Military Construction Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Quality of Life Program Appropriations - Part 1

Federal News Service February 25, 2004 Wednesday

February 25, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE MILITARY CONSTRUCTION SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: QUALITY OF LIFE PROGRAM APPROPRIATIONS

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE JOE KNOLLENBERG (R-MI)

LOCATION: B-300 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES:

SERGEANT MAJOR KENNERY PRESTON, UNITED STATES ARMY;

MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER TERRY SCOTT, UNITED STATES NAVY;

SERGEANT MAJOR JOHN ESTRADA, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS;

CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT GERALD MURRY, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. KNOLLENBERG: It appears to be something that comes out of all of you that suggests that morale is good. I mean, it isn't simply a one word answer as to why it's so good. It's a variety of things. But I gather-we'll hear from your spouses this afternoon because I think there has to be some connect with them as well. So we won't worry about asking you. They'll speak for themselves I'm sure this afternoon. But it does tie in with the other-and I appreciate your response to the question.

I'll yield now to Mr. Bishop, who is on deck.

REP. SANFORD D. BISHOP (D-GA): Thank you very much.

Let me thank you gentlemen for what you do for our country. As representatives of the enlisted men in our service branches, I want you to know that I certainly appreciate it. I represent Fort Benning, Albany Marine Logistics Base, Moody Air Force Base, and close by there's the Kings Bay Trident Submarine Base. I have a lot of contact with active duty and Reserve personnel, as well as National Guard, and I'm very, very pleased to hear the very rosy comments that you've made about morale.

However, as the chief representatives of your respective branches I would find it very, very unusual if you said something else. It's not necessarily as rosy from our casework perspective-the caseworkers that we talked with back in the district, and from other personnel who don't feel quite as wonderful about quality of life and morale in the respective services. So I want you to know that we are looking forward to hearing from the spouses, and we do talk with some of the lower ranking personnel; particularly those who have families and who have suffered tremendous family strains as a result of their deployment and as a result of-those Reservists and the Guard, as well as some of the-particularly the Air Force deployments.

Some of the missions at Moody, the search and rescue missions, have had deployments that have been manned for 10 months out of the year. We have babies' birthdays, the birth of babies. Divorce, abuse when they come back to find that there's problems in the absence of the service member. This is both male and female service members.

Let me just ask you, what is it? Do we have adequate social service and related resources dedicated to meeting the growing problems that we are seeing, such as spousal abuse, suicide, divorce and substance abuse as a result of the stress and strain on military families? And, of course, quality of life affects the families as well as the service members themselves, and of course that will affect the quality of that service.

And we get contacts from both family members and sometimes from service members indicating their problems, particularly the extended deployments. What is your comment to that as far as social services are concerned? And the other thing has to do with our force strength, of whether or not a better rotational system would contribute to a higher quality of life and a higher morale for your respective members?

MR. PRESTON: Sir, I'll start and I'll answer it in a couple of ways. I guess first I'll talk about the reintegration counseling and training right now that is ongoing for those units that are returning from Iraq. I was down Monday and visited with 101st Airborne and also I just returned from Iraq in December with the 5th Corps Headquarters, who have now gone back to Germany. We've put into place a very thorough reintegration training program that starts for the soldiers in theater, for counseling to make them aware of the problems associated with going home after being separated for such a long period of time. Likewise, the family support groups back at home stations start early before the soldiers get there.

Most of the units out there right now, and I'll use you, sir, for example, use a seven day model. 101st is also similar. When soldiers get back from redeployment, they're immediately put out on a three day pass, and then they come back to work and they go into a seven day reintegration program where it's them and their spouses, you know, with counseling for seven days. And it includes in there safety, which is one of the areas that I'm concerned about with them coming back. Many of them haven't driven a car for over a year.

But getting back in there and it's bringing the family back together again after being separated after such a long period of time. And all that takes place before the soldier signs out on a 30 day leave. And that's to bring the soldier back, bring the families back together and allow them to decompress and become reintegrated with the family again. So that's what's taking place right now for the married soldiers and everybody coming back. You mentioned about social work --

REP. BISHOP: What about single soldiers?

MR. PRESTON: Single soldiers as well. I mean, the thing with that seven day program is it brings them back and allows the chain of command to focus on those soldiers, to get them moved back into their single soldier quarters. Most soldiers had all their personal property put into storage while they were deployed so they return their personal property, getting their POVs, their privately owned vehicles, out of storage. All that takes place during those seven days, so it helps them become reintegrated, keeps them there under the focus of the chain of command, which from a safety perspective instead of turning them loose right away as soon as they get back.

For all the units that are over there we've also initiated what we call Army One Source, which is a 1-800 number, and this ties in all the National Guard and Reserve who sometimes, because of the way they are fragmented and don't have very close knit family support groups, it's a 1-800 number where they can call and receive help on anything. And that ranges from care as far as depression, all the way up to medical problems to, you know, problems associated where they live or just getting information to their soldier that is deployed.

REP. BISHOP: Sir?

MR. ESTRADA: Sir, as far as the Marine Corps is concerned, our leadership has recognized that there is problems associated with Marines going on extended deployment combat. We have also instituted a few programs, some of them are fairly new, during the past couple of years to address those issues. We have the Return and Reunion program before a unit leaves theater overseas to head back home, where they are briefed by a psychiatrist or leadership, and we also have a Return and Reunion handbook that we give to our Marines.

As they return home they face the same thing again with the family services centers and other support and services we have with our family readiness programs, so they are constantly briefed. We pay particular attention to all Marines, also to include-you mentioned single soldiers. We do pay particular attention to them because in the Marine Corps that is 60 percent of our force. So that is available for us. The communities outside of our gates-a lot of the communities like Jacksonville, Florida, and the Oceanside area, communities have gotten together to work with the bases, to help us for the Return and Reunion.

We do recognize we have some problems with suicide, safety issues which we do address and we continue to address those issues. And as the smallest service of all the services, our percentage may seem much higher than the rest of them a lot of the time because of our smaller numbers. But we feel we're making big progress in that area. You mentioned force strength, end strength. I think you mentioned that earlier?

REP. BISHOP: Yes, sir.

MR. ESTRADA: As far as the Marine Corps is concerned, right now we feel that our end strength is right where it is supposed to be right now. Right now. Concerns on our Reservists, touch and go just a little bit. We are concerned and we are monitoring this all the time. I do hear some concerns from Reservists on their jobs when they get back, and so we are monitoring those goals as we continue to rely on the Reservists. We are paying particular attention to that.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: I think it might be appropriate that we-even though it's open for five minutes, that we continue because these questions are being responded to by each branch of the service. So if that --

MR. SCOTT: Thank you, sir. Congressman, when I look-when I think about your question and our comments regarding morale, when I look at morale I look at it from a couple of perspectives. One, the majority-I have to look at the majority of our sailors rather than the few. And I also have to look at it with a perspective of history and time. I can only speak for the last 27 years and I answered the question as of how is the morale today. And I compare that to my past experience and that's why I think I can say with a great deal of confidence that the morale is high. But that doesn't mean that we don't have exceptions and that we don't have issues.

Our sailors understand the significance of the extended deployment, but they don't see this as routine. If there was a view that extended deployments were routine, I think we would be concerned and have a right to be concerned about morale. But I do not believe now, in view of what they are doing, that it is a tremendous issue. Like the other services, the Navy has had a long history of Return and Reunion programs to address the concerns of our sailors and their families. However, when I look at family service programs, morale welfare and recreation programs, as Chairman Knollenberg said at the beginning, there's not too many-there is not an industry base that is going to lobby on their behalf. And the programs we have are essential, they are important and need to have the appropriate welfare focus.

MR. MURRAY: Congressman Bishop, sir, I appreciate your compassion and dedication to our military, as I remember when I served as command chief of Moody Air Force Base under your tenure and time there. I don't believe that the morale of our force has the ability to be equated to the high stress and sacrifices of our services. We clearly recognize that the service in the time period that we serve today is stressful on our members and stressful on our families and does present us problems that are associated with that service.

We also recognize today that we have social problems that are not constituted or caused by the service, but in some way a reflection of our society that we live in today as well. We have made-we have good programs in our service, we have compassionate caring commanders and supervisors. We recognize the-and are very sensitive to the negative indicators and problems related to the service today.

Do we need to do more? Yes we do. We are looking in every way we can and not turning a blind eye. We are looking for support from throughout our federal government from the local areas that we're in. So with those we'll continue to address in every way the problems that are associated and to recognize that we live and serve in a stressful time.

I do highlight that the Air Force has a rotation plan and is committed to that and improving that, so we are working to balance the force. We need to work much harder, as we have the challenges, the big challenge of meeting our end strength, of taking that end strength and placing it where we truly need it to de-stress fields and at the same time be able to deactivate and demobilize our Guard and Reserve that we placed a tremendous burden on.

But recognize as we do that, with Guard and Reserve that have served now for a year-and-a-half to two years used to active duty, there's transition period and stresses that also come on those Guard and Reserve and those family members as well. We continue to address that as well as we bring back into a balance the stability of our force, and yet know that the force that we have today will continue to be a stress situation and a high ops tempo for the unforeseeable future that we must prepare for.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Thank you. I think it's good that we got it out of each one of you in terms of your own reflection on your specific branch of the service. And there's some rough edges I'm sure. Let me turn now to the new Army Force Stabilization Policy and this is going to be directed at you, Army Sergeant Major Preston. The senior leadership recently announced this new force stabilization policy utilizing home basing and unit focus stability. There are two complementary manning strategies designed to stabilize the force and provide soldiers and families increased predictability in its continental U.S. based installations.

I think the Army is unique on this. I don't think this applies at this point in time to the other services. But if the Army hopes to keep soldiers on a base for six to seven years, which has been talked about instead of the current three year period, what does this do to-what kind of impact does this have on effectiveness, on cohesion, on getting to a point-if that policy is deployed in that fashion-where you'll be able to get real attached to your neighbor?

MR. PRESTON: Yes, sir.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: I'm sure you thought about that. What does this do to the Army in terms of the future if that policy is implemented?

MR. PRESTON: Yes, sir. I think-bottom line I think it's going to be good for the Army. It's really going to improve the morale and esprit de corps in the units and it's going to improve-it's going to be good for retention.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: What have you heard from the people themselves?

MR. PRESTON: Right. Where the concern lies is-you know, if you're based at some place like Fort Hood or Fort Bragg where there's 60,000/65,000 soldiers, the opportunities there over the course of six or seven years is very good. You can move around that installation from unit to unit, get all the right career assignments that you need to be competitive with your peers for promotion, particularly as you move up through into the senior ranks. Where there's concern at is you take like an installation, whether it's like Fort Knox, Fort Jackson, which is a school house where we do a lot of training, and for a non-commissioned officer, officer to be assigned there for six or seven years, it would ruin their career.

So the chief-the way he explains it is, you know, don't think of it as installation basing but think of it as regional basing where a lot of these kind of installations are tied to other installations to allow soldiers to-if they do a 36 month life cycle as part of a brigade unit of action they come out of that, they have the opportunity to go and be the recruiters and go and be drill sergeants or AC/RC advisors and that. Go to those installations, do their time for two or three years, whatever the assignment is and then come back to that home base and get back again into the mainstream.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Are there any efficiencies built into this in your judgment? Perhaps with the cost savings?

MR. PRESTON: Be a lot of cost saving. Naturally, I mean we --

REP. KNOLLENBERG: That's not the drive, though, is it? That's not --

MR. PRESTON: No, that's not the drive.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: But it is a result of --

MR. PRESTON: Yes, sir, it is.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: And-go ahead.

MR. PRESTON: If I could add one thing? I mean, just looking back out over my own career-I mean, I'm at 28-and-a-half coming up on 29 years now and in all my career I've never spent more than about three-and-a-half years in one particular place. So as I look back I really see this as being a good thing because it allows the families, the spouses when they get employment they don't have to worry about quitting their job, PCS into another location and trying to start over again. They stay in one place so they can buy houses and invest in property, be part of a unit that deploys and does a six month or one year rotation and then comes right back to that same institution.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Thank you.

I want to direct a question to whomever it applies. But since a large number of Reserves and National Guard have been called up-and I know for example in Michigan I think we have over 2,000 that have been called up. That's about 20 percent of our total Guard force who are currently deployed. By the way, we've lost a couple too. There was one Reservist recently-there was a detonation of a bomb at a roadside, or wherever it was, and the other was an accident. But it brings it home to people now that Reservists can also perish in this thing called war. How is the evolving nature of the Reserve and the National Guard impacting the morale and welfare of Reserve component soldiers and their families? I suspect that this would lean more heavily on a couple of services here, but you can start.

MR. PRESTON: Yes, sir. I think-you know, our concern-I mean, we talked about retention earlier and there's a lot of concern out there now as we bring OIF 1 forces back and transition to OIF 2 and what future rotations will have on the force. Now, we're watching that very closely and there's concern right now with you've got stop loss and stop move in place, the pent up attrition that's in the force, what happens when you lift the stop loss, stop move. Is there going to be this mass exodus, you know, from the services particularly with the Guard and the Reserve?

But right now we're not seeing that. Normal attrition out of the Guard and Reserve about four years ago was about 18 percent and that's what we expect it to attrit-you know, this is prior to 9/11. Over the last several years we've dropped that to 16 percent. Right now for the units that are coming out of theater, attrition out of the units is 12 percent.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: What about the families of those Guardsmen and Reservists? Any word that you get, any kind of comment, feedback from them?

MR. PRESTON: My son is a Reservist and he's in Baghdad right now. But, sir --

REP. KNOLLENBERG: This would certainly have an effect on retention or whatever, would it not, in the Reserve and the National Guard if there was some discontent?

MR. PRESTON: Correct. There was-you know, as I think back over the summer months, there was a number of articles that were published in the "Stars and Stripes" about morale in the Reserves and there was some issues there during the summer months, August-September timeframe, when the decision for one year boots on the ground was made, the mid-tour R&R leave had not yet been approved. Of course it was the summer months, it was 130 degrees so the soldiers that were there in theater were not as happy as what they should have been. Their quality of life was very minimal.

And so since then-I mean now in Iraq the theater has begun to expand and this-you know, the quality of life there has gotten a lot better.

That's why I think now if you talked to the Guard and Reserve soldiers the quality of life of the soldiers coming back right now, they're very positive about the deployment that they've been on. But at the same time, you know, if you're a Guard or Reserve soldier and you're in business for yourself and you've got a rug cleaning business that you spent 10 years building clientele, you've been deployed now and all your clients have gone on to other businesses and now you have to start over again. So the (Guard and Reserve ?)has given up a lot as part of this deployment.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Well, that is a bother. That is a concern. I hear people talk about their lives having changed by virtue of their deployment and it really wrecks their-maybe their business. Now, most of them have got to be employed by some employer, so that employer I would hope and think would have the same view of this. But I would hope that the employers aren't stiff arming those Reservists coming back because that would be-do you have any knowledge of that or difficulty that they encounter when they get back into the civilian lifestyle?

MR. MURRAY: Let me comment. I think we find occasionally anecdotal statements of that, the employer. I'm dealing with the case of a staff sergeant Reservist right now that's been activated for the last year-and-a-half that lost his job. Probably a job in a gray area that we probably could not pursue by law, so we're having to deal with a hardship for him to be able to try to continue his service right now. We find incidents of that occurring all the time, just as Mr. Bishop alluded to as the cases that come in the congressman's office. We expect and we see those and they're very emotional and we-as we try to peel back every one of those we still look at it as a whole.

Our Guard and Reserve is totally-we are a total force. Today in the Air Force you can tell no difference between an active duty, Guard and Reserve and their classification is so different from the IMAs, the Individual Mobilization Augmentees, 2,000 of them spread out across our force. Others that are units that are activated, still others are volunteers that come into service that go into replace, you know, active duty in places. It's incredible of just how-near woven within the fiber throughout the Air Force, associates units, blended wings, activated units.

And so as we try to do that, I know I spend more time today working with Chief Minton, I travel the Guard and Reserve bases and individuals in deployed locations to try to seek that out and pay attention to them. So we are very concerned for the individual from the standpoint as you point out, using 20 percent. As we're working now to bring ours back into a percentage that probably should be somewhere, you know, 10 to 15 percent. But any time we'll rotate because they're in our full rotation schedule of units in our (area ?).

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Any differences in the other --

MR. ESTRADA: Sir, not at all. With us, we have not seen a mass exodus of Reserves. And we do get inquiries from some of our Reserve units that have not been activated thus far, complaining that they would like to get into the fight. And we do get that quite frequently.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: That's been a problem.

MR. PRESTON: You know, sir, we employed 8,500 Army Guardsmen for the last year and a half on our Air Force bases as we build security forces and they have been very content in serving with us and just to perform (that ?).

MR. ESTRADA: We are watching, looking for any signs of a mass exodus, and we use our Reserves quite a bit also-total force. We will be calling up approximately 7,000 of them to do an OIF 2 rotation.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Does the Navy have something different?

MR. SCOTT: No, sir, I have nothing additional to add.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Thank you.

Mr. Bishop?

REP. BISHOP: Thank you.

Let me turn to another subject. It's my understanding that as many as one in every four bases across services will face closure as a result of the current BRAC round. Interestingly enough I haven't heard a lot of discussion about the impact that BRAC has or will have on the quality of life for our men and women in the military and their families.

I'm curious that if you're a soldier, airmen or sailor who happens to be stationed on a base that's a likely BRAC candidate, whether there you're beginning to see any retrenchment or reduction in services that would normally be available at those facilities? Housing, education, maintenance of housing, maintenance of infrastructure, the elimination of certain quality of life amenities like golf courses? And also disposal of what has been termed excess housing. Any thoughts or comments on that from you gentlemen?

MR. ESTRADA: Sir, I'd like to tell you a few months back I was at a Marine Corps base up in Georgia and got some complaints on the golf course closing down in that area, and I-as far as Marine Corps is concerned right now, we feel that we have judged that the right bases and stations and I don't see us losing any of our bases and stations that we have through BRAC. I am not an expert in that area obviously, but all our bases and stations that we operate out of right now are very critical to our readiness and I --

REP. BISHOP: I raised the question and just to respond to all the-particularly I just recently learned that there are some serious infrastructure and sewage problems there on the base that have been sustained. And they're not necessarily being addressed except piecemeal and the housing facilities out there, of course my staff and I have made it a point, I've had four staff retreats and house my people on the bases. We've done it at Moody, at Fort Benning, as well as the Albany Marine Base and by far the most dissatisfied group was found with the retreat at the Marine Base. The quality of the housing we found very, very --

MR. ESTRADA: Yes, sir. That is why it is so critical that we do get this funding for those facilities, infrastructure, get the money to upgrade.

REP. BISHOP: That -- (off mike).

MR. ESTRADA: Yes, sir. Albany is very important to the Marine Corps mission.

MR. PRESTON: I would just say we just did a meeting a couple of weeks ago, it was the Installation Management Agency board of directors meeting, and although the final decisions for BRAC and what bases will close won't be until November of 2005, the IMA has promised that they would not, you know, short change any of the funding or going into services with soldiers on any of the bases. So once they get into start making decisions on what bases need to close for efficiency to better make the Army more capable, they said that the level funding for services on the base would not deteriorate.

MR. SCOTT: Yes, sir. With regards to BRAC in general, you know, I see it as an opportunity for us if we identify or if the process identifies excess infrastructure, excess capacity that, you know, we aren't good stewards of the taxpayers money if we're continuing to put money into excess capacity. However, and also in your question you asked about impact of families and if I've seen any indication or evidence of a lack of support in anticipation.

To that question I would say no, I have not seen any indication or evidence of that at all. Its impact on families, however, I have been stationed at a couple of the bases that have been previously close in previous BRAC years and one of the biggest concerns about the families is for those who have their stake in America and have purchased property and such. There's always an indication that property values are affected as well as just the disruption of normal life. And those are things that should and must be considered, you know, as far as how that's going to impact the families.

But all in all, I believe this is a necessary process for us to ensure that we have the right capacity for our Navy.

MR. MURRAY: Sir, in relation with the BRAC I'm not seeing any indications of any cuts or changes at all. To my understanding and view of the process, it's way too early to tell if any, what if any bases or missions or anything will be realigned as we continue to go through the process through 2005. I have lived through two BRAC's myself --

REP. BISHOP: So have I.

MR. MURRAY: I've been moved-yes, sir, and I survived. I've seen us do real well and I've seen areas we did not do so well. I guess what I want to bring out today is that we have great lessons learned. We should not repeat the mistakes that were made in the past as we go through into the future. At the same time we have great, you know, also lessons that show us how to do things as well as we did those in the past.

You know, the one that I was at-the air base that I was on closed and the other one-the unit-did not. But as of right now I see nothing that has any indication that anything is being cut, changed. In the Air Force we did, in the Air Force, take a slight decrease in our base operating score across the board. A lot of our bases in that infrastructure, on certain of these bases that have gotten turn of the century-I mean we've got lots of infrastructure problems but that's across the board.

REP. BISHOP: Sir, if I may be able to do a follow up here?

While, you know, everyone officially from the Pentagon is saying that no decisions have been made, those of us who have observed the planning and the process and the budgeting and the strategic budgeting on the long term indications have caused some of the consultants to come up with a list of bases they think ought to be closed, just based upon reviewing of where resources have been allocated and how they're being allocated, what's being downsized, what's being outsourced, what's being privatized and being declared surplus.

Based on all of that, people have some pretty good-and some service members who speak from a position of anonymity for fear of repercussions for future promotions will say, you know, this doesn't look good because of A,B,C,D and E and some of the budgetary things that we look at here. Do those kinds of concerns filter into your workforces? Because some of them have to handle the paper, have to make the recommendation, have to take around the people who are gathering the data for these BRAC rounds? Does that not filter and, you know, get any feedback from many of your servicemen?

MR. ESTRADA: I would say that is available and once the final decisions have been made its usually filtered through our ranks. I have not seen any indications of --

MR. MURRAY: Sir, I'd say that this is-I'm sorry, my apologies. I'm sorry, I believe this is one group you don't have to worry about the concern for future promotions.

REP. BISHOP: But your men and women?

MR. PRESTON: Well as a decision maker the way you get around that anxiety and that angst-I mean, because I have also been through several BRAC sessions, you know I was in (U-Serve ?) and you know, we drew down (U-Serve ?) after Desert Shield, Desert Storm. And, you know, you get a lot of anxiety about if a unit's going to go away or an installation or a post, you know, what happens to me, what happens to my family? And if you own property that's an issue too. So the way you mitigate that is by keeping soldiers informed. You keep pushing information as it becomes available to let them know exactly what the decision process is and the timelines for, you know, those kind of decisions.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: On to a little different subject, and a lot of talk has ensued about the privatization-housing privatization. The first-the current-deployment quality of life of our servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq, what major improvements, if any, have occurred say in the last 10 years with respect to the quality of that in that combat situation? I guess, most recently to the '91 Gulf War, in your own words, give us some idea of what the standards are today as to what the conditions are and if they've improved from time past?

MR. PRESTON: I think if you compare previous conflicts to Iraq, and I'll use Iraq as the example. You know, it's always tough when you're the first unit that goes into a theater like Iraq and you're the first unit on the ground. I used to talk to a lot of the soldiers over there as we were building the infrastructure and getting base camps set up through the summer months, particularly when there was no air-conditioning and it was 130 degrees outside, there wasn't a lot of facilities for soldiers over there.

I kind of compare that to the way it was going into Kosovo and the way it was going into Bosnia. If you were the first infantry division going into Bosnia in the spring of 1999, you know, there was mud up to your knees, it was GP medium tents and it was just horrible living conditions. And a lot of the soldiers over there who had been to Kosovo knew what Camp Bondsteel was and the quality of life that we established there from the red book to establish a base camp and a quality of life for soldiers during their time off.

And I think that for all the soldiers that I talked to and specifically Monday most recently I talked to the 101st to welcome them home, I asked all of them how many felt that the quality of life for their living conditions in Iraq over the last year from the time they arrived to the time they left improved. Of course, everybody raised their hand. And I said, how many feel that the quality of life greatly improved and if you were OIF 2 forces coming in, could see a major difference as far as the quality of life living there on the ground? And of course, everybody raised their hands.

And that's, you know, a tribute to you and everybody that's supported those kind of initiatives over there on the ground. When you have 120,000 soldiers on the ground, it takes a while to get that kind of infrastructure in place and during the summer months we started out with the simple things that are important to soldiers, and that was mail. Just getting mail into the soldiers and then, you know, their living areas, where they were living, getting them off of living on the vehicles to living into tents and no living in trailers. So the quality of life there is greatly improved.

And I think since Desert Shield, Desert Storm's probably not a good comparison, because the length of that war was so short. It was 72 hours, they were into Iraq. I was with a unit that came in at the end of Desert Storm to provide security for the units as they pulled out. Of course, we were there for about five months through the summer, all the way up until September, October of '91 while all the units redeployed. But the quality of life then, you know, because there was such a quick duration, it wasn't for a long time. I compare Iraq more to what we've done in Bosnia and Kosovo as far as quality of life.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Now, Bosnia is demonstrably improved from what I saw a few years ago. Obviously they've had time to do some things. I think there's a facility, a sports facility there.

REP. BISHOP: Eagle Base in Bosnia.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: It was a very nice facility. I wish I lived there. (Laughter.) I think that's good. Obviously the question here is improvement, has it physically --

MR. ESTRADA: It has improved enormously.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: The other thing I do want to talk about is the residential community-the privatization and how it-all of you in some fashion, in some way or another we'll have another hearing on that-just how that has impacted the community. And one of the questions that I did want to raise-well, the big question is if you can very quickly sum up your words in this, I'd like to hear from all of you as to what you feel is positive or negative about privatization. We've heard good things. We've yet to hear anything real bad, but I'd like to hear is there anything?

MR. MURRAY: I think that we had early on a couple of contracts that probably could have been a little bit better, but we learned from those.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: The Air Force?

MR. MURRAY: The Air Force. That's the Air Force, speaking of the contracts that we had and we've gone back to improve those.

Today, privatization is the companies that we are working with that are coming are giving us great planning, they're doing it with speed and, I mean, once those are set-you've even helped us too cut through a couple of things that even expedited the process recently. But the houses, the communities that they're building, the way they plan them out square footage, the reaction to our civil engineers when they go in and find something to make changes, far better in many ways than we've got-what we had through the old military construction because of the detail and the time that it took to work those out.

So overall I give high marks to what I see and our people are seeing into these. And some of these developers are adding amenities that we didn't ask for, that we didn't-you know, that they decided that those were the types of communities and all that they wanted to build. And so, I give them high marks and it's working to put our people into housing facilities.

MR. SCOTT: I would agree with all of those comments. We had a couple of stumbling blocks at the beginning as well. I visited in just the last few months two of our public/private venture projects, one in San Diego and one in New Orleans, and I was very impressed with it and I look at it from a kind of an output standpoint and the output measure here is what are the families saying? And they're very pleased, not only because of the quality of the homes, the improved trouble reporting and correction systems but how quickly we're replacing --

REP. KNOLLENBERG: People?

MR. SCOTT: Yes, sir, and how quickly we were able to replace inadequate homes which is something that we desperately need to do. And we've had a very positive-or I have a very positive impression.

MR. ESTRADA: Sir, I would echo the same thing. It's a huge success story for the Marine Corps, huge success story. If any concern that we may have is the cap that's supposed to expire this year and we'd like to see that either eliminated or the cap is being raised. But at the speed of how we are getting new homes, this is just remarkable to go from base to base. Within the last three to four years we have had tremendous success in homes. Marines are not complaining as much any more about their homes, even to our bases that we haven't gotten to yet in the Carolinas, because they know these new homes are coming and they have seen them at some of the other bases they have been to, it's been a huge success story.

MR. PRESTON: Yes, sir, a great good news story. If you get a chance Fort Mead is closing on --

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Yes, sir, we intend to do that.

REP. BISHOP: Can I follow up on that?

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Yes, you can take one other question.

REP. BISHOP: On that particular-how has that-we're in a real homeland security mode now, and with privatization and private contractors have you-do you anticipate, have you encountered any problems with security and with the possibility of an infiltration of possible terrorists with the privatization program? Is that-has that been thought through? Certainly when people participate in building the infrastructure, they know the-they have the drawings and certainly if they participate in the maintenance, they're there, in and out on a day to day basis hired by the contractors. Does that make us more vulnerable in terms of homeland security? Privatization and using private contractors who you don't control who they hire?

MR. PRESTON: No, that's-through the installation management agency. I mean, those contractors that are hiring-I mean, the workers who worked for those contractors had to be vetted and checked. But I think that for soldiers that live on an installation, they really have a sense of security because they do live on an installation. I know for me as I've grown up in the military, particularly living overseas, you know, you live in government quarters on a military base you feel safe and secure. And now I really believe that the leadership at each of the installations, both CONUS and OCONUS are really putting a lot into the security around the bases. So there's a lot of initiatives right now for force protection, a lot of civilian companies are being hired to do force protection of services so we're putting more and more security that's tied into our basis.

REP. BISHOP: Particularly for the Marine contingent that is charged with the responsibility of guarding our embassies overseas, particularly in the Middle East and Turkey. Did their housing arrangements lend themselves to security? I know that for a fact that several of our embassies were deemed unsafe and insecure from possible terrorist threats. Have you all addressed that?

MR. ESTRADA: Sir, I have visited a few of our embassies. As you know, they fall under the State Department and the State Department is working closely with the Marine Corps in trying to make those Marine houses more safe and it's constantly being worked on and upgraded.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: On the-by the way -- (off mike.) The question I wanted to direct to you, Sergeant Major Preston, is one on-with this new idea of the six, seven years deployment, the longer term deployment, is there any probability or possibility of the service men and women buying property?

MR. PRESTON: Absolutely.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: And what's --

MR. PRESTON: You know, I look at-and I'll use me as an example. In 1995 I returned from overseas, I was in England. I went back to Fort Knox and because there was a waiting list to get into government quarters-now, we had an option to go off and rent property off-post until our name came up on the waiting list to get into government quarters or to buy a house. We elected to buy a house and we had that house for 10 years and eventually ended up selling it in the mid '90s. So from the mid '80s to the mid '90s, we had it for 10 years, it was actually a good news story. And the good news for soldiers being based someplace for six or seven years, going off to school and then the potential of coming back there again, you know, keeping property and long term investments, I think that's going to be good for soldiers and purchasing property offers-you'll see more of that happening.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: It's good for communities too.

MR. MURRAY: Well, as a matter of fact, the six or seven years-some people move every five years in the civilian community so this would be improbable that they would be buying homes. I think your situation was a classic of its own. We're talking about people now purchasing their homes on the base and what I have discovered is that some of those communities are like any other community around town. You know, there may be a separation of sorts but the quality of life inside and the amenities which some of you have talked about. Just the general commission, the maintenance responses has made it into a more positive and home ownership isn't that far away. It doesn't apply just to the Marines but it does --

MR. SCOTT: In the Navy we followed a community first type of philosophy for a very long time and whereas-currently figures show that 75 percent of our families do not live on base. They are either living in rental or home ownership. Personally I've owned two different homes in two different cities where I've been stationed. It does offer a tremendous degree of stability to our families and the only places that I believe that we should be heavily investing in either public/private ventures or military housing are those areas where a community cannot support the number of homes and the availability of homes that our service members need.

MR. MURRAY: Sir, I agree with that statement because there are locations we need to-where you can't put a 60/40 formula, you've got to be able to go in and look at the areas where our bases are at, where people are, what housing rental is. Some of our market surveys suggest this pretty well. We're educating ourselves better each year of how to go and do this, set housing costs. But we follow the same thing: community first and we're about 65/35.

It's interesting that what we do see with our people, especially in the enlisted ranks-given their choices, if they have the same square footage and living amenities that they can get in the downtown community on the base, they'll live on the base for the convenience, for the security, for the school systems-like for like. If they get like for like, they'll choose to live on the base. In family housing we've had waiting lists for years. Where we see it changing is where the housing on the bases are 1930s, '40s, '50s housing, small square footage, and they'll give that up to go downtown. But where we're building these privatization efforts and upgrading our housing, they'll live on the base if they can.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: Do you think this will have any impact on retention?

MR. MURRAY: Pretty much.

MR. SCOTT: Yes, absolutely.

MR. PRESTON: And I would say, sir, you know, tied to the housing fees is the schools. And you'll see when you talk to the spouses this afternoon that that's also a concern because in some cases you've got DOD schools, you know, on installations and overseas. And then in other cases you've got the children on the base that go off into, you know, the local communities to go to school. And I think that as long as we continue to work that initiative together-as long as the schools off the base come up to the same level of quality in education that they're getting at the DOD schools, that's really where the concern is when you talk to the spouses. They really feel that the DOD schools are far better than what you get in a lot of the local communities.

REP. KNOLLENBERG: I suspect that that's true. It depends on where you are.

Mr. Bishop.

REP. BISHOP: I'll follow up on that. There's a growing concern about the elimination of DOD schools. In a number of instances the communities-the Department of Defense is now looking very closely at the elimination of Department of Defense educational system and allowing-requiring the dependants to attend school in local, surrounding communities. I've heard quite a bit of resistance to that. What are you hearing from your personnel in that regard?

MR. PRESTON: I'll just say that-and I'll add what I just said about the DOD schools is-you take like an installation like Fort Bragg or, you know, Fort Bliss --

REP. BISHOP: Fort Benning.

MR. PRESTON: You know, if you've got kids there on post that have to be bussed across to the far side of town because the schools in the immediate vicinity are overcrowded, that's a concern. You know, there's a lot of concern there from parents. So if you've got children that have to go across and be bussed out of town, that's going to have an impact on you deciding whether or not you're going to stay in the military or you're going to get out and, you know, go back to the civilian life.

You know, El Paso, Fort Bliss is another one. You know, the post down there, the way it's zoned and tied into the local community, if you're on the north side out on the airfield your kids go to a high school that's downtown, and there's a lot of issues and problems associated with that school. You know, wall lockers are welded shut, you know, and things of this nature and, you know, military parents don't feel comfortable with their children going to a school like that. So that's where the concern will be when you talk to the spouses.

MR. ESTRADA: There is concern with Marines and their families on the same issue, sir. We would love to see funding continue with DOD schools instead of them going out.

REP. BISHOP: Can you pass that up the chain of command?

MR. SCOTT: What I would say about the Navy, sir, is that, yes, it is also a concern of our Navy families, the education system that their children attend. I would-rather than jumping to a solution, I will tell you one of the problems is that bases that I have that are the hardest to convince people to move to, and there is a couple of metrics that we can use: either the number of geographic bachelors, people who move without their families, or those that will look for other duty stations are usually-in many instances it's because of what is perceived as a poor school system. None of those places have DOD schools.

MR. MURRAY: You can also, sir, look at the number of home schooled children, the number of private school. Vouchers can be important to us and the fact of the number that haven't-that choose to use private schools versus public schools. The national capital region here is an area that's been highlighted for that very purpose, other locations as well.