Hearing of the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee - Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Budget Request on Army National Guard and Army Reserve Equipment

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REP. WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to point out that I'm wearing a jacket today in honor of the heritage of our chairman. He has a Scottish background, and so it's a shared heritage we have. And so I know I'd be dressing appropriately for the chairman.

REP. ABERCROMBIE: That's right. The Scots have to take the blame. (Laughs.)

REP. WILSON: No, this is good.

And generals, thank you very much for being here today. And I particularly appreciate your service. I have been in both of your commands. I was three years in the Army Reserves and 28 years in the Army National Guard. I am really grateful that I have four sons serving in the military. The reason they're serving in the military is that everywhere I went, I would run into persons that I served with in the Guard and Reserves, and there was immediately a bond that they noticed of persons of all walks of life. And they notice that the people that I felt were the most capable, competent, patriotic were indeed members of the Guard and Reserve.

And that's why I'm confident all four of them joined the military, and then three in fact are in the Army National Guard. One son's a bit off track; he's a doctor in the Navy, but we still will accept him.

And I also want to let you know that as I've had the opportunity to visit with our troops in Iraq nine times, six times with our troops in Afghanistan, every time I go I'm so impressed by the persons serving in the Guard and Reserves, particularly my former unit, the 218th Brigade, which is concluding its year's service in Afghanistan. General Bob Livingston, what a great job they have performed.

And indeed, as we discuss equipment, in the summer of 2000, I was in a rotation of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California and the equipment that we had then was quite limited.

I point out that the equipment that we had then is actually in a museum today. And so I want to thank you for your leadership in fighting for the best equipment to protect our troops.

I am concerned, though, as I look at the report from General Blum as to our readiness level of 61 percent, and indeed we want your input on how we can assist the Guard and Reserve in having proper equipment. And indeed, a specific question I have, it relates to unfunded requirements. And with the situation of unfunded requirements, General Casey provided a letter of $3.9 billion. What is the status on the unfunded requirements, and is there any way that they could be included in the budget so that in the current issues that we have relative to earmarks that the funding can proceed?

GEN. STULTZ: Go ahead.

GEN. VAUGHN: Congressman, you're asking us what we could do, and in our instance I think it was right at $4 billion. We appreciated him making the case for that because it was aimed at the critical dual use 342. I don't know -- you know, I think in the spirit that he was asked for, again, the bad word being supplemental, I think that's what -- I think that's essentially what he was asked for. If there were extra monies out there, you know, where would it be? I don't mean extra. If we don't receive that at some place -- and the helpful piece about that, it would pay down the ($)10 billion hole in the yard piece out of that 17 (billion dollars) that was remaining.

But as far as where it could be, you know, I take it in the very spirit that he put it back in, and as you all alluded to earlier, maybe if you're talking about the total gross domestic product and whatever that percentage is, maybe it's part of that discussion. But it's -- for the director of the Army Guard to turn around and say we need to put another $4 billion, you know, in the base and that would come at the expense of some of the priorities that Jack has talked about, I think probably it wouldn't be the right thing for me to do.

We need the $4 billion. There is no question about it. And again, we certainly appreciate and applaud the fact that he did that, and in fact, he did it taking our list without even talking to General Blum and I, and we turned around and said would you look at this? Chief of staff of the Army has got the message. And so I hope that that's, you know, enough of an answer that I can give you now. I mean, I don't how we -- I don't know where we put it without identifying a bill payer for it to come off of someplace.

But we simply appreciate everything that this committee does. And again, it's been -- the amount of resources that's up against this, I will tell you the primary issue is the one that you've just attacked and how do we see this from back over here on one side, you know, from a checkbook all the way through to where we got it? And if there is a higher priority by the Army to do that some other place, then we simply need to have an IOU on that. But the UFRs we're going to have UFRs and there's going to be differences in our forces structure between now and '13, and we would hope that -- hope not being a good option, as General Sullivan used to say -- we would hope that that would go down a little bit.

I really don't see how because with everything we're looking at now and the use of our Guard, what we committed to the Army is 60,000 Army Guard soldiers a year mobilized. You know, we did this wrong. We had the big bubble in the middle where we had 100,000 nearly mobilized at one time in '05 while we modularized the force and we had so much combat force in the downrange. We're trying to flat line that out for the future where it's 60,000 all the way across. And -- but we're going to be very receptive to anyone trying to help us with what we've got out there in the future. But I can't tell you where we'll take it at, Congressman. Thank you.

GEN. STULTZ: Thank you. And I look forward to working with the committee.

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REP. WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Congressman Reyes, too.

And indeed, my interest in the equipment is as a member of the Armed Services Committee, as a veteran who served in the Guard and Reserves, but also as a parent. I had one of my sons serve for a year in Iraq in the Army National Guard; another son served in Egypt. And I'm just very concerned about the -- on behalf of family members as to the adequacy of equipment, the latest equipment.

In fact, at one time there was a delay that many of us expressed concern about for the body armor, the SAPI plates, and that's been fully addressed and I'd like a verification indeed that it's been fully addressed and that the equipment is in place.

GEN. STULTZ: Yes, sir. From my units that I have in theater currently, and I keep about 24(,000), 25,000 Army Reserve soldiers mobilized between CONUS and about 18 different countries, and with my frequent visits to theater, both Afghanistan and Iraq and the Horn of Africa, I can say that the soldiers that are on the battlefield over there have the equipment they need, and they have the latest equipment that's available to us.

REP. WILSON: Another concern that I have, we went through a period with the humvees and up-armoring of humvees, and now the providing of MRAPs. Last month, when I had the opportunity to visit with our units in Afghanistan and we went by MRAP through Asadabad, I was really impressed by the MRAPs. But I'm concerned -- there have been reports of delay in delivery. But what is the status on MRAPs in theater?

GEN. STULTZ: That I can't give you an exact figure. I know that they're coming into theater on an accelerated basis. I was over there myself and drove one of them around Balad. How we're meeting the time schedule for that and how the distribution is going, I don't have that information with me.

REP. WILSON: And indeed, as a parent, a veteran, member of Congress, I certainly would like to get an update, Mr. Chairman, on the providing of the MRAPs.

Another issue, I --

REP. ABERCROMBIE: Noted, Mr. Wilson, and we'll take care of it.

REP. WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And also, on Monday I had the privilege of being with Congresswoman Susan Davis and Congressman John McHugh to visit the recruiting and retention school at Fort Jackson, and I was very happy to hear the success and the environment that you've created of successful recruiting and retention, meeting the goals, providing for young people extraordinary opportunity of education, travel and making lifelong friends, which has really benefited my family, me. I just appreciate it so much.

I want to give you, though, a suggestion. The retirement age for the Guard and Reserve, currently it's 60. We did make an effort successfully to provide credit for deployed time from the time of the last defense appropriations bill, but indeed many of us who are so pleased at the seamless nature of the active duty, Guard, Reserve would like to have a retirement system equally seamless -- like at age 55.

GEN. STULTZ: Yes, sir.

REP. WILSON: And indeed, we've been pushing for 55, for a two- for-one credit, where for every two years you get one year of credit to reduce to 55 over the age of -- or over the service period of 20 years.

Again, we did make progress last year with deployed time, and I've introduced a bill that would provide, from 9/11, that you would have the deployment credit, and I feel like this would help with recruiting and retention.

Do you have any comments that you'd like to make about the retirement age?

GEN. STULTZ: Yes, sir, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I think one of the things -- I revert back to my days of civilian life when I worked for Proctor & Gamble, and at Proctor & Gamble we had a simple illustration we called a value equation: What does a box of Tide cost, and what do you get for it? And if you're going to up, you know, increase the price of Tide, you'd better deliver something new and improved.

Well, the value equation we had with the Army Reserve was one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer, that's all we ask, and here's what you get in turn: You get so many dollars a month for your drill pay, you get 20 years and you can draw that retirement at 60.

We changed the equation. We said, now you're an operational force. Now every four to five years, we're going to ask you to leave your family, leave your employer and risk your life. And the great news, just like you said, soldiers are willing to do that.

But we've got to balance that equation. That equation gets balanced with some pay, some incentives, but one of the things I think we've got to balance it with is the retirement. And if we say every four or five years we're going to ask you to go risk your life and suffer and sacrifice, then we ought to reduce that retirement age as an incentive and so we're going to knock some time off of that. We're going to recognize your sacrifice for that.

Likewise, I can tell you two years ago I was up at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, visiting a medical hold unit with some wounded soldiers. One of them was a young staff sergeant from the National Guard. He was an -- (inaudible) -- truck driver. He had served with me in Iraq. And I said, "What are you going to do when you get home?"

And he said, "I'm getting out."

And I said, "Why?"

He said, "The Army doesn't want me."

I said: "How can you say that? You're a combat veteran, you're a truck driver, one of our most critical commodities, and you're a noncommissioned officer, the backbone of the Army. How can you say we don't want you?"

He said: "Sir, they offer me nothing to stay in. I've got my 20 years -- I've got 22 years. So I get no enlistment bonus, I get nothing to stay in." And he said: "I love the Army, but I've got to face my wife. And if I tell her I'm re-enlisting, the first thing she's going to say is 'What are you getting?' And when I say 'Nothing,' she's going to chase me out of the house."

And I said, "What if we could knock off" -- to your point -- "six months for every year you stay beyond 20? So if you stayed 24 years, you could retire -- draw your retirement at 58? If you stayed 30, you could draw it at 55."

And he looked me in the eye and said: "I can sell that. I can sell that."

You know, so I think just simply as a retention tool, because in our system once they get 20 years of credit, what is the incentive to stay? Now, some would say we can't afford that. We can't afford to pay retirement pay five years earlier for a National Guard soldier.

I would submit to you, what is it going to cost us to replace that NCO of 22 years of service and experience as a combat veteran? How much have we already invested in him, in terms of enlistment and re-enlistment incentives and training and schools and everything? But also, what's it going to take us to grow that experience? I don't think we can afford not to, so I support it wholeheartedly.

REP. WILSON: Thank you very, very much for your testimonial.

Thank you.

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