Segment 2 Of 2 Previous Hearing Segment(1)
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READINESS REALITIES
House of Representatives, Committee on National Security, Military Readiness Subcommittee, Meeting Jointly With Military Installations and Facilities Subcommittee, and Military Personnel Subcommittee, Washington, DC, Friday, September 25, 1998
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Herbert H. Bateman (Chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Readiness) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HERBERT H. BATEMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. BATEMAN [presiding]. The subcommittees will please come to order.
I'd like to welcome everyone to the hearing today before the joint Readiness, Personnel and Installations and Facilities Subcommittees. The reason for today's hearing is to take a final view of the current status of our military's readiness before Congress leaves town from the perspective of operational commanders.
We recognize that there are many facets to readiness, and that current readiness problems cannot be dealt with in a vacuum. Readiness is not a snapshot. It is a moving picture, and the analysis must include longer term quality-of-life issues and the nature and availability of equipment. This said, we must, nonetheless, focus upon and identify the real world problems that exist relating to the current readiness of our forces today. And, it's for that reason that we have, not just the Military Readiness Subcommittee but the Military Personnel and the Military Facilities and Installation Subcommittees presiding at these hearings today.
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I'm going to ask unanimous consent that my very elegant opening statement be made a part of the record in order that we may proceed to hear from our distinguished panel of witnesses and to give them more time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bateman can be found in the appendix on page 51.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Having said that, I would now recognize—in view of his—I started to say, conflicting—his other duties on the Judiciary Committee, the Chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, Mr. Buyer of Indiana.
Steve.
STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE BUYER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM INDIANA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. BUYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. And first, I'd like to thank you and Mr. Hefley and Mr. Ortiz and others for your joint cooperation to hold this meeting.
I also thank the gentlemen for coming over and also, by way of opening—Admiral Browne, thank you for your hosting me when I was in San Diego; and, by way of background, it was also a very helpful visit not only to myself but also to the staff of the Personnel Subcommittee. It does translate into reality. Sometimes, these staff visits—and I know sometimes it becomes a pain for the accommodation but I just want you to know, I appreciated it.
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Admiral BROWNE. Thank you, sir. Actually, it's great honor and a privilege to have representatives come visit our ships. I think it pays big dividends to our sailors.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you.
A core responsibility of this committee is to give oversight on the military's readiness to fight and win our Nation's wars. As you know, Mr. Bateman, this committee—under the leadership of Chairman Spence—has for several years documented this administration's strategy-force-resources mismatches and expressed grave concerns about the readiness of our force. Heretofore, those concerns have been repeatedly declared anecdotal and the Pentagon's civilian and uniformed leadership endeavored to refute and minimize them.
Now, it has become almost fashionable for commanders to elaborate on these problems where before they were always hesitant to talk about readiness problems or concerns. Many of us have begged for candor and you're now finally delivering the candor. So, let me thank you, let me compliment your courage to do so because I don't want your candor as soon as you retire and put on the suit. I'm always amazed how many—as soon as they put on the suit—said, well, now let me tell you how it really is.
Mr. Bateman, while I believe that there is ample justification to be outraged, I am grateful to have the full facts presented to the American public. Perhaps with the full truth we will be in a position to do something to get the defense back on the right track.
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From the perspective of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, I can share that what I have seen has not been pretty. The Navy will miss its recruiting goal by over 7,000 for Fiscal Year 1998 and retention is far below the levels required to sustain the force. As a result, the Navy has 18,000 vacant positions in the fleet and will violate the law by coming in under the end strength floor by over 5,000 people. The Navy's ability to retain people—whether aviators, surface officers, nuclear officers, SEAL officers, or enlisted members in all grades—is seriously in jeopardy.
The Army will also fail to comply with the end strength floor during Fiscal Year 1998 with a projected shortfall of 1,800. Although the Army claims to have met recruiting objectives, it took over $170 million in recruiting ads over the past two years to stay competitive. By the Army's own admission, they do not understand whether a drop in enlisted retention is a return to historical levels or a dangerous shift in attitudes about a military career.
The Air Force—historically the strongest recruiting and retention service—is projecting to come within 200 people of violating their end strength floor for Fiscal Year 1998. The Air Force will cite troubled recruiting and degraded retention as the cause. Additionally, there would seem to be no end to the pilot exodus from the Air Force where the lure of bigger bonuses is only attracting 26 percent of eligibles. They need 50 percent to sustain the force.
The Marine Corps recruiting is meeting its goal this year but only after adding $16.8 million to recruiting advertising, incentives and operations. I think that they will continue their work with their recruiters very hard with over 75 percent working more than 60 hrs per week. And, the Marine Corps is also not immune to the aviator exodus where retention falls short of the level required to sustain the force and separations doubled in a single year.
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Mr. Bateman, I can honestly say that I am looking forward to the testimony of the field commanders. I also think that we'll find their honest assessment of readiness a refreshing change from the recent—or from the restrained testimony we've heard in the past that I mentioned.
I also want to move quickly and share with the gentlemen, I'm going to have to read your testimonies. I'm involved in the Judiciary Committee and have been locked down in an evidence room until midnight last night and I got a reprieve and we're back in Executive Session. But, I have three questions if you gentlemen will jot these down and, when you present your testimony, if you would address these, I would appreciate it.
I will then, Mr. Bateman, have some questions I will submit for the record, without objection.
What would be your reaction to a new retirement system that included a thrift savings plan, a big pay raise, and increased special pays but with a reduced benefit upon retirement? So, how do you feel about that and how would the troops react?
My second question to you: Do you think there is room to reduce recruit quality and still have the right people to get the job done?
The third question: Have we reached the point where we need to reassess the all-volunteer force? If you cannot meet your recruiting goals, should we return to the draft?
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So, those are my three questions. I appreciate if you would refer to it. And, in the first question, if you are puzzled by the question, there's a lot of bantering going around about whether to take the FERS, the Federal Employment Retirement System, and make it—apply that to the military and I'd like your response to that. When you have the FERS, you have that retirement, you have the thrift savings plan but it will reduce the retirement in the end. So, I'd appreciate your insight to that.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 145.]
Mr. Bateman, I will yield back to you and I appreciate the extension of the courtesy. I must go to Judiciary.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Buyer. Just as an aside to those questions that were just posed, if anything would dramatically put into context the seriousness of the problem that we have to grapple with, I think the nature of those questions do it pretty well. I would encourage, with reference to the first question, whatever you want to say today would be happily entertained. But, if you want to take more time to look at it, we'd be equally happy and well-disposed to having a more thought-out response, after looking at all that underlies the question.
With that, it's my pleasure now to recognize the gentleman from Colorado and the chairman of the Military Installations and Facilities Subcommittee, the Honorable Joel Hefley.
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STATEMENT OF HON. JOEL HEFLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY INSTALLATIONS AND FACILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, Mr. Bateman, and thank you all for coming over today. This readiness is something that we struggle with, as you do, constantly and there are so many aspects to it and every subcommittee of the—we have three subcommittees here today—but every subcommittee of the National Security Committee—everything we do practically has to do in one way or another with readiness.
And, Mr. Buyer mentioned—touched on something that I think is very, very important and I've expressed my frustration about this many times in this committee. And, that is that under our system of chain of command, it is sometimes hard to get what you really feel from your expertise on some of these issues because chain of command—the President, the Commander-in-Chief, and whatever the policy is, you have to salute and come over here and do it and I understand that. But, it makes it very frustrating for us because we—you're the experts, you're the guys out in the field, we're trying to work with you and trying to be helpful and, if we don't get candid answers from you all, we simply can't do our job. Nor can you do your job like you'd like to do it. So, we'd appreciate that candor.
From the perspectives of each of the subcommittees represented here, readiness is fraying. There is a perception among the troops that pay and benefits in the military have eroded, and yesterday's hearing of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel concerning the Defense health program did little to allay those concerns. Chairman Bateman and the Subcommittee on Military Readiness have focused intently on the erosion of unit readiness and the stress imposed by trying to do more and more with less and less. The subcommittee I chair remains deeply concerned about the effect of crumbling infrastructure and substandard housing on morale, retention, and the ability to execute missions effectively and efficiently.
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The task, it seems to me, is to try to begin to knit the signs of hollowness together so that we can more fully understand the current state of readiness in our military. For my part, I hope we can finally put to rest the false notion promoted by the Department of Defense over the last couple of years that excessive infrastructure spending was creating shortfalls elsewhere in the budget, particularly in modernization and the accounts which directly support mission readiness. The evidence is overwhelming that infrastructure investment has been chronically underfunded by this administration and, were it not for the Congress, thousands of military personnel and their families would be living in poorer conditions and working in far-from-reasonable conditions.
General Bramlett's recent assessment for the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Army is that FORSCOM commanders are no longer able to sustain infrastructure. ''Break and fix'' appears to be the best possible outcome. Reducing backlogs is beyond the ability of the Army. That guarantees a further crumbling of base infrastructure and a further degrading of basic living conditions, working conditions, and facilities required to train, maintain, and deploy the force.
General Bramlett's assessment is mirrored by what I have seen at military installations across the country for each of the services. It ratifies much of the testimony the subcommittee has taken in recent years. The Defense Department and the military services cannot continue to put things off for another year, hoping that the problem can be resolved on someone else's watch. Congress alone cannot solve the problem. We must work together, as I had said earlier.
I'm gratified that the President finally seems to acknowledge the problem. I hope that additional resources in next year's Defense program will go directly to meet some of the critical shortfalls in infrastructure which can no longer be ignored. We have dug ourselves into a deep hole and I think it's time that we begin to dig out. Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hefley, and now it's my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ortiz, the Ranking Member of the Military Readiness Subcommittee.
STATEMENT OF HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER MILITARY READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. I am going to be brief. I would like to listen to the testimony and maybe ask questions. But, I am very, very concerned with what we have seen. This is something that has occurred here in the past years and, as we travel across the United States and foreign countries to visit our troops and visit our bases, we see that we are facing a serious, serious problem.
Readiness, you know, I think that retention, health benefits, quality of life, the equipment that they have, training and retirement—all this impacts on readiness. It is a big, big picture and it's broken. We're going to have to do something to really fix it up. So, I'm going to be brief. I'd like to include my testimony for the record, Mr. Bateman, so that we can go on and listen to the question—I mean, to the testimony and then questions. Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ortiz can be found in the appendix on page 57.]
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ortiz, and now it's my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from Hawaii who is the Ranking Member of the Military Personnel Subcommittee.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Bateman, I think you're referring to Mr. Taylor, if you want to go in that order——
Mr. BATEMAN. I'm sorry. Mr. Taylor. Excuse me.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I generally have his proxy but that's——
Mr. BATEMAN. Oh, of Mississippi.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Bateman, in the interest of moving things along, I'm going to submit my written statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor can be found in the appendix on page 62.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Taylor, and now, I get to the gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie, who, therefore, must be the Ranking Member of the Military Facilities and Installations Subcommittee.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, thank——
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Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Abercrombie.
STATEMENT OF HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM HAWAII, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY FACILITIES AND INSTALLATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much, Mr. Bateman. Mr. Bateman, the military services are experiencing retention problems, as has been noted, which I believe is partially due to the stress families encounter when the military member is away. With military families facing more frequent and longer deployments, I believe it is important that the military member have the security that their families are being taken care of while they're away.
I believe housing and quality-of-life issues have an impact in that regard. I believe Mr. Hefley has stated that, as well, and we are as one on that score. As the Ranking Member, as you indicated, of the Installations and Facilities Subcommittee, I can say that Mr. Hefley and I have placed quality of life as a high—if not the highest—priority and, as has been indicated, we are seeking comment on the issue of retention and what things could be done to retain these individuals.
Reference has been made, as well, to the statement by General Bramlett in August of 1998, a copy of which I have with me. I won't go into the details of it, Mr. Chairman, other than to note that I think it generally reflects some of the remarks and implicit, if not explicit, questions which have been asked.
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I'd like to make the observation that the readiness of our forces is always of the utmost concern to this Member and, of course, to you, Mr. Bateman, and all our colleagues on the committee. In fact, so many facets of our military spending have had an impact on what is referred to as ''readiness,'' and this is the essence of the remarks I want to move to, Mr. Bateman. ''If the equipment is not up to date and in repair, there's an impact. If the troops are not trained, there's an impact. If the morale of the troops is low, there is an impact whether it's because of inadequate housing or inadequate workspace,'' et cetera. Almost any account one can think of in the Defense budget has some direct or indirect impact on what we refer to as ''readiness.''
Each year, when we work through a months-long process of putting together a Defense Authorization bill, we have to sort out the priorities and decide to which efforts limited funds should be applied.
The account generally recognized as the one which has the most direct impact on readiness is the Operations and Maintenance titles of the bill. This year, the President requested $94.2 billion for O&M. Yet, when all was said and done, some $1.3 billion had migrated out of that account to other accounts. Well, Mr. Chairman, certainly adjustments need to be made as with the more than $980 million in commissary accounts. Yet, at least some of that money could have remained in the O&M account and gone toward such things as funding projects to reduce backlog in real property maintenance and the decay of military infrastructure or could have stayed in the O&M account and gone toward Depot maintenance, another readiness shortfall.
My point, Mr. Bateman—my fundamental point and it's something I hope is kept in mind by all parties here today, including those testifying—we need to keep in mind that gratuitous accusations concerning readiness, training, maintenance, et cetera, are taking place in an entirely unprecedented, post-Cold War world context. Partisan carping for presumed political advantage is a disservice to the troops, the well-being of which is ostensibly the object of the observations being made. It is, as well, an equally hollow response to the real needs now evolving.
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For myself, I will assume that all sides are motivated by goodwill and intentions, having only the best interest of our troops and the strategic interest of the United States of America in mind and heart. Thank you very much, Mr. Bateman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie, and now let me recognize and ask if he has any comments he'd like to make, the Chairman of the National Security Committee, the honorable Floyd Spence of South Carolina.
STATEMENT OF HON. FLOYD D. SPENCE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE
Mr. SPENCE. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. I don't have any comments to make. I think I've made a lot of comments already. Most people are familiar with them. I'd just like to hear from our witnesses today. I appreciate you being here, all of you. Thank you.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and your comments are always welcome, you know that. And, now the Ranking Member of the full National Security Committee, the Honorable Ike Skelton of Missouri.
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
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Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Bateman, thank you so much for allowing me to say a word or two.
It appears this is an ''I told you so'' hearing. For a number of years, I have felt like the little boy at the parade when the emperor walked by and he said to everyone's amazement what everyone knew, ''The emperor has no clothes.'' I am today sending the President a letter together with my testimony of March 22, 1996, where I testified before the Budget Committee, saying then that there was a shortfall in readiness and dollars for the military.
That time—and, as you know, Mr. Bateman, it takes a lot of effort and it took many, many, many months to put this budget together. But, I did. I testified before the Budget Committee for the Fiscal Years 1997, 1998, and 1999, reflecting a shortfall in my studied opinion of $14 billion the first year, $15 billion shortfall the second, and $12 billion shortfall of the third. In that letter that I am sending, I am making a recommendation for the first year—that is, next year—the Fiscal Year 2000.
I'm pleased, I'm thrilled, Mr. Bateman, that this hearing is taking place so I can say, ''I told you so.''
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Skelton, and now we are, I think, ready to proceed to hear from the witnesses that we've long anticipated hearing from.
We'll make only this observation before we recognize the first witness. Many of us on this committee and those much more important on this committee than myself have been talking about our perception of deficiencies in the National Security budget of the United States for several years. I hope that I am not entirely incorrect on this but I strongly believe that we virtually have been and will remain voices crying into the teeth of the hurricane until—or unless—the senior military leadership of these United States join their voices in calling for and recognizing there are problems out there that have to be dealt with and they cannot be adequately dealt with without the infusion of more financial resources.
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I do thank all of the witnesses for being here today. The panel consists of: General David A. Bramlett, United States Army, until recently the Commanding General of the U.S. Forces Command; General Richard E. Hawley of the United States Air Force, who is the Commander of the Air Combat Command; Vice Admiral Herbert A. Browne, Jr., II, of the United States Navy, who is the Commander of the Third Fleet in U.S. Pacific Fleet; and the final witness, Lieutenant General Peter Pace, United States Marine Corps, Commander of the Marine Corps Forces Atlantic, Commanding General of the Fleet Marine Force Atlantic and Marine Expeditionary Forces.
Gentlemen, we are indeed privileged to have you as witnesses today and we'll call first on General Bramlett for his statement.
All of you have submitted written statements which will be made a part of the record in their entirety. You may proceed to deliver the full statement today or to summarize, as you may see fit.
General Bramlett.
STATEMENT OF GEN. DAVID A. BRAMLETT, FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. FORCES COMMAND, U.S. ARMY
General BRAMLETT. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. It is indeed an honor to be here today with the subcommittees and with my fellow officers seated here that we've served with together in a variety of capacities. With your permission I will submit my formal statement for the record and just offer a few comments before passing to my colleagues.
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The subject of readiness is very important, certainly to the committees assembled here but to all of us. As Mr. Hefley said, readiness is almost everything.
I would like to just focus on three parts of it that are crucial to the Army. There's the training readiness which is the traditional go-to-war readiness, to make sure that our force is trained and are prepared to go.
Infrastructure—that is the basis, that's the airfields, the rail heads, the homes, the training facilities—those things that make sure those sources can train adequately and go to war.
And lastly, quality of life. When all of us seated here were young lieutenants or ensigns, very few of us were married. Very few of our soldiers, sailors, or Marines were married, but today in the Army 67 percent, plus or minus a figure, are married. We understand the value of quality of life. We've got to take care of our soldiers and the families that support their soldiers.
A soldier that understands he and his family are cared for will perform better. We've seen historically that. This is, indeed, the best Army we've ever fielded in our history and I think part and parcel of it is because we have cared for that soldier and told him, we understand what you do, we will care for you. And, so, when we talk readiness in the Army, we talk those three components.
In Fiscal Year 1998, as the Army looked to the future, as an institution we looked to the future and said, we have got to prepare ourselves by moving more of our resources in the Army as a whole into future readiness—modernization—to make sure that the soldiers and families that come after us are as well prepared for the challenges they face as we are today. And, accordingly, the Army institutionally moved a significant portion of its monies into future readiness, accepting risk on near-term readiness—that is to say, our go-to-war readiness today.
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As the former Forces Command Commander, that has been a principle concern of mine is to make sure our forces today in the environment I just described on a larger scale prepared to respond. In the past two years, during my tenure in Forces Command, I think our record speaks for itself. When called upon to go to Haiti, to Bosnia, to Kuwait on two occasions on short notice—and you know well how busy all of us are in uniform and certainly the Army has been very, very active—we've answered the bell, we've responded as needed and so we have maintained our readiness in that sense of a measure to do what's necessary.
But, in 1998, we looked at our budget. The commanders reported to me then that, sir, we cannot balance all three: training, quality of life, and go-to-war readiness. I told them, you make sure we're trained and ready. That is the ultimate test. That's the best thing we can do for our soldiers and their families and make sure they're ready to go, perform to standard, and return safely.
Accordingly, we accepted risk in fiscal year 1998 in quality of life and infrastructure. Members of the Readiness Subcommittee and Personnel Subcommittee may recall when I testified in March to two-thirds of the group assembled. I talked about the serious risk to infrastructure and quality of life we were undergoing. I pointed out then we were in the midst of assessing where we were. Clearly, I told them, make sure we're ready, and most evident for that requirement was when the forces went to Kuwait, when we sent 6,000 soldiers, 6,100 tons of equipment in a little less than 10 days to Kuwait. It took us 30 days in the Gulf War to do the same thing we were able to do in 10 or less with our buddies here from the Air Force.
So, indeed, we were ready but at what cost? Throughout 1998, in the six months since I last testified to this group, we have seen the cost of those austere, accepting-risk measures. We have roads not repaired, we have leaky roofs, we have tank trails not taken care of, we have 50-year-old water systems, we have sewage treatment, and the list goes on. And so, in the budget, in the initial guidance I got from my boss, the Chief Staff of the Army, who said Bramlett, here's what we think we've got for FORSCOM and he gave me the numbers in May. This is what he thought he would reasonably receive and then pass to Forces Command. I gave that to the commanders in the field, they reported back to me the essence of what many of you saw in the memo that's been alluded to by several of you here on the subcommittee.
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Quite frankly, with the money that we have, on the 20th of August, I reported to my boss, we have fractured quality of life and infrastructure; and even more so, as we look to the future, in the third and fourth quarter of this coming fiscal year, we see units at Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis and Fort Stewart beginning to slip in their readiness levels. We want them to be at—to be ready to go. And that was the essence of the message.
In short, it has been suggested, Mr. Bateman—your last remarks—we need additional monies. We will continue to work hard to train efficiently to do better business practices and do those things that you would expect us to do as good stewards of our part of the budget. But, the fact of the matter is to maintain the readiness that the American people expect us to have we, frankly, need more money.
Mr. Bateman, thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Gen. Bramlett can be found in the appendix on page 64.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, General Bramlett.
And now, we look forward to hearing from General Hawley.
STATEMENT OF GEN. RICHARD E. HAWLEY, COMMANDER, AIR COMBAT COMMAND, U.S. AIR FORCE
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General HAWLEY. Well, Mr. Bateman and members of the committees, thank you again for holding this hearing and giving us an opportunity to address some of the serious issues that our commands face.
It is a fact that, in my command, readiness trends are on a decline in virtually every area. The Air Force, as a whole today, has deployed four times as much as we were when we were a 40 percent larger force; and those deployments largely fall on Air Combat Command. So, we feel it more than the rest of the Air Force and, hence, I think the indicators appear first in my command.
It is also a symptom of constrained resources, as you point out. We have been constraining our budgets for national security for some years and those strains appear in readiness. And so, when you put that very high-operational tempo together with very constrained budgets, you are going to see declines in readiness and they appear in every area.
Our mission capable rates are substantially down from not too many years ago in almost every category of major equipment. Our infrastructure is deteriorating. For some years now, we have been sustaining infrastructure with a real property maintenance account that approximates 1 percent of our plant replacement value. That is just about enough to turn the lights on and flush the toilets. It doesn't maintain our facilities.
Our military construction program has been steadily reduced to the point where it is substantially below 1 percent of plant replacement value and; hence, we are replacing facilities at a rate of about once every 200 years. Clearly, your infrastructure is going to decline at those rates and, were it not for the additional construction that was appropriated in this and by other committees in the Congress, we'd be in even worse shape than we are.
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But the most serious indicator of decline is the loss of our experienced people. It is in retention, I think, that we are paying the greatest price for this combination of heavy workload and underresourcing. Our people are getting tired and, frankly, they're not sure that the nation appreciates their service as much as it has in the past and hence, they are voting with their feet.
That is my most serious concern. I think the quality of our force is our greatest strength. It's our greatest strength today and it will be our greatest strength in the future and I think the time has come for the nation to try and reverse these trends and do something significant that will send a message to our people that the nation does, indeed, appreciate the sacrifices that they make each day and values their service.
Mr. Bateman, I'll submit my statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Gen. Hawley can be found in the appendix on page 73.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, General Hawley.
Admiral Browne.
STATEMENT OF VICE ADM. HERBERT A. BROWNE, JR. II, COMMANDER 3RD FLEET, U.S. NAVY
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Admiral BROWNE. Mr. Bateman, it's an honor to be here, sir, and, with your permission, I'll submit my written statement for the record.
I'd like to make a couple of observations. First of all, sir, the candor comments earlier—I've testified three times in the last two years, and my guidance has been the same from Admiral Johnson all three times—that's ''be frank, be proud and tell them like it is.''
Sir, today, we recently didn't hesitate to order the Lincoln battlegroup—who is forward deployed today—to use their Tomahawk weapons. I also don't think you should hesitate to have the Lincoln battlegroup use their jets, if that's what's required. Our forward deployed forces are ready. That said, they're doing so with 12 percent fewer people in that battlegroup than they had in their previous deployment. So, that means that we're working our sailors harder in order to maintain that forward readiness that we appreciate. It also means that we reduce the flexibility and redundancy that we have in the battlegroup.
In order to maintain that forward deployed readiness, we continue to feed off of those forces that are back in the United States during what we call the ''interdeployment training cycle.'' What's happened is we're taking supplies, people and parts from the forces as soon as they return and start the maintenance at a much earlier timeframe and we're cutting—we're taking deeper than we used to and then, at the end, we really have to accelerate how we're going to prepare those forces to deploy. That is a concern and it's having an impact on our people.
I would think that, as I have viewed and prepared to come and speak with you today and in talking to the deckplate sailor, the area where we can do the most good in improving readiness in the Navy today is to focus first on the people. The comments earlier about the retirement—every place I go I hear about the retirement system and the change in retirement system and the negative impact it's having on our blue jackets. We need to fix the retirement system.
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We also need to make sure that our sailors appreciate a pay raise. We're working them harder, they're very talented people, it's an all volunteer force, and we need to maintain. And the only way that I know to do that is to pay them.
Some of the burden rests upon me and those of us in uniform. Admiral Johnson has recently asked those of us that are in charge of this interdeployment training cycle to reduce the amount of personnel turmoil by 25 percent while not reducing the training during that timeframe. And, frankly, we can do that. Over the years, we've added inspections and assist visits and things that we can combine; and we think that we can give more quality time to our blue jackets while they're home while continuing to maintain a 28-day per-quarter underway period.
So, I would say those are two areas where I, in uniform, in the area of interdeployment training cycle, can improve the quality of life for our sailors and certainly we'll need your help in order to take care of both retirement and the pay raises for our people and; as General Hawley said, our Navy—just as our Air Force—is our people; that's our strength and we need to take care of that problem first. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Vice Adm. Browne can be found in the appendix on page 89.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Admiral Browne.
And now, General Pace, we'd be delighted to hear from you.
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STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. PETER PACE, COMMANDER, U.S. MARINE CORPS FORCES, ATLANTIC, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General PACE. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is indeed an honor and a privilege to be here with you today and I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you. I, too, would like to submit my written statement for the record.
I'd also like to thank you and the members of the committee and the Congress as a whole for your steadfast and long-standing support of your Corps of Marines. For, without Congress' support, we would indeed be in dire straits today, sir.
The 82nd Congress directed that the Corps of Marines be most ready when our nation is least ready. And, Secretary Cohen, in his defense planning guidelines, has listed readiness as his number one priority. I am proud to tell you, sir, that the 92,000 Marines and sailors of Marine Forces Atlantic and our Reserve counterparts are, indeed, ready today.
But that readiness has come at a cost, sir; and our Commandant has testified for three years running that cost has come at underfunded infrastructure, underfunded procurement and underfunded quality-of-life accounts. We have, in fact, mortgaged our future readiness for our current readiness; and, sir, we've done it on the backs of our magnificent young Marines. We work them 12, 14, 16 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week to maintain old and aging equipment and it is only their determination that is keeping our heads above the waterline.
The solution, sir, is adequate funding of modernization, adequate pay and a restoration of our retirement system, sir. Thank you.
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[The prepared statement of Lt. Gen. Pace can be found in the appendix on page 107.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you very much, General Pace, and we thank all the members of the panel. Before our hearing is over, I'm going to ask each of you to respond to the questions that Chairman Buyer had raised. But, in deference to the committee members who are still able to be here, I thought we would proceed with their questions before we do that.
General Hawley, there is a bit of a disconnect, at least in my mind, in your saying—if I understood you correctly—that in the Air Combat Command, readiness problems would first appear as the supreme combat element of the Air Force. I would have thought I would hear you say is the last to appear in that command. Now, would you straighten me out on that?
General HAWLEY. Certainly. We have essentially three Combat Commands in the Air Force: of course, we've got Air Combat Command—which is responsible for all of our United States-based forces plus some in Panama, Iceland and the Azures; but we also have forces in Europe and the Pacific. And, for many years, we have had a prioritization system that provides priority in spare parts to the overseas commands——
Mr. BATEMAN. Um-hum.
General HAWLEY [continuing]. And because of the nature of our personnel system, they tend to be manned more robustly and with higher experience levels.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Um-hum.
General HAWLEY. And then, third, the new tasks that have encumbered our Air Force in the past several years have largely fallen on Air Combat Command with deployments to Southwest Asia, northern watch in Turkey, support for operations in Bosnia, and so on, largely, of course, come from the kind of spaced force. So, the strains that accompany those deployments back and forth—the training implications of some of those—fall largely on Air Combat Command and only until very recently have we been able to reach out to the Pacific and Europe to get some of their forces participating in those activities.
And, so that's why my command tends to feel the hurt first.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, General.
I read yesterday and am looking at now a letter from the President under date of September 22 to the Chairman of the full committee in which he indicates that he has asked, quote, ''Key officials of my administration to work together over the coming days to develop a fully offset $1 billion funding package for these readiness programs,'' unquote.
I'm not sure I understand what this fully offset is and who's offsetting what but leaving that aside—and hoping that it's not Peter paying Paul out of the Defense budget again—$1 billion—is that an amount that's adequate to solving some of the problems that you've pointed out?
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Now, General Bramlett, if I recall your testimony earlier this year, you were speaking in terms of something like several hundred millions of dollars of deferred real property and maintenance installations in your command or area of responsibility alone. I know that other elements of the services have testified to hundreds of millions of dollars. We have hundreds of millions of dollars in military housing that isn't being done. Do you see a $1 billion addup as being adequate to the dimensions of the problems?
Any of you?
General BRAMLETT. Mr. Chairman, if FORSCOM could have it all, we could handle that. [Laughter.]
I think your recollection is accurate. Just the backlog of maintenance to bring our installations up—and several of us have talked about the decaying and the traditional underfunding that we've had for our installations—we've assessed in Forces Command recently—my successor was able to provide the figure of about $275 million to bring the installations of Forces Command up to the proper level of maintenance that we'd expect so that we can maintain on a smaller percentage of the funds year to year to year. So, just to use that as a baseline figure, just for what it would be to bring our installations up would be about $275 million.
In a given year, as we looked to the future, recently, again, my successor, General Schwartz, mentioned that the staff had worked out the figure to not only address our shortfall but to look at the training shortfall, quality-of-life and other activities—about $790 million for Forces Command to get us on the right track.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Do you have any further observations, General Hawley?
General HAWLEY. Yes, sir; as I think several of us have pointed out, I think adequate pay compensation and benefits for our people is a very high priority. I don't know what it would take to fix the retirement system. Clearly, that is outyear money; the effects wouldn't occur until about 2006. But, in the near term, our troops keep reading every day that their pay and benefits have lagged those in the civilian sector by about 14 percent over the past 15 years and created that kind of a gap. I understand that a 1 percent closure of that gap would cost on the order of a half a billion dollars. I don't know how much the Nation is willing to take on in one bite but that would certainly consume a billion dollars very quickly.
Other unfunded requirements in my command alone total about $2 billion that we submitted to the Air staff this year that were unfunded.
Mr. BATEMAN. And this, I take it, is before you address the modernization issue and new weapon systems and other things that ultimately have to be put in place?
General HAWLEY. That $2 billion of unfunded requirements includes many modifications to what people call ''legacy'' weapon systems. Unfortunately, many of those legacy systems are going to be with us for another 10 or 20 years and they need modifications in order to remain serviceable, safe, and effective.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Admiral Browne, do you have any observations?
Admiral BROWNE. Mr. Chairman, I'm a user and don't deal with dollars that often and certainly I can't talk for the whole Navy in that billion dollars; but, I can tell you, sir, that if we had additional monies from the deckplate sailor, I would put them first in the personnel programs I mentioned earlier—the retirement and pay raises; secondly, in air craft spares; third, in ships maintenance; fourth, in weapons procurement; and then, fifth, in modernization. And that's me speaking as the Third Fleet Commander in dealing with things.
Obviously, I don't own any housing and no shore infrastructure or I would have put quality of life in there, I think. But, I don't deal with those issues. But, as General Bramlett said, I think that I could find good use for the taxpayer for those monies, all of them.
Mr. BATEMAN. General Pace?
General PACE. Mr. Bateman, yes, sir. On the ground equipment side of the house, the stated requirement for modernization for the Marine Corps is $1.2 billion a year. For the last seven years, sir, we have funded under that. In fact, last year we funded $372 million. Over the next five years, to catch up, we need $1.8 billion per year for ground equipment modernization. We have $900 million in next year's budget that leaves an additional $900 million for next year, plus between $500 and $650 million a year for the rest of the Five-Year Defense Plan (FYDP).
On the aviation side, sir, we need approximately $750 million more per year to properly modernize our aging aircraft fleet.
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On an infrastructure side of the house, sir, we are fast approaching $1 billion in backlog in maintenance and repairs. To catch up on that side, sir, we need about $125 million per year more than is currently budgeted over the FYDP. To get our replacement costs to where we are spending and are able to replace our buildings currently at the 190-year pace, sir, to get it down to being able to replace those buildings every 100 years requires another $75 million per year over the present funding level. And to get our base housing to Fiscal Year 2010—which is where the Department of Defense wants it to be—we need an additional $940 million, sir.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Bateman, could you have him ask the General if we've got that down on a—you went over a significant number of figures there very quickly. If you got that—have you got that in your testimony?
General PACE. Sir, all of the numbers are not in my testimony. I can certainly provide it to you.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. I would say those are real critical for us, the six or seven numbers you just did.
Mr. BATEMAN. If any of the witnesses would like to provide us with sort of an inventory of priorities and what the projected cost of meeting those priorities would be, it would be helpful to us.
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[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 119.]
Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I hate to say this but this reminds me of when we were listening to testimony about Russia years back, about how they were just falling apart, how the military couldn't train, how the military was just—couldn't have housing. I hate to say it but I've seen this for years. It bothers me and I know that the question was how much will $1 billion help you. But, this doesn't even scratch the surface.
Maybe my question would be to each one of you, how much do you really need overall to fix what's broken? I mean, retention is very, very important. If we don't keep personnel regardless of what type of equipment we have, who's going to manage it? Who's going to run it?
So, everything is tied to something else. Like, General, you said something about three things that are very important: the infrastructure, retention—I mean, how much money do we need? I can start with maybe General Bramlett, if you—I mean, if we are really going to fix the problem and keep our personnel, do something with the quality of life, give them enough money so that they can use, you know, real ammo and have enough fuel and enough flying hours, how much money are we talking about?
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I mean, because, yes, $1 billion has been offered. I don't think that's going to do much. Can you give me an estimate as to how much it'll take each of you to really fix the problem? It's—the bottomline is money. We need money. How much do we need?
General BRAMLETT. Sir, when I responded, I gave the Forces Command requirements. I did it in the sense of what the chairman had asked, what is it you would need? And, I gave—that list, I think, came up to $790 million. To try to reduce it down certainly anything less would be put to great use. I want to talk just for the Forces Command first.
Indeed, we look at it from training, from infrastructure, from quality of life. My concern to 1999 as I looked at the budget given me by the Army at this juncture in our process was the decline was too steep. And so, one, I'd like to see an incline, not a decline. The letter that I submitted that's been alluded to a couple of times—I think, when I totalled those up, those—at the time, on the 20th of August—were the critical unfinanced requirements—is about $370 million.
I told my boss, I need this to maintain the level of readiness that the nation expects us to do to try to salvage the installations, to hold what we have, to get it above ''break and fix.'' So—but that figure, to be candid, Mr. Ortiz, is a figure that I did at that point in time. It is not all or unfinanced requirements.
Now, when I distribute that money, each of those commanders will have to make the best choice on how to balance that. Some commanders will put more in installation because theirs has decayed to a point where they have to put. If you go to post A, they would put a higher percentage in installation than post B, which may have more a recent—for example, I mentioned water distribution system. Some are relatively new. One, in particular, is 50 years old. When it ruptures, we take water containers to the housing areas so our families can get the water, much like we do in undeveloped parts of the world.
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So, those are the sorts—it's a complex question. It doesn't have a bottomline, unless I took it, went to each post and said, what is the absolute rock-bottom minimum? But, clearly, in 1999, we don't have enough to do that and meet the expectations of the nation.
Mr. ORTIZ. And I know that there was a mistake made in some time back because we added $600 million. Am I correct when I say that, Mr. Bateman? We added $600 million. Now, are we talking about additional money? That was done because it was an accounting mistake or something and the Army was short $600 million. Am I correct when I say that?
Mr. BATEMAN. The Army's initial budget submission came up with $600 million less than they later indicated, having scrubbed their figures, they intended or needed to have submitted; and we dealt with it as best we could very late in the process when it was disclosed that the number crunchers at the Secretary of the Army level had ascertained that they had not crunched the numbers correctly.
Mr. ORTIZ. Right. So, this is why I say that the $1 billion we're talking about is not sufficient. It won't even scratch the surface. But, maybe we can go to the rest of the generals here and admiral and tell me how much does your service need.
General HAWLEY. Sir, in addition to whatever it would take to fix the personnel accounts—and, as you know, that's a DOD-wide account and services seldom treat that as a separate item—but after we fix the personnel accounts, my understanding is that the Air Force's estimate of its underfunded requirements is somewhere on the order of $4 to $5 billion a year.
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Mr. ORTIZ. Forty-five billion dollars——
General HAWLEY. Four to five——
Mr. ORTIZ. Four to five billion a year. Thank you. Admiral?
Admiral BROWNE. Sir, I deal in steaming days and flying hours and numbers of ships that are prepared and all I can tell you is the CNO, I think, will come and testify next week and he has a number that he will provide to you then, sir. I think that that's the best way to do that because I, very frankly, I just don't deal in those numbers.
If you wanted to talk about the number of steaming days, the readiness rate of the aircraft that are required, or the number of flying hours, I can talk those. But, I don't reduce it to dollars at Third Fleet, sir. But CNO can give you the number, I will assure you.
Mr. ORTIZ. At some point, if you can provide the money so that the committee can look at it and see what we can do, how much we can provide to begin to fix this problem——
Admiral BROWNE. Yes, sir.
Mr. ORTIZ. General Pace?
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General PACE. Sir, I'll provide the precise numbers, as you and Mr. Hunter have both requested. The rough math, sir, is above current funding levels, $1.2 billion per year over the FYDP for the Marine Corps accounts, plus an additional $750 million per year into Navy accounts specifically targeted on buying U.S. Marine Corps aircraft.
Mr. ORTIZ. Do I still have time for another——
General PACE. That's $750 million per year——
Mr. ORTIZ [continuing]. Question, Mr. Bateman?
Mr. HUNTER. So, that's right at $2 billion?
General PACE. Yes, sir; between plusups to Marine accounts and Navy accounts—because, as you know, the Navy buys our aircraft, sir—that would be right at $2 billion a year per year over the FYDP.
Mr. ORTIZ. Two billion dollars per year?
General PACE. Correct, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. Colonel Kelley just gave you a note. He may have raised the ante. [Laughter.]
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General PACE. Above current funding, sir, to modernize—sir, our helicopters are 30 years old. Our KC–130s are approaching 40 years old. Our Assault Amphibious Vehicles are 27 years old. And, I can go on down the list, sir. We are working with old and aging equipment, sir, and the solution is to modernize. It's going to be cheaper for the nation in the long run to buy new leap-ahead equipment now than it is going to be to continue to pour money and, more importantly, the precious time and skills of our Marines into maintaining this old and aging equipment, sir.
Mr. ORTIZ. Now, I agree with what you're saying because this committee—we've had hearings, we have talked to the troops but the bottomline, as we now know, is money and this is something that we've been saying for the past three or four years. But, I'm glad that you all are being candid with us today because in the past the only thing we knew was that we are ready, we don't need anything. This is the budget. But, now, I'm glad that finally we are getting some numbers to see how we can fix this problem.
I give my time and I hope we have a second round, Mr. Bateman.
Mr. BATEMAN. We will certainly try to accommodate the gentleman.
At this point, somewhat out of order, I would ask if the chairman of the full committee had any questions he wanted to raise at this time.
Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Bateman, let me just—instead of a question—see if I can't put this whole thing in perspective, this readiness problem. Three years ago, we, on the committee, issued a report on readiness about that thick, as I remember. After going out into the field in all the services, we came back and we reported all these things to the American people, to the Pentagon, everybody who would listen, and the Pentagon was in denial. When I say the Pentagon, I mean the civilian and military leadership in the Pentagon.
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They've continued to be in denial ever since. And then, we would—the response was, well, that's anecdotal evidence from the field. You know, people are going to gripe in the military. You've got to understand that and so, that's what this is. We don't have any problems. We are ready.
And, I always asked the question, ready for what? We are ready, they told us, to evacuate people from trouble spots in the world—in Africa, and these kinds of things and peacekeeping in Bosnia and all the rest—and I would always say—we would always say on this committee, well, what about ready to carry out the national military strategy of fighting and winning two MRCs (Major Regional Conflicts)? And, we got back the answer, yes, we can do that, we're going to have to swing forces back and all this kind of thing; and then the catch of it all is we have to assume a moderate to high risk in doing this. Of course, that translates into hundreds of thousands of lives, if not millions of lives.
The point is that the American people have been lulled into a false sense of security by all these denials and saying we're ready when we aren't ready. We've even asked, on other occasions—I'm not directing this at any gentleman because we've got all this information from people in your pay grades back down the line, I'm talking about the ones in other levels—we even would ask the Chiefs, as I remember, about what they need, what were their unmet needs that they had. Of course, you know the drill; you aren't allowed to say what the needs are.
So, we devised a way of trying to find out otherwise. We said, okay, you've got everything that you need but if we had $2 billion more to give each one of you, what would you use it for? And then, their eyes light up like Christmas tree lights and they start ticking off all these unmet needs that they asked for and were turned down on.
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And then, we were frustrated again because the Secretary puts out the word, don't tell Congress about your needs until you run the list through me again. So, every time we try to find out the needs—our readiness needs—and how to meet them, we are frustrated every step of the way.
Up until just here recently, we couldn't get our leadership in the Pentagon to speak out, until the American people confirm what we've been saying. And, I think it's resulted in a lot of things. Admiral Gehman, not long ago, reported that he found out what a demoralizing effect it was having on the people in the fleet when they knew all of these problems out there they were having with readiness—recruiting, retention, the retirement thing, all these things you've talked about—they knew these problems were there but their leadership were denying them. And so, they were losing faith in their leadership. That's a demoralizing thing right there.
And, we finally—General Bramlett comes out with his concerns about being able to fight two national—I mean, two MRCs because of all the problems we have in these things. We hear it from you folks in other levels but we don't hear it from that higher level. Recently, we have, for the first time, had an acknowledgment that we have a problem and I've got a letter from our Commander-in-Chief, as Mr. Bateman said; and the word's been put out at the meeting with the Chief that we do have a readiness problem and we're going to solve the whole thing by putting maybe a billion dollars into it which will be offset.
And, then, the rest of it is going to be long-term readiness and, down the road, we're going to put it into plan—that's a paper plan that you never get around to executing. I'm still concerned about readiness. We are concerned about readiness, that's why we're having this hearing, and that's why I say we are so delighted to have you here and you telling us, at this level, what your concerns are.
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Thank you very much. I don't have any questions to ask of them.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. The two bells indicate that we have a vote on the Floor. For the information of the Members, the first vote is on the previous question on the rule regarding the Social Security bill that's being brought up today, which will be followed by a five-minute vote on passage of the rule. If we may, gentlemen, if we could suspend, we'll come back as quickly as we can.
[Recess.]
Mr. BATEMAN [presiding]. If the committee would come to order, if the subcommittees would come to order, while we are awaiting the return of Members for questioning, this might be a good time to have you go through your responses to Congressman Buyer's questions, which, if you'd like, I'll read as they've just been handed to me.
First, what would be your reaction to a new retirement system that included a thrift savings plan, a big pay raise, and an increase in special benefits but with a reduced benefit upon retirement? How would the troops react?
Two, do you think that there is room to reduce recruit quality and still have the right people to get the job done? The recruiters need the break.
Three, have we reached the point where we need to reassess the all-volunteer force and return to the draft?
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Three rather meaty questions and, General Bramlett, if you'd like to respond first?
General BRAMLETT. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. My brief responses would be to the new retirement system as described, like many, I'd like to see the small print. But, I think that retirement is so visceral with those who serve. I grew up in the services, I remember my mom and dad talking about—even the tough times—that when we reached that 20-year point, we'd get 50 percent of what dad's base pay happened to be at the time. I think that's so fundamental to our service culture that something that would diminish that, I think, would be viewed with great suspicion and dismay. And this is my personal opinion. So, I would say the retirement system, if anything, probably ought to return to the 50 percent because it's simple, it's understandable and the others I'd have to, as I mentioned, look at the small print.
Could we reduce the quality of the force? I agree with my buddies here. It's been the key to our services. Certainly, the Army. We are people. The quality of those people have made us what we are today. I would say we can't afford to reduce the quality. What we have to be attentive to is that, at the margin, what adjustments. For example, as you know, in the Army all—you have to have a high school diploma to come in the Army and, we, in the past, have seen a high percentage of those who get their diploma by attending a high school versus GED or something. What we're finding is more and more of our young people are raised home-schooled. So, they have home-school educations and they're extraordinarily well-qualified but they don't fit inside the percentage. It's sort of an anecdote but it'll give you an idea how complex quality measures can be. But, I would think we would have to hold the line.
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And the third is the all-volunteer force—I said earlier, this has been the finest Army we feel we've fielded I think part and parcel because the young people want to serve, they're proud to serve, they have ambition, they have desire, they want to be a part of something. Many leave the Army and go on to be very productive citizens. We're proud of them also. So, I would say the time is not now to, quite frankly, talk through that because of the success we have to date.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, General Bramlett. Before we resume with answers to that question from General Hawley, now that Mr. Sisisky is here, I'd like to recognize him for his questions and we'll get to your responses to Congressman Buyer's questions as opportunities arise.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. Welcome to all you gentlemen. I don't know if I have any questions but I'm going to do a little talking, I think. [Laughter.]
Yesterday, on the Floor, I had a little speech and I said, I had visited the Seventh Fleet in Japan—this is over the past year—I visited Fort Bragg, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, I've been in Bosnia, I've been to the Persian Gulf, I've seen our forces and I'll tell you, we're the luckiest people in the world, in the United States to have young men and women who are serving under the conditions that you all heard today. That's our fortune.
I think I also told my colleagues that the worst nightmare for a Congressman is to have to vote for selective service. And, I'm telling you—you know, I've been preaching this for two years—or three years—on what's going to happen but there is a possibility that that can happen.
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Now, I've been arguing with the Pentagon and I've got a series of hearings that I've been in from the Secretary of Defense on down of how they're going to get money into the Defense Department. Now, if you believe by privatization is going to make all the difference in the world, then I want to sell you something. I mean, the companies that privatize do not have a motive for profit. I mean, that's what they're there for. There are some things that we can privatize. The other thing they talk about is base closures, the infrastructure. The jury is still out whether we really save money on that. Certainly, we may have too much infrastructure. We don't get rid of it in the right way, I might say.
But, what really bothers me came about by accident. I had heard what TRADOC—not FORSCOM, but TRADOC—is bidding—and I think the members of the committee ought to know this—out under A–76 whether they—I think there are eight TRADOC bases—should be privatized. Doing that—and that's fine—they cut the next year's budget 20 percent. Now, it's a foregone conclusion obviously what's going to happen as they increase. There's only so much money in there and I asked the TRADOC Commander—he just retired and whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for—I said, isn't that going to affect training? In some way, he said, yes.
Now, that's just the Army and this is what bothers me. You talk about training but with less dollars and saying we've got to get this for readiness and we've got to get, you know, the accounts in the procurement account; we're going to be in serious trouble. And, Admiral, I'd hate like hell to operate the Seventh Fleet—excuse me, the Third Fleet—with about 30 percent less ships. The oceans haven't shrunk any because I'm telling you we're heading for a 200-ship Navy just as fast as we can go. You don't need to be an expert to figure out if we're building 5 ships a year, this year we're building 7 times 30, that's conservative. I'll make it 200. So, we're really heading for trouble.
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But, the thing that really amazes me is that everybody talks about quality of life. The Pentagon comes down and quality of life is the issue. Every commander—yesterday, we had a hearing. Before the fiscal year starts—before the fiscal year starts—the health care system of the military is $614 million short. The Navy alone is $194 million short and I ask the question. They're going to open up a $450 million facility in Portsmouth, the Naval Medical Center, just like in San Diego—a little nicer, though, more sailing—but how are they going to do it? And he says, well, we're going to protect that. That means something else is going to go by the wayside. That's quality of life. That's quality of life.
Then, we said, the military needs housing. We've got to have housing. Do you know they cut the budget last year on military construction 30 percent for military housing? And nobody said anything. I'm talking about your chiefs. You don't testify. I mean, everybody—the Pentagon—nobody said anything about that. General Shalikashvili—I remember his last meeting here—said we must, we must have $60 billion in procurement. Guess what? In 2001, the F–22, the F–18, the Comanche, all are going to come out—at a brand-new aircraft carrier, I might add—all at the same time. It ain't going to happen, that kind of money.
So, to me, the quality-of-life issue is a nice way to talk and then, you know, we don't always understand everything in the budget. You people do and I'm just cautious. I was Chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee here and I was a pretty good chairman. You know why I was a good chairman? Because I listened to whistleblowers, because I didn't know what was happening out there and I listened to them. Now, I know you've got to follow orders but somewhere along the line somebody has got to say something.
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I discovered—and I hate to use the word; let's put ''we discovered''—that they were going to change the commissary system last year. Did you know that? Any of you gentlemen know that? They were going to give money to the services. The billion dollars? We'll give it to the services. Well, I'm not a genius but if you're short on flying time and training and everything else like that, you're going to cut the hours of the commissary and other things. We didn't let them do it. And then, the Senate turns around—and this is what happens to the studies—and wants to make the National Defense Panel, the QDR, permanent fixtures by law. And we reminded them that we already have a permanent fixture by law, and they call that the Congress.
So, I don't have a question for you but I've got to tell you this. We don't know as much as you think we know but, if it comes over the transom or anything else, please let us know. That's the only way that we can help you. There is no other way that we can really do it. Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Proceeding under the five-minute rule, I now recognize Mr. Bartlett of Maryland who will be followed by Mr. Snyder of Arkansas.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony and your openness and frankness. Thank you for being here today.
I have a question that I'm asking more and more because it's an area that really concerns me. I know it's a tangential arcane area. But, let me ask you, when was the last time you did an assessment to determine how much of your fighting capability would remain after an enemy did a large Electro Magnetic Force (EMP) laydown? How much of your equipment is now EMP hardened? It's our understanding that many of the new procurements waive EMP and chemical hardening and, if we're building sophisticated equipment that is needed only against a sophisticated enemy and if the first thing a sophisticated enemy does is an EMP laydown and denies us the use of equipment that's not EMP hardened, then I wonder why we're building the equipment. Can you tell me—do you have knowledge of when was the last time that your service or your part of the service did an assessment of how much of your fighting capability would remain after an EMP laydown?
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General BRAMLETT. Mr. Bartlett, sir, let me—I'll start. I personally cannot recall making that assessment in Forces Command. However, with your permission, I'll take that for the record and provide you a more accurate input of our—where we are in EMP hardening, in terms of percentage of equipment. That question has an answer. I personally don't have it.
[The Department of the Army did not cooperate in providing a timely response for the record.]
General HAWLEY. Nor I. I don't know when our service has done a comprehensive, wall-to-wall assessment. I'm aware of certain weapon systems—our nuclear bombers, for example, are EMP hardened—because those are the ones we expect to fly into that kind of an environment. Of course, I think you're familiar with MILSTAR. There's some EMP hardening involved with that system in space. So, it's selectively done and done, generally, based upon an assessment of what the likely threat to that individual weapon system is when encountering an EMP environment. But, I'm sure there's plenty of questions about the likelihood of the threat. There always are.
With regard to Chem-Bio, we are the lead command for Chem-Bio Defense. The Army, of course, is the lead service for work on those issues. Our best has got about $20 million in it for Chem-Bio equipment. To support our needs in an Air Combat Command (ACC), we think that part of our budget is adequately funded to make sure that our troops are prepared for that kind of environment. It will buy all the ensembles we need. We'll be fully equipped. We'll replace those that are expiring due to shelf life expiration and so on.
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Mr. BARTLETT. You mentioned probability. The probability is 100 percent if we ever get to exchange of nuclear weapons because an unavoidable consequence of a nuclear detonation is EMP. As a matter of fact, a single weapon detonated 300 miles high over Nebraska will lay down an EMP of 10 to 20 kilovolts at the margins of our country—Oregon, Washington, and Florida. That's enough, we are told, to fry all of the chips and microelectronics.
You mentioned MILSTAR. Those are the only two satellites which will remain after such a high altitude burst; we will lose $50 billion worth of satellites. And now, most of our military traffic is over commercial satellites. They will not be there after an EMP laydown. This is the ultimate asymmetric terrorist weapon—a single bomb which could be delivered tomorrow by Saddam Hussein by a scud-launcher off of a Tramp Steamer will shut down all of the northeastern United States.
And so, I would like for the record your answers as to when was the last time your services did an assessment of how much your fighting capability would remain after an EMP laydown. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 145.]
Mr. Snyder.
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Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure, gentlemen, if I have any particular questions but maybe just a couple of comments.
There have been—as a new Member, I have sometimes experienced the frustration that some of the—I think the chairman referred to earlier about we look to you for information, you know, as a new member trying to learn these things. And yet, then, recognize that there are some—oh, for want of a better word—political concerns that you have, your own internal politics about how candid you can be.
On the other hand, when, you know, we receive a lot of praise at the beginning of this hearing about candor, my guess is that probably we—Members of Congress—are kind of selective in our request for candor. And, what I'm getting at is that we probably have some work we need to do on our side of things in terms of how we process things. For example, General Hawley, I'm not going to ask you your opinion on this L.A. Times article from yesterday, headlined ''Funding C–130 Straps Budget, Pentagon Says.'' You know, this committee—I'm on the Procurement Subcommittee—we may not want that kind of candor from you at these kinds of hearings about what you think about the additional six or seven C–130Js.
Some of the most eloquent discussions I've heard from Members have been from Mr. Sisisky during our procurement discussions this last year about congressional addons. Unfortunately, it was at a closed hearing because we closed the procurement side, you know, during the budget cycle. I'm not sure that that's something we need to keep doing. There was very little classified information in those discussions but what it does is it shuts off the public and it shuts off you all from hearing how we arrive at these decisions, which sometimes isn't the most—I mean, perhaps, isn't the best way at arriving at those conclusions.
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We had a vote last year on the Floor of the House to Mr. Shuster's amendment to take a certain percentage of our budget—I think it was 0.4 percent—and, frankly, I don't think members should ever have to be put in the position of voting for men and women in the military versus projects back home. And yet, we were put in that position and it was only two votes short of the House blackening your budget—I think it was a million—or $1.2 billion or something and we're talking about a billion right now.
And finally, I would say we have discussed this today in terms of the need for additional dollars and I understand that. I also have some concerns, however, at how you maintain the pressure on the Pentagon to save dollars and come up with new ways of doing business versus leaving you short in the areas that you think are key in terms of the procurement budget, the modernization, and the readiness levels. And, I think that would be my only question for any comment you might have. How do we—if we choose to—add money to your budget so that you can have higher levels of readiness to be where you want to be? How do we do that without taking the pressure off to save dollars and find better ways of doing things? [Laughter.]
[Pause.]
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 145.]
Admiral BROWNE. You got it.
Mr. BATEMAN. General, all of you appear to be prepared——
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General HAWLEY. For many years, I think we've been putting the pressure on to save dollars and I think each member at this table could come up with a long list of initiatives within our respective services designed to try to save dollars and be more efficient and effective. And, of course, the department has a lot of initiatives. We talked earlier about outsourcing and privatization, competitive sourcing of privatization, which we're pursuing as vigorously as we can. We've got lots of initiatives in my command and those—that high quality force that we've got every day comes up with ways to save money because they're motivated to save money.
I don't think we need the pressure of an underfunded Defense budget to incentivize our people to save money. They're good Americans, they know the value of a dollar, they know how hard our people have to work to pay their taxes, and they are very much motivated to save money. So, I don't think we need that kind of pressure in order to do that. So, I think we need to take care of our people. If we do that, we'll retain a high quality force. If we retain a high quality force, they'll continue to come up with those great ideas out in the field that save lots of money. And, I'd be happy to submit for the record as many pages as the members would like of initiatives that people in our combat command over the last year to save the taxpayers money.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 145.]
Mr. BATEMAN. Any further comments?
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Admiral BROWNE. If I may, sir, the efficiency is an important piece and we do really work very hard. The position we find ourselves in is you can't fund one program and then make it well without breaking another one. If you want to fix infrastructure, then you have to break modernization or you reduce the number of people that you hire. That's the size of our budget today. We're just trying to figure out a way to find the balance and—but I assure you, sir, we work very hard at finding those efficiencies and, sometimes, as Mr. Sisisky said, it's—privatization and those things—you know, we try things that may not work. But, we're continuing to look for the efficiencies.
Mr. BATEMAN. Any further——
General PACE. Yes, sir——
Mr. BATEMAN. General Pace.
General PACE. I would say that if you have the opportunity to come down to Camp Lejeune and walk into the maintenance base, you'll be proud of your Marines who are there putting recapped tires onto the vehicles, who are putting parts that they had manufactured in the buildings themselves into the vehicles and weapon systems to keep them moving. So, we very much are looking at ways of squeezing everything we can out of the money we have.
Again, sir, the key in my mind is modernization. It is extremely inefficient to be spending large sums of money on very old and aging equipment; and, because the competitors have left the field for most of our aging equipment, we're paying much, much more than we would normally expect to for parts because maybe only one person or one firm still makes that or we have to go out and ask them to build again.
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For example, we had a problem with 60 millimeter mortar tubes in the Second Marine Division about three or four months ago. When we went out to find out what it would cost to replace the $1,400, 60 millimeter mortar tube when it was bought many years ago, the answer was $14,000 a copy. Whew. That kind of steep increase in price to maintain old systems—that's killing us, sir.
General BRAMLETT. Sir, we all have had incentives to do as much as we can to help ourselves. From Forces Command over the last year, in working with the Department as well as our own programs, we have been able to save about $181 million by different maintenance procedures, by different regionalizations of our activities because we've had a flat budget and, with a loss in buying power, we've all learned how to do this. Everybody—I call us—we've all turned—as well as war fighters—''little military capitalists.'' Be it recapping tires, be it better maintenance procedures, believe me, we've got the incentive. We allow the installation that's able to do something more efficiently to keep the money, which in simplest terms—there's your biggest incentive. Above that, we need some help.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you all, and now the Chairman of the Procurement Subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr. Hunter.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you too Mr. Ortiz and everyone else who put this thing together for putting together a very, very important hearing.
General Pace, your example of the mortar tubes is a—I think, represents the theme that the Marine Corps has been repeating regularly. I know that coming from the Commandant on down—I know under his leadership—pretty effective theme and I know you've tried to steer us away from the idea that we just put money in readiness because you want to have, in many cases, the more modernized force. And, you're afraid we're liable to fix the readiness problem of today and you end up with the old force tomorrow. So, your leadership has done a great job of gaming us away from that position and—no, I'm being facetious. They—I think it's a valid position to have.
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What I'd like to ask you is with respect to those mortar tubes, for example. Have you got those in your budget now in terms of replacing them brand-new or coming up with another—with a new mortar?
General PACE. Sir, we have—that particular problem has been fixed. We did shift money, as has been mentioned, from other accounts that cover readiness. We cover our today-readiness problems, sir, by underfunding procurement, underfunding infrastructure, underfunding quality of life.
We would hold a bake sale at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina before we allowed our Marines down there to be not ready. We are ready and we will——
Mr. HUNTER. I understand that. Yes, I understand that. On the other hand, you don't want us to go overboard with respect to—for example, we added early on one or two—I think, some hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of ammo and we went back and forth on ammo shortages. Ultimately, we came down with a vastly reduced ammo requirement from the Marine Corps or an analysis that said we really didn't need as much as we thought we needed at first. And, I know part of that was because you didn't want to see us taking money out of V–22 and things like that to fund ammo. So, I understand your predicament.
But, what I'm getting at is I think it would be—I think you've got this mix of components and items and systems that are—they're the 1956 Chevys, as General Terry Paul and I have talked about in extended periods and also Colonel Kelley, you've got these 1956 Chevys that are at the point where you're really spending—and I guess your helicopters would fall into that class, obviously—so much to keep them going that it's really a detriment and the amount of money, if you pencilled it out over the lifetime of an item, that you'd spend to buy brand-new equipment in a number of areas would more than offset the cost of repairing the equipment and also the cost of personnel that would have to be made available and pulled off of their combat role to maintain that equipment.
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So, let's say those are the—I don't know what you'd call those, if you'd call those the ''money hogs,'' the equipment that has become or the equipment that is a super drain on your limited budget—whatever you'd call that, I think we need to put together that list—whether it's generators, trucks. You know, obviously, some of your systems like your helicopters—we're moving B–22s into the forces as fast as we can find dollars to do that—but I think we need to have a list of those items that have become too expensive to maintain.
Maybe that's a good way to describe them. Too expensive to maintain. Not that they're not maintainable and not that you can't put money in readiness accounts to maintain them, but that they're too expensive to maintain and the only reasonable alternative is to put—is to replace them with new items. So, you're—would that be—if you put together a list like that, would that increase that roughly $2 billion a year you folks think you need in extra money?
General PACE. Sir, thank you. That list I will get to you, sir. It is that list that generated the numbers that I gave you before and which I will give you again after this meeting. But, inside that $2 billion our—are, excuse me—the ''money hogs.'' It's the replacement for our 27-year-old Assault Amphibious Vehicles. It's the replacement for the 30-year-old CH–46 helicopters, which are medium-lift, workhorses. It's the replacement for the CH–53 Delta helicopters. All of these items, sir, that are way beyond—or at or beyond—their program service life to include service life extension programs that are costing us, as you articulated, so much in money and personnel.
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[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 145.]
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Then, so, what you're talking about there, then, is those are big-ticket items——
General PACE. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. Is accelerating their replacements, which, I mean, we all have that are all in the pipeline at one position or another and, you know, we added, like, one V–22 this year and on down the line we've tried to boost it a little bit, although we don't have much money. But, are you telling me that you're going to revise your schedule of big-ticket item procurement requests?
General PACE. Sir——
Mr. HUNTER. Because those are big items.
General PACE. Yes, sir. So, what I am saying is that inside the additional dollars—the $1.2 billion for ground equipment per year and the $750 million for aviation per year over the FYDP—inside of those dollars, we would, then, be able to fund the new technologies and new equipment that will, in fact, be cheaper in the long run but to pay—then it is to pay for the old equipment.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. And, that would include the low-end items, the generators, the lighter trucks?
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General PACE. Sir, that is correct.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
General PACE. And, to use your example, we are very appreciative of the additional—excuse me, the additional Osprey that you mentioned. But, in fact, the most cost effective buy of the Osprey is to get to 33 per year. We're currently scheduled to get to a max of 30 per year so there are economies still to be had if the money can be found up front, which would, over time, save the country money with the entire buy of the Osprey.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So, the 36 per year that your $2 billion includes that increased to that purchasing rate?
General PACE. Sir, I need to take after the record to make sure I'm——
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
General PACE [continuing]. Ninety percent sure that's correct.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Mr. Bateman, could I just ask a couple other procurement questions of the other gentlemen or do you have——
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Mr. BATEMAN. If you don't mind——
Mr. HUNTER. Or I could—Mr. Chairman, I can wait. I'll wait for a second round.
Mr. TAYLOR. I need to get going.
Mr. HUNTER. Go right ahead.
Mr. BATEMAN. If I may, let me now then call on the gentleman from Mississippi, the Ranking Member of the Personnel Subcommittee.
STATEMENT OF GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. I do appreciate you having this hearing. I do question the timing of it with the Congress about to go out of session and the day after the Defense Authorization bill confidence report was passed by the House. So, I'm going to open this up to anybody who wants to answer the question.
Four, I'm sorry, three years and nine months ago, the Republicans took over Congress and one of the promises of the ''Contract with America'' was to improve readiness. We're now told that it's worse than it's ever been before. They came into Congress because they'd pretty well convinced the American people that the President wasn't doing his job. They, obviously, impressed that point across on the American people.
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What I'm trying to gather from all of this is what is going to change between now and next year at this time? Last year—last week, we voted on a $2.6 billion bill that the Drug Czar didn't ask for that never went to committee that allocated new helicopters for the Colombians but not for the Americans. So, what's going to change out of all of this?
I read a great book not that long ago, I think, written by an active duty Army colonel called, ''Dereliction to Duty.'' It points out the scam that took place that drew America into the Vietnam War and the obvious lies of the Johnson administration dragging us into that war. But, the dereliction of duty that the author points to was that no one on the Joint Chiefs was willing to put their career on their line and say, Mr. Johnson, either we get in or we get out, either we do it right or we don't, if we don't do it right, I'm willing to resign over this.
So, what's going to change? What is going to be different one year from now? I mean, who is going to step forward and say, Mr. President, you're not giving us enough? And who, on this side, is going to drag the Chairman of the Budget Committee—who happens to belong to this committee—into this room just long enough to listen to what these gentlemen have to say?
Mr. HUNTER. Does the gentleman want to yield——
Mr. TAYLOR. Certainly.
Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. For an answer?
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Mr. TAYLOR. Sure.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you for yielding. I just remind my friend that this committee, Republicans and Democrats, have added $21 billion over the President's budget and the difficulty of doing that wasn't because of the Chairman of the Budget Committee. It was because practically every newspaper in America echoed an editorial as soon as we added something, saying, National Security Committee adds pork to the bill and is adding things that the service says they don't need because every time the gentlemen who are sitting in front of us heretofore sat before us—I would say with the exception of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Commandant of which has fallen on his sword so many times he probably isn't around any more—oh, he's still around and in good form—but they would say, when asked, do you want anything above and beyond the President's budget by us and by you, the answer would be no, I stand by the President's budget.
So, we forced on them to the political pain of all the folks sitting up here—Republicans and Democrats who voted for it—$21 billion above that——
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Hunter.
Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. Budget. And, so, my answer to the gentleman is that, as you know, you can do everything here if you have the support——
Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, Mr. Hunter——
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Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. Of the people——
Mr. TAYLOR [continuing]. I'm running out of time.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. But, I'm——
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr.——
Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. The gentleman asked a question. I want to answer it for him. We're getting—we're now hearing some very strong statements that I think will create a groundswell of public support for increased defense spending.
Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. Reclaiming my time from my friend. Okay.
Mr. BATEMAN. The Chair would simply like to suggest that today is a day filled with great opportunities to elicit information.
Mr. TAYLOR. Okay.
Mr. BATEMAN. We will get more information if we have less rhetorical exercises.
Mr. TAYLOR. I understand, Mr. Bateman, and you're exactly right. But, I would also like to remind everyone on this committee that the Defense budget in real dollars is 4 percent less than it was just a few years ago, in real dollars available to be spent.
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So, my question to you gentlemen is at what point do you all step forward and say, Mr. President, this is the way it's got to be, and then put the monkey on this committee's back to stand up to the budgeteers and those—and the ultra-liberals. We really have two groups that we have to confront and say, there has to be a better way and we have to put some money in defense. We've got to get the kids off the food stamps. We've got to get the kids out of 30-year-old helicopters. We've got to quit sending carriers to sea that are undermanned by 1,000 sailors. Who's going to do it, guys?
Mr. BATEMAN. Who wants to respond? [Laughter.]
General BRAMLETT. Well, I think that all of us—and I'll just talk from the Army's standpoint—the process—and we'll go back to the memo that I wrote my boss—I think is a part of the process. Up until that time, that I testified before this subcommittee before and I said, six months ago, why we were where we were, we as a service—and I'll just speak to the Army—obviously took a portion of our money, moved it to future readiness. We consciously accepted risk, we made no secret of it, we said it publicly, and we'll see what we can do. We have really attacked the efficiencies.
I addressed some of the money that we at Forces Command have been able to send. But, we've been very candid in our reports to our bosses; and I think they've been very forthright and candid each time they've appeared. In fact, the 20 August memo was part of a process. That was my candid—in fact, I wrote one of those in 1997, to my predecessor in 1996, and so on. It was a memo in which I laid out where we were waiting for what the Chief of Staff of the Army could do when he reported out to the Congress and to the President.
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So, I think, in that sense, I'm not sure of the gist of your question beyond just specifically which one of you is ready to stand up. I think any of us are. I certainly am when it reaches that point where I fear I can no longer execute the responsibilities that I'm asked to do because of policy, something like that. That's very clear to all of us, what course of action we'd pursue if we can't support—to the best of our consciences and professionalism—what's required of us.
Admiral BROWNE. Sir, if I may, this is the third time, as I said, I've testified here and my primary reference for this testimony was the testimony that I first gave about 18 months ago where I talked about my concerns for readiness primarily centered around people, aircraft parts, and ship maintenance. So, I don't—all I can speak for is myself and tell you that, again, that was my prime reference for being here today.
Mr. BATEMAN. Any other observations?
General PACE. Sir, I am——
Mr. BATEMAN. General Pace.
General PACE [continuing]. Extremely comfortable with the process that my Commandant sets up for his Marine Corps and your Marine Corps. I have had full opportunity to voice my concerns. He has taken those and he has, as you know, sir, articulated those over the last three years and will again next week when he goes in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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We had an opportunity yesterday. My major subordinate commanders were in front of another committee over in the Senate. I'm here today. Sir, at each opportunity afforded to us by our governmental processes, we tell you the truth as we know it to be from where we sit. So, as I sit here, sir—and, as I said in the beginning—I'm delighted to be here because this gives me an opportunity to answer your questions and to give you direct answers, sir, to what you want to know.
General HAWLEY. As for me, this is my second appearance before this committee in the last year and a half. I don't think there's any change in my testimony today from that which I presented a year and a half ago. I think there have been ample public statements by senior leaders, including myself, over the past two years addressing many of these issues.
I would share the rest of the table's comments about the process. My command submits a long list of unfunded requirements to the Air Staff every year. We make no bones about our shortfalls. There's no secrets in that list and it is—has been dealt with in the Air Stafff in an environment in which we had a balanced budget agreement that capped military spending. And, with a cap on military spending, I think the senior leadership in the department was forced to do their best to balance priorities across the various major accounts that protect both modernization—which is future readiness—and today's readiness. And, I think they've done as good a job as they could within those constraints.
I think what we're arguing for today is we need to break free of those constraints that were imposed by the balanced budget agreement and the cap that was put on military spending. It's time to do that.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you all gentlemen.
Mr. Taylor, I'd be willing to indulge you with another minute, if you——
Mr. TAYLOR. Gentlemen, I guess what I think is a fair followup is why are you telling us this in September rather than in January or February?
Mr. BATEMAN. I think I know part of that answer and that is because they were not asked to appear as witnesses in January. General Bramlett, I believe, was before the committee in March. I don't remember the sequence in which the other gentlemen have been here. But, let's try to put this—if I might—in a hopefully constructive context.
This committee—people on either side of the committee in terms of political labels—have, unfortunately, lost the battle for several years of whether or not we were going to budget to military needs and requirements or whether or not we were going to budget the best way we could within an artificial constraint on the amount of dollars that you've got available, whether it's adequate or inadequate. It has been the view, I think, almost of everyone on this committee that the topline has been inadequate and it has produced inadequacies throughout all the services in all kinds of endeavors.
There is more than blame enough to go around but I think at the end of the day the only thing that I think is absolutely clear and immutable is that we have lost the battle over how we ought to approach determining what our national security requirements are to those whose concern have been keeping it within some budgetary constraints or limitations that are artificially imposed as opposed to what is a genuine national security concern.
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Now, I hope—I've had a chance to make my speech. Several have been made. If we could now proceed, I'd call on, I believe, Mr. Jones is next.
Mr. JONES. Mr. Bateman, thank you very much and I just want to very briefly say to my friend from Mississippi, to you, and every other member of this committee that I most appreciate the work that's been done by the leadership on both the Republican and Democratic side because for the first time in many years what we're doing in bringing this panel forward is we're helping to educate the American people. I find out, in my district—the 3rd District of North Carolina, the home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point Marine Air Station—that the American people for too long have been taking the military for granted and that's not their fault; it's the fault because we have not brought the problem to the forefront of this Nation and we are now doing that and I think it's extremely important.
And, I want to just take a moment to say that, in the past year, I have talked with pilots from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Cherry Point Marine Air Station, off-base, out of uniform and been told by those pilots why they were not going to make a career out of the Air Force or the Marine Corps. And, so, this hearing today is extremely important. The only thing I wish would happen today—which it will not ever happen—is that we had every Member of Congress to sit in here and to hear this testimony today. It would be extremely helpful, when we have those battles on the floor of the House; and so, I just thank you very much.
I did have a couple questions for General Pace, if I may. This is a little bit different than what's been asked since I've been present, is if you could talk about how the Marine Corps—atmosphere that we have in this Nation—has been able to meet its goals in recruitment and also in re-enlistment because I think you probably lead the services in this area. Is that true?
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General PACE. Sir, thank you very much for the opportunity to, in fact, put a plug in for our recruiting service, which is doing a magnificent job. And, in my written testimony, I refer to it as an ''all-recruited'' force, not an all-volunteer force because our young men and women of this country are not lining up at the recruit stations. They are being recruited one by one by our fantastic recruiting service. For us, we have about 2,500—give or take—Marines right now out across the United States recruiting young men and women. They spend, on average, 60-plus hours per week actually out making the phone calls, making the house visits, going to the schools, and we have invested—the Commandant in the Marine Corps has personally invested the very finest slice of our staff NCO corp to go out and recruit in the cities and towns of the United States.
I had the great privilege from 1980 to 1983 to be the CO of a recruiting station in Buffalo, New York. The Marines I had working with me were absolutely incredible in their quality and the determination to succeed, sir. These Marines are out there working hard.
We have had a reduction in the amount of money that's been allocated to recruit advertising—recruiting advertising, excuse me—through plusup by the Congress and through shifting of funds inside the Marine Corps. We've been able to get that back up to about $10 million a year. But what our recruiters need, sir, is the continued support of the Congress in the form of, for example, advertising money to allow them to continue to reach out and get to the heart of the American public, sir.
Mr. JONES. Thank you very much. Would any of the other gentlemen like to respond on recruitment?
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General HAWLEY. I think the story is the same to a different degree across all the services. We depend very heavily on the quality of that recruiting force and all of us are finding we're having to increase the number of recruiters in the field because it takes more contacts than it used to, to get a recruit. And, so, we are continually having to augment our recruited force in order to get the number of contacts up so we can get the number of people up.
The Air Force is meeting its recruiting goals, and we're largely meeting our goals in both quantity and quality. We expect to do that this year and we anticipate being able to meet our goals next year.
Mr. JONES. Would that be true for the Army and the Navy?
General BRAMLETT. On the recruiting, we anticipate a problem. Our projection now is to be short a small percent—not even a percentage. I've heard a figure of 1,000. I think someone read into the record this morning 1,800. I, frankly, couldn't challenge that figure.
Our retention has been holding fine. Our first term soldiers, our mid-career and careerists, are re-enlisting at the rates we need to sustain the force, which we think is an endorsement for what the Army is doing, their sense of job satisfaction, fragile, though; those figures may be in the light of the continuing deployments and things we're talking about today.
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So, I think, relatively speaking, in terms of our end-strength, our potential recruiting, it takes a lot of effort—which General Hawley and General Pace mentioned—but we think we're on the right slope we should be on.
Admiral BROWNE. The Navy is on record at falling well short of recruiting goals, and the prime fix that's been applied that I've seen from the Fleet level is increasing the number of recruiters. The quality has been superb and now we're increasing the number of recruiters to try to attract more people to the Navy.
Mr. JONES. Thank you.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you.
At this point, we call on the very patient and ever faithful Congressman McHale of Pennsylvania.
Mr. MCHALE. They didn't say such nice things until I announced my retirement. [Laughter.]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony and thank you for your service to our country.
Admiral Browne, to meet the mission requirements of a 2-Major Theater War (MTW) strategy, how many ships do we need in the United States Navy?
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Admiral BROWNE. Sir, I think that any number below 300 would cause a significant problem. As a Fleet Commander, I would like to see the number closer to 320 but I know for a fact that at 300 we break the bank, sir.
Mr. MCHALE. Five years ago, the Secretary of Defense prepared his annual report to the President and the Congress. That was the first report that was prepared after the bottom-up review. There was a chart in that report that indicates that in Fiscal Year 1999, in order to meet the mission requirements of what we then called a 2-Major Regional Conflict (MRC) strategy, we needed 346 ships. In fact, at the end of Fiscal Year 1999, we're going to have 315.
Admiral Pilling and Admiral Johnson have testified—not coincidentally—to the same figure that you just cited and that is 300. My friend, Norm Sisisky, a few minutes ago pointed out that at a construction rate of 5 to 6 ships per year, we are headed well below a 300-ship Navy and, in fact, by the year 2004, we're going to have to double the construction rate to about 9 ships per year just to maintain 300.
My question really is, how did we drop from 346 down to an acceptable figure of 300? And, was that driven by a change in strategy? Or was that driven by the budget?
Admiral BROWNE. If I may, sir, the way that we came to 300 is Washington asked the numbered fleet commanders through the Fleet Commander how many ships it took to come to that number and I'm sure that's why they're all the same. To be very frank, I think—number one—the quality of our ships today, the different types of the ship—you take—if we replaced a Spruance class destroyer with an Arleigh Burke.
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In addition to that, sir, the other thing that has happened is this building of these coalitions and counting on other partners to fight with us—we just recently did an exercise called RIMPAC where we had six other nations, and I feel very confident—I can't imagine a time that at least three of those nations would not be along side us and I don't know if that was part of the determination that led us to 346, but it was certainly one of the things that I factored in when we sat down and I was asked how I viewed the number of ships to fight 2-MRCs in the future, sir. So, that's how I came up with the number, and I think that maybe the largest Delta is a difference in the ships that we have today as compared to what we had just a few years ago.
Mr. MCHALE. Admiral, I understand that you offer that explanation in good faith, and I accept it in that context. But, it's hard for me to believe that those who prepared that annual report five years ago didn't anticipate more powerful platforms or a coalition warfare. The factors that you cite were factors that should have been part of their calculation when they called for a Navy at 46 ships above that which is being presented today. And, I have the concern that that analysis—not in your case but perhaps overall—was, in fact, driven by the budget and not by any change in the strategic environment.
General Bramlett, the last time you and I saw each other was at the NTC and I had an extraordinary opportunity to witness the early stages of an evolution where the enhanced separate brigade from Idaho was going through the NTC. Can you very briefly—because I'm running out of time—give me kind of a hotwash summary of how that enhanced separate brigade did during the closing phases of that exercise?
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General BRAMLETT. Sir, they continue to persevere. You remember the heat, the conditions. The conditions at NTC are unique in the sense that we can't replicate those. I would say the 116th measured up to the challenge in terms of taking those conditions on.
As the opposing force there—and you saw their sand table exercise—needless to say, they administered the same lessons to the 116th that they do to most of our units that go through there—which is a premium on small unit cohesion, the ability for platoons to be lethal and deadly, quick actions and orders by the chain of command up and through the brigade task force. So, I think the 116th would give you the best they are. They felt it was a valuable learning experience and so do we.
Mr. MCHALE. I want to credit you and General Reimer. I think that was a major step forward in terms of both the training and the testing of our enhanced separate brigades and I applaud you. I've not always applauded; I've sometimes been very sharply critical. I applaud you for that effort and I would encourage you to continue to rotate those brigades from the Guard through the NTC as frequently as you can possibly afford.
My final question is to General Pace. General, it's good to see you again.
General PACE. Sir.
Mr. MCHALE. How many CH–46s do you have in your command?
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General PACE. Sir, I'm not sure of the exact number. I will have to take that for the record.
Mr. MCHALE. Could you give us an estimate, if you happen to know?
General PACE. Sir, it's about 72, sir.
Mr. MCHALE. All right. My concern is this. As correctly cited by Mr. Hunter earlier, we plused-up the procurement rate for the V–22 by one aircraft this year. We went from seven up to eight. I think that was good news. The bad news was this week the Appropriations Committee dropped the number back down to seven, although I remain hopeful and confident that we will, in fact, restore that missing V–22 in the supplemental.
My point is that we are now buying the V–22 at a rate of eight per year. We won't get up until 30 per year until we hit Fiscal Year 2004. It is vitally important that the members of this committee understand that we need to increase the rate of acquisition for the V–22.
First Lieutenant Jim Murphy works in my office. He's a Marine reservist who just left active duty, he had served with the 3rd Marines out in Hawaii. In presenting a question, the answer to which shocked me when I presented it to him yesterday, I said, Jim, when were you born? He said, 1971, which was the year before I joined the Marine Corps. I suddenly felt very old. Even more significantly, it occurred to me that Jim Murphy, in my office, routinely as a Marine reservist, flies on CH–46s that were literally built before he was born.
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If we are to replace that aging, inadequate, very expensive fleet of CH–46s, we in this Congress, I think, have to listen carefully to the Marine Corps and plus up that acquisition rate on or before Fiscal Year 2004 from 30 aircraft per year up to 36. To do it at a rate less than that is, frankly, dangerous. I would welcome your comment.
General PACE. Sir, I agree completely with you. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on that. In fact, at the current replacement rate, some of our CH–46s will be 45, 47 years old by the time they are replaced.
Mr. MCHALE. Well, that is astonishing. How can we ask young men and women to fly in a rotor aircraft that is 45 years old? Would you send your son or your daughter to board that aircraft? And, if not, how can we ask others to do so? That is, to me, astonishing.
Mr. BATEMAN. The point is very well made and I'd be happy to hear from General Pace but otherwise we have to move on.
Mr. MCHALE. Mr. Bateman, I thank——
Mr. BATEMAN. General Pace——
Mr. MCHALE [continuing]. You for your courtesy.
Mr. BATEMAN [continuing]. You may conclude whatever answer you have not responded to, General.
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General PACE. Sir, thank you. I was just going to say that, in fact, when I get on board helicopters, I'm getting on to helicopters that I flew in, in Vietnam. When the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing Commander takes off and tanks onto a KC–130, he's tanking onto the exact same tanker that he was——
Mr. BATEMAN. Um-hum.
General PACE [continuing]. Tanking off of in Vietnam, sir. Our fleet is old.
Mr. BATEMAN. And, are the replacement of these helicopters on that inventory of unmet needs?
General PACE. That's correct, sir; the helicopters——
Mr. BATEMAN. Okay. Yes.
General PACE [continuing]. Yes, but the KC–130 refuelers, no, sir; it's not.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you.
At this point, I'd like to, if I may, revert to the questions that were posed by Chairman Buyer of the Personnel Subcommittee—which have already been responded to, I believe, by General Bramlett—and ask if General Hawley would make whatever comments he chooses to make.
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General HAWLEY. Yes, sir. On the issue of the retirement system, I think probably the most important single personnel action we can take would be to restore the value of the retirement system as a retention and recruiting incentive. It lost a lot of that with reducs in 1986. I think any program that advertized a reduced benefit upon retirement would be poorly received by the troops.
Mr. BATEMAN. Um-hum.
General HAWLEY. As to the issue of reduced recruit quality, the magic of our Armed Forces today is in the quality of its people. It's the quality of the people who make that 40-year-old CH–46 work. It's the magic of those people that make our 40-year-old B–52s fly as well as they do, our 35-year-old C–130s and all the other aging equipment that all of our services only operates because of the quality of those people. I think we'd be making a big mistake if we consciously sacrificed quality either to save money or make the job of our recruiters easier.
As to the issue of the all-volunteer force as opposed to a return to the draft, I know there was a lot of debate about that when we went to the all-volunteer force. But, I've lived through both and the difference in quality that we see in our force today is incredible and; again, I think we'd be making a big mistake to revert simply because we aren't willing to pay the price for the all-volunteer force. I don't think the price is all that high.
Mr. BATEMAN. Okay. Admiral Browne?
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Admiral BROWNE. Sir, our sailors look me in the eye and say, Admiral, we want the same retirement you have. The 50 percent retirement is something—I mean, they're mad at me—not anyone else—they're saying, you know, you feathered your bed, now how about us? What—how did you allow this to happen to us? So, we need to go back to the system that has worked so very, very well prior to the reducs.
Secondly, no, sir, we should never, never lower our recruit quality. What happens when you do that, you find that your leadership spends all of their time on the bad people instead of caring for the good people. It's a negative game to reduce the quality of our recruit.
Thirdly, the all-volunteer force works. I think that what we've discovered and what we've really been discussing today is the difference between an all-volunteer force and returning to the draft is you have to pay the people. You have to pay for a volunteer force, and it costs more, and we need to pay those young people that volunteer to serve our nation.
And those are my answers, sir.
Mr. BATEMAN. Okay. General Pace?
General PACE. Mr. Bateman, thank you, sir. Sir, with regard to the possibility of a thrift savings plan, I would certainly endorse any opportunity it would give our service members a chance to save prudently, especially for those members who begin service and for whatever reason—family problems—are not able to get out to 20 years right now. So, they have—it's that great—the people who have no opportunity right now to save for retirement because of the laws of the land as they are right now.
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A big pay raise, sir, of course we'd welcome. Not only your very great support in the upcoming 3.6 percent pay raise, but anything that the Congress can do to help reduce what we believe it about a 14 percent pay gap between current pay and civilian pay.
With regard to reduced retirement benefits, sir, I can just point to the fact that our folks are, in fact, saying that the change that was put in place, the reducs plan that was supposed to make it so that more people would want to stay longer. We have not seen that but we have seen people voting with their feet.
I was at Camp Lejeune last week and I had a staff sergeant who is in our Special Operations training group that trains up our Marine Expeditionary Units when they go out—a great young Marine and leadership made a big difference just last week to him. He had decided that he was going to get out and when he read in the Navy Times that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was going to step forward and say, we should relook at going back to our previous retirement system, just that was enough for this Marine to say, if my leadership is willing to do that for me, I'm going to stay. I love being a Marine, but I can't jeopardize my family; and he thanked me for the leadership, being willing to stand up and say those kinds of things.
The recruit quality, sir, there is no need to reduce recruit quality, sir. We have increased recruit quality; we have increased the difficulty of Marine recruit training, yet we continue to make our goals. As I stated before, sir, that's because we have a great recruiting force, and we invest heavily in the quality of our recruiting force, but we do not have to give up quality. The American society is producing quality young men and women, sir. We should not reduce our goals in getting the very best and brightest we can for these armed forces. It is going to become much more technology dependent, sir. We're going to need smart young men and women, especially when the kinds of decisions that they make in Somalia, the kinds of decisions that they, in Bosnia at the corporal and sergeant level, actually have strategic implications. We need our best and brightest, sir.
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With regard to going back to an all—excuse me, sir—let's go back to draft v. the all-volunteer force, sir. We are not there now. I, too, have lived through both of those. The force we have now, sir, is superb. This country is not yet at the point where we need to reassess that. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, General Pace, and, with that, everyone has responded to the chairman of the Personnel Committee's questions. If you have any additional thoughts on the matters he addressed, especially with reference to modification in a retirement plan—and I'm sure he posed that question not in the context of some less adequate but an improved retirement plan that might be tailored differently, but which conceivably would be advantageous and could be presented to our forces as being an enhanced or improved retirement plan—so if you have any further thoughts on that, we'd be happy to receive any further comments you have.
Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. ORTIZ. I would just like, for the record—I know that Members have other meetings to attend—but for General Bramlett, I would like for you to respond for the record on the prime vendor system. Now, we understand that a senior officer made some unfavorable remarks about the proposed prime vendor concept, and I also hear the Army is seriously considering adopting the prime vendor concept for other major combat weapons; and, for the sake of time, if you can respond to that question; either you can do it now or you can write to me.
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General BRAMLETT. Well, my short response would be it's like many things. It's something we're doing for the first time. The questions that have been raised are legitimate questions on what are the implications. We've got to look for better ways to do things to realize better ways to use our monies. So, that would be my short answer. It's the first time that we've faced it this year, so we have legitimate questions, and if I could take the details for the record, I'll give you a more complete and comprehensive answer.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix beginning on page 145.]
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you. Another question would be for Admiral Browne about the level of protection against mine hazards. Are we providing you enough protection? And I will submit my questions to you, sir, and if we have time maybe you can respond to them.
Admiral BROWNE. Sir, I will also give you a written response, but I want to assure you that it receives a great deal of our attention.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 145.]
Admiral BROWNE. Mine warfare and submarine warfare are unique to the maritime environment, and we spend a great deal of time—I'm watching very closely and trying to think through as we give an organic capability to our ships, how much longer we're going to need to have unique capabilities within the Navy for mine warfare, and I see both requirements remaining far into the future. We exercise mine warfare every time we exercise, and it is taking more and more of our time and a great deal of effort.
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We do have the capability to ensure that we're going to be able to get General Pace's Marines ashore, and that's the key, and we just proved it in our last two exercises, but it is brutal work, and some of the things that it prevents is it may prevent us getting them ashore for one day, and that one day of combat makes a very, very large difference. So, we have more work to do, but we're working it very hard, sir.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, and I would like to have unanimous consent to allow Members, Mr. Chairman, to submit questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. Without objection, all Members will be allowed to submit written questions to the witnesses for answers on the record.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Florida, Mrs. Fowler.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Bateman, and I want to thank you all for being here today and for your willingness to be really straightforward with us; and I think, General Bramlett, you really opened up the floodgates when you were courageous enough to write that memo you wrote a few weeks ago and get some of this on out in the public on the problems that we've been talking about on these subcommittees and this committee for several years now, and we now need to address them.
I just have a couple of questions; one really goes to you, Admiral Browne. I was reading through your testimony, and on pages 12 and 13, you expressed concerns about something I'm very concerned about. In fact, several weeks ago, about 10 Members of this committee wrote a letter to the CNO expressing our concerns about the loss of the ES–3A and then also the concerns of the loss of the S3–B's anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities. As we all know, the ES–3A is really the battle group's only, as you say, too, organic intelligence gathering aircraft, and we're going to be losing that and losing that capability to our battle groups. So, we are very concerned about that.
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And then the loss of the anti-submarine capability on our S3–Bs at a time when other countries are putting more money into their submarine technology, and yet we are seeing this go away, and as you stated—I want to quote from your testimony—that ''the Navy's S3–B budgetary decision has been opposed by every Pacific fleet battle group commander resulting in a review to argue the case.'' If you could tell me what the status of these two are now. I mean, has this been reviewed? Has a decision been made? Where are we in this process?
Mr. BATEMAN. Admiral, before you answer, I want to commend Mrs. Fowler for the question and for the fact that it indicates that she has read in detail and completeness your written statement which did include this information, which I certainly share with her and is rather alarming.
Admiral BROWNE. Yes, sir, and I agree with that. I add Admiral Nathman, who is the Requirements Admiral in the Pentagon, came to see me yesterday afternoon to talk about both the ES–3A and the A6–B. The decision was reached by a panel of basically aviators, and it was an affordability decision. I'm in the true requirements business. The submarine threat—when I was talking about mining—is something that's very real and something we need to concern ourselves with; and I'm of the mindset that as we take anything from that would be an error. The Admiral's answer to me is how we would then coordinate more with patrol aircraft in order to provide the ASW capability that would be required in the littorals. We agreed to disagree. We are looking, based on my concerns, at that same board of aviation admirals, again, looking at the S3 ASW capability in the Pacific today, and I'm hoping that we're able to change their mind.
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The ES–3 decision—I think that that decision has already gone to the point where we're not going to be able to reverse the ES–3 decision. I'm kind of an old school admiral. If you look in my bio, you don't see a lot of education; you see a lot of it sea time, and my experience at sea and having that asset to apply directly to a tactical situation is tremendously important. What we will do with the loss of the ES–3 is we will work more coordination with the EP–3 and then revert to an ES when we can get them. My concern with that is, is those are at least operational and generally strategic assets, and it's hard to have them apply their expertise to a specific tactical situation.
So, my answer is I think that I was too late with my complaint about the ES–3. The S3–B, the ASW capability, at least that is being reviewed based upon our concerns in the Pacific.
Mrs. FOWLER. Well, I am very concerned to hear that it's too late on the ES–3A, because I share your concerns, and I think that no education substitutes for experience, and your experience speaks a lot; and I worry, because we're going to send these battle groups out, and they're not going to have the intelligence gathering capability they have had in the past. And, again, we put young men and women's lives at risk when they don't have that capability readily available. So, whether that's too far or not—if it is, that's unfortunate; maybe we can help with that. I do hope this re-review of the S3–B is successful. Anything we can do to help—as I say, a group of us wrote to Admiral Johnson several weeks ago——
Admiral BROWNE. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. FOWLER [continuing]. Expressing our concerns. Anything else we can do from this committee, I think a lot of us are very worried about this. Again, we put our young men and women at risk when we don't provide them with the capability that they need when they are deployed.
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Admiral BROWNE. Yes, ma'am, and the submarine has become kind of a joint problem as we put more and more of our assets afloat in black hull ships for the Army and the Air Force as well. We need to take care of the submarine's rep.
Mrs. FOWLER. Well, we do. When I look at what Russia is doing, even though they are supposedly broke, and are spending tons of money on upgrading their submarine capability. There was one off the coast of Florida about a year ago that we didn't even know about for awhile because we couldn't hear it. So, I'm very concerned, and we need to go forward with that. But thank you, and we'll be working with you on it.
My only other question, Mr. Bateman, would be to anyone who'd like to speak. I know they've all really addressed in some form or another the situation you are all dealing with, the lack of spare parts and the maintenance problems. As you know, I'm very concerned about what's happening in our depot systems and the backlog we've got in the systems because of a lack of money. Do any of you have any suggestions or see anything down the road we can do? We've put the money into the bill this year to help, but it's just really a start. What you have seen directly—and I apologize if I'm asking something someone already has; I had to go to another meeting and then come up, so I don't want to repeat; if that question's already been asked, I can get it later.
Mr. BATEMAN. Very appropriate question and the witnesses will respond if they choose to.
Admiral BROWNE. Well, spare parts remains high on the list of things we need to do as we look at both ships and aircraft. The Lincoln Battle Group has a smaller, what we call, an Aviation Consolidated Allowance List (ANCAL) and Consolidated Shipboard Allowance List (COSAL), the ship and the aviation parts than they did last deployment; and that concerns me and then is reflected in aircraft readiness rates coming down. It is something that we need to continue to work, and it's a duel-edged sword. One of the issues is the price of some of the repairables is also increasing, so it's something that—I know that Washington is responding to those of us in the fleet that are concerned about that, and there have been plus ups with your great help in the aviation spares piece; and we're hoping, then, that the reprogramming this year and then in the 1999 budget plan is going to help reverse that.
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On the other hand, two years ago if had testified before the committee, I would have said the first thing that sailors complain to me about are spare parts. Today, the first things that sailors complain to me about are pay and the retirement system. So, at least that's changed. Now, I don't know if that's good, but it has changed.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Anyone else want to respond on spare parts and maintenance?
General PACE. I do, sir. Ma'am, one of the reasons that we are only able to fund about 75 percent of our needed monies into depots is because we are sending more and more of our end items to the depots. As equipment gets older, the units themselves no longer have the capacity and capability to do the work, so they end up sending it back to the depots. We have, just in the last couple of years, had a change in the average cost of an equipment repair order which has gone from $92 up to $188; and a lot of that has shifted from the unit itself back to the depot.
The same kind of increase has occurred on the aviation side. Cost for flight hours has gone from about $2,300 per hour two years ago to about $3,500 per hour this year. Again, a lot of that money is being spent at the depot, and that's part of our problem. Again, the solution is modernization so we can, in fact, be doing more at the unit level as opposed to having to ship it back for major end item repair.
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General HAWLEY. In my command, spare parts is a quality-of-life issue. When you can't issue the part to the troops, they go find it on an airplane someplace else in the flight line; they cannibalize that airplane. They're doing two maintenance actions when they should only be doing one. The reason we're in that shape is because we underfunded the spares' accounts of years past, and we have had a great deal of turbulence in our depot structure as we've tried to consolidate depots without a lot of success; and that turbulence is going to continue I think for a little while longer, but we hope to be getting to the end of that on the depot side of it.
We've had the same problem as the Marine Corp has had in terms of the cost of individual end items. There's been inflation in the repair accounts well beyond what the nation has experienced in other commodities; and, of course, that has come at the expense of our own accounts.
We are 95 percent funded against our requirement in 1998—the year we're finishing up—and we think we're 100 percent funded against the requirement in 1999; but we've built a huge bi-wave in those years that we underfunded through most of this decade, and it will take quite a while to work that off.
General BRAMLETT. Ma'am, we have the parts, but based on monies we have, we often let our stockage levels go down the last quarter, so we can use the money for other more high priority projects and high priority requirements, so it's shifting scarce resources away from the parts. If we had the money, we could purchase the number we need.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
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Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Ms. Fowler. Mr. Sisisky.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you. Admiral Browne, I did not get the chance last night to read your testimony, but I've been reading it here, and I'm really concerned.
When you send out a battle group, how many are you sending out at C–2 readiness?
Admiral BROWNE. Sir, right now, in the Lincoln Battle Group there are four squadrons and I think two ships that are C–2 in personnel. What has happened is very interesting as we set—when we made the pie chart a green, a yellow, and a red to indicate C1–2 in green and C–3 is yellow and C–4 is red; and for a while we continued to deploy people C–1 the way that—when I used to deploy we always deployed C–1—but now, all of a sudden, we've found that we can satisfy the requirements of that green light by being C–2, and as the manning, in fact, has come down, we've reduced—
Mr. SISISKY. Well, excuse me, what frightens me really is when are you going to get to C–3? Now, if you send the Lincoln to C—and in your testimony, they were 770 people short; now, we all know how you have to synchronize an aircraft carrier; everything has to work perfectly for these planes to land. That means you have shortage on the decks; that means you have shortage in the radar facilities.
Admiral BROWNE. Yes, sir. That number is across the battle group. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of discussion as to whether the number was 500 or 700. That number is from the battle group commander, and, as I said earlier, what's happening is, is if we're going to work the carrier beyond 12 hours, in order to have the people, as you say, on the flight deck, we'll get to where we only shoot three catapults and we pull one wire, so instead of having four wires out there, we have three wires.
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Is that safe? Yes. Does it remove some flexibility and some redundancy? Yes. Do we need it back? Yes. How are we going to get it back? And that's to put the people back on the ships, sir.
Mr. SISISKY. I mean, to me, Mr. Chairman, that's the critical thing here. I mean, I'm sorry I didn't read it; well, I really didn't get it. I'm sorry I didn't read it, but this is as critical as it be, and you made a statement—I'm not picking on you—but you made a statement——
Admiral BROWNE. I've been picked on before, sir.
Mr. SISISKY [continuing]. About—not by me, though. [Laughter.]
You talked about 2 MRCs and you think you have enough ships at 300 to take care of that. I want to remind you of something. I told you I visited the Seventh Fleet last December as I was saying goodbye to the Independence who was going back to the United States to be cut up for scrap, and the next thing I know it was in the Persian Gulf which meant Korea was naked of an aircraft carrier. Now, I asked the question to the Pentagon, and they said, ''Well, we have contingencies, but that's a long way for the contingency.'' Aren't you a little worried about that? Are you sure you mean that we have enough?
Admiral BROWNE. Sir, I am constantly concerned about where our ships are and where the next hot spot is going to be, and distance is a real demon. We really—as we think this through, as we think about trying to concentrate more on the network and vice the individual platform, I very sincerely, sir—I've been a sailor all my life; my wife's a sailor; my son was a sailor, and so is my father—when I tell you 300 is the bare bones minimum, I'm very serious. On the other hand, I was really pleased to see the chairman raise to high the risk of a second MTW; and I very definitely agree with that. The concerns that I have, very frankly, are not as much with the numbers of ships as they are with the numbers of people and the training that we have for those people and then the aircraft spares and the ship's parts that we——
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Mr. SISISKY. But you understand what really—you know, and I said this last year, the Navy can cut people, because they're cutting ships. The Army still takes a body to hold a piece of land, and we cut them too much. What really worries me that we're going to tailor the force to fit the ships that we probably need more.
Admiral BROWNE. Well, sir, I think we've tailored the force to below the number of ships that we have today. If you were to look at the—well, the Carl Vinson is the next to deploy, and her personnel rating, this number, she has about 350 people short today, 177 third class petty officers and 27 chief petty officers. Who is the next to deploy, and if we were to go to the Constellation who is the one to deploy after that, their manning is a concern. So, what we've done is we make—to make sure that the Lincoln is as good as they are, we continue to take people that are here in the air deployment training cycle and move them to those ships that are forward deployed.
Mr. SISISKY. But how long has this C—and I just have one more—how long has this C–2 ships deployed been in effect? A year? Two years?
Admiral BROWNE. For at least six months, sir.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Hunter.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Bateman. I just had an idea here as you're talking about the increased deployment. I wonder if there's—in terms of incentive pay—if there's not something, some species of pay or bonus, that we could give for increased deployment; for deployment above and beyond the regular scheduled deployment.
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But, that aside, Admiral Browne, I understand that we—I've talked to some folks—you know, getting our hands around this spare parts problem has been tough, and to some degree the Navy's gained us pretty well on that. That was back in the days when they were saying everything was fine because the boss, the Commander in Chief, said everything was fine. It was real hard to ever get beyond anecdotal stage on that.
Now, let me get this straight: in the old days, you guys used to keep large spare parts inventories on the ships, themselves, didn't you? You changed that. Why did you change that and where did you go with the parts?
Admiral BROWNE. I'm going to tell you what I think, Mr. Hunter, is that the decision was made so that we could have the parts located at a central location and we could do similar to UPS and get the parts to the ship, so, therefore, we did not need as many spares on the ship.
Mr. HUNTER. So, in those days, before you changed that policy, you would have some kind of a widget—let's say a carburetor—for some piece of machinery on the ship. You would have that water pump on the shelf on the ship, and then, presumably, you would have a water pump back in the supply center also, right? Now, is that called a Fleet Supply Center (FSC)? What's the acronym for the supply centers, east and west coast? Are you up to speed on that?
Admiral BROWNE. No, sir. You've got me; I don't know, sir.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Well, what it is, it's the central—and maybe your service may have it—but your central parts supply house, if you will. As I understand it, you would have that widget, that pump, would be both on the ship; and it would also be back in the central supply house. And then when you ran out of money and you needed to show—to use resources elsewhere, what I understand happened is that you basically eliminated one of those parts in the supply line; that is, you took them off the ships. Now, that doesn't mean that you now had two water pumps at the supply house. What it means is you didn't replace—let's say you used one of them up—you now only had one. You basically kept the same inventory at the supply house as you had there before, but eliminated the ones that were on the ship in the ship supply center. So, what you did in terms of the spare parts supply line is you cut it in half. Now, is that accurate?
Admiral BROWNE. I don't know if that's accurate, sir, but I can tell you from the fleet level what—if you want an example of the type of problem you're discussing—I was on a cruiser six months ago, and I asked them why they kept one of LM–2500s on the line all the time, and they said, ''Well, because our starter is down on it, and we can't start the engine if we, in fact, shut it down.'' I said, ''Well, don't you have a spare?'' They said, ''Well, we had a spare until six months ago, but we no longer carry that part as a spare.'' When we identified those things, we then worked very hard to get those parts to them.
Mr. HUNTER. So, what you're saying is when you've got to have a spare part, you've got to have that come in on a COD, right?
Admiral BROWNE. To the carrier and to the cruiser.
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Mr. HUNTER. Now, is that good for readiness to not carry—with these big complex pieces of machinery, not to carry spare parts and rely basically on UPS to bring it in from the supply center in San Diego or from Norfolk?
Admiral BROWNE. I think that we are—the Navy has, after we tried the system that you've described, we're looking very, very hard at that today. As a matter of fact, CNO has put together what we call an Aviation Maintenance Supply Readiness Group (AMSR) to look at, primarily, at the aviation side; and I think that if we can solve the aviation side, that gives us the model to fix the ship side in order to get the spares where they belong. But, sir, don't take anything from me other than to say that our spares are down 10 percent at least below where they should be on our ships and for our aircraft today.
Mr. HUNTER. Well, now, how do you know that?
Admiral BROWNE. Because I ask the battle group commanders, and I look at the readiness rates. I look at—seven months ago, I testified that our readiness rates on our ships, our Casualty Report (CASREPs) on our ships, was about level. As it turns out, what we're finding is, is we're seeing a slight increase in the C–2 rate from C–1, and we're also finding that the length of time that you remain C–2 after you've initially broken something has increased as well.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay, but how do you know that your part levels are down 10 percent?
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Admiral BROWNE. I've asked the battle group commander to give me where their assessment is as to their AVCAL, their parts list, as compared to where it was their last deployment.
Mr. HUNTER. Does a battle group commander—does he have jurisdiction over or control over or monitoring control over the spare parts inventory? In other words, if you've got all the components, the spare parts, that you need and battle group participants and they're back at the supply center or this parts house in San Diego or Norfolk, does that battle group commander have the documentation in front of him that says we've got in the fleet x spare parts of this type for your ships?
Admiral BROWNE. Yes, he does, and he has the parts that we give him to maintain his ships that are on-the-shelf parts, and then this entire supply system, then, backs that so that he has a backfield when, in fact, he orders something.
Mr. HUNTER. But wait, sir. I thought you said his shelves on his ships are now empty, because we no longer carry spare parts on the ships.
Admiral BROWNE. Sir, I think I said 10 percent less than they have been in previous deployments.
Mr. HUNTER. But, again, I want to get this straight now. I was told that we no longer carry a large inventory of spare parts on the ships. Spare parts, now, are kept in the supply houses. They've always been kept in the supply houses, but we no longer carry a load of spare parts on the ships. Is that right?
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Admiral BROWNE. There is a percentage fewer spares on the ships today than there were in previous deployments, say, three to five years ago; yes, sir, that is a fact.
Mr. HUNTER. Now, did they just cut those spares out to save money?
Admiral BROWNE. My answer to that is yes, sir. We decided it was a more economical way to take some spares and put them in a central location so they could either get them over to the Atlantic or to the Pacific.
Mr. HUNTER. No, no—okay. I'm talking about did they cut those out of the pipeline, because what we did is we reduced the number of spares that we had if you consider the number they've got in the parts house and the number that are on the shelves—this is real simple, Admiral; this isn't complex. Some folks have been hiding the ball for a long time. We've had a pipeline of spare parts made up of two components: on-ship components and off-ship components. Now, you folks removed the on-ship components at some point or a large percentage of them. Now, my question is did you do that to save money, so you would have money to put in other accounts?
Admiral BROWNE. Well, Mr. Hunter——
Mr. HUNTER. Or is the overall pool been kept just as large?
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Admiral BROWNE. I did not move the parts. I did not make the decision as to how—so, I'll have to take the question for the record——
Mr. HUNTER. Well, I'm not blaming you. I want to know if that has amounted to just a shift in the position of where we locate the parts or whether we actually reduced the parts inventory dramatically when we did that? I've been told we reduced the parts inventory Navy-wide dramatically, and yet it showed up on the records as having parts for these ships.
Admiral BROWNE. I think that you're right, and that's what I've been told as well, sir, but I'll have to take it for the record as to what the Navy did with those parts. I can tell you that it takes longer to get parts to repair a C–2 CASREP today than in the past, and the C–2 CASREPs have increased on our ships.
Mr. HUNTER. Let me just ask you this: if you had plenty of money, obviously, and you had plenty of parts, it doesn't make any sense to have empty parts shelves on your ships 5,000 miles away from a parts depot if you don't have to, does it?
Admiral BROWNE. I agree 100 percent, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. That had to have been done to shift money. Nobody's dumb enough to say that's going to be more convenient to have to call Norfolk from the Middle East and fly a part out than to walk 50 feet to the parts shelf which is now empty, right?
Admiral BROWNE. I agree with that as well.
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Mr. HUNTER. All right. I'll tell you what we need to have: we need to know—and here's what I want to get from you, bottom line—I want to know what the parts inventory was in terms of loading—use whatever scale you folks use, whatever scale you use—what the parts loading was Navy-wide, whether it was as the parts in supply centers or the ships; and before that decision to make this shift was made and what it is today and what we would have to do to get the parts loading, spare parts loading, back up to what it was before we made this shift. And do you know what year that was that we made this shift?
Admiral BROWNE. It's been about four years, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. About four, okay. Before that, if you could use that as a baseline and how much that would cost.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Bateman.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hunter. I'm advised that Mr. Ortiz, if he has any further questions, will submit them for the record.
Mrs. Fowler? No questions from Mrs. Fowler.
Mr. Sisisky? No questions.
Then, it would appear that we're finally going to give you gentleman a break, and we do thank you very much for your appearance today, for the testimony which has been very helpful, and highly commend you for what's in your prepared statements that was submitted for the record and recommend its being read and absorbed by everyone who is interested in our national security. I think it's a genuine contribution. Thank you all very much.
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[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the subcommittees adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.]
The official Committee record contains additional material here.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BATEMAN
Mr. BATEMAN. What adjustments have you had to make in training in the last three years as a result of downsizing your force and because of funding shortages?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Forces Command has not directed any adjustments in training in the last three years as a result of downsizing the force. However, due to funding shortages, in order to balance training readiness, infrastructure and quality of life, commanders in the field have reduced live exercises (field training exercises and combined arms live-fire exercises) at the battalion and brigade level. Our light divisions have focused on platoon and company level training. We are currently working hard to find resources to reinvigorate our battalion-level live training in this coming fiscal year.
General HAWLEY. Downsizing and funding shortages have driven ACC adjustments in support, logistics, and aircrew training. Scarcity of resources has reduced our support units' ability to participate in formal exercises. TOP DOLLAR, the annual Financial Manager's competition, has been changed from an annual exercise to a biannual one, cutting training opportunities in half. The indefinite suspension of the support group training portion of AIR WARRIOR II, the premier Air Force support force exercise, has severely impaired support training.
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While the statutory requirements for support forces (fire fighters, security forces, etc) have increased, the funds available for technical training have decreased. Funds shortages have restricted ACC's ability to keep our high voltage electrical maintenance technicians properly certified, with obvious safety and operational response implications. Similar issues exist for power production and heavy equipment operations. Lack of training and certification opportunities also influences morale and retention.
Due to funding shortfalls many of our Aircraft Maintenance Training Devices are now obsolete. These devices support Mission Ready Training at technical schools and certification training at ACC Training Detachments. To overcome shortfalls we must use operational aircraft to meet some course objectives, which increases wear and tear on these already scarce resources.
Since 1996 ACC units have requested 3,049 fewer aircraft maintenance training course slots from AETC Training Detachments. These courses provide formal training for maintenance technicians on conducting operational checks, troubleshooting, removing and replacing components, and inspections. This decline in training requests is not due to reduced requirements, but due to the inability of ACC maintenance workcenters to release personnel for training. Maintenance technicians cannot attend formal training because of high unit operations tempo and shortages of experienced technicians.
The end-of-training cycle RAP shortfall reports submitted by ACC's combat units for the past year show the effects of reduced funding. A combination of supply, training munitions, and airframe shortages plagued many units and made it difficult for them to complete their annual training requirements. Additionally, contingency deployments and the preparation and recovery time associated with these deployments further limited the availability of training. Cuts in exercise and training range accounts have reduced our training opportunities.
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Shortages of trained maintenance technicians and spare parts also affect aircrew training. For example, one F–16 wing had a 22% drop in its aircraft mission capable (MC) rate, from 92.5% in FY93 to 72.3% in FY98. This reduction in MC aircraft equates to a loss of 12 aircrew training sorties per day. Increased funding for spare parts is just one factor in this equation. Our highly skilled maintenance professionals are leaving the Air Force because they are concerned about their retirement benefits, their pay is not comparable to the civilian job market, and because OPTEMPO is excessive, whether measured in workload or in time spent away from their families. Without proper funding of personnel accounts to address retention, and funding of supply, training munitions and exercise accounts, ACC's training shortfalls will continue to grow.
VADM BROWNE. Third Fleet, as a result of downsizing and reduced funding, has taken several steps in the last three years to streamline the Inter-deployment Training Cycle (Cycle).
—Reduced the number of Carrier Air Wing onloads from three to two. This has saved an estimated $1 million per Air Wing and reduced the number of disruptions to our sailors and their families.
—Adjusted the timeframe when aviation training is conducted, closer to deployment, to better match the training to the expected missions.
—Battle Group commanders embark onboard their Carriers earlier in the training cycle eliminating a 5-day underway period in the intermediate phase of training.
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—Combined Battle Group System Integration Testing with other underway periods eliminating the need for a separate 5-day underway period.
—Tailored the training when it makes sense depending on the experience level of the deploying unit.
In addition, we are working with the Type Commanders to achieve a CNO directed reduction of 25% of the demands we place on our personnel during the Inter-deployment Training Cycle. We will restructure our training processes by eliminating legacy processes and inspections, consolidating those areas that are retained and, in short, focusing on that training essential to running today's fleet. Some consolidation of evolutions will appear to be a reduction in training time mandated by funding shortages, but in reality it is the insertion of more efficiency into our training cycle.
Mr. BATEMAN. What adjustments have you had to make in training in the last three years as a result of down sizing your force and because of funding shortages?
Lt. General PACE. Excessive reductions were not made in training over the last three years as a result of downsizing the force and due to funding shortages. As the Commandant has stated in the past ''We continue to fully fund training in order to maintain mission and unit readiness. Critical training includes unit-level operations, the flying hour program, combined arms exercises, temporary duty in conjunction with operations, consumables, student skills training, and professional development.'' We did experience a minimal increase in Recruit Training beginning in FY97 because of an addition of the one week ''Crucible''. The Marine Corps has maintained near term readiness through management of O&MMC and end strength allowances while deferring modernization. Total end strength decreased only 1 1/2% from FY96 through FY99.
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Mr. BATEMAN. How has training at your training centers been impacted by funding shortages in the last three to five years? What changes are expected to be required in the future?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. These questions require a look at both the National Training Center (NTC) and the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC).
With regard to JRTC there has been no impact on the training at their center over the last three to five years. Additionally, there currently appears to be no changes required to the training being provided over the foreseeable future.
As for the NTC, these funding shortages have had an impact. The biggest impact has been on the condition of the prepositioned fleet. Limited dollars to support the fleet have resulted in an inability to maintain the fleet at an adequate level due to shortages of spare parts. These shortages have resulted in declining operational readiness rates of the fleet and lengthened the amount of time that vehicles are non-mission capable. Shortages of mechanics in rotational units have also impacted on the ability of units to maintain equipment during rotations. The impact is that increasing numbers of soldiers are not getting trained due to inoperable vehicles.
For visiting brigade-sized units, funding shortages at home station have resulted in a lower training entry level at the NTC. These lower entry levels are a direct result of less home-station training time than in the past and, in many cases, a lack of live battalion-level training.
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Reserve Component training at the NTC has been impacted by loss of funding for Echelons Above Division Combat Service Support (EAD CSS) units. NTC is currently under funded $5.9 million to support four EAD CSS rotations in fiscal year 1999.
Future modernization of the NTC is also in jeopardy due to funding constraints. This is particularly evident in several Training Mission Area (TMA) funded programs that have been significantly reduced or totally unfunded. These programs include the NTC Objective Instrumentation System and the Opposing Force Surrogate Vehicle (OSV) which is now less than fully funded. The Opposing Force Surrogate Tank Vehicle (OSTV) is now also completely unfunded. New challenges caused by available frequency mandates will also impact our ability to operate in the future unless adequate TMA funding can be found.
General HAWLEY. Training centers, which provide the high-end composite force training which proved so valuable in Desert Storm, have been severely underfunded for several years. To address the training center shortfalls, ACC has diverted funding from the Real Property Maintenance account, mission baselines and sustainment programs. Funding for Training and Ranges has appeared at the top of ACC's unfunded list for several years. This program is only funded at 57% in FY99–00 and 65% in FY01–03. This does not support the execution of our most valuable exercises like Red Flag, Green Flag, Maple Flag, Air Warrior, Air Warrior II or Weapons School Adversary Support.
V. Adm. BROWNE. The training of Battle Group and Amphibious Readiness Group staffs at Tactical Training Group Pacific (TTGP) and Expeditionary Warfare Training Group Pacific (EWTGPAC) has not been able to keep up with technology due to funding constraints. There are many new modeling and simulation systems we should use to enhance the operational and tactical training received by these warfighters. The lack of funding has required us to maintain aging systems as ''better than nothing''. The data collection and analysis we do for lessons learned after exercises has also been reduced due to lack of funding.
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Environmental costs are increasing to meet the need for studies, compliancy, and cleanup. These costs, while the right thing to do, mean fewer dollars are spent on training facilities upgrades at our aircraft and sea ranges. For example, the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii requires C4I and tracking upgrades to support Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD). Existing ranges also require a more modern location and tracking capability. In addition, we need to bring on line our shallow water training ranges to meet the growing diesel submarine threat.
Additional funding is required or additional cuts will occur in our training infrastructure in the future. For example, Afloat Training Group Pacific (ATGPAC) will close its surface ship ASW Analysis Center in San Diego in September 1999 due to budget constraints. It will also cease classroom gram analysis proficiency training, providing tailored training tapes to support exercises and real world USW events, conducting USW pre-deployment briefings, providing acoustic intelligence (ACINT) specialist support to the waterfront, conducting weekly acoustic training on real world USW contacts and performing USW exercise reconstruction.
Lt. General PACE. We have not experienced any major funding shortages at our training sites over the last three to five years. The Marine Corps has embarked upon an effort to modernize Marine Corps training. We are improving the process through which we identify the tasks we need to train to, when we need to train Marines to perform those tasks, and how best to train those tasks. We are also infusing technology into our use of distance learning. These initiatives will ensure that our training processes are made as efficient as possible, without compromising the quality of the training. Additionally, our field commanders will be making increased and creative use of simulation and simulators, allowing them to provide their Marines with realistic exposure to numerous combat situations without incurring additional maintenance and operating costs on our combat equipment. Initiatives for enhanced devices for infantry, artillery and target systems also increase effectiveness of ranges and training efficiency. Simulation is an important means to help reduce the cost of the overall training effort, and also provides an economical way to compensate for some field training events if funding for those events is deferred.
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Mr. BATEMAN. How will projected funding for FY99 impact BASEOPS and Real Property Maintenance within your commands? Will your request for funding in the President's FY00 budget be increased? If so, by how much?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Forces Command's actual fiscal year 1999 funding is under development by Headquarters, Department of the Army. However, based on our initial fiscal year 1999 budget guidance, we can no longer balance the three pillars of readiness. In order to protect training, BASOPS and Quality of Life (QOL) will fall below survival levels. Funding for public works contracts will be reduced to levels that are well below minimum required for operations. Funding for basic working supplies for public works blue-collar workforce cannot be provided. Personnel reductions may be required in order to generate funding for supplies and/or repairs. Funding for basic facilities and utilities repair (daily repair and projects) cannot be funded in fiscal year 1999.
In fiscal year 1999, we need an additional $136 million for training, $144 million for infrastructure, and $241 million for QOL. For backlog of maintenance and repair at our installations, we need $275 million in fiscal year 1999 and each year for the next 10–15 years.
Forces Command's request for fiscal year 2000 funding has reflected our requirements. Once our fiscal year 2000 funding level is known, we can assess our ability meet our mission for fiscal year 2000. However, at this time, it appears our projected fiscal year 2000 shortfall for Base Support and Real Property Maintenance is $481 million
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General HAWLEY. Due to funding shortfalls, we must ''wait until it breaks'' to make infrastructure repairs, and we cannot take advantage of smart investments to prevent further deterioration. We have categorized requirements by those which critically affect the mission, and those which degrade current capability. Similarly, we have requirements which impact mission support and base support, including Quality of Life for our airmen. It is relatively easy to trace the effect that deteriorating runways and taxiways have on operations, maintenance, and our troops' workload. Deteriorating facilities, however, also have a negative impact on our mission. Decaying buildings make poor work centers, and the investment we make in our infrastructure is an indirect investment in our people. It demonstrates our commitment to our people when give them a quality work and home environment. This, in turn, fosters an environment of excellence. ACC is adding funding where we can during execution, and has advocated for increased funding in the FY00 budget (FY00 PB is not yet finalized). We will continue to highlight Real Property Maintenance shortfalls in future budget requests. ACC needs an additional $150M per year from now until FY05 to turn the corner on correcting our deteriorating infrastructure.
V. Adm. BROWNE. The regional commanders provide the BASEOPS and Real Property Maintenance support to Third Fleet. Since the vast majority of Third Fleet assets are based on ships, fiscal shortfalls in BASEOPS and Real Property Maintenance do not have direct operational impact on our units. However, along the waterfront it is obvious that infrastructure renewal is inadequate. As CNO stated in September, an additional $1.1B per year throughout the FYDP is required to arrest the growth in our critical backlog, conduct Real Property Maintenance and fund the MILCON program at an acceptable level.
At FY99 funding levels, the critical backlog of maintenance and repair (BMAR) will continue to increase and the condition of our facilities will continue to decline. The resulting deteriorated condition of facilities degrades the work environment for our Sailors, causes them to work longer and harder, suppresses morale and retention, and adversely affects our ability to accomplish the mission, e.g. providing shore logistics supports for ships and aircraft to assure their readiness for deployment.
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The Navy's FY00 budget request increases Real Property Maintenance funding approximately $150 million or 16% above FY99 levels. This additional funding will slow, but not arrest, the continued overall decline in facility condition.
Lt. General PACE. FY99 Real Property Maintenance funding will accomplish the most needed operational and quality of life repairs. Many projects for mission support, such as repairs to roads, administrative facilities, etc., will be backlogged. At Camp Lejeune alone, Maintenance and Repair requirements of over $200 million have been identified for our FY98 BMAR submission. The total Marine Corps backlog for the end of FY98 is currently estimated at $742 million and is projected to increase by $72 million FY99 year-end and exceed $1 billion FY03. Headquarters Marine Corps has additional requirements for categorizing BMAR for presentation to Congress. For U.S. Marine Corps Forces Atlantic at the end of FY98, BMAR compiled in the manner the Marine Corps presents BMAR to Congress, is $138 million which is projected to increase to $194 million by FY03. When compared to the size of our physical plant, our facilities are slightly worse than the Marine Corps average.
In the next President's budget the request for RPM will increase. As currently planned, between FY99 and FY00, the request for O&MMC funded Real Property Maintenance should increase from $338 million in FY99 to $371 million in FY00. The $338 level reflects the FY99 Presbud submit, and the $371 level reflects the FY00 budget estimate currently at DOD for review to be submitted in the next President's budget. This increase moves us towards the DOD guidance to fund at 75% of the RPM requirement by the year 2003.
Base Operations Support in FY99 President's Budget is $685.9 million for the Marine Corps of which approximately $139 million is for U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Atlantic. In the FY00 budget estimate currently at DOD for review, the support remains relatively stable at $699.7 million. The bases and stations can shift base support funding to cover their most critical requirements.
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Mr. BATEMAN. How will continued reduced funding levels affect your command's ability to perform your mission to provide ready trained forces in time of war?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Forces Command (FORSCOM) can provide trained and ready units in fiscal year 1999. However, a decrease in readiness levels is projected as fiscal year 1999 progresses. Commanders at several FORSCOM installations are already reporting that units will drop below Authorized Level of Organization (ALO) in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1999. Current funding levels place FORSCOM's ability to accomplish its mission at risk. Additional funding is required in fiscal year 1999 and beyond.
General HAWLEY. Continued shortfalls of the magnitude experienced during the past decade will seriously degrade ACC's ability to satisfy CINC requirements for deployable air combat forces. Even today, nearly one third of ACC's units could not respond within the time required by the theater CINCs.
V. Adm. BROWNE. Readiness is a function of training. Realistic training is only possible with adequately funded equipment, personnel, supplies, parts, ordnance, steaming days and flight hours. We can't expect our forces to perform in conflict if they haven't perfected their warfare skills in peacetime. We have learned that we will fight like we train. I concur with the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff assessment that the risk is high for us to be able to respond to a second MTW. If reduced funding levels are continued, our ability to successfully respond to even one MTW is jeopardized.
Lt. General PACE. If necessary, I will hold a bake sale at Camp Lejeune to maintain our combat readiness. Because of this commitment to readiness, there are fewer funding deficiencies impacting our operating forces with most of the shortfall in the infrastructure at the bases. There is no question, however, that past funding deficiencies have challenged out efforts and have the potential to impact readiness in the future. MARFORLANT has previously identified more than $300 million in fiscal shortfalls, some of which are outlined below:
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Operating Forces—Flight Hour Program ($14 million): The cost per aircraft flight hour has increased an average 49 percent from $2,341 in FY96 to $3,481 in FY98. These additional costs will remain high and maintenance backlogs will continue to increase without additional funding. We ended FY98 with a $14 million flight hour program carry-over maintenance bowwave which will require additional funding in FY99. This FY98 bowwave had previously been estimated to be $20 million.
Ground Equipment Intermediate Maintenance ($2M)—Aging equipment is driving up the cost for 3rd and 4th echelon maintenance. The cost of an operational unit's average Equipment Repair Order increased by 104 percent from $92 in FY95 to $188 in FY98. Failure to fund these will result in equipment being unavailable for use for longer periods of time.
Base Support and Quality of Life—Maintenance of Real Property: Our bases and stations must maintain $6.7 billion in plant property. To fund readiness, some of their infrastructure funds have been shifted to the operating forces. The resulting backlogs are shown below.
Camp Lejeune ($200 million) for base maintenance and repairs. Of this amount, $140 is considered critical. But under the Marine Corps current procedures for submitting BMAR to Congress, only $89 million would be reported. Buildings continue to deteriorate as only 75% of the annual maintenance requirement is funded. While this level of funding can be tolerated in the short run, the cumulative effect of underfunding is taking a toll over the years. Preventive maintenance required to deter more serious problems is deferred to fund emergency requirements.
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Marine Corps Air Bases, East ($73 million) for base maintenance and repairs. Of this amount, $49 million would be reported to Congress. Consequences of this shortfall are similar to those faced by Camp Lejeune.
Mr. BATEMAN. Without consideration of the Policy issues of whether we should or should not get involved in Kosovo . . . what are the immediate steps required of your commands to provide the forces?
General SCHWARTZ. If called upon, my command's immediate steps would be to ensure our soldiers were prepared to accomplish the mission—that they were trained and ready before being put in harm's way.
General HAWLEY. (U) ACC has already provided a number of forces to help resolve the Balkan crisis, including B–52s and U–2s. We have additional forces ready to deploy within 48 hours. Augmentees from ACC provide expertise in weapons systems to theater staffs, and ACC planners direct designated units to increase their readiness posture to shorten their deployment response time. ACC also maintains the capability to strike targets from CONUS, if needed.
V. Adm. BROWNE. We do not envision a role for Third Fleet forces to be provided in support of any Kosovo operations. However, in the event that we had to provide forces, we would react the same way we have in the past to contingency deployments. Our response would be similar to when we maintained a 2.0 continuous CVBG presence in the Arabian Gulf.
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Lt. General PACE. The requirement for specific forces to be provided by member nations in support of a NATO OPLAN or CONPLAN is established by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). SACEUR then formally requests forces from NATO nations through the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) Force Generation Process. In the case of the United States, the Joint Staff then validates the requirement for requested forces by soliciting input from Unified Commanders, Supporting Agencies and Services. In a Warning Order, Alert Order, or Prepare to Deploy Order, the Joint Staff then explicitly addresses command relationships in stating which are the supported and supporting CINCs. If the supported CINC cannot meet all of the requirements for forces with assets from within in his Area of Responsibility (AOR), he then requests additional forces to be sourced from supporting CINCs. The Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) may be called upon to adjudicate force allocations. Specifically, in the case of a NATO CONPLAN in support of Kosovo operations, the Joint Staff directs USCINCACOM to provide additional forces to USCINCEUR. USCINCACOM then tasks the appropriate Service component commander, in the case of Marine Forces it is Commander, Marine Forces Atlantic (COMMARFORLANT), to provide Marine Corps forces identified by the supported CINC and validated by CJCS.
a. The supporting forces are then identified by unit within the Marine Corps.
b. The unit (or units) are then placed in a Prepare To Deploy Order (PTDO) status from CONUS.
c. Concurrently, the required logistics and command and control assets are identified to support the deployment of forces should a force deployment become necessary.
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d. The supporting forces await a SECDEF-approved Execute Order from OJCS to commence deployment.
Mr. BATEMAN. Will you have enough money to accept the additional missions associated with involvement in Kosovo? Where will you get the money if the money is not available within your budget?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. To date, Forces Command has not been asked to plan for any operational requirements in support of Kosovo; hence, no money is currently sought for this mission.
General HAWLEY. ACC has no funding to support any additional costs associated with Kosovo. If required, ACC will divert funds from 3rd and 4th quarter programs to cover immediate expenses, then request supplemental funding from higher headquarters.
V. Adm. . BROWNE. We do not envision a role for Third Fleet forces to be provided to Kosovo. However, in the event that we had to provide forces, we would react the same way we have in the past to contingency deployments.
The 1998 DOD Appropriations Act established the Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund to cover the Operations and maintenance costs associated with operations in Bosnia and the Arabian Gulf. Any costs associated with operations in Kosovo would first be paid out of the Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund. If funds were not available from the Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund, the Navy would have to be re-aligned funds from other Navy accounts to cover the costs associated any missions in Kosovo. As in the past Third Fleet would be expected to share the burden of these re-alignments. Consequently Third Fleet could potentially see a reduction in O&M funding. Additionally, as with Bosnia and the Arabian Gulf contingencies, the Navy could request via OSD emergency supplemental funding relief from Congress to cover the costs of any missions in connection with operations in Kosovo.
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Lt. General PACE. Currently, we anticipate minimal involvement in Kosovo and therefore will be able to fund within available Marine Corps resources. If the scope of the involvement were to increase, costs could also increase significantly depending on the forces employed. If the supporting forces are sourced from forward deployed naval elements, the cost is normally minimal as Marines deploy in an expeditionary mode using organic resources and equipment. However, if the supporting forces have to be sourced from CONUS for a lengthy period of time, the costs can be significant. Responsibility for some of these costs, such as strategic lift for the initial deployment and redeployment, are funded by the fleet commander and not the Marine Corps. For Kosovo, as with all contingencies, we will absorb, record, and report to our higher headquarters all incremental contingency costs incurred for future reimbursement. Since we do not budget for contingencies, funding is brought forward from the fourth quarter to fund contingency costs as they occur throughout a fiscal year. For this reason, timely receipt of contingency funding is essential to ensure fourth quarter budgets are restored to fund fourth quarter programs. Our Operating Forces are funded at the minimal level to sustain maintenance and training. Any significant cost increases will have to be absorbed by other Marine Corps programs, most likely our Maintenance of Real Property program.
Mr. BATEMAN. In your role as the ''force provider'' for your military service, how much time would be required for you to provide an adequate fully trained force capable of fighting the two major theater wars required of our military in our National Military Strategy?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Based on the Department of Defense principle ''First to Fight—First Resourced,'' Forces Command maintains a trained and ready force to respond to the warfighting CINC's requirements. In other words, the Army, today, can train and provide adequate forces within the timelines established by the CINC's two-MTW operational plans. To do this, Forces Command has immediately available forces and forces at high levels of readiness for early deployment dates, and forces maintained at lower levels of readiness that can be prepared in time to meet later deployment dates. The second MTW, of course depending on the scenario, would be supported at higher risk level.
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General HAWLEY. On an average day, about 25% of our active and gained unit assigned aircraft are not mission capable. Our ability to generate those aircraft in response to a crisis depends on the ability of our depots and their supporting contractors to provide spare parts, and on the ability of our Air Force and contractor work force to repair the aircraft once parts are provided. Our normal practice is to robust units tasked to respond to contingencies by borrowing aircraft and people from non-tasked units in order to provide fully capable units to the engaged warfighter. Should a second crisis occur soon after those robusted units had deployed, ACC would be hard pressed to generate and deploy all required units within planned response times. Declines in indicators such as aircraft mission capable rates and aircrew training levels signal an increase in the risk that required forces may be delayed. Our national military strategy also calls on ACC forces to help shape the international environment, and our forces are fully engaged in these activities around the world today.
V. Adm. BROWNE. In Third Fleet's role as force provider, the focus is to train and provide ready deployable forces for PACOM and CENTCOM operations. If a dual MTW were present, Commander Third Fleet would respond to the superior chain of command to prioritize the flow of forces to two simultaneous MTW's. That level of prioritization is between the warfighting CINCs and the Joint Staff. There are 6 carriers assigned to the Pacific. One is forward deployed to Seventh Fleet continuously. Of the five remaining, one is in major overhaul or a shipyard period; one will likely be in extended local maintenance; one is deployed in the CENTCOM or PACOM AOR, and two are engaged in the inter-deployment training cycle in EASTPAC, one further along than the other. Peacetime training timeline is about 180 days in length. At the conclusion of this training period, forces are deployed fully trained.
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Unified commander war plans require Third Fleet Carrier Battle Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups to respond to the theater within a specified period from commencement of the operation. The carrier battle group would arrive on station adequately trained for its mission. Some of the training would occur in the Eastern Pacific and some of the training would occur while en-route to the area of conflict. To support a CENTCOM MTW, Commander THIRD Fleet is required to provide a ready deployable carrier to the area of operations. The carrier battle group would arrive on station adequately trained for its mission. As in the case with a PACOM MTW, some training would occur in the Eastern Pacific and some would occur while en-route to the area of conflict. The remaining EASTPAC carriers would be deployed to either MTW in accordance with prioritization from the Joint Staff or National Command Authorities.
Lt. General PACE. The Marine Corps was not designed for, or resourced for, the Cold War or a two Major Theater War (MTW) scenario. The Marine Corps remains capable of meeting its National Military Strategy MTW requirements. The Marine Corps Total Force concept provides for full response to the first MTW, committing remaining forces to a second MTW, then swinging required forces to the second MTW upon conclusion of the first. With regard to ongoing contingencies, we have just enough personnel to support our forward presence requirements and the ongoing contingencies throughout the world, without making a major change to our well-balanced rotational deployment schedules. Any major increase in the number of contingencies could challenge the Marine Corps capability to respond on a sustained basis.
Mr. BATEMAN. We continue to hear how personnel are working harder to maintain equipment? Why? Please quantify the increase in number of hours worked by the individual service member?
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General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. The simple fact is this, our soldiers are working harder to maintain equipment. We track equipment readiness through the Status of Resources and Training System (SORTS) readiness-reporting program. It provides Non Mission Capable Maintenance and Supply downtime on a monthly basis. It does not report the number of hours worked by the individual soldier to maintain equipment. Unit Commanders however, in their monthly unit status report, report increased soldier workload. Typically equipment maintenance workload increases in association with major training events or preparation for and recovery from unit deployments in support of contingency operations. Because of the higher equipment OPTEMPO experienced during training and deployments, recovery maintenance services and deferred maintenance tasks generally drive higher workloads. We do see workload increases where we have mechanic and other personnel shortages. The bottom line is this: with 20,000+ soldiers deployed, the workload of those that remain behind is greater. In fact, we often say 20,000 deployed means 20,000 just returned and 20,000 getting ready. This high OPTEMPO causes our people to work long hours, and as a result, equipment maintenance is harder.
General HAWLEY. Longer working hours stem from completing the same tasks with fewer, less experienced people and from using manpower to compensate for equipment shortages. Inexperienced airmen require longer to perform tasks than experienced technicians. Parts shortages require maintenance crews to cannibalize parts off of other aircraft since they cannot obtain a part from supply. This effectively doubles the required maintenance actions. Lower fleet-wide mission capable rates mean fewer aircraft are available to fly. This drives a longer duty day to meet aircrew training requirements, extended maintenance shifts, and a change from two-shift to three-shift maintenance. Some ACC wings have increased weekend duty and shifted manning to mid-shift for aircraft servicing. These factors all result in additional work being performed by a smaller workforce. Since we do not track the hours worked by individual service members, there is no data available to quantify increases in the number of hours worked by ACC people.
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V. Adm. BROWNE. This is a reflection of our manning and funding shortfalls. Over the past few years our requirements have remained relatively constant (a high rate of OPTEMPO) while the number of personnel in the Navy has decreased.
Though we have implemented some initiatives that reduce the number of personnel needed to accomplish some requirements, manning remains below the desired level and is causing our Sailors to bear more of the burden. This is especially true for those ships just returning from deployment. Manning shortfalls impact those units in the earlier stages of the Inter Deployment Training Cycle (IDTC) hardest since the Navy's first focus in on maintaining deployed readiness. Consequently, when a manning shortfall exists, units in the earlier stages of the IDTC are impacted to a much greater extent than those units in the latter stages.
Funding shortfalls also cause Sailors to work harder. When funds are not available to order parts, Sailors have to cannibalize components from non-mission capable equipment to compensate for the deficiency. Since cannibalization requires additional maintenance actions to remove components, the workload of our Sailors is increased. This extra workload has a negative impact on our Sailors quality of life.
For example, while the maintenance man-hours per action would not show the impact of a cannibalization, the cannibalization rates per flight hour would. Aircraft cannibalizations have gone from 8.49 per 100 flight hours in FY96 to 9.32 per 100 flight hours in FY98.
Sailors are also waiting longer for parts to support maintenance of their equipment. The changes in the spare parts inventories, carried onborad ships, combined with lower parts funding has increased the number of times that a part is not available to support a repair action by 5 to 7 percent. Further compounding this problem, is low parts availability at shore supply depots.
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A deployed cruiser recently reported that 31 percent of priority two requisitions were back-ordered or awaiting procurement. In many cases the estimated shipping dates are several months downstream from the initial order date. This causes Sailors to be ''creative'' to restore vital equipment or develop ''work-arounds'' to meet operational requirements.
Lt. General PACE. Over the last several years, topline constraints have forced the Marine Corps to make tough decisions in striking a balance between readiness, force modernization, and quality of life. Financing near-term readiness has come at the expense of future modernization—the future readiness of the Corps.
We have reached a critical point in the life cycle of our ground and aviation which is becoming more and more expensive to maintain in terms of parts and man-hours. Examples are:
CH–64E Sea Knight Helicopter—was first introduced in the Fleet in the mid-1960s and has an average age of over 30 years.
CH–53D Helicopter—approaching 30 years of age, and has exceeded its original projected life by seven to ten years.
KC–130Fs—are approaching 40 years of age, almost twice the original projected life.
Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAVs)—are approaching 30 years of age.
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The increased cost to maintain our aging equipment, both ground and aviation, is an increasing burden to the Marine Corps in terms of people, time, and money. Our equipment rates remain high only because of the high level of emphasis and support given to units in predeployment work-ups and to the deployed units themselves.
Repair parts and maintenance costs for ground equipment are increasing dramatically. Depot Level Repairables (DLRs) are increasing and the number of consumables is decreasing. This relationship is indicative of the age of the equipment and the need to replace whole assemblies vice minor components of the assemblies. Our 3rd and 4th echelon maintenance activities are also being called upon to perform more replacements. The cost of an average operational unit's Equipment Repair Order (ERO) increased by 104 percent over a four year period—from $92 in FY95 to $188 in FY98.
Marines performing maintenance duties routinely work twelve to sixteen hours per day, six to seven days per week, on overlapping and rotating shifts, in order to sustain the ninety-two percent ground equipment and seventy-seven percent aviation equipment readiness we are currently attaining. Aviation maintenance Marines work around the clock to provide safe and mission capable aircraft. Our motor pools, artillery gun parks and amphibious vehicle ramps are busy places.
Mr. BATEMAN. Can you give some examples of what types of infrastructure are in the greatest need of funding for repair? Can you describe the order of magnitude of the backlog?
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General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. FORSCOM Installation Commanders report the following critical repair requirements for fiscal year 1999: $56.3 for sewerage and utilities; $57.1 for barracks and HVAC; $10.2 million for roof maintenance and ammunition facilities; $6.4 million for bridges and roads; $13.4 million for training, administration, operations, and supply; and $74,200,000 for general maintenance for repair backlog, utilities modernization, and energy savings projects.
An average of the fiscal year 1997 and fiscal year 1998 Installation Status Reports Major Renovation data indicates the following backlogs: $1.19 billion in mission facilities; $1.1 billion in mobility facilities; $530 million in housing (non-Family Housing); $11 million in community facilities; and $1.24 billion in installation support facilities.
General HAWLEY. ACC performs engineering evaluations of every major infrastructure system through our ''Sustain Team.'' The team visits all 18 ACC bases on a 2-year cycle to evaluate utility and building systems deficiencies. The team has validated over $261M of infrastructure requirements which ACC must accomplish within the next two years. Our major needs are: airfield pavements—$45M; fire protection—$40M; wastewater systems—$32M; roofing—$24M; and water production/distribution systems—$22M. ACC's total backlog in validated facility requirements exceeds $1B in FY99, and we anticipate this backlog will grow to $1.25B by the year FY04.
V. Adm. . BROWNE. The Navy's critical backlog of maintenance and repair (BMAR) for O&M funded facilities is currently $2.4 billion and expected to increase to over $3.5 billion in the next five years. Of particular concern is the level of investment necessary to adequately recapitalize the Navy's aging piers, runways and related operational facilities. Currently only 65% of the Navy's piers and runways are considered adequate. This results in a number of problems, e.g. FOD hazards due to deteriorated and spalling runway pavement, and inadequate shore power and water for ships and submarines due to failing pier utility systems.
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Lt. General PACE. The types of infrastructure in the greatest need of repair are barracks and messhalls, utility systems and roads. The Marine Corps has made the decision to fund barracks and utility system repairs at a level that will produce improvement over the FYDP. Unfortunately, to do this, other support facilities such as roads and administrative facilities will more rapidly deteriorate.
The best way to look at the order of magnitude of the backlog is in terms of the size of the physical plant. The Marine Corps backlog at the beginning of FY98 was $683 million and our physical plant size was approximately $26 billion. Within U.S. Marine Corps Forces Atlantic, our physical plant size is approximately $6.7 billion and our estimate of our total backlog is over $300 million. BMAR as the Marine Corps would report it to Congress is approximately $138 million. For the total Marine Corps, backlogged repairs equals about 3% of the value of our property. For U.S. Marine Corps Forces Atlantic, by equivalent measures, our backlog is nearly 5% of our plant value.
Mr. BATEMAN.When do you expect to turn around the trend of insufficient funding for Infrastructure and QOL?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. The Army must continue to balance near-term readiness with the Army of the future and in doing so must balance operations and maintenance with modernization dollars. The continuing effort to reduce risk in all areas will include in-depth analyses on how to overcome the current trend of insufficient funding for infrastructure and QOL. We expect that the Army and OSD will continue to attempt to submit budget requests to Congress that balance the program and attempt to reverse this trend; but unless increased funding levels are achieved, I do not see that trend changing significantly in the immediate future. As an example, it would take $275 million annually for 10–15 years to fix the backlog of maintenance and repair in Forces Command. This sustained predictable need for dollars will determine our future.
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General HAWLEY.We do not expect to turn around funding for infrastructure until we receive a significant increase in total Air Force budget authority. The AF budget for real property maintenance by contract (RPMC) is zero for FY99 through FY03. Similarly, the AF MILCON topline currently only supports projects for new weapon systems, projects to address out-of-compliance environmental situations, and in ACC, a 45-year family housing replacement cycle. We have set aside funds to improve unaccompanied housing for our airmen and provide quality physical fitness centers to keep our forces ready for deployments and long work hours. However, we do not have the flexibility to replace our aging infrastructure or the facilities where our people work. OSD estimates the recapitalization rate of the Air Force infrastructure, based on current RPM and MILCON funding, exceeds 373 years.
V. Adm. BROWNE. Current Quality of Life (QOL) Program funding for Morale, Welfare and Recreation, Child Development Program, and Family Support Program is sufficient to meet both DOD and SECNAV approved QOL Master Plan goals. This is possible because of a significant funding increase to these QOL programs during POM 98, which was preserved in PR 99, and our current budget. The QOL program funding strategy is to ''stay the course'' and to begin implementation of the QOL Master Plans.
Programmend Base Operations funding is not sufficient to continue to provide the current level of service. We are faced with three alternatives, reduce the level of service, increase efficiency and effectiveness or reduce the customer base supported. Reducing the level of service is not a viable alternative in most situations. The organizational structure under which Base Operations are performed must be streamlined and made to function as efficiently and effectively as possible. Through efforts such as Regionalization, we are reinventing the way infrastructure is managed and reducing the cost of Base Operations. The best way, yet also the most difficult way to meet the funding line is to reduce the amount of infrastructure that requires Base Operations support.
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At current funding levels, the critical backlog of maintenance and repair (BMAR) continues to increase. Without additional funding or a reduction in the excess facilities infrastructure the Navy is required to maintain, this trend will continue.
Lt. General PACE. Topline constraints continue to force us to make tough decisions in striking a balance between near-term readiness, quality of life, and modernization in terms of investment in infrastructure and ground and aviation equipment. Absent relief in our topline, there is no viable solution to funding shortfalls in the areas of infrastructure, quality of life, and modernization of ground and aviation equipment in the near future.
Mr. BATEMAN. Reports indicate cannibalization rates are increasing. Can you quantify the increase? What is causing the increase? Is the trend greater at different times of the year? What programs are being implemented to reverse the trend?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. In the Army, we use the term cannibalization as the authorized removal of components from material designated for disposal. Cannibalization points are set up to provide a supply source for (a) difficult to obtain repair parts, (b) high priority requirements when delivery can not be met in a timely manner, and (c) for items not stocked in the supply system. Our policy, and the way of doing business in the field, is not to strip serviceable vehicles of parts without immediately ordering replacement parts. We use the term controlled substitution/controlled exchange to describe the removal of serviceable components from serviceable end items for immediate reuse in restoring a like item or weapon system to a fully mission capable condition. We have no automated system that reports how often this occurs at the field level. Operational tempo from deployments increases our maintenance requirements for unserviceable equipment because of pre-operations and post-operations checks. Deployments and the resulting increase in maintenance requirements are not generally driven by seasons, but by training cycles and contingency operations. The lack of repair parts that would drive a controlled substitution has greatly improved due to several programs. Included are our Velocity Management Program which has reduced the Order-Ship Time to obtain parts, Automatic Return Items program which closely manages hard to obtain items, and oncoming programs like Prime Vendor Support which has the goal to increase parts availability. All of these programs decrease the need for controlled substitution.
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General HAWLEY. The following chart details cannibalization (CANN) rates for ACC fighters, bombers and special mission aircraft from FY92 through FY98.
CANN rates have increased because of spare parts shortages. These shortages are manifested as holes in readiness spaces package (RSP) kits, lower stockage and issue effectiveness rates, and higher total non-mission capable for supply (TNMCS) rates. Our data does not show any correlation between CANN rates and particular times of year.
Providing more money for spare parts will help to reverse the negative CANN trend by reducing the need for CANN actions. FY97 was funded at 82% of the Working Capitol Fund spares requirement, while FY98 was nearly 99% funded.
VADM BROWNE. Equipment and supply readiness among our deployed forces remains adequate. However, we have experienced downward trends among our non-deployed forces. The deployed forces are being maintained at the expense of our non-deployed forces. As our ships and aircraft become older and we operate them more often, things start to break more often and sometimes unexpectedly. Consequently, this can lead to funding shortfalls to compensate for such occurrences and in order to keep pace with our deployed operations tempo our non-deployed forces must defer maintenance, parts and ordering, and training so that funds are available for deployed forces. We are watching our cannibalization rates rise. Aircraft cannibalizations have gone from 8.49 per 100 flight hours in FY96 to 9.32 per 100 flight hours in FY98. We do not see a specific time of year as making a difference. Operational commitments have a much larger impact. The Type Commanders have a better idea as to what initiatives are underway to reverse the trend. But from my perspective, the things that appear to be most needed to reverse the trend is increase the funding to a sufficient level to procure adequate supply support and staff aviation intermediate maintenance activities with enough experienced technicians to keep up stocks of repairable components.
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Lt. General PACE. Can the increase in cannibalization be quantified? Cannibalization is considered an exceptional procedure for Marine Corps ground equipment and is authorized only for equipment when an operational commitment is eminent and the required parts cannot be obtained in a timely manner. Although a rare occurrence, the Marine Corps does practice selective interchange of secondary repairables (engines/transmissions/alternators), most often with items destined for depot level rebuild. Since FY95 cannibalization of aircraft parts has increased significantly. Aviation 3M data for 2d MAW reflects an increase in cannibalizations from 5,644 in FY95 to 7,576 in FY98. This increase translates into a cannibalization rate per 100 flight hours of 5.3 in FY95 to 8.8 in FY98. The following table demonstrates the increase in cannibalizations per 100 flight hours by type/Model/Series (T/M/S).
The numbers shown are based on cannibalizations per 100 flight hours and are extracted from 3M data. Specific numbers were requested from one fleet HMLA squadron. The HMLA squadron reported 93 cannibalizations per month from Oct 96 to Oct 97 and the same HMLA squadron reported 156 cannibalizations per month for the period Oct 97 to Oct 98.
What is causing the increase? There is a direct correlation between operational tempo/commitments and cannibalization. Cannibalizations also have increased as a result of a decrease in spare parts availability due to funding limitations, out of service manufacturers, and components not meeting designed reliability. Further, we are experiencing aging platforms/weapons systems and a less experienced workforce. For the period of FY95 through FY98, 2d MAW experienced an increase in Not Mission Capable Supply (NMCS) rates from 11.4 to 18.7 percent of on-hand aircraft available to fly (''A'' status).
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Is the trend greater at different times of the year? Cannibalization rates within 2d MAW remain relatively stable throughout the Fiscal Year. However, slight increases are observed during the pre/post-deployment phases for operational units. Additionally, slight increases are noted late in the fiscal year when funding becomes limited and a ''bow wave'' is created.
What programs are being implemented to reverse the trend? Prior to cannibalization actions, all logistics avenues and sources are exhausted by operational units. Cannibalizations within 2d MAW are only performed when components cannot be located from any other source and only to meet mission essential requirements. Material readiness degraders that result in cannibalizations are highlighted throughout the naval aviation logistics system. APN–6 (Buy Out of Initial Spares) funding shortfalls are being addressed in FY99 and FY00. However, the inability to expedite contracts for out-of-production aircraft parts will continue to produce long lead times for critical readiness spares. Delivery of initial issue/replenishment parts is critical to reducing cannibalization rates. Improved communication between the inventory control points and the fleet will continue to contribute to focus efforts on critical deficiencies. Additionally, the Naval Aviation Maintenance and Supply Review continues to focus on improving NMCS and reducing cannibalizations.
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BUYER
Mr. BUYER. The retention of pilots in the military is rapidly approaching a status that could be fairly described as a crisis that affects all the services. Given our inability to match airline pay levels, have we arrived at a point where we need to create a new approach that manages pilots as a national resource that guarantees military aviation the pilots that it needs?
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General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Military pilot retention is an important national issue of which Army pilot retention is an element. The Army is considering a number of methods to improve pilot retention, and we should allow these to mature before considering broader measures. The term ''pilot'' applies to a broad spectrum of specialties, in different categories of aircraft at different grade structures. In the Army, pilot retention issues are focused on specific systems. Army pilot retention is only one element of a total Army force conservation program focused on maintaining total force retention.
General HAWLEY. Yes. The current pilot shortage was caused primarily by two factors: underproduction of pilots in the early 90's to meet force reduction goals and low pilot retention rates in the late 90s. We have done everything possible to fix the production problem by maximizing the number of pilots we train and absorb into operational units, so we must address the retention problem.
Compensation is one part of the retention equation. Under the current system of pay and allowances, a graph of an aviator's pay over time resembles an inverted bell. A pilot is paid more money in his or her 10th to 14th years of service than at any other time in his or her career. In corporate America (and the airline industry), pay generally increases every year until retirement. One unintended consequence of the pilot bonus program is that the military pay system now provides a disincentive for pilots to remain until retirement. In fact, it may force exit decisions by creating artificial decision points. For current pilots, the first decision point is when a pilot's original training commitment is complete at 9 years; the second occurs at the earnings cliff following the pilot bonus termination at 14 years. A pay scale that continually rises overtime would eliminate these artificial decision points, and ACC has asked the recently formed rated management task force to consider a complete overhaul of rated compensation.
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The perceived value of military retirement has also decreased. Originally devised as an incentive to remain in service for 20 years, the reduction of the retirement calculation basis to 40% of basic pay and the increasing reliance on allowances and special pay which do not contribute to retirement pay calculations have resulted in a retirement incentive of marginal value.
While the combination of reduced compensation and airline hiring is one factor influencing rated retention, high operations tempo is consistently the number one complaint from pilots leaving ACC. We continue to pursue initiatives which will reduce operations tempo to a level which is sustainable over the long term. We are also implementing changes to make deployment schedules as predictable as possible and to reduce turbulence in our tasking process.
V. Adm. BROWNE. The Navy is investigating and instituting new approaches encompassing improvements in both a quality of life and compensation to meet the current Naval Aviation retention challenge. The career path requirements for Naval Aviators are unique to the Service as they are centered on sea duty requirements. Navy retention goals for pilots and NFOs are based on the ability of the Navy to meet disassociated sea-tour and Department Head (DH) requirements. The disassociated sea-tour follows an aviator's first shore tour and usually occurs at the six to eighth year of commissioned service. The DH tour is an aviator's second operational sea duty flying tour and generally occurs around the 11th year of commissioned service; these officers serve as aviation squadron mid-level leaders and managers providing critical flight experience in roles such as strike leader and junior pilot mentor. Nominal required retention to department head for pilots and NFOs is 38% and 35% respectively.
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The aggregate FY98 retention rate was 33% for pilots, 5% below requirements and the lowest since 1992. Aggregate FY98 NFO retention rate was 35%—the minimum acceptable to meet requirements and the lowest since 1995. Although current aviator inventories are manageable for most communities, the current retention trends are of concern, particularly the small FY91–FY95 year groups (referred to as ''T-Notch''). These small year groups resulted from low accessions in FY's 91–95 and were a direct result of accessing to requirements for a more significantly reduced force structure than was realized. As a result, inventories of the ''T-Notch'' year groups will effectively meet only 80% of requirements. Additionally, to meet disassociated sea tour and Department Head billet requirements, these smaller year groups need retention requirements well above historic norms. Therefore, the preservation of inventories in the surrounding year groups is necessary to alleviate the projected ''T-Notch'' generated shortages in available experienced aviators.
The Navy is addressing the increasing numbers of aviator resignations through new approaches to aviator compensation and efforts to improve quality-of-life. The target for Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP) is now all eligible aviators in FY 99 in order to maintain needed aggregate inventories of experienced aviation officers. We are also investigating innovative proposals to change how ACP is used as a retention tool. The Navy appreciates congressional efforts to improve aviation retention with enhancements of aviation compensation programs such as increased ACP and Aviation Career Incentive Pay (ACIP). Additionally, non-compensation related retention efforts have focused on reducing the homeport tempo demands through reductions in Inter Deployment Training Cycle requirements. The Navy recognizes Pilots and NFOs are a key resource and that improvements in retention will require both a changes in compensation quality of life initiatives to meet the challenges we face now and in the future; we believe we are headed in the right direction.
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Lt. General PACE. The retention of Marine Corps pilots is not approaching a crisis status; still, aviator retention is by no means a receding concern. Therefore from the Marine Corps perspective, there is no need to create a new approach that manages pilots as a national resource.
Retention of fixed wing aviators in particular continues to be a significant challenge. Since 1996, the Marine Corps has averaged 94 fixed wing resignations per year compared to an average of 35 in the eleven years prior to 1996. While we have enough aviators (both fixed wing and rotary wing) to meet our cockpit requirements, these elevated resignation rates translate into difficulties in filling our self-imposed, non-cockpit requirements. The Marine Corps has enjoyed some success in addressing these retention concerns with several initiatives to include: offering a long term Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP), increased active duty service obligations, a revised Aviation Career Incentive Pay (ACIP) payment schedule, and an on-going comprehensive review of all non-cockpit requirements.
While it is true the military services can not match the financial compensation offered by the commercial airlines, we have consistently heard from our aviators that the stay/leave decision is not solely (or even primarily) financial. The challenge that lies ahead for the Corps is retaining Marines of all ranks and communities by addressing those issues that are most important to them. These include, but are not limited to, optempo, quality of life, and correcting the perception of eroding benefits (especially retirement). However, care must be exercised in divising a ''one policy fits all'' approach. Although committed to a common venture, each service has uniquely different approaches to complete their respective missions. Thus a policy change that assists the Marine Corps could be detrimental to one of our sister services, or vice versa.
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Mr. BUYER. Military retirement has been an issue of increasing debate here on Capitol Hill and within the Pentagon. Evidence suggests that the high-three average of income implemented in 1980 and the changes associated with the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986 are fueling the retention problems among the services. Do you believe that retention can be turned around with restoring the value of military retirement for those who joined the military after 1980 and 1986? What other options are available?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. The impacts of the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986 merit re-evaluation to determine if it can be strengthened to improve military retention. It is a sufficiently complex area to warrant a thorough review. We do know that retirement and pay are very important to our people. Surveys indicate that retirement and inadequate pay are the fastest growing sources of dissatisfaction in the Army. This needs to be reversed.
Although no one factor will prevent future retention problems, a strong retirement system and annual pay raises that close the civilian sector pay gap will go a long way to retaining the quality soldiers of the future.
General HAWLEY. Improvements to the retirement system would immediately address one concern of those separating from ACC, and it would send a strong signal that we value the service of our experienced airmen. Our young officers, as well as our key second term airmen, tell us that one reason they are leaving is because military retirement has declined in value. Restoring the retirement benefit to pre-1986 levels would clearly have a positive effect on our ability to retain these highly skilled people. Options include, but are not limited to, returning to high year final pay, returning to High-3, or returning to a 50 percent retirement plan with COLA adjustments.
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V. Adm. BROWNE. Over the past few years Navy has experienced a significant reduction in retention of senior, career Sailors who entered service after July 1986 (i.e., personnel who are affected by the changes in the retirement systems as a result of the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986 (MRRA)). Some of this decline can certainly be attributed to drawndown-related programs and circumstances such as TERA, VSI/SSB, and lower advancement opportunity to senior paygrades. However, exit surveys as well as anecdotal evidence suggests that Sailors are increasingly concerned about the devaluation or the military retirement benefits as a result of MRRA.
As those Sailors covered by the MRRA reach the point where they must decide whether to make the Navy a long-term career (between 8–12 years of service), we must ensure these high quality, experienced personnel, are confident that our nation's leaders recognize the sacrifices required by Navy life and are committed to providing for a fair and equitable military retirement system. The value of military retirement must be restored; in other words, the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986 must be repealed. ''Fixing'' military retirement will not in and of itself turn retention around; however, it represents one of the major contributing factors in solving our current retention problems.
Turning around retention can only be accomplished through a comprehensive compensation strategy. Such a strategy must include (along with repeal of the MRRA) Basic Pay increases at a level of 2–3% above civilian wage growth until the pay gap is closed, and targeting additional funds for increases in special, incentive, and other pay programs. These include Selective Reenlistment Bonuses, Officer Bonuses, Sea Pay Reform, embarking on long-term reform of military pay tables, and update and enhancement of other pays. Additionally, the strategy must include a means for Sailors to achieve individual financial health and stability. The Navy's proposal for the Uniformed Services Payroll Savings Plan (USPSP) could accomplish such a need. Through a compensation strategy such as this, we can achieve the across-the-board impact of restoring confidence in making the Navy a career. Additionally, we need to leverage our MPN dollars by cost effective, targeted pays and bonuses, to achieve retention goals for specific critical skills.
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Lt. General PACE. While retention is a complex issue, there can be no doubt that repealing MRRA will have a positive impact on Marines' decision to remain in the Corps. Of course, retirement provisions are not the only consideration in the stay/leave decision. But breaking away from the historical retirement plan conveys a message to our Marines that the Nation does not appreciate their many sacrifices. As Marines make their career decisions, the erosion of benefits translates into a growing perception that military careers are less advantageous than civilian employment. The commanders' assessments indicate that the passage of Redux considerably reduces enticements for having a military career and will more likely become a deciding factor regarding continued service. The negative impact on force retention in turn affects the stability of our officer and enlisted middle grades. Readiness will eventually suffer when more experienced personnel leaving for the civilian job markets are replaced by new, less experienced Marines.
By restoring the traditional retirement plan, we demonstrate a clear intent to protect our Marines' benefits; and we can potentially offset the other factors not under our control. The results can only have a favorable impact on retention.
Other options for dealing with retention issues include closing the ''pay gap.'' This is an expensive option, since it does not focus only on mid-career service members. Another option is the increased use of bonuses at critical career points. This approach would not be overly expensive, but likely would not have the same effect as restoring retirement benefits.
Mr. BUYER. How will the 3.6 percent full Employment Cost Index (ECI) pay raise for fiscal year 1999 be received within the force? In your view, what is the expectation within the force about the level of pay raise that is required to ensure people are paid fairly?
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General SCHWARTZ for General Bramlett. The 3.6 percent pay raise for fiscal year 1999 is being received positively, but it is still inadequate. Our service members deserve better pay. Since 1992, satisfaction with pay has fallen from 61.8 percent to 39 percent for officers. It has declined from 44.8 percent to 28 percent for enlisted members over the same time period. The current perception of our service members is that they are not paid fairly, especially when you consider the responsibilities they bear and what similar skills and responsibilities bring in the private sector. Pay also plays a key role in recruiting, ranking as the fourth reason young men and women join the service in the Youth Attitudinal Tracking Study. A full ECI pay raise would make the Army more competitive in attracting new people, as well as aid in retaining the training and experience of those already in the force.
General HAWLEY. The 1997 Air Force QoL survey results indicate pay is a concern of most members: only 22% of enlisted and 48% of officers assessed basic pay as ''fair and equitable.'' When describing their family's financial situation, 47% of the enlisted and 13% of the officers stated that they could barely afford living needs. A pay increase would address these concerns and help our airmen meet their daily expenses.
The 3.6 percent pay raise for FY99 is the largest pay raise since 1993. However, our people are well aware of the 14% pay gap which has developed between private sector and military wages. The force will appreciate the fact this differential has not grown, but will be disappointed that no effort was made to close the gap between their compensation and that in the rest of society. Our uniformed and civilian members generally believe that their service is in part responsible for the remarkable health of the economy, and that they should share in the benefits of that economy.
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V. Adm. BROWN. Exit surveys show that Sailors are increasingly concerned about the disparity in compensation between today's men and women in the military and their private sector counterparts (pay gap). The 3.6 percent pay raise demonstrates to our Sailors that senior leadership shares their concern over the pay gap and is committed to improve the competitiveness of the military compensation package. Although we expect this full ECI pay raise to be favorably received by Sailors in the fleet, we would not expect it to singularly solve all our retention problems.
Recent retention analyses have shown that pay raises over the next three years of about 4 to 4 1/2 percent above the civilian growth rate are needed to significantly affect retention behavior and return (1st-term) retention to its pre-drawdown level. However, because many of our most severe tention problems are focused on specific critical officer and enlisted skills, I believe a policy of pay raises roughly 4 to 5 percent above the ECI, accompanied by significant increases in our budget for bonuses and special pays is necessary. Additionally, I believe initiatives such as repeal of the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986, long-term reform of the military pay tables, Sea Pay reform, and introduction of Navy's proposed Uniformed Services Payroll Savings Plan (USPSP) must all be part of a comprehensive compensation strategy. I feel that this approach addresses our retention problems in the most cost-effective manner. This is not to diminish the positive impact of a full ECI pay raise—only to say that a long-term solution to our retention problems will ultimately require more additional measures to counter the effects of a strong economy and the disparity between a Sailors pay with that of their civilian counterparts.
Lt. General PACE. The full ECI pay raise will be received positively by Marines. It will be seen as a step in the right direction to ''fixing'' military pay. However, it will be perceived as only a token gesture unless annual pay raises are kept at full ECI in the future. The systematic process of widening the pay gap (with ECI minus 0.5%) is a disservice to Marines. The clear expectation is that at a minimum, pay raises should rise with the ECI, not a half percentage point (or any other arbitrary amount) below it.
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Mr. BUYER. What consideration was or should be given to increasing the military pay raise beyond the ECI level in fiscal year 1996 in order to close the gap between military and private sector pay?
Lt. General PACE. Increasing pay beyond the ECI in the future would send a strong message to all Marines that the Nation appreciates their many sacrifices. It would go a long way toward reversing the trend—both real and perceived—of eroding military benefits.
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. We would support either adoption of full Employment Cost Index (ECI) pay raises or ECI plus .5 percent. Pay is the most visible component of our compensation package; an increase in pay at the full ECI or higher level would have a positive impact on morale and retention. It would also impact favorably on recruiting. Results of the Youth Attitudinal Survey indicate pay is the fourth leading reason young men and women join the service. The Army seeks pay increases, within funding constraints, and supports efforts to provide military pay equal to private sector wages, including raises that would lead to closing the pay gap, as long as sufficient funding is provided. Funding increased pay within the current DOD budget cannot be supported by the Army.
General HAWLEY. I am not in a position to comment on the degree to which pay raises above ECI were considered in the process of developing the '99 budget proposal, but it is clear to me based on dozens of discussions with military and civilian members of the Air Force that we should give high priority to closing the gap between their compensation and that in the civilian sector of our economy. Money is not the reason that people choose to serve our country, but failure to provide fair and equitable compensation for their sacrifice sends a message that they are not important to the nation. Retention has declined 13% for second term reenlistments, from 82% in FY93 to 71% in FY97.
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V. Adm. BROWNE. Since the Navy is experiencing problems in recruiting and retaining a qualify force, it is extremely important that we reverse these trends and do all we can to maintain a force of high quality experienced Sailors, especially those with critical skills. Successful recruiting and retention are obviously affected by a series of factors both internal and external to the Navy. In particular, the disparity in compensation between today's men and women in uniform and their private sector counterparts (pay gap) is a fundamental issue we must face to recruit and retain this quality force.
We must close the pay gap as quickly as possible to ensure our fleet is fully manned. We basically have two choices, a large basic pay raise (13–14%) to close the gap or a smaller basic pay raise along with targeting additional dollars into special and incentive pays. I believe the most cost effective pay strategy is to establish basic pay increases at a level of 4–5% above the ECI, and target the additional funds to increase special and incentive pay programs such as: Selective Reenlistment Bonuses, Officer Bonuses, Sea Pay Reform, embark on long-term reform of the military pay tables, and update and enhance other pays. Additionally, we must act now to prevent any further erosion of military retirement benefits. Namely, we must repeal the Military Retirement Reform Act of 1986, i.e., REDUX. Further, we must introduce into our compensation system a means for our Sailors to achieve financial health and stability; we must implement the proposed Uniform Services Payroll Savings Plan (USPSP).
This comprehensive compensation strategy would achieve the across the board impact of restoring Sailor confidence in making the Navy a future career. Additionally, we need to leverage our MPN dollars by cost effective, targeted pays and bonuses, to achieve retention goals for critical skills in officer communities and enlisted ratings. Across-the-board pay inadequacy (pay gap) is becoming increasingly evident and will lead to a severe impact to personnel readiness if not addressed now.
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Mr. BUYER. One of the themes that we hear consistently from service members of all grades is that they do not have faith in their leadership. They do not think that people like you are doing their best to look out for their interests. Are you aware of these attitudes and what are you doing to change perception?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. I do not believe service members have lost faith in their leadership. I talk to soldiers! I know my soldiers. I have spent the last twelve years serving in combat units and I know how soldiers feel about their leadership. I rely on my commanders, command sergeants major and first line supervisors, civilian or military, not only to keep me informed, but also to provide leadership for their soldiers and civilians. In my many visits to installations, I talk to thousands of soldiers and ask what I can do to make things better for quality of life. They know we will represent them well. They trust us. When the committees call on me to provide input, I provide it based on the needs and concerns of my soldiers and civilians.
The Army has always taken care of its soldiers.
General HAWLEY. I am acutely aware of a lack of faith in senior leadership. I believe it stems from our inability to control the operational tempo that our people are asked to sustain, to provide the resources they need to accomplish their mission, or to effectively advocate for fair and equitable compensation for the service they give and the sacrifices that they and their families are asked to make on behalf of the nation.
V. Adm. BROWNE. The Navy administers separation questionnaires that ask officers and enlisted personnel to identify why they are leaving. Of those responding, leadership was #3 on the officer list and #4 on the enlisted list. During the last year I have visited well over 100 ships and squadrons. A year ago I heard many complaints about leadership, now I am not hearing it as much. I think the attitude and perception have changed since leadership became more vocal and started addressing the issues that concern our people. They read in the newspapers the remarks of the Navy leadership and how they are trying to resolve the issues we face. They realize we are aware and working diligently to improve the situation.
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Lt. General PACE. This is an area where I believe the Marine Corps is standing on solid footing. Our Marines recognize that these are difficult times, and that their leadership is asking more from them than every before, in terms of high operational tempo, long hours, and the frustration that comes with knowing the aging very soon. But Marines also recognize that their leadership, and specifically their Commandant, has not broken faith with them. They know that General Krulak has appeared every year before this committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, consistently and candidly testifying on our growing budgetary concerns. Other Marine leaders routinely appear before various committees of both the House and the Senate. Each such appearance is an opportunity to answer your questions candidly. Marines of all ranks know that their leaders are doing what we can for them, from issuing better quality combat boots, to battling the erosion of marines' benefits, and other quality of life issues, we protect the Corps' most valuable asset: our Marines. These actions send a clear signal that Marine leaders take care of their own and that perception needs no changing.
Mr. BUYER. The Navy is the one service that is experiencing a significant officer retention problem in addition to the pilot problem. Admiral, what needs to be done to address the problem? Would the other panel members please comment on officer retention in their service.
General HAWLEY. The Air Force is experiencing lower officer retention across the board. As depicted in the chart below, retention rates in all four major areas (pilot, navigator, non-rated operations and mission support) have fallen each of the last four years. Continued reductions in operational tempo, enhanced funding for equipment readiness and modernization, reasonable funding for facilities maintenance, and fair and equitable compensation would help to reverse these adverse trends.
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The official Committee record contains additional material here.
V. Adm. BROWNE. Some of the reasons for low retention, such as strong economy and uncertainty over career opportunities with the drawdown, are largely beyond our control, so we must concentrate our effort in areas where we can have a direct impact. In addition to working to enhance promotion opportunities and improve quality of life through better housing, reducing workloads between deployments and providing bonus pay where it is available, we must keep our promises by giving our people the tools and resources to do the job. This means fully funding the readiness accounts and the manpower accounts. If we cut permanent change of station (PCS) funding it means a broken promise to an officer who now has to wait months past the planned rotation date to move to another assignment. This is particularly important for the Navy as our personnel have the longest on-station time of any service. If we cut temporary duty under instruction (TEMDUINS) funds it means an officer will not get a school he or she needs for professional development and to get the job done aboard ship. If retirement benefits continue to erode, the best young people will not be motivated to make the military a career, which has become a significant issue with our junior officers. We need to fix our people problems first. If we do that, officer retention will improve.
Lt. General PACE. The Marine Corps is currently meeting and will continue to meet in the foreseeable future our aggregate officer retention objectives. We do recognize that today's economic environment generates a strong demand for our officers in the civilian labor market. We are, however, committed to keeping our best and brightest officers and will continue to work toward that objective. The Marine Corps further acknowledges that we have skill imbalances within our officer corps and must strive to improve retention in areas such as fixed wing aviation.
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Officer attrition is a normal and healthy aspect of career force management. The Marine Corps needs some attrition at various stages of officer career paths to allow for promotions and accession of new officers. An ideal attrition rate would equate to a stable balance between officer losses and accession of second lieutenants to meet our force requirements for second and first lieutenants in a given fiscal year. We determined for FY98 that an ideal attrition rate of 8.8% of our officer corps would provide the most stability for managing our officer inventory. Actual attrition for FY98 was 9.3% (each 0.1% equates to about 18 officers). While this is a decrease from last year's 9.6%, it still remains higher than the Marine Corps would like to see. We use many tools to control the number of officers at various years of commissioned service (YCS); examples include augmentation boards, extensions of active duty, and competitive promotion opportunities.
Resignations in FY96 and FY97 were 1.8% of the officer corps. While this resignation rate was slightly higher than our historical average of 1.6%, it was not the highest rate experienced by the Marine Corps. (A resignation rate of 2.2% was recorded for FY88 and FY89.) While final FY98 resignation statistics won't be available for several months, the resignation rate is projected to be similar to FY97—around 1.8%.
A final concern is that of MOS imbalances. There are numerous reasons for this, one of which is higher attrition in fixed wing aviation MOSs and some ground MOSs. The Marine Corps manages these skill shortages within acceptable levels by using promotion and augmentation board precept guidance and, in the case of aviation, by offering financial incentives. Additionally, the Marine Corps has implemented a new Supplementary MOS program (SMOS) designed to improve retention among junior officers by soliciting voluntary assignments to secondary MOSs in short occupational fields, thereby providing flexibility in staffing these short MOSs. This program replaced the unpopular Career Transition (Forced Lateral Move) program which was executed in conjunction with reserve-to-regular augmentation boards. While short MOSs are a closely monitored concern, none are short to the point of affecting overall readiness.
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Mr. BUYER. The committee has become alarmed that the services, with the exception of the Marine Corps, are failing to maintain end strengths above the floors established in the law. The Navy and the Army will definitely go below the minimum strengths set in the law for fiscal year 1998. The Air Force will be within several hundred of their minimum, if they make it. All will blame recruiting and retention for the problem. Do you support end strength floors, or do you believe that the services should be allowed to seek the end strength level determined to be best by civilian and military leadership? What happens to your operations tempo if the services are allowed to reduce end strength?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. End strength levels must be such that they allow the Army to successfully support the National Military Strategy (NMS). I think we are at the minimum strength level right now. The NMS objectives of Shaping, Responding, and Preparing indicate that the current pace of operations will continue. Spreading these requirements across a smaller force structure would clearly raise the tempo to a level where we would have negative impacts on readiness and retention.
General HAWLEY. End strength floors are a dual edged sword. On the one hand, they discourage the Services from using non-programmatic personnel reductions to help fund other requirements. This serves to protect our people from being asked to continually do more with less. On the other hand, end strength floors preclude the Services from taking advantage of efficiencies from consolidation of operations, improvements in our processes, and the incorporation of new technologies that often permit us to accomplish the mission with fewer people. Within ACC we would like more flexibility to realign our existing forces so we can employ those forces more efficiently. Today many of our skilled personnel are positioned in locations which do not allow us to take full advantage of their expertise. The flexibility to realign people and missions between locations would allow us to streamline our operations.
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V. Adm. BROWNE. End strength floors restrict the ability of military leadership to take advantage of manpower efficiencies created through prudent management practice. In the current evironment, Navy leadership seeks economies and efficiencies in manpower. In many cases (like current Smart Ship initiatives) Navy must make initial expenditures in other appropriations, in order to achieve manpower savings. An externally imposed end strength floor prevents taking the manpower savings, and subsequently using them to finance other appropriation expenditures. Therefore, the cost of an externally imposed end strength floor is measured in failure to achieve manpower efficiencies. An end strength level regulated by civilian and military leadership would allow flexibility to manage platforms and manpower in a more efficient manner.
Personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO), which reflects the percentage of time that a ''unit'' spends out of homeport, defines the personnel impact of OPTEMPO. The primary drivers of PERSTEMPO and OPTEMPO are force structure and operational commitments. End strength reductions do not in and of themselves affect OPTEMPO or PERSTEMPO, but a reduced force structure with a constant operational commitment will generate higher OPTEMPO and PERTEMPO. The force structure called for by the Quadrennial Defense Review is the minimum necessary to meet global forward deployed operational requirements and overseas presence commitments as directed by the unified Commanders-in-Chief. Our only means to reduce PERSTEMPO and OPTEMPO is to reduce our commitments or increase the number of platforms.
Lt. General PACE. The Marine Corps prefers to operate without the limitations of a statutory end strength floor. This would allow us the flexibility to adapt to situations such as a difficult recruiting and retention environment. It would also allow us to take advantage of potential technological advancements (such as distance learning) that decrease manpower requirements.
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Since the Marine Corps has maintained the end strength floor in FY98 (within the flexibility allowed by law), manning, readiness, and op tempo have not been affected as the question suggests for the other Services.
The Marine Corps deploys as units vice individuals, thus we measure the ''Deptempo'' of our units. Lower end strength would not automatically result in increased deployment tempo, since the same number of units would still be performing the same number of missions. Of course, manning within those units would decrease, unless the end strength cut was accomplished with the elimination of an entire unit. Current end strength levels are sufficient to meet our present operational requirements. Deployment tempo could be exacerbated with increased commitments to long term contingencies.
Mr. BUYER. Attrition of first term enlisted personnel has been increasing within each of the services, both within basic training and overall before the end of the first term of service. The General Accounting Office has issued a report that concluded the services could do more to understand the why attrition is going up, screen unqualified recruits before accession, and encourage recruits to prepare physically and mentally before entering basic training. As a commander, what is your perspective of the attrition problem? What is causing this increase within each service and what is being done to reverse the trend?
General SCHWATRZ for General BRAMLETT. Department of the Army established an Attrition Council to study reasons for attrition and develop methodologies to improve the attrition rate. They also established a General Officer Steering Committee (GOSC) to provide oversight, under the auspices of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (DCSPER). Forces Command (FORSCOM) participated in this effort. Data were gathered and examined, policies changed, goals established, tracking begun and visibility (command emphasis) was provided in our efforts to retain our most precious asset, our soldiers. Commanders of FORSCOM installations are striving to meet their goals while maintaining an appropriate application of separation policy to ensure discipline is maintained. However, attrition is increasing.
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I believe the propensity to serve in the military is declining. Also, the perception of a great disparity between military and private sector pay and benefits hurts recruiting. The additional opportunities offered by a strong economy have also attracted many who otherwise might have joined the military. Surveys administered by The Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) identified reasons soldiers listed for early attriting while in initial entry training. Results compare with data gathered by the GAO. The Army is in the process of validating a test instrument to administer to soldiers separating in the field Army before completing 36 months service. TRADCOC has the lead and will administer surveys to soldiers at FORSCOM installations. TRADOC initiatives are designed to determine soldier attitude changes and command issues that may contribute to increasing and reducing early attrition.
General HAWLEY. Attrition during the first term of enlistment is high for many of the same reasons that reenlistment rates are low. Many airmen become discouraged by their conditions of service and lose the motivation to excel and to conform to the standards that we require. They perceive that the nation does not value their service and exhibit behavior that is inconsistent with continued service in the Air Force. In ACC we have increased our focus on helping first term airmen transition from the structured environment of basic training and technical school to their first assignment. Many of our wings have established First Term Airmen Centers to properly welcome our new airmen to ACC and help them understand immediately their role as part of the team. These centers provide a structured in-processing regimen that ensures all necessary introductory training and briefings are completed within the first 30 days of arrival. This structured process provides a supportive environment for our new airmen, promotes team building and camaraderie, and helps the new airman develop a network of friends with a common background. As a result of this program, ACC has enjoyed fewer entry level separations due to minor UCMJ infractions. We believe that our First Term Airmen Centers will both increase first term reenlistments and reduce attrition.
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V. Adm. BROWNE. Navy fleet and first-term attrition rates have shown a steady increase in recent years. Total FY97 attrition was 30,729 personnel, with 78% occurring during the first-term and 22% occurring from the career force. Within the first-term attrition, 6,668 (27%) occurred at RTC; 1,815 (8%) occurred at ''A'' School; and 15,486 (65%) was from the fleet.
One factor that contributed to the increasing rate of Navy first-term attrition was the downsizing efforts. Overall first-term attrition rate rose from 34.4% in FY96 to 38.0% in FY98 (at a length of service of 45 months), during this same time period Navy was required to achieve a 90,000 decrease in end strength. These personnel losses were warranted, and are considered to be fiscally prudent.
The attrition impact in a steady-state force is far-reaching and contributes to:
Reduced manning levels;
Increased recruiting mission;
Increased workload;
Job dissatisfaction;
Decreased moral;
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Decreased motivation to develop professionally; and
Declining mission readiness.
There is a range of variables that compromise the attrition equation and serve to explain some of the reasons personnel attrite from the Navy. There are several things the Navy can affect including:
Leadership;
Quality of life issues;
Pay and Compensation issues;
Quality of data used in targeting reasons for attrition;
Standardization of pre-enlistment waiver and separation codes;
Training opportunities.
There are also significant factors that the Navy cannot affect in its attrition reduction efforts:
Thriving economy;
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Low unemployment rate;
Tough recruiting environment;
Pre-existing medical conditions and personality disorders.
One significant reason for increased attrition at RTC is a substantial rise in positive drug testing rates (which closely mirrors the increase in drug usage by today's teenagers). Navy implemented 100% drug testing at Military Enlisted Processing Station (MEPS) in May 1997. Additionally, the tough recruiting market has resulted in potential recruits spending less time in the Delayed Entry Program, which correlates with higher attrition rates. Additional resources are being applied to Navy recruiting, in an effort to improve this situation.
In ''A'' School, the increase in attrition is primarily due to non-academic factors. In FY98, ''A'' school attrition rates dropped due to the Navy's increased focus on leadership and mentoring of ''A'' school students.
Fleet attrition is increasing in two main areas, misconduct and medical. The Navy is currently examining specific policies to reduce attrition in these categories.
There are several Navy-wide initiatives that are being implemented in order to reverse the increasing attrition trend and improve retention in the future:
Delayed Entry Program (DEP):
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Established goal of lengthening average time in the DEP, which correlates with lower attrition at RTC;
Continued emphasis on physical conditioning prior to reporting to boot camp;
Implementation of more comprehensive medical screening policies; and
Implementation of new separation coding system for DEP attrition.
Recruit Training Command (RTC):
Continued emphasis on joint DEP/RTC sponsorship;
Implementation of Fundamental Applied Skills Training (FAST), academic remediation program for at-risk recruits;
Expanded recruit mentoring program;
Updated physical training program by medical department, which serves to reduce attrition associated with physical injury;
Targeted use of Personal Applied Skills Streaming (PASS), targeted toward recruits with low motivation levels;
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Increased number and quality of Recruit Division Commanders (RDCs); Navy reached 100% RDC manning at end of FY 98; and
Feedback from 200 Command Master Chiefs (CMCs) ''returned to boot camp'' visit to provide fleet perspective of the quality and preparedness of graduating recruits upon arrival at their initial fleet assignment.
''A'' School:
Learning Resource Center infusion has produced a decrease in attrition in 9 training pipelines;
Automated Electronic Classrooms (AECs) have produced 3.1% reduction in attrition;
6+2 Instructional Program was designed to provide 6 hours of classroom instruction supplemented with 2 additional hours of individualized study in areas of academic weakness. Attrition appears to be declining in the majority of programs using 6+2 and LRCs; and
Establishment of a Training Analysis Group (TAG) tasked with identification and review of ''A'' and ''C'' school courses that fall outside the statistical norm for attrition.
Fleet:
Routine publishing of Atlantic Fleet and Pacific Fleet Retention Situation Reports (SITREPS);
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Active recruitment of General Detail (GENDET) Sailors for specific ''A'' schools;
Increased fleet-wide emphasis on Professional Development Boards, Sponsor Programs and Indoctrination Programs;
Ongoing advanced training for career counselors;
Establishment of Force Career Counselor billets;
Addition of fleet level attrition briefs to all Prospective Commanding Officers (PCOs);
Challenges by fleet commanders to increase first-term retention by 10%; and
Mandatory Career Information Program Management (CIPM) instituted fleet wide.
Lt. General PACE. The Marine Corps views excessive first term attrition as a serious problem. It increases the burden on our recruiting force and on our training establishment. While we have experienced small increases in first term attrition rates since 1996, we have taken steps over the past few years to reduce first term attrition.
In 1996 we began restructuring the way we make Marines. This process of ''Transformation'' is comprised of four phases: recruiting, recruit training, cohesion, and sustainment.
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Recruiters begin by selecting the highest quality men and women the nation has to offer. These future Marines are introduced to total fitness—body, mind, and spirit—to ready them for the intense forging they will experience in recruit training. While in the delayed entry pool recruits' preparation includes physical conditioning, study guides, indoctrination to Marine Corps history and tradition, and most importantly an introduction to Marine's core values—honor, courage, and commitment.
Enhancing an already demanding process, the Corps increased recruit training to 12 weeks giving drill instructors more time for mentoring and molding recruits. Additional core values acculturation has been incorporated into daily instruction. The Crucible, 54 hours of intense physically demanding field training where drill instructors lead recruits emphasizing the importance of selflessness and teamwork, is truly the defining right of passage from recruit to Marine.
In cohesion, teams of Marines are formed at skill producing schools and are assigned to the same Fleet Marine Force units. Assignments of these teams are synchronized with unit deployment schemes so these teams will train, live, deploy, and fight together. Cohesion is designed to sustain the reinforcement of trust and the importance of team work in all endeavors.
To sustain character development we have educated Marine leaders at all levels on the importance of development of the ''whole Marine.'' These leaders will manifest the Marine's core values and mentor their subordinates. These actions are part of our strategy to deal with first term attrition.
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Mr. BUYER. How well manned are the units under your command? Are the problems with end strength having an affect on your readiness?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. The shortage of senior grade personnel, officers (captains and majors) and noncommissioned officers (NCO) (sergeant and staff sergeant) have a significant impact on readiness.
We are experiencing adequate fill of soldiers to units with combat arms Military Occupational Specialists (MOSs) but continue to experience significant shortages of soldiers with combat support and combat service support MOSs. Some units experience low personnel fills of critical low density MOSs positions that adversely affect our logistics and maintenance capabilities.
Units with a lower priority for personnel fill are being asked to execute Army operational missions, which result in a higher level to fill than originally resourced by Department of the Army Personnel Distribution Guidance. The result is fewer soldiers available for fill of other units. However, this is what we must do in order to ensure mission accomplishment and adequate force protection.
General HAWLEY. ACC units suffer from shortfalls in total manning as well as an imbalance in experience. For example, many key field grade officer and senior noncommissioned officer positions are being filled by younger individuals with much less experience than we have seen in the past. The result of this imbalance are that 27% of Lt Col Support billets are filled by junior officers; 30% of Major billets are filled by Captains; and 23% of Captain billets are being filled by Lieutenants. On the enlisted side, F–16 crew chief manning illustrates some of our experience problems. ACC is currently 86% manned for F–16 crew chiefs overall and is projected to drop to 83% manning by April 99. This means that we are 282 personnel short of our authorized crew chief strength today and we will be 341 short by Apr 99. F–16 apprentice or ''3-level'' crew chiefs are currently manned at 105% of authorized positions, and our experienced technician or ''5-level'' manning is 80% of authorizations. However, many F–16 crew chiefs are non-commissioned officers (NCOs) who recently cross-trained from other weapons systems. Including these NCOs in the statistics reveals that apprentices are actually manned at 125%, while experienced manning drops to 67%. This difficult experience situation is not unique to our aircraft maintenance specialists. A look at Security Forces (SF) manning paints a similar picture since mid-level NCOs are cross-training to the SF career field. Although they have the rank that is normally associated with experience, they are not experienced in their new field.
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V. Adm. BROWNE. Manning shortfalls, especially during the IDTC, are the number one concern of Pacific Battlegroup and Amphibious Ready Group Commanders. In general, afloat manning has been on the decline since the start of the drawdown. As we finished FY93, overall manning at sea was 95% of Billets Authorized (BA). In FY97 it dropped to 93% of BA, and it is currently 90% of BA. In 1997 the Navy made a decision to lower the traditional Status of Readiness and Training System (SORTS) standard for our deployers for manning. This decision has contributed to a shortage of personnel in technical and general detailed ratings at sea; as evidenced by a large number of gapped billets, and extended tour lengths. The level of effort required to prepare ships for deployment using temporary duty assignments, personnel diverts, and crossdecking has had a detrimental effect on morale. Fleet shortages are particularly acute in the specialty and operationally experienced areas: the strike fighter pilots, Tomahawk planners, etc., in the officer corps; the operations specialists, radiomen, fire control technicians, aviation ordnancemen, aviation boatswains mates, etc., on the enlisted side. Shortages in these specialty areas mean we continually task our sea duty specialists and overburden them with added requirements above and beyond what would normally be expected. However, our most severe problem is among junior enlisted (E–1 to E–3) general detail (GENDET) personnel. Navy wide we are short approximately 5,200 GENDETS. The effect of this shortage falls most heavily on our ships, submarines, and squadrons. Navy wide our GENDET manning at sea is 78%. This shortage is felt on our flight decks, in the engine rooms, and hangers. Our more skilled workforce is filling the gap and not being utilized efficiently. It is a serious morale problem. The Navy has begun to take steps to correct the problem, such as offering enlisted bonuses and using selected re-enlistment bonuses.
Battle Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups are experiencing a higher percentage of required personnel arriving ''just in time'' to deploy, thus missing the all-important inter-deployment training. Further, some personnel are arriving without required advanced system specific skills; and therefore, have a significant learning curve to overcome at the start of the deployment. Actions required to adequately man deployers included shortening or canceling en-route training, extending onboard personnel about to be transferred, accelerating personnel reporting dates, diverting individuals, and temporarily assigning individuals from other units. These short-term fixes cover today's minimum training requirements, but as our retention figures indicate, they are exacting a toll on future readiness.
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The ABRAHAM LINCOLN Battlegroup is currently deployed to the Arabian Gulf. The Battlegroup deployed June 1998, having started advanced training in March 1998 below desired readiness for personnel and not reaching required readiness levels until one month prior to deployment. One of the most striking facts is that the Battlegroup Commander reported that the LINCOLN Battlegroup team deployed with 770 fewer personnel than just three years ago during their last deployment. The difference in crew size is result of several factors. The Navy's recruiting shortfall with the corresponding GENDET shortage, and the decision to deploy forces at lower readiness levels than was the standard two years ago. In the air wing, the lack of experience and late receipt/turnover of personnel just prior to deployment compound these shortages. Onboard USS SHILOH (CG–67) (a LINCOLN Battlegroup Cruiser) during the 1995 deployment, there were ten Aegis fire control technicians with job specialty designators 1119, now there are six. E–3 and below manning on the SHILOH is at 61% (68 of 111). These are just two examples of the personnel shortages a deployed carrier Battlegroup is facing. The LINCOLN Battlegroup currently is the most ready of all PACFLEET Battlegroups. Ready, yes, but manning just to required readiness takes away a great deal of operational flexibility.
The CARL VINSON Battlegroup is scheduled to deploy in November 1998. The BG began advanced phase training in March 1998 at lower than desired readiness for personnel and dipped further in May. In order to deploy at the required personnel readiness level, the VINSON CO has requested to operationally hold 7 critical individuals beyond their planned rotation dates (after completion of a 5-year sea tour), because he cannot get replacements. VINSON estimates there will be 350 fewer enlisted personnel for this deployment than their last one. Despite a highly motivated crew and airwing, personnel shortages make each phase of training and each event within that phase more difficult. CARL VINSON exemplifies the steepening of the effort curve alluded to earlier. Exacerbating the extended high work up pace is the fact that new pilots, aircrews, and ships' company will continue to check in just prior to deployment not having received all the training of the IDTC.
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Operations tempo will remain unchanged despite the decrease in personnel. Ships will continue to average 28 days per quarter at sea during the IDTC. The bottom line is these ships will not be fully manned and therefore each individual sailor will have to work harder to accomplish the same commitment.
Mr. BUYER. Has the reduction in end strength increased operations tempo among your units? Isn't increased operations tempo a critical factor that degrades unit morale and causes retention problems?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Yes, reductions in end strength have significant impacts upon the operational tempo of our units. We have seen the operational tempo increase significantly in recent years, resulting in more separations of soldiers from families. Operational tempo is cited as one of the major reasons that soldiers decide to separate from the Army. Although tour lengths in the Continental U.S. have increased, soldiers are deployed more often. The drawdown coupled with the increasing military missions worldwide, creates personnel shortages in nearly all units that are not our highest priority for personnel fill.
General HAWLEY. Force structure reductions of the past decade, compounded by low manning in many specialities and increased commitments drives a high OPTEMPO on our force. The following chart illustrates how deployments have increased while force structure and the associated end strength has decreased over the last six years:
The official Committee record contains additional material here.
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ACC airmen leaving the service consistently cite high OPTEMPO a major factor in their decision to separate. Unite morale suffers as retention and experience levels drop and there appears to be no end in sight to deployed commitments. However, end strength alone cannot correct this situation. Only reduced commitments, or force structure growth with the associated end strength will help to relieve these pressures.
V. Adm. BROWNE. Operational tempo measures an individual unit's time deployed; end strength reductions has not caused a change in operational tempo. We deploy ships necessary to meet our operational commitments, not according to how many personnel are available to deploy. As we continue to reduce the numbers of our ships, currently 339, toward the QDR level of about 300 ships, operational tempo, assuming current operational commitments, will increase. The recent increase to a 2.0 carrier presence in the Arabian Gulf reduced our turn around ratio between deployments which had a negative impact on morale and caused retention problems.
If we have fewer Sailors remaining for the same number of deployments, sailors will have to deploy more frequently and PERSTEMPO will increase. Additionally, shortage of personnel in specific ratings cause personnel in these ratings to experience an even greater PERSTEMPO when we are forced to cross deck or divert to the next deploying units. This is one of the key factors that cause moral and retention problems. We track the ship or squadrons operational tempo not the individual. The individual warfighter PERSTEMPO has increased as we repeatedly find his/her expertise is required to need operational commitments. These individuals are getting fed up with this and are leaving the service. This causes an increase in workload for those remaining. It is a vicious cycle. The requirements have not been reduced, adversely impacting unit morale and retention.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Then so, what you're talking about there, then, is those are big-ticket items.
Lt. General PACE. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. Is accelerating their replacements, which, I mean, we all have that are all in the pipeline at one position or another and, you know, we added, like, one V–22 this year and on down the line we've tried to boost it a little bit, although we don't have much money. But, are you telling me that you're going to revise your schedule of big-ticket item procurement requests?
Lt. General PACE. Sir——
Mr. HUNTER. Because those are big items.
Lt. General PACE. Yes, sir. So, what I am saying is that inside the additional dolalrs—the $500–$650m/year for ground equipment per year and the $750 million for aviation per year over the FYDP—inside of those dollars, we would, then, be able to fund the new technologies and new equipment that will, in fact, be cheaper in the long run—then it is to pay for the old equipment.
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Mr. HUNTER. Okay. And, that would include the low-end items, the generators, the lighter trucks?
Lt. General PACE. Sir, that is correct.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
Lt. General PACE. And, to use your example, we are very appreciative of the additional—excuse me, the additional Osprey that you mentioned. But, in face, the most cost effective buy of the Osprey is to get 36 per year. We're currently scheduled to get to a max of 30 per year so there are economies still to be had if the money can be found up front, which would, over time, save the country money with the entire buy of the Osprey.
Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So, the 36 per year that your $2 billion includes, that increased to that purchasing rate?
Lt. General PACE. Sir, I need to take that for the record to make sure I'm——
Mr. HUNTER. Okay.
Lt. General PACE [continuing]. 90 percent such that's correct.
Yes, the $750M/year for aviation includes the increased ramp to 36 MV–22s in the FYDP by FY04.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ORTIZ
Mr. ORTIZ. Your assessment of the FY99 budget has received a lot of attention over here on the Hill in both chambers. Would you explain the circumstances surrounding the development of the assessment? What were you trying to accomplish? What do you think will be the next step? Did you do similar assessments in the past during your assignment as the Forces Command commander? If yes, what was different about this assessment?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Forces Command viewed fiscal year 1998 as the benchmark year and we anticipated that funding would improve starting in fiscal year 1999. In fiscal year 1998, we had consistently reported that we were at our minimum level and could go no lower. When we received our fiscal year 1999 guidance, and the FORSCOM Commanders attempted to balance the programs, we assessed that we could no longer maintain our readiness mission. FORSCOM Commanders reviewed their funding levels for fiscal year 1999 and provided impacts as to abilities to resource requirements to maintain near term readiness and to achieve some level of balance among training, the maintenance of infrastructure and support to soldier Quality of Life programs. They had just completed very detailed presentations to the Command Group and the FORSCOM staff laying out the criticality of the fiscal year 1999 funding levels. Gen. Bramlett felt it necessary to inform the Army Chief of Staff of the situation as had been presented to him. The next step expected was a reassessment of the Department's funding levels to verify priority of the allocation of funds.
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Every year we assess our funding posture at key junctures during the year. During the Program Objective Memorandum, the budget build, and the implementation of the appropriation bill we provide Army leadership with assessments of our funding situation. The timing of this assessment was no different than prior years. For fiscal year 1999, the impact was more significant as it represented the cumulative impact of successive reductions of prior years.
Mr. ORTIZ. What is your best estimate of the minimum amount of dollars needed to address the serious shortfalls in base operations and real property maintenance in Forces Command?
General SCHWARTZ for General BRAMLETT. Our best estimate of the minimum amount Forces Command requires in base operations and real property maintenance in fiscal year 1999 is an additional $241 million for base operations (Quality of Life); $144 million for annual recurring real property maintenance (Infrastructure); and funding for the backlog of maintenance and repair ($275 million per year for a period of 15 years to reach C–1 standards for our facilities).
General HAWLEY. We need to fully fund the Working Capital Funds managed by Air Force Materiel Command, to include funding the ''bow wave'' of deferred requirements. The unfunded requirement submitted for FY99 is approximately $231M. This funding should be consistent across the FYDP and include the requirements growth that occurs between the POM, BES and the execution year. To maintain our aging fleet of aircraft, we must increase the ACC-managed Sustaining Engineering Program by $76.6M and ACC-managed Depot Programmed Equipment Maintenance by $42M. Engine maintenance drives some of our deficiency, and an additional $450M is required to support our engine sustainment and modernization efforts. Poor retention and lower experience levels also contribute to the decrease in mission capable rates. Addressing the reduced retirement benefit and the 14% pay gap will allow us to retain our quality force, improve our experience levels, and increase our mission capable rates.
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Mr. ORTIZ. How would you characterize the Navy's Mine Warfare Plan in terms of robustness? As a fleet commander, are you comfortable with the level of protection from mine hazards that it provides you?
VADM BROWNE. The Navy Mine Warfare Plan is a comprehensive document which identifies current mine countermeasures, and current offensive mining strengths/weaknesses and focuses on future efforts to address those weaknesses via development of a Mine Warfare Campaign Plan.
The Mine Warfare Community is maturing into a complete war fighting force. Its ''triad of forces'' consisting of underwater, surface and aviation mine countermeasure (MCM) assets, working together in a fully integrated manner, addresses the MCM problem from deep water to the shallow water region (up to 40 ft deep). There is no single system that can address all of the challenges associated with mine countermeasures.
We have made significant strides in the areas of organic and non-organic MCM assets and in addressing problems in the Very Shallow Water (VSW) region (40–10 feet) and Surf Zone (SZ) region (10 feet to the high water mark). However, we still face significant technical problems, which will not be corrected, unless a continued concentrated effort in terms of money and manpower is made to overcome them. I am particularly pleased with the plans for developing a fielding an advanced lightweight sweeping system, an airborne laser system, an advanced towed mine hunting sonar, and underwater autonamous vehicles which will find and neutralize mines in a semi-clandestine manner. The most vexing problem continues to be the VSW and SZ regions.
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The development of a VSW MCM Detachment to conduct operations in this zone has been a successful step in the right direction. Its highlight is the non-traditional rapid development and procurement of new technologies, development of new tactics, and most of all, the commitment from the Navy Sea Air Land (SEAL), Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) and Marine Corps Reconnaissance communities in the form of personnel. The SZ challenges are daunting, but are being addressed by a number of advanced technologies, which have not yet fully matured.
The integration of organic MCM systems such as the Remote Mine Hunting System, and EOD detachments onto ships will give a rapid, but limited capability for ships to identify and neutralize mines. The largest challenge in the organic MCM area is how to fold these operations into the divergent mission of the ships at sea.
We are gaining better understanding of the importance of mine warfare. I fully support the CNO's Mine Warfare Plan. He has assigned a flag officer as Program Executive Office (PEO) Mine Warfare. This is in addition to a flag officer assigned as Commander, Mine Warfare Command in the Mine Warfare Center of Excellence in Ingleside, TX. We now have a dedicated mine warfare command and support ship, USS INCHON. We have four MCM ships forward deployed to 5th and 7th fleet. These ships provide a rapid response capability in crisis and are currently surveying the areas conditioning the water space for operations in a mined environment. Continued development of organic and non-organic MCM systems, maintenance of existing systems, education and manning levels are key to the Mine Warfare Plan.
Mr. ORTIZ. What would be your best estimate of the funds needed to overcome the aircraft mission capable rate shortfall and the most serious deficiencies in the shore infrastructure in your command?
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VADM. BROWNE. Based on the FY99 President's Budget submitted to Congress in February, CINCPACFLT projected a critical shortfall of approximately 73 million dollars to address aircraft mission capably rate shortfalls and 65 million dollars to address the most critical shore infrastructure shortfalls.
Mr. ORTIZ. General Pace: We have heard much about the amount of time and energy spent by Marine personnel attempting to maintain old equipment. More recently I have been informed that it is having a detrimental effect on training. I also noted your testimony comments regarding the need to shift funds from procurement accounts and base infrastructure accounts to maintain current readiness. What would be your best estimate of the minimum amount of dollars needed to work both of those issues?
Lt. General PACE. Training. The Marine Corps is finding it increasingly difficult to strike a delicate balance between maintaining current readiness and investing in modernization of ground and aviation equipment and the infrastructure at our bases and stations. However, one thing is certain, we will always focus on current readiness. We place a high priority on the training benefit of both Joint and Service specific major exercises. From FY93 to FY97, the number of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) exercises involving Marines increased from 23 to 69, many supporting the combatant commanders-in-chief's regional engagement plans.
Participation in major exercises is funded as part of the overall Operation and Maintenance (O&M) budget. Marine Force Commanders are given a lump sum of O&M dollars, from which they budget to support their respective exercise programs. These commanders enjoy maximum budgeting flexibility to support their Service and CINC exercises, allowing them to shift funds internally to cover unexpected costs as necessary. The Marine Corps historically funds the CJCS Exercise Program at 100 percent. Unfortunately, with current budgetary restrictions, increasing maintenance costs, transportation costs, and increasing age of equipment, Marine commanders have less O&M discretionary funding than ever before. Commanders often find themselves choosing what elements to leave at home during an exercise because they cannot afford the transportation and maintenance costs. Therefore, the growth in joint/combined exercises without adequate fiscal support tends to degrade combat readiness.
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The Marine Corps is currently conducting a major review of training ammunition requirements to ensure that the right level of funding is provided. This in-depth review has received substantial input from Marines in the field to ensure that continued readiness is a primary driver. A significant focus of this review is to determine how simulation can provide more effective training while reducing ammunition requirements. Obviously, simulation will not meet all of our training requirements, but the Marine Corps is committed to effective utilization of simulators.
We are currently experiencing occasional spot shortages that can interfere with training. These shortages are often related to ongoing production and delivery problems, maldistribution of assets, and expenditures above anticipated levels. Once these deficiencies are identified, finding a solution is a high priority. The procurement of more ammunition is not always necessary. Spot shortages can be corrected by reallocating unexpended ammunition, substituting older types of rounds, and providing special allowances for certain units.
The bottom line in supporting training exercises is that our aging equipment is draining our limited budgets. We continue to spend more money and more man-hours maintaining this equipment. Fiscal restraint has always been a way of life for the Marine Corps. We will maintain current readiness; however, we cannot continue to defer modernization to resource near term readiness. Without an increase to our topline, today's modernization concerns will become tomorrow's readiness dilemmas.
Equipment Modernization
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As the Nation's force in readiness chartered by the 82d Congress ''to be the most ready when the Nation is least ready,'' we always have and will fund our top priority, near-term readiness. Doing so, however, has come at a high price. For more than seven years, topline constraints have forced us to make tough decisions in striking a balance between near-term readiness, force modernization, and quality of life. Financing near-term readiness has come at the expense of future modernization—the future readiness of the Corps—as well as from funding for the infrastructure at our bases and stations, and from many of our quality of life programs. We are quite literally paying for today's health by mortgaging tomorrow's wellness. We are facing virtual block obsolescence of critical ground and aviation equipment which is becoming more expensive to maintain in terms of parts and man-hours.
We are currently executing a ground equipment and ammunition procurement budget that is approximately $500 million below our historical average of $1.2 billion. While the FY99 budget request sees some small improvement in ground procurement funding, it nonetheless remains significantly below our historical average of $1.2 billion, and every additional year below that figure further exacerbates the problem. It will take a long time to recover from the cumulative effects of low funding levels provided during the budget deficit years. While annual procurement reaches the $1.2 billion historical average by the end of the current Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), it neither restores the procurement dollars converted to readiness funding over the past five years, nor backfills ten years of low procurement funding. It will take another $500–$650 million per year, or a total of $1.8 billion each year through the FYDP, in order to recover. Without a change, we cannot recover from the cumulative effects of the low procurement levels experienced over the past several years.
The situation is much the same for aviation modernization. Our CH–46E Sea Knight was first introduced to the fleet in the mid-1960s and has an average age of over 30 years. Our CH–53D, which is also approaching 30 years of age, has exceeded its original projected life by 7 to 10 years, and our fleet of KC–130Fs is approaching 40 years of age, almost twice the original projected life. The replacement for our CH–53Ds and CH–46Es was accelerated by the QDR, allowing us to procure 11 more MV–22 aircraft within the FYDP than originally planned. The Marine Corps is currently scheduled to procure 30 MV–22s per year starting in FY04, but our goal is a minimum of 36 MV–22s per year. The most economical rate of production is 48–60 aircraft per year, and will be reached when USAF procurements occur beyond the FYDP. The FY99 budget allows for the necessary research and development to upgrade our UH–1Ns and AH–1Ws; however, actual procurement of this critical upgrade program does not begin until FY02. Due to topline constraints, we have not been able to replace our KC–130Fs.
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Ground and aviation modernization requirements must be fully funded in order to ensure the future readiness of the Corps. An additional $500–$650 million per year across the FYDP is required for procurement of ground equipment; and an additional $750 million per year across the FYDP is required for aviation equipment if we are to sustain a ready, capable Corps in the next century. If we do not, today's modernization concerns will destroy tomorrow's readiness.
Maintenance of Aging Equipment
The increased cost to maintain our aging equipment, both ground and aviation, is a growing burden to the Marine Corps in terms of people, time, and money. Our equipment readiness rates remain high only because of the high level of emphasis and support given to units in predeployment work-ups and to the deployed units themselves. Our Marines will continue to work harder to maintain old equipment and ensure it is ready. Continued reliance upon this aged equipment, much of which has exceeded its projected life, is now more than a challenge—it is quickly becoming a serious readiness issue.
Repair parts and maintenance costs for ground equipment are increasing dramatically. Depot Level Reparables are increasing and the number of consumables is decreasing. This relationship is indicative of the age of the equipment and the need to replace whole assemblies vice minor components of the assemblies. Our 3rd and 4th echelon maintenance activities are also being called upon to perform more replacements. The cost of an average operational unit's Equipment Repair Order increased by 104 percent over a four year period—from $92 in FY95 to $188 to date in FY98.
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We are also incurring increased costs in aviation equipment maintenance. The average cost per flight hour (CPH) has risen over the last three years from $2,341 in FY96, to $2,610 in FY97, and to $3,481 per hour to date in FY98. This represents more than a 48 percent increase in CPH over a three year period. Additionally, as aircraft age, we see decreases in mean time between failures and increases in charges for older components due to fewer sources of supply. The Naval Aviation Inventory Control Point also levies surcharges to cover its overhead. These surcharges, which are spread across the various programs, have increased from 27 percent to 57 percent over the last year. One of the results of these aviation cost increases is a bow wave where required spare parts purchases are held back until the beginning of the next fiscal year.
Proper levels of funding for ground and aviation modernization requirements must be provided in order to ensure the future readiness of the Corps. We can no longer afford to maintain our aging fleet of equipment. Marines performing maintenance duties routinely work 12 to 16 hours per day, 6–7 days per week, on overlapping and rotating shifts, in order to sustain the minimum acceptable ground equipment and aviation equipment readiness we are currently attaining. Aviation maintenance Marines work around the clock to provide safe and mission capable aircraft. Our motor pools, artillery gun parks and amphibious vehicle ramps are busy places. They all find Marines working long hours to maintain the high readiness on equipment that is older than most of the mechanics working on it.
The more time and money we spend repairing equipment, the less time and money we have available for training, which in turn ultimately decreases readiness. With new, modern equipment, our maintenance tempo would be reduced, thus allowing Marines greater opportunity to train and to have some well-deserved time off between deployments, exercises and operations.
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Maintenance of Real Property (MRP)
MRP is currently funded to achieve 75 percent of the Marine Corps defined requirement by 2003 to meet the Defense Planning Guidance. Our main effort continues to focus on maintenance and repair of operational force requirements, Bachelor Enlisted Quarters (BEQ), and training facilities. At current funding levels, we will eliminate all inadequate BEQ spaces by FY05. In spite of efforts to contain it, our backlog of maintenance and repair continues to grow by approximately $60 million each year and will exceed $1 billion by FY03, far exceeding our goal of reducing the backlog to $100 million by FY10. Attainment of this goal would require a total of approximately $500 million per year; or an additional $125 million per year above current funding levels.
Military Construction
Our austere Military Construction Program remains seriously underfunded. We are able to focus only on our most immediate needs to ensure readiness (operational and training facilities), to meet safety and environmental standards, and to maintain our commitment to eliminate inadequate BEQ spaces. The replacement cycle for our facilities is nearing 200 years as compared with the industry standard of every 50 years. Our goal is to replace physical plant every 100 years by investing one percent of plant value in new construction. This goal requires approximately $200 million per year; as currently structured, our budget for military construction is approximately $125 million per year. An additional $75 million per year across the FYDP would be required to attain this goal. Achievement of the industry-standard replacement cycle would require an additional $275 million per year.
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Family Housing
We have a family housing deficit of 12,000 units which is not corrected in the FYDP. At projected funding levels, using traditional military construction methods, we will make little, if any progress toward elimination of this deficit. Essential rehabilitation of our existing family housing units is underfunded in the FYDP by $940 million.
Mr. ORTIZ. I would like for General Bramlett to respond for the record on the prime vendor system. Now we understand that a senior officer made some unfavorable remarks about the proposed prime vendor concept, and I also hear the Army is seriously considering adopting the prime vendor concept for other major combat weapons; and for the sake of time, if you can respond to that question; either you can do it now or you can write me.
General BRAMLETT. Apache Prime Vendor Support (PVS) is an important program. It has tremendous potential for reducing Apache support costs and improving readiness. The savings in support costs can be invested in modernization, an area where the Army needs additional resources. We are monitoring its implementation with particular attention to its effect on the current supply and financial systems. We are working very hard with the Program Manager and the Department of the Army Staff to make the transition to PVS a smooth, seamless changeover. We want to make sure we have the entire infrastructure for tasks, processes, schedules and management in place for the pilot program and that we do not adversely impact the readiness of a unit as a whole for the support of a single system. All the pieces must be in there to give this new support concept a thorough and comprehensive evaluation.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BARTLETT
Mr. BARTLETT. When was the last time your services did an assessment of how much your fighting capability would remain after an EMP laydown?
General HAWLEY. The Air Force has not conducted an assessment of the type that you describe. During the Cold War EMP survivability assessments were made on a system by system basis depending upon the mission of the system and the anticipated threat. After procurement of a nuclear survivable system, its survivability features, especially those providing EMP survivability were regularly maintained and tested. Thus force-wide assessments were not necessary.
Lt. General PACE. The USMC has not conducted an overall assessment of how much of our warfighting capability would remain after an EMP laydown. However, our mission critical systems are hardened to withstand a certain level of EMP, and undergo EMP testing to determine their survivability in the event of a High Altitude EMP event. In addition, although some of our military traffic is over commercial satellite, we are always cautious in not becoming too dependent on commercial systems, which may not survive an EMP laydown due to a lack of hardening and exposure. Lastly, alternate means of communications are always pre-planned and coordinated via other systems and parts of the frequency spectrum that is less impacted by EMP.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SNYDER
Mr. SNYDER. And, I think that would be my only question for any comment you might have. How do we—if we choose to—add money to your budget so that you can have higher levels of readiness to be where you want to be? How do we do that without taking the pressure off to save dollars and find better ways of doing things?
Lt. General PACE. ''The Marine Corps has long enjoyed the reputation of doing more with less. We take pride in being conscientious stewards of taxpayers' dollars. But we have identified and exploited all available efficiencies and cost savings initiatives. We have implemented improved business practices by reducing inventories, saved on spares and parts by buying used items and even manufacturing our own, and extended the life of our current equipment through cost effective service life extension programs. Even with the much needed increases in our budget, these costs saving initiatives will be retained. We have always looked for ways to get more bang for our buck, and if anything, easing our budget concerns will give our young, innovative Marines more time and opportunity to implement ideas on better ways—more cost efficient ways—to accomplish our mission.''
As the Commandant has testified, for more than seven years, topline constraints have forced us to make tough decisions in striking a balance between near-term readiness, force modernization, and quality of life. The Marine Corps always has, and will fund near-term readiness as the top priority. However, doing so has come at the expense of future modernization—the future readiness of the Corps—as well as from funding for the infrastructure at our bases and stations, and from many quality of life programs. As the Commandant has stated, we are quite literally mortgaging today's health at the expense of tomorrow's wellness. We are now facing virtual block obsolescence of critical aging ground and aviation equipment which is becoming more and more expensive to maintain in terms of parts and manhours. In spite of efforts to contain it, our backlog of maintenance and repair continues to grow by approximately $60 million each year and will exceed $1 billion by FY03, far exceeding our goal to reduce backlog to $100 million by FY10. In terms of military construction, our replacement cycle for our facilities is nearing 200 years as compared with the industry standard of every 50 years, and our replacement goal of every 100 years. Additionally, we have a family housing deficit of 10,000 units which is not corrected in the FYDP. These are quickly becoming near-term readiness issues. We simply must accelerate the pace of investment in these critical areas if we are to remain the nation's force in readiness into the next century.
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The Marine Corps remains committed to aggressively pursuing sources of savings/cost avoidance, such as A–76, better business practices, Defense Reform Initiatives, Precision Logistics, etc. We buy used items such as recapped tires instead of new ones, and remanufactured major aviation end items such as the AV–8B and the AH1W/UH1N. We are pursuing the most cost effective options to replacing our aging fleet of ground equipment including the five ton truck, the HMMWV, and the howitzer. The budget currently being formulated reflects more than $110 million in savings by the end of the FYDP from many sources, primarily outsourcing and privatization. This wedge has been distributed and our commanders have been challenged to satisfy their portion of the savings. I believe we have a cogent, common-sense approach to obtain a 21st century Marine Corps that will be effective, efficient, and affordable, but we cannot execute that plan without additional funds.
V. Adm. BROWNE. With the help of Congress the Navy has been able to increase the 1999 Operations and Maintenance accounts nearly $900M over their 1997 levels. However, more needs to be done. Increasingly deployed readiness is being maintained at the expense of our non-deployed forces. To arrest the decline in readiness approximately $400M a year across the Future Years Defense Plan is needed. Doing so would allow us to:
Increase Flying Hour and Steaming Day accounts and enable us to purchase additional repair parts for our aircraft, ships, submarines;
Increase maintenance accounts to buy back deferred ship depot maintenance as well as buy down our aircraft engine depot backlog and fund service life extensions more quickly; and
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Increase training accounts, which combined with increases to operating and maintenance accounts, will help reverse the degradation in readiness of our non-deployed forces.
Additionally, we need to fund infrastructure accounts in support of readiness. There is the need for additional investment in infrastructure accounts to arrest growth in our critical backlog, conduct real property maintenance and fund needed new construction, while we strive to eliminate inefficient and unnecessary infrastructure. It is estimated that it would require an additional $1.1B a year across the Future Years Defense Plan to restore inadequate funding and maintain our infrastructure at an acceptable level.
The pressures of an underfunded Defense budget are not required to provide the incentives to save money. These additional funds, if made available, would not eliminate efforts for efficiencies in all levels of operations. Outsourcing, privatization, regionalization, and other resource saving efforts are an integral part of Defense wide reform initiatives and the adoption of Better Business practices. These efforts will continue as we reshape the Navy into the 21st Century force.
General HAWLEY. In ACC, there were 43 validated Fast Payback Capital Investment Program (FASCAP) initiatives that saved over $5M in FY98. Lifecycle savings of these initiatives are projected to save over $55M. Under the IDEA program which provides monetary awards for suggestions, ACC had 3,413 suggestions approved for savings totaling over $37M in FY98. In addition to monetary savings, ACC has aggressively pursued process improvement through our Action Workout Teams. These teams helped ACC airmen cut from 19% to 77% from their process cycle times while eliminating waste and increasing productivity. The following tables list these initiatives:
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The official Committee record contains additional material here.