A Reduction of Military Forces

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

With that, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an issue that maybe is unknown to many Members and many citizens but should be known, which is the reduction of forces--the reduction in the capability of our military services across all branches, across the whole spectrum--and how that process is going. It has been my studied opinion at this point that the process is what we should discuss at this time--a process that has lacked transparency, a process that has lacked deliberation.

Now, while it is this Member's belief that the chiefs at the DOD are under significant pressure from an administration to defend this Nation, they are also under significant pressure to make cuts, not only to make those cuts, but to make those cuts in a very particular way. That is part of the discussion today--the cuts to the reserve forces.

Before I recognize some of my colleagues, I just want to provide from the Joint Chiefs the definition of the operational reserve, which is your Guard and Reserve:

As such, the services organize, resource, equip, train, and utilize their Guard and Reserve components to support mission requirements----

This is important:--to the same standards as their Active components.

To the same standards, which is interesting to me because some of the recent reports and quotes that I have heard are things like it is structured to be complementary, and capabilities in its three components are not interchangeable. So that statement flies in the face of the original definition of what Guard and Reserve forces do.

And things like saying that Guard and Reserve members only train 39 days a year, which, again, I think the Chiefs are under considerable pressure. DOD is fighting for its life--not among its members but, in my opinion, against an administration; and they are doing what they have to do.

I am an Army soldier. I joined an Army of one, not an Army of some of us get this and some of us get that. We all do the same work together at the same level; and that is the expectation, as it should be. But that is what we are going to discuss for the next hour.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Again, that is the discussion--a discussion about a process that should be open, that we should have a part in. What we would ask at this point is that the DOD not proceed with the plan until they have had input from everybody involved, which includes our Nation's Guard and Reserve and includes hometown heroes that serve right in every single town, every city, every hamlet, every village across the country, and serve their Nation well.

In this Nation's wars in the last 10 to 15 years, they have been 50 percent of the fighting force. Why haven't we included them in the conversation in a meaningful way?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

At this time, we are going to talk a little bit about aviation, and Guard aviation in particular, because it is something I have been familiar with since the mid-1980s, when I first went to flight school. It is one of the issues that has become the forefront of this discussion and this argument.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Again, we are not saying that the Guard and the Reserve aren't willing to do their part. It is my belief, it is this Member's belief, that the DOD and the Chiefs are under significant pressure from the administration to do what they are doing.

We are asking for an open process and to be involved in the conversation because we want to do our part. But we can't watch the investments that have been mentioned here today be eviscerated, be thrown away, be cast away like so many things.

We understand very clearly over the course of this last 5 years this administration's tenor and attitude towards our Nation's fighting forces, but we must continue on for the sake of what we have invested in and the sacrifices that have been made by members of our hometowns in the Guard and Reserve.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Again, we understand that DOD is under significant pressure and fighting for its life. We would like a place at the table to have a discussion, because we don't think that a proportional cut--if you are cutting 100 percent, and you say 50 percent to the active component and 50 percent to the reserve component is the same thing, it is not the same thing if the reserve component costs one-third, yet you yield the same results when you have those servicemembers on the battlefield.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Specifically, for me as an Army aviator, one of the main topics of discussion in the reduction of forces in the Guard is Army-Guard aviation. The comments that, quite frankly, that are disappointing and hit my heart are that Guardsmen train 39 days a year, and that is 2 days a month and 15 days a year of annual training. I would suggest to you that I know very few--as a matter of fact, I don't know one single Guard member that trains only 39 days a year.

As a commissioned officer who was on flight status, I spent the bulk of my time during the 2 days a month, and 15 days in the year, commanding, doing administrative things, leading my troops, planning for the future, planning their training.

The other time that I came in at least once a week, if not more often, was to get my flight time because I had the exact same requirements. It is important to note when folks say, well, they are not as trained, they are not accessible, and not ready as Active components, it is not to take anything away from the Active component, because they train every single day.

I will tell you this: I have the same standards, require the same amount of flight hours, the same check rides, flight evaluations, the same physical requirements every single year as an Active Duty aviator. If I am a gun pilot, I must do gunnery. If I am a utility pilot, I must do sling loads, I must fly with night-vision goggles so that I am ready to go. Indeed, we are ready to go every single time.

People say, well, why do we need attack assets? Why do we need the AH-64 Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Arizona and would also like to commend her on her comments regarding the Guard.Apache in the Guard? I am not sure, quite honestly, from the standpoint of are you protecting your State that we need that AH-64 Apache in the Guard, but I will tell this: most Guard units are replete with former members of the Active component. They did their time on Active Duty, whether it was 6 years, or whether it was 15 or 18, and then they came to the Guard, and they enhanced their skills.

As a matter of fact, on Active Duty when you are downrange, when you are over the wire, and you are serving with Active Duty members and Guard and Reservists, oftentimes if given a choice to fly with members of the Guard as opposed to Active Duty, many Active Duty components will choose to fly with the Guard members.

There is one simple reason. It is because the Active Duty component, even though they are serving all day long, every day of the year, as a captain you are administering your administrative duties. You are leading your troops. You are planning their training, but you are not flying. So the bulk of the experience in doing the job of flying the aircraft is actually in the Guard. If you have a choice between flying with a captain and a lieutenant who have 800 hours between them or flying with a Guard CW-4 and a captain that have 35 to 4,000 hours between them in difficult terrain, in difficult conditions, what would you choose?

The mechanics who work on these aircraft don't work on them just a little bit and then move on to something else. They work on these aircraft for 20, 30 years at a stretch. They know every single thing about them; they live with them, they sleep with them. Oh, by the way, many of these folks are active Guard and Reserves. So it is not just 39 days a year, and not only more than that, it is every single day of the year. That is why the Guard and the Reserves are ready to go when called upon, and people will say, well, you are not ready to go. You have got to go to a MOB site and train before you can go.

As a task force commander, a battalion commander who went through that, I was ready to go. I met my minimums, and I met every single requirement that the Active component met. So did all of the members of my unit, men and women who had served for years and years. When they send you to a place like that they give you a unit from Illinois, they give you a unit from Alaska, or a unit from Oregon, a unit on Active Duty, a unit from the Reserves. You haven't worked together. You have got to spend a little time figuring out your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, so that you can work together, and that does take some time.

I would also say that sometimes the Guard and Reserve, things are placed upon them for training purposes that the Active component says we need, when we would argue we don't need, and they slow us down from getting to the fight.

As an aviator, I wondered why I had to get into the heat trainer. I had to do rollover drills in a Humvee. I am not driving a Humvee around the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan. I am flying an aircraft, and that is where I should spend my time, but the Active component says, no, you all are going to do this and it takes some time. We get that. They want us to be safe and they want us to have that training. Okay, we get it.

Our core mission, the things that we do, the things we train for, the things the taxpayers pay for is exactly the same for an Army aviator in the Guard as an Army aviator serving on Active Duty. Now, it might not be the same for artillery men or an infantryman or a medic or something like that, it might not be. I don't know because I don't serve in those branches, but I know my branch.

I would say that each of us have our strengths and we recognize that. We recognize the Active component strength. I think in my heart that the Active component, DOD recognizes the strength of the Guard, but again, it would be my contention that DOD is fighting for its life, not against its brethren who have served in an Army of one, but against an administration who arguably doesn't have the same view as many of those who serve and many Americans that support the armed services of the armed services. So they are in a difficult position.

I think about when they say that we are not ready to go, the Eastern Army Aviation Training Site, located at Fort Indiantown Gap where I serve, the folks that serve there work every single day, and they train Army aviators. That is what they do there. When you leave Fort Rucker and need to get an advanced aircraft, you come to EAATS many times--Eastern Army Aviation Training Site--and learn to fly a Chinook, learn to fly a Black Hawk. They don't do that in Fort Rucker in many cases. Your advanced training happens in the Guard. That is where that experience is.

Not only is it the same aircraft that many times the Active component is flying, but the EAATS folks oftentimes train even more advanced aircraft than the Active component's flying. I think that those EAATS guys are out training the special operations guys in the F model Chinook. These are Guard folks, training the Active component to go do their mission, and not just any Active component, special operations, the best of the best. Guard folks are training them. I don't want anybody to lose sight of that argument and that discussion.

You know, I am not saying, again, that the Guard shouldn't do its part. We are ready to do our part. We understand that the budget is tight and that changes must be made. But we are asking again for an open and a transparent conversation that meets the standards of decorum and bearing that we have so come to love, and one of the reasons why many people serve in our Armed Forces. I want to be an army of one that doesn't fight with his brothers and sisters in the Active component.

As a task force commander, I was privileged--and I mean well privileged--to command a task force of 800 to 1,000 souls that included National Guard, Active component, Reserves from the continental United States, from places in Europe, all fine individuals working under one commander, one mission, with one standard. I am concerned when I hear that the chiefs are being put into, in my opinion, a position to say that the Guard and the Reserves are lesser, because it is my experience that they are not.

It is my experience when soldiers are serving side by side that they don't see, and they don't recognize, and they don't notice any difference. They do their jobs. I don't want the chiefs to be put in that position. So we are asking, we are pleading, through this, with the administration. Let's have an open process. Let's have one that is transparent. Let's have one that we can engage in a conversation, because if the Guard costs 30 percent of what the Active Duty costs are, then a proportional cut really isn't proportional. If we offer things that are important to the Nation, as is evidenced in the last 10 or 15 years of war by our presence, where 50 percent of the component is fighting those wars, not only in just logistics, but in kinetic activity, engaging the enemy in close combat, with the tools of the trade, with what you have offered and have sacrificed greatly, greatly, your Guard and Reserve, those men and women, they go, and some of them don't come home. Their sacrifice is just as important as those in the Active component.

It would be my contention, Mr. Speaker, that we need to slow this process down. It needs to be opened up so that everybody can see, and so that everything can be evaluated and that the Guard and Reserve can do its part but shouldn't have to do more than its part.

The Nation's investment in this readiness that you find in your States that comes into play when you have storms, when you have natural disasters, comes to play right there; that that readiness isn't lost, and that the days of the strategic Reserve are long in the past and that we don't go back to that failed model, and that we don't draw down so significantly that when we have a new administration, the American taxpayer will be asked, well, we are not ready to fight. We are not ready to meet our constitutional obligation to defend this Nation. Now we must spend more money to get back to where we were. We don't have to do that.

This administration's actions right now, we are making a conscious choice to reduce our readiness without cause, without reason, without justification, without a conversation. So, while some will say that it is too expensive, we have an obligation. It is expensive. Training and equipment is expensive. There is a great deal to be had in the Guard and Reserve. Again, I would like to have a discussion that honors the decorum and bearing that all service members are bound to.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I appreciate the time that the Nation has taken to listen to this argument. I would ask that you call, that you write, that you email, that you correspond with your Representatives in this House of Representatives, and in the Senate, and with this administration to talk to them about having an open process by which we have to make changes to our fighting forces and to the defense of this Nation.

Well, let's have it open, let's have an open process, let's have a candid discussion, let's not pit one brother, one sister against another in this fight. We are all on the same team. Let's not do that. Let's have an open conversation and let's make the best arrangement we can that serves both the Guard, both the Reserve, both the Active forces, and in particular, the necessary defense of this Nation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source