcommittee will come to order. We will begin our third session with our third panel of witnesses. Let me introduce the witnesses in the order in which they are before me.
Sfc. Janice F. Murrell, U.S. Army, operations sergeant, 7th Transportation Group, Fort Eustis; Master Chief Robert R. Hallstein, U.S. Navy, command master chief, U.S.S. Enterprise; Master Chief Terrance Ashenfelter, U.S. Navy, command master chief, Air Wing 7. We have Master Chief Michael Tsikouris, command master chief, U.S.S. Vicksburg; Sfc. Bryan Charles Lambert, U.S. Army, first sergeant, C Company/2–504th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg. I hope you don't have to put all of that on your address; M. Sgt. Juan Gutierrez, U.S. Army, Maintenance, North Carolina NCOIC, 1st, 108th Air Defense Brigade, Fort Bliss, TX; Senior Sgt. Dennis M. Krebs, U.S. Air Force, sortie generation flight chief, 71st Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Wing. Then we have 1st Sgt. Christopher A. Rupp, U.S. Marine Corps, first sergeant, Company K, 3d Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune; and finally, M. Sgt. Roger McElrea, U.S. Air Force, superintendent aircrew training, 437th Airlift Wing, Charleston Air Base.
We welcome you very much and look forward to hearing your testimony. In my opening statement I characterized you as being the backbone of our military services. We believe that, and the general officers and all the other officers who have testified today tell us they entirely agree with us, so we are really looking forward to hearing your observations and your insights as to the current and what you foresee as being the readiness challenges for the military units with which you are so deeply involved and play such a leadership role in developing and maintaining their proficiency.
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So, with that, I guess in the order in which I introduced you, I would ask Sfc. Janice Murrell for her comments.
STATEMENT OF SFC. JANICE F. MURRELL, USA, OPERATIONS SERGEANT, 7TH TRANSPORTATION GROUP
Sergeant MURRELL. Sir, my comments as far as overall, the general from Fort Bragg basically touched bases on a lot of the areas that we have concerns about, myself as well as some of our NCO's beneath me, as well as North Carolina O's and NCO's above me: The condition of the living quarters of the soldier in the barracks, as well as the housing area, as well as the facilities with regard to a better fitness facility for the soldiers, as well as educational centers.
Also in the area of operations, a lot of soldiers in Fort Eustis are the same soldiers that are deployed back to back, because we are the only component of its kind. So therefore, the soldiers constantly move on back-to-back tours.
In the same timeframe, the soldiers do have a concern as far as a career in the military. They would like to stay in the military, but with some of the changes going on with regard to the 20-year retirement, versus what I get in 20 years, versus what they will get 20 years down the road, there is no assurance of it staying that way.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, Sergeant.
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Master Chief Hallstein.
STATEMENT OF MASTER CHIEF ROBERT R. HALLSTEIN, USN, COMMAND MASTER CHIEF, U.S.S. ''ENTERPRISE'' CVN–65
Chief HALLSTEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to appear before your committee to offer my comments on readiness. It is my privilege to come before you as the command master chief, the senior enlisted member of the 3,200 enlisted sailors and Marines assigned to the Enterprise.
As you already know, the Enterprise just returned to Norfolk, VA, in December, after spending 6 months as a forward deployed carrier. This was Enterprise's first major deployment in over 6 years.
I appreciate this opportunity to share Enterprise's experience from a sailor's point of view. Hopefully this will help you in your efforts to assess the readiness of our Navy. At the heart of Enterprise you will find bright, young sailors, 59 percent of whom are under the age of 25. These 3,200 young men and women steamed 50,000 miles during the 140 days at sea, launching and recovering more than 13,000 aircraft during our 6-month deployment.
Within these sailors lies a spirit of determination and imagination I have never seen before in my time in the Navy. Enterprise sailors truly believe there is nothing they can't accomplish.
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I would like to provide you with a few examples. While operating in the Mediterranean, our engineers noticed a metallic rattle at low speeds in one of our four main engines. The engineers found the cause of the rattle to be a broken valve seat rod, which allowed steam to enter the turbine and turn the shaft in a forward direction, even with the throttle shut. Conventional wisdom ashore said this type of repair must be completed in a shipyard, certainly not on a deployed, operating ship. But nobody on shore took into consideration there is nothing conventional about our sailors.
After ordering the parts and training on a mockup valve seat, our sailors began the repairs. Less than 7 days later, and without any outside assistance, the repairs were completed. Most importantly, the entire time these sailors worked in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. The savings to American taxpayers, approximately $750,000.
The launching and recovering of more than 13,000 aircraft which logged over 25,000 flight hours over a 6-month period may sound routine, but if you have ever seen or experienced the thrill of an aircraft carrier during flight operations, you know it is anything but routine. The 600-sailor air department are the ones that make sure the aircraft are launched and recovered safely, 24 hours a day, in rain or in shine.
During our 71 days in the area of operations, our sailors on the flight deck performed their difficult task consistently in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Camel backs, or two filled water pouches that sailors strapped to their back to provide a constant supply of water, were provided to our flight deck personnel and our engineers to help combat the extreme heat.
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A typical flight schedule calls for 12 hours of flying and approximately 100 sorties. This requires our sailors to be on station more than 2 hours prior to launching the first airplane and 2 hours after the last one lands to ensure the equipment is properly maintained and ready for the next day's flight schedule. Twelve hours of flying equates to 16-hour workdays for our sailors. There is no second shift on an aircraft carrier. The young men and women who begin the day on the flight deck at 6 a.m. are the same ones wrapping it up at 10 p.m.
A final example of the spirit and determination of Enterprise sailors comes to you from our communications department. A communications satellite system called Challenge Athena provided additional capability for the ship and was installed literally the day before we left deployment. Actually it was the day before we left.
Because the Enterprise was only the second East Coast carrier to ever deploy this system, there was little corporate knowledge existing throughout the Navy on Challenge Athena. For the first 3 weeks of deployment, our radio men worked around the clock to make this system work. With no formal training on this system, little assistance from the shore, and the will and intelligence to make things work, our sailors from the communications department provided the battle group Enterprise and their fellow shipmates with a tremendous capability. Because of their efforts, we could receive national imagery; perform video telemedicine between Enterprise doctors and their counterparts ashore; and sometimes the most appreciated feature of all, providing phone lines to our sailors, permitting them to call home from sea.
The American taxpayers can be very proud of the investment they are making in today's Navy. We truly have the best and most quality force I have seen in my 21 years of service. While the force has been shaped to meet today's threat, I respectfully ask, Mr. Chairman, that you and other Members of Congress remember the sacrifices that our sailors and their families are making day in and day out while serving their country. The sailors of today join our Navy for a variety of reasons, some to learn new trades, some to travel, and some for the educational benefits. None of the sailors that I know join our Navy to get wealthy.
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Many of our new recruits have never been part of or a member with experience in the civilian job market. As our sailors gain knowledge and experience in many technical fields in the Navy, the issue of pay and benefits begins to rise higher in their area of concern. We must continue to maintain our efforts in ensuring our sailors are provided compensation for their services by providing the adequate quality of life, which is reasonable pay and benefits. We must maintain our efforts and ensure our sailors are provided compensation for their services by providing the adequate quality of life with reasonable pay and benefits. We must continue our efforts to provide the necessities to permit our sailors to live a modest lifestyle and raise a family if they so desire. If we cannot continue to provide those resources, as I believe we presently are doing, we will force many outstanding sailors not to consider a naval career and look for compensation elsewhere.
The Navy has done an outstanding job maintaining 6-month, port-to-port deployments, eliminating the redundancy in training requirements, and closely monitoring nondeploy on away days. We must continue to remain committed to providing a reasonable at-home time for our sailors. This nondeploy time is very important to our sailors, especially to our married members and the many sailors taking advantage of their off-day educational benefits.
Many sailors join the Navy to take advantage of the outstanding educational benefits offered by the services. Many outstanding benefits available to our sailors are of little use if they are not here to utilize them.
We must continue to look for innovative ways to get the most from our underway days and avoid overtaxing our Navy. Frequent separations from families and friends, long hours on watch, and doing the tough jobs at sea, are just some of the many sacrifices our sailors do for our country and the Navy. So we owe them the commitment to ensure that their pay and the quality of life are commensurate with the services they are providing.
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I appreciate the opportunity to provide input today, and look forward to answering any questions you or any Member of your committee may have.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much.
Next is Master Chief Terrance Ashenfelter.
STATEMENT OF MASTER CHIEF TERRANCE ASHENFELTER, USN, COMMAND MASTER CHIEF AIR WING 7
Chief ASHENFELTER. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the subcommittee.
I am Master Chief Fire Controlman Terrance Ashenfelter, currently assigned as command master chief of Carrier Airwing 7, stationed at Naval Station Oceana. When deployed, we will operate from the deck of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, CVN 74.
When asked to talk about readiness, I looked it up in the dictionary just to kind of figure out what I might want to talk about here, and according to Webster, it is to be prepared or equipped to act or be used immediately.
Armed with that information, I called up the squadron command master chiefs that make up the airwing and asked them to give me 1 plus and 1 minus concerning their readiness posture as a snapshot of where we are.
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The responses covered at least one squadron of every type in the wing, every type plan that we have in the wing. On the minus side, which is short, the following areas were of concern: Shortages in parts availability or lack of resources to a point where we steal from ''A'' to fix ''B'' and hope that replacement part will come in before we need ''A'' again. In some cases, this shortage is just a stocking function, while in others it is a problem with the class of planes that requires constant vigilance.
One master chief used the phrase: ''We are hanging by a thread when it comes to parts support.''
Problems in the area of manning are also a concern. The caliber of newly reporting personnel in some squadrons is less than expected, based on information we see and hear about how today's recruits are better than ever.
A majority of our time is spent dealing with that small group of personnel that are a constant headache and are troublemakers. The good news is the troublesome group is shrinking.
Availability of experienced personnel and the right ratings is another Navy concern. We tend to grow some very good technicians, only to have them leave, either through transfer or separation from the service.
On the plus side, each squadron command master chief asked, stated that they were ''ready,'' and I use that in quotes, because they said they were ready, citing the following positive factors: We are working on young and reliable airframes which require less extensive repairs to keep them operating when we have the right parts. There is a concerted effort to provide quality training. Training teams no longer take the negative approach telling us how bad we are, but rather show us how to get to where we need to be.
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On the personnel side, we have the hardest working group of sailors out there doing what has to be done in a safe and timely manner to ensure there are no missed missions or jobs not completed. Some squadrons are fortunate to still have some of those experienced personnel around.
Our sailors are willing to work hard without complaint. There is pride in what we do. In one squadron, a senior khaki about to retire said his outfit was the best he had ever been in. Even though he was leaving the Navy, he was still very upbeat about having been in.
Looking at the success rate for any of our squadrons reveals very impressive results; there is a price for that readiness. It may have been a squadron who had to call back to a supply expediter just prior to entering a port overseas to get a part to fix an aircraft. When that part arrived, a group of sailors had to get the part installed, checked, and verified for proper operation, so that that aircraft could be flown when we departed the port.
The cost of that portion of the readiness picture was the inability to get ashore for their time off that shift for those sailors. Not the same group all the time, but if that scenario gets played often enough, it starts our young sailors thinking about not becoming old sailors.
In a broader sense, we work around a lack of resources, always maintaining a can-do attitude. Whether a simple problem, such as not having a modem or software that will work when required, or as complicated as the aforementioned aircraft repair, in each and every case the ingenuity of the American blue jacket results in the job being done safely, timely, and correctly.
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I welcome any questions you have.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much.
Next we have Master Chief Michael Tsikouris.
STATEMENT OF MASTER CHIEF MICHAEL TSIKOURIS, USN, COMMAND MASTER CHIEF, U.S.S. ''VICKSBURG'' CG–69
Chief TSIKOURIS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee and staff. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.
I have been the command master chief aboard the guided missile destroyer Vicksburg since the end of her maiden deployment in June 1994. Since then, the ship and her crew have been through two more 6-month deployments and have participated in numerous counternarcotic missions to the Caribbean, the Cuban refugee crisis, and the Haitian mission, Operation Support Democracy.
I personally have been on seven different ships or different type platforms as well as a cargo staff over 20-some odd years. And, sir, if I see a common thread that really seems to be hitting a head in the last couple of years—and just to kind of back myself up, and I had gone over and talked to my counterparts on the cruisers and frigates out of Mayport where we are stationed at currently—there would be two items.
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I hear training; I hear quality of life. And quality of life seems to get beaten into the ground a lot, but it is really a big issue.
If I could hit training just for a second, one of the problems I have seen over the years is specialization, modernization. You have the smart ships coming out. Hand in hand with that, we get downsizing and less and less people coming in.
So what happens is the people that we have got coming in have to get smarter to be able to work these ships and take them into harm's way and be able to come back to their families.
What I see is our TAD funding, what my caption mentioned earlier, is nearly halved, and every planning board for training that we hit weekly, it is a major struggle on how to figure out how to get these young guys who have come into the Navy specifically for some good schooling and not just for themselves but to be able to do their job.
We run across incidents like, well, I know somebody over there that can put you up for the week or 2 weeks you are going to be there, so we won't have to worry about trying to get you into a motel or BEQ, and this way we can get you and feed you while you are up there. We run into this more and more. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
It ends up being mission-driven, who is on the hot seat first? Is it your propulsion exam coming up, or a combat mission coming up? It depends on who gets to the schools first.
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Our pride is still there. Those guys will do anything, the men and women in the fleet are willing to do anything for us, as long as they know we are there to take care of them.
Training and schools are important, but we also look at professional development to increase and better them in their rate, as well as the specialization they need for the equipment they are working on. And the positive side of this, the PACE programs, which are the college courses being offered aboard our ships now, we have come leaps and bounds with that, and that is very utilized, I know back in Mayport with the new learning resource centers we have got, so BZ on that. If we could keep that up for the junior sailors—I notice my junior sailors are the ones that are really taking advantage of that, a smart group of men and women coming in.
The second part, sir, would be the quality of life. As I stated, I have learned over the years you can ask anything of our men and women in the fleet, and they will deliver with pride and a very positive attitude, if they know that they are secure in the knowledge their families are being taken care of at home.
One of the big things I would advocate is support for the family service centers. I have spent—five of my ships were out of the Norfolk area here, and it is the first time I am down in Mayport, and you can really see a difference in family services when they are supported and when they are not.
I send a lot of my people there for anger management or budgeting or things that help them out. It is a good asset for the Navy.
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When I first joined, I was the only married guy in my division of like 42. I was 19 or 20. Now it has probably flip-flopped. Housing seems to be a big problem. What was mentioned earlier is very true. My junior members come in and now they have a child, maybe 2, they are 19, 20, 21 years old, and they have a 2-year wait to get on a housing list, which is normal. But then you are forcing them out in the public, in the civilian community, where they have to buy a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment or home, which is out of their bounds a lot of times.
We are doing the best we can. We are taking steps in housing. While we are renovating, we end up cutting back housing that was available to them before. So housing tends to be a problem.
That is for the married. You also have to look at the single sailor, which is a big concern of mine, because 40 percent of my crew is single. I have about 140 single sailors right now, and one thing I look at, as with any fleet asset, the ships, we work hand-in-hand with the base. What we do when we are out to sea, and my cruisers are 6 months underway, 8 months in port when I first started out, and we have gotten better, anywhere from 15 to 30 months in port.
What are we giving our junior people or kids to do when the guy is under 21, doesn't have a vehicle and is just sitting around the base? We have a base, our gym facilities. Our pool is meant for about 8,000, and it has doubled, from what I gather from the captain of the base, and this master chief was telling me, we have 15,000 there now.
We push physical readiness, we push alternatives to drinking. We need to look at facilities like that, sir. I end up sending our people to the University of Florida and try to get a reservation at the indoor pool, because we have none on base there. So our search and rescue swimmers, which is a necessary requirement aboard the ships, and for the guys with bad knees to be able to do the swimming part of the PRT, we have them go out to the schools and try to get reservations. So things like that make things difficult, so if we could concentrate on things for our junior people when they are in port as well as underway.
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I thank you for your time and look forward to answering any questions you may have for me.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you.
Sfc Bryan Charles Lambert.
STATEMENT OF SFC BRYAN CHARLES LAMBERT, USA, FIRST SERGEANT, C COMPANY/2–504TH INFANTRY REGIMENT, 1ST BRIGADE, 82D AIRBORNE DIVISION, FORT BRAGG, NC
Sergeant LAMBERT. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you and represent some of the greatest fighter forces in the world. I am the first sergeant of a 128-soldier combat-ready airborne infantry company. As a first sergeant, I know that we have a lot of problems, not just dealing with equipment and personnel, but the major problem is quality of life.
Quality of life has always been an issue and will continue to be a priority. A single soldier and a married soldier with dependents are one of my company's most important aspects of care and concern. If the soldiers are well taken care of, it would enable them to focus on their duties and accomplish the mission with an outstanding attitude and a positive result. I have married enlisted soldiers living in the economy; and because of the pay they receive, it is in substandard housing. The affordability of decent housing is not within reach, and availability of post housing is limited. Post housing can sometimes be a 12-month or more wait at Fort Bragg.
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Most disturbing, I have married soldiers on welfare or who need some type of family assistance. Although there are established family support groups on the installation, they are there to help the family, the soldiers and the family, and also we have the chaplain services and the lending closet. It does not comfort the soldier who is trying to fight for his country, leaving behind his family, wondering how they will survive financially and emotionally.
In addition, the soldiers in my unit who occupy living quarters in the barracks are subject to leaking pipes, cracked ceilings, and cracked walls in which insects have caused an infestation. At times this is a chronic problem without resolution, due to reasons beyond our control. And still my unit remains motivated and dedicated.
In closing, although we are experiencing problems in the area of quality of life, we will continue to give 110 percent to support and enhance the quality of life for our soldiers and their families. Also, we will remain ready and willing to fight and win anywhere in the world to protect this great country. Thank you.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Sergeant Lambert.
STATEMENT OF M. SGT. JUAN GUTIERREZ, USA, MAINTENANCE NCOIC 1ST, 108TH AIR DEFENSE BRIGADE, FORT BLISS, TX
Sergeant GUTIERREZ. Good afternoon, Chairman Bateman, distinguished members of the panel. It is my high privilege to be here today and represent the soldiers of 108th Air Defense Brigade. When word got out last week that I would be coming over here, I had a lot of personnel within my unit approach me, and they said, what are you going up there for, what is your mission. I told them we were going to be discussing readiness, and they started giving me a few necessary elements that they thought needed to be voiced, and as I stated, I am proud to be here representing them.
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Sir, if I may quote one of the favorite sons of Virginia, he said the surest way to peace is to be prepared for war. And it was as evident back in the 1770's when George Washington said that as it is today. Now, personnel shortage seems to be one of the things my soldiers are concerned with. When I am saying ''my soldiers,'' I am talking also on behalf of the noncommissioned officers.
Now, soldiers, first of all, must be knowledgeable and proficient in a myriad of subject matters, to include first aid, their military occupational specialty, marksmanship, be physically fit, and nowadays they need to employ some type of computer literate skills. They also—for all that they do, I should say service members deserve a little more pay than what they are getting now.
Now, retention is affected by the fact that there is a lure of opportunity in the civilian sector; and I feel if we upgrade reenlistment bonuses, and we look toward better promotions and more promotions, then I feel we will be able to retain a better, more motivated force. That is not without saying they aren't motivated now to contribute to the national security of our Nation, but I just feel that we as a nation need to give the emphasis where emphasis needs to be.
There is a vicious cycle of repercussion, sir, that is evident in the downward spiral of quality of life. Soldiers deploy on a much more frequent basis nowadays, and I refer specifically to the Patriot units. Personally, I had three rotations to Saudi Arabia, and I have known soldiers who have had up to five and six. In some cases these soldiers were not married; in some cases they were. As a former first sergeant I kept specific graphics on how many soldiers came back, how many were contemplating divorce, how many we were able to save; and each time when deployed that number got higher and higher. And I expect with the unit we currently have in Saudi Arabia, we may have, and hopefully not, but we may have some more divorces that are waiting in the wings that we don't know about.
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All that, sir, contributes to readiness or affects it in some manner or another. If a soldier is worried about his family or some other matter, his mind it not on his job. One of two things is going to happen: People are going to get hurt, or equipment will get broken.
The lack of manpower, sir, has hampered training from the new equipment that we have also fielded. Recently we have fielded the TQG, tactical quiet generators. We fielded the equipment supply system the Army is switching to now, and it requires people to be trained on it. But at the same time there are simultaneous missions that are taking place that we need to have personnel also attending. So it becomes a situation where a soldier is wearing three or four, and in some cases five, different hats, because we don't have the personnel.
And I stand ready, sir, to answer any of your questions this afternoon. Thank you.
[The biography of Mr. Gutierrez can be found in the appendix on page 166.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you.
Senior M. Sgt. Dennis Krebs.
STATEMENT OF SENIOR M. SGT. DENNIS M. KREBS, USAF, SORTIE GENERATION FLIGHT CHIEF, 71ST FIGHTER SQUADRON, 1ST FIGHTER WING
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Sergeant KREBS. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to address you on the subject of military readiness as perceived by the ground level worker. You have my written testimony. I will summarize my key points.
As those who have testified before me have indicated, both current and future readiness is being challenged. From my perspective and observation on a daily basis, we cannot afford further personnel reductions, especially with increases in OPSTEMPO and the decline in retention of my first- and second-term airmen. Quality of life issues such as living conditions for my most valuable resource, people, need not only be improved but maintained as well. Additionally, we must be provided the necessary resources, such as parts and equipment, to accomplish our mission successfully.
In my opinion, not one of these issues is more important than the next. They are all interwoven and of equal importance if we have to maintain an acceptable state of both current and future readiness. Please provide me with these tools to do my job to the best of my ability.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee for giving me this opportunity, and I look forward to any questions you may have.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Sergeant Krebs can be found in the appendix on page 167.]
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Mr. BATEMAN. First Sgt. Christopher Rupp.
STATEMENT OF 1ST SGT. CHRISTOPHER A. RUPP, USMC, FIRST SERGEANT, COMPANY K, 3D BATTALION, 8TH MARINE REGIMENT, 2D MARINE DIVISION, CAMP LEJEUNE, NC
Sergeant RUPP. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I am very honored to be here today, sir.
There are a couple of areas I would just like to touch upon, sir. The first is the Operation Tempo that was mentioned earlier. We do deploy a lot. We are very active. My battalion has been all over the world in the last 10 months. Having said that, morale is still very high in my battalion. The marines there are outstanding. Part of that is because they feel like they are doing something important, and they are. They are not wasting their time, they are not wasting money. They have real-world contingencies to respond to, and they respond very well.
Another thing is the challenge. When they are challenged, they rise to the occasion, and they do very well, whether it is a peacetime operation or whether it is a deployment anywhere in the world.
There are three reasons I believe my battalion is so successful. The first is the commitment of the young marine. These guys do not want to disappoint or fail. They are loyal to a fault. And the average age is about 20 years old. They are loyal young men.
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Proactive leadership; the battalion, from the corporal on the last fire team to the colonel, is committed to the Marines. The mission accomplishment is first. The welfare of the marines is right on the heels of that mission accomplishment. The leadership in the battalion is very proactive.
Third thing, and probably one of the most important things that is overlooked, is our key volunteer system. The spouses in the battalion, when the battalion deploys, we have a very strong key volunteer group. That helps out the married folks, especially the young marine. The two 18-year-olds that are married and might have one or two kids, a $3,000 credit card debt, living out in the economy on the town, they band together and help each other out; and it helps alleviate some worry from that young marine, knowing he is leaving his wife behind like that.
The Operation Tempo does not have an effect on morale until the end of that marine's period of service, 3 or 4 years down the road. The marine is tired at the end of that period, and he needs to be transferred; it is the right thing to do.
If I can see any threat to readiness in my battalion or my company, I would say it is that one marine that Colonel Sattler alluded to earlier, who is a sergeant. Right now I have nine infantry squads and three weapons sections. My squads are being led by very young corporals. These are marines with 4 to 6 months in grade. They are doing their best. They make mistakes, but that is why we call it training. I have one corporal who is acting two pay grades above the norm. He is acting as platoon sergeant. They are doing an outstanding job, they are trying to do their best; but if there is any worry from me, it is because I don't have enough sergeants, that mid-level manager, and that is where my experience is. Thank you, sir.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Sergeant.
[The prepared statement of Sergeant Rupp can be found in the appendix on page 174.]
Mr. BATEMAN. And now we have M. Sgt. Roger McElrea.
STATEMENT OF M. SGT. ROGER McELREA, USAF, SUPERINTENDENT AIRCREW TRAINING, 437TH AIRLIFT WING
Sergeant MCELREA. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am M. Sgt. Roger McElrea, C–17 instructor loadmaster and superintendent aircrew training in Charleston, SC. I recently deployed to Germany as the chief loadmaster and first sergeant in support of Operation Phoenix Tusk. That was our Rwandan relief effort.
I prepared a written statement and request it be entered into the official record.
Mr. BATEMAN. All of your written statements will be made part of the record.
Sergeant MCELREA. In my statement I refer to several issues including OPSTEMPO and quality of life. These issues impact our enlisted force. They directly affect retention and readiness. We are the best fighting force the world has ever seen; however, improvement in readiness will ensure that we stay that way.
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I am proud to be a member of the U.S. Air Force and to have the privilege of bringing these matters to your attention, and I am prepared to answer any questions at this time.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, Sergeant.
[The prepared statement of Sergeant McElrea can be found in the appendix on page 179.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you all for your testimony and for being with us this afternoon. And I can assure you that it is good, it is refreshing, it is reassuring to hear you talk about the quality of the personnel that you deal with and that you lead. We are very, very proud of you and the people that serve with you. We want, for the sake of our country, to be able to have the people who succeed us in the Congress be able to make the same statements, for the people who replace you to be able to continue to make the same kind of statements.
You have told us some things that are troublesome. You all speak of the importance of quality of life issues, and all of your commanders speak of quality of life issues, and we politicians in Washington, we constantly talk about quality of life issues, and I can assure you that those of us here, we are very serious about it.
It is also very, very difficult to know within the constraints of a budget that is much less than any of us feel like it ought to be where you make the trade-offs between those things which go into quality of life and assure the quality of personnel for the years to come, with problems of immediate training budgets, with problems of recapitalization, reequipping and equipping our services, and of course also with continuing research and development for future weapons systems and platforms which are important to our ultimate long-range security. It is a very, very complex equation, and I am taking more time than I should, but I know that we appreciate your coming in and talking to us about these problems.
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I guess the main thing that I want to test in terms of your questions is the degree of your concern about this mid-level NCO. All the services have gone through downsizing in a very significant way. We have offered incentives for people to get out because we were required to do so in downsizing. We lost, I am sure, in that process a good deal of talent. Are there gaps in your noncommissioned officer's structure of people who are coming through the training system but who aren't there yet in terms of filling what is left as we downsize? Do you have any problems of that nature?
Sergeant GUTIERREZ. Most definitely, sir. I feel I can speak on my part, and my Marine counterpart stated that his corporals were young and in leadership positions that could someday put them in a combat situation. I am in the same boat, and what I view is that there is a big vacuum created by those incentives, what we call ''take the money and run'' options. When they left, they took a lot of training with them, and the Army spent a lot of money training those people, and now the civilian sector is benefiting from that. But that left a big gap that that young specialist who becomes a noncommissioned officer has not had the experience under his belt to lead.
Now, at the same token, at the next higher level, which is the sergeant first class level, it is being taken over by that young E–6 who didn't have the opportunity as a staff sergeant to get that experience, and I feel that is where a lot of problems are at, in that particular area.
Mr. BATEMAN. Well, I would suspect that it also generates an enormous amount of stress and pressure for the senior NCO who is there trying to fill in those gaps, because he has got people under him that haven't had the breadth of experience and training, especially the experience to where they can just turn them lose and say, go do it.
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Sergeant GUTIERREZ. That is correct.
Mr. BATEMAN. Is that a part of the problem?
Sergeant KREBS. Yes, sir.
Sir, if I could bring one thing up. The enlisted fliers in AMC, we are called on to do a lot of different kinds of missions. We are quite often given 12 hours' notice to deploy and move anything the Government has asked us to do, whether that be a show of force or providing relief anywhere in the world. Because of the nature of the job and because the career field is so small, we can expect to see promotions lagging behind the average in the Air Force.
For example, I have a tech sergeant at Charleston who is one of our brightest loadmasters. He is working at 33d Flight Test. He is very knowledgeable. We can't replace him. However, he is being forced out of the Air Force because he couldn't progress fast enough. We have what is called Top Cat. The average flyer, I will speak loadmasters because that is my specialty, can expect to make E–7 at almost 18 years of service. The commissions are very slow, below the Air Force average. Therefore we are losing a lot of our skill and a lot of our experience. That causes the gaps we were just talking about. So we do have a problem with promotions in the enlisted flying fields.
Mr. BATEMAN. From the other services, is slowness of promotion a significant factor for you? How about with the Navy?
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Chief ASHENFELTER. I would say right now that we are getting ready to face another batch of them. With the last, the latest word that I saw for this downsizing, we are going to take some 12,000 first class senior chiefs and master chiefs, and that is where we are aiming this next cut at. On my staff, I have already got two chiefs that are thinking about, well, I am not going to stick around because there is no chance of making senior chief if we are taking the rate down by another 9 percent or something like that, because we are mandated by the numbers for the whole force for us. I see we are getting ready to cause another one.
I think we were smart enough most of the time to pick and choose which rates we allowed out of the Navy because we had significant overages, and we didn't cut in too deeply, but I think now we are going to have a bunch of E–7's getting out of the Navy along with the 8's and 9's, along with the first classes. And if we are going toward a more modernized smart ship, who is going to be teaching? I have a concern about who will be left behind who has the experience to stand up on a platform and instruct those young sailors on how to operate that smart ship. I think we are sending the wrong group home.
Mr. BATEMAN. There is no question you can't have the smart ship and the best technological whizz-bang gadgetry and not have the people who are trained to operate it.
Chief HALLSTEIN. Chairman, I think we also have to take into consideration, we have been talking about midrange cuts. To replace those people, I have to start out with an unknown asset. I have to start out with a 17- or 18-year-old kid off the street, so to speak, that is going to be that E–5 or 6 down the road. Now, we are downsizing at such a high rate, I have got to keep this kid motivated. I have got to send him to mess tent to bus tables. But we have downsized so much, he does such a great job, which normally we would do for 4 months, but because we are downsizing so much, guess what, he does such a great job, we send him back again. We don't have money to send him to school.
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So we keep nurturing and nurturing and nurturing, but we lose a lot of good people. They say, I am not just going to hang around, it is not here. So when we were downsizing, it is a scary thought. I have chief petty officers, first time I have seen in 21 years, not retiring, getting out of the Navy at 16, 17 years in the Navy; just said, I am not going to wait around.
So it is real, but we need to really think not only about cutting, saving this tangible dollar, but what are we doing in the future. We are not keeping the young man around. There is very little enticement to keep that 17- or 18-year-old with us. I have got to keep sending him back.
So we need to not only look at the numbers that we are cutting, but where are we cutting it. We have done a good job in the past, but now this new round that has come around, I am not sure what is going to happen to, like I said, our 17-, 18-year-olds that come around, and that is the NCO, the E–5 in 2 or 3 years down the road. They are not sticking.
Mr. BATEMAN. It is interesting. My colleagues on the personnel subcommittee of our full committee wrote a forum on end strengths in last year's authorization bill. While they put a floor in it, that is not, in fact, what has been executed by the Pentagon. And lo and behold, when we got this year's budget for fiscal year 1998, they are talking about further reductions in end strength, especially in the Navy.
Things are not always what they seem to be. We are aware, we will do the best we can, and with that I will turn to Mr. Pickett for his questions.
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Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this meeting down here, because I have heard a lot of good information that I am not sure whether I wasn't listening or it wasn't said, but I haven't been hearing it inside the Beltway there in Washington.
General Keane told us earlier this morning that the three keys to readiness were people, equipment, and training. And as I have listened to this panel of witnesses and listened to the previous panel, it seems that while training and equipment are not perfect, they are tolerable, but that the real soft spot here is the people. It is the corporate memory, the training, the people with the number of years of training, people who feel comfortable with the position that they are in. And I don't know if there is any common denominator. I have not been able to detect one. But what needs to be done to bring about some kind of change to remedy the situation that we are hearing about, about our middle managers, about people not reenlisting, about how much it costs to train, about the fact that someone goes through an academic training course many times, is not really up to par as far as doing the job. They have to get on the job and gain experience before they have the qualities to really pull their weight in the position.
So I would be curious to know and receive any comments any of our panelists would have about what they think is a key move that Congress could make to try to remedy the situations that you all have been describing here to us today.
Sergeant MCELREA. Sir, I have got a suggestion. Sir, quite often we see ourselves deploy, it is like a knee-jerk reaction to an event on TV. We will get out there and show force or show the flag and deploy because somebody wants us deployed there. And we sit.
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That is a big issue about guys out there, that we are being thrown out without somebody thinking about what we are supposed to do once we get there. Phoenix Tusk, we sat for weeks on alert in Africa and Europe issuing training for guys who were able to. These are the same guys sitting out in the barracks four to a room that we are asking to reenlist. These are the same people questioning what his benefits are going to be when he reaches the 20-year point and making that situation right there. So every time we do that, we put another straw on that camel's back, and every time it tends to push a guy one way or the other. So we need to think about what we do before we deploy forces, necessary or unnecessary.
Chief HALLSTEIN. I don't know if I want to add another layer on to everybody that is offering to help us.
I will tell you, there are some very heavy pushes for quality of life. And I can only talk on shipboard. We go into the shipyard; our ship is currently in a selected repair availability, Captain Malone mentioned this morning, $70 million; but I will tell you, out of that, all the quality-of-life efforts, or a large majority of them, are done by ship's force.
I would say if you are going to do anything for quality of life for our force, I would ask you to fence the money. I would ask you to send it down the chain fenced and tagged as ''quality of life'' and even tell us what it is for.
You heard it this morning; you heard the commanders say they are forced to make some tough decisions. They are forced between making decisions of readiness, operational commitments, and their quality-of-life efforts.
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So I would ask you, if you are going to increase the quality of life, materialistic or funding, take that pressure away from our commanders in making that decision and fence the money, so that I can say when I go into the shipyard and I am planning on a $30 million pot to do my quality-of-life improvements, it will be there when I get there and I will not have to have a commander—and through no choice of the operational commanders, they are having to make their mission with what they have; they are having to make the tough decisions.
I am asking you, if you do anything, take that decision away from them. Don't put them in a position where they have to make that decision of: This is quality-of-life money, this is O&M; by golly, I have to use it to make my mission. Say no, you can't use it, it is dedicated only for quality of life, and make sure it gets to where it is supposed to go. That is something at your level you can do for us.
Chairman BATEMAN. Good point. Thank you.
Sergeant GUTIERREZ. In response to your question, sir, about how we can try to keep some of the people in the military? We currently have what they call RCP—retention control point. That means when a person has been in the military X amount of years, sitting in a certain rank, that once he reaches a certain point, by mandate, he has got to leave.
Maybe if there is a way we could go ahead and waive that or lift that RCP, we can probably keep some people in there and sometime in the future bring it back in, once the force comes up to where we think it is reasonable.
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I have an individual right now; he is in a staff sergeant rank, an outstanding individual. Whatever mission you give him, he takes it upon himself to go out there and beats all the bushes, gets everything done, comes back and gives you results. They are always positive results. The bad thing about it, I am losing mine on the 12th of May; he gets out. We have given him his final evaluation and award, and that is all he is getting. He said, ''I wish I could stay another year or 2 years.'' That is the kind of dedication out there we have. Because of the mandate, we have to let him go. That is on the other side of the spectrum versus those who wanted to get out.
Sergeant MURRELL. Mr. Chairman, I agree with Sergeant Gutierrez. It is the opposite at Fort Eustis, because the occupational specialties we are in, once you come in as a private, you are pretty much there for 17 or 20 years.
Our midcareer career soldiers do reenlist. However, once they hit that 15-year point—and most of the career soldiers are E–5's and some are E–6's—it is hard for them to make rank, because the factor is that they can't take the BSI, and they have the resources to get out because they are a needed occupational safety—to be able to support the infantry and artillery and other services to download the preposition ships and things of that nature.
So therefore, they are stuck in an area where the career progression stops at E–5 and 6, and it slows down a considerable amount for those soldiers. Yet once they hit the 15-year retention, then they are pretty much forced out.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Any other observations?
Sergeant LAMBERT. Mr. Chairman, I think one opportunity to keep midtermers is to provide them with more opportunities to go to college. College is really appealing to our midtermers. Just like in the civilian sector, the level of college more or less is the vehicle to a higher pay in jobs and actual monetary terms.
But I think if we give the soldier an opportunity to go to college and then have him sign an obligation, I guess we can sustain him for a period of time and maintain that experience.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Riley.
Mr. RILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First let me say that I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed this. This has been a very educational day for me. I guess lunch probably taught me more than just about anything. When you have an opportunity to sit around and literally understand what personal problems each one of you are dealing with every day, you understand not only your dedication to this country, your dedication to your job, but it also shows me how very, very dependent you are on our committee to make these fundamental changes that you are looking for. I think it is incumbent on us as a committee to take these concerns back and act on them.
There was a young officer met me as I walked out back a moment ago and handed me a résumé, because he wants out, basically because of OPTEMPO. Four hours ago, I didn't know what an OPTEMPO was. I got a good explanation today at lunch, and I think I am beginning to understand.
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But when you meet someone that articulate, that bright, and you realize we are going to lose him from this service because we, as a Congress, are imposing restrictions on you that make it to the point that he wants to leave, then I think we have to rethink our obligations.
The only thing that I can tell you, the members of this committee and all of the ones I have met operate within certain restraints. But from the chairman and most of the other committee members I have met, they are dedicated to making your life as comfortable, making you have the quality of life that the people on the outside have.
And I have to think—and it is something I want to look into—if it is something as basic as housing, surely through tax incentives, through other different programs, through some privatization, we can address those concerns.
When we talk about losing some of our best sergeants, I believe that we as a committee can take things like that and literally take it back on your behalf and see if we can't address those problems at a congressional level.
I guess the concern that I have after sitting here all day is that if you have this level of dedication, if you have this level of commitment to this country, to your fellow soldiers, your fellow sailors, if you have that, I think it is imperative that this committee, because in so many ways we are your voice in Congress, it is imperative that we go back and take that level of commitment and passion that you show and apply it to our jobs on this committee. I promise you I will do that.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Riley.
One of the things that I have been sitting here making special notes of, through the previous panels especially, were comments about, we are only getting 82 percent of what we got last year, or some percent decrease in this and that and the other.
The level where we get figures, the information that is passed on to us in Washington, those figures are kind of mysterious, because in terms of readiness accounts, we have been preaching concerns about readiness through the entire time that I have been chairman of the subcommittee, and even before I became the chairman, we understood that the administration had gotten the word and that readiness and O&M accounts were not going to be sacrificed.
Yet, lo and behold, we pass a Defense authorization bill with all that the President asked for in terms of O&M money and then increased it some and got criticized by some people for having done so, and yet I am being told we are getting 32 percent less of this, that, and the other.
Can anybody help me? What is happening here?
The O&M budget, for instance, for fiscal year 1999 is proposed to be something like $1.8 billion above last year's budget, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of $92 billion, and yet the money doesn't seem to be coming out of the pipeline, or it is leaking somewhere in the process.
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Chief HALLSTEIN. I don't know what happened to the missing money; I wish I did. I certainly could use it; everybody could. But on a yearly basis for at least the last 10 years I have been in the Navy, it is not whether you are going to get cut or whatever, it is, what is the figure of this year's cut. The old saying is, ''Do more with less.''
I don't know if anybody here has more than they did last year. I certainly didn't. Just having completed a deployment, it is great to be deployed, because you have a higher priority. When you have a higher priority, you can get what you need to do the job.
Our sailors will do anything you ask them to do. All they ask is the right material, the cleaning materials, the budgets, the sponges and so forth. But I will tell you, when you come back from deployment, it is a fact of life that you go into a lower degree of importance, so to speak, and you experience a cut. I don't know what. I thought that was normal, sir.
Mr. BATEMAN. Well, back in January I came here to Langley just for a little individual town meeting with military personnel, and I also went over to Fort Eustis, and one of the things that came through to me, that I had not thought about before, from those sessions was that morale in units who were deployed was, by and large, quite high. Everybody was very excited about missions that were assigned to them and the challenge of meeting their objectives, and they were succeeding, and everyone had a very good feeling about it.
But the unseen portion of it was, if a squadron from the 1st Fighter Wing here at Langley goes over to Saudi Arabia, people who were here helping to do lots of things are no longer here to help get them done, but the things that have to be done still have to be done. So the people back here, without the excitement and the challenge of being deployed and doing the mission, are being stressed and pulled and worked and doing all kinds of shifts and working schedules that become very, very taxing and tend to over time wear people out.
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I had the same experience in Fort Eustis. I expected I might be hearing gripes from the 7th Transportation Group who get deployed first and come back last from almost every major deployment because of the nature of what they do. But morale there seemed to be very, very high.
But morale in the units at Fort Eustis not involved with 7th Transportation and not deploying was, by and large, I thought, very, very low, and the main reason for it was, they weren't being deployed to training; they weren't getting sent away places for training they couldn't get back at the base; and that was becoming very much a problem.
Do these observations have any meaning for you all in your experiences?
Sergeant MCELREA. People love what they do. We joined the military to do a job. We by and large love what we are doing. I love to operate that aircraft; I like traveling; I like doing my job.
There is one thing I would like to get back to, if you don't mind, sir. You were talking about the money, and how we collate the funds, and what happened to this and that.
The average enlisted guy out here doesn't care, because he doesn't understand what O&M is; he doesn't understand where the budget numbers come from. The budget he understands is, he has to pay $48 a week for day-care, he has to try to make the rent on his house, he is getting paid wages that are inexcusable, yet he goes and operates a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment, and he qualifies for assistance. That is the kind of budget he is looking at.
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When we came here to talk to you and we look at these budget numbers and these things you are spitting out, our commanders are here explaining a lot of that. They are a lot smarter than we are on that. We are a lot smarter on what these guys are feeling, and that is what they are feeling. They are worried about, why is it cheaper to go to day-care off base? Because it is more expensive on the base. Why does he have to search for one cheaper? Why is that not provided for him? Why does he have to worry about where he is going to get medical attention for his family when sometimes it is a challenge to get it on the base when he is there in the same day he calls? What is going to happen when he is deployed? He worries about that stuff. Those are the things that bother him. Those budget dollars are real to him.
Forty-eight dollars a week may not mean a lot to you, sir, but to that E–1 or E–2 out there, it is huge. It is so important that we really take a look at what we are paying these guys and what we are asking for them to do, what we are doing for them when they are gone.
There is a huge perception out there that nobody cares, that their retirement is going to be reviewed every 4 years, we are going to give them more to do and send them away more often because people are getting out, and it is a problem, and we have got to fix it. We have to do that now.
I love my country, I love my service, but I can't stand seeing what is happening to the guys. Those guys are being impacted right now, and we need to help them.
Sergeant GUTIERREZ. Sir, you were talking about what makes a difference between a motivated unit and one that is not so motivated. It has been my observation, sir, that whenever the units I have been deployed with—OK, when we go to a certain area, there is a certain degree of risk that is involved, and because of that, the personnel, they meld together. Somebody mentioned this morning the camaraderie. I think that has a lot to do with it.
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It has also been my observation, sir, and I don't know if anybody here will concur with that, but basic training seemed to be one of those events. You all go in there together as strangers, and you come out better for it, and you come out together. And I guess it is being put to some kind of a test.
If there are units not being put to that kind of a challenge, then I think that is what you are going to find—a mediocrity there. If you find people being deployed, like the unit in Saudi Arabia today, you will find, when they come back, they will be that kind of a source.
Chief ASHENFELTER. Concerning morale, I go back to my experiences when I was predominantly in a black shoe Navy or the surface side. I told my wife when I first met her, I joined the Navy because I wanted to get underway. I love getting underway; it is what I love to do. My aviation friends think I am strange because of that.
But when you are underway, you have one task master that is tasking you to do one thing. If it is to go sit in a box 40 miles off the coast of Kuwait City and lob things back into the beach, that is what you do. And when you are back home and you are tied back to the pier again, now you have got 10 or 12 different people coming at you from 10 or 12 different directions; and a lot of times they cause what my first supervisor told me 25 years ago was busy work. That is not a motivation.
The worst thing we can do is ask somebody to do mediocre work. I think to talk to what Sergeant Gutierrez said, when you are out there and you are asked and you are challenged, you rise to that challenge almost every time. Then there is a self-satisfaction when you come back. We didn't all come in here to become millionaires. None of us up here plan on doing that. But none of us thought we would come in here being 25 years later either.
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Sergeant MURRELL. In the area of the training, the soldiers on Fort Eustis, when we deploy, that is where we gather our experience. We utilize that, and when they come back to train other soldiers, but also we utilize as a training tool for the soldiers the sea emergency deployment exercises at Fort Eustis. We train toward that until that point, and that is when the group as a whole collectively gets out there and do what we do best, utilizing all modes of transportation.
Some soldiers at a lower level may not look at that as a training opportunity when, in actuality, that is the training that our soldiers are getting within their occupational speciality basically because they come to us every day, whether they are on a boat, truck, or forklift. So some may not look at it as a training opportunity, but in actuality there is training there.
Mr. BATEMAN. Some mention has been made in passing about medical care. Is medical care a concern for active-duty military personnel for themselves? I know it is a concern for active-duty military personnel for their families. I know very loudly and clearly it is a concern of military retirees for themselves and their spouses.
What are the dimensions of medical care as a part of how we recruit and retain a ready, quality force?
Sergeant MCELREA. We tend to get, at Charleston anyway, pretty good medical care. But then again, our medical folks are being impacted by the same things the rest of us are. They are doing more with less.
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We have approximately 40 to 50 appointments available per day at Charleston. The active-duty and Tricare folks get priority, and then everybody else afterward. If they happen to make it within the 40 or 50, it is a good day, but there are those times they can't do that.
Our young guys see that. They see the retirees, after putting 20 years in, pushed to the back of the line. They understand what is going on, sir. It is difficult, especially when we are doing a lot more with less today.
Mr. RILEY. I guess that brings up a concern of mine. There seems to be a feeling among you, among most that have testified here today, most of the people that I had lunch with and I met outside. I would just like to hear your comments on whether or not you think the services have kept their commitments to you. And, to go further, do most of your men think that the Government will keep the commitments they have made in the future?
Sergeant RUPP. Sir, the Marine Corps has pretty much taken care of us. There is some doubt about the retirement, and there are some doubts about another drawdown. The Marines know what the QDR is, and especially the sergeants, they know what that is; they read the papers.
The Marine Corps is not a question; it is the Government though. They look at the policies coming out affecting their future. Retirement, the QDR, the quality of life, the housing, education—that is a big one. But for the most part, they keep the faith and they drive on. But they do look at those things.
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Chief TSIKOURIS. That is a very good point. I could probably say that quite often my junior folks, my E–4 and below, my deck seamen, my firemen, when I am wandering through the main spaces, not on just this command but others as well, come up to me and say, ''Master Chief, if you had this retirement, would you have joined the Navy, with the 35 percent now?''
A lot of my senior chiefs and junior chiefs actually look at that 20-year mark and start asking me, ''Do you think you will be a SERB again with the early forced retirement?''
I remember being on the carrier Roosevelt. That was a big issue down in the mess when you had 300 chief petty officers down there, and the results were coming out for the SERB, and you look around and see who wasn't there any more—that type of situation.
Among the junior troops, that is a very big point, sir, that and between the different education bills and the fluctuations between whether you came in before 1985, after 1985, after 1990. The junior chiefs are not sure where to invest their money and whether the education promises will be kept to them.
Sergeant MURRELL. Along the same aspect, there are some concerns, especially concerning the fact that the soldiers were pretty much promised, if you joined the Army, whether it be for a short time or for a career, that you would get free medical care. In actuality, that care is not free any more.
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A small portion of that medical care comes out of the soldier's paycheck. The dental is no longer free. If your child needs braces—God forbid—that is about $3,000 or more, as well as the eroding benefits as far as, what percentage am I going to receive of my pay once I do 20 years plus? Is that 2.5-percent increase after 20 years going to be there once I decide to do 30 years?
Those are the concerns a lot of soldiers have, as well as the retirees today. Whereas Tricare costs $400-plus for a family and $232 for a single, whereas before when you retired, it didn't cost you anything for your medical, now you have to pay. Those are a lot of concerns the soldiers of today have, looking at the retirees of today: Where am I going to be 20 years from now?
Therefore, soldiers today, my soldiers, I tell them: Start an IRA account; go and invest in mutual funds, because you don't know what percentage of your pay you are going to receive 20 years down the road. I know what I am going to get; that is 50 percent. But it is not going to be there for a young soldier coming in today.
That is how most soldiers truly feel about it.
Chief HALLSTEIN. I think it is really hardest on our married sailors. I can only speak for the sailors. I think a lot of our young people came in the Navy, as long as we are providing them with education and some type of career path and some opportunity, when they are single it is not so important. But I will tell you, the married people, it is real difficult.
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Tricare: Mr. Chairman, you used Tricare. I came home on Friday, and I have a $98 bill from Centera Medical; my wife could not get an appointment at Tricare—$98 to a master chief. I have three children. I can tell you that $98 for an E–2 married, that is not an option. That person would not get medical care, it wouldn't happen, because $98 to one of our married E–2's or E–3's is just not in the program.
So the real hard problem is convincing the young sailors, their families, that: Hey, we are going to be there; the retirement is going to be there; we are really going to be there; stick it out a little more; get a few stripes on your arm; get ahead of it, and you will be OK. But it is real tough.
I will tell you honestly, if you don't get them through the first couple of years where they get maybe an E–4, you have a good chance of either losing them for various reasons—credit card debt or whatever it may be.
It is funny; we were talking at lunchtime about credit card debt. Would you get rid of the credit cards or car dealers? Excuse the connection, sir. It isn't the car dealers, and it isn't the credit card debts. We are wasting a lot of effort to try to think it is. It is just, our young people are coming in and they are trying to live a decent life.
I have a kid that I am counseling. I almost got to write him up because he is in debt, because they went out and bought furniture for their house. The guy didn't buy mink, china, he just bought some furniture, but because of their income, they weren't smart and went someplace and paid a high interest rate.
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But the point is, I don't think that the average sailor thinks that we are supporting him. I think it is really difficult for the families to believe us, to believe me, when I say: Hey, don't worry about it; it will get better; it will get better. I am not quite sure what the future brings for these young people.
Chief ASHENFELTER. If I might add one thing, I think this area, the Tidewater consolidated area in this whole area, I think is unique in that we have got almost a half-million people that we are pumping into a Tricare system. It is just not big enough to cope with it.
Washington State, they have people telling me, ''Call Tricare.'' Six hours later, they are in the doctor's office, have their appointment, they are seen, and are out. I say that is not what we have here. I think that is where we have the difficulties, convincing that young sailor we are going to keep faith with him and that when he looks around, he says, ''But you are not.'' He doesn't know any different if he happens to be in this area watching it. Somewhere else, that may not be the problem.
But I think that, like the master chief said, it is our job to try to explain to them that you are going to watch out for what they are doing.
You mentioned earlier in the testimony that the current system that people are currently in is not changing. It is like it might change next year. Those are the things that I think we have to tell them: Hey, you know, you came in under this system; you are locked into this box. It is not going to change; your box is sealed. His box is a different box. It is sealed also. I think that is our job. I think that we can ask you to just make sure they don't change the box too often. It is too hard for us to keep track of them.
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Mr. BATEMAN. I would certainly hope that would be the case.
We are nearing the time when we are going to have to let the folks get on their plane to return to Washington. Let me ask a final question and see what kind of reaction we get.
Assuming the current atmosphere or environment of life in the military remains, would you recommend a career in the U.S. military for your children?
Sergeant MURRELL. Sir, yes, if I had children, I would recommend a career. The Army offers a lot of opportunities. There have been some changes, but an individual can come in, learn a skill, and be able to go back out 20 years later and be very marketable.
Going back to another point, sir—I know time is against me—you asked what you could do for us to be able to keep midcareer soldiers as well as soldiers as a whole in the Army. I do believe you at your level, the pay increase, being able to raise the base pay between our civilian counterparts, being able to get us closer to where our civilian counterparts are at, and being able to give us a substantial pay increase; 2.3 percent is fine, but that is 10 to 20 dollars. That is taxed, and it is not very much for a soldier, especially with a family of three or four kids.
Mr. BATEMAN. Especially when there is a differential that exists already between the level of civilian and military pay for comparable skills and experiences.
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Sergeant MURRELL. That is what I would ask that you be able to fix, sir.
Chief TSIKOURIS. I can answer that personally, because my son turns 17 next month. He can pretty much get into just about any college he wants to right now. He is looking toward a commissioning, that sort of thing. I have made a point to not push him in any military direction, to let him make up his own mind.
But I wholeheartedly would recommend the military to anyone because, as bad as it seems, sometimes we really paint a darker picture than it is. There are a lot of strides being taken. It is not being brushed under the carpet.
We realize there are some hard spots that we need to get over, and there are efforts being done to take care of business, which we put out to the troops almost on a daily basis to let them know there is a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere along the line, and you need to stay in. Like was brought up before, if you can just make it to that E–4 or 5 rank, you are OK.
I look at the different things we do on a deployment. When I started out, if you got a letter in 3 1/2 or 4 weeks, you were doing really well and knew what was going on at home. Now we are getting phone systems on board where a guy can call up and find out his wife needed a washing machine and it is OK now.
Some of the ships are actually getting satellite television where they can actually see CNN and don't feel like they are cut off from the rest of the world for 6 months, which ended up being a real problem. So those are the lucky ones.
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Sergeant GUTIERREZ. One final note. You talked about if we would encourage our children to join the military. I have a son who is also 17. He will be graduating this year, and I told him no. And he asked me questions that I can't answer, and a lot of it centered around this Gulf war syndrome and what happened if I went and they wouldn't take care of me. I can't answer that. I have been there and I don't know if I am going to have something later on.
I have another son right up here at Norfolk, and he is saying after my 6-year hitch is up, I am getting out. They gave him a good education and he has a lot to be thankful for. A lot of things that have been brought to light here by the panel, especially the Navy, they have enlightened me to what he is trying to tell me, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, sir.
Mr. BATEMAN. Well, we are indebted to all of you. We came in here anxious to hear not just from commanders and operational unit commanders, but we wanted to hear from the senior noncommissioned officers, because we look to you for insights that are not available from any other source if you are really truly interested in knowing what is happening out there among the troops. So you have been extremely helpful to us.
We are grateful to you and extremely proud of you and the people that you lead, and I am sure that the members of this subcommittee will do their very best not to break faith with you and to put you in a position where if your children elect to serve in the military, that they will have a quality of life and that they will provide a quality of service that will be commensurate with the standard that you have set.
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Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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