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THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY REPORTS ON AND CORRECTIVE ACTIONS RELATED TO RECENT CASES OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT AND RELATED MATTERS
House of Representatives,
Committee on National Security,
Military Personnel Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 1, 1997.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:40 a.m. in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steve Buyer (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE BUYER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM INDIANA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. BUYER. The Military Personnel Subcommittee hearing on Army investigations into sexual misconduct will now come to order.
In today's subcommittee we will hear testimony of the Army's investigation into the issues of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the U.S. Army and its plans for implementing corrective actions. Last November, allegations of widespread sexual misconduct involving drill sergeants and cadre members of the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School in Aberdeen, MD, an advanced individual training center, were brought to America's attention.
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In addition to the cases reported at Aberdeen, a number of cases alleged sexual misconduct and sexual harassment involving drill sergeants and cadre members at other Army training centers, such as Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Jackson in South Carolina, also surfaced.
In response to these serious allegations, the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, tasked the House National Security Committee Chairman, Floyd Spence, as chair of the committee with principal jurisdiction over the Department of Defense to lead a congressional effort to ensure sexual misconduct was fully investigated and that all appropriate actions to prevent future abuse were taken.
Chairman Spence asked me as chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, and Tillie Fowler as the senior-most woman on the committee, for the Republicans to lead this effort. Ranking member, Ron Dellums, asked Jane Harman, the senior female on the Democratic side, to assist in this endeavor.
In that capacity, we have undertaken a bipartisan, systematic, and thorough effort to understand the causes and contributing factors that led to the events at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Fort Jackson, and at Fort Leonard Wood.
Our approach to this effort has been unique from any congressional investigative efforts. It has been a direct and personal involvement of Members of Congress. Often, the Congress will send staff out to do these types of inquiries. We felt this one was so important that the Members themselves took this one on. We have not only received many different briefings in cooperation from the U.S. Army, but this effort went far beyond just the Army; it went to an introspection of all the services.
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Business conducted by myself, to include other members of this subcommittee, not only were we at Aberdeen last fall, but we have been throughout the Pacific theater, in Hawaii and Korea and Japan. I have been on the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, I have been at Fort Leonard Wood, at Great Lakes Training Center with the Navy, at Parris Island with the Marine Corps, at Fort Jackson, again with the Army, at Lackland Air Force Base, at Fort Sam Houston.
I also took travels to view the assimilation plans of women at the military colleges at the Citadel and VMI.
In June, the committee released an interim report that highlights emerging issues of concern and summarizes actions to be taken in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1998 that addresses many of the concerns. Many of the issues that this committee found in the interim report, we were pleased to see they also were in the report findings of General Siegfried and General Foote, which we are going to discuss here today.
When I take a step back and look at this one, early after having visited Aberdeen, what we did is set forth a process; and in the process and procedure to take this one on, I had no intention at all in trying to re-create some form of Tailhook, where there were political—people did things to meet a political end. At the same time, many careers hung in the balance. The legitimate concern many of us had here is how we clean up the system and what is the purpose of the Nation's military. To fight and win the Nation's wars. So how do we move with inner sincerity in a cooperation to move to that endeavor.
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So in close cooperation with each of the chiefs of service, whom I met with, what I set forth was a process. I said, you know, we don't need to bring all the chiefs of the services—bring you before the committee and beat you up. You already know there is a problem. You look inward, do an introspection of each of your services.
We in the Congress will also go out and take a view and an examination, and then we will get back together at some point in time; we will compare notes. We are going to compare what you did, we are going to compare what we did and we are going to move to cure. That is what this is about. I am not going to permit any forms of interest groups, and there are interest groups out there that love to take different situations to legitimize their own political causes, whether it is those who say, well, because of what happened, that means you have got to get women out of the military—wrong; or those that want to take a rape incident at Aberdeen and turn it into a feminist agenda, that is just as wrong.
It is the purpose of the military to fight and win the Nation's wars, and that is, in fact, the focus. I commend all of my colleagues on the subcommittee and personally thank Representatives Tillie Fowler of Florida and Jane Harman of California for their dedication and commitment to this important process; and also the ranking member, Gene Taylor, who accompanied me on some of these visits. I believe the committee's oversight actions have been instrumental in ensuring that the Army conducted a comprehensive investigation into the serious allegations of widespread sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and the concerns regarding fraternization.
The Army was quick to respond to the situation at Aberdeen and elsewhere. Secretary of the Army, Togo West, established the Senior Review Panel on Sexual Harassment to conduct a comprehensive review of the Army's policies and procedures relating to sexual harassment. The Secretary also directed the inspector general to undertake a review and assessment of equal opportunity and sexual harassment policies and procedures at basic and advanced individual training organizations and units throughout the Army.
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Two reports containing the results of these reviews were released last month. The Army's two reports verify much of what this committee's own bipartisan investigation into sexual misconduct in the military services actually revealed, that the issue of sexual misconduct in the military is a very complex issue with numerous contributing factors. As such, there are no quick fixes and no silver-bullet solutions; rather, a series of corrective actions are needed to fully address the complexities of the issue, and improving the Army's working environment will require its leadership to make a serious commitment to long-term corrective actions.
The committee's investigation and the Army's investigations highlight one fundamental issue, and that is, leadership is critical in creating and maintaining an environment in which all members are treated with human respect and dignity.
Early on, after Aberdeen, there were some that immediately rushed and thought they had the solution to cure—without even taking the time to examine military systems, they rushed to cure by saying, well, what we need is an ombudsman, we need something to go around the chain of command. You know, we backed off and said, caution here, caution, we need to examine this; and what we have learned through all of these visits is, it is not the ombudsman. You should never do anything that weakens the chain of command in the U.S. military, but to, in fact, strengthen it.
The problem is, when you have a case of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment, that actually comes through the chain of command which occurred at Aberdeen; and what happened at Aberdeen was so horrific to the American people and to those in the Army that I was pleased to see the Army move quickly, openly, and aggressively. It was a tremendous breakdown of the leadership at the small unit level, but in particular, that also went up the chain.
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So let me compliment the Army on taking its actions of accountability, which is extremely important because a commander is responsible not only for his unit and what he knows, but also what he is supposed to know. So perhaps the message for the commanders out there is that you just can't sit behind your desk and do all the administrative paperwork and do all the things—you have to be out in the field, you have to be flipping over the beds, you have to be doing your job as a soldier and a soldier as a leader.
The Army report also confirmed many other findings of the committee's investigation, that the drill sergeants' selection and training process needs to be improved; the Army's training and doctrine command was downsized too fast and too far, leaving it pitifully underresourced to accomplish its assigned mission; and that the Army's equal opportunity system is ineffective and needs substantial reform.
In conjunction with the release of the two reports containing the findings of the Army's investigations, the Department of Army released an action plan for implementing several corrective actions. I commend the Army for the seriousness with which it addressed this very important matter. We look forward to learning more about its commitment to enacting long-term corrective actions for combating sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and fraternization.
Improving the Army's command climate should be our No. 1 mission. We must ensure that the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces are treated with the utmost respect and dignity and that their work environment is free from criminal misconduct and abuse of practices.
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I now yield to the ranking member, Mr. Gene Taylor, for comments that he may have.
STATEMENT OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by complimenting you on avoiding the pitfall of letting the media dictate what this committee will do. I think there were a lot of people in the media who felt like this should have been the only issue before this subcommittee this year and I think they are wrong.
The 13,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are still on food stamps, that has got to be addressed and we took some steps to help that this year. This continual bad blood, unfortunately, between the National Guard, the Army Reserve, and the Army, trying to take some steps to address that.
We are all troubled by the personnel end strength numbers, the Army, the Navy asking us to come down substantially in the number of people they have in uniform, at the same time that they are being deployed at record tempo for peacetime operations. It just doesn't seem to make much sense.
So I do want to compliment you on not letting this be the only issue. It is an important issue, but there are a lot of important issues dealing with the personnel in our great Armed Forces that all have to be addressed; and I compliment you for not letting this be the only one.
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There are two things that I hope would come out of this hearing; and I think—this hearing, in a way, kind of reminds me of what is going on with campaign finance, and that is, in some instances, there are allegations that the law was already broken. There are allegations that the law was gray in some areas and people might have stepped over those gray lines; and of course, there is always the call that the law needs to be improved.
I would hope, much like that, that our witnesses today will tell us what things were clearly a violation of Army regulations, where were the gray areas that you feel need a clear and concise definition, so that we don't have these problems in the future and what suggestions, if the law changes, we have on top of that.
Last, I would ask you, while we have such a distinguished panel before us, to help us address the continual concerns, not only among members of this committee, but in the media as well, that Army training has gone soft. We certainly don't need that; we don't need it in the name of gender norming, we don't need it for any reason; and I hope, since we have such a distinguished panel, you will take this opportunity to tell us what needs to be done along those lines.
Ms. Harman, as you mentioned, has taken the lead on the Democratic side on this issue. Because she does such a phenomenal job, I will yield the remainder of my time to her for her opening statement.
Mr. BUYER. No objection.
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Ms. HARMAN. I thank my friend from Mississippi for yielding, and I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this important hearing. I also want to commend our colleague, Tillie Fowler—our committee colleague, Tillie Fowler, for her extraordinary leadership and superb and professional staff for assisting us as we have cochaired this steady and, I believe, unflinching look at what the problem is and what some of the solutions are.
Let me say at the outset that this issue is not about political correctness but about combat readiness. Unless we include women as full partners, we are not fielding the best team to fight and win our Nation's next war. As such, I take seriously the charge we have been given to help the Army identify the culture that generated the misconduct and to help it implement the corrective actions necessary.
Chairman Buyer has just outlined our actions to date, but nothing we have done compares to the investigations undertaken by our witnesses today. I know you will describe them. I am very proud of you for the work you have done and that Secretary West and Army Chief of Staff Reimer have done on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, the goal of this subcommittee and our witnesses is to ensure we have the best fighting force the Army can field. That force must necessarily include women as well as men. We cannot field a sufficiently sized force without recruiting women, and we cannot have the best Army without recruiting from the widest, brightest, and most talented pool available.
In addition, our Nation's future wars will be more technological and information-based than past wars, and as such, women and men will be asked to perform key combat missions that are far from the battlefield. Instead of relying solely or primarily on ground forces, future wars will increasingly involve platforms operating in the air or at sea, electronic information interception and smart weapons. Women and men will operate those platforms from consoles far back from or above the front lines.
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Given the composition of today's Army and the increasingly gender-integrated force of tomorrow, we must act to ensure that the young men and women who join it are safe from abuse and harassment and afforded full opportunity to use their talents. It is critical that we understand, to quote the aptly titled Army action plan, ''the human dimensions of combat readiness'' and be as supportive as possible as the military implements policies designed to address the serious problems the IG and senior review panel have identified.
The panel concluded that there was endemic sexual harassment, ''crossing gender, rank and racial lines,'' yet the Army boasts, and I think we will hear from this panel, it is more prepared than ever. Obviously, these data and conclusions seem at odds, and I think a mixed message will make it difficult to improve the human relations environment if the impact of our failing to do so is not more readily identified and more readily apparent.
So I urge our witnesses today to explain how these really horrific problems are consistent with the best Army that we have ever had, and if they are not, how it is that we can segue from these troubled times to the best Army we have ever had.
There is also a second issue of when the Army should have known about the problem. At a press conference a few months ago, Chief of Staff Reimer reminded us that a Defense Management Data Center survey indicated a sexual harassment problem early in 1996, 9 months before Aberdeen. I invite the panel members to address this issue, too.
As good as the Army is, it can and must be better. The problems identified have serious consequences, and I don't think anyone here believes otherwise.
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We are going to hear described a very impressive written plan, but let me say that a written plan will not be sufficient. Before Aberdeen, as we all know, the Army had a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment and misconduct. It appears, however, to have left the zero out and just had a tolerance policy. Clearly, the Army and Congress must make sure that the implementation plan works, and I am delighted to have been told by General Siegfried that he will come out of retirement again in a year or so and help us review how the implementation plan has worked.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me say that the most important work for this subcommittee and our witnesses is still ahead of us. Working together, we can assure that all soldiers, women and men, are treated with respect and dignity, that they are afforded the opportunity to participate to the fullest measure of their talents, and that they contribute to the best combat ready force our Nation can field.
Thank you, and I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for yielding.
Mr. BUYER. I would now like to yield to my colleague, Tillie Fowler of Florida.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and the members of this panel for welcoming me here today, and thank our witnesses for being here as we testify about this very important issue.
I know, Mr. Chairman, you have already outlined our investigation and the procedures we have taken to date, and so I won't go back over that, but just to reiterate that you have been an able leader with Congresswoman Harman and myself, as we have spent many months on this. And at about the same time we started our investigation, the Army leadership, I think to its credit, began to recognize the scope of the problem and began to take action to address it.
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The Secretary established this senior review panel on sexual harassment that has been so ably led by Maj. Gen. Richard Siegfried and by Brig. Gen. Evelyn Foote, and directed that the Army inspector general look at sexual harassment policies and procedures at basic and advanced individual training activities throughout the Army.
Now, I have been very favorably impressed with the Army's efforts to date and with the conclusions that the sexual review panel and the Army IG have drawn in particular, and it has been interesting to know that these conclusions dovetail very closely with the findings of the National Security Committee's review to date, so we have been working on the same track. But three things in particular have stood out in my mind as I reviewed the Army's findings and recommendations, and our own review team's activities.
The first is that leadership is essential to solving the Army's problems. It is, first and foremost, up to our Army's leadership to set the example for our troops. I think by taking such an unflinching, self-critical look that you have done—you have really demonstrated such leadership, and hopefully the rest of the leadership will now follow suit.
The second thing I have come to conclude is, there are really no easy answers to the problems that have been outlined by the sexual review panel and by the IG. These are long-term, systemic problems that the Army is grappling with, and is going to continue to grapple with and a considerable number of measures, both separate and interlinked, will be necessary to vanquish the problems that have been identified. In this regard, I think that the Army's action plan represents a thoughtful and thorough starting point for dealing with these very tough issues.
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And finally, both the demonstration of leadership and the proposed solutions and action plan that the Army has put forward ultimately demand accountability, and that is what is difficult. To repeat what Congresswoman Harman said, it is hard to imagine how misconduct on the scale that has been reported and observed could have taken place without anyone in leadership structure being aware of the problems. You know, what were the early warning signs? How did the system break down? What is the chain of command's responsibility for preventing such misconduct? And how are our commanders being held accountable for establishing a healthy command climate?
I just want to reiterate that Army leaders throughout the ranks need to know that this Congress and this committee, in particular, are going to be closely following the progress that the Army is making in dealing with these very serious matters; and in my judgment, accountability is going to be the critical ingredient for the success of the Army's efforts.
Again, I want to thank our witnesses for being with us here today; and thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to join the panel today and allowing me to give an opening statement.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you, Mrs. Fowler. I would also like to compliment General Reimer and Secretary West for being here during the first panel. Before I move to this panel, I want to make a comment off of Mr. Taylor's comments about training going soft.
We have visited many of the different training centers, not just with the Army, but also with the other services, and there is left with us a very strong perception—and you can tell me whether it is a reality, and we will get to the Secretary and the Chief, about a loss of rigor and warrior spirit, rigor and warrior spirit that is concerning. And I just wanted to let you know, that is a perception; and if it is not the reality, I want you to set the record straight, General Reimer.
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And let me be frank to let you know where I am coming from as chairman of the subcommittee. The mission of the U.S. Army, I believe, is to fight and win the Nation's wars, which means you kill and break things. There are people who want to use you as some form of social experimentation, and all types of other grounds; and that you can lead the way for society in this endeavor and that endeavor—but I understand what your mission is.
To do that effectively, soldiers, all soldiers of every race, creed, color, gender, need to have trust, confidence and respect, not only in each other, but in particular, the leadership and fellow soldiers. Without the bond, no military organization can be effective in combat. What happened at Aberdeen was a catastrophic breakdown of that trust and confidence in the form of criminal behavior by individuals in positions of authority over Army trainees.
We are going to review what the Army is doing to restore the trust and confidence in its leadership. And what concerned me most—let me share this with you—at Aberdeen, you had criminal behavior, you had sexual harassment and you had fraternization.
Now, we went out quickly, Secretary West initiated a senior review panel on sexual harassment. What did you do on fraternization, punt? I don't know, so you are going to have to tell us about that one. But I know that when you have the criminal behavior and then you move in a particular direction, when I read what you have done—and we are going to get into this in the questioning.
It is the prism that concerned me the most, you begin to look through the issue of the prism based on gender. Now, wait a minute, that confused me. I want the Army's focus to be on the value system of a soldier which transcends race and gender; that is what I want.
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Mr. BUYER. So now let me yield to the first panel and, General Siegfried, you have the floor.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RICHARD S. SIEGFRIED, CHAIR, SENIOR REVIEW PANEL ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT
General SIEGFRIED. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to come here and testify today in this most important matter. Let me say up front that, as a soldier, I am immensely proud of our organization for having the strength of character to critically examine itself, to go further than just Aberdeen and the training base, but to look across the width and breadth of the entire Army, wherever it is serving.
Our effort was unprecedented in size and scope and methodology. We literally talked to over 7.5 percent of the entire active force and have traveled the world and listened to the soldiers' stories.
There is another aspect that I need to mention right up front. Because the Secretary and the Chief had the faith and trust and confidence in the members of the senior panel, we were allowed to be a changed agent. Let me tell you what I mean by that. At every installation, we gave an extensive out-brief to all of the chains of command that were there, and left those problems at those local installations, and just took the data away.
So there are literally hundreds of Army action plans at installations that we visited, just based on our process that was meant to be proactive. What that means to us is that the report documents the Army in March and April, not today, because of being proactive and taking actions.
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We found problems in our Army, but we did not find an Army that is broke. It is operating efficiently, it is very proud, it is ready to go anywhere that this Nation asks it to go and accomplish any mission assigned.
Like any large organization, we found problems. We not only had the strength of character to go look at the honor and integrity to report out candidly, unrestrained, and exactly what soldiers told us. We also found problems with rigor in initial entry training, principally in the advanced individual training area. We found problems in leadership with the lack of emphasis on the human relations environment as it relates directly to the warfight, mission accomplishment, unit cohesion effectiveness.
We found problems in the equal opportunity system that, on paper, is a model for anyone, but our execution has not been as good as it should have been. We haven't applied enough resources to it, we haven't really looked at that system to ensure that it is serving the soldiers as it should do, and the units and leaders as it should do.
We also found problems in sexual harassment. Our panel did not look at sexual misconduct. If we found it, and we didn't, we would turn it over to law enforcement agencies. We weren't looking for criminal activity, so we make a clear distinction, please, between sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. The type of activity we found most prevalent was comments, jokes, sexist remarks, inappropriate language, and those kinds of things, rather than more egregious behavior.
We also have now an action plan that addresses every one of the problems that we have documented in our plan, and we are very proud of that and we look forward to your questions.
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General Foote.
[The prepared statement of General Siegfried and General Foote can be found in the appendix on page 61.]
STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. EVELYN P. FOOTE, VICE CHAIR, SENIOR REVIEW PANEL ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT
General FOOTE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am, as is General Siegfried, truly honored to be here today. To have been recalled from active duty for so momentous a task I think must be the dream of any retired general who waits for that bugle to ring some day. So, it has been, for me, a labor of love to come back to reidentify with soldiers serving in a very difficult world throughout the world—generally in 100 different countries on any given day, many thousands in numbers.
So, it has been, for me, a time to come back to the Army, to come up to speed on what the world is that we have out there for our soldiers, what the problem is that we have to solve, or the range of problems to solve.
I think one of the great points of pride in coming back is that with the seven panel members, we were buttressed by a magnificent group, a working group of noncommissioned officers, civilians, scientists, who, as we did, felt that in some respects what we were doing was a calling in the name of the average soldier. Whenever we went to any installation and met with soldiers in groups, the soldiers might start out initially resenting our presence because we are interrupting their training and we are interrupting their day, and they thought we were there to talk of nothing but sexual harassment. But when they discovered that we were there to discuss with them the entire range of human relations issues, then they became very involved, very engaged in the conversation, and frequently, on our departure, they said thanks for coming. That is a great reward.
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But the noncommissioned officers, who were experienced drill sergeants—they were experienced first sergeants, they were men and women who were trained in the equal opportunity area—caught the fever that we all caught, that here is a magnificent opportunity to document the soldier's story and to come back and tell the leadership what the soldiers told us.
It has been a pleasure. It has been one of the highlights of my military career.
I think everything that we have documented as a problem is solvable. I don't think any problem is beyond the ken of our existing leadership, and I think it simply requires all of us a better focus on the human dimension and, indeed, institutionalizing in the institution the very solid precept that everything begins with the human dimension.
I read a quote recently that said, we hire a skill, but the whole person shows up at work, and we have to keep that uppermost in our minds as we bring in young men and women to train together, to work together, and to go about the very awesome job of defending this Nation.
Thank you.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you.
Next is Lieutenant General Bates. He is the inspector general of the Army, who will discuss the findings, the special investigation of initial entry training, equal opportunity and sexual harassment policies and procedures.
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STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JARED L. BATES, INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
General BATES. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, for the opportunity to talk about the most important subject in the Army and that is people, soldiers and leaders.
I would like to say two things up front. First, as you know, because I know you have read the report, our findings agree with the panel's findings. We went to the same places and different places, and we came to the same conclusion, so we never got to a point where we were at odds with what we thought or what we saw.
The second is, again to reinforce what General Siegfried said, that is, when you read the report and identify the problems and see the problems identified there, those are the problems, February to April, in almost—in fact, in every case, the fixes are beginning. Many cases involve people, and the people have been put in position—changes in the way we train, changes in the way we select—so that process is ongoing, and we would be happy to talk about that.
Just to frame our discussion, the IG was directed to look at five things: Look at the equal opportunity process system, how it works; the complaint system, do the soldiers trust it; look at how we pick drill sergeants and other cadre, how we train drill sergeants and other cadre; if that is not done, how it should be, what should we do differently; look at the structure of initial entry training, it is a structure that dates back many, many years.
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There have been enormous changes in the Army in recent years. Is the structure manning and design still adequate? Does it need to be changed? If so, what recommendations might we have? Look at other factors that may contribute to sexual harassment that make trainees susceptible beyond the obvious one of the authority of the cadre vis-a-vis the trainee. And finally, the one that each of you have talked about, accountability and responsibility of the chain of command.
We did that. Let me highlight quickly what we found.
First of all, in the equal opportunity process, as General Siegfried said, we have a process that, while on paper is a model, probably needs, in General Siegfried's words, redesign, in some cases, because we are not following what we have on paper, in other cases because our system has changed and we need to review that system in accordance with the 1990's.
We found soldiers who were absolutely confident in their chain of command to do the right thing with regard to their complaints, but who had not been adequately schooled early in their time as a soldier as to what other avenues might be available to the IG, the chaplain, the equal opportunity system that they could go to if they did not want to, for some reason, go to the chain of command, their drill sergeant or company commander, which is really their view of the chain of command at that point in their time.
You have already mentioned the drill sergeant selection process. We identified some weaknesses in the way we pick drill sergeants, not that we don't have a magnificent group of drill sergeants, but were we looking at the right things to head off those soldiers who were, for various reasons, not appropriately qualified, or had something in their record that would clearly disqualify them? And we need to do a better job of that, and we have already started that, looking deeper into the background files.
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We acknowledge the fact that we need to get commanders involved more at the lieutenant colonel level with telling the Army, yes, Sergeant Bates will be a good drill sergeant or, no, Sergeant Bates is a good machine gunner, but he probably ought not be a drill sergeant; and we have started the process.
We have acknowledged the fact that the Army needs a psychological screening process. There are people who are, by nature, better equipped to deal with the stresses of training individual soldiers at that early age than others, and we have—in fact, the Army has begun the process of picking the right instrument to use in psychological screening.
We looked at the structure and manning and design issue in terms of, what have we got our drill sergeants doing? As we downsize the Army, as the Army makes, almost on a daily basis, the tough choices to work with its resources, both money and people, there are unintended consequences of good decisions. For example, if TRADOC is required to get smaller and the decision is made, we must protect the drill sergeant staff, I think no one would argue with that. But when you do that and you therefore remove a bus driver or an admin clerk and force either a company commander to do more admin or a drill sergeant to drive a bus, you have impacted on the ability of those two key people, commanders and drill sergeants, to be present with soldiers on a full-time basis. And so we highlighted those kinds of problems and recommended to the Army and to TRADOC that they need to look at the design of their system and think their way through it, sort of in a clean-sheet fashion, and decide if it still is right for the times and the resources and the numbers of trainees involved.
We looked at the training of drill sergeants and the training cadre and think we can do a better job in that regard. We want to make sure drill sergeant training is updated, current and that it clearly provides them the training they need to deal with soldier issues, both genders, of all types of soldiers that they will encounter.
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And the training base, we don't think we were doing that well enough. The process has begun to adjust to those kinds of issues; I would be happy to talk about that.
In the area of other factors—and some members of the committee have talked to me about this—we looked specifically, or highlighted specifically, some key areas. The first is numbers of trainees in what we call holdover status. When a trainee is waiting to go into training or waiting to go to the next amount of training or go to his unit, he or she can be vulnerable to all kinds of things—boredom and things beyond boredom—and so we need to do a better job, focus more on these people in holdover status to keep them to an absolute minimum number. It is not fair to the soldiers, it is not fair to the units, to have large numbers of soldiers waiting in the training base, so holdover status is clearly one of the other factors that needs to be addressed and is being addressed by the Army as we speak.
We looked at the issue of details, again with regard to resource reductions. The natural outcome of resource reductions is the use of trainees for details, grasscutting and other things that must go on at an installation. Obviously, when you have trainees involved in details, they are probably not being supervised by drill sergeants and therefore you have an opportunity there for bad things to happen if you don't pay attention to it; and we pointed that out to the Army and said, you need to pay attention to that as well.
We told the Army that you need to look at specific policies that you have with regard to alcohol and tobacco, make sure they make sense, and if they make sense, to enforce them, because if you have policies and don't enforce them, you create the opportunity for indiscipline in other ways. And finally, in the area of chain of command responsibility and accountability, let me just say we looked at it from the department level to the individual drill sergeant; we looked in four broad categories—resourcing, policy, execution, and supervision—and so, from the Secretary on down, we considered what everybody was doing in those four broad categories and was it appropriate with regard to their responsibility and accountability for the issues that transpired.
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The generic findings in that regard are in the report; specific findings dealing with specific individuals were provided to the appropriate authority, either CG of TRADOC or the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army in the case of general officers. That look was thorough, it was unflinching, it was led by two of my most experienced colonels with significant experience in investigations to include investigations of allegations against senior officials; and I am confident that what we provided the Army was an adequate answer to the question you, Mr. Chairman, posed with regard to accountability and responsibility.
I think I would like to make three sort of points before we take your questions. The first is the issue of leadership, and each of you in some way has raised this issue of leadership and what were the leaders doing, what are the leaders doing, are they paying attention? I think there are two things to point out. Clearly, we found in some cases that leaders believed they had systems in place that would bring those warning signals to them and those systems failed them, and so they were—they believed they had a bell that would ring; the bell didn't ring, and it should have rung, and so they were relying on something that didn't work for them.
We also have many, many leaders—probably all the leaders in the Army, perhaps, except the IG—who have got so many separate tasks that they are being asked to do at the same time that they have a multiple focus; and this clearly was a problem in some cases in the training base, where commanders and leaders, down to, at least, battalion level, lieutenant colonel level, were split in their focus—for example, a battalion commander who is responsible both for the individual training of soldiers and platform instruction; and obviously that split requires he or she to split their focus on a daily basis. So, those things are some of the things that are at issue with leaders.
We found no leaders who were, through acts of commission, failing to do what they should do as leaders and who did not believe that their most important job was taking care of individual soldiers. When we found things, just as with General Siegfried, on individual installations that needed immediate fixes, we took that to the appropriate person in the chain of command, whether it was the CG at TRADOC or the installation commander as appropriate.
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The second point I would make is the issue of resources and the unintended consequences or the second- and third-order effect of resource decisions. And just again using the example, if in the right decision of protecting drill sergeants, you impact support staff, you impact on drill sergeants' time; and the challenge there for the Army and for TRADOC is to lay the process out and make sure they have the appropriate balance to do the right thing and take care of soldiers.
The final thing would again be about drill sergeants. There are 2,000 of them out there in the Army. Every year they train between 70- and 90,000 soldiers, and if you wanted to figure it by percentage, 99-plus percent of those soldiers are trained without abuses of authority or failures in leadership. And if you stand in graduations, which I know you have, and watch families and soldiers and how they feel at the end, you know those drill sergeants are doing a magnificent job.
We stand by to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Bates can be found in the appendix on page 66.]
Mr. BUYER. Thank you.
General Bates, you were dancing all around my thoughts as you were testifying on the subject of leadership. And what struck me as I have gone through the analysis over the last 10, 11 months now, and especially when I first went to Aberdeen and everyone was so shocked, I think the Army's leadership also appeared to be sincerely shocked at the level and scope of allegations that came out of Aberdeen.
What I am about to ask you though is, in your investigation, give me an idea of why there was such a breakdown in the chain of command at the small unit level that permitted such an abuse of authority to exist. How did that happen to our Army? Or let me just—or was that an error for me to say ''to our Army''? Was what happened there and at Jackson and Leonard Wood, were they isolated incidents, or do you begin to paint the Army with a broad brush?
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Tell us what you found.
General BATES. I think there is a danger of painting the Army with a broad brush and saying we have a massive breakdown in leadership that is measured, indicated by Aberdeen. On the other hand, when you use, as the questions have been asked in the past, is this an aberration, I think the best answer to that is the one the Chiefs used. That is, I wouldn't call this an aberration so much as a wake-up call. We have to pay more attention to the issue.
But to get to your specific question about Aberdeen, clearly, in one instance, you had both a company commander and a drill sergeant in that company who abused their authority. When you have that happen, when you have the company commander abusing his authority, as well as a drill sergeant, you have lost the check and balance you would normally expect to operate.
But there are other factors involved here with regard to the things we talked about before about leadership and what that leadership is doing on a day-to-day basis. At the time we began our inspection, the training company, specifically at Aberdeen, had a company commander and a first sergeant and a number of drill sergeants, a number of drill sergeants that were not equal to what they should have had and, beyond that, perhaps the amount—not the amount of drill sergeants they needed to do the job. There was no executive officer in the company. There was no training NCO in the company; therefore, the company commander is, to a degree, trapped by his in-box, as opposed to being where we would like to see him or her, which is with the soldiers on a full-time basis.
The restoration of the executive officers, which has occurred, the addressing of providing an administrative or training NCO to support that requirement for administration allows the first sergeant and the company commander to be where they should be and, again, when they are with soldiers, they provide that kind of check on what the drill sergeants are doing. If you have a drill sergeant who is out of the box, you have a company commander who is there to watch it and to see it and to take action.
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The other issue we identified was a training issue for company commanders. Company commanders are obviously our most inexperienced commanders; by definition, it is the first time they are doing that job. We need to do a better job of training the company commanders in dealing in the initial entry training system. They are coming from the Table of Organization & Equipment [TO&E] Army; they are coming from some organization that has a high concentration of leaders, both commissioned and NCO leaders. They are going into an organization which has a low concentration of leaders. Seven to twelve drill sergeants and a company commander and first sergeant is not what you—and 250 trainees is not what you would see in a line company, in an infantry battalion or a Signal battalion or somewhere else. So, there is a training issue involved here, and there is a support issue involved here to provide the administrative support to allow the company commander-first sergeant team to function as it should.
Then you step up one level above that and you have the issue of battalion commanders, and do they have a single focus or do they have a split focus? In some cases, they had a split focus. They were looking at platform instruction, as well as training soldiers.
Each one of these things begins to eat away at the ability of each level of the chain of command to provide that oversight, provide that separate set of eyes to watch what is going on and say, wait a minute, this doesn't look exactly right.
We found some fault, if I might, with where our senior NCO's were spending their time in some cases. Command sergeants major—as each of you know, they are our most experienced NCO leader trainers, and if they are out with soldiers, watching first sergeants and watching drill sergeants, then you get another reinforcement of this issue of leadership in chain of command.
We, quite frankly, found some cases where command sergeants major were again trapped by their in-box. It is inappropriate. A good commander who looks at his sergeant major and sees him spending too much time in the office will figure out a way to get him or her out of the office and back watching the soldiers.
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So, there was a—each one of the things, incrementally, I believe, created the environment that allowed the Aberdeen—Aberdeen to happen, but they are reminders for the entire training base, in fact, the entire Army.
Mr. BUYER. I will paraphrase my thoughts based off your testimony.
When, in fact, you have members in the chain of command who are the bad actors, and given a force structure whereby the trainee ratio—the drill sergeant, the trainee ratio is incorrect, instead of—what should it be, 1 to 50, what is it at advanced individual training?
General BATES. AIT, it is, by regulation, supposed to be 1 to 50. The question is, what is the right number?
Mr. BUYER. What did you find it to be?
General BATES. It varied, depending on the company, to up to 1 to 300. For example, at Fort Gordon and also at Fort Huachuca we train AIT students 24 hours a day; it has to do with the equipment they need to be on to train and other factors.
Now, if you are training 24 hours a day, it is obviously impossible for a company commander to be with his soldiers all the time; he has to sleep, she has to sleep, same thing with drill sergeants.
Mr. BUYER. With the ratios that far out of balance, when the individual becomes a bad actor, it takes a little longer for the systems to catch up with his bad acts.
General BATES. I think it goes back to the other issue we talked about before, and that is, given the vast majority of the drill sergeant to do a great job, are we doing everything we can to make sure the bad actor does not get into the system? And the answer is, no; we were not and we have changed that to identify those people before they get into the system. All those things have to function.
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Mr. BUYER. You also found at Aberdeen the lack of chaplains assigned at the training brigade, so there were victims who really did not have access to systems to report criminal behavior.
General BATES. Right, unit ministry teams not in adequate numbers. Again, the Army has moved to fix that. It gives another avenue for trainees.
Mr. BUYER. And you have given not only in your recommendations, but also verbal discussions with the Chief and the Secretary about improving these ratios in TRADOC?
General BATES. We have. I have had extensive discussions with both the Chief, the Secretary, Gen. Bill Hartzog, other members of TRADOC.
Mr. BUYER. All right. I have one other question and I will yield to my colleagues.
To General Siegfried and General Foote, one of the things that we, in the committee—as we went around, we discovered that in this arena now of the focus on sexual harassment in the workplace, that something is out of balance here, something is out of kilter; and men have fears and women have fears. Men have fears of false accusations, women have fears that their allegations will not be taken seriously and they fear reprisal. That was our finding.
I want to find out whether you concur with that. And then share with me your thoughts on—we had noticed that—why don't you tell us how far you saw the pendulum swinging here? At some installations, we noticed the pendulum is out of kilter, that based on the allegation, the hammer comes down so hard that, in fact, there were individuals, who were women, who were utilizing the system in making the allegations to get back at an individual so they could get out of the service, and that began to tear down a system and became a very open subject matter of discussion.
But I would like your comments and what you found on the system out there, where we can find the proper balance to weed out this behavior.
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General SIEGFRIED. If I can start, is there some fear out there that we are driving a wedge here? Surely, there is. You have got some soldiers out there who are afraid that if you are accused of sexual harassment, you are guilty, until proven innocent. It is not the first time that has happened in our service.
I recall back to when we really got serious about race relations, there were folks who would say if an African-American looks at you and says racist, you are guilty, and you are out of here. That never was true, it never was, but the feeling and the fear was out there.
You can work through that and we saw successes in this. Where we saw commanders say, hey, we are going to sit down in small groups and talk about how we are going to interact with each other, how are we going to figure out how we are going to treat each other as human beings, as professionals, and they worked through that, so we are not talking about something that is endemic. Is there some fear out there? Absolutely, there is, and we know how to fix that. We have documented it and it is normally worded in our report of not only women being afraid, but men also, and where we sit down and work through the problems with them it gets solved and that is good, strong leadership paying attention to the human relations environment.
General FOOTE. Sir, we found that both men and women, when it came to reporting, or complaining, both feared reprisal, not just the women. And we also found that if the male had a complaint in the sexual harassment area or some type of behavioral misconduct area, that they were reluctant to speak up also, because of their sensing that if I bring this up in my company, then I am immediately going to be targeted as someone who is not a team player, who is out to get a good guy or a good gal and who is not really a member of our unit to do something of this type.
So the revictimization concept is alive and well in the minds of many of our soldiers. I didn't find women who were complaining to me seriously that they were not going to bring up a complaint if they had one in sexual harassment, but I talked to many women who felt a growing sense of isolation, because they felt that the men were afraid to talk to them for fear there would be allegations of sexual harassment. It is a massive communication problem.
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You certainly cannot get to this in an auditorium with a lecture and a video presentation. You have to do it by getting commanders, leaders, and the soldiers, men and women, sitting down together, in small group discussions, to go through the interpersonal relationship arena and come to grips with how they can treat each other respectfully and with dignity. Get the job done and get it well done, and in no way have to have a sense of fear about being a man in a unit dealing with women as a leader or a woman dealing with men, vice versa.
I think, again, all of these problems are solvable. It will take time. It will take a different approach to training men and women to work together in the military environment, but it is entirely doable because as soon as we put them in small groups and they start interacting, and bring out the things that are on their mind, the women answer the concerns of the men and the men answer the concerns of the women and the air is cleared. We need a lot of that.
Mr. BUYER. General Foote, I appreciate your response to that question. There is so much fear and paranoia in the air, at Fort Leonard Wood, what an open and active debate at that installation on the issues of integrated versus segregated training and that when a drill sergeant pulls me aside in private to say, Congressman, I have 14 years in the Army, a wife and two children and I will not permit an allegation to be filed against me that will ruin my career. I am just going to get the push through, just get them through. That is not healthy.
General FOOTE. No, it isn't, and one of the things identified by General Bates and his people, as well as our senior review panel, is this fact that we have not given the drill sergeants all of the skills in the human relations arena that they need. We have not spent a great deal of time teaching that man or woman, who is going to be a drill sergeant, in how to deal with diversity and how to be a leader in an integrated environment and that is very critical.
I think if we provide the additional training and experience and then back up the drill sergeant as a leader, and let him or her do the job that they are required to do, and treat the men and women the same when it comes to what is required in training, I think we can clear the air of a lot of that and I think we can take away any intimation that I, a woman, am I going to accuse you if you demand that I meet the standards.
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The women I have served with, over 30 years, going into my fourth decade, want only one thing. They want to be respected as warriors, as soldiers. They want to be able to perform their job and they don't want to be treated differently because they are women. Much of the treatment of women that is different that will lead the man to say there is a dual standard here, comes not from regulation, does not come from policy. It comes from the individual decision made by some leader, somewhere, to do this, such as I am not going to hire this woman to be my driver. I might be accused of something, such as I am not going to use her as a mechanic. I am going to use her as a receptionist, and making the men do what you would call the tough physical work and taking the women out of that arena. These are the types of decisions made by leaders we have got to attack also.
A soldier is a soldier to be evaluated for his or her competence and what contribution she or he makes to that unit, and let's get off the division of opinion about how to deal with that man or woman, just because they are a man or woman.
Mr. BUYER. I think you have now answered the opening question as whether the pendulum is out of kilter. I think you have answered that it is. Let me now yield to Mr. Taylor for his questions.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to follow up on a couple of things. First, General Bates, I heard you on two separate occasions saying first, unit commanders are trapped by their in-boxes and you went on to say a lot of things they should have been delegating they are not able to delegate for lack of people.
What really troubles me about everything today, because I think we are looking at one part of the problem and trying to ignore the larger things that could well be contributing to it. Yesterday, the Commerce-State-Justice appropriation passed, increased spending by 5 percent, discretionary spending has increased by $180 billion in the past 3 years, even more than when the Democrats ran the place, and yet the military budget is frozen or grows in minuscule portions at best, and it is still 10 percent lower than during the last of the Bush years.
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So my question to you is, if we have people trapped by the in-boxes and a Member of Congress can understand this better than anybody because a Member gets about 50,000 letters and phone calls a year, so, if we don't have good people, we could be trapped by our in-boxes. How does this present situation in any way get solved if we lower troop strengths, as requested by the Department of Defense? They seem to be mutually exclusive requests.
The second thing I would like to point to is, General Foote, you made the statement that women want to be treated the same as men and that it is very important they be treated the same as men. Why, then, are there two different standards for physical training, because I think, again, that is counterproductive to what you just asked for.
Now, I think it does, at the very beginning of this whole cycle, start treating people differently and can lead to a situation where everything kind of builds on that and how would you respond to what, I think, ought to be, and what people, a heck of a lot smarter than I will ever dream of being, have said, there ought to be one standard. If you make the team, you make the team, regardless of race, sex, creed, whatever. If you don't make the team, you don't make the team. How would you respond to that?
General FOOTE. The Army physical fitness test is normed for gender and it is normed for age, and the gender aspect is to recognize that there are physiological differences, which should be addressed, between men and women, insofar as upper body strength and capacities. But the test should be one that would extend the capabilities of women by forcing them to exert themselves at the same rate that a man would exert.
We change the standard to be met for people based on age. There hasn't been much of a cry about age being a discriminator that there is about gender. So, I think what we need is what the Army is doing right now and has been doing for over 2 years, which is looking at the Army physical fitness test totally and coming up with a process whereby the redesign of that test is entirely possible, to bring the standard closer for men and women.
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What you are looking at with the Army physical fitness test is a level of fitness for every man and woman, regardless of age or gender, to serve in the Army. I think when we get into particular occupational specialties, it would follow that any man or woman, serving in any branch or corps must be able to do every task a soldier with that particular specialty would do. So, there may be a standard above the basic physical fitness to serve as a type of a standard.
This work is being looked at totally, right now by the Army, and has been under way by the Army Physical Fitness Institute or activity at Fort Benning, GA. I think it is entirely possible that in the future, there will be a different standard, and one that would more closely approximate the same standards. There were some women who said to us, we are tired of being complained about because we don't do the same PT that men do, just give us the same standard.
I think we have to be realistic, though, and realize that perhaps there are different physiological capabilities that have to be addressed. So just to arbitrarily say everybody does this, I think we would not be taking into consideration the factors that we really should. Fitness to serve and fitness to serve in a particular capacity are two different aspects to think about.
Mr. TAYLOR. May I follow up on that, though? I remember, I believe in the late seventies, reading a fascinating article about the problems of the Rainbow Division over in Korea and I forget the name of the unit commander, but one of them walked in, they had terrible drug problems, terrible race problems, terrible venereal disease problems, just problems.
The unit commander went in and said, ''Starting 6 weeks from today, every person in this unit, I think, is going to run 5 miles every morning, from the clerks to the generals.'' Suddenly, all the problems went away, because guys wouldn't stay out all night if they knew they had to run 5 miles the next morning. You did have double standards where the clerks could stay out all night, but the combat soldiers had to be in by 8 or 9 p.m. Wouldn't it make sense again to have one set of standards?
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If you make the team—again, you pointed out the differentiation that takes place when these folks get treated one way and these folks get treated another, and I really wish someone at the Army would at least give that a try.
My second problem is, General Bates, I hope you would comment on what I asked you, is the fact that budgets are being frozen, and this committee, and the DOD is under continual pressure to reduce troop strengths in order to live within the budgetary guidelines. Is that not a contributing factor to this, and I want to compliment you on saying, hey, it is your fault, Congress, you are not giving us enough money, but is it not a contributing factor, that you simply do not have enough people to do all the things that ought to get done on a daily basis?
General BATES. Congressman, you really asked two questions. The first one is, is it right to expect that commanders and sergeants will be trapped by their in-boxes and not be able to get out where their soldiers are and I would tell you the answer to that is, no. Even in the resource constrained environment of the entire Army, but in the case we are talking about in the training and doctrine command, commanders can still be where they should be if they are encouraged to be there. And so for starters, I mean, as we went around TRADOC and we found places where we thought this had occurred, as we pointed it out in the installation, things began to change.
Mr. TAYLOR. If I may, didn't you say in the case of this company where there was a problem, there was no executive officer and they were short on senior NCO's? My memory is not that bad, I thought you said that.
General BATES. You are absolutely right.
Mr. TAYLOR. Isn't that contrary to what you just said?
General BATES. The company I was talking about then, of course, the company commander failed. I mean, he abused his authority as well, so, that is a separate set of circumstances. Nonetheless, the Army has the challenge on a daily basis for figuring out where to put scarce resources. It absolutely does, and I think the Chief, and I am sure the Chief will comment on that, as well as the Secretary, in their discussions, make these hard decisions on a daily basis work with people and acknowledge that they need to put more resources into the training and doctrine command.
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Is it a hard decision? You bet it is. Does it take a lot of work to figure out how with a 495- or 485,000-man Army, we can make these decisions? You bet it does, but can they be done and can we fix this issue specifically about company commanders, battalion commanders, and sergeants major being with soldiers? We absolutely can fix that inside the resource constraints in which we currently operate.
Mr. TAYLOR. If I may follow up, do you fix this at the trade and command and only shove the problem to somewhere else in the Army, though, given the resources that you have?
General BATES. If you are going to give resources to training and doctrine command, they obviously have to come from somewhere else in the Army. The decision has to be what kinds of units will they come from or can you do other things, in terms of number of students and other people in that account, that will account for people to fix the problem? Is it a challenge? It absolutely is.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, you are a real gentleman. My question is, in solving the problem with the training commands, with fewer people, are you merely shifting the problem to another portion of the Army?
General BATES. Will you put strain on another part of the Army? You will.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BUYER. I would, with all due respect, Mr. Taylor, I think that question you should also reserve for the Army Chief and the Secretary of the Army. He is not the policymaker here. Let me now yield to Ms. Tillie Fowler for 5 minutes.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to get back to this issue of leadership because I do think that is where it starts; that is what you have been mentioning, General Bates, it was in your report, and we saw this firsthand as we went around these bases.
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The Chairman and I also visited some of the bases overseas and we were at an Air Force base in Yokota, Japan, and it was the only base that we visited throughout all those we went to where there were absolutely zero complaints; no problems. The young men and women who were working there not only didn't have any complaints about each other, but they interacted well. They knew the lines were clear, but they all suggested it was because the colonel who was commanding that base, from the day he set foot on it made it very clear what the policies were, what the procedures were and how you were going to be held accountable if you did not obey those. I mean, it was so clear, and it really struck us, and it was the only one we visited anywhere throughout overseas and this country, so it does start at the top.
And I was concerned, this goes to General Siegfried and General Foote, your report, you recognize this problem, and you recommend that a command climate assessment instrument be devised and that these assessments should be performed annually. I agree with that. I think that is a good idea, but I am a little concerned about the detail of how this is going to work. Are we talking about some sort of mechanism for self-analysis and self-reporting because I am really concerned we might not get an accurate picture of command climate in a particular unit if it is up to that command to ascertain for itself how it is stacking up, so how are we going to be able to ensure that we are going to get accurate measurements through this assessment report that you have recommended? Either one of you that would like to address it.
General SIEGFRIED. Ma'am, I don't believe that we are talking about one individual. We are talking about holding commanders, a chain of command. So, at company battery detachment troop level, there will be an assessment, but there will also be an assessment at the battalion level, looking at the same sort of folks, and there will also be an assessment at the brigade level. And what we would envision, if you took command of one of my battalions, I would say, OK, Colonel Fowler, what we are going to do in the first 90 days is take a peek and see how the soldiers feel about where they are at and what they are doing; how they feel about the environment, and you and I are going to sit down and say this is what we need to do to keep the good stuff going and this is what we need to do to address the stuff that we think is a weakness. And about 6 or 8 months or a year, we are going to take another look at it.
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So it becomes a chain of command effort, not an individual sort of thing, so we have people afraid. Now, we are talking about a tool, a friendly tool that we can use to look at our human relations environment, not something that soldiers have to be afraid of or leaders have to be afraid of is going to come back and harm them, and we have instruments out there that can do that and I think that is very doable. The panel had a lot of discussion about that and we think that will work. It is just pay more attention to what is going on in the human relations environment as it relates to the war fight.
Mrs. FOWLER. Well, I am going to be interested in the committee as to how this gets implemented and put into practice, because that is going to be critical if we don't get back accurate, honest assessments. Then it isn't going to do us much good.
General SIEGFRIED. And if you ask soldiers to answer a question, they are going to tell you the truth. I have to tell you, up until a couple months ago, I come from a civilian sector and all over the civilian sector, you find them using assessments and that sort of stuff, and using them effectively so the technology, the instruments, the protocols are there and we have already moved out. We have already got a couple of these assessment instruments that we are taking a look at and are quite excited about it.
General BATES. Can I make a point in that regard, Congresswoman Fowler, really, two points. The first is one of the things IG's do for commanders all over the Army is in fact do command climate assessments. I train them how to do that in my school and commanders are also. Look, the general officer commanders are told, look, you have an IG and that IG can do command climate assessments and, in fact, have been doing them. I think the criticism would be we haven't been doing enough of them, but just, again, I would say to you that there are lots of units all over the Army that have been doing command climate surveys routinely, and certainly new commanders are all told, look, early on, you need to do a command climate survey.
I think what we are doing now is we are saying, hey, we are really serious. Everybody needs to do this on a recurring basis to see how you are doing across the board, so it is not a new issue. It is just reinforcement.
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Mrs. FOWLER. Obviously, the ones being done maybe weren't working very well so hopefully it is going to be restructured so that we will get better information. One other thing, I would just like to follow up, if I could, very briefly with General Bates, because you mentioned that, you know, you went through detail, the lack of personnel, that these training facilities had.
Was there any report anywhere that either the commanding officers of these bases or the heads of TRADOC were reporting up the chain that they saw these problems, if the head of TRADOC, was not letting Secretary West or General Reimer know that, hey, we have got a problem out here. We have personnel imbalances or if the commanding officers weren't doing this, then again you had a real problem with command leadership not performing their functions.
General BATES. In fact, Congresswoman Fowler, those reports were, in fact, made to the Department, clearly by the CG of TRADOC, on a recurring basis, here is my problem with regard to personnel resourcing.
Mrs. FOWLER. And they were not being addressed then. We will follow up those questions with the next panel.
Mr. BUYER. Wait a minute, I am going to follow it up now. I will follow it up. I don't understand how far the scope of your investigation went. But if the TRADOC commander gives a report to the Chief of the Army, or to whomever he is reporting to, or the Secretary, did you look into whether or not those actions were being taken? I mean, if the scope of accountability goes from the Secretary all the way down to the recruit, were those being acted on?
General BATES. First of all, the reports were coming to the Department that said, you know, we have problems with resourcing in TRADOC. We have problems with personnel resourcing as well as budgetary resourcing. And those reports were considered by the Army leadership as they made decisions with regard to both people, resources and dollar resources. So you really have—you have an issue at every level of commanders looking at their mission, looking at their resources, and applying them in what they believe to be was the appropriate manner.
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Mr. BUYER. I was hoping the TRADOC commander could have been here today. He is out of the country, because I asked this particular question of him at Fort Monroe 10 days ago, and he said that he also is at the table with every other commander, and they are all fighting for precious resources, and the directive that he got is you got to take the cuts, just as anybody else has to take the cuts. I just want you to know that. I know he is not here to speak for himself, but I am speaking candidly about the conversation I had with him and I think whether it is a FORCECOM commander or any of the CINC's, they are probably going to say we are in there fighting for the same piece of the pie. Is that what you——
General BATES. Absolutely.
Mr. BUYER. All right. Let me now yield to Ms. Harman for 5 minutes.
Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me observe that I am very proud of this committee today and I am proud of the witnesses. This is a very serious and complicated subject and it is being addressed by everybody in a serious and sober fashion and I think it is a high point, frankly, for some of the deliberations that have gone on in this committee in recent times. Let me make an observation.
I was very interested in the conversation Mr. Taylor was having about the same standards. I encountered our colleague, Robert Dornan, last week, not on the House floor, and his greeting was, ''G.I. Jane, how are you?'' And I want everyone to know that I have been working on my one-arm push-up ever since. But more seriously, I think it is worth considering whether we might evolve one standard of training for future jobs.
As I tried to say in my opening remarks, future jobs are not the same as past jobs. Fitness is required of everyone, and if fitness is defined in terms of the jobs people will perform in the future, and we have the same standards, we may be able to get to the point you are describing, General Foote, a lot faster. That is just an observation.
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Let me put a few questions to the panel. In my opening comments, I mentioned two things that I would like your answer to. First, I asked whether we are sending mixed signals by documenting very serious problems and then saying that readiness is at its highest point, and what I worry about, by sending mixed signals, is that we may be fostering resistance to the changes that you are proposing, that is question one.
Second, I asked, you know, why Aberdeen had to be a wake-up call. Why couldn't people have figured this out earlier? And I do recall some years back this committee held hearings on sexual misconduct in the military and we had witnesses from each service testifying, so, certainly, information has been out there for some time and in other services, there have been more serious problems documented and dealt with in past years. So I just wonder about the Army.
Two other questions. One, in August I was in Korea, and I met with U.S. troops, U.S. female troops in South Korea and interestingly, they were quite satisfied with the treatment they received from males, male U.S. soldiers in their units, but were complaining vociferously about the treatment they received by ROK soldiers, Republic of Korea soldiers, and said it was so bad they questioned the United States commitment to defending our interests there. And I would like to know whether you investigated the problems with multinational forces and if you did not, I hope you will, at some point, look at this, because it does also have to do with combat readiness of U.S. soldiers.
And finally, one other point. General Foote, you used the word revictimization. It is an important word, and one of the things that we have heard happens to women who complain, or has happened, and I don't know how extensive the allegations are, women who complain about sexual abuse then themselves get charged with being homosexuals, or some of them do, and I would just like to put this problem out there and ask you how extensive it was, in your investigation, and what you think we ought to do about that, where those allegations are totally unfounded.
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General FOOTE. All right; fine. Ms. Harman, I think when it comes to the readiness issue, in the report itself, we address the fact that the soldiers tell us, even in the face of some degree of sexual harassment in their units, they still get the job done, the mission gets done, the mission will always get done, but we also said at the same time, it may get done and the Army goes rolling along, but it doesn't roll along as well as it should when you have dysfunctional behaviors in the workplace that impact a population. So it is a problem. It will ultimately affect cohesion, unless we can really attack it, and then when we have attacked that problem and solved it, we have a higher level of readiness than we would in a unit where the problem exists. The job gets done, the soldier—the problem hasn't been addressed. We have to start tackling the problems.
The revictimized woman, yes, they feel in making an official complaint that there is a sensing among their teammates that they are being disloyal to the team or to the company or to the unit, and this is across the board in the units where we visited. We find that everywhere else, in corporations, if you are a whistleblower and you bring up the problem, then you are likely to be revictimized yourself very quickly.
So I think it is going to be part of a long-term educational process to make men and women who are working in units together realize that people whose behavior is causing problems of this nature are the ones you should be targeting for censure, and not the individual who relates the problem in the first place.
General SIEGFRIED. And that is not just a gender issue, that is not just a problem with women. It is a problem with men also. I got the same problem if I come forward and accuse a woman of sexually harassing me, with the feelings of my teammates, my peers, the comments they may make or if I come forward and say another man is harassing me.
Ms. HARMAN. On that point, General Siegfried, do unfounded charges of homosexual behavior get made against men who complain? I don't know that it is the same problem and I suggest that it is a—you know, it has a very corrosive effect and a chilling effect on women coming forward and I think you don't disagree with my point and I am just wondering what specifically we can do about it beyond a kind of a training over time.
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General SIEGFRIED. Let me see if I can address that. I can tell you, as far as being accused of being a homosexual, it did not come up that often. As a matter of fact, it was very small. In fact, if I recall, it was in three or four of the focus groups that we had. And when you start talking about several hundred different focus groups, you are talking about something that did not come up very often as an issue.
It was also mentioned in some of the wanderings around that we did in messhalls and in classrooms and that sort of stuff. The more important issue, to my mind, is that the system does stigmatize you when you come forward, you are not a team player, you are weak, you should have handled it yourself, why are you after old Steve, he is a good guy. That sort of stuff can be worked through, and we use a system that we call the consequences of choice. What are we doing to our soldiers when we ask them to do something and they comply with us and now the system that is supposed to protect them is out there stigmatizing them and that is something we can fix, but it is across the whole width and breadth of retribution, not just in the one area you were talking about.
Ms. HARMAN. I appreciate the answer; it is thoughtful and I hope it works, because, clearly, we want respect and dignity paid to all soldiers. That is the goal and the reason we want that is because without that, we can't have a combat ready force to win our next wars.
General SIEGFRIED. Let me address the ROK soldier issue. I didn't go to Korea. Pat—General Foote—did, and she can address that. In Bosnia, there were about a dozen different nations, but the commanders had gotten together and worked very closely, so we didn't hear that problem. And by the way, Mrs. Fowler, we found forward deployed units with a very hectic work schedule and operations tempo that was almost insane, and a lack of resources and those things, but the commanders didn't allow that to stop them from being with their soldiers, being felt by their soldiers and putting an environment in place, and we make that point very clearly in our report. But when the chain of command is very, very sensitive to the fact that you have multinations together and you can work with that, and the soldiers understand I have got a place to go if something starts happening to me, then you can be proactive in not letting those sorts of things happen.
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General FOOTE. Ms. Harman, I think the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service Executive Committee this summer visited the Far East and they were able to go into an area that we were precluded from going into because of fog conditions. We couldn't land and conduct our sessions and give our surveys there. But their data, I believe, has been provided concerning this issue of sexual harassment on the part of local nationals toward the women, and I think it is an issue that will be looked at across the board in the Defense Department.
Ms. HARMAN. And the only question that hasn't been answered is were there earlier warning signals that should have been heeded so that perhaps we could have prevented an Aberdeen?
General SIEGFRIED. It was a wake-up call, and we have had instruments out there for some years that have showed us that there has been a problem. Perhaps we didn't pay enough attention to that, but I, personally, Steve Siegfried, I have to tell you that from what I saw, and I saw this entire Army, that was an aberration, OK, to have a company commander and his noncommissioned officers do what those folks at Aberdeen did is not something that we found. We do not find soldiers anywhere who are cowering in fear of being assaulted and treated the way those soldiers were. It is just not there.
So that is why Steve says it is an aberration and I may have started that, because I genuinely and honestly believe that. And it surprised us, not that there was sexual harassment there, you know, we have known there has been sexual harassment for some years, but to the width and breadth there was an abuse of authority, an abuse of the trust and confidence we had in those folks, that was surprising.
General BATES. If I could comment as well. One of the things we say in our assessment is that the Army has to look at the way it collects data in this area to make sure it really knows what it is looking at, because what we found is a series of stovepipes reporting data, the lawyers reporting, UCMJ, court-martial data, article 15's, the equal opportunity system reporting up through its stovepipe, the chaplain reporting up through its stovepipe. In fact, when this issue broke, and commanders in the field began to say, OK, what have I got out here and got all of those agents together and put all that data on the table, they began to see a different picture than they were seeing by looking at each stovepipe.
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What we said in the assessment is, look, you have to collect all this data up so you really know what you have. The other comment I would make is for some time now, at least back to 1992, when I was commanding a division, we have known that instances of discrimination and harassment were not getting reported. I say we have known—we knew that if we did the sessions with various types of groups and we compared that to the data that is being reported up, you had low numbers, low percentages of reports of discrimination.
For example, in the IG system, we collect the data. We know who comes to the IG and says I have been discriminated against. Percentages were low, year after year, in both race and gender discrimination. But when you talked with focus groups, you discovered that what women and in some cases minorities were saying is I am not going to report this, for all the reasons we have talked about here, and so the light goes on as a commander. You say I have to poke after that to know what is going on.
We have been preaching that to ourselves for a number of years, I have, as the IG. My predecessor, General Griffith as the IG, preached that to new commanders. Commanders have to go looking for the data because it doesn't necessarily get to you. Soldiers, as Steve, (Gen. Siegfried), will tell you, will say I know if I tell a battalion commander, something will happen. I know if I tell a sergeant major, something will happen, but it is getting it from the section to the more senior commander, so we have known that. We just need to do a better job of working our way through the issue.
Mr. BUYER. I'm sorry, but we are going to have to move on. The chair yields to Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland for 5 minutes.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. As we visited the training facilities, I think that the one thing that was consistent from one facility to the other was that of all the different sectors there, the drill instructors had the lowest morale. This, I think, ultimately, will be reflected in readiness, and I am concerned that this is now resulting in the study, senior review panel report, notes some of the consequences of their concerns.
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A number of male soldiers expressed a fear of being falsely accused of sexual harassment. Many men have determined the only way to avoid such an allegation is to avoid interaction or contact with women. It doesn't look much like integrated training is going to be enormously successful if that is the concern of the recruits. Similar statements were made in other parts of your study. What can we do to improve the morale of the drill instructors?
General BATES. Congressman, let me start. You are absolutely right. Drill sergeants, as a group, have felt for some months now that they were under attack. In fact, we are already doing a lot about that and I am sure that when the Chief and the Secretary speak to you, they will tell you about their personal interaction with drill sergeants and all of the installations in our training base, talking about these issues.
I can assure you that the senior commanders of those installations recognize this issue of drill sergeants and their view, they, as a group are under attack and are talking with, dealing with, providing their support to doing normal commander kinds of things with those sergeants to address this issue. The fact, however, remains that a good drill sergeant who is doing the right thing is not going to be attacked. A good drill sergeant doing the right thing is still producing magnificent soldiers and he is not in danger or under threat.
I accept the—I think, Mr. Chairman, it was your comment about the sergeant who pulls you aside and says I have 14 years. I am not going to jeopardize and I understand his feeling and the family's feeling, but the fact is good commanders out there are telling their sergeants, you do the right thing. You use your authority as you are supposed to, as you have been trained to and as you know you should and you will not, in fact, be under attack, and I guess it is important to say it again, as it has been said before. None of the drill sergeants subject to the UCMJ ever used as a defense, gee, I didn't know this was wrong. None of them. They knew what their authority was and they deliberately abused it.
So we know we have to deal with our drill sergeants. They are a great group of people, as I said before, and the commanders, the senior NCO's are focused on them, and I am not concerned it will eventually affect readiness. In fact, I think we are going to get better in terms of the product that is delivered out of the training base.
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Mr. BARTLETT. Let me ask a question about the criteria you use for determining the frequency of sexual harassment. I understand that references made by males to the fact that there were different requirements for women, that these were interpreted as sexual harassment. I think there are many people that would not see that recognition of reality of being sexual harassment and I have been told that some 60 percent of all of the so-called sexual harassment complaints were, in fact, just an observation by the males that there were different standards required for them and females.
General SIEGFRIED. I am not sure I understand your question. I think the statistics speak for themselves and we asked soldiers about specific behaviors, has this happened to you in the last 12 years, and the answer was, yes or no, so, you know, there wasn't much room for misinterpreting what we were asking, and our statistics showed us that when we asked questions about things that could be considered inappropriate behavior, from 80 percent of the men, 84 percent of the women said, yes.
Mr. BARTLETT. Why do we have physical standards?
General SIEGFRIED. Why do we have physical standards?
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, sir.
Mr. SIEGFRIED. To ensure that we have the physical capability to carry out our jobs, sir.
Mr. BARTLETT. Do we have the same physical standards for a 120-pound male and a 220-pound male?
General SIEGFRIED. Yes, sir.
Mr. BARTLETT. The physical standards, then, are not meant to assure that each recruit has reached their highest potential. They are really a measure of what we believe is required to produce an effective soldier.
General SIEGFRIED. Sir, two things. First of all, the PT test itself is not the ultimate measure of the physical requirements of being a soldier. OK, that is a snap down of an individual's capability at that time and gives us the capability to extrapolate out and say, OK, I think this soldier has the physical requirements to go on a 12-mile march and this sort of stuff.
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Every job in the U.S. Army has tasks that you must be able to do, tasks you must be able to accomplish competently and those tasks are exactly the same for every soldier in that MOS. Before you graduate and are awarded an MOS, there is an end-of-cycle test that you have to take that is exactly the same for every soldier.
Mr. BARTLETT. In closing, let me just identify myself with the remarks made by my colleague from Mississippi. If the physical standards are there, as a definition of what comprises a soldier who is likely to be successful, then how can we justify separate standards? We don't have separate standards for a 120-pound male and a 220-pound male and clearly one of them is going to be more stressed depending on what test they are doing, going to be more challenged than the other, but presumably standards are there because history has indicated that we are going to be successful in the battlefield if we have soldiers that meet the criteria and I would just like to identify myself with his concerns. Thank you very much. My time is up.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you. I would now like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Ryun.
Mr. RYUN. I have nothing.
Mr. BUYER. All right. Mr. Watts of Oklahoma, 5 minutes.
Mr. WATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Siegfried, what was the statistic that you gave to Congressman Bartlett, you mentioned an 84 percent figure.
General SIEGFRIED. We asked a series of questions that come from a scientific protocol called the sexual experience questionnaire. There are about 24 questions in that that range all the way from have you been physically assaulted or has someone made you have sex against your will, rape, all the way up to have you in the last year heard an offensive story or a story that is inappropriate, has anybody made inappropriate comments to you, that sort of thing. So it goes from absolute criminal sexual misconduct, all the way down to behavior that is just inappropriate, a bad joke.
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I would tell you that if you asked me the question, I would have to raise my hand, and I would have to say, yes, in the last 12 months, I have heard some comments that are inappropriate, heard a joke, so it begs somebody to ask that. I was quite surprised to find out that we had, you know, a lot of those folks would answer never. Well, you know, I don't know where they have been, but they have been places that Steve has been.
Still, when you have 80 percent of the men and 84 percent of the women saying they have experienced some of those behaviors, we have to take a look at that and I will tell you what we looked at, sir. If you take a look at how many folks answered the question, have you been sexually harassed, that was 7 percent of the men and 22 percent of the women. Now, when 7 percent of the men say they have been sexually harassed, but 80 percent of them say I have watched this, that is an awful big delta. So we ask ourselves as an organization, OK, have we developed a tolerance for a human relations environment that may in some instances be inappropriate and we looked hard at that. I don't know if I have answered your question.
Mr. WATTS. Yes, you did. Well, I got in late and I didn't hear a lot of the dialog, a lot of the questions that had been asked and I will take the reports here and read them. But I will say, it was interesting, my daughter was in basic training and she went to another branch of the service, and I talked to her after about 3 weeks in basic training. I said, well, how are you doing, and she said for a lot of people getting in my face screaming all day, I am not doing too bad, but I have talked to her about some of these things and kind of questioned her and we have had a dialog about this, and I will say, again, because I hadn't heard a lot of the questions and statements that have been made here today, that I hope that the message is sent loud and clear by the leadership of the Army and every other branch of the service, that, you know, soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines, that you are to understand that you are to keep your hands and your sexual thoughts and your ethnic jokes, your racial discrimination, sex discrimination, you are to keep your hands to yourself and your sexual thoughts to yourself, and I know that you all are in a very difficult position when you are dealing with egos and personalities and people from all walks of life. The leadership in the military, you have a very, very difficult position, but I hope that you all will—I know the leadership of the Army and I trust that we will take every—do everything within our power to make sure this type of conduct is not tolerated and not accepted. So with that, I will say thank you very much for coming and General Reimer and Mr. Secretary, I see you all there. I am going to have to leave. We have a vote and I am not going to be able to come back, but I do want to say thank you for coming and it is good to see you. Thank you again for being here this morning.
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Mr. BUYER. We have a vote on, and I think I can get in one question before we hit the 10-minute mark and we will break for a vote and immediately come back. I have a followup question, and if anybody else has a followup, then we will immediately move to the Chief and the Secretary.
The question is almost off of Ms. Harman's questions about early warning signs. And I guess now, let me jump in and be the constructive critic, because I think there were some early warning signs that were there, especially about the EEO system. So when I—you know, I see the Assistant Secretary, Sara Lister, sitting there who has responsibilities over manpower and personnel, and so let me publicly express disappointment that we did not see the early warning signs.
When I think about the EEO system, I think of also the leadership of Ron Dellums on this committee with regard to the race relations problems at Fort Bragg, when you had the skinheads and the attacks upon minorities at Fort Bragg, there were early warning signs that there was an EEO system there that was not working at all. And our look, the committee's look at the EEO system showed the system was not being effective. So General Bates, my question to you is tell me what you found that was wrong with this EEO system and then we will turn to the Chief and the Secretary on what they are doing to cure it. Tell us why that system broke.
General BATES. The EEO system is a tool, I mean, I would hasten to say the equal opportunity system and its forerunner, the RREO system were tools for commanders to solve problems. It is, in fact, a tool. We found that in many cases, equal opportunity advisors assigned to brigades and above, who did not have access to commanders. We found that equal opportunity representatives at unit level, company level, probably did not get the visibility with commanders that they needed.
Did we have the right people there as equal opportunity representatives down at unit level? We found that the complaint system, although it was there, was not being executed in accordance with the regulation. For example, the regulation requires feedback to the person who makes a complaint. If they make a formal complaint, there is a time required, a 2-week time, after which they are supposed to get feedback from the system. OK, here is our response to your complaint. That was not happening.
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We found in some cases, equal opportunity advisors were doing investigations when they shouldn't have been doing investigations. So in essence, I would say to you that commanders had failed to put sufficient emphasis on understanding how the system was supposed to work, insuring they had the right people in the system, and insuring that those right people, when they were there, had access to the commander to work the issues in the equal opportunity system.
Mr. BUYER. Let's be very stark here. What I began to see is that you will have a commander that says, OK, I have to fill this billet. Well, it is an EEO. Well, I tell you what, we are going to find a minority for the unit. We are going to put them in that position, and then pretty soon, you don't have a white Anglo-Saxon man or woman in that particular position, but they are always going to choose the minority, and then that begins to have a detrimental impact upon the EEO system. Do you find that?
General BATES. It is fair to say, and General Siegfried has stated that, and we found that that is exactly what had happened; that minority females began to make up the majority of the equal opportunity advisors across the Army. Not everywhere. In fact, when I was a division commander, mine was a 40-year-old master gunner tanker.
Mr. BUYER. OK. We have a vote on. Hold the thought and we want you to address that when we come back.
The committee now stands in recess for a standing vote.
[Recess.]
Mr. BUYER. We are going to call the committee back to order. I know the ranking member is not here. They are returning from those votes. I am going to do this to speed up this process to permit this panel its final testimony, and then we will move to the second panel.
I am aware that the Committee of the Whole House of the U.S. Congress may rise at 12:15 and then have a successive—possible successive 14 votes, so we are under a task, and the task is to wrap up and move to the second panel. And brevity will be the order of the day.
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Let me return to Generals Siegfried and Foote for responding comments you may have on the EEO system right before we left.
General SIEGFRIED. Mr. Chairman, we found that the system was viewed by soldiers and civilians as one specifically put in place for minorities and women for a lot of reasons; No. 1, the way we had it staffed. And in addition to that, we found some other problems with it.
By the way, sir, it is not the people that are in the system that went bad. Those people who are equal opportunity advisors and equal opportunity representatives are just working hard out there and doing great things.
The tool was what was being misused and being misused by commanders, and to some degree by the institution itself by the way we staffed it. You take a look at the equal opportunity advisors across the Army, we were right at about 50 percent.
As we are going through this downsizing and making the tough choices where do we cut; we were cutting equal opportunity advisors and equal opportunity representatives the way we were cutting lots of things. OK.
We found that we did not pay enough attention to how that system served the soldiers when they tried to use it, when they tried to complain. We should have known a little bit more about the retribution that the soldiers were afraid of. We hadn't really looked at the consequences of choice for using that system and worked it hard enough to make sure that it was serving the soldier.
And by the way, sir, it is not the people inside the system, but the system itself, the peers that would try to ostracize you and those kinds of things.
So there is not an answer to your question what went wrong with it. There was just a bunch of little things that went wrong. And when we started looking at it, we said, hey, that is too many Band-Aids. If we put all those Band-Aids on there, we are not sure whether it would break something else. So let's tell the Army, Army, you need to take a look at it from top to bottom with a view towards reengineering it so that it serves the soldiers and commanders the way it is supposed to.
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Mr. BUYER. All right. So to make sure I am hearing you correctly, the present system that only would take—I don't want to say only, but would place many minorities in the EEO position began to lead to a breakdown because it was like, well, the only individuals who would have a concern about this would be a minority, and, therefore, anyone else really didn't seem to care about it.
But when you take—hopefully we are going to move to a system, we will ask the Chief and Secretary to move to a system whereby you will have a better balance there, and you bring other individuals into that system so that everyone has an equal concern about the working environment so that individuals are treated with dignity and respect.
General SIEGFRIED. Sir, we have already started that process.
Mr. BUYER. Congratulations.
Do you have any further comments that you may make before we move to the second panel?
General FOOTE. Yes, sir. I think another aspect of it, we found out that, with the limited resourcing, because only about half of the positions that were authorized for being filled were filled, we found the difficulty of the equal opportunity advisors in getting to the leadership. Sometimes there was layering between that advisor and his or her commander. So the commander access was a problem.
And the other thing, two other aspects, commander involvement in the conduct of the program itself was missing in some instances. In other words, there was no command presence at the training. And the training itself was, by the definition of the troops themselves, ineffective. It was boring. It was a lecturing and a video and the same old thing. So what we need are new training packets, and that certainly is well under way, I know some have already been developed, and new techniques of getting men and women to sit together and discuss human relations problems, the whole spectrum.
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Mr. BUYER. All right. Listen, let me, on behalf of Members of the U.S. Congress, thank you for coming back on active duty, taking on a very difficult task. Your contribution has been an asset to the Army and to the country; and for that, we are indeed grateful.
General FOOTE. Thank you, sir.
General SIEGFRIED. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BUYER. And, General Bates, we also appreciate your service to the country.
General BATES. Thank you.
Mr. BUYER. This concludes the first panel.
The second panel if we may have come forward is the Secretary of the U.S. Army, Togo West, and the Chief of the U.S. Army, General Reimer.
We thank you very much for being here this morning, Secretary West and General Reimer. This has been a difficult, yet rewarding, experience for the Army, because we are moving forward on an issue of extreme importance, because, as one of our colleagues had mentioned, this really is a readiness issue.
When readiness is defined at the small unit level and how they interact among each other at that small unit cohesion, if, in fact, they are not treating each other with equal human dignity and respect, you have a breakdown in trust and confidence among themselves and each other. And if I don't like my buddy to my right, how do I expect him to cover me if I have to go left?
Mr. BUYER. So, now, let me yield to the Secretary of the Army.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOGO D. WEST, JR., SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
Secretary WEST. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and talk about this important topic. Thank you especially for the kind words you said to the members of the panel who just proceeded you.
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We really did have an enormous impact on the lives and careers of Steve Siegfried and Pat Foote when we asked them to return as Major General Siegfried and Brigadier General Foote once again to serve their country. And we, too, are grateful to them for what they have done.
General Bates, who has rendered tremendous service throughout the life of his career to take on this, especially this last task, and to do it in such a way to reflect credit on him and on the Army, but also to tell us some very important things about ourselves.
With your permission, I would like to submit my written statement for the record, especially in view of your limited time. I would like to call your attention to just one thing in it.
Mr. BUYER. It will be fine. Your statement will be entered into the record.
Secretary WEST. Thank you, sir. And that is a passage some ways along in which we answer, I think, one of the questions Ms. Harman raised, and that was about how we can say in one breath that we have the finest Army maybe in the history of the United States. In the report, the senior review panels say that maybe in their combined years of several centuries' experience, it may be the finest that they have known of, and certainly the finest ground force in the world today. How can we say that and yet say, as you pointed out, that we have these concerns which are a readiness concern? Don't we send a confusing signal?
On the third page where I point out that if our characterization of the reports, the American Army is the most ready, most reliable, most effective ground force in the world, is true, that is not to be—we are not to be misunderstood as claiming that these two reports are good news.
On the contrary, what they say is that the American people can expect if they give us their best, that we have the best Army. That is the least that could be expected of us. But what they should want from us is that this Army is reaching its highest potential, not just by the standards of the rest of the world, but by our own American standards; that we are the best we can be because we are allowing each soldier the opportunity to be the best he or she can be.
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Now, the conclusive weight of both of these reports is that that is where we are not delivering on the promise. But here, because we still have much to do, according to these reports, to assure an atmosphere in which every soldier is treated with dignity and respect and to provide the leadership and the tools for leadership to assure that, that here is where we are falling short, here is where our challenge is, and here are the lessons to be learned.
Our action plan, then, you will understand, attempts to address that concern by tightening up our training, by providing for more detailed oversight through the establishment of a lieutenant general within TRADOC specifically for training—incidentally, he has now been nominated and confirmed, so that post will be filled—by looking to the training and to the selection of drill sergeants, by looking to the way basic training is done. The Chief speaks of it in his testimony about extending it by looking at soldierization, increased soldierization at AIT. Our action plan attempts to address those challenges.
With that, Mr. Chairman, and with the concluding observation once again that we are indebted not just to the leaders of this task force, but to all the Members, and that what we have heard is the voice of the soldier through these two reports, I conclude and turn the mike over to the Chief of Staff.
[The prepared statement of Secretary West can be found in the appendix on page 71.]
Mr. BUYER. General Reimer.
STATEMENT OF GEN. DENNIS J. REIMER, CHIEF OF STAFF U.S. ARMY
General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Taylor, Ms. Harman, Mr. Skelton, I, too, have a statement that I would like to submit for the record, and I would also just like to make a few comments, if that is acceptable.
Mr. BUYER. It will be entered in the record.
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General REIMER. Let me pick up, Mr. Chairman, where the Secretary left off and say that, in my opinion, the Army is fundamentally sound. We remain trained and ready. Our performance around the world, our performance by our soldiers demonstrates the strength and resilience of this Army. It is a true measure of how good our soldiers really are, and they are our credentials.
We do, however, recognize that we have a serious issue that we are dealing with today, and we have treated it as such from the very beginning. The Army brought forth this problem and we chose to deal with this issue in a very open manner. We chose to send a strong signal internally in the Army and externally to the American public.
The reports that we have been talking about today are the most in-depth analysis that ever has been made within the Army on this subject, and they have taught us a lot. They provide a baseline assessment. They emphasize that leadership is the real key. And as you have said, and I certainly agree, fundamentally this is a leadership issue. That is our greatest strength. And that is why I am confident we can solve it.
It is easy to focus on one issue and ask yourself how did this happen. But let me try to put this whole issue in perspective. The last 8 years, the Army has undergone dramatic and far-reaching changes. We have reduced the size of the total Army by over 600,000 people. We have closed over 700 bases. We have transformed the force from a cold war threat-based force to an Army XXI, and they are on the way to an Army after next, a capabilities base force. We have done this at the same time that first tempo and the OPTEMPO has increased by about 300 percent. These, I submit, are leader-intensive activities.
Mr. BUYER. Can you say that again for me? I am sorry. The increased operational tempo is——
General REIMER. By about 300 percent.
Mr. BUYER. 300 percent.
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General REIMER. 300 percent. Yes, sir. And I would also say that these are leader-intensive activities and managed very well by the leaders. We do it well, but we didn't do it perfectly.
The issue of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, I think, must be viewed in that context. In my mind, it is important to differentiate between sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. Both are wrong. We have zero tolerance for both. However, you have to treat them differently.
We will continue to deal with sexual misconduct as we have in the past. That is criminal behavior. It is something we call the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and we will continue to come down hard. Sexual harassment may also be dealt with by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but it may not. It may mean it needs additional training, additional education, and we have to deal with it with a full array of leadership tools. We have not waited to fix this problem until the reports came out.
The action plan that you have seen addresses the three fundamental areas: Values, teamwork, and discipline. All three are important to solving this problem. The plan gives the leaders the tools and resources necessary to solve the leadership challenge. Basically treating people with dignity and respect is nothing new. It is a basic principle of good leadership. It has been with our Army for a long time.
This action plan is not about going soft. Our profession requires tough, realistic training, as you mentioned in your opening comments. Time and time again we have proved that, and in the long run, tough, realistic training saves lives. The drill sergeants have a saying that I think is very appropriate. They say: ''Let no soldier scream from the grave that, had I been properly trained, I wouldn't be 6 feet under.''
The action plan is not designed to take authority responsibility away from drill sergeants. In my mind, they accomplish minor miracles. They need to give—we need to give them the tools and the responsibility necessary to do their job. But it does say to them and all leaders that we expect you to treat our soldiers with dignity and respect; that when you abuse this sacred trust and confidence that we have placed in you as leaders, we will come down hard on you.
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The action plan recognizes that the Army is a diverse organization. There is a great strength in this diversity, but we can only leverage that strength if we are able to make each member of the team feel a valued member of the team.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, as I say, we have got it. We understand the scope of this problem, and we are moving out to fix it. This is not a one-shot affair. It is a course to which we are firmly and totally committed. We are going to reemphasize the fundamentals of leadership that have made us strong over the last 222 years. I have great confidence in the ability of the Army leadership to handle this.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
[The prepared statement of General Reimer can be found in the appendix on page 80.]
Mr. BUYER. Let me share with my colleagues that there is a vote on the House floor that the House now adjourn. I will not participate in the political games and will remain in the chair; therefore, I will have questions while the vote is going on, and I will now yield to Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, we have been joined by a very distinguished former chairman of this subcommittee, and I am going to, if you don't mind, yield my time to him while I go make the vote, and then I will come back.
Mr. BUYER. Oh, being outgamed by a friend and colleague. But when it comes to Mr. Skelton of Missouri, not Missouri, I will yield to him.
Mr. SKELTON. First let me compliment you, Mr. Chairman, on pronouncing the name of my State correctly. We from the Ozarks appreciate that.
I must commend the Army, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary, and the General on facing up to this problem of harassment. I think you have tackled it head on. I have seen your statements on it. And I can only say keep plugging away and get this behind you and make this the Army all of us can continue to be proud of. So I wish you continued success in this effort.
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Gentlemen, you mentioned a moment ago that this is a matter of leadership. Of course, that is the answer to so many of our challenges, our problems of today. And everybody can't be Secretary West or General Reimer. The leadership is found in the senior officers, the second lieutenants, captains. And what they do and how they handle their job reflects directly on the entire Army and upon you.
I am and have been concerned for some time. I chaired this subcommittee a few years ago when the downsizing began its fall. I also learned then from this very room and that very table, exactly where you are sitting, General Reimer, Ted Stroup, Lieutenant General, head of the personnel of the U.S. Army told me that the Army of 520,000 strong was stretched and stressed, and now today your testimony is that it is at 489,000, and we are doing our best to hold that.
Leadership will be all the more important with your operational tempo, and I have seen it. I have seen it in Bosnia, Hungary, Germany. You say 300 percent higher. The numbers have gone down, and the uncertainty still remains as to whether they go down anymore.
This committee—and I commend this chairman on doing his very best and all of us taken together and plugging that dike to keep the Army from getting smaller, for I think that as the Army gets smaller, and hopefully we can have it leveled off, hopefully we do, still you are stretched and stressed beyond imagination, and that calls for extraordinary leadership from the sergeants and the second lieutenants on up.
I am particularly concerned in this area of training about the numbers in TRADOC. So I will ask either one of you gentlemen: Do you feel that the TRADOC numbers have dipped too low? Either one of you, please.
General REIMER. Well, let me take that one. I think, Mr. Skelton, yes, I think the TRADOC numbers have dipped too low, and for some time I have told them we put a stop loss on TRADOC going down any lower.
What we have been trying to do is to keep the right balance between force structure and in strengths, to keep as many people, in my terms, in the foxholes with the TOE units as we possibly could to meet our operational requirements. And that was very important to us because, as you mentioned and I know you have seen, those soldiers out there in the field and the units are stretched, and they are very, very busy. And they are doing a great job for the Nation, and I couldn't be prouder of them.
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In order to do that, we had to cut other organizations and really, in fact, cut the whole Army as we would down to the programmed-in strength of 495,000. I should say that we were given a lower number at one time, and because of some other measures we have taken, we were able to keep 495,000 through the—before the QDR.
What we need to do is to give TRADOC some additional resources. I know that. I have had the conversation with General Hartzog, and we are going to do that. The way we do that is fairly simple. It is a matter of balancing force structure and in strength. The decisions that we have to make are very tough, because what we have to do is to take force structure out of the active component Army and transfer that to the Reserve component, and keep that in strength that is available and redistribute that throughout the active component.
By doing that, along with some initiatives in terms of division, redesign and that type of thing, we will be able to beef up TRADOC to where I think they will be able to do the job we have asked them to do. At the same time, we should not affect the division's ability to do their job either. So that is the issue.
Mr. SKELTON. That was my next question. You put one piece of the puzzle in place, and another one pops out, and it pops out in operational tempo increase or personnel tempo increase for Germany, Bosnia, Haiti, you pick it.
It was interesting, I was in Germany, as you know, meeting with the troops and had an interesting discussion with Lieutenant General Coffey. And we are talking about the operational tempo and the personnel tempo. And I asked him which division in the country was getting off easy, and he said all of them are getting affected by the personnel tempo and operational tempo. And the sergeant here, a captain there, a sergeant major here, and major there, and all of them are being affected.
I don't see, quite honestly, at the size of the Army today how you are going to make ends meet and keep the tempo that we are doing. I really don't. We have to keep taking care of the troops, their families, keep them highly trained, and, best as we can, create a certainty so that those sergeants know that someday, someday they might have an opportunity to be a sergeant major. If you keep going down, you are going to destroy that certainty, and I am afraid you will see a lot of people leaving, just like you see the pilots leaving the Air Force today.
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Well, again, let me compliment Secretary West and General Reimer on your efforts in this area. It is a sad chapter, but I think you have done your best.
General REIMER. Can I just comment, one other thing——
Mr. SKELTON. Please.
General REIMER [continuing]. Mr. Skelton. I think you are absolutely right. The emphasis on programs for families is terribly important. The Army is 60 some percent married. We have to take care of families or we are not going to be able to keep these great soldiers.
The other thing we have to do is put as much emphasis as we possibly can on predictability. That is a quality of life enhancer. And if people know what they are going to do, if they know when that particular operation is going to end, then they are a whole lot more comfortable. It gets the uncertainty issue that you have identified very well.
The final thing that I would say is what we are finding ourselves doing, the 300-percent increase in OPTEMPO is a direct reflection of a change in strategy. During the cold war we had a containment strategy. Now we have an engagement strategy. We are out there trying to shape the world, to make the 21st century a better place to live for our children and grandchildren.
So our soldiers are busy. They are making great contributions, and they understand the importance of that, and I think they will continue to be busy. What we have to do is provide them an adequate and predictable quality of life.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Secretary, did you have a comment, sir?
Secretary WEST. I share the last comments the Chief made and endorse them. I also think his analysis in response to your question is quite accurate. I don't want to leave the impression that resourcing TRADOC alone will provide the solution to the issues that have been raised here today. That is a major command. It has a four-star commander. They, too, will make judgments there on how to use those resources. TRADOC doesn't just train, it also has doctrine responsibilities. So even as we resource it, there will have to be decisions made there as to where to put those resources in order to help deal with the training issue.
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Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.
One further comment, Mr. Chairman, I—Fort Leonard Wood, which is in the district I am privileged to represent, has been mentioned, and I thank you for coming there and asking questions of the people in uniform there, the drill sergeants, the recruits, and the like. And I think we did learn a great deal there. I think, also, that the people in charge were doing their best, as you would want them to do, to put this problem to an end and put it behind us, and I think they have, and I think they have done it quite well.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you.
I have some followup questions off of Mr. Skelton, but what I wanted to bring to your attention, because the Army has not provided feedback to me yet, when I was down at Fort Sam Houston and met with the trainees and the drill sergeants at Fort Sam, for medics, the three feeder systems of their trainees, Fort Jackson, Fort Knox, and Fort Leonard Wood, they were complaining that about 30 percent who were coming to them out of Fort Leonard Wood were coming broken, meaning that there were women that were coming with pelvic fractures. Something happened to them during the basic training. And I sent that word over, and I have not received a response. So hopefully you will let me know what is going on at Fort Leonard Wood that that, in fact, is happening.
The other—to draw off of Mr. Skelton's comments, the two of us were a tag team, I will have you know, in the Senate Conference on the whole issue of in-strength numbers, ceilings become floors, floors become ceilings, the whole issue. Someone would take and remove them completely. Our fear is that that makes a free fall. I don't want to move this off into another discussion, but it does have to do with a whole issue of ratios, drill sergeant to trainee, and supervision. And when you have got a bad actor, how do you weed them out? So it is important.
To let you know of our intent without disclosing too much of our conference report, we didn't take you to the number that you wanted to go. So we have a little plus-up in there, and the plus-up in there to both of you gentlemen is—our intention is that that plus-up is to go to TRADOC. If TRADOC is at that 92-percent level, and if it is going to take 12- to 1,300 to bring them up, I know you have got to some other ideas, and I talked to General Hartzog about how you want to shuffle, I am not a personnel wonk, so I didn't necessarily understand all of that, but I am going to give you numbers that you can work with so you can beef up TRADOC so when you come see us in a year, you can tell us a great story. OK. All right.
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General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, are you going to give us the dollars to go with that, too?
Mr. BUYER. Yes.
General REIMER. That is important, because if you give us numbers, and if you don't give us the dollars, then we cannot modernize this force, and somebody in the 21st century is going to be right here testifying about why we don't have good equipment.
Mr. BUYER. I understand. But you know what the squeeze here is, is we are squeezing personnel for buying weapon systems, and it makes contractors happy. But I am not happy, and I know the Secretary isn't.
In your testimony, Mr. Secretary, you stated 69 percent of trainers in initial training felt their own training only slightly or moderately prepared them for their current job. Can you comment further on that? That is stunning to me.
Secretary WEST. I can comment to this extent: That is a direct quote from the senior review panel report, and I suspect that there are a number of factors that feed into it. For us, though, the key learning is just what you described, that we have trainers who feel that they have not been adequately trained for what they need to do as well as other leaders. We have to look at their training.
I thought at first, Mr. Chairman, that that was a specific reference to drill instructors who felt that they had not been properly equipped to train members of the opposite sex; that is, there was a line of that discussion that went throughout my discussion with panel members. I am now advised that it is broader than that, that it has to do with their sense of how they are trained.
The drill sergeant school is commanded by two extraordinary, capable individuals. I think you saw them profiled in a—in a recent article. I am not sure which of the newspapers had it.
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I went to Fort Jackson and talked to them specifically about the issue of training and about what additional kinds of instruction they need. I think we have more to look at there. That is part of the action plan we are undertaking. But, sure, we take that seriously. That is not a—an easy observation to miss at all in there.
Mr. BUYER. Well, I appreciate your forthrightness. When we—when the Army moved to integrated training, said, all right, we are going to do integrated training, well, a policy decision was made with implementers on the ground that weren't prepared with the tools to do that job, and those are discussions that I had with General Siegfried.
Oh, it is a huge matter of discussion whether that policy decision was the correct decision, and that is why this committee is sending—will have their own task—we are going to have our own congressional panel to overview those whole issues, not only just with the Army, but each of the services.
Secretary WEST. Are you referring to gender-integrated, segregated?
Mr. BUYER. Gender-integrated and segregated. I mean, that is the policy. But I applaud your forthrightness on the finding that when you moved to integrated training, that we had trainers that weren't properly tooled on how to train.
As a matter of fact, it is part of the findings when we were out there. We had men completely scared to death on how to train that woman. Then we found women who preferred to be trained by a man because the woman drill sergeant was tougher on them. Yeah, they didn't want to be trained by the female drill sergeant because they understood more about what women could try to get away with, and they couldn't do that, and they felt like they could work the man easier than they could the woman.
Then when we found in circumstances where a female drill sergeant pulled the male drill sergeants aside and taught them and schooled them in the ways, that things worked out to the positive aspect. So, you know, we found that there were some gaps there.
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And I want you to comment on the ratio—I am sorry, do you have some——
Secretary WEST. Can I make two observations about that point, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. BUYER. Sure.
Secretary WEST. The first is yes, in fact, women drill sergeants have had a lot to contribute over time. One, just one example, they point out, for example, that in road marches where—when General Siegfried was overseeing the initial pilot program for gender-integrated basic training there at Fort Jackson, and a few years back on road marches there was a question of whether women were injuring themselves more in those road marches and having physical difficulties unlike the men.
And one of the women drill sergeants who I spoke to 2 or 3 years ago when I went down to view that pilot project said, well, there is no secret there. There is nothing surprising about that. If you put the big, tall fellows or women, either one, in the front on a road march and leave the short people, male or female, in the back on the road march, then just the natural length of stride is going to cause those in the back to have to work a lot harder to keep up and maybe injure themselves, male or female.
Now, she contributed that learning at the time. There are a number of other ways in which opening ourselves up to the contributions that everybody can make can help us to learn things, not just gender-based, but across the force.
Second thing is you spoke of the policy decision to go to gender-integrated training. One decision taken 17 or 18 years ago in advanced individual training, training such as was at Aberdeen, the other more recent in the last few years for basic training, policy yes, but not in terms of their having been instituted, encouraged, or decided upon by civilian officials. These are decisions that were made and the processes that were instigated by men and women in uniform who ultimately have to watch their youngsters go off to fight, professional decisions made by professional soldiers.
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Mr. BUYER. I have a question on values. As we looked at each of the services, we noticed each of the services struggling with this issue of values, even our academies, and I have had this discussion with you, General Reimer, that something is missing here. So the Army, unlike any of the other services, are moving out with these are our seven core values. Well, then I had a discussion with—those are virtues. We had a discussion whether those are virtues versus values.
You know, the Marine Corps keeps it nice and tight and simple: Honor, courage, commitment. And then they break off into values from there. Honor, courage, commitment. I get down there to Parris Island, 4-week Marines, men and women, they were unbelievable. Honor, courage, commitment. Then they speak about other values and leadership principles, start spouting it off, 4-week Marines spouting it off.
And part of that, as they talked about those virtues and then to values, they talk about what is spirit. Then when I had to look to the Army, all of a sudden we began to see that, well, you are a combat supporter, you are a combat service support, and you are a combat arms. We train you this way, and we train you that way. And where is this, I am a soldier first? I am a soldier first. We saw at Parris Island, I am a marine. Everybody is a marine. Well, in the Army, how come everybody isn't a soldier and trained with those fighting skills of a soldier, inculcated with a value system that is paramount?
So my question as now you have—as we move to cure, how do we, in that soldierization—because if you are going to move to extend basic training 1 week for warm and fuzzy 101, I am not going to be happy. Soldierization and rigor is extremely important. And earlier I opened up with this comment, that we want a value system of a soldier which transcends race and gender. When you institute those values, you begin to move forward and have leadership, and everything begins to fall into place.
So let me ask how you are going to move out smartly to implement such a system in the U.S. Army for which the American people can be proud of?
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Secretary WEST. Mr. Chairman, I had a chance to see the Marine training. Actually, I have had a chance to see the Air Force and the Navy as well, and I have some thoughts on that. But I think, first of all, you would like to hear from the Chief, and then I will add some thoughts on that.
General REIMER. Well, let me say that when I came in the service, I learned three values: Duty, honor, country. It was what West Point was all about. I don't think that the seven inherent values that we talk about in the Army, when you add selfless service, when you add integrity, when you add courage to those, that is not inconsistent. I mean, that is just kind of broadening the base a little bit.
And certainly I think of those seven inherent values that we have, I don't know of any of them that I would throw away. In fact, we had long discussions on that with the senior leadership of the Army, and we said, yes, this is what we want.
I think we do have the right value base there, and I think we are emphasizing that in a lot of ways. We are emphasizing it in our training. We are emphasizing it in our evaluation reports. The officer evaluation report we just introduced starting today includes that as part of that particular form. So I think the values that we are trying to institutionalize throughout the Army are there.
The specific issue of what we are going to do in basic training, I assure you, Mr. Chairman, it is not 1 week of feeling good about each other and soft and fuzzy. The intent is not to add 1 week at the front of this that says, OK, let's talk about values, get one thought, and then go on to something else. But it is to extend that training over, instead of 8 weeks, 9 weeks; and to focus more on values, physical fitness; and to focus on an end-of-the-cycle test which has a little more rigor, very close to the Marines' crucible. I think that is a good system.
I think our soldiers come out of there well trained. I think the Marine system works very well for the Marines. They are a smaller organization than we are, and it works well for them. I don't knock that at all. I think our system, given the breadth of the skills that we have to produce, works well for us.
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And as far as the warrior ethos is concerned, I would just simply say I don't think we have lost that. I would cite the fact of Sergeant Shughart and Sergeant Gordon in Somalia who fast rode to sudden death because there was a soldier down on the ground that they didn't want to leave. There was loyalty there. And that is the core value that we want our soldiers to understand. Now, that is not in the three core values that you just talked to me about, but that is very much a part of what we are all about, and I think we have to keep emphasizing that. So I think that ethos is there.
But I would also point out to you that this thing has changed a little bit. Soldiering is more sophisticated than it ever has been. Dr. Hamre just came back from visiting Hohenfels where he was watching some of our troops training to go to Bosnia, and he talked to me, and he talked to the Secretary about what he saw over there. And he was very impressed with a sergeant E–5 who was training his troops how to search a Muslim woman so that they could ensure that she was not carrying anything and still protect her dignity.
That is what we are asking our warriors to do. We are asking them to be able to defeat the eighth largest army in the world in the 100 hours which we did in Desert Storm, but immediately turn to a humanitarian assistance type of mission. It is much more sophisticated than charging that hill.
I think we have the warrior ethos, and I think we have the sophistication, because the American people have given us their most precious assets, their sons and daughters. They are darn good.
Secretary WEST. I said I would have some comment to add. I think maybe I don't. I think the Chief said it all. I will underline one thing he said, and that is we are the most sophisticated force. We are asked to do many things. The fact is we may only be the ninth largest, but we are the largest armed force in the United States, and as such we, as an Army, are asked to do more things than any other armed force in the world.
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The Marines train to do a specific thing, and their training is important, and it is good for them. I think there is much there for all of us to learn from. But our training trains—we attempt to do more, even in basic training, for our soldiers from the start, because ultimately they are going to be asked to do more.
Yes, we are learning from this experience that we do want to do even more in basic training, and that is why the Chief has underway an expansion of it, not for warm and fuzzy, for making soldiers.
Mr. BUYER. I like that answer. I like that answer. And I am about to yield. I like that answer, because I recognize—I can't judge the world through my own personal dimension. I would love to do that, but I can't. My parents instilled me with good values, reemphasized not only through the Citadel, but on to my military service, and I recognize that benefit can also be given to many men and women throughout America because they return to their communities, and, in turn, are looked upon as leaders within their communities, and set the tone in the environment, not only when they were in the military, but to the benefit of our own society when they return.
So that is why when we say, well, why are you talking about values? Aren't we supposed to be talking about sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, fraternization? Instilled with the correct values and how we treat each other with equal human dignity sets the tone, sets the pace, and that is why we are having you here talking about that.
Let me now yield to Gene, if you have any questions. Mr. Taylor of Mississippi.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I do that, I think our former chairman is about to burst, so I am going to yield to him a couple of minutes of my time.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. I have a followup question I would like to ask, if I may, and then I will finish.
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General, a few moments ago, when we were discussing my comments, you mentioned that we have switched from a strategy of containment to a strategy of engagement. Are we properly organized within the U.S. Army to execute this new strategy?
General REIMER. Congressman, I think we are. Let me—the strategy of an engagement is built upon three pillars that the Army must be able to do. One is to be able to shape the environment, in my words, to make the 21st century safer for our children and grandchildren. That is what our troops in Bosnia, in my mind, are doing. They are trying to preclude war, kick it to the right, if I can use that term.
The second thing, we have got to be able to respond to any near-term crisis. Near-term crisis might be Southwest Asia, might be Korea. There will be crises that come up, and we have got to be able to have the war-fighting skills.
The third pillar of that strategy is to be able to prepare the force for the 21st century. That is what our Force XXI process is all about, to change that cold war force, which was built upon a cold war paradigm, into something that is going to be totally different in the 2020 time frame. And we are doing that through experimentation, Fort Hood, at the National Training Center, that will lead to a different type of force. And those three pillars are what our strategy is all about.
Your question was, are we best organized to do that? Some would tell us, and some have told me, that you ought to have specially constructed peacekeeping forces to do just that. That is OK if that is all you are doing is shaping. But if you are responding to crisis, you better have people that know how to war fight.
And what I have found is that it is easier to switch from a war-fighting mission to a shaping other humanitarian assistance mission than it is to go the other way. That just doesn't work, to try to make peacekeepers into war-fighters. You can make war-fighters, given the quality people and the quality soldiers we have now, into peacekeepers, and we are doing that and demonstrating that on a daily basis. So I think we are properly constructed.
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Now, is that going to be the construction or the organization that we need for the 21st century? No. I think that is going to change over time. And I think our experimentation process on Force XXI will allow us to get that right. And that is what we are doing at the same time we are doing the Bosnias and responding to crises around the world.
Mr. TAYLOR. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Skelton.
Secretary West, we are honored to have you; General Reimer, honored to have you here. Mrs. Reimer, we hope you have not been disappointed with the proceedings.
Secretary West, I know that you are the type of person to take charge. I have seen that in your actions as appointing yourself to the Panama Canal Commission. I have seen that in your fulfillment of the request with the admission of the Army ammunition plant for what I thought was a higher and better use.
You have heard what I think is a fairly unanimous opinion on this committee, and many members of your own Armed Forces: that there needs to be one standard for training. Congress is often accused of micromanaging. And there comes a time for us to micromanage when the people who are delegated that authority don't do what we think is best.
Is it possible, and would you set one standard, physical fitness standard, for recruits entering the Armed Forces regardless of where they came from, the sex? I think it would be very important. I am going back to what some of the previous speakers have said; well, this problem starts with different standards on day one.
Secretary WEST. Mr. Taylor, thank you for your observations. By the very examples you cited, I think you know that I am not afraid to sort of get in the middle of something and help with the decision-making process. It doesn't bother me to say, OK, we will go this way.
I do think that we are—and I have several points I want to make on this, but the first one is we are very well advised in matters like this. So to listen to the folks, at least initially, who for 220 plus years have been perfecting how you train and field an army that have—can have the record of unparalleled success that it always has—I think you see where I am going, so I won't belabor the point.
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First and foremost, I would want to hear what our folks in uniform who worry about the tasks our soldiers will have to perform, who worry about the many varied experiences they will confront, and who think about the 90,000 plus new souls we take in every year into our Army, what they would say they need in terms of a physical standard. So I would want to hear from our uniformed military first and foremost on that.
Second, I offer this idea: We presently, as was pointed out, have a—have our physical requirement—our physical requirements graded by gender and by age. It seems to me there are some decisions to be made within that. Is that what we want? Would we prefer that every age be held to the same physical standards as—as both sexes? If so, does that mean we would end up using a standard that would allow the most senior to be able to serve? Does that mean we ask of the most junior, the 18-, 19-, and 20-years-olds that they qualify at about half speed, if that is the case, and I don't know that that is the case; that they not be pushed to as much as they can show in order to keep them as fit as they need be?
I suspect that our tests serve more than just one purpose, physical fitness requirements serve more than just one purpose to be able to do tasks today. I think we also are trying to make sure that the people who, perhaps, at the bottom age group-wise, in the middle and further on, are able to progress physically to keep themselves physically fit as they go along. I want to hear a little bit from the Surgeon General about that as well.
So my suggestion is this may not be as easily resolved as we think it is for the purpose we have in mind, which is to give us all an easy bright line standard, to keep everyone—to keep people from feeling on the one hand that they are being oppressed by the fact that others are being asked to do too little.
I will give you an example, and we may not know everything today either. For example, I have on my staff a lieutenant colonel, a woman in her forties, who, when she enlisted as a 17- or 18-year-old, in order to max her PT test had to do, oh, I forget the number, 40 or so pushups on her knees. Today, she does more than that, regular push-ups, and is required to do more, as a 40-year-old lieutenant colonel. We have learned more over the years about what women can do physically in the force and we may still have more to learn. And I am not sure we know everything about what men can do either. So I am not sure that today either you or I are best equipped to make a judgment on whether one single standard would work, and that is just from a guy who only spent 4 years on active duty, 4 years as a lawyer in the department, and a few years as Secretary of the Army. Let's hear from the expert. Could we hear from the Chief?
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Mr. TAYLOR. The chairman is being generous in giving time.
Mr. BUYER. I am going to be generous. Can I just, for a second, Gene, since you set the policy, I think he is asking a very interesting question. You know, when Les Aspin went and said we are going to put women in the fighters, the Congress asked one question: Is there one standard? Secretary Aspin said, yes, one standard, so I am intrigued by this line of questioning today because I have never gotten into this issue before, but if they are pressing this, and you said you cannot make the decision today, is it going to be part of your analysis to look at this issue about one standard in the military?
Mr. WEST. We are already looking at physical training across the board.
Mr. BUYER. I know about changing it. Of course, we didn't like it when you said we are going to reduce men's and increase women's. I don't know what the heck that means.
Mr. WEST. Well, if you go to one standard, you are probably going to do even more of that, sir, unless you are going to adopt a standard that is going to drive the older folks out of the Army.
Mr. BUYER. I don't like lessening standards on men. That didn't come across very well. Let me yield back to Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. General Reimer, did you want to say something?
General REIMER. Yes, sir, I would appreciate the opportunity to talk about that. I think it is important to understand standards and how they apply across the board. First of all, I would say in probably 98 percent of the cases, we have the same standards for men and women in the same skilled MOS.
As someone mentioned earlier here, when you graduate through training and when you go into that MOS, you are expected to be able to do all the skills and that requires the rights of the same physical strength of that particular MOS to do that. What you are specifically asking is should the Army physical fitness test have the same standard for men and women.
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My answer to that is absolutely not. What we ought to be doing and what we are doing is to make sure we have the same level of effort that we are asking people to do. Now, I am 58 years old. I cannot do the 2 miles as fast as someone 21 years old, and I can run, and I can probably run as well as most people in the Army right now. I cannot do the push-ups as well as the young people can. Should I be held to those same standards? I cannot do the sit-ups as well as the females can do. I think you can argue and you can make a very strong case that the females will do much better on sit-ups than the men overall.
What we have tried to do is to recognize there is difference in age and gender, but we have also said that you ought to be able to get the same level of effort out of each and that is what our changes in the PT test are designed to do: to be able to get the level of effort to max at a certain level, a certain age level, the same for males and females and that is what we are really trying to do. That is coming forward, it has been looked at, it is something we look at consistently.
Now, if you had the same standard and you had everybody, 58 to 21, in the Army that had to meet it, my guess is you would go toward a very mediocre standard because not everybody can do that. And what we want to do is to push people out to the limits of their ability and I think we can do that and I rest assured that male and female, in a certain MOS, can do the same skills so that they can graduate from training.
Secretary WEST. I will say this briefly, Mr. Taylor, and that is this. We offer the possibility of one standard as a means, I think, of getting away from compromise, of saying here it is, here is the rule. That is wrong. One standard will be a compromise. We will stop asking of each level of person that they push themselves as far as they can.
General REIMER. Can I just say one other thing and I hate to do this, but if Congressman Ryun was here I would. He is a hero of mine. He grew up in Wichita, KS, ran a 4-minute mile. My guess is he probably cannot run a 4-minute mile right now. Maybe there is a recognition that age makes a difference.
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The same thing with Congressman Watts, who played quarterback on the Oklahoma University football team, another hero of mine, since I grew up in Oklahoma, but I don't think he could do the same things he did then, and I think it is unfair to ask people as they get older to do the same things they did when they were 21, but I think we ought to stretch those people who are 21 as far as we possibly can, whether they are male or female.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, I do appreciate what you are saying, but we are not talking about 50-year-olds and 20-year-olds, we are talking about 20-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 17-year-olds, who are initial entry training, having one standard. You have a sexual misconduct problem. Everyone has agreed to that. You have a problem getting young people interested in joining the U.S. Army, and those who join, staying in the U.S. Army. Everyone agrees to that.
Now, you don't have that with airborne units. You don't have that with the Marines. You have kids beating the doors down trying to get in the Air Force. What is the difference? I think it is self-esteem. There is a great quote by one of my fellow Mississippians by the name of William Raspberry, a columnist, who says, ''People who believe in something larger than and outside of themselves tend to have a better feeling about themselves.'' It explains the guys in the airborne, something bigger than and outside of themselves and they feel good about themselves.
It explains, going back to Mr. Buyer's analogy, U.S. Marine Corp? You take a kid from Bay Saint Louis, MS, who may not have been a great student, but, doggone it, he finished Marine boot camp. When he walks out of there, he is a proud young man or proud young woman.
Why not have one standard, why not raise the bar a little higher so those people who complete initial entry training feel a little bit better about themselves. I was really amazed at Fort Leonard Wood, when time after time the young recruits were telling us they weren't challenged, they were bored, it was too easy. I don't think that is what we should have been hearing.
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Let's try it the other way, and I would hope that would come from within the Army because if it doesn't come from within, I sense it will come from this committee next year, and I think it will work a great deal better if it comes from within.
Secretary West, you are a decisionmaker. You don't run away from decisions. You have taken some pretty tough stances. I would certainly encourage you to take that stand. I think what is it going to hurt to try it that way, because we know what we are doing now has some serious misgivings with recruitment, with retention and with sexual problems, and going back to my analogy of the Rainbow Division in Korea, during the Vietnam drawdown, when morale was terrible every place else, they raised the bar and what was the result? Everything got better.
Obviously, some people had to leave, but those who stayed were great soldiers, from top to bottom, and I think it is time to raise the bar again and I would hope it would come from within, and if it doesn't——
Secretary WEST. Mr. Chairman, I don't think anyone is objecting to the notion that we look to see if we have enough rigor in the test, and if raising the bar is appropriate, then so be it. I think the question is should there be an inflexible requirement that in every case we have the same requirement for men and women on physical tests and the only objection I have to that is we don't know what results it will give us.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Secretary, if I may——
Secretary WEST. In terms of whether you end up with a compromise.
Mr. TAYLOR. Secretary, again, I have the greatest respect for you. I also have the greatest respect for the rule of law because it is the same for everybody. It is the same for Donald Trump as a guy who is welding at Halter Marine this morning, a guy who makes $30,000 a year and the guy who makes no telling how much a year.
That same rule of law was not working at Aberdeen. They lost the respect for the rule of law. If you have a standard and you say everybody is going to live by it, whether you are black or whether you are white, or whether you are Catholic or Jewish, or whether you are male or female, I got to believe our Nation will be much better served and I think the problem at Aberdeen would not have happened.
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Secretary WEST. I don't think our trainees lost respect for the rule of law at Aberdeen, but I think your point, which is shouldn't we take a look at it is one that we will not ignore.
Mr. BUYER. Right answer. Thank you. Because we will do follow-up on that because I know Mr. Taylor is not going to let it go.
Secretary WEST. Well, neither are we, sir.
Mr. BUYER. Let me, for the record, General Reimer, to protect my colleague of Kansas, it was not a 4-minute mile. He ran the mile in 35.1.1.
Let me now yield to my colleague, Jane Harman of California, for 5 minutes.
Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say again, as I did earlier, that I am rather sympathetic to the point that Mr. Taylor raises, and perhaps there ought to be age distinctions, General Reimer, for you and me and for the over-50 crowd the standards ought to be higher, and I would rise to that and I am sure you would, but my point is that we should train the same way for the roles in our future military, not for the roles in our past military, and I think we need to look at what the future roles are, which, as I said earlier, are more based on technology and information gathering and things of that nature than they are on ground combat.
And if we train the same for those roles, I do think we will be able to avoid some of the problems that General Foote described earlier. At any rate, moving on, I want to thank both witnesses for their leadership. I think you stepped up to this issue and you will continue to step up to it, and the picture is not pretty.
I also want to send, again, a fond farewell to a great soldier, General John Shalikashvili, as he retires as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and commend him again, as I have recently for his leadership on these issues, which are very, very tough issues. I have two questions about leadership.
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First of all, the senior review panel concluded that there was, quote, ''a huge gap between what senior leaders and enlisted soldiers think,'' and here you are, senior leaders, so I would like you to tell us a little bit more about how you are going to bridge this gap.
Second of all, on the subject of leadership, an analogy I often make in terms of trying to evolve to a better place on gender issues is the enormous success of the military in racial integration over 50 years. I think the military is ahead of society at large in terms of racial integration, so my question to you is what can leadership do in our military and specifically in our Army, to achieve a similar success story on sex integration, or the elimination of sex discrimination?
Secretary WEST. Ms. Harman, I believe that one of the biggest lessons to come out of the two reports we have just seen is probably one we knew all along, and just because of the press events we often lose site of, and that is we never know all that we think we know, and the danger in all that we don't know is enormous.
Let me explain that for a few seconds. It was around 25 years ago when we began to make the effort, or to continue the effort with greater emphasis on racial discrimination, on the ability of a force composed of several different ethnic groups to be able to be cohesive, and to connect themselves as a team. It was the Vietnam era. There were reports of racial problems among our troops in Germany, on the Korean Peninsula, there were reports of drug problems as well. And, indeed, there is a certificate on my wall that I show off to anybody who will let me, that credits me with a role in the decision by the Army to put 2,012 billets across the force, on the matting table, at every level of the Army, for equal opportunity officers, to provide commanders a tool to assess and to know what is going on within their units, and, yes, I think the U.S. Army, in fact, all of our military forces, led our society in coming to grips with that. But success is its own worst enemy.
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We begin to conclude that we can focus on other more pressing issues, apparently more pressing, and maybe leave the human dimension aside because that is OK. It has been taken care of. The number of billets became smaller, the emphasis on including officers in the U.S. Army changed to NCO's. We were proud of our NCO's. They do a good job, but we have to be alert to the signal we send of apparent diminished interest in that part of what we do.
And today, we are proposing, as a result of what these two task forces saw, to fix that part of our—not only of our symbol of concern and involvement, but of our actual tools that we equip the commander to know and to understand. I think we will get that done. The Chief has already described processes in place.
Some people may think that upgrading the human resources directorate in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of personnel from a full colonel to a BG is perhaps symbolic. It is throwing a star at a problem. It is more than that and yes the symbolism is powerful and important, too. Adding greater resources within that office, and doing further things in the manning charts, I think all of that takes us to the same basic point. We need to know more about what we are doing within our units, not because anyone is failing to tell us, but because as the inspector general said, you can't just rely on the data to show up.
I listened to the Chief of Staff, oh, back in November, when he said I used to be a company commander, a training company commander, and I would get out and walk around. I think we are reminding ourselves we have learned a hard lesson in so many different ways as a result of this experience, but one of them is that the things we don't know, and haven't asked about, can cause harm, not just to ourselves, but to the 495,000 souls who have been entrusted to our care.
Ms. HARMAN. General Reimer.
General REIMER. Thank you, I would love to be able to comment on that. First of all, let me take the bridging the gap question and talk about that from a personal experience. In 1975, I was the aide to the Chief of the Staff of the Army, Gen. Creighton Abrams. I was a major and I had solved every problem in that office. It was a lot easier.
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I am now on the other side of the door and I found out the problems are a little bit more complex because my perspective has increased and I think you are always going to have a difference in perspective between leaders as to what they are responsible for.
So the squad leader down in first squad of Charlie company, the first of the 34th, for example, may feel like the fact that he is short two people in his squad today, that the Army is all messed up. We have been talking a lot about TRADOC being short people, and so we are always trying to balance that and there will always be a slight gap between how the senior leadership views the Army and how the junior leadership views the Army because their perspective is somewhat different.
The way we have to narrow that gap is as the Secretary said. We have to get out and we have to listen to our soldiers and our leaders and seek those feedback means that we have available to us. Most of us, in the uniform side and senior leadership positions have been around the Army for a long time. We have been in the motor pools, we have been out in the training fields, we have been in combat, we have been in peace, and I think we understand what soldiers are all about and what makes them tick and it is a matter of getting out there, seeing them and listening to them and caring very deeply about them, and I am convinced the senior leadership of the Army does that.
We will continue to work to narrow that gap as much as we possibly can, but I think there will always be a gap based upon the perspective. The second question had to do with leadership and gender integration and how we might go about solving that. I think we are on the way. I think we know the path that we have to follow.
First and foremost, it is a leadership issue. We have to have leadership who care about the soldiers, who treat all soldiers, regardless of race or gender with dignity and respect, and consider them as valued member of the team, and we will work very hard to make sure that happens. But that is not just some buzz word. I mean, we have programs in place, we will fine tune the institutional base to make sure that they are being taught what they need to be taught. We have a program called Consideration for Others, which is not a new program. It was developed by West Point, and it has worked very well in that particular area, and it is what people here before were talking about; getting soldiers together in small groups and talking about the complexities of our business and how each person is important to that team.
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As I mentioned in my remarks, team work, discipline and values are the three fundamental things that we will continue to stress. I believe that we can help in this particular area and I believe we can play the same role we played in terms of racial integration.
Ms. HARMAN. I don't have any more questions. I just wanted to say one sentence, which is earlier I mentioned that the zero got lost in the zero tolerance policy that we had in the past. Let's not lose it again. Let's keep this momentum going forward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BUYER. We appreciate your contribution. I now yield to Tillie Fowler of Florida for 5 minutes.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for being with us, and I want to thank you for the leadership you have both been exercising as this issue has developed and we are going to be interested in following your implementation of the plan that the panel has put forward and I don't want to repeat questions that have already been asked. I just echo some of the same concerns.
I think it does start at the top and we have to get the command leadership out there exercising as role models and doing what needs to be done and that is up to you two to make sure that is occurring. On a little different track that has been asked, I reviewed the action plan the senior review panel put together as far as what they were talking about, how the Army pursues the way we train and select drill sergeants and I agree with their recommendations and I think you have gone even a little further in some of the things the committee has recommended, too, but I am also concerned, is the Army going to be looking at how we further cultivate drill sergeants.
As they come up through the ranks, you know, this isn't just a function of who has these great skills, leadership skills or certain ethics, but, you know, there are some specific things that the Army could be doing to cultivate the type of person we need to be a drill sergeant, because this is such a critical role. I was so impressed with the many, many out there who are doing such a great job, and you were correct, I mean, it is the few that have been abused in the process. Most of them are great, honorable men and women who are doing a very good job. But I worry that it hasn't been a sought-after position by a lot; that we need to cultivate the type of character that needs to be a drill sergeant, as well as wanting to be one and is there anything going to be pursued with that?
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General REIMER. Let me start on it. I know the Secretary will probably have something to add. But I would say the primary quality of being a good drill sergeant is being a good soldier. First and foremost, that is what you have to have. The rest I think we can teach them.
My experience as a basic training and company commander taught me that the best drill sergeants, and they were all good, but the best drill sergeants were those who really were good soldiers, those who understood the fundamentals of leadership, that treated people with dignity and respect, but drill sergeant has to be something that comes from the heart. It has to be something that comes from the gut, so if you go to our training bases and expect to see a cuss-free environment, you may not see that because they are going to react the way they react because they are going to teach civilians how to be soldiers and they have a very short period of time to do it. But they can do that without being demeaning, without violating the human dignity and trust that we want them to have with the other soldiers that they are training, and I think the most important thing is that they be good soldiers and we need to work, and we will, with our training programs to make sure they know how to impart those soldier skills to the new trainees.
Mrs. FOWLER. I have to disagree with you a little bit because I think some of the drill sergeants that were guilty of some of the minor infractions were going to be good soldiers, but not necessarily good drill sergeants because a drill sergeant is a very unique position. They have absolute power over young lives and absolute power can corrupt, and it can take someone who was a good soldier and would have been one, maybe never would have been an officer, but would have been a good member of the ranks, and if they don't have what is inside of them that they need to be a drill sergeant, which is so unique, then they are not going to be a good one. That is what I was trying to get to. It goes to more than just being a good soldier, which is important, and I don't think you are getting to that yet.
Secretary WEST. I think, Ms. Fowler, if I might, you and the Chief are essentially in agreement, that the first thing you need, and in fact, the sine qua non, when you can't go any further, is that we have to produce a good soldier. I asked, as I spoke to our folks and to the Marines and to the Navy and to the Air Force, I asked the drill sergeants, what do you think makes a good drill sergeant?
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Now, I got some interesting answers. One said, well, a sense of humor. You have got to be able to laugh about some of this because according to the drill sergeant, some of the trainees will really crack you up and you are trying to stand there with a straight face. Another one said—and something you said, you have to really want to do this job, which I want to come back to. Another said you have to be able to leave it at the office.
Now, that is very interesting, since we have our drill sergeants with our trainees most of their day, all of their week, most of their life as drill sergeants, so there is not much time to leave it at the office, but that is an observation. And of course, the normal things; patience, a sense of wanting to see them succeed. That does suggest that in addition to being a first-rate soldier, there are other things to look for.
I think your question, is there any way that we could in our system as soldiers are progressing along the NCO ranks be able to say, well, these are some things that a good drill sergeant prospect would have done. I think we are a big Army. We expect our NCO's to do a lot, but our biggest challenge in starting any kind of process of really looking at how we get drill sergeants is the fact that for those people who are good enough to get our attention, they are already doing well on their MOS's and their specialties, and they want to stay in those specialties and progress.
I think one of the things that the IG and the senior review panel saw is there is a sense, when you become a drill sergeant, that you move away from your expertise. Perhaps that is where we need to concentrate some of our fire, and I think both the Chief and when we released the statement of our action plan, showed that we were looking at that; that is, how do we get drill sergeants in the first place.
A large percentage of them have to be selected, told, this is your next assignment. A smaller percentage than we would like volunteer and, of course, there is the screening as well. So we are looking at that.
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Your question is an intriguing one, whether there is a way along the way to identify the characteristics. That may be a little hard for us to do until we get to the point where we say this is the kind of soldier we would like to have be a drill sergeant, do the careful screening and then say, OK, what is next before that person can be entrusted with young trainees.
General REIMER. And to your point, we are also going back and asking the previous commander for a recommendation on whether this is not only just a good soldier, but will he be a good drill sergeant?
Mrs. FOWLER. Which I think will be a good procedure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you. Gentlemen, I just made a list of a whole bunch of areas and topics that we didn't even get a chance to cover and touch on, which really says to me that this is an issue that is not going away, just because you have two reports, just because you want to move to new procedures, doesn't mean we can now go, OK, now let's talk about modernization and let's talk about world placements, commitments, interactions. It is all together, it is all one. So we will continue our oversight, as you will also move out in implementation of an action plan.
A couple of areas I do want to mention to you of concern, and hopefully that TRADOC will move to this, is the issue of holdovers. It seems like everywhere we went, they were crying for the personnel to have a holdover company, and its personnel, it is back to the whole personnel question, and a lot of the problem individuals, men and women, came out of holdover status. They had time on their hands and, gee, they went from—that became a real problem. So hopefully you are going to be addressing the holdover and provide relief to the training and the IG is shaking his head, yes. You hear it a lot, don't you? All right.
The other is on ratios. I know that you are moving in that direction, and I had a conversation with General Siegfried not long ago because I was a little stunned when I came back from Fort Jackson when a company commander walked up to me—actually, during the focus group, and said I don't have an XO. I don't have a first sergeant. I don't have a training NCO, and I am short drill sergeants and I still have to make my push. How does he do that job? I don't know how that company commander performs that mission.
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So obviously the ratios are still out of whack and need your attention and focus. The reason, I would also say, as a committee, you also traveled around the training centers. We did also, and I took away from that when I went to the Marine Corps, the Marines, as they went through the drawdown, Marines made a command decision, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Marine Commandant made a command decision that when the drawdown comes, they will not sacrifice training.
The Army made a command decision that TRADOC, you are going to take as big a bite as anybody else. So I am just throwing that out to you as an observation, so now we are moving to cure, as everybody says, oh, gee, look at the Marine Corps; aren't they great. Well, some command decisions were made at some point in time so I throw that out as an observation.
The other is on the issue of fraternization. Earlier, I made the response what happened on this one. Was it punted? Is it something that you are going to be looking at? You have to talk to me, talk to the committee here. I think America said, wait a minute, something is happening here. America got introduced to a case called Lieutenant Flynn.
Personally, I wish the case had gone to trial because you couldn't have—America should have seen the real facts in the case, not the distortions by a defense lawyer, so people ended up with a different scenario when, in fact, it wasn't even close to what the truth was in that case. But what they did see and began to see is, wait a minute, how do they all do fraternization? Fraternization in the Army is defined differently from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and something is out of whack here and hopefully the Secretaries are all talking on the issues of fraternization as we move forward on that issue.
The other is, I would like an explanation quickly on the CID. Secretary West, you made a commitment here to the National Security Committee that after Aberdeen, that there were race-based allegations, questions on the investigation, criminal investigative techniques, tactics, incompetency and you gave a commitment that there would be an internal affairs review and I would like that quickly. And the other we will obviously continue our oversight on the EEO system and, gee, if you can do all that in 6 minutes.
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Secretary WEST. I can do fraternization, CID, Mr. Chairman, reading from the bottom up—actually, CID is the last one. I did make that commitment, and part of the press statement, which we announced, we are going to honor it.
Our estimate is that by the end of October, the sort of tag-ins of the military justice activities at Aberdeen should be done and we would look to be ready to commence at that time. The one decision that we are still looking at is precisely which organization we want to carry out that review.
Would it be internal to CID? Would it be the inspector general or would we ask some other entity to do that? That is the one thing and we will keep you informed of exactly what we are doing, sir, and all the members of the committee. On fraternization, you know, the Army policy, the law for all the services is the same.
The Army policy is to be very careful that the conduct have an impact on the good order and discipline within the unit that gives the commander the discretion to make that judgment. That is what is important to us. We think that is what should be important to everyone. You know that the Secretary of Defense has a review of the policies across the services going forward right now and so there will be more to come on that, to see if there should be some uniform policy.
If you want my own view quickly, it is that there are probably real reasons for each of the services to have a slightly different implementation, having to do with their roles and the environment within which they do it, we on the ground and Navy in ships and the like. But if there has to be a uniform policy, obviously we think the Army's is the best informed and most enlightened.
Mr. BUYER. Mr. Secretary, I want you to know that from the congressional perspective or actually from this chair, I am not sending a message that we want one standard. We recognize that each of the services bring a unique asset to the battlefield and we want you to be able to define how you interact with your force and discipline your force, so I want that to be a clear message, too.
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Secretary WEST. Yes, sir. On the point of the command decision with respect to when we take these reductions or whether TRADOC should have, we have had that discussion with you in the course of this testimony, but certainly, A, we got your message, and as the Chief said, we are already moving to do things with TRADOC. I think on whether he has more to say on those three, but also on the issue of holdovers, and there was a second one, I just can't remember—why don't I let him take this one?
General REIMER. Can I just comment on a couple of those? You are absolutely correct on holdovers, Mr. Chairman. It has been a problem in the training base for a long time. We understand that. We are monitoring that a lot more closely right now and General Hartzog and I have talked about that issue. We will drive those down. Holdovers only cause problems because they are not being utilized properly and we have about 1,500 in the training base right now. We need to move those quickly and we will. We will start putting the emphasis on that.
The ratio of drill sergeants, you are also correct, and that was a part of the function of the drawdown and we just didn't have the drill sergeants out there that we needed and I think that we have taken the corrective steps necessary. We have put the XO's back into the companies. We have the chaplains out there and we will meet the drill sergeant ratio requirements.
Finally, on the U.S. Marine Corps decision on training base versus ours, I don't remember what the Marine Corps cut was, ours was 600,000. We could not hold TRADOC constant on that. We did the best we could to try to keep the balance and we didn't get it quite right. We will get it right.
Mr. BUYER. Thank you. We have a vote on. Let me yield to Mr. Taylor for any final comment.
Mr. TAYLOR. No. 1, I would like to thank all the panelists for coming today. I know you all have very important jobs to do and we are taking time away from them, but there are some concerns on this committee and throughout our country of what happened at Aberdeen, other allegations of sexual misconduct, and very publicized reports that the training has gone soft in the U.S. Army.
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We hope that today will highlight some of those problems and lead to some solutions. I would also hope that General Reimer, going back to something you said about people in uniform as a direct result of the amount of money that you were given, it is a two-way street. If this committee puts money into the budget that was not a part of the administration's request, we are then subject to pork barreling. I would encourage you, I would encourage the Secretary to be as forceful as possible with the Clinton administration to see to it that the U.S. Army is adequately funded, and therefore, we don't have to have too few people doing too many jobs.
We will do our part to not only match what you asked for, but to see to it that you get more than that because I do believe, as one of the previous speakers said, I do think there are too many people in the Army who have become prisoners of their own in-box, for lack of people to delegate those jobs to, and we simply cannot have the Army of the United States tied up in such a matter. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BUYER. General Reimer and Secretary West——
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Chairman, just before we adjourn, can I commend you for a second?
Mr. BUYER. You have 10 minutes.
Ms. HARMAN. Strong, unflinching, bipartisan, nonideological, sober, sensitive leadership of this inquiry and to say that I enthusiastically endorse your call for a value system of a soldier which transcends race and gender.
Mrs. FOWLER. And I would like to add.
General WEST. Mr. Chairman——
Mr. BUYER. Oh, well, wait, let Tillie add.
Mrs. FOWLER. I just want to add to that, he has been a great Chairman as we have gone through this and we really appreciate it and we look forward to continuing to work with you on it.
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Secretary WEST. Mr. Chairman, I, on behalf of all of us, would like to thank you and this committee, and Mrs. Fowler, the subcommittee of Mrs. Fowler, for your interest in this effort by the Army. You have been there with us all the way. Obviously, you haven't always agreed with us, but that is your job, to call us to task. We appreciate that.
I could not let the record close without saying that for those who think Army training is going soft, let them go to Fort Bragg and Fort Benning and Fort Knox, let them go talk to those trainees who are undergoing our combat arms training and see if those people think they are having an easy time of it.
Mr. BUYER. Let me thank both of you. Our task isn't done. That is my message here, and we are going to continue the focus. Obviously we owe this to America's parents, who want to serve this great Nation. But thank you very much. We will continue our dialog.
[Whereupon, at 1:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BUYER
Mr. BUYER. How badly undermanned is Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) today? By that I mean, compared to the numbers of officers, enlisted and civilians required to perform the initial entry training mission, what percentage are authorized, and what percentage are actually assigned? To what extent are drill sergeants being used to fill gaps in administrative or support staffing?
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Secretary WEST. We monitor drill sergeant manning both at Headquarters, Department of the Army, and at Headquarters, TRADOC. Drill sergeants are permanently assigned to installations in drill sergeant positions and are precluded from performing duties other than drill sergeant. However, the cuts in base/training support structure often require training units to employ drill sergeants in other than drill sergeant duties for short durations. These duties include platform instructor, firing range officer, but driver, dining hall supervisor, sick call escort, and a variety of other base support functions. An internal study conducted by TRADOC in July 1997 that identified additional requirements is being reviewed by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.
Below, I have provided the information requested regarding specific authorizations and assigned personnel. It is important to stress that we do not fill to requirements, we fill to authorizations. The personnel system looks at a requirement as a demand for resources to accomplish some mission; however, this is often not affordable. A decision must be made concerning the level of resources (manpower) that can reasonably be expected to accomplish the mission satisfactorily. The affordable level of manpower that can accomplish the mission is the authorized manpower. The goal is to fill this authorized level with actual people—assigned personnel. To the extent that we are able to recruit, train, and assign the proper skill level people to the authorizations represents how well an organization is manned to carry out its mission.
PERCENTAGE ASSIGNED TO AUTHORIZED
TRADOC: Officer/Warrant Officer, 83%(see footnote 1); Enlisted 100%1; Civilian, 100%.
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Mr. BUYER. With the current high personnel tempo and the Army's effort to further reduce end strength, how does the Army plan to address these critical shortfalls?
Secretary WEST. The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) has completed a manpower evaluation to identify military and civilian personnel requirements. The evaluation will be reviewed by an Army Staff Working Group, chaired by the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. This working group works directly with TRADOC on all readiness issues, to include military and civilian personnel. TRADOC shortfalls and mission requirements will be weighed against other Army priorities.
Mr. BUYER. In your opening statement, you talked about the increased operational tempo throughout the Army and the impact of downsizing, particularly in the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). What will the Army's decision to assign 110 lieutenants and 54 chaplains to TRADOC have on the personnel tempo of operational units?
Secretary WEST. We have over 14,000 lieutenants in the Army, so the impact of the reassignment of 110 to TRADOC has been minimal. The assignment of 54 chaplains to TRADOC has had no effect on our operational units since we increased the Army Chaplains branch authorizations by 54 specifically to address this concern.
Mr. BUYER. One of the major concerns the committee heard during its oversight investigation has been that the trainee-to-drill sergeant ratios are not adequate. How do you intend to address that issue?
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Secretary WEST. We believe the formulas used to derive the ratio of drill sergeants to soldiers are correct. Manpower shortages in the Basic Combat Training, Advanced Individual Training, and One-Station Unit Training support structure, however, periodically require training units to employ drill sergeants in other than drill sergeant duties for a short duration. The Training and Doctrine Command policy precludes permanently assigning drill sergeants to other than drill sergeant duties, and training support taskings are kept to the absolute minimum required for mission accomplishment. We are working to minimize the use of drill sergeants outside of their training responsibilities.
Mr. BUYER. What specific actions are being taken to improve the drill sergeant selection and training process to be sure that only the most qualified soldiers are selected for, and assigned to, this demanding and critical assignment? When do these new procedures take effect?
Secretary WEST. Prior to August 1997, the Total Army Personnel Command (PERSCOM) screened each candidate's Official Military Personnel File (excluding the restricted portion) and a mental evaluation was required for volunteers. Since August 1997, we have been utilizing several new procedures in reviewing soldiers for drill sergeant selection. First, PERSCOM now screens each candidate's complete Official Military Personnel File to include the restricted portion and Military Police/Criminal Investigation Division records before they are selected for drill sergeant training. Second, we have a requirement for the soldier's commander (lieutenant colonel or above) now to recommend the soldier for drill sergeant training. Third, we require a mental health evaluation on all drill sergeant candidates. In the future, we envision adding a psychological screening process for drill sergeant candidates. We are presently running a pilot program at the Fort Benning Drill Sergeant School and the results of this pilot program will be considered in the creation of an Army-wide psychological screening process.
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Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel, as well as this committee, has recommended that the Army establish a mechanism that ensures that failure to complete the Drill Sergeant School does not end or mar a candidate's career, unless the failure results from misconduct or failure to meet requirements. What action does the Army plan regarding this recommendation?
Secretary WEST. It is not the intent of the Army to unfairly end or mar a soldier's career should a soldier fail to complete drill sergeant school, unless the failure resulted from misconduct or failure to meet requirements. The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (DCSPER) is presently reviewing options to protect certain drill sergeant candidates who are dismissed from the course. I expect the DCSPER decision by the end of April 1998.
Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel also recommended consolidating all drill sergeant training to one location to ''ensure uniform quality, maximize use of resources and bring greater and more consistent focus and attention to this critical human relations training shortcoming.'' What actions has the Army taken regarding this recommendation? What actions are planned?
Secretary WEST. The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is currently reviewing the drill sergeant program. This review includes a fresh look at the drill sergeant school curriculum, drill sergeant selection process, and the potential consolidation of the Army's drill sergeant schools. Final recommendations resulting from this study are expected no later than June 1998.
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Mr. BUYER. How do you intend to convince soldiers that drill sergeant duty is career-enhancing so that the most qualified soldiers will serve in these critically-important roles?
Secretary WEST. We are in the process of looking at several different initiatives to get our most qualified soldiers to serve as drill sergeants. We are looking at enhancing and refining promotion board instruction to ensure drill sergeants will be promoted and not disadvantaged. We are also looking at increasing special duty assignment pay (SDAP) to $275 a month right from the time they start serving as a drill sergeant instead of gradually increasing their SDAP over the first year. And finally, we are reviewing the opportunity to give soldiers who successfully complete a drill sergeant tour their choice of assignment in one of several locations that have a valid requirement for their grade and military occupational specialty. We feel the cumulative effect of these initiatives will ensure that our best noncommissioned officers will continue to fill these critical assignments.
Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel recommended that the length of initial-entry training (IET) be increased to allow for ''more intense, more rigorous soldierization'' and the inculcation of Army values. What specific changes would you see being made to IET to carry out the goal of providing for ''more intense, more rigorous soldierization?''
Secretary WEST. The Chief of Staff and I announced on September 18, 1997, the addition of a week to IET. This additional week in IET will allow us to incorporate training that will focus on Army Values, Discipline and Teamwork. This additional week will increase the amount of time we spend on physical fitness and will add 54 hours in Basic Combat Training (BCT). Also, at the end of BCT, trainees will now undergo an expanded 72-hour field training exercise that will serve as a culminating ''rite of passage'' event. From this rigorous exercise, trainees will emerge not only with a sense of accomplishment, but will have a much better appreciation and understanding of Army Values, Discipline and the importance of Teamwork.
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Mr. BUYER. What actions does the Army plan regarding the Panel's recommendations to implement a renewed Advanced Individual Training (AIT) approach that focuses on the continuation of the soldierization process begun in basic?
Secretary WEST. Army trainees are still undergoing the soldierization process when they attend AIT. The Army divides soldierization training into five phases. Phases one thru three are completed during Basic Combat Training (BCT); Phases four and five are completed in AIT. As in BCT units, we will ensure all AIT units are staffed with the required number of drill sergeants. Drill sergeants assigned to AIT units will reinforce the skills the trainees have learned in BCT. Pending resource analysis, one medium by which we may enhance the process of soldierization is through additional values training in AIT. We anticipate drill sergeants in AIT to become the primary instructors for the reinforcement training that will sustain the values-based training trainees received in BCT. The drill sergeant will continue to be a role model for the trainees. Drill sergeants, taking advantage of the contract they have with trainees, will create an enhanced environment in which trainees will continue the soldierization process. In addition, we are reviewing the AIT program to identify other opportunities to enhance or improve upon the soldierization process.
Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel's report recommends that commanders conduct annual climate assessments. The Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) has stated that it is incapable of processing the Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey, the most common climate assessment tool, if it is administered by every commander annually. The panel recommends that the Army develop and field a command climate assessment instrument tailored to each type of unit. Will this instrument also allow for comparability between units of different types to ensure that commanders for different types of units are held to the same standard for command climate accountability?
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Secretary WEST. A newly developed Command Climate Survey (a single climate survey designed for all types of commands) has been tested by a number of company commanders, while the Army evaluates the use of different instruments for different types of units. One consideration in evaluating these different instruments is comparability of data. Holding commanders accountable for unit climate is the responsibility of the chain of command. We are exploring mechanisms to assist commanders in evaluating and enforcing accountability.
Mr. BUYER. Who will be responsible for processing the new climate assessment tool once it is developed?
Secretary WEST. The Army-wide climate survey, Sample Survey of Military Personnel, is analyzed by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. The results are briefed throughout Army Headquarters and are used to develop Army-wide action plans. The newly developed unit-level survey, the Command Climate Survey, is to be administered by commanders to assist them in efforts to improve their units' climate. It is the commander's responsibility to identify who will tabulate the results of this survey, including himself, such as the command's Equal Opportunity Advisory, or the command's higher headquarters Inspector General.
Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel recommended establishing mechanisms to hold commanders accountable for their units' command climate. What actions does the Army plan relating to this recommendation?
Secretary WEST. It is the responsibility of the chain of command to hold commanders accountable for their units' command climate. The role of the rater and senior rater in the Officer Efficiency Report (OER) process is critical. Leadership must take charge. Successful leadership and mentoring are the heart of our evaluation process and the key to success. The Army will not develop any additional formal mechanisms but will encourage leaders to mentor, develop, set the example, and lead subordinates in a professional manner.
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Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel report states that the Army lacks institutional commitment to the Equal Opportunity (EO) program, and that soldiers distrust the EO complaint system. In your testimony, you state that the Army is revising the Equal Opportunity Advisor program and is increasing the quality of EO advisors who support commanders by moving from a local selection process to a central Department of the Army selection. How will you ensure that a central selection process is focused on selecting only top-quality advisors, rather then ''fill the billets'' mentality?
Secretary WEST. By centrally managing the selection of Equal Opportunity Advisors (EOAs) rather than relying on volunteers, PERSCOM can ensure that all EOAs meet or exceed stringent criteria that has been established. This new and more stringent criteria will require that PERSCOM review each candidates entire Official Military Personnel File to insure that only those with demonstrated outstanding performance be selected to serve as an EOA. Furthermore, this new criteria will require that EOA's remain ''qualified'' as EOAs for their entire tour. Any failures to maintain the requirements or the established criteria will be grounds for elimination from the EAO program.
Mr. BUYER. What specific actions do you have planned that are designed to remove the stigma that assignment as an EO advisor is not career enhancing?
Secretary WEST. PERSCOM will centrally manage the selection of Equal Opportunity Advisors (EOAs). By establishing new and more stringent criteria for assignment as an EOA, PERSCOM will now select only top quality, competitive, branch-qualified soldiers to fill EOA positions. When the field sees the quality, credibility and vitality of these selected soldiers it will send a clear signal that Equal Opportunity is an Army-wide program, supported by the entire chain of command, demonstrated by the willingness of the senior leadership of the Army to commit some of the Army's best soldiers to serve as EOAs.
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Mr. BUYER. How will you ensure that soldiers who use the Equal Opportunity (EO) system are protected?
Secretary WEST. The Army has always had provisions in regulations that give soldiers and their family members the right to present a complaint to the command without fear of intimidation, reprisal, or harassment. Department of the Army personnel are prohibited from taking any action that discourages a soldier or a family member from filing a complaint or seeking assistance when resolving EO matters. Personnel are also prohibited from taking any disciplinary or adverse action against a soldier for filing a complaint, seeking assistance, or cooperating with an investigation. This is a chain of command responsibility to ensure that soldiers know about these protections and our EO complaint system, and I intend to hold the chain of command responsible for insuring their implementation.
Mr. BUYER. How badly undermanned is Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) today? By that I mean, compared to the numbers of officers, enlisted and civilians required to perform the initial entry training mission, what percentage are authorized, and what percentage are actually assigned? To what extent are drill sergeants being used to fill gaps in administrative or support staffing?
General REIMER. We monitor drill sergeants manning both at Headquarters, Department of the Army, and at Headquarters, TRADOC. Drill sergeants are permanently assigned to installations in drill sergeant positions and are precluded from performing duties other than drill sergeants. However, the cuts in base/training support structure often requires training units to employ drill sergeants in other than drill sergeant duties for short durations. These duties include platform instructor, firing range officer, bus driver, dining hall supervisor, sick call escort, and a variety of other base support functions. An internal study conducted by TRADOC in July 1997 that identify additional requirements is being reviewed by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.
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Below, I have provided the information requested regarding specific authorizations and assigned personnel. It is important to stress that we do not fill to requirements, we fill to authorizations. The personnel system looks at a requirement as demand for resources to accomplish some mission; however, this is often not affordable. A decision must be made concerning the level of resources (manpower) that can reasonably be expected to accomplish the mission satisfactorily. The affordable level of manpower that can accomplish the mission is the authorized manpower. The goal is to fill this authorized level with actual people—assigned personnel. To the extent that we are able to recruit, train, and assign the proper skill level people to the authorizations represents how well an organization is manned to carry out its mission.
PERCENTAGE ASSIGNED TO AUTHORIZED
TRADOC: Officer/Warrant Officer, 83%(see footnote 2); Enlisted, 100%(see footnote 3); Civilian, >100%.
Mr. BUYER. With the current high personnel tempo and the Army's effort to further reduce endstrength, how does the Army plan to address these critical shortfalls?
General REIMER. As we drew down the Army, we tried to keep as many soldiers as possible in the cutting edge fighting forces (teeth) and reduced support (tail). We did a good job of retaining fighting forces, but we have an imbalance in terms of force structure and endstrength. We plan to re-balance this along with the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) reductions. This is a complex action that requires us to transfer force structure from the Active Component to the Reserve Component and fine tune our recruiting objective. Thus, we will not only bring force structure and endstrength more in balance in the Active Component, but increase the relevancy of the Reserve Component. This will allow us to leverage the capabilities of the Reserve Component. We will be able to maintain the active QDR endstrength of 480,000 and redistribute people over time to address Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) shortfalls.
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Mr. BUYER. In your opening statement, you talked about the increased operational tempo throughout the Army and the impact of downsizing, particularly in the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). What will the Army's decision to assign 110 lieutenants and 54 chaplains to TRADOC have on the personnel tempo of operational units?
General REIMER. We have over 14,000 lieutenants in the Army, so the impact of the reassignment of 110 to TRADOC has been minimal. The assignment of 54 chaplains to TRADOC has had no effect on our operational units since we increased the Army Chaplains branch authorizations by 54 specifically to address this concern.
Mr. BUYER. One of the major concerns the committee heard during its oversight investigation has been that the trainee-to-drill sergeant ratios are not adequate. How do you intend to address that issue?
General REIMER. We believe the formulas used to derive the ratio of drill sergeants to soldiers are correct. However, manpower shortages in the Basic Combat Training, Advanced Individual Training, and One-Station Unit Training support structure periodically require training units to employ drill sergeants in other than drill sergeant duties for a short duration. Training and Doctrine Command policy precludes permanently assigning drill sergeants to other than drill sergeant duties, and training support taskings are kept to the absolute minimum required for mission accomplishment. We are working to minimize the use of drill sergeants outside of their training responsibilities. Again, this will be addressed by balancing force structure and endstrength across the Total Army.
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Mr. BUYER. What specific actions are being taken to improve the drill sergeant selection and training process to be sure that only the most qualified soldiers are selected for, and assigned to, this demanding and critical assignment? When do these new procedures take effect?
General REIMER. Prior to August 1997, the Total Army Personnel Command (PERSCOM) screened each candidate's Official Military Personnel File (excluding the restricted portion) and a mental evaluation was required for volunteers. Since August 1997, we have been utilizing several new procedures in reviewing soldiers for drill sergeant selection. First, PERSCOM now screens each candidate's complete Official Military Personnel File to include the restricted portion and Military Police/Criminal Investigation Division records before they are selected for drill sergeant training. Second, we have a requirement for the soldier's commander (lieutenant colonel or above) now to recommend the soldier for drill sergeant training. Third, we require a mental health evaluation on all drill sergeant candidates. In the future, we envision adding a psychological screening process for drill sergeant candidates. We are presently running a pilot program at the Fort Benning Drill Sergeant School and the results of this pilot program will be considered in the creation of an Army-wide psychological screening process.
Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel, as well as this committee, has recommended that the Army establish a mechanism that ensures that failure to complete the Drill Sergeant School does not end or mar a candidate's career, unless the failure results from misconduct or failure to meet requirements. What action does the Army plan regarding this recommendation?
General REIMER. It is not the intent of the Army to end or mar a soldier's career should a soldier fail to complete drill sergeant school, unless the failure resulted from misconduct or from failing to meet the performance standards normally expected of a noncommissioned officer. The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel is presently reviewing options to possibly protect some drill sergeant candidates who are dismissed from the course.
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Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel also recommended consolidating all drill sergeant training to one location to ''ensure uniform quality, maximize use of resources and bring greater and more consistent focus and attention to this critical human relations training shortcoming.'' What actions has the Army taken regarding this recommendation? What actions are planned?
General REIMER. The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is currently reviewing the drill sergeant program. This review includes a fresh look at the drill sergeant school curriculum, drill sergeant selection process, and the potential consolidation of the Army's drill sergeant schools. Final recommendations from this review are expected no later than June 1998.
Mr. BUYER. How do you intend to convince soldiers that drill sergeant duty is career-enhancing so that the most qualified soldiers will serve in these critically-important roles?
General REIMER. We are in the process of looking at several different initiatives to get our most qualified soldiers to serve as drill sergeants. We are looking at enhancing and reining promotion board instruction to ensure drill sergeants will be promoted and not disadvantaged. We are also looking at increasing special duty assignment pay (SDAP) to $275 a month right from the time they start serving as a drill sergeant instead of gradually increasing their SDAP over the first year. And finally, we are reviewing the opportunity to give soldiers who successfully complete a drill sergeant tour their choice of assignment in one of several locations that have a valid requirement for their grade and military occupational specialty. We feel the cumulative effect of these initiatives will ensure that our best noncommissioned officers will continue to fill these critical assignments.
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Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel recommended that the length of initial-entry training (IET) be increased to allow for ''more intense, more rigorous soldierization'' and the inculcation of Army values. What specific changes would you see being made to IET to carry out the goal of providing for ''more intense, more rigorous soldierization?''
General REIMER. We are revising the entire Basic Combat Training (BCT) program of instruction to increase rigor and place more emphasis on values, physical fitness, discipline, and teamwork. This revision translates into an additional 54 hours of training spread throughout BCT which increases the overall length of BCT from eight to nine weeks. We will use this additional time to present training which is more physically and mentally challenging than ever before. We are not just adding blocks of instruction, we are embedding values, discipline, and teamwork throughout BCT. As an example, weeks one through seven will focus on one of the seven Army ''core'' values and week eight will be dedicated to an intense ''warrior'' field training exercise which will serve as a culminating ''rite of passage'' event signaling the transition from civilian to soldier for all trainees. Trainees will now emerge from BCT better equipped to handle the challenges of serving in today's Army. All trainees, regardless of race, gender, or military occupational specialty will emerge from this experience with a clear understanding of what values, discipline, and teamwork can achieve—success.
Mr. BUYER. What actions does the Army plan regarding the Panel's recommendations to implement a renewed Advanced Individual Training (AIT) approach that focuses on the continuation of the soldierization process begun in basic?
General REIMER. First, I believe it is important to understand that the soldierization process begins when a soldier first arrives at the reception battalion and does not end until he or she leaves the Army. The Army philosophy is that a soldier never stops training; the Army trains soldiers from cradle to grave.
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The first five phases of the soldierization process occur in initial entry training. By definition it is a tough, comprehensive process which transforms civilians into soldiers. It results from the total immersion in a positive environment established by active, involved leadership. This environment sets high standards, provides positive role models, and uses every training opportunity to reinforce basic soldier skills.
Phases one through three occur in Basic Combat Training (BCT) and are characterized by total control over the trainee with training focused on developing the requisite values, discipline, and combat skills necessary for all soldiers to live, work, train and fight together as members of a combined arms team. Phases four and five occur in Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and are characterized by lessening of control over the trainee with training focused on the retention of basic combat skills and the development of the requisite technical skills to perform duties in their designated military occupational speciality (MOS).
Upon completion of IET, all soldiers continue the soldierization process after they arrive at their first unit of assignment. Soldiers receive additional training from first line leaders designed to make them an integral, combat-ready member of the unit. During the soldier's first unit assignment, the soldier continues to grow personally and professionally. As the soldier grows and demonstrates the potential to take on further responsibility, the soldier will be promoted and re-enter the institutional training base under the Noncommissioned Officer Education System (NCOES), which trains soldiers from the rank of Corporal to Sergeant Major. As soldiers enter NCOES, the focus changes from soldierization to professionalization, as we develop professional, competent leaders for the future. We must ensure that all training received by soldiers is progressive, sequential, and reinforces that received previously. The foundation upon which all future training is based is presented during IET. Accordingly, the Army is revising and expanding the scope of training provided in IET. We are adding an additional week to BCT to increase rigor, and inculcate Army values, teamwork and discipline. With respect to AIT, we will reinforce the training provided in BCT and build upon the base skills which each trainee successfully mastered during BCT. This revision to how we conduct IET places increased importance on getting back to the basics and firmly entrenches the drill sergeant as the primary trainer, mentor and role model for new recruits. The intent is to overcome misconceptions on rigor, revitalize the role of drill sergeants in AIT, and assure that all soldiers are technically and tactically competent and fully prepared to take their place in the ranks of the Army.
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Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel's report recommends that commanders conduct annual climate assessments. The Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute has stated that it is incapable of processing the Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey, the most common climate assessment tool, if it is administered by every commander annually. The panel recommends that the Army develop and field a command climate assessment instrument tailored to each type of unit. Will this instrument also allow for comparability between units of different types to ensure that commanders for different types of units are held to the same standard for command climate accountability?
General REIMER. A newly developed Command Climate Survey is just one of a number of tools available for commanders to help assess the command climate. This survey does not replace the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute's (DEOMI) Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey. We are developing assessment instruments for different types of units. These instruments are designed to provide data to the unit commander, and the data do not need to be compared with other unit data to be useful to the commander. Holding commanders accountable for unit climate is the responsibility of the chain of command. High level commanders have the responsibility to mentor their subordinates. The new Officer Efficiency Report (OER) requires face-to-face counseling at lower levels of the Army, and it is strongly encouraged at all levels. Army senior leadership will set the example and drive this from the top down.
Mr. BUYER. Who will be responsible for processing the new climate assessment tool once it is developed?
General REIMER. The newly developed Command Climate Survey will be administered by commanders to assist them in improving their unit's climate. The commanders will control the data. Commanders may use the Equal Opportunity Advisor or the Inspector General to assist in reviewing the surveys and making recommendations to improve the climate of command in their units if needed, but the Army will not require that commanders tabulate data and report up the chain of command. The assessment tool has been developed to be used as an internal mechanism to evaluate one's own unit. Once again, the role of the higher level commanders in the chain of command is key. They must mentor and assist their subordinate commanders to use their tools effectively.
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Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel recommended establishing mechanisms to hold commanders accountable for their units' command climate. What actions does the Army plan relating to this recommendation?
General REIMER. It is the responsibility of the chain of command to hold commanders accountable for their units' command climate. The role of the rater and senior rater in the Officer Efficiency Report (OER) process is critical. Leadership must take charge. Successful leadership and mentoring are the heart of our evaluation process and the key to success. The Army will not develop any additional formal mechanisms but will encourage leaders to mentor, develop, set the example, and lead subordinates in a professional manner.
Mr. BUYER. The Senior Review Panel report states that the Army lacks institutional commitment to the Equal Opportunity (EO) program, and that soldiers distrust the EO complaint system. In your testimony, you state that the Army is revising the Equal Opportunity Advisor program and is increasing the quality of EO advisors who support commanders by moving from a local selection process to a central Department of the Army selection. How will you ensure that a central selection process is focused on selecting only top-quality advisor, rather then ''fill the billets'' mentality?
General REIMER. By centrally managing the selection of Equal Opportunity Advisors (EOAs) rather than relying on volunteers, PERSCOM can ensure that all EOAs meet or exceed stringent criteria that we have established. These new and more stringent criteria require PERSCOM to review each candidate's entire Official Military Personnel File to insure only those with demonstrated outstanding performance be selected to serve as an EOA. Furthermore, these new criteria will require that EOAs remain ''qualified'' as EOAs for their entire tour. Any failures to maintain the requirements or the established criteria will be grounds for elimination from the EOA program. The role of the EOA also will be expanded. The Army has designate the EOA as the principal advisor to the commander for the newly-instituted ''Consideration of Others'' program. The Army is developing training which will prepare the EOA to serve as the expert on this program and provide valuable assistance to the commanders implementing the program in their units.
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Mr. BUYER. What specific actions do you have planned that are designed to remove the stigma that assignment as an EO advisor is not career enhancing?
General REIMER. PERSCOM will centrally manage the selection of Equal Opportunity Advisors (EOAs). By establishing new and more stringent criteria for assignment as an EOA, PERSCOM will now only select top quality, competitive, branch-qualified soldiers to fill EOA positions. When the field sees the quality, credibility and vitality of these selected soldiers, it will send a clear signal that Equal Opportunity is an Army-wide program, supported by the entire chain of command, as demonstrated by the willingness of the senior leadership of the Army to commit some of the Army's best soldiers to serve as EOAs. In addition, the Department of the Army will provide specific instructions to all promotion boards on the importance of EOAs to combat readiness and the human dimension of warfare.
Mr. BUYER. How will you ensure soldiers who use the Equal Opportunity (EO) system are protected?
General REIMER. It is a chain of commend responsibility to ensure that soldiers know about and enforce the protections of the EO complaint system. Both the Department of Defense and the Army have regulations that prohibit taking any disciplinary or adverse action against a soldier for filing a complaint. I will hold the chain of command responsible for following the regulations.
Mr. BUYER. The most fundamental and most significant conclusion of both the Army's investigations and the committee's investigation is that leadership is critical in creating and maintaining an environment in which all members are treated with respect and human dignity. The Army's leadership appeared sincerely shocked at the level and scope of the allegations of sexual misconduct at Aberdeen Proving Ground. If the problems at Aberdeen were as far reaching as the allegations indicate, it is hard to imagine how misconduct on this scale could have taken place without anyone in the leadership structure being aware of the problems. What factors did you find that contributed to the chain of command at Aberdeen not being aware of such widespread misconduct?
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Lieutenant General BATES. There were several factors leading to the lack of awareness at Aberdeen by the chain of command. First, there was a widespread belief, generally supported by all observations, that the school was running well and producing first class ordnance soldiers. The command opinion was that the challenges of the Ordnance Corps in the future lay in the material development, combat development and training development fields not in current training. Secondly, the chain of command, at least down to battalion level, had a split focus—attention had to be given not only to the discipline and training of soldiers but to those future challenges previously mentioned. In the case of the Chief of Ordnance, he had varying degrees of responsibility in at least 10 separate geographic locations. Additionally, some senior noncommissioned officers did not make themselves aware of the actions of their immediate subordinates, or if aware, chose not to pass that knowledge up the chain of command. Finally, there was the well-founded and correct belief that, when cases were discovered, they were the result of individual failure to adhere to standards and the accompanying belief, not so well-founded, that such misconduct was isolated to few individuals and not a systemic nor widespread problem.
Mr. BUYER. What early warning signs were there? How were they overlooked?
Lieutenant General BATES. Early warning is a misnomer. There were individual acts of misconduct which were discovered and appropriate action taken. There were other improper acts, which though known, were investigated at a relatively low level (for example the battalion command sergeant major) and either incorrect conclusions were drawn or the information was not passed to the command level. Until the command initiated the investigation which uncovered the wide extent of misconduct, there was no general indication of a major problem.
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Mr. BUYER. What is the chain of command's responsibility for preventing such misconduct, and how are commanders held accountable for establishing a healthy command climate?
Lieutenant General BATES. A commander is responsible for all his organization does or fails to do. That is a fundamental tenet of the U.S. military and in particular includes the establishment and maintenance of the proper command climate. Commanders are continually held responsible for such matters and their failure to properly discharge that responsibility results, as in this case, with various types of censure ranging from poor efficiency reports to letters of reprimand, relief for cause, or in sufficiently egregious cases, judicial or non-judicial punishment.
Mr. BUYER. The issue of accountability was a matter that you focused on specifically. In that context, your report concludes that the noncommissioned officers at Aberdeen and other installations knew, or should have known, or chose not to know, what was going on with regard to sexual misconduct.
How and why do professional soldiers choose such courses of action?
Lieutenant General BATES. A few professional soldiers choose not to disclose misconduct when it comes to their attention. For that minority their rationale includes:
A focus on loyalty to peers vice fidelity to institutional values.
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A belief that they can better handle and correct misconduct without involving the chain of command.
A desire to not bring discredit on their unit.
A feeling that an otherwise outstanding soldier will be harshly punished for misbehavior which may be felt to be unrelated to his or her military duties.
Their own training which inadequately inculcated institutional values.
A sense that everyone is doing it or that the offense is not very serious.
A desire to not be involved.
Mr. BUYER. Could the same be said of the officers appointed over these NCOs: that they, too, knew, should have known or chose not to know what was going on with regard to the widespread sexual misconduct and abuse of authority?
Lieutenant General BATES. We uncovered no evidence, with the exception of a captain who was convicted by a courts martial, of any officer having evidence of misconduct and failing to act on it. However, some commanders did not draw accurate conclusions from investigations into acts of misconduct. Further, those junior officers closest to the problem did not have the experience to recognize indicators of misconduct, nor, generally, did they have the training to understand the great differences between activities in the training base and in the tactical units with which they had experience. Their superiors did not fully appreciate these shortcomings and, consequently, there was inadequate mentoring of junior officers. The more senior and experienced officers, who could be expected to recognize some of the less direct indicators of misbehavior, had their time consumed by duties which took them away from constant contact with trainees. Consequently, they did not observe such problems.
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Mr. BUYER. What impact does the chain of command have on the success of an installation's sexual harassment or sexual misconduct program, and on soldiers' confidence in it?
Lieutenant General BATES. Units do best what the boss checks. Consequently, the chain of command has great impact on the success of a unit's sexual harassment or sexual misconduct programs and the soldiers' confidence in it. The chain is responsible for the conduct and content of the training. Their active presence, participation, and emphasis are key to the program's acceptance by the soldiers and the soldiers' view of its importance. Further, the chain of command is responsible for correcting and, if necessary, punishing violations of that program. The degree to which commanders pursue and publicize that responsibility has a major effect in the confidence of soldiers in the programs.
Mr. BUYER. How are Army leaders held accountable for their negligence in enforcing sexual misconduct and harassment policies?
Lieutenant General BATES. Army leaders are held responsible for negligence in enforcing such programs in the same way they are held responsible for negligence in other areas. Reaction to poor performance in this area ranges from counseling to relief and other administrative or judicial actions, depending on the seriousness of the failure and the ability and actions of the affected leader to repair whatever damage is done.
Mr. BUYER. The charter of the Army IG investigation was to assess the equal opportunity and sexual harassment policies and procedures at basic and advanced individual training organizations and units throughout the Army. What was your assessment of these programs and procedures?
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Lieutenant General BATES. We found that programs for equal opportunity and the prevention of sexual harassment are satisfactorily designed but unevenly and generally not satisfactorily executed. The cause was principally a lack of sufficient emphasis and therefore poor execution of the various requirements of the programs. Mandatory training was conducted for lower and mid-level soldiers and officers but it usually lacked imagination and interaction by those being trained. Programs to train more senior officers were under attended or not executed.
Mr. BUYER. What did you find to be the most significant contributing factors to the serious cases of sexual misconduct that occurred at Aberdeen and other training centers?
Lieutenant General BATES. The most significant factor in the cases of misconduct at Aberdeen was failure on the part of individuals to adhere to known and accepted standards. None of those punished maintained that they did not know what the rules were. This misconduct was an abuse of authority and position. Other factors included things that would promote opportunity or expose trainees to risk of sexual exploitation: lengthy holdovers for medical or intelligence clearance reasons during which time trainees had little formal duties and an unclear status; variable enforcement of the buddy system; binge drinking by trainees; inconsistent policy enforcement which provides leverage over trainees who have violated policy and leads to a general disregard of rules—directly in opposition to a major goal of initial entry training (this was especially pertinent in regard to the cessation of tobacco use); differing enforcement of trainee discipline and military courtesy by drill sergeants, instructors, and other members of the cadre with whom trainees interacted.
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Mr. BUYER. How confident are trainees about reporting cases of sexual misconduct or harassment through the chain of command?
Lieutenant General BATES. Trainees expressed great confidence in their chain of command but felt the Army as a whole was not competently handling sexual harassment allegations. When pressed about the composition of their chain of command, trainees normally had a view limited to their drill sergeant and possibly their company commander. Trainees nearly universal response to questions about the Army as a whole was that the continual media attention indicated a problem; they did not have sufficient experience to express personal opinions. The reluctance of trainees to report misconduct is tied to a rationale which includes a desire not to bring discredit to their unit, not to cause problems for the perpetrator, not to be labeled a troublemaker, and, above all, not to do anything which would prevent them from moving on to their next assignment.
Mr. BUYER. Are trainees aware of other options for reporting sexual harassment or sexual misconduct such as the Inspector General or Equal Opportunity Advisor?
Lieutenant General BATES. We found all trainees had been given information about options for the reporting of sexual harassment/misconduct or other problems. Their retention of that information and understanding of the details varied greatly but generally was weak. Nearly all knew of the chaplain as an avenue for help. When prompted somewhat, most recalled hearing about the Inspector General and Equal Opportunity programs—few recalled details. A trainee is given a lot of information in a short period during which they are making the radical change from civilian to soldier. Not all of the information provided is retained. Additionally, in some parts of the training base, the equal opportunity representative closest to the trainees is a drill sergeant—an authority figure not all trainees would approach with a problem concerning one of his peers.
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Mr. BUYER. How do training commands track or monitor sexual misconduct incidents at the training center? Did you find these procedures to be adequate?
Lieutenant General BATES. Training commands generally have acceptable visibility over proven serious misconduct incidents—those which result in non-judicial or judicial punishment. Conversely, until these incidents, most of the possible indicators of problems—complaints to Equal Opportunity representatives, requests for Inspector General help, indicators from the Chaplain or medical community, or, in some cases, unfounded allegations investigated by units, military police, or the CID, were in stovepiped reporting systems, precluding the development of a holistic picture at any level of command. Further, there was little feedback from higher to lower headquarters and little analysis of the possible relationship among these indicators. These inadequacies were major findings of our inspection. Commands at all levels have adopted or are adopting corrective measures.
(Footnote 1 return)
This figure represents the aggregate across the command. In any given year, training bases will have either a higher or a lower percentage of assigned to authorized because the training missions at these bases vary due to fluctuations in the training loads for various military occupational specialties each base supports.
(Footnote 2 return)
This figure represents the aggregate across the command. In any given year, training bases will have either a higher or a lower percentage of assigned to authorized because the training missions at these bases vary due to fluctuations in the training loads for various military occupational specialities each base supports.