▶ 0:05:29Heat. Heat.
▶ 0:07:44Thank you.
▶ 0:08:26Thank you.
▶ 0:09:29Hallelujah. Amen.
▶ 0:10:31Committee will come to order. Uh I want to welcome our witnesses and thank them both for their service to our great nation. Today we kicked off our review of the administration's FY26 budget request for the Department of Defense uh with the United States Army. Unfortunately, we still have not received any real information about that budget request, nor have we received any detailed information on the Army's transformation initiative or ATI. Uh the secretary and the chief announced over a month ago.
▶ 0:10:59I believe I speak for most of the members of this committee when I say that we share your goal of developing a more modern, agile, and welle equipped army. And the broad structure of the ATI encouraging rapidly delivering modern warfare capabilities, organizing force structure, and eliminating waste and obsolete programs. But we need to see your homework.
▶ 0:11:25And overhaul this significance should be based on thorough assessment of requirements and it should include a detailed blueprint of the specific changes being proposed and how the army plans to implement them. We need those assessments and blueprints. We also need to provide or we also need you to provide us a timeline uh for implementing ATI.
▶ 0:11:49These details will help Congress understand, evaluate, and ultimately fund your transformation efforts. The Marine Corps did well with force 29 uh force design 2030 and the Army should follow that model. At the end of the day, we want to make sure this overhaul is being driven by battlefield requirements and not by artificial budget constraints. I'm pleased to hear both of you are committed to fundamental reform of the Army acquisition processes.
▶ 0:12:16You will find this committee a willing partner in that effort. The battlefield is rapidly changing, but the capabilities we delivered to our war fighters are not keeping pace. Next week, we will introduce a bipartis piece of bipartisan legislation that will overhaul the acquisition process and refocus it around rapidly equipping our war fighters with modern capabilities. I look forward to working with both of you on this legislation.
▶ 0:12:43And I also understand you both hope to use ATI to build a force more relevant to a conflict in the Pacific. While I long have long supported uh the pivot to Asia, I urge you not to lose sight of Europe. The US Army is the backbone of our presence there, and that presence matters. Thanks to President Trump's leadership, our NATO allies are finally investing more in their own defense.
▶ 0:13:11But Europe's rearmament uh won't happen overnight. Withdrawing US brigades too soon would risk inviting further Russian aggression and leave our European NATO allies especially vulnerable. We cannot let that happen. Ultimately, to maintain readiness and achieve peace through strength, we must adequately fund the army.
▶ 0:13:33I look forward to working with you uh both to build the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force America needs to deter its adversaries. And with that, I yield to my friend and colleague, the ranking member, Mr. Smith. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks uh to our witnesses for being here today and and for your service, and I substantially agree with pretty much everything uh the chairman just said. You know, obviously, Army transformation is the headline.
▶ 0:13:57And right off the bat, I've spoken with both of you about this, but I want to applaud both of you publicly for diving into that very difficult um subject. It needs to be done. Now, the chairman's right. The details need to be worked out. Uh but there is no question that the nature of warfare is changing dramatically. Uh how do we adjust our force to meet those challenges?
▶ 0:14:16Certainly we've seen, you know, what happened with uh Ukraine in Russia just in the last several days, you know, has gotten our attention about the vulnerabilities of existing systems and and the capabilities of drones and new systems. How does that inform the way we want to build our national defense structure? So, your efforts in that are broadly supported by this committee. Devils in the details, but you're headed in the right direction, and we look forward to working with you to to make some of those changes. Um and I agree with the chairman on the budget.
▶ 0:14:46Budget is a major problem. I I think in two respects. One, it is not consistently given. Um this is the the latest in my memory that a budget has ever come uh before Congress. Um well, it's not here yet. So latest and and continuing that that that record here as we go. But even before that, you know, is is well documented. You know, we've been passing CRS. We haven't been doing consistent budgeting. Um, and you know, that adds an element of uncertainty to the challenges that we've outlined.
▶ 0:15:16We need a more consistent budget process. I guess the only minor quibble I would have with the chairman's comments when when he said artificial budget constraints. Um, I think the budget constraints are real. Um, and frankly, one of the things that I would like to see within the Department of Defense and frankly throughout government is a recognition of those budget constraints. We we don't have an unlimited amount of money as we are $36 trillion in debt.
▶ 0:15:41Um we're apparently about to pass a budget reconciliation bill that's going to add another two three or4 trillion dollars to that. Um we have very real budget constraints and one of my worries across DoD, not just with the Army is we're just sort of keeping doing a whole lot. Um you know, we don't think we have enough ships, we don't have enough nuclear weapons, we don't have enough planes. And so we've got all these plans to fill that that cannot possibly be met by the budget constraints that we face. So again, I applaud the Army for taking a little bit more of a realistic look at that.
▶ 0:16:11Um, and I hope we can build off of that and and move forward. One other really important issue obviously is recruitment and quality of life. This committee did a ton of work last cycle um to try to make sure that we support our service members and their families so we continue to recruit and retain um the best forces we have. also interested in your thoughts about what that force looks like in the modern uh battlefield.
▶ 0:16:34Um certainly we will always need uh war fighters, infantry, all of that, but technology is becoming so much more important. How does that change who we want to recruit and how we do our outreach to make sure that we have the people that we need serving in the army and throughout the military? And lastly, I want to agree with the the final point the chairman made about Europe specifically, but more broadly, I I've never been a big fan of the whole pivot to Asia idea.
▶ 0:17:01Uh the idea that China is our primary challenge I agree with, but that challenge is global. It's not just in Asia. Um what happens in Ukraine is going to have a profound impact on how we deal with China as they are now partnering with Russia and North Korea and Iran. And also China's active everywhere in the world. This is a global competition.
▶ 0:17:25So I don't think we can afford to ignore the rest of the world and thinking that if we focus in Asia that will focus on the challenges that we meet. It needs to be a more comprehensive approach. Uh with that um I thank the chairman for having this uh hearing and I look forward to the testimony and the questions. Thank you. I yield back. Thank the ranking member. I'd like to now introduce our witnesses. The honorable Dan Driscoll, Secretary of the Army. Welcome. Uh, General Randy George, Chief of Staff of the Army. Welcome. Uh, Secretary Driscoll, we'll start with you.
▶ 0:17:55You're recognized for minutes. Chairman Rogers, uh, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of this committee. It is a privilege to address you today. I want to express my sincere gratitude for your unwavering support of our soldiers and their families. I'd like to start off this hearing with some good news. Yesterday, the United States Army met its fiscal year 2025 recruiting goal four months early, welcoming more than 61,000 new recruits.
▶ 0:18:23These men and women are stepping up during a time of global uncertainty and complex threats. And those threats are real. When I went through my confirmation hearings, I pledged to be the soldiers secretary of the Army. That commitment has guided every single step of our approach so far. The Army Transformation Initiative has been conceived with the soldier in mind, and your partnership is absolutely critical as General George and I begin implementing this transformation, which is now more urgent than ever.
▶ 0:18:53This week, we witnessed a stark illustration of modern warfare in Ukraine and Russia. Reports indicate a coordinated strike against Russia's strategic bomber force using a swarm of over 100 inexpensive drones at a cost of a mere tens of thousands of dollars. Ukraine inflicted billions in damage, potentially setting back Russia's bomber capabilities. For years, the world saw in near real time how readily available technology can disrupt established power dynamics.
▶ 0:19:23And drones are but one example of a broader shift. The army needs to keep pace. In my first three months as secretary, General George and I have been immersed in understanding why the army has been slow to innovate. Our soldiers are not the problem. I've met with them in the Middle East, Europe, along our southern border, and at installations across the United States. Their strength, dedication, and unwavering commitment to this nation are inspiring. We ask a great deal of them, and they consistently deliver.
▶ 0:19:53Nor is the ingenuity of American industry at fault. Our tech sector continues to thrive, driven by innovation, entrepreneurship, and a willingness to embrace risk. So, where does the problem lie? As secretary, I have found that the Army has become calcified, having suffered from years of inefficiency, slowmoving processes, and wasteful spending. Program lobbyists and bureaucrats have overtaken the Army's ability to prioritize soldiers and war fighting.
▶ 0:20:21We must all work together to ensure the Army is ready to fight and win. The Army Transformation Initiative will make us into an army that is lean, agile, and relentlessly focused on empowering its soldiers. an army that embraces innovation, collaborates effectively with the private sector, and prioritizes warfighting readiness above else.
▶ 0:20:43To achieve this vision, we must streamline our acquisition's process, reclaim our right to repair, and cultivate a culture that rewards innovation and calculated risk-taking. We must also empower those closest to the fight to actually make the decisions. The Army Transformation Initiative is our first step to achieve this vision. But this transformation hinges on your support. We are asking this committee to empower us to make these changes while providing your constitutionally mandated oversight.
▶ 0:21:12We are asking for the flexibility to make decisions that keep pace with the rapid advancements in technology and the evolving nature of warfare. We are asking for this committee to work with us to maximize the value of every dollar appropriated to best support our I ask this because it is my duty both as Secretary of the Army and as an American citizen to ensure that every dollar the Army receives contributes to defending this great nation of ours.
▶ 0:21:39I know we are all committed to our soldiers, to their success, and to providing them with the overwhelming advantage they deserve. Thank you, and I welcome your questions. Thank you, General George, you're Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to be here with you today. I want to start off by saying just how proud I am of our army.
▶ 0:22:04I'm proud of our troops in the Indo-acific, on the southern border, in the Middle East, in Europe, and of everything our army has done over the past year to respond to wildfires, floods, and even a bridge collapse. We have formations all around the world conducting missions and exercises and innovating with our partners and allies. When not deployed, our units are conducting tough, realistic training at their home stations and our combat training centers.
▶ 0:22:31Our army is a professional team that remains focused on its warf fighting mission and young Americans want to be a part of it. And this is evidenced by our strong recruiting numbers this year. And as the secretary mentioned, we have already met our recruiting mission for the year and we still have our most productive months ahead of us. And while I'm I'm proud of our army, I also know we have work to do. We know the world is changing. Commercial technology is rapidly evolving, especially AI and autonomous systems.
▶ 0:23:01And this is impacting the character of war. We understand that we must transform to stay ahead of our adversaries. And we need to get better by 2026 and 2027, not by 2030. Over the last year, using existing FY24 funding, some of our units transformed in contact, which means they experimented with changing how we train, fight, man, and equip while they were deployed or in training environments. This was a great proof of concept.
▶ 0:23:31It confirmed that our formations are capable of rapidly improving their lethality. One transformation in contact brigade in Europe was 300% more effective in lethal targeting in training. Transformation in contact taught us some valuable lessons about what our army should be buying and how we should be buying it. And we're just getting started. We're going to make the changes we can at our level so that we can continue to dominate the modern battlefield.
▶ 0:23:57For instance, we will cancel programs that are obsolete or not what our war fighters need. Develop and adapt war-winning capabilities by modular open architecture designs that can be updated. Cut and consolidate headquarters. For instance, we're going to reduce geo structure, cut 10,00 positions from the headquarters department of the army staff, and add modern business systems that we know will make us more effective.
▶ 0:24:24And finally, we will power down authorities and funding so that commanders in our fighting formations have what they need to make their teams and their communities successful. What I've learned from being in this seat is that it is our job as leaders to do what we can with the budget that we have. I've been talking about the need for agile funding for UAS, counter UAS, and EW. And we need more flexibility in those areas. Technology is changing too rapidly.
▶ 0:24:52We've got to be able to buy capabilities rather than specific programs so that we can always get our war fighters the best available tech and equipment for the fight. This is where we could use your help. We are quickly approaching our army's 250th birthday. This will defend has been our motto for 250 years and I'm looking forward to celebrating our long legacy of duty.
▶ 0:25:17More importantly, our soldiers are ready today to defend our country and we will do our part to ensure they have what they need to be successful in that enduring mission. We appreciate all of your support and we're looking forward to your questions. Thank you both. I recognize myself for the first set of questions. As I mentioned in my statement, uh the committee uh is willing to work with you on ATI, but we need to see your math.
▶ 0:25:44when can we expect the full details of uh exactly what you're proposing? Uh um um the way that we envision ATI and how we have described it throughout the four missions is this will be an iterative process and so um there will be no one date where everything with our first batch of ATI will be completed. We will be hopefully uh doing what the best companies in America do and learning as we go.
▶ 0:26:09the the very first batch of um cuts that General George has referenced where we are pushing our soldiers back out to the formations, those are in process. The when we are looking at the the the assets that we have and what we are buying and where we don't want it. Um we have started to work with those companies who are providing things to empower them with the information about what we do want. So a lot of that's in process when we're looking at our depots and where we are manufacturing things in our organic industrial base.
▶ 0:26:37We have just started that process of putting together the plans for what could be the right solution, but our commitment uh is that we will share it as soon as we have um reasonable drafts with this committee to take your feedback to help make it stronger and better. So, will it be reflected in the president's FY26 Many of the cuts and the the the the lack of requests for obsolete equipment will be reflected in that budget. Okay.
▶ 0:27:05Do you expect to cancel any programs uh for which the money was in the uh FY25 We we are not we are not doing that right now, Congressman. We are we we have been in the process of going back through with businesses things that we are doing right now.
▶ 0:27:23But as the secretary mentioned, looking forward u there are several examples and I know we've been over and we're happy to come over and you know brief everyone on what we're doing with the transformation transformation um initiative in detail but these are systems that I think we've long talked about that we know we don't need in our formation and are not going to help us win on the battlefield and we can go down those in detail but they those aren't in the Y25CR then the things that you're thinking about to my knowledge uh chairman There's
▶ 0:27:53nothing that's in there. I mean, we just had a conversation. Everything that we've, you know, keep I'll give you one example. We don't want to buy Humvees, you know, and we haven't asked to buy Humvees, but that was in our budget and we, you know, we're obviously continuing with FY25 because that's what we were direct directed to do with our budget. The only reason I ask these questions is I just worry about you being locked in. You know, if whatever you're wanting to do is not in the FY26 budget, then you may have some constraints that that are unnecessary. Yes, sir.
▶ 0:28:22A and we worked with um in this budget creation process we have included the the entire Pentagon leadership in this and so it it should be reflecting the 26 budget. I know you did mention the desire to have the right to repair. We want to be helpful with you on that. So so do know that you need to be getting with us about exactly how you see that being constructed legis statutoily and we we will be helpful.
▶ 0:28:47As you know, the acquisition system that we have now is is just antiquated and and needs to be modified and the ranking member and I are making acquisition reform the number one priority in this NDAA. Uh what specific authorities or support do you need from Congress uh to it? I I agree with you, Chairman.
▶ 0:29:13Um, one of the things that we're looking at, there's a lot of and how we're going to, you know, look at restructuring as well is there's a lot of commercial off-the-shelf stuff that we should be adopting. Um, and so we should be able to, you know, be structured so that we're adopting certain equipment that we know the commercial sector is moving very fast. Other stuff we're going to have to modify. We talk about the infantry squad vehicle is one example of that. We just modify that a little, but it's largely a commercial pro um uh program.
▶ 0:29:42And then there's obviously develop. I think where we need the most help is in agile funding. We we know that on drones, autonomous systems, EW and specifically to the incident that in Russia that the secretary highlighted counter UAS we need to be you know we need to not buy you know one programmer record. I think programmer record is kind of a an old term and we need agile funding to be able to buy in those.
▶ 0:30:11what's you know as the technology changes buy them the best available thing that's on the market well I agree and we need to make those things history and it's going to be difficult it's going to require a culture change in the department we are wanting to impose that culture sh change but we're going to need you to want to do it too uh to make this system uh viable in the future that I'll yield to the ranking member uh thank you Mr.
▶ 0:30:39Chair, I completely agree on the agile funding piece and with within the budget process is going to be really important to have close coordination between whatever it is the president's budget winds up being and then how Congress deals with that to reflect those priorities and tried to give you that agile funding. But Mr. Secretary, on the Army Transformation Plan, if you could sort of just quickly explain that, what what programs are you getting rid of? What programs are you adding?
▶ 0:31:05I mean, we can all sort of get the idea that drones are a problem, survivability is a problem, but how does that translate into what we are going to put money into and what we're not going to put money into going forward? Um, I'm happy to answer it. And so, basically, Army Transformation Initiative does four things. There are four buckets of actions. And then I'll circle back to the buckets to answer your specific question.
▶ 0:31:26The first bucket of actions is the United States Army, as General George has mentioned, has not wanted to buy a number of programs and products for the last couple of decades in some instances and and they keep getting them. And so it was basically working with the Pentagon leadership under Secretary of Defense Hegath and President Trump to say, "Hey, let's do what's right for soldiers. We don't need to buy these assets and resources are limited. Let's stop." Can you give us a couple of examples? Humvey obviously. Hum is one, JLTV is one.
▶ 0:31:55The Booker tank uh is an example of kind of a sunk cost fallacy in action. We wanted to design a light tank. We ended up with something that was medium. It no one really liked it. The manufacturer wasn't particularly happy with it. We weren't happy with it. What would have historically occurred there is we would have kept buying it. Um and what we said is we went to the leadership and we said, "Look, we we got this one wrong. We the army have to own this. The wrong answer is not to keep buying it. It's instead to stop the spending and go buy the things we want." Exactly. So, what are the things you want?
▶ 0:32:23So the things we want are drones light attractable commercially off the shelf. We want counter drone technology. We want our soldiers to have a data layer. So the very basic function of war will require our people to be able to communicate over the horizon with each other with our sensors and our things instantaneously. When we read about things like generative AI, that cannot work in warfare until we have a very good data layer. And so we we are very optimistic that there are commercial solutions available and we're working to do that.
▶ 0:32:52U so that would be the second bucket. The third bucket would be right to repair. As the chairman mentioned, the army it one one of the visits we went on, it was horrifying to me that the soldiers were showing us this exquisite equipment that had been off the line for nearly a year and they knew how to 3D print a part to it and the part cost $2 and for one year they couldn't use this equipment and it's at scale and we we the army have been a bad customer to oursel and so there are some corrections along that and then uh another thing General George mentioned
▶ 0:33:22in his intro is we've we've done a lot of these things to ourselves. We have too many people up in headquarters not wearing helmets, not out in the formations, not doing what they signed up to want to do. And so we're going to push those soldiers back out to the formation. Just one quick thing on that maintenance question. Do you are you using AI for predictive maintenance to help with that piece of it as well? Uh so um we want to we are running some experiments. So very specifically, I don't know if anyone's seen the meta uh Ray-B band glasses that are available. They're $400 or $500.
▶ 0:33:52We have requested we are purchasing some of those. We're going to have our Humvey mechanics wear them and collect one uh 1,000 hours of repair footage. And what we believe may happen is we can ch train a generative model so that when you're wearing those glasses, you may not actually be a Humvey mechanic, but you may be able to do 90% of the repair requirements. And so we are trying to run experiments as quickly as possible to do that. And your fourth bucket, our fourth bucket is the pushing soldiers back out, getting rid of the bureaucracy in our own formation that we caused. Okay.
▶ 0:34:22Um, how does long range fires fit into this? I know this is something that you've been that the army's been working on focusing on for a while. Obviously, you know, the further you are from a target, the less vulnerable you are. Um, drones are an example of sort of a long range fire in his own way. Um, is it just going to be drones or are there other systems that you think are going to be necessary to be able to deliver from distance? Um, sir, I'll take I mean, I was going to add there's a couple of other things that we're looking at, you know, on the reductions.
▶ 0:34:51uh age 64 deltas is another one. It's twice as expensive. Um we know we're moving towards autonomy. Um we had a an RCV which is a big heavy autonomous system and again we should be looking to commercial uh industry to help us with that. It was you know way too expensive. Um so there's a lot of things that are that are on that list. We are looking at long range fires and I will tell you this is another thing where I think we have to be you know get industry involved.
▶ 0:35:20We are getting ready to do some tests um this summer with long range missiles that are a tenth of the price. And when you start talking about magazine depth, and this is back to your initial comments on, you know, understanding that you have a budget, I think we've all learned that we've have to live within a budget. We can get things uh invest in things that are much more coste effective. And I think that's where we need the flexibility to do that. And just as I'm as I'm out of time here, I want to make that point.
▶ 0:35:46There are a lot of smaller companies that are drones miss hypersonic missiles in fact that are so much cheaper than what a lot of the programs of record that we've been working on for a while. It's just independent people who have gone out there and developed the technology and now they've got a really, you know, cheap thing to offer. We need to really access those things if we're going to be able to to deal with our budget constraints and get to where we need to be. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank the ranking member.
▶ 0:36:14Chair now recognizes a gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Chairman Mike Rogers, for your leadership and thank both of you for your uh service to our country, which is so appreciated. Uh we're in a cold war that we didn't choose between dictators with rule of gun, invading democracies with rule of law.
▶ 0:36:32Warcom Putin began this with the invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese Communist Party continues to build itself up and expand and modernize with capabilities and rapidly expand while we are actually reacting to the changes in the battle space. This is as Iran is developing a nuclear weapon capability to achieve death to Israel, death to America. And we've seen change this weekend. And the change this weekend was indeed a victory by the people of Ukraine.
▶ 0:37:00Uh eliminating uh Soviet bombers that have been built uh for the purpose of uh in the Cold War, the first Cold War to vaporize the people of America and Europe. And now those bombers are gone. Uh what an extraordinary achievement. So we need to adapt and you're going to find bipartisanship here. This is remarkable. Okay.
▶ 0:37:20I agree with Adam Smith uh that we need to be working together on less expensive but effective drones and they might even be produced in Ukraine but wherever they come from or then they can license them here whatever it takes. Uh Secretary Driscoll uh recently the president signed an executive order assigning the army as the lead for deploying advanced nuclear reactors at military installations by 2028.
▶ 0:37:46And uh I'm dearly I see uh America benefits from President Trump's vision and leadership in this development and South Carolina with the Savannah River site that I have the opportunity to represent and I'm the only member of Congress who's ever worked at Savannah River site. Um, nuclear capability is very important.
▶ 0:38:03And with that in mind, how is the army prioritizing micro nuclear reactors as a nuclear as a national security imperative to ensure resilient unrupted power for critical defense infrastructure and uh over and over again we can see that small mod reactors, micro reactors will be an important opportunity. What is the status of development? Um, we couldn't agree more.
▶ 0:38:28So, uh, contested logistics is going to be when you look at what just happened in Russia this past weekend and the ability of these cheap drones to, um, contest logistics lines. The Army owns that and has historically owned that. And what what we will need to do is for a lot of the new tools that are coming out, directed energy, they have incredible energy requirements. You're going to have to have spikes of energy come through the lines that just are not set. Um, the current technology is not sufficient for it.
▶ 0:38:55And we are standing up groups to um run the same experiments we were talking about we were trying to do on uh small nuclear and the micronuclear reactions. I I wish you well on that. Indeed I know a perfect 310 square mile site on the east coast the largest secure east site uh site on the east coast and it's not actually in Alabama it's in South Carolina and um and so production could be very well there. Uh and additionally Mr.
▶ 0:39:23secretary uh to better understand I'm really grateful as a guard me former army guard member myself to understand the impact of the army transformation initiative on the national guard in particular the army national guard has four ah 64 Apache battalions including the 151st aviation regiment in South Carolina uh what do you see as uh occurring and uh about the eliminating of such squadrons uh what about the devestment of the uh AH64Ds and the elimination of
▶ 0:39:53the squadron and maybe the general should be answering. Yeah, I was going to jump in on that one, Congressman. Um, so I mentioned, you know, previously when ranking member Smith asked the question, we're we are uh getting rid of the H64 Deltas expensive. What we're going to do is cask and we're getting rid of those battalions as well. Um, divesting of those battalions inside the active component. The National Guard will stay with four uh Apache battalions.
▶ 0:40:21What you'll notice is you'll get the the newest 864 Echo aircraft. So part of this has been is making sure that we devest ourselves of the old more expensive aircraft and we're going to upgrade our fleet and this is across all of them. Same thing with um the Guard is going to see uh Mike models replacing Lima and Victor models on the UH60s and so that's what we're that's what we're looking at doing.
▶ 0:40:47And hey, as you uh devest yourself of the Apaches, uh a great ally of America, Jordan, uh would be happy to accept them. Uh and this would actually back up another remarkable achievement, and that is the removal of the dictator Basar al-Assad in Syria to be replaced by a government that's working in every way to um uh have a relationship with Israel, possibly Abraham Accords, uh to provide stability. And one way to do that is for uh Jordan to be even more enhanced.
▶ 0:41:18I yield back. I appreciate the uh the gentleman from South Carolina raising the issue of nuclear power production. You may may recall that last week uh President Trump and Secretary Hicks talked about not only President Trump's initiative to get more nuclear energy production in the United States, but particularly Secretary Hicks to do some reforms in the Defense Department to help deal with our need to get off the grid.
▶ 0:41:40Uh, I have asked Representative Herrian to lead the language in this year's NDA to put some pilot programs where we use SMRs on some of our bases depos. I would ask you to work with him on fashioning that legislation to make it as broad as possible because we really would like to see this concept proved. I know it's something the Department of Energy uh embraces as well. Uh, with that, I will now turn to a gentleman from California, Mr. Gar Mindy. You're recognized.
▶ 0:42:11Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Smith. Uh you laid out the challenge that we have in working with the Army in its transformation and we simply don't have the information that we need and we look forward to getting that information. Uh we will be doing an NDAA in the next month and a half to two months. So um are you prepared to to prepare us? I'll let that hang out there. A couple of things um that I want to go into.
▶ 0:42:41Uh on the readiness subcommittee, we are always concerned about logistics and uh I want to raise the issue of logistics particularly uh in Europe as well as in the Pacific. How does your army transformation initiative deal with the sustainment of material supplies uh in the Indo-Pacific? Uh specifically the uh um are they going to continue? What is the plan?
▶ 0:43:11Uh if you don't have it then we must continue to find out what is it going to be. I I think um from a high level absolutely ATI the intent of it in the bucket two of what we need to buy we know that we have got to um spread out our pre-position stocks so uh it is no longer going to be sufficient to have big warehouses with a lot of American equipment sitting as a target those will be incredibly targetable by
▶ 0:43:41the enemy and what we need to do is continue to invest in and explore drone technology that can do a lot of these micro movements for us and spread out our stocks. And so I think as it specifically relates to the APS um we are trying to think about different ways to have our equipment pre-positioned around the globe and the tools that we can create with micro movements to get them into the hands of soldiers.
▶ 0:44:02I would assume that micro movement if it happens to be in the Pacific would require um the army's uh vessels, maritime vessels which seem to be continually declining in their availability. So would that be a piece of it or are you going to give up those ships? We we are looking we are looking at that congressman. I mean to your previous question I wanted to you know go back there's a lot of things. One is autonomy is going to do a lot of things.
▶ 0:44:30you know, we got there's autonomous systems right now that are unloading vessels and moving very large things. And I think what that we can we should look at that some of the most dangerous things um that I did in Iraq and Afghanistan were resupply operations. And so whatever we can do to make sure that we are, you know, reducing that. Um, we are looking at hybrid electric.
▶ 0:44:52When we're out just seeing the the ISV and we had an ISV heavy that actually could uh that GM defense makes, it could actually um power our talks for five or six days. And so then you're not, you know, bringing fuel forward. That will work anywhere in the world. It certainly will work in the Pacific.
▶ 0:45:11And I do think um we were down in Austin and I think some others in here saw what you know there are systems right now that are being built autonomous systems um the same that are going to be much uh less expensive that can still deliver um wherever you're at in the world in the maritime environment land or air. And I I think that that's where we need to be investing again. Again, that takes agile funding to make sure that we don't lock ourselves into a program and continue to buy things that maybe we won't need in a couple years.
▶ 0:45:42Speaking of agile funding, one of the things that uh the army brought to our attention in the last three years was the um support necessary to upgrade the barracks here within the United States and in other places Europe as well as the Pacific.
▶ 0:46:02I note that about a billion dollars of that money that we put together for upgrading the barracks has been agile funded away from the barracks to be used on the border. So what about the barracks? Have you forgotten about them or are they not important anymore? I I would say our our barracks again haven't grown up in in those environments are very important to us.
▶ 0:46:31are one of the things that we're working with Congress. I think that right now we are probably overpaying um for some of our barracks and we have passed that on to the you know to the milcon committees and and kind of detail in what we're doing when I'm t when we're talking about agile funding for drones this and everything else. It's not colorless money. We want to we want to be very specific that hey this is for drones this is for EW and this is for counter UAS and that's where we want to make sure that that money is focused.
▶ 0:47:01Final seven seconds of thought on my side is that yes we want we want to support your at your uh initiative very very important to do that at the same time there are ongoing programs that are extremely important for the maintenance of the troops barracks being built. Gentleman's time's expired and I recognize gentleman from Virginia Mr. Whitman. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Secretary Driscoll, General George, thanks again for joining us. Appreciate your leadership. I do want to uh focus on uh the Army Transformation Initiative. Appreciate you all doing that.
▶ 0:47:29Uh well past time, this dynamic movement is absolutely needed. Uh the challenge for us though is to make sure that there's certainty going forward when this does involve people's lives. When it informs involves uniform service members and the civilian staffs, they deserve to know what's going on. And when they don't, it creates a high level of anxiety. I have trade headquarters in my district. It's part of the uh transformation initiative along with Army Futures Command. I can tell you that the rumor mill there is running wild.
▶ 0:47:57There is chaos there at Fort Eustace because there's lack of certainty. We owe it to our constituents and the folks that are in our in our districts to give them certainty. Even if it is saying, it's still continuing to be under under consideration. Listen, I understand what you all went through in the transformation in contact efforts there to try to figure out how you going to organize brigades. Uh I understand that that's that's a good portion of what needs to happen in the transformation of the army.
▶ 0:48:24So first of all, I want to understand, you know, what have you learned from that that you're going to translate to the ATI? Second of all, as you're going through the transforming contact 2.0, you know, uh, which is ongoing. Is it is it fair to characterize that that that is going to be at least a foundational aspect of what happens with with ATI? And are certain ATI decisions still under analysis? Because we got kind of get a good couple of different stories. General George, I talked with you and you said, "Hey, it's definitive.
▶ 0:48:52It's it's one uh commanding general position, a certain number of other positions, and then we hear wild speculation about all these other things that are out there." And then on the backside, we're being told, "Oh, it's still under analysis. We we we just got to get the story straight." So anyway, so I wanted to get get your perspective on on where we're going with ATI. What's how is transforming in contact 2.0 going to inform that? What are we doing as far as creating some certainty as to what this is going to be or what it's going to look like?
▶ 0:49:19I would rather, you know, hold it back and say we're still analyzing it than putting stuff out there and saying this is what it's going to be about. So, so transformation and contact I think at its highest level um is taking a practice that a lot of companies in America have done uh that that has made us an amazing nation but particularly companies let's say that are venturebacked it is part of their model and it's this idea of doing a minimum viable product getting into the hand of your customer as quickly as humanly possible at a very small scale and then learning from them and so what transformation and contact has done for
▶ 0:49:49us is it gave us lessons from the actual soldiers using the equipment that we thought might work. Some of it did, some of it didn't. We learned lessons when we sent equipment up to Alaska and it's -45° that that equipment just didn't work. We we wouldn't have known that without getting it into the hands of soldiers. And so almost all of Army transformation initiative has been informed by what soldiers have told us.
▶ 0:50:13And we expect that iterative cycle to continue ideally long past our time in these roles because what had happened historically to contrast with that was long procurement documents were created with hundreds and hundreds of requirements that been then by the time the document was signed it was already outdated technology and then by the time it was actually fielded it was even worse and just what we're seeing on the battlefield that will no longer work.
▶ 0:50:38Um and then just to your question of um uh ATI we hope has many iterations within the buckets that I described earlier to your colleague many and most of those we have gotten buy in from Secretary of Defense Heath and the president's team to execute on those getting no longer purchasing obsolete equipment buying the the new things that we need to the to the merging of a lot of the things that we're going to have and pushing people out from headquarters back to the formations that planning We we have
▶ 0:51:08given the order to start to make the plans. It is currently ongoing and the moment we have it uh clear enough to share we we intend to. Yeah. I just think it's it's critically important to communicate that in a way. I don't have any issue with making the transformation that's necessary. But these are people's lives. These are people's families. So don't forget that these are people's lives that that are impacted by this. Both the civilian force and the uniformed services force.
▶ 0:51:32They are incredible individuals that want to, you know, to do everything they can for the nation, but, you know, putting them through this period of uncertainty is is not really fair to them. So, General George, I don't know if you have anything you want to comment. I I just was going to add, Congressman, you know, we always talk about lessons. If they're, you know, we're really learned, you change how you train and operate. You change how you're organized. You change how you buy things. We've talked a lot about how we buy things. How we're organized is something that we have learned. You you mentioned our mobile brigade combat teams.
▶ 0:51:59What we also noticed all the way up is that we had redundancy in what we were doing and how we were bringing things to the war fighter. That was a problem with the army futures command and trade do uh and challenge in how we're training our people moving forward. How do you tr how quickly can you train FPV drone operators you know what what do you need? The other thing that we're looking at is our business systems. We are collapsing business systems from you know probably by 50% and we are going to be much more effective.
▶ 0:52:27Gentleman's time's expired here and I recognize a gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Molton. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Secretary Driscoll, thank you for being here. You have a bipartisan reputation for competence and lack of criminality, which is remarkably rare in this administration. So, I hope you survive and I thank you for your service. General George, thank you for your continued service as well.
▶ 0:52:48I want to associate myself with the chairman's opening comments, namely our bipartisan support for modernization and for using the Marine Corps's force design 2030 as a model. General George, you and I last year had an extended conversation in the skiff where you argued that the Army didn't need to fundamentally change in response to modern threats.
▶ 0:53:07I cited examples of where the Marine Corps has reduced its reliance on tanks since we've seen $10 million tran tanks killed by $3,000 drones and replacing traditional artillery with rockets and missiles. But you argued against this maintaining that you need everything you have both at the geostrategic level and the operational level. And now you're saying that you want to make these changes. So what has changed over the last 12 months?
▶ 0:53:34Um, I'm remembering back to that conversation and I think that was very specific to tanks and um, one of the things I do think we still need tanks on the battlefield, Congressman. I do think that we need to update our tanks to make sure that they're basically it's software defined. I've talked to a lot of people around the world that know that we're going to need that. That is not a capability that the Marines can provide, but that is a capability that that the Army will will likely, you know, need to be able to provide if we're in that kind of situation.
▶ 0:54:02So, you still think you need exactly the same number of tanks? Well, if on ATI and what came out in our announcement is we've actually are reducing by three ABCTS and um and actually converting those units um again that's in the Guard um to mobile brigade C combat team. that we want to do that very quickly. Same with uh with striker brigade combat teams. But um I do think we're going to need uh armored mobile protection.
▶ 0:54:30Uh you know that what we're going through and again this is uh and we're wanting to do this quick. This isn't about 2030. This is doing this rapidly and making sure that we can change our formations. I think since that conversation, we also have been um investing in drones, putting them in our formations, investing in autonomous systems that can do breaching. I think we're still going to have to do all of those things. We're seeing all of that on the modern battlefield right now. H how does the army's needs in the Pacific differ from those in Europe?
▶ 0:55:00What role will tanks play in the Pacific? Well, I can tell you that uh I know that the PLA uh has tanks. I mean, people have tanks around the world. I think we need to be prepared with it. Again, we always talk about that. It's great that the enemy has count. I'd like to kill them with our drones. Army is a global. It's a global army. I think that was brought up here earlier. We need to be ready to go. The pacing threat is in the Pacific, right, General George? Excuse me. The pacing threat is in the Pacific. No argument on the pacing threat. Okay.
▶ 0:55:29Then let's make sure our forces are designed to to to aim for the pacing threat and noti continue to be calibrated to an old threat in Europe. It's great that the PLA has a lot of stuff that we don't have. I'd love to kill million-dollar tanks from the PLA with thousand drones from the United States. Fundamentally, why is the Army 5 years behind the Marine Corps in this transformation?
▶ 0:55:53Secretary Driscoll, I I I think one of the first things General George and I did is we went to the West Coast. Um we we went to JBLM, went to Seattle, talked to Microsoft, went to Silicon Valley, and hit OpenAI, Google. I'm just asking why are you so far behind the Marine Corps? So, what what we saw on that um visit was I think that the United States Army had done a it had a lot of bureaucracy that had gotten in the way of doing the right thing.
▶ 0:56:18And I think um what we have tried to do is take the best practices from the Marine Corps's transition and try to implement those as quickly as possible. I appreciate that. Uh General George, on to the uh birthday parade where you're going to have 24 main battle tanks and 48 armored vehicles rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue as if it were North Korea, Russia, or China. What is the total cost to the unit at Fort Kavos of moving these vehicles to and from DC for the parade?
▶ 0:56:47Um, Congressman, I don't know the specific cost of that one movement. Well, I guess the total cost 35 million. So, would it be safe to say about $10 million just for that movement? I I would I would hesitate to give you an exact number of what that movement cost. I mean, we have, I think, been very public in what it is that we expect the um the parade to cost. Uh, overall, we are we are looking forward to our army birthday next year. Have you included damage to DC roads in that estimate?
▶ 0:57:16We have included. We have put out an estimate of what we think everything will cost. Secretary Driscoll, you said in your opening statement that it is your responsibility to ensure that every dollar the Army receives contributes to defending this nation and for us all. How does the parade contribute to defending the nation? Congressman, we think it's an incredible once in a-lifetime opportunity to expand our recruiting pool and tell the amazing story of the United States Army and the impact that it's had on the lives. Gentleman's time's expired. Chair now recognizes gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, welcome.
▶ 0:57:46Uh, General George, you've heard me talk about this before. Uh, Army Special Operations Recruiting, the 18 X-ray program. Uh, I'm concerned about a couple of specific instances where D1 athletes that I know, uh, were not allowed to participate in the 18X program because they had, in one example, it was a piece of plastic in an ankle. These are uh I mean when we're when we're talking about athletes that are playing D1 sports, more often times than not, they're going to have some type of of injury.
▶ 0:58:16And uh just want to encourage that we have flexibility in that 18 x-ray program so that these people that have been able to perform at these high levels are allowed in and that we don't have this they call it genesis I call it exodus program uh kicking the very people out that we need going into our special operations Just um one comment. I think yesterday uh Congressman we got an update on recruiting and again we can look at this on our dashboard.
▶ 0:58:45I think we're over 99% for 18 x-ray for this year. So again, and we expect to get it's very important population for us. It's one of the 16 that the secretary and I track in in detail. So every time we get a recruiting update, I wouldn't argue we one of the conversations we also just had was how are we, you know, look, we can look back into people's past much further. Um to your comment on making sure that, you know, people that have been athletes, we have the waiver process and we got that.
▶ 0:59:14So we are definitely looking at that and congressman I would just say what we've tried to do is and this is back to the end Booker remark we are trying to hold a mirror up and when we are inadequate we want to say it and we want to fix it our genesis program is inadequate our waiver program is adequate and we are trying to fix it and and of all of the comments that you've made um it was it was refreshing to hear somebody say hey um we we army made a mistake in in buying this system and we don't need it and we're going cancel
▶ 0:59:44it because what I've seen over the last several years that I've been in Congress is is we're going to spend whatever it takes to to make a system work that in many cases we don't need. And and I think if you look at the bureaucracy that surrounded the purchase of a 9mm pistol where it took 10 years to pick um a pistol, which is a fine pistol, but the majority of the special forces teams that are able to pick their own weapon pick one that was readily available 10 years ago.
▶ 1:00:12uh and and they blamed that on Congress, by the way, when when ultimately it was the the bureaucracy and the Pentagon and and the purchasing requirements that led to that. Yes, sir. I mean, we've been incredibly riskaverse as a United States Army. Um when General George and I talk about it, um there's something called the calibr paradox, which is basically this idea that humans are willing to uh take on risk for extra utility or happiness and joy.
▶ 1:00:40And we the United States Army have done the opposite of that and we have done a very poor job of uh being more risk loving than our civilian counterparts. I agree with you. So So let's talk about it from the counterdrawn investments. We know how to build them. We know how to we've watched the Ukrainians do what they can do with them. We've watched what they can do the with the Russians. How do you envision the investment in the counter drone measures moving forward with the private sector?
▶ 1:01:08So, so this is one of the things we talk about a lot and and a lot of the technology needs to be scaled to figure out what is the right place on the cost curve in order to shoot something down. And and back to generative AI, the ability to process all of this data and information really quickly to figure out should you fire a 50 cal round at it or a $4 million exquisite defense tool. We the United States Army are incredibly wealthy, but but that is a hard portion.
▶ 1:01:35And so what we're trying to do is develop solutions all all along the cost curve. So I'm down to about a minute, but but my vision on on on counter drone doesn't doesn't involve uh taking it down with a projectile as much as involves spectrum and other things that disrupt its ability to to reach its target. Can I It's going to be it's going to be a combination of those things, Congressman.
▶ 1:02:00I mean to the secretary's point when you're looking at cost curve and you're looking at a bullet and you know we it's cheap to do that and you may use other systems like we have a laser that can identify where to shoot that one particular bullet. So I think it's going to be a combination. We are looking at EW. There's obviously power challenges with that. We are looking at high power microwave. We are looking at EW. And just like we're talking about transforming in contact, we're getting it forward, testing it everywhere that we can.
▶ 1:02:29We have a very big exercise in Europe um called Fly Trap. That's this month and next that we are having industry as being I'm down to 5 seconds. I I respect both of you. I do hope we're also uh looking at the Israeli s laser system that they have put in place and and the potential to bring that into the US. Great. I would point out that we help pay for the research and development on that uh that laser research and we should get a good deal. We we are going to get a good deal, but Israel is doing some phenomenal work on that iron beam technology.
▶ 1:03:00With that, I recognize gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney. Thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to both witnesses for for being here this morning. I just want to again follow up briefly about the comments the chair made uh about the budget process that's here. I mean, as we sit here today on June 4th, we're less than four months away from the start of the fiscal year. And uh my staff actually did do some digging. And if the budget was submitted today, which it hasn't been, uh that would still by itself be the latest budget submission in history.
▶ 1:03:28Um and certainly in in modern history as far as um the budget process. You know, the chair, I think, described uh very well that this this committee is straining at the leash to get going in terms of getting um a mark for NDAA, and I know the appropriators are trying to sort of cobble together some type of appropriation process, but you're kind of shadowboxing at this point uh without a budget. And again, the two of you are not the decision makers in terms of the that final um release.
▶ 1:03:57But again, I just think we have to continue to publicly pound away at the fact that um the OMB's got to get moving and get that that document. I mean, we're doomed at this point in terms of avoiding a CR. It it it seems pretty clear uh at this point and that doesn't help anybody um in terms of the mission that that you're trying to carry out. Again, I just really uh Mr.
▶ 1:04:18Driscoll, I have just a quick question regarding um the um Flora uh program which again went through an excruciating process um and you know the decisions been made and it's time to obviously move out in terms of the the that helicopter program. Again, the optimistic estimates are 2028 for delivery. You know, I think some of the more other uh guarded op uh predictions are 2030.
▶ 1:04:46Uh in the meantime, I mean, Blackhawks um are still um you know, carrying out their mission. There was uh in last year's budget uh request for about 24, I believe, um units um in that program. And again, I think that at the time Flor was awarded, it was pretty clear it was going to be a mix of the two in terms of of that. And I just would wanted to get your thoughts in terms of where you see that that sort of formula u today. Yeah. So, um great question, Congressman. So, Flora is an incredible example.
▶ 1:05:16I think of the army getting in its own way. The first demo or prototype or exhibitor was flown in 2018. Everybody loved it and we're sitting here in 2025 without one. Um there's no other way to describe that than a failure. I think from where we sit today, what General George and I have uh said to the floor manufacturers is this is an incredible opportunity to show America's might, America's strength, our ability to build things quickly. We need this asset and we need it now.
▶ 1:05:44And so we did a call last week with the CEOs of the vast majority of the subcomponents and what we are trying to do is set a stretch goal to have the first one roll off the line in one year. I don't know that we will hit it but we are going to do our uh darnest to try to show that we can do things quickly as a nation.
▶ 1:06:01Again, I think to your question on Blackhawks, nearly everything we are talking about in ATI and with our purchasing goals is um we believe that we are overindexed on exquisite slower pieces of equipment and what we have to do is design things that will pull us more toward some balance. That balance will have autonomy. So, Flora could be flown autonomously. Blackhawks today cannot.
▶ 1:06:27um we don't know what the right mix is, but we do know that we are just overindexed on these other things. And so I think the work of this committee and us will be to have productive and uh um tensionfilled conversations about where that right balance is going forward. Thank you. I yield back. Uh chair gentleman lead uh yields back. Chair and I recognize general a from New York, Miss Stefonic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.
▶ 1:06:55Secretary Driscoll, thank you for your service to our country, particularly your service in my district at Fort Drum. Uh you know, you're well aware of Fort Drum's strategic importance and modernization efforts for the Army and how vital they are for our nation's readiness. Nearly every facet of the Wheelers Sack Army airfield has been modernized to support a rapid deployment force.
▶ 1:07:16And the airfield's 10,000 foot runway can accommodate any aircraft in the US Air Force inventory, matching DoD's air defense capabilities to threats and deterring our enemies. Today, Fort Drums Wheeler Sack Army Airfield has unfortunately a failing electric power system, and it's currently programmed for funding for FY27.
▶ 1:07:37I reached out to you via a letter about the importance of this issue and I would just like your commitment to work with us about potentially moving up that critical funding to FY26. Uh, Congresswoman, I deployed from that runway. Uh, so I know it well. Um, I I commit that we will take a look at it and follow back up with your office. Thank you so much. Um, Fort Drum has relied on energy from the local power grid since closing its onpost energy facility in 2023. This is an issue my office has been engaged in for a number of years.
▶ 1:08:07The Army Corps of Engineers determined that a small modular reactor would be an optimal option to supply Fort Drum's energy needs. This is an issue that I worked with my colleague, Congresswoman Tenny, who shares Jefferson County with me. Uh, in terms of representation, I would just like your commitment today to work with our offices to ensure Fort Drum returns to energy independence and security, including the potential deployment of this small modular reactor to the installation as soon as possible. Um, same answer, Congresswoman.
▶ 1:08:37I commit we'll look at it and follow up quickly. Uh, and then lastly, in a previous NDAA, my office worked to secure a provision that required DoD to review their ability to conduct electronic warfare training and leverage this defense ecosystem in upstate New York that we have helped develop between Fort Drum and the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, New York, which I also represent.
▶ 1:09:02This has been an ideal environment and it led to the army's decision to choose Fort Drum to host the second multi-dommain task force in 2025 and the PEO IWNs's incredible work to partner with AFL's future flag series of limited experimentation which we strongly supported and has led to great tactical outcomes.
▶ 1:09:23Can you speak to the importance of placing as much of the second multi-dommain task force at Fort Drum as possible to leverage this unique experimentation that will be continued between Rome and all the great work we're doing there either I'll jump in on that one um Congresswoman um first I think you know we did the big exercise last November you know up there so I'm really proud of what 10th Mountain is one been one of our most deployed units anywhere in the army and they're doing a phenomen phenomenal job.
▶ 1:09:54Um, right now, General Nommen, um, down on the border. I think what we're looking at is that every installation is going to have to do what we started to do, you know, that you have helped with up at up at Drum. We're going to have to be able to train EW. We're going to have to be able to train drones and and working through that. Um, so we're going to have to expand all of those systems. And we're certainly looking on this on the stationing. We can come over and talk to you about that um in detail. right now.
▶ 1:10:22I don't know if we've uh made any changes or uh finalized any of that, but happy to come over and walk you through that in detail. I appreciate that. Yes, I appreciate that. This is something my office has advocated for for a number of years to develop this defense ecosystem specifically in upstate New York because of our unique capabilities because of both Fort Drum, but also the emerging technology that research that's being conducted at Rome AFRL. Um, I also want to invite you, Secretary Driscoll, to come back to Fort Drum.
▶ 1:10:52Uh, I've hosted the president there where he signed an NDAA. I've hosted previous secretaries of defense. I've hosted previous secretaries of the army. And I would love to host uh and welcome you back to Fort Drum. Uh, it would be an absolute honor. Uh, my exo who was working with me uh when I got into office just went up there and so uh I would be delighted to visit her with you. Great. Thank you. I'll take you up on that and yield back. Gentle lady yields back here and I recognize a gentleman from California, Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 1:11:18Chairman, uh, the Army is fighting an internal battle with trying to balance modernization efforts with current needs. It seems that the Army would like to modernize, but the system is slow to change. General George, what do you see as the Army's most important asset? Uh, I would say it's our people, Congressman. without a doubt.
▶ 1:11:39Number one, um, for us and where we have to consistently focus, why we're so pleased with what we're doing with recruiting and why we're focused as as we are on making sure that we are also adapting them. We're proud of what they're doing. We're getting a great group in. Thank you. Great answer. I agree with you. Uh, in your testimony, you mentioned that you are investing in installations, including prioritizing barracks.
▶ 1:12:06It was recently reported that $1 billion of funding meant for barrack renovations is being redirected to the mission at the southern border. Will taking funding away from the barracks delay the timeline in which they are upgraded? And do you think postponing these types of renovations will have an impact on the morale and retention? Um, first I mean I just want to mention the retention word kind of triggered me here.
▶ 1:12:33We're I think at 6 months in we met our retention goals for this year as well. So we're doing very well with retention. Um of course we want to continue to improve our barracks and we're we're going to continue to do that. We've talked about that a lot. I do think that that's another area we can probably spend our money better um in that. There's a lot of uh restrictions that we have as far as how we're our costs are like 68% higher than what you would get outside the gate.
▶ 1:12:59We are looking at um we've done 3D printing and that's happened down in Texas of barracks that I think we can provide great systems beyond that. I think what we're looking at holistically is that every installation is different and every installation has different requirements um when I was at up at Lewis very different than you know than it is at Bragg. And so that's where we're trying to be very general.
▶ 1:13:24I appreciate the extensive uh response, but will redirecting a billion dollars impact the ability to do the renovations at the barracks? It's just a yes or no answer. Obviously redirecting has an impact. You have to make choices, Congressman. So the answer is yes. If we took a billion dollars out of barracks, we would be able to fix less barracks. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. And Congressman, uh, this is an issue that I It's okay.
▶ 1:13:54I'll get to you. I I got the answer I was looking for. Secretary Driscoll, I assume you are aware of a parade coming up, uh, celebrating the birthday, which coincides with another interesting birthday. The estimated cost of this is 45 million. It is interesting. It is an interesting time to spend 45 million on a parade when all the services are subject to an 8% budget cut.
▶ 1:14:19If Congress wrote the Army a $45 million blank check, do you think you could find a better way to spend that money than a parade? And could $45 million deliver any quality of life improvements or capabilities that the war fighters need? C Congressman, very sincerely, I think we as a United States have an amazing opportunity to tell a story of an institution that is older than our country itself. It is an institution.
▶ 1:14:46I understand that and I I believe very specifically that telling that story will directly lead to a recruiting boom that will fill up our pipeline for the coming years and I believe when we we our marketing budget we would spend to recruit those soldiers. I think our team believes that the the investment of these dollars to tell that story will directly lead to a good measurable quantitative outcome for the army. So you're looking at this as a recruitment tool. Yes, Congressman.
▶ 1:15:16And you think it's better spent there than supporting the quality of life for war fighters? Congressman, I think we we have to spend on both as General George said. I mean, we we run our budget. Um we have to make these hard decisions all the time. I think it would be a massive tragedy to let this moment pass where we can tell this story and inculcate an entire generation of youth into this amazing story that is United States Army. I find that very interesting. But thank you.
▶ 1:15:43The Army is touting a total change to the force via deliberate information transformation and acquisition reform. General George, are these efforts actually coming to fruition and can they be scaled to the level that you are expecting without interruptions to the service members? Actually all the feedback that I get congressman everywhere we go is that we need to do this faster that we need to transform faster.
▶ 1:16:09I mean, the challenge is, you know, kind of the question back is, you know, can we do this back up here? We need to we do need to stop buying obsolete equipment. We're going to need to make the changes that we gentleman's time's expired. Chair and I recognize gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Dejarle. Thank you, chairman, and thank you both for being here today. U going to deviate from my original questions just to touch on drones considering uh you know what happened in Ukraine.
▶ 1:16:34Uh I was just recently at Oakidge Y12 uh this past week and and looking at the facility there and and all the other facilities around the country that are critical to protect. Uh has the army stepped up its posture any in response to the threat from drones? I know domestically we have domestic terrorism acts and we know abroad we get attacked at our bases in the Middle East.
▶ 1:16:59What is the rules of engagement on the the military bases and high-risk uh uh sites such as as our nuclear production sites? So, first I think you'll see congressman that um we this is an area we want to that we are very focused on that we need to spend more money on. Again, I would describe it as a capability portfolio where we don't need one system. I was kind of explaining that earlier.
▶ 1:17:27It's going to be a broad base of things that we need to do. Um how we're going to do that in a combat zone is very different than how we would do that in the states. Obviously doing that in the states and we're working um obviously with Northcom, you're talking about FAA, FCC, you know, with with everything else that's going on. And so we're we're continually working through that.
▶ 1:17:47Um there is legislation, you know, on that as far as the 130i, which I'm I'm sure you're familiar with, um that I think we need to make some changes to and and we are, you know, working with Northcom, joint staff, and OSD um to get that up. But we are very focused on this and as I mentioned, we're doing a very large exercise in this with all kinds of industry and and everybody um this month and next. Yeah. Um, and you showed us some examples of that when a large group of us visited you in Austin.
▶ 1:18:17And and in your opening statement, I found it striking how far focused the army has been on procurement and adaptability. Uh, as we've seen, the modern battlefield has undergone rapid changes over the past few years. And because of this, uh, the need to pro procure things better, faster, cheaper, and more reliable has become critically important as we work to keep our war fighters equipped for success.
▶ 1:18:42Uh, this has been something that the committee has been laser focused on under the leadership of Chairman Rogers and ranking member Smith uh, for this year's NDAA. So, General George, what have been some of the most notable successes or lessons learned from the transformation and contract initiative that can help this committee enable our military to become a more lethal and agile force? Um, yeah, I could go on a long time about this, Congressman.
▶ 1:19:10I think, um, we have this last rotation that we had had close to 400 drones in it down at the Joint Readiness Training Center. So obviously, you know, infusing them with technology, drones, autonomous systems, counter UAS, what we're doing to change the network. The secretary mentioned that this is about being data centric and being able to pass all these systems moving. Um, a lot of it though we're learning from the modern battlefield is changing how you train and operate, getting understanding how that you can be viewed. Um, there's really nowhere to hide.
▶ 1:19:40and all of our what we are doing right now is changing our organizational construct as well because we're going to have to be more dispersed um more mobile and and we're working through all of those and we've made a lot of those changes we just now need to scale those changes across the army and that's what ATI will help us do and congressman I think the way General George and I talk about this is this this paradigm shift between software and hardware we have created hardware that has required software to function We need
▶ 1:20:10our new hardware systems to basically be softwareled and just the software manifesting in the world as this hardware cuz if we can't update these systems in near real time the enemy is going to be able to disable them and um we're taking that into account in every decision we're making. And if you can both you in one minute we've been working for with the army and uh in the past General Thood to address the persistent manning shortfall across our patriot battalions.
▶ 1:20:36Uh while there's been progress, there's still major challenges that remain as we start to stand up Golden Dome and try to figure out what that looks like. Uh how is that going? What are you doing to manage that and and get us in a better position? 30 seconds. So, we're doing really well on uh ADA folks that are coming into our formation. Um so, we're pleased with that and we're going to continue to keep the gas, you know, or keep the you know, foot on the pedal on that.
▶ 1:21:01The other thing is a technology is looking at how we can use technology to reduce demanding inside these formations and we put some new equipment out and we're happy to come over and talk to you about that as well. Okay. I'd love to have an update. Thank you both. Yield. The gentleman yields is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you. It's nice to see you again, General. And it would I really look forward to getting to know you a little bit better and appreciate the um the idea that you have brought with you a a spirit of bipartisanship.
▶ 1:21:31That's something that's really important here. And speaking of bipartisanship, I have a couple of questions that I hope you might be able to help me with. Um, recently we decided to make sure that there were genderneutral fit fitness tests and we implemented those and it's something that I have been supportive of since I've been here in Congress.
▶ 1:21:47I was hoping that I might be able to get you, Secretary, and you, General, uh, your opinions on whether or not you can indeed commit that women will continue to be allowed to be rangers, will continue to be allowed in the infantry, uh, and continue to be allowed to be trained for those particular positions.
▶ 1:22:04Congresswoman, uh I I'll hand it to General George just so he can confirm u what I'm about to say, which is um my my seven-year-old daughter, Laya, um she wants to join the army since I've I've been here, and I hope that she gets to try out and if she can maintain the excellent standard to join those types of units, and she wants to, I hope she has the opportunity to. Um, I have not been part of and I don't believe General George has a single conversation that has made me believe that it a man or a woman that can meet those standards of excellence that they wouldn't have those opportunities.
▶ 1:22:34General, and I I don't know if you've heard I agree we've not had any discussion about this. Um, you've pro there's probably a podcast that I can share with you where a lot of our, you know, soldiers, female soldiers were out there talking about the changes in this and that was a lot of the feedback that I got inside this as well. So, um they're very happy with the standards and and and where they're going and they're doing very well in our units.
▶ 1:22:57And I would also um tell you is that we are uh we've also recruited more female soldiers into the army over this last year as well. So, effectively, you are both committing that women will continue to be allowed to be trained in those particular positions. As far as I know, Congressman, Congresswoman, we have not had any conversations.
▶ 1:23:18There is actually a reason I'm asking because there are conversations above you that this indeed will end up being in threat at threat and I really want to make sure that I hold you to that commitment because if people meet the standards they meet the standards. Um my next question has to do with something that Mr. Garamundi touched on. And I spent a lot of time, as you know, on quality of life issues bipartisanly with Representative Bacon.
▶ 1:23:40And one of those pieces of legislation that we were able to get through was for barracks improvement uh to make it uh possible that we were able to fund uh and improve bar the barracks. Mr. Garamundi mentioned, and it is true, that a billion dollars for barracks improvement has been moved and moved to the border, which would seem to be counter to the law that we literally just passed. When um Mr. Mr. Gamundi asked it. Both of you seem to not be aware of that particular movement.
▶ 1:24:07Are would you be able to check into that for me because it seems as though that this is really really important and literally counter against the law. We we can f follow back up with you, Congresswoman. I just want to echo um what General George said earlier like um these issues matter deeply to us. General George is currently a soldier. I was my my daughter is named after a current soldier's daughter. They live in army and military housing. I care deeply about this population and so um we commit to following.
▶ 1:24:36I do as well having grown up in a military family and served in the military myself. I very much think that where you live really really matters to your quality of life and it is not about this is about color of money issues and it seems to me that there is no way that we should be allowed to move a billion dollars worth of money from barracks that we've worked so hard to give you uh into something like the border. I'm going to move on with what's left of my question.
▶ 1:24:59Um, General George, you talked about uh recruiting and as Secretary, you did as well and that you've met the recruiting goals and I think that's terrific and very much worthy of the applause that that I think we that you got bipartisanly on this.
▶ 1:25:13But would you be able to also confirm that this momentum is also attributable to the past years and the past administration in the future soldier preparatory uh uh organization and effort that we've had in streamlining entrance processes in refining waiverss, medical waiverss, in recruiting and training stronger recruiters? Will you be able to confirm that this is a long time coming and not something that just happened over the last several months? Um Congresswoman, I went down and visited the future soldier prep course at Fort Jackson.
▶ 1:25:41Um and it very sincerely there have been a couple of moments in this job that have just touched my soul. Um seeing the soldiers and how that is the soldiers who go to that have a ywall about basically how they need to overcome their challenges to join the army. The outcomes for those soldiers has been great. Um and that has been a spectacular program that has been conducted over the last couple of years as well as the medical waiverss as well as getting better recruiters. Am I correct? Correct. Thank you. I have very little time left.
▶ 1:26:08So, unfortunately, I will have to ask this last question for the record, which general has to do with the thousand layoffs that are in the headquarters and who are they and and how we're going to be accommodating for that. Thank you. I yield. The gentle times expired. Major General Kelly is now recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I want to start with what is the most important uh asset that the army has? It's one word. People. There you go. Soldiers. All right.
▶ 1:26:36Aspriita core, heraldry, all those things are they important part of a unit uh and and in recruiting and keeping people and retaining. It's crucial, Congressman. Okay. And we do Twilight tattoos. The Navy does a thing where they have the Marine Corps and ships on the deck out in the on the American coast. Uh is a parade important for a spree decaore? We do a lot of these uh across the country. I mean, with Golden Knights, so I say yes, all of this.
▶ 1:27:05Also, I bet we will I bet we will have a Army birthday celebration next week right here in the capital and numerous other places to celebrate our history and heraldry. Is that correct? That's correct. And and the planning congressman started uh years ago. And as an ROC cadet, they did Calax uh exercises to uh get us to want to be on tanks or fly helicopters or do or see artillery fire or CA10s come in. Uh those are important part of recruiting and retention, right? Yes, sir.
▶ 1:27:35So, this parade kind of matters to recruiting and retention and heraldry and all those things, right? Uh yes, sir. All right. I want to talk a little bit. We talk about diverting the money, but safe neighborhoods ma matter too, right? And not housing people who are not here legally in army barracks, that matters, right? A safe border is incredibly important, Congressman. Absolutely.
▶ 1:27:57and not housing people who shouldn't be on army bases on army bases and putting at risk our warriors that matters too right everything related to that border congressman so I want to talk about a little bureaucracy okay you got a 3D printer who just built some buildings at bliss uh do you think urinal flows go to the strength and reliability of a building urinal flows and that the answer is no okay we literally slowed down production and did extra testing because we had to test
▶ 1:28:28urinal flows. That would apply to every buildings, not just 3D printed, right? I I was there are a lot of challenges, I think, um, Congressman, with how we're, you know, we're building buildings compared to outside and we've been, you know, over on the hill trying to, you know, explain what those are. I I would just suggest when people put false things in there to make uh to make requirements longer that we probably find them another job or no job.
▶ 1:28:54uh when you want to do hurricane strength testing in the desert, I would suggest that's not the best use of our people or our assets. I want to go a little bit, General George, and I'm really concerned about this and Mr. Secretary, um I hear us talking about moving AH64 echo models and I I hear that we're going to the mic model in U860s.
▶ 1:29:16What I want to make sure that we're not doing now is that we filled one thing on the active component and the lesser alternative, the secondary, the old strategic reserve thing to the national guard and reserve. It matters when we fight. We do not have a large enough army to fight. We have to all fight at one time or be prepared to. Do do you all agree with that? I agree.
▶ 1:29:37You know I just want to explain if uh on the details actually uh we are there are some reductions of the 64 deltas in the active component so that we can also have age 64 echoes in the guard in compost 2.
▶ 1:29:53And so that's uh what the what the National Guard is going to see from um Army Transformation Initiative is the age of their you know they'll get much younger much more capable aircraft um out of what we're doing with it. Thank you General. And I want to go real quick uh one of our members earlier brought up let me tell you in World War II did we fight a very different campaign in the Pacific than we fought in Europe? Yes.
▶ 1:30:21one was intensively sea warfare and air warfare. Uh some ground forces, but it was primarily sea and air. Is that correct? Um I would actually tell you that we had 21 divisions and six cores in the Pacific during World War II. So I don't see uh our job is to be ready anywhere in ground forces. My point is ground forces still matter in Europe. That was a primarily ground war. It uses all both use all. I think they matter everywhere.
▶ 1:30:51Obviously biased, but I I don't I think history supports that and infused with the right technology that we would have with drones and counter UAS and all those things. I think the army is critically important. Long range fires, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can be prepared for Europe and the Pacific is kind of my point. The final thing is just I want to make sure you guys continue our commitment. I think one of our most valuable tools is our state partnership programs and I think we are using it well.
▶ 1:31:19I think we can use it better to get more return on investment for the army and the nation as a whole. With that, I yield back. Time's expired. Mr. Crow, you're recognized. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to both of you for coming in. Uh I join with many of my colleagues and sharing some excitement around you thinking big and structurally. This Army transformation initiative is is the way we need to be thinking. But I also join with my colleagues in saying that congressional engagement is extremely important and without information this committee cannot do its work.
▶ 1:31:48In addition to this committee, the Army Caucus has not had any engagement with the department. I'm the co-chair of the Army Caucus. We're 6 months into this year. This is a bipartisan caucus. Um this is a group of members of Congress who uh many of whom are Army veterans, many of whom have Army facilities in their district. They volunteer and there just hasn't been any engagement. We are your some of your biggest allies and we can't do that work unless we engage with you.
▶ 1:32:16Uh both of you are combat veterans like me and I would like to talk about our shared experience in combat. Um Secretary Driscoll, uh you you led a platoon in Iraq and I'm sure you realized while you were doing that that engaging with civilian populations was important. Correct. Uh absolutely, Congressman. And just to your army caucus, um um we we will remedy that. That's shame on me for not having you. So I commit to you'll get an invite soon. And and then Yes. Thank you.
▶ 1:32:45So So engaging with populations, that's essential to the mission because we're almost always operating near civilians. Correct. Correct. And and we can't accomplish military missions, combat missions, unless we effectively interface with civilian populations. Correct. That is generally true. And and as part of that, reducing civilian casualties, making sure that civilians are not pulled into or um are injured as part of our operations is also mission essential. Correct.
▶ 1:33:16The army as far we we always aspire to min minimize and mitigate that risk. It would be mission essential though to minimize uh civilian casualties, right? Yes. Um General George, would you share that view? I I would I would also come back to, you know, with our shared experiences that, you know, we have to really focus on making sure that every soldier is really good at their kinetic mission.
▶ 1:33:41And before I went to Afghanistan and as a brigade commander, Iraq, as a battalion commander, as a field grade, we were absolutely part of our everything that we do with what we're doing with targeting is making sure that we are very precise in what we're doing. And I think, you know, history would show we're we are very precise. I mean, it's combat, which I agree with, General. I mean, the precision is really important, right?
▶ 1:34:05Because that actually is makes us more combat effective to be precise and to make sure we're hitting what we need to hit and not hitting other things in addition to losing the support of a civilian population of which we are often times trying to earn their support by reducing casualties. Is that I would say in certain situations if that's a counterinsurgency fight then I would that would be accurate. Certainly in fact the the the mission analysis tool METTC you both are familiar with METTC right?
▶ 1:34:35In fact you used it Secretary Driscoll when you were in the military right? Yes. And the C stands for what? Civilian. Yes. It's it's civil considerations right? So it's actually built into our analysis planning tool that you think about civilian population. So here's my question.
▶ 1:34:56In fiscal year 2023, this committee on a bipartisan basis created the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence for all the reasons we talked about that we understand that we can't effectively conduct our mission, win the support of local populations, reduce civilian casualties, and ensure the effectiveness and the precision of our targeting unless we make it a part of the mission and we focus on it.
▶ 1:35:22The department has provided notice to Congress that they are going to defund and get rid of the CPCE. So why on a bipartisan basis we passed something that will help put our soldiers in a position of being more successful in our mission, more precise in our targeting that will be better at protecting the civilian populations that we serve in and alongside of? Are you going to wind this down?
▶ 1:35:51I I would I would tell you congressman that what what we need to do is make sure that that um beyond the center of excellence is embedded in everything we do from top to bottom. I think you were mentioning METTC. That's a very tactical thing that we're doing at every place um all the way up. We're doing this when we I agree with you, General. I'm going to cut you off. I agree with you, Secretary This was the way to to focus and prioritize this effort. Why wind it down?
▶ 1:36:19Uh, I I think we are aligned in your goal, Congressman, and we think that there's a more effective way to do it. All right. Well, I I want to hear that more effective way and I would like answers to that. Yes, Congressman. Thank you. The gentleman's time expire recognize myself for 5 minutes. Thank you both for being here. I appreciate your leadership. I want to echo some of the concerns that we've heard today. Bipartisan concerns on the news reports that the Secretary of Defense has moved over a billion dollars out of barracks and dorms for the border. We need a strong border. I get that.
▶ 1:36:47But I spent the last year chairing a subcommittee or a temporary subcommittee looking at quality of life. And in the midst of that, the GAO came out and gave our dorms and our barracks a failing grade, an F, to include the armies. We saw pictures of raw sewage in dorms, rodents, mold, dorms that had barracks that had no air conditioning or heat working and on and on. And so we spent the year trying to build a plan to help the services fix this.
▶ 1:37:14And what we did learn is over a decade, the services were moving money out of their dorms and barracks towards weapon systems. I get that we had finite resources, but we built a 10-year hole in our dorms and barracks. And now, if the news reports are true, it's very troubling. We're we were trying to help with the quality of life and feel like a decision was made that undermined this whole effort that we spent the last year doing. So, I wanted to say that for the record.
▶ 1:37:40Uh George, I think China's rightfully the the pacing threat. What is it that you want the army to bring in a China US fight? What what's the main capabilities that you see the army bringing? I I think the army is going to be congressman the backbone for a lot of things that are out in the in the Pacific. You see what um right now what long range fires is doing um being able to operate in small teams and be able to present those kinds of things. um out there.
▶ 1:38:10It's why we're we're moving away with some of our, you know, some of our systems um or long, you know, other drones that can actually be now be uh employed much simpler and not from airfield. So, I think long-range fires, army's going to have a big role to play in integrated air and missile defense. And again, this is around the world. Command and control, we're used to a lot of moving parts and big formations um and controlling a lot of that. So, I think we're going to do a lot of that. counter UAS. I mean, I could go down across all the war fighting functions.
▶ 1:38:39We always tell everybody that, you know, there's no such thing as one a maritime, air, land. These are joint theaters and everybody is going to be important to this fight. Um, and so certainly we're going to be important part of that as well. Thank you. I totally agree. long-range fires.
▶ 1:38:54I I think some criticisms towards the army about if they put the right priority on air defense, but I think we know we need it now and we need to really invest in this area, particularly in a far east uh conflict and also the counter drone technology is going to be huge. There's a lot of reports of what China is doing with their drone technology. So, we will be facing the same threats that we're seeing uh in Europe right now. uh to to both.
▶ 1:39:19Sometimes I hear the president or vice president secretary of defense talk about solely China as the primary threat, but I don't hear a lot of talk about Russia. And yet since 1991, Russia's forcibly changed their borders nine times, and we're seeing the big one right now with Ukraine. Would you agree that Russia is indeed a threat? One, and two, do we have any are we going to maintain our posture in Eastern Europe with the Baltic countries, Poland, and Romania? I think our presence there is critical for deterrence.
▶ 1:39:50Um, I I think um we all agree and we are following the leadership and guidance of Secretary Hegat that China is the pacing threat. Um, but when General George and I talk about the army that we are we believe we are responsible to build. One of the things we've referenced is that um often most human beings that thought they could predict the future have turned out to be wrong since the beginning of mankind. And we want an army that can be effective anywhere that we send it. And so in all of our planning, we try to build an army that stands by and stands ready um to go anywhere the president sends us.
▶ 1:40:20But yes, so is Russia a threat? Russia is a threat. Thank you, General George. I would agree with that. And I just want to kind of this gets to some of the earlier questions about what kind of equipment. I don't think that we can have an army that can be that is only good at one thing. You know, the army has to be uh our country expects it of us. Um, and I know we can do that and that's exactly what we're focused on with the transformation initiative. Do we plan on keeping our presence in the Baltics and in Poland?
▶ 1:40:52You'll either one of you. Yeah, I've not I've not seen any, you know, uh, policy decisions um, on that right now. Congressman, I can't think of better allies. These folks love our country. I've been to Baltics many times and Poland. They love freedom. They know what it's like to live under the Soviet Union or Russian control. They are investing 4% roughly of their GDP trying to go to five. Uh they're great allies and I just hope we we stick by their side and make it very clear with that.
▶ 1:41:19And Congressman, I was in Poland um and saw how they treat our soldiers and it's incredible. Um they are an amazing ally and we support them. With that, I yield and I recognize Mr. Ryan for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both. Thank you both for being here. Thank you also for coming to the finest uh service academy in the world uh in my district uh for commencement uh two weeks ago.
▶ 1:41:43It was really an honor to have you both there and I think we can all agree uh the country should be incredibly proud of those 102 young men and women that raised their right hand that day and and certainly appreciate both of you being there uh and your leadership to that to that effect. Um two areas that I wanted to hit starting um with you, General George. I just want to commend you on the record for from the beginning of you taking this critical role saying we're going to really take hard critical looks.
▶ 1:42:12We're going to up our risk tolerance. We're going to experiment uh with the with the um transformation in contact initiative that you undertook. uh and then to see that come to fruition and taking those lessons learned from those uh I think it was three uh brigades that were doing that work across the country to then inform uh the transformation initiative that we're talking about today. I think that that deserves significant praise and and credit as a model that I think all the services should should look at.
▶ 1:42:40Um can you just briefly talk about one specific success story and I know you mentioned for example that 300% increase in lethality uh of the one brigade but can you share I think a lot of us are focused on the kind of the macro there's a lot of moving pieces here but can you bring that to life is there an anecdote or a story you can share from the transformation and contact that's informed the larger ATI initiative I mean even before I'll go back to the people because I've been asked what's our most important asset I You know,
▶ 1:43:11what we're learning is uh what kind of people also and what kind of people skills we need to have inside of our formation. We had a um you know, pretty significant meeting earlier this week about deciding how we're going to add electronic warfare operators inside our formation, how they would do that at Echelon. it has informed how we need to change our training um at all of our centers of excellence, how we're training majors differently, captains um above, you know, and all the way up.
▶ 1:43:40Um so it's really informing everything we're doing and um it's not just the Thank you. Yeah, I think that's a that's a very critical point and leads actually to my second question which is about our our greatest resource, our personnel and recruiting specifically.
▶ 1:43:55Um, Secretary Driscoll, appreciated your uh, op-ed and I and um, the broad recognition of a huge success and I think everybody in the committee should be applauding in a bipartisan way the success of the Army after several years of investment, a strategy change, particularly led by you, General George, and your team, bipartisan work of of the Congress under the chairman's leadership and the ranking members, specifically uh, Rep.
▶ 1:44:23Pulahan and and Congressman Bacon's effort on the quality of life initiative to raise pay and address other critical quality of life issues. All of that coming together to actually work to see us hitting our goal not only on time but ahead of time. So I I commend uh you all for that.
▶ 1:44:39I do think it's important that this not be a political analysis of the success and I'm concerned not actually from either of you but what I've heard from the secretary and the president of overly politicizing the takeaways of the recruiting success. So I just want to raise a few points and ask a few questions to make sure I'm understanding how we got here correctly so that we can learn the correct lessons and build on um this success.
▶ 1:45:08I know in FY22 and 23 we were challenged did not hit our numbers. Is that that's correct? Uh Chief, that's correct. Um and then in FY24 uh which to be clear happened in the last administration just uh we we hit our goals. We're up 12.5% and exceeded the goal which and 55,150 recruits in FY24. Is that right, General George? That sounds right. Yes, sir.
▶ 1:45:36And then I think we even went 11,000 over and were able to put 11,000 additional folks into the delayed entry program which fed into the success we've had in FY25. Is that the right way to think about that? Everybody that goes into the delayed entry program and that's exactly what we're going to do, Congressman. You know, from for next year from here on out is we expect to get, you know, 20,000, for example, in the delayed entry program moving forward. Great.
▶ 1:46:04And I'm I'm running out of time and and we'll submit this for the for the record, but I think it's important to highlight that this all started under your leadership, General George, and the last secretary in October 2023 when we added 1,200 recruiters to your credit when we started the future soldier prep course, which 24% of the recruits came from that course. When we moved to online job boards, uh when we went back to the old motto that we all love, be all you can be. uh and a lot of other smart initiatives that started in 2023.
▶ 1:46:34Gentleman's time's expired here. And I recognize gentleman from Texas, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, gentlemen. Have either one of you heard of the First Battalion 158th Aviation Regiment of the 11th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade? I'm I'm familiar with uh not that specific battalion, but the ECAB. Yes, Mr. Secretary.
▶ 1:47:03Uh directionally, not specifically. That's unfortunate because it's being decommissioned and it's in my district. And I want one of you two to tell me why that's happening. Because I would hope since that's being decommissioned, and Mr. Crow said it very eloquently, we can be your greatest asset or your worst enemy. and you've come into my house where I was born and raised in this county and you're taking something away from me and I want to know why.
▶ 1:47:32Um, we did um went through and we've done a lot of war games, Congressman, on what we need for aviation structure and so that's what we went down from start to finish on on what we were going to do. I think we've talked a lot this morning about autonomous system. You did speak about modernization. I'm curious why you wouldn't try to modernize that unit instead of decommissioning it. I say decommission because I'm a Navy guys. If there's a different term in the army, please let me know.
▶ 1:47:55Well, again, I think when you're overstructured on a specific asset and you're underinvesting in others, you have to make decisions on that. It's it's that's what we are looking to do with a lot of those pilots um that are in compo 3 is they will um we're working right now with them that they would move and they would fly in the guard. We got a lot of talent in there um that will go with the guard or potentially with comp one.
▶ 1:48:21Um but again what we have committed ourselves to is that we're not going to keep uh equipment that we don't need systems that we don't need when we know we need to invest. If we don't need those particular weapon systems or those air assets, why can't we increase the capability by moving more modern aircraft to that location? Again, I I think we're going to uh over the years going to start to see a reduction uh in what we're having for some of our rotary wing aircraft.
▶ 1:48:51And we can talk about how much rotary wing aircraft has been used right on the front lines and in some of these it's less. We are moving towards the MV75 which is the um the flora that the secretary was talking about in the in the f in the future here and we're hoping to move that very quickly. Um, but I think that there are other missions, autonomous systems, um, that can do that. And again, we had to make a decision. We did not. We were overstructured on that particular aviation.
▶ 1:49:19Well, I I' I'd like you guys to take a harder look at this. And let me tell you why. Because Conro, Texas is just right outside of Houston, and that area is basically the catcher mitt for hurricanes in the state, okay? Out of And the 500 soldiers and the 100 civilians that work at that unit are engaged in our community. We see them every day.
▶ 1:49:47And when Harvey hit and every other storm that followed Harvey, that asset was flying overhead, rescuing my constituents day after day, continued to do so without question. And I'm getting the call not from them, but from my district. And I can assure you when my district starts chewing on me, guess where I'm coming? And I want those answers.
▶ 1:50:13I want I respectfully request either one of you come to my office and explain to me in detail why this is happening. Why we can't move assets in this place. Why can't this particular unit stay? Not only because of its deployability and how great they are every time they go overseas, but because of the asset and what they bring when we get hit by a storm every single year. Now, if you do take that from us, and I'm going to speak hypothetically here. you do take this from us and this goes away.
▶ 1:50:43And I've heard 12 to 24 months once you pull the trigger. If that happens and we get hit again, which we will, you're going to have to explain to me. And Congressman, uh we'd be happy to come to your office and explain it. Um the the first bucket of ATI and we are allocating reallocating 48 billion of spending over the next 5 years.
▶ 1:51:05Um we've had a lot of hard conversations with a lot of um um well-intentioned and uh the tension in this is is at a scale that we we are um we would be delighted to show those folks that you any of those people that you had those conversations with have been down there and and I'm I'm kind of see what I'm talking about. Yeah. Congressman, I will also tell you from a lot of experience through the years of supporting, we will we have done this most of the time.
▶ 1:51:34We have to evacuate all of the aircraft out. Um we still have uh Kavasos that's right up the road and gentleman's times expired, chair, and I recognize uh Representative Vasquez of New Mexico. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Driscoll, General George for your time today and for your years of service to our country. I represent New Mexico's second district, home to White Sands Missile Range.
▶ 1:51:56As I'm sure you well know, White Sands is the department's premier research and testing facility where we've spent decades developing cutting edge technologies and weapon systems. I've heard from base leadership during my time here in Congress that they've persistently dealt with drones of unknown origin entering into the airspace without authorization. Drones are a relatively cheap weapon system with the capacity to rapidly form swarms and launch attacks on targets of significantly higher value. And I'm concerned about Whitand's vulnerability.
▶ 1:52:25They also have the ability to spy on some of our most sensitive technologies while it is being tested at White Sands. The base currently has limited radar capacity to detect drone incursions, but more importantly, they lack both the authority and technology to engage these drones, leaving us potentially exposed to our adversaries. General George, uh, would you agree that unknown drones entering the airspace of our military bases poses an intelligence and security threat? Um, I agree.
▶ 1:52:53And to go further, Congressman, I you know, this is an area that we've been talking about that we uh and you'll see we're going to invest more in. Um we need to experiment more with we need to have uh commercial, you know, more folks uh developers that are in there doing that. Um and we need to work with you on the 13i to make sure that we also get the right authorities to do that. There are areas, I know, for example, where we, you know, you we could shoot things down. Um, so we have to work we have to work through some of that.
▶ 1:53:23And Congressman, I would just say that this is a topic I think um that likely would have bipartisan support and and you have our um both uh very public um admission and request that we need help to all work together to solve this because in Konis it is difficult. There are a lot of different assets nearby. There's uh commercial air traffic and the answers are not simple and so we as a nation have got to come up with a better solution. Thank you, Secretary. Thank you, General.
▶ 1:53:48Uh does the army or department of defense keep a log of instances in which unauthorized drones have been entering military airspace? We do we do keep track of that. H have those been increasing over the last 5 years. Um I would say drones are increasing in general whether it's you know commercial and again this gets back to you know being able to identify understand you know and and what you're doing to categorize it.
▶ 1:54:13So, and I think the secretary has seen that, but it gets again gets back to how we're going to have to work together to get after the authorities. Flexible funding to make sure that we can actually buy the things and, you know, not one specific system and and continue to evolve in this area and rapidly. Thank you, Secretary. And a lot of that technology is being developed in my district in the state of New Mexico. So, I appreciate you uh lending them uh a hand to be able to compete uh for these contracts.
▶ 1:54:39Uh, Secretary Driscoll, given the rising use of drones uh for military and intelligence purposes, what is the Army doing in FY26 to improve our counter drone capabilities? Um, Congressman, this is top of mind. We are testing all sorts of capabilities. Um, directed energy is one that I think we've all read about recently that um it is a very difficult science problem to solve. We don't have a scalable solution yet.
▶ 1:55:04Um we are working with um tech providers from our SAGU that is trying to suck out the best lessons of Ukraine. There are a lot of technology providers in Ukraine there. They're calling it in some ways the Silicon Valley of war right now. And so what we are trying to do is instead of needing to innovate as a nation ourselves, we can be fast followers on a lot of these tools. Um and the army is um um working daily to try to come up with as many solutions as possible. Thank you, Secretary. And I want to switch topics.
▶ 1:55:32to add one could I add one thing on that Congress general I I just want to make sure I get to to these other questions here um excuse me I want to switch topics to the troop deployments on the border I represent 180 mi of the US Mexico border the entirety of the New Mexico border with Mexico uh and recently the troop deployment to the border has created a military zone uh that has taken over the management of public lands federal public lands in fact um I have a deer hunt this year in an area where I'm no longer able to hunt no longer able to enter and it's become unclear
▶ 1:56:02where the boundaries of this military zone actually start and where they end. And that's unclear not just to hunters or people who enjoy the land, but also to local governments, county commissioners of those counties who represent those border counties. Um, how fast can we get the information of where these military border zones actually exist? And what can Americans who go into these existing federal public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management expect some answers about whether they will be apprehended or arrested within these border zones? We we can provide uh very specifically I'll bifrocate my reply.
▶ 1:56:32We can provide that information to your office and then uh to to people on that specific land. The army is working incredibly hard with our soldiers to put out signage. Um we have taken it over recently and so um thank you secretary. I appreciate that because so far we have not received any response from the department of defense or the army. So thank you. I yield. Chair now recognized gentle lady from Virginia, Miss Kiggins. Thank you very much to both of you for being with us today.
▶ 1:56:57And although I represent a big Navy district in Virginia's second district in Hampton Roads, I'm the daughter of a Green Bay who served in Vietnam. So I appreciate again both of your services. I wanted to just echo my colleagues uh sentiments for prioritizing the quality of life work that we did last Congress. We looked at housing, child care, health care, pay and compensation, spouse employment. These are really important issues and we hear it time and time again across the service branches. So thank you for continuing to prioritize that.
▶ 1:57:24I I echo their sentiments just about, you know, I know there's a lot of needs and the and the balance the budget is is confined. So, uh, just make sure you don't forget about quality of life. Along those same lines, we talked a little bit about power grids and I know Congresswoman Stefanic mentioned Fort Drum and we have similar challenges at Naval Station Norfolk at Naval Air Station Ocean again in my district and and we have a offshore wind project that is actually giving the air station a 500 million million dollar power grid upgrade which I appreciate.
▶ 1:57:53It's a little little bit of a creative way to do that. But uh there's also talk about you know small modular reactors which you all mentioned and then uh just adopting right now we're having to adopt the local power grid. Which which do you prefer? Which would work out better uh for for the army? And then what are some of the barriers to to implementing that that power source?
▶ 1:58:15Are you talking between uh SMRs or or is it better just to adopt the local local power I think it depends again and you know the army has been designated the executive agent for these and um one thing that I think everybody realizes um secretary mentioned this earlier um power requirements are going to go up um what we're also very focused on is resiliency of our installations and you know as we refer to them as power projection platforms
▶ 1:58:45making sure that we have uh resilient energy um and so that's what we're focused on so I mean we're looking forward to this initiative. I think we that's one of the things that uh we have talked about that we need to continually improve with. And Congresswoman, I would say the way we're thinking about these is we we would prefer in no instance to have an eitheror. Um to create this resiliency against threats we don't know.
▶ 1:59:08Um we we think that the right solution is a lot of solutions and that as we learn and as we go about this and as we go into a conflict someday, we may want to scale up one or another solution. Um, and so, uh, specifically to that, I think it's both. I agree. We have a all the above energy approach in Virginia, which I think is is worth, uh, utilizing everywhere. Want to talk a little bit about recruitment retention. Congratulations on on meeting your recruitment goals. This is great. Uh, we're we're still working on the Navy side.
▶ 1:59:35I wanted I heard you talk about Genesis and the waiver program, and I think Secretary Driscoll, you called it inadequate, and uh, and we have challenges in our own district. It frustrates the the heck out of me when I hear from young people who want to serve, especially in in the DoD medical board process. Uh as a lot of room for improvement. I was just at Virginia Military Institute a couple weeks ago. My son graduated, but looking at these young people that want to serve, especially in the Army, that that school produces a lot of Army officers.
▶ 2:00:04I want these kids to be able to serve. So, I get really frustrated with some of the pediatric diagnos, some of the nuances of this waiver process. So you mentioned Secretary Driscoll again that it was inadequate. Can you just speak to me about what changes you are looking at in this waiver process?
▶ 2:00:19Uh so um the Genesis program in and of itself is a classic example I think of the army building a solution or or being part of a solution that is siloed and ineffective and inefficient and it's probably going to be a better solution to go out and grab um a tool that is used in um areas in the commercial sector. So looking at something like Salesforce, our recruiting team has started to onboard to Salesforce as its CRM and seen incredible results with that.
▶ 2:00:47In a perfect world, we would replace something like Genesis with something like Salesforce where we could toggle the amount of information we are seeing and weight the different outcomes with a generative AI model. Being able to say, hey, is this a kid who got an inhaler when they were 12 and 2 months and never used it versus somebody who in when they were 17 and a half actively was using an inhaler? Can we take coaches letters of recommendations and apply it before we output that they even need a waiver?
▶ 2:01:13And so what we are trying to do is essentially apply logic because we hate those outcomes too. Thank you. Can I can I mention one thing on the you know we're looking longitudinally as well. I mean I think you know again the population is changing a little bit more as far as you know numbers with ADHD or you know different issues.
▶ 2:01:30Um so we are studying that as well you know with you know how how long do soldiers what do we get for retention what kind of things we have pushed the waiver authorities down you know further or so because a lot of the frustration um and I enlisted if I would have had to wait you know two three four months I probably would have chosen to do something else um so that's the biggest thing that we are we're are trying to do and I do think that they're you know we can get better in our software gent lady's time's expired chair and I recognize Gentle lady from
▶ 2:02:01Hawaii, Mr. Duda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you both know, the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources just rejected the Army's EIS for the Poakaloa training area in my district, and in the coming weeks, the EIS for Army training areas on Oahu will come before the board for decision. Given ATI restructuring efforts, does that change the Army's intended footprint needed in Hawaii?
▶ 2:02:25perhaps doing less um with more of an emphasis on things like advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, all in which were contained in Secretary Hegset's memo um which prioritize this and are in line quite frankly with the work that we are starting to do at Scofield right now. I I would just start by saying, you know, we have a lot of really important units that are out right now. Um you know, at Scoffield barracks with 25th Infantry Division.
▶ 2:02:52Um, obviously being able to train for their, you know, potential warf fighting missions is critically important to us and it's why those training areas are very important to us and I think this jointly and I know we're working very closely with the with the authorities in in Hawaii to, you know, kind of move move this forward. and I'm heading uh in in July, Congresswoman, I'm going to Hawaii.
▶ 2:03:15And one of the things I want to be um on behalf of the army, make sure we tell that community is how grateful we are for the partnership and the community members they've been. Our soldiers who've returned from um being stationed there have generally nothing but amazing experiences with that community and we're grateful. Yes. Well, we definitely take care of our people. We'd like to be also taken care of as well as good neighbors.
▶ 2:03:38And I think that's where especially if this ATI process is intuitive and learning as you go given that we need certainty by 2029 when the lease renegotiations are up, you need to really know what kind of footprint and intention you have with our communities um in terms of training or whether it's to do a pivot more towards things like additive manufacturing. Um I want to move on to some other questions. Mr. secretary.
▶ 2:03:59For over 20 years, the first information operations command was the Army's only active duty unit focused on synchronizing information capabilities and supporting deployed forces to counter adversary influences. And its recent shutdown as part of a broader restructuring raises serious concerns about the future of army information ops, in particular, China, Russia, and others that set up disinformation propaganda and cyber enabled influences.
▶ 2:04:24um allowing our adversaries to control the information and disinformation space only adds to the fog of war quite frankly. Mr. Secretary, how is the army ensuring that the deactivation of the first um IO command does not leave operational gaps or vulnerabilities in our information posture, especially at the tactical and operations level? And during this transition, what safeguards and interim measures are you putting in place to ensure the continuity of capability and mission?
▶ 2:04:53I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in on that one first, Congresswoman. Um first, uh I think we're working that with SOCOM and USC. And again, I think everybody sometimes gets um you know, a headquarters caught up with whether or not you're going to do you know, a mission. And I think what we've learned is that is going to be a part of every mission that we're doing. We are looking at um how we're updating.
▶ 2:05:14I was talking uh answering a question earlier from Congressman Ryan and how we talk about our people and train our people differently with information operation um psychological operations you know the runs the gamut of this it's also technical and how um everybody knew what was happening this weekend instantly because of what was happening on the internet and how are you having tech you know technical solutions to understand that I think what I'm asking though is when it comes to information operations we have had a central hub for over 20 years, we have
▶ 2:05:44dismantled other entities within the State Department, the Voice of America to be able to counter and manage information and disinformation. You're talking about disagregating it across all sectors and units and having individuals trained in that. We need a centralized source that we can control what information we're putting out and what our adversaries knowing what our adversaries are putting out there as well. Are you concerned at all that we are lacking in both readiness and capacity in this area as a result of shutting down this information operations command?
▶ 2:06:14Give me a simple yesern based based on so you have no concerns that we are at a disadvantage to think areas like China that are very very much attuned to the need to be able to manage this particular space. We'll continue on later but I wanted to ask one question about AI.
▶ 2:06:30Now from what we've seen in your May letter to the force on army trans you know ATI you've stated that command and control nodes will integrate AI to accelerate decision making and I fully support us moving in that direction but when we've looked at other sectors and how AI is distributed we need to make sure there's clear ethical boundaries and oversight personnel or there will be serious risk my question is can you clarify your vision for AI integration into command and control what it looks like in practice are you talking about AI in an advisory capacity or initiating and
▶ 2:07:00executing actions autonomously. How do we times expire here and recogn? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for our witnesses for being here today. We wouldn't have a country without our military. So, um really appreciate the service uh in the 250ear Army parade. I totally agree. We live in an incredible country. Our US Army has an incredible history and that must be told. And I think well, I appreciate what you said about meeting the recruiting goals.
▶ 2:07:29four months early and before the busier, more productive months. That's incredible. I know it's all about teamwork. Uh we've got to make sure that our folks can if God willing, uh be able to come home and survive a fight if they get in a fight. But I believe in peace through strength and if we have peace through strength, we probably won't have to go to war. Um there's a lot of threats um at home and abroad. And some people say the enem is at the gate and in some ways the enemy is in the gate.
▶ 2:07:54And I'd like to make sure I think we all would that what happened in Russia with their bombers doesn't happen in the United States. There should be We talk about drones. We saw what happened uh at Langley Air Force Base. Even in my district, we have nuclear power plant North Anna. Uh the sheriff says, "Hey, there are drones over our plant. We're not sure what we can do." There was an advisory put out by DOJ in 2020, and I think that caused a lot of confusion with uh Department of Defense and SLT.
▶ 2:08:22And so I've put in a bill, it's uh HR 3478. It's called the Manned Aircraft Clarification Act. And basically that advisory made generals and other um government folks think that a drone was the same thing as a remote control, I'm sorry, a 747 jumbo jet with passengers is the same thing as a remote control airplane, which they are not. So I would ask you guys to look at that DOJ advisory back in 2020.
▶ 2:08:47It needs to be rewritten uh updated and I'd ask you to check out the HR uh 3478 uh manned aircraft clarification act. There should be zero restrictions on the ability of government to protect their property and critical infrastructure against drones. Every uh obstacle creates opportunity for adversaries to do what we saw in Russia earlier this week. So, please check that out.
▶ 2:09:11Uh Ukraine has a goal of building um million drones this year and I read a report um it said the Army Materials Command demonstrated the ability to produce 10 group one drones per week for training exercise uh using 3D printing and AMC's acting commander Lieutenant General Christopher Mohan recently stated that they could potentially use advanced manufacturing techniques to expand to 10,000 drones per month.
▶ 2:09:40You see, that's a far cry from what they're doing in Ukraine. What's stopping the US Army from replicating the success across all our material? Is it technology challenge, training, or funding? I'll start with Secretary Driscoll. Um, I I I think the shortest answer would be all of it, all of the above. Um, we we as a defense industrial base have decayed and lost our ability to rapidly um procure new technology and scale it to the war fighter.
▶ 2:10:07We are very optimistic that these tools and solutions uh are able to be made and and mimicked by American industry to to copy exactly what is occurring in Ukraine. Um we are optimistic that with the bipartisan support of this committee, we are able to get the funding to do this quickly.
▶ 2:10:24Uh there are tools and General George and I have visited a number of companies small and mediumsiz that we think this renaissance of the industrial base that is hopefully unlocked from army transformation initiative will allow us to uh put into place the things that would require be required to scale to something like keeping up with Russia's 1 million drones or Ukraine's 4 million. Um but we're not there today. And I and I apologize but I'm limited time. So there's one more question I'd like to ask and I appreciate your answer Mr. Secretary.
▶ 2:10:53um to my colleagues Joe Wilson and Elie Sonic on the importance of small module reactors for the army, but I'd like to ask about some more details on executive order 14299 deploy advanced nuclear reactor technologies for national security. So, Mr. Secretary, you mentioned the issue of contested logistics and supply chains. Where do you see micro reactors in this context? And by the way, in my district, we have BWXT and I think they're going to be the first micro reactor that's operational in the world.
▶ 2:11:22Uh I think micro reactors can be an incredible asset uh as we solve against the um future energy needs of the United States Army both in Konis Okonis and peace time and wartime. Um and we are excited to lead that effort. And this is a question for either one of you if you wouldn't mind is uh do you have any idea which services or combatant commands will be receiving these capabilities first or a time frame for a roll out? I mean I don't we can come back to you congressman.
▶ 2:11:47I think, you know, a lot of this gets to the technology and how big these systems are, you know, are they on are they how mobile are they and are they going to be on our bases? Are they going to be in our installation and I think that's going to change over time and we're going to be working with everybody in the department um to make sure that we're advancing that effort. I yield back. Thank you. Gentleman yields back. Chair not recognizes Representative Cisneros from California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary Disco and General George for being here today.
▶ 2:12:16I really appreciate your time. Uh, Secretary Driscoll, um, you know, diverting a billion dollars away from barracks, like sort of like a 30 $40 million parade. Uh, you're being forced to make 8% cuts for projects for pet projects that the the secretary and the and the president wants. And this is all happening while we're under a CR. I'm kind of getting the impression that is the army just flushed with cash and got extra money to spend that it can give away.
▶ 2:12:46Um, you know, are we giving you too much? Um, and you know, really, how is this I I know it's kind of been answered already a little bit, but just to go more into depth, like you know, our service members, how is this affecting the quality of life of our service members if we're moving this money away from the barracks? Congressman, um just to go on record, you are not giving us too much money. Um the Well, you're giving it away.
▶ 2:13:12So, we are, as stated earlier to your colleagues, we we are incredibly um honored and we take very seriously the the duty that we have to the American American taxpayer to use those dollars efficiently and effectively for the American soldier. For the celebration of our 250th anniversary, we very the the planning has been going on for years. The Army believes that this will um empower an entire new generation of America's youth to catch the spirit to serve their nation. And we are incredibly honored to be able to tell that story.
▶ 2:13:42Um General George and I have reflected how lucky we are to be in these roles in this moment in time. Um and to tell the story of an institution that has impacted our country so greatly since its founding. You don't think that money could be better better well spent on some type of recruiting campaign that would work over a period of time rather than a one-day event that's just going to take place and then it's done. Yeah.
▶ 2:14:06Th this parade I believe will be seen by Americans across the country and I very sincerely and we can look at the recruiting numbers. I would hypothesize and I will come back and justify whether I was right or wrong that we will see a an incredible um filling of our pipeline of young Americans who want to join. One thing that I know for sure, right, the thing that does affect recruiting is an investment in actual recruiting. Um but I think with these 8% cuts that we're seeing, I'm pretty sure there's going to be big chunk that's going to come out of recruiting.
▶ 2:14:37Uh and that is probably going to hurt numbers over time. Uh but General George um you know the secretary uh secretary Hexet has made uh some comments about wanting to reduce the number of general officers by 20% three star fourstar officers by 20%. Department of Defense just went through an exercise of this not that long ago where a number of officers senior officers were had to be cut. You were part of those discussions.
▶ 2:15:06I heard those discussions um about where they would come and fighting. So where are you planning to make these cuts for these three and four star senior So um Congressman, we've actually been making some cuts in general officer billets.
▶ 2:15:23I would generally agree that again we are overstructured on headquarters and you know uh we're trying to move people down into into our formations and so I think we're doing that and we had already made some of those as part of um army transformation initiative. We're going to make some additional cuts. I think it's going to make us better. Um oftent times additional headquarters slows down processes and adds bureaucracy that is actually not going to help us.
▶ 2:15:51I also think that we have updated uh business systems. I call them readiness systems that we can actually you know do things much more efficiently. I look at a a smartboard in my office for example rather than calling down to somebody else. So I do think that we can can reduce those numbers. That is part of our plan and in what in what we're doing. Uh and I think it's going to make us more efficient.
▶ 2:16:14Well, I look, I would love to see that sheet and what you think and where you think you can cut because from my experience and we heard in the conversations where there were a lot of arguments and fights about we need to keep this bill, we need to keep this billet, we can't let this one go and and I'm suspecting that the army's going to try and fight for its bullets. But if you are ready to to kind of give those up, I I guess I I think the key is congressman is that we not we you know what we've been focused on too is outside moving people out of our headquarters.
▶ 2:16:42I mean what I've been out in a couple of places and we have like a combat division and we are not filled with their geos because they're doing other things you know that are back on whatever staff they're in at whatever higher headquarter. So we need experienced combat leaders in our combat formations. That's exactly what we're kind we're focused on with this and how do we rightsize to make sure that we're doing that. No, I look I do not disagree with that at all. I think they need to be in your formations, right?
▶ 2:17:12But gentleman's time's expired. Chair now recognizes Dr. Jackson of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to thank our guests for being here today and updating our committee. Um, since the beginning of the year, the United States Army has had tremendous success by refocusing the force on the needs of the war fighter, attacking inefficiency, and elevating war-winning capabilities. The American people have recognized this and this focus on readiness and lethality. They are in response, they are raising their hands to serve.
▶ 2:17:40In the first quarter, as mentioned, the Army is killing it on their recruitment and the retention, and you guys are doing a great job. I want to thank you and Secretary Hegsth in general, everybody else on their efforts on this across the services. We're doing a really good job on recruiting and retention, and that is a big change. I personally want to say, thank goodness we're not wasting money like we did over the last four years, letting DEI and the Biden's woke agenda drive our recruiting efforts. That was an absolute waste of time. We're past that now.
▶ 2:18:05uh to deter and if necessary win against our adversaries whenever, however, and wherever they threaten American interest. It is paramount that we provide essential funding for Army programs and capabilities. Special operations forces continue to provide critical capabilities in countering violent extremist organizations globally while also setting the theater, building partner cap capacity, and conducting other missions to give our adversaries pause.
▶ 2:18:32The US Special Operations Command operates by five soft truths. One of which is most special operations require non special operations support. That is why I led a provision in the FY25 NDAA that prohibits reducing Army soft enablers until the Army provides a report on the feasibility of using inherent relationships with general purpose forces.
▶ 2:18:54It is irresponsible in my mind to cut soft forces to support uh support support uh force soft forces when the requests from geographic combatant commanders are increasing and we have been told that they're increasingly being told they cannot that special operations cannot meet their needs.
▶ 2:19:11Secretary Driscoll and General George, would you describe the role you see for SOF in the department as the department focuses on readiness and lethality under the army transformation I I can um echo the the importance of soft. I'm going down to Fort Bragg next week to to visit with them and um some of those units down there. The the entire army transformation init initiative is premised off uh agility and learning lessons from the actual soldiers who were out in the field.
▶ 2:19:39Um and no group is able to do that as effectively oftent times as our special forces soldiers um because they are able to deploy quickly into mission sets that are just a little bit irregular. And so um we are deeply tied in with their learnings and those learnings are impacting the broader army. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I only thing I would add um and I would agree on the importance and they're part of every they're part of our transforming and contact initiatives.
▶ 2:20:03They're down at our CTC's or in our exercises and I've deployed alongside those formations, you know, for the better part of 20 years. Um and every time I did, we had actually enablers that were helping them. So I mean I I think again this is not, you know, moving thing. This is about sizing our formation to make sure that we have the right um capabilities for our joint force and that's exactly, you know, kind of what we're doing.
▶ 2:20:28There's no specific plans to go into that again right now, but I think, you know, we have to continue to evolve and we'll continue to work with uh with US Army Special Operations Command as as we move forward. Yes, sir. Thank you, General. And you know, I uh I've spent not near as much time uh in in the operating theater as you have obviously on the operational side of the house. I respect your your opinion on all of this, but I will say I've spent a lot of time uh with the special operations units and in particular with the tier one units.
▶ 2:20:53I think that the enablers that they have are special in the sense that they require lots and lots of additional training once they're assigned to those units. And I just don't think they're interchangeable with enablers that may be in other components of the force, but uh I hope that you guys will take that in consideration. Take care of our special operators. They're on the tip of the spear. They're doing a a unique job that no one else can or will do. Uh, real quickly, I'm I'm just going to uh ask one more question. Uh, I'm I'm I'm pleased to hear about the Army Transformation Initiative and the efforts to expedite future long-range assault aircraft.
▶ 2:21:24Uh, Secretary Driscoll and General George, could you describe what steps you're taking in the department to expedite uh this urgently needed platform with the newly designated MV75 from the Flare program uh to fill this uh this key gap that's referred to as the air ground latoral? um what are we doing to make sure that we can accelerate this and the fielding of the weapon systems associated with it? I think it's critically important to the fight in the future.
▶ 2:21:50I I think this is a place we as an army c can grow very quickly and take take into account some of the lessons learned from being a wartime um body where I think what what allowed us to manufacture and scale so quickly in World War I and two is we had soldiers on the manufacturing floor. And today what we're trying to do is work with those manufacturers, have them send us lists of where the federal bureaucracy is getting in their way. If they can't find a a resource they need, we have said we will do it. And then very importantly, we are going to try to uh General George, I'll take yours offline.
▶ 2:22:19I'm out of time. Thank you. Chair now recognizes Mr. Sorenson, Senator of Illinois. Thank you, chairman and ranking member and soldiers on the manufacturing floor. You know what I'm going to talk about. Um, I want to talk about manufacturing and how important this is to um the Rock Island Arsenal uh and its story to history. Uh, good morning. Welcome to Secretary Driscoll and General George.
▶ 2:22:40Um, like many of my colleagues, um, I am frustrated uh, by how the army has decided to roll out this army trans uh, information in initiative. You know, it doesn't matter which side of the aisle that we're on here. U, we all want to make sure that the army is lethal. it is ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. However, um you chose to give us a plan with few details, with no budgeting, and a failure to answer a lot of our questions.
▶ 2:23:10And now we're hearing about how this plan will be implemented from my own constituents, um not from leadership. Uh the Army and Congress have always had a better relationship than that. As you both know, I represent the largest government-owned and operated arsenal. And today, we need the same commitment from you as Congress got from Abraham Lincoln that the Rock Island Arsenal will be fully funded to make the Army all it can be.
▶ 2:23:40Rock Island is proud to be home of the Army Sustainment Command and Joint Munitions Command. Both commands provide vital but different support to the soldier. However, this Army transformation initiative calls for the integration of these two, putting Joint Munitions Command and Army Sustainment Command together. Joint Munitions Command has been essential in overseeing Ukraine's defense of their sovereign ground.
▶ 2:24:08We need to make sure it remains at the at the ready uh for the next fight. But now, hundreds of jobs are on the line at Rock Island. And for what? We can't afford for expertise to be lost. right at the spot where we have always bolstered our munition production. JMC is ready is already a lean machine uh with the smallest number of employees in Army Material Command while overseeing 18 sites.
▶ 2:24:36Secretary Driscoll, you spoke in your opening statements today that the Army has been slow to innovate. Please explain how merging these two essential missions at Rock Island will help the expertise within the army but also help us scale up munitions productions before 2027 as well as our growing organic industrial base.
▶ 2:25:01We as a nation are u incapable currently with all of the bureaucracy and regulation and overregulation and calcification of our just kind of rational decision-making bodies uh at creating the munitions that we need. Um what we are trying to do with ATI is get rid of as many headquarters functions that we believe are overlapping and actually slowing it down where where more human beings may seem like it is helpful. I think in our impression and what we have learned um it is actually harming us.
▶ 2:25:30And so what we've tried to do is look across all of our headquarters units and say where can we possibly um and um where can we streamline things and add a little bit of speed and save some dollars and reinvigorate the spending to things that will actually output more munitions. So where where are things being overlapped from Rock Island? Where where is that occur there? I I would just was going to jump in here.
▶ 2:25:55I mean we can't where we have redundant capabilities with two headquarters that are a stone throw away from each other and you know you even look at right now what you could do with modern technology. Um so it was the question before do we need you know two geo headquarters a stone throw um away from each other that can do some of the you know same functions. Um we want the same thing you do as far as keeping uh and you we're very proud of the 3D printing capability that we have at Rock Island.
▶ 2:26:23We're very proud of the um that we have. Those are the kinds of capabilities that we, you know, that we need and will continue and I've been out there to see that we have commercial industry actually coming on to use those um capabilities. So again, I don't think I I just don't want to conflate headquarters with, you know, with actual capability, especially when they're just, you know, a couple of blocks apart. And I just want to echo Rock Island is the gem in our in the assets and the tools that we have.
▶ 2:26:53Let's get you out there. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we need to make sure that, you know, the Army Transformation Initiative is is isn't flawed. You know, I worry that this decision has has unfortunately more to do with just an arbitrary cutting of federal workforce than it does strengthening our army and our national security. Um, you know, Secretary Hegset's one sentence in the memo is um absolutely unacceptable when it comes to changing major commands and eliminating hundreds of civilian jobs. Um, and Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
▶ 2:27:24General Beck, I would say that I have conveyed the same sentiment, Mr. Sortonson, to uh, General George, and that is if budget is driving policy, you're gonna have a problem out of this committee. If policy is being driven first and budget is a consequence, then we're going to be open ears. Uh but you can't just let try to make your policy or your construct fit a number that's arbitrary.
▶ 2:27:52Uh we need you to let us know what you need and then let us worry about funding it because that's what we're here for. So just know that you're you there's other people that see this same way you do, which is why we need a budget so we can talk about these things. But I can't overstate we are not going to be hostile to dramatic changes is if it's being driven by the need for change and not just to meet some budget number that somebody's handed to you.
▶ 2:28:17Uh I'll get off my sermon pullpit now and go to Representative Higgins of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your passion and your leadership, sir. I support the chairman's uh description early in this hearing, Mr. Secretary General regarding our our intention to in this committee to have have policy drive our narrative and our legislation.
▶ 2:28:44Uh budget is is is part of our our larger concern for our country and and we will address that appropriately. But what we ask of the United States Army of which I'm a proud Army veteran um we we ask for you to deliver to this this committee what your needs are and then under the chairman's leadership we will drive towards accomplishing that.
▶ 2:29:11Um I'd like to mention recruiting secretary and in general congratulations for hitting your recruiting goal early this year. And uh I expect you're going to get a big bump during the rest of the year. And let me say that it was very clear to many of us. It's been brought up in this hearing, you know, what's what is the driving factor behind recruiting.
▶ 2:29:34And to me, it's always been uh American families are the driving force between successful recruiting or failed recruiting. and for for several years who've had families like mine and advising their their their youngsters to refrain from joining the military if it they were on a fence. And since November of last year, there's been quite a shift.
▶ 2:30:01The families are gaining confident in the future of the United States military. And therefore, you're seeing you're seeing a surge of recruitment and and congratulations on that because families are again supporting their children's consideration for service. It's never been about money. It's always been about, you know, what are the principles uh reflected in the United States Army and the United States Navy and Air Force, Marine Corps.
▶ 2:30:29do those principles reflect the core values and principles of traditional American families and if that alignment is solid then your recruitment will be will be productive. So thank you for that general and secretary yeets mentioned um the expanded capability of buying capability your quote general versus uh being restricted by quote specific
▶ 2:31:00programs if to in order to provide the best available tech again your quote general would you mind elaborating on that I know you have earlier in this hearing but Please explain to America what shift we're trying to accomplish within this committee to deliver to the United States Army the ability to buy the most effective technology that's available right now or next month or in three months or six months as opposed to being locked into
▶ 2:31:30a um a specific program. Will you clarify that, General? Um yes, Congressman. I think again I I'll give a couple of quick examples but drones are a perfect example that we know that that technology is rapidly advancing and if you bought a drone now uh and I had used one in Afghanistan that was still in service actually when I became the chief that was like 20 years old you know that was old technology so we can't be locked into things we need to uh just have a capability we can
▶ 2:32:00come over here and that's what we're talking about with agile funding we could lay out exactly what we're buying so you know We want the oversight to make sure that we're doing that. Um, but to maintain pace and that's what you're calling capabilities, correct? That's the capability. Drones, autonomous systems would be one. Electronic warfare systems are going to change. The network is going to adapt. I mean, like phones, no one's, you know, everybody adapts their phones, updates and does things like that. Yes, sir.
▶ 2:32:29So, so, so general, just to clarify in the interest of time here, um, we want to provide the army, what you're envisioning here with the capability to buy, say, showroom. Like if if if a company produces a new model that fits your capabilities that Congress has authorized and funded, you want the freedom to be able to go to the next showroom over and purchase that model versus the last one you bought.
▶ 2:32:58Is that correct? I think we also need to be responsible enough to that when we build things, we build them modular. So the larger systems, we know active protection is going to change. Um, we know the network is going to change that you could maybe make modifications on those systems as well. So, we're not building one integrated system that takes five or six years to come to fruition that we know is going to have to change. So, we have to change too how we're doing business. Congress times expire. Understood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 2:33:27Uh, chair not recognize a gentle lady from Maryland, Miss. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen. And, um, general, thank you again for your hospitality and cander when this committee visited uh, in Austin. I echo the congratulations from this committee on on recruitment numbers and certainly it is years of thoughtful and strategic planning in the making led by your team uh general. So we greatly appreciate that. I'm also I I agree with and I'm relieved to hear that you say our most critical asset in the US Army is our personnel.
▶ 2:33:54So before I start questions, I do want to just echo my my colleague uh Congresswoman Hulahan's concerns about some of the the statements that Secretary Hixith has made as it relates to rolling back the opportunities for fully qualified women who meet every fitness standard to serve in certain roles in the US Army. Now obviously Secretary Hicks will answer for himself when he's in front of this committee next week, but I unfortunately I didn't hear a commitment from either of you. Uh Mr. Secretary, I heard that you hope for these opportunities to remain for your daughter and for others.
▶ 2:34:24But I would I don't want to presume to tell you your responsibilities, but I would hope advocating for personnel for their hopes, their commitments, their abilities in back rooms where these conversations are being had is a responsibility that you both take to heart. So I I I sincerely hope that commitment is forthcoming. Moving on to energy. Again, relieved to hear, Mr.
▶ 2:34:44Secretary, your your thoughtfulness on this issue representing um multiple installations that are uh vulnerable to sea level rise and severe storms, not to mention just the general antiquated nature of our grid system, uh including the fact that 99% of our base electricity comes from outside the installation. Clearly a problem. You talked about SMRs, but can you speak a little bit to your your planning for other pieces of this puzzle? It's not just SMRs, obviously. It's it's also uh storage. Uh it's also grid resilience.
▶ 2:35:13Can you speak how you are prioritizing installation resilience? So um we don't talk about this as often but what what we think and what we believe and our kind of our one of our core hypotheses to transformation is to go get the best of the civilian sector and um create the ar have the army be the ingestion point of that on behalf of the Pentagon and we've talked to the leadership up and down on that.
▶ 2:35:35So, what we just did earlier this week is we're trying to get some of the the minds at some of our best funded VCN PE backed companies to give us insight into what they're working on today to try to figure out how do we actually just take some of their prototypes and get them on our bases so we can learn if it can work. Um, and so we're optimistic that we'll have some announcements on that in a couple of quarters. That's exciting. I think you heard you have a lot of allies on this committee for that priority.
▶ 2:36:01Um I want to move on to uh Fort Dietrich which is not in my district but in Maryland and as you know the army's medical research and development command headquartered at Fort Dietrich uh has been transitioned to the defense health agency. MRDC when it was under army control was a world-class life cycle incubator for research development and acquisition um not just for war fighters but for world health generally on the cutting edge of Ebola and CO 19 outbreaks and responses.
▶ 2:36:26However, the DHA contracting authority is is managing uh now managing that medical R&D which is different from what they've been used to their their capabilities in the past. So, Mr. Secretary, I'm curious, how are you working with DHA so that we don't lose all of the research, all of the the the thought leaders that live at Fort Dietrich? How are we going to continue to move this ball forward? Yeah, just just personally, my wife is a physician and a public health uh physician, no less.
▶ 2:36:55Uh and and this is a topic that is incredibly important in the army. We believe we can continue to be a leader and innovator here. Um we are working with that agency. It is it is complicated um that it has been merged and we are working through some of the um issues that come when you merge across a lot of different services. Um but it's important and we're happy to follow up with more details if helpful. I I appreciate that. It's not just the mergers. While there's some critical infrastructure challenges including a new incinerator that's that's direly needed on that on that installation.
▶ 2:37:24So, yes, I would love to to follow up with you and your team on that. Um, I also shared this committee's concerns about the future of the Army and and Mr. Secretary, I I hear you say that you want greater flexibility in addressing emerging threats and I understand that. At the same time, that complicates our constitutional obligation to conduct oversight over over taxpayer dollars and over over the army. So, I'm going to let you set your own game or set your own goals here.
▶ 2:37:54Will you return to this committee this time next year? What measurement of progress should we hold you to? Um, I I think that constitutional oversight is incredibly important, completely and utterly supportive of it. I think what I have learned since being here is we went from directionally 12 funding lines 20 or 30 years ago and we are now narrowly told over 1,400 different funding lines what we can buy. The intent of this is not to allow us to do things with our money that you wouldn't support.
▶ 2:38:20It's in General George mentioned for you to bucket us into appropriate areas, us to provide the receipts and when we get too close to the line, you to provide that oversight. I look forward to that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Gentle lady, uh, time's expired. Chair and I recognize gentleman from Texas, Mr. Goodton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, General George, the Army says it's cutting bureaucracy and reinvesting and lethality, but historically, we've seen so-called cuts in headquarters just result in reshuffled org charts and no real savings.
▶ 2:38:49Could you show me exactly how much manpower and overhead will be eliminated under ATI, and how much of those resources are being redirected to frontline units, specifically those based in Texas like Fort Kavasos and Bliss? Yeah, I could we could come over um Congressman and walk that to you in detail after the budget comes through.
▶ 2:39:09Um and again, we when we look we're what we're trying to do, we have a budget and we are trying to build the very best army for that and again we are everything that we've looked at that's on that list. Um we know we can better use that money in in different capability and that's what we're focused on.
▶ 2:39:27So I mean salaries are money um the things that we have to do and if we have dup you know duplication in effort or we have inefficiencies um we're all about um making those adjustments and congressman just to the end strength the actual soldiers um when we talk about these thousand soldiers that are up in headquarters it's not cutting them from the United States Army it's cutting them from jobs that they hate where they are we we have we the army have forced them to push paper back and forth and we are returning them to do
▶ 2:39:57the job that they love, which is what they signed up to do. And so, at least as far as I know, no soldier that is among the group that we have told, "Hey, we're pushing you from headquarters back out to your units." has been anything other than thrilled. The goal is to grow our combat formations to put people in combat formations. Good to hear. Thank you. Um, also want to thank you for your support for Grey Eagles for the Army National Guard through the appropriations in FY23 and 25.
▶ 2:40:23And it's my understanding that Army Grey Eagles are now currently helping to protect our borders and that has significantly in increased their operational tempo. Patrolling the border seems like a perfect fit for the National Guard to perform. And I wonder if the Army is giving any thought to adding Grey Eagle force structure into all eight Um not really, Congressman. And again, you know, with Grey Eagle, you take Grey Eagle as a it's a very it's an it's a great platform has been a great platform for us.
▶ 2:40:53It's very expensive. Um there's 150 people in a company. It requires an airfield. And I think there's platforms out there right now that are probably a tenth of the cost, can be operated with three or four people, and can fit in the back of a truck. And so, you know, that's kind of what we're looking at going that we could have more of those systems.
▶ 2:41:13we could have more capability um for less money and and they would be updated and and u moving forward I think that's where we need to go move and congressman for the grey eagle in particular we are grateful as the United States Army for any asset we've been given or the dollars you gave us to go purchase we want to use it in its most effective way um there are tools as General George mentioned that are significantly cheaper and better that what we are saying is we don't think we should purchase anymore thank you I got
▶ 2:41:43one more question for you. Talking about AI, the Army in particular pays for humans to translate everything and translation services. Probably wasn't on your radar today, but um the definition of government waste is in essence what we're doing now. And generative AI, foreign language translation solutions are being used today by several army units to drastically increase the efficiency of army linguists, but more could be done.
▶ 2:42:09And I'm wondering if uh you could discuss any plans if you have any to expand AI language translation technology across all army divisions and where in your budget you would allocate these resources. I can take the the first part which is almost nothing gets me more excited than the use cases of things like generative AI both for the war fighting function of the army but also the army as a business. General George and I reference us as two discrete functions.
▶ 2:42:34One is a a very lethal killing machine and then the other one is just a large enterprise scale business that moves people and things around the country and the world. AI is going to unlock so much value immediately on the army as an enterprise business um that we are looking actively for every single place that we can possibly take. We have over 200 business systems, enterprise level systems that we use. I'm picking a number that I think General George would agree with. I don't think we need more than 20.
▶ 2:43:02Um and and AI is going to be incredible for things like language services that helping us achieve that. Super. Maybe at the next hearing we'll hear what gets you more excited than that. So thank you and appreciate the work you're doing. Yield back. Gentleman yields back. Chair and I recognize a gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Chair and ranking member. Hello to our witnesses. Thank you for being here and for your service as well.
▶ 2:43:25Um, and one thing that I will say about this committee, um, that is encouraging to me on my short time in my short time here in in Congress is that, uh, members on both sides of the aisle take our security and our national defense very seriously. And I think members on both sides of the aisle agree that we have some tough choices to make and we must invest in our national security.
▶ 2:43:55Everyone understands that we must modernize our our national our our armed forces. Everyone understands that. But we also know that money is not infinite and resources are limited. So at a time when so many across the country, including in my own district in St.
▶ 2:44:15Louis are still recovering from and in our example the worst na natural disaster since the late 1950s when our adversaries are sparing no expense in investing in AI technologies, cyber warfare technologies, hypersonic missiles. We have to ask those tough questions because we recognize we have some tough choices to make.
▶ 2:44:41And so I do have to ask the question, is a parade really the best use of $45 million? And as we've heard from many of my colleagues and as the administration has said, military recruitment and enlistment and enlistment are at some of its highest levels. I think our one of our members said that on the recruiting side, we're killing it in a good way.
▶ 2:45:07Um, and this is the highest levels of recruitment that we've seen in years. Is this correct? Correct. And highest since I', if I'm not mistaken, since 2021. Is it is that not correct? I think it goes back farther than that, but correct. Very high. But good. Very correct. So, and that's an incredible achievement. And I think on both sides of the aisle, we all appreciate that, especially at a time when we're facing growing threats from our adversaries.
▶ 2:45:38That is something worth celebrating. But that's also exactly the point. You indicated that um recruitment surging and that's without a $45 million price tag. So why are we now planning to spend that money on a parade with the hopes of spiking recruitment when we're already spiking recruitment? Why don't we just do what we're doing?
▶ 2:46:07And and that's not my question because we're talking about symbolic displays when our real needs elsewhere. Meanwhile, our adversaries are coming and we are the measuring stick. We are the goals that they're trying to reach and surpass.
▶ 2:46:27So, in my opinion, we should be investing in what truly strengthens our military, not gestures that come at the expense of more urgent priorities. Um, Secretary Driscoll, with the Army investing heavily in advanced tech and modernization, how do you ensure that funds are not diverted away from essential soldier support programs such as mental health, family services, and housing,
▶ 2:46:58which are critical for long-term retention and morale? I'm I'm sorry. Would you mind repeating the question? I lost a little there. I shouldn't lose my time for that, Mr. Chair. U Secretary, with the Army investing heavily in advanced tech and modernization, how do you ensure that funds are not diverted away from essential soldier support programs such as mental health, family services, and housing, which are critical for long-term retention and morale?
▶ 2:47:28We totally agree, Congressman. So um one of the ways we try to look to see um quantitatively if the ar army is healthy and with our soldiers is we we think of retention as a trailing indicator of success and a recruiting as a leading indicator of the success and the health healthiness of the army. Um we are thrilled to say that on the retention piece. So the soldiers that are currently in the army getting to see are we delivering to them the things that they need to care for their families and care for themselves.
▶ 2:47:58We hit our annual retention goal six months into this year and so for us that is a we take that as a pretty good indicator that we are delivering on our word to them and and we hope to continue that. Yes, Congressman. Thank you. I think that's my time. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Herrian. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And gentlemen, thank you so much for your testimony today.
▶ 2:48:21And before kind of hopping into this slide that I've got here, I just want to say that since coming to Congress, I've worked to continually educate everyone that I possibly can up here in Washington that we have a very stark choice when it comes to our defense. We can either continue to invest in the military that we have today or we can invest in the military that we actually need to deter or defeat China. They are not the same choice. We cannot choose both.
▶ 2:48:49And you gentlemen have chosen voluntarily something that rarely is seen in this town to take the road of courage which is to make change. That is exactly what the army transformation initiative is and what it does through eliminating legacy assets force structures and contracting mechanisms. It actually gives us the opportunity to create the army that we truly need in order to deter and defeat China.
▶ 2:49:19So you have my sincere thanks for your efforts and you will have my support. Part of the army transformation initiative is making sure that we start winning the economics of conflict and you cannot have a discussion about winning the economics of conflict without having a discussion about SUAS today.
▶ 2:49:38And I think as we all have seen as the Ukrainian battlefield has fundamentally changed the rules of modern conflict where in where currently drones FPV drones are accounting for greater than 80% of the casualties that are inflicted on that battlefield today. Small arms only account for 2%. Artillery accounts for less than 12. The rules are changing.
▶ 2:50:05And if we are to win the economics of conflict, we must address SUAS. As we saw with Ukraine over the weekend in operations spiders web, 117 different drones at an average cost of $800 per unit, costing Ukraine less than $100,000 worth of investment inflicted more than $7 billion worth of damage against the Russians. This is capability that we need.
▶ 2:50:33It is also capability we need to defend against and we have neither at scale right now. We know that we are significantly behind both our adversaries and our allies in our ability to produce SUAS at scale. Last year, China spent $ 29.4 billion on drones with some experts estimating that their production volumes and capacities may exceed 500,000 units per month.
▶ 2:51:02Last year, the Ukrainians produced four million SUAS units and are on track to produce over five million units this year. The Russians are on track to produce similar numbers. And in our current posture, we in this country is we are only capable of producing 50,000 SUAS per year.
▶ 2:51:23So, General George, my question for you is given what we are seeing play out in Ukraine and across the globe, do you think that the United States is currently behind in the attribut attributable SUAS space as well as the counter SUAS space? And if so, how do we close the gap? Um, I agree with everything you said, Congressman. We have to get cost curve is a big part of it. And then we have to be able to produce things at scale.
▶ 2:51:50And I think that that's one of the things that we're talking about with our industrial base that we need to um be able to produce uh brushless motors, controllers, you know, all those things that we know go into that um that right now Chinese companies, let's say DJI is producing 15 million drones a year and we need to have the ability to do that. So that's where when we talk about scale, um and we're doing some of that with 3D printing, that's exactly what we need to be able to do.
▶ 2:52:18And on the flip side, the same thing um with scaling on counter UAS. Thank you, General George and Secretary Driscoll. As you and General George have overhauled Army business processes, how will you deploy AIdriven industrial-based analytics and visibility to flag Chinese choke points in our critical materials, restore US forging and casting capacity, and redesign systems
▶ 2:52:48for surge ready sustainment so that our logisticians and war fighters aren't left waiting for parts in the next fight. Congressman, um this is an incredibly important topic and and much like many of our answers, the solution exists already in the commercial space and we have done a a poor job of integrating that into our systems and um we are actively working on it and hoping to be able to announce a solution in the coming weeks or months. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Gentleman yields back.
▶ 2:53:16Chair now recognizes a gentle lady from Washington, Miss Strickland. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Rogers. It is nice to see you, Secretary Driscoll and General George, formerly of First Corps at Joint Base Lewis McChord. So glad to see your role in the Army.
▶ 2:53:31So in our testimony today, you've heard a lot about quality of life and I was appointed to serve on the quality of life panel and we know that housing has always been a very very important factor and I heard one of you say that recruitment is how you actually judge whether we're doing well. But I would also say retention is just as important. We are thrilled in a bipartisan way to see the recruiting numbers go up.
▶ 2:53:54That is a multi-year bipartisan effort that started in 2023 and even in August of 2024, we had record numbers of recruiting for Army. So, kudos to everyone and let's see those numbers continue to rise. But I want to talk about the basic allowance for housing. I know that um in the reconciliation bill there is a provision for a one-time infusion of nearly $3 billion into the basic allowance for housing account, but there's no further direction on how that money is going to be allocated. So, let's assume this bill becomes law.
▶ 2:54:25How does the army intend to use this money? Are you going to, for example, raise a basic allowance for housing up to 100% and keep it there? Are you going to take it up to 98%? Can you be more specific about how we plan to use this basic allowance for housing? And I'll start with Secretary Driscoll, and then General George. Uh, and just to your point, uh, Congresswoman, first, the retention, we totally agree. Um, we're thrilled. Um, I we told one of your colleagues earlier that we hit our 12-month goal 6 months into this year.
▶ 2:54:53Um, which makes us feel good about the state of the army. And there, to your point, those mechanisms and that experience that those soldiers had began years and years and years ago to make them want to sign back up to enlist. um for BAH and for what we do with military construction and for how we provide our soldiers um what they deserve where they deserve to live individually and where they deserve to live with their families.
▶ 2:55:17Um one of the fundamental problems we have and we desperately need your help is when we build something on the base like just inside of our gate. We just did a study at 68.5% more expensive than on the other side and and as far as we can tell the vast majority of those inefficiencies are not from us. they're legislated to us and so um as we think about soldier housing and work together to solve it, we want to work with you to get rid a lot of those regulations. I appreciate that. Now, can you go to my question about the basic allowance for housing?
▶ 2:55:47$3 billion in the reconciliation bill. How do you plan to distribute that money? Are you going to raise it to 100 permanently, to 98% permanently? That's my specific question. I I I would have to follow up. I don't remember. I know that was the intent um was to you know co fully cover the cost. I don't remember if that was a step.
▶ 2:56:06Um you know the challenge when I was out at Lewis was um you know these things go you know happen very quickly as far as that what happened out there was a very hot housing market and then put you know a real strain. So I think we also need to just figure out how we are a little bit more dynamic in our process when prices go up. Um, obviously no one minds getting a little bit more in their checkbook. I know I didn't from growing up, right? You know, the problem is is when the costs go down and how you adjust, you know, some of those things.
▶ 2:56:36But I I do think we need to be a little bit more flexible in how we're figuring, you know, some of those things out um moving forward so that we're more responsive, which is what was the problem that that I experienced up at JBLM. We weren't quick enough with uh you know with our soldiers and getting the money you know for as the prices were going up. So what do we plan to do with this $3 billion? Is there a plan?
▶ 2:57:04It's you're it's specifically labeled uh I would have to come back to you. It's specifically labeled for for housing and BH you know BAH then that's what we would use it on. That's how it's been. So, the basic allowance for housing will go up. Is that specific to Joint Base Lewis McChord or It just says basic allowance for housing $3 billion in the reconciliation bill.
▶ 2:57:31And my question is, how do you plan to deploy that money? Is it going to go up? It would go on It would go against housing. Okay. All right. And then one final comment I want to make. You've heard a lot about funding for barracks obviously and I'm going to add and pile on to this just to emphasize how important this is to so many members who sit on this committee and it was a little disheartening to hear that you're going to reprogram a billion dollars from barracks housing to put to the southern border and we've got people at Camp Humphre we've got people at JBLM
▶ 2:58:02we have people around the world and if you visited those barracks as you all know the condition is deplorable a college parent taking their student to the quality of those dorms would actually raise holy hell about it or have them disenroll from that school. And so I think my question is, you know, please think carefully about restoring that money. It's a quality of life. Gentle times expired. Chair now recognizes gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, Mr.
▶ 2:58:32Secretary, thank you for being here and we appreciate the time you've given to us this morning. General, we had a briefing some time ago in which you presented to us and one of the issues that was discussed briefly as we look forward kind of toward the horizon and the uh the need to continue to integrate UAS operations into our own land forces operations. We had some discussion about the importance of identifying maneuver space operation and training space in the continental US where that can occur.
▶ 2:58:59Can you paint out for us briefly sort of what that thought process looks like? Uh are we are we trying to identify locations? I represent Fort Riley for example as as one example but locations other than the NTC in Louisiana where we can do those types of operations. What what's our thought process? Yeah. So there is a very good training area that's very close to Fort Riley um that we can we can um that we can train.
▶ 2:59:24Uh and our challenge has been to every local leader is that we're working at at all the local levels that everybody's getting together just like they've been doing with you out at Fort Riley. um we know drones are going to be part of our formations. We're going to have to start training those, you know, those kinds of things. And um so look, working with the local authorities and I always give the example when I was a division commander um you know, we sent the paperwork up um and then we worked it locally and we had it all figured out before, you know, the paperwork came back.
▶ 2:59:53And so I think a lot of these are going to be local solutions because they have, you know, they have to take consider local considerations from FAA or FCC. that's um for example in the state of Kansas. And so um we are we are talking about that. We're going to have leaders together again this month and we'll talk about that that topic again. I think we're going to have to make some we're going to have to continue to adapt. Thank you, General.
▶ 3:00:17Well, we want to be supportive generally, not just from a Fort Riley standpoint, but I will I will assure you from a Fort Riley and First Infantry standpoint, uh we would like to be helpful in making sure that all of the appropriate local players are engaged and are helpful. We want to make that happen. Uh I might also ask uh either for you general or for you Mr. secretary, however you want to to take this. I also represent Fort Levvenworth, uh the intellectual center of the army. Uh we're obviously following the ATI discussion with great interest.
▶ 3:00:44Uh and particularly some of the trade do changes and the combination with the futures command. Can you tell us what we need to be focused on or what we might expect or what you can share at this point in terms of the role of the combined arms center going forward, the centers of excellence. Um, we want to make sure that Fort Levvenworth and its uh many intellectual and training assets uh not only remain but are bolstered in all of this um so that we're meeting the needs of the army going forward.
▶ 3:01:13KAC uh combined arms center is critically important to us. Um that's going to you know remain there. how we do business there is and we were talking about how we're training and you know we're um partnering right now um for example with Arizona State University and seeing how we might do some distance learning a little bit different it's still you know we're still going to have majors that are going there but how can we make other offerings um just like anywhere else we are looking at uh you know what we can do we have outdated
▶ 3:01:43systems that we've been doing one example is I think we need to update our doctrine much more rapidly um in what we're doing. And so part of that's going to be upskilling the people that we have there. Part of that is going to be changing um the the systems that we have, the business software, the automation, and the things that we have right there. So that skills are going to change. So um I think we're just getting started with with all of that. And we're having we just had a big conversation on this yesterday.
▶ 3:02:12Overall, I don't see um you know the changing much change um at at Levvenworth, but there will be puts and takes as we move forward to adapt like any business would do.
▶ 3:02:25And congressman, I just I would just say for trade do, we haven't hit that a lot in this hearing yet, but a lot of the tools that exist that um co pushed forward for learning um we hope that can um we can use those for our soldiers to train them where they are, train them in the community where their kids are already in school, prevent them from having to travel and uproot their lives for four to six months at a time. Um we are incredibly optimistic like General George was saying that those tools already exist.
▶ 3:02:52We are working with them to pilot programs to see how much military training can be done remotely. Can we use things like meta's glasses to help train and uh create create a layering um with artificial reality that will allow it to achieve much of those goals a lot faster and a lot cheaper for the American taxpayer. Thank you, Mr. Secret. Thank you, General. And I just want to say I know General Beagle's time at Levvenworth is is limited as it always is and our team wants to be very helpful and supportive of the army moving forward and and and do that as we can. Uh I yield back. Gentleman yields back.
▶ 3:03:21Chair and I recognize a gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Davis. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. General George, thank you so much for your continued service. It's always good to see you. Mr. Secretary, I want to first and foremost with all of my heart, thank you. Um to be out there at the Vietnam Memorial Wall, watching that wall together, preparing for the American people to come out for Memorial Day.
▶ 3:03:48It meant a lot to see you that day and it was early in the morning and uh we still made it after a long day overnight here. Um my question is starting with Global Trans Park in eastern North Carolina.
▶ 3:04:03I know you're familiar with North Carolina um which I proudly represent North Carolina's first congressional district has tremendous capability in leveraging its in inter um uh multimo mobile functions to partner with the US army um secretary Driscoll how do you see the value of partnering with uh entities such as the global trans park in the east and units like the 18th airborne corps at Fort Bragg I'm
▶ 3:04:34given the global transport park's unique scale and scope to serve as a mobil uh mobility platform for the army's tactical equipment and aircraft. I think those those partnerships, Congressman, are incredibly important, incredibly valuable. A a lot of them we get our best practices from watching and learning how they do it.
▶ 3:04:54um the more soldiers are around um civilian counterparts um we are able to strengthen our ability to do transportation in the contested logistics and with the tyranny of distance we're going to face in Indoaccom um we have got to learn a lot of lessons we have to update the tools we're using and the best practices yeah um Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton actually came and visited the global trans park and um saw the site you know the training uh particip uh potential large scale nature logistics exercises is and
▶ 3:05:24where I would like to get to. Um I would love to see you in Eastern North Carolina extend an invitation um personally to you. Now I'm going to give you the toughest question you've had today. And Mr. Chair, I'm asking for you not to rule me out of order. Western Carolina barbecue or Eastern Carolina barbecue? I'm a Mountains of North Carolina boy.
▶ 3:05:48So, I am a western North Carolina, but but I have learned to appreciate that vinegar Well, I tell you, you have a staff that they seem they've been here all morning. We might have to have a taste test and figure that out. shifting back to the east. East Carolina University is the heartbeat of Eastern North Carolina, leading in research and we're depending and relying so much on um federal assistance in terms of what's going into the research dollars.
▶ 3:06:18The school has enjoyed um long-term successful partnership with the Army already um through the Pathfinder Airborne program. um through the NDAA and the defense appropriations process um we're working trying to um make sure that we can get an additional 8 million dollars in that effort. Um innovation um is the greatest comparative advantage in the US military. Um so um I guess to both Mr.
▶ 3:06:45secretary and to the general um do you support preserving broadly speaking and expanding the mission through Pathfinder um airborne program to continue to enhance the value in particular of the soldier lethality technology account. We uh certainly support increasing our lethality and um our partnerships.
▶ 3:07:06I mean again I think to the secretary's earlier comment whatever we can do um that's already being done we can take advantage of that's being done in our universities it's being done commercially um that's what we want to do we are you know we are just talking we're going through a process right now making sure that we review how we spend our S&T and you know what we're doing we're not duplicating our efforts that could be done in other places and I think that that's what we have to constantly review.
▶ 3:07:34So, we appreciate what Eastern Carolina University has done. And I would just echo I I think I hope what's coming through in a lot of our remarks is um we the Army have not done a historically good job sometimes of taking what already exists in the civilian sector, whether it's in education in our institutions or whether it's in um for-profit or nonprofit companies. But we we are trying to get better so that we can save dollars and reallocate them to the things that we need. Well, Mr. secretary.
▶ 3:08:02I can say having someone from Boone, North Carolina um serving our country um means a lot. Um but I'm standing by the east and when you find out in Kinston, North Carolina, the home of the Global Transport Park, that we hold the world record in the most barbecue sandwiches sold in an eighth hour period. I yel I look forward to having one of those. All right, I yel back, Mr. If you want some good barbecue, you can come to Gentleman from Colorado, Mr.
▶ 3:08:31Cranks Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, and thank you, Mr. Secretary. General George, thank you. It's good to see you again. I know you have a soft spot, General George, for Fort Carson. Um, it's also home, of course, to Pinion Canyon Maneuver site. I want to talk about that for a minute. That's located 150 miles south of the main base.
▶ 3:08:53Pinion Canyon of course provides the army with uh significant strategic and operational value by serving as a critical training ground for large-scale force force maneuver exercises. And uh however, as you know, large portions of Pinion Canyon are restricted for military use because of a natural gas pipeline that runs right through the middle of the site. This pipeline is unnecessary and it's redundant to our power needs.
▶ 3:09:20and I'm glad to have your support in finding a solution to have it removed. Um, in the meantime, can you describe for the committee the restrictions that this pipeline places on the Army's ability to train at Pinion Canyon? Okay. It's been a couple days since I've been out there, but um yeah, I think it's a it's privately owned. It is. And so um you know, it would be up to the and they're using as far as when I was out there, they're using a pipeline.
▶ 3:09:48So what when we would cross it, it I would describe it more as a it was an inconvenience when we were training. I mean it's still a great training area that we were able to be down there. You had to cross in certain crossing points. It's pretty vast area. Um so that was a challenge. Would it be better if the pipeline, you know, wasn't wasn't there? You know, yes, it would be helpful. Could we do live fire exercises there if we didn't have that pipeline? Obviously not. You wouldn't do that.
▶ 3:10:15There is uh I I know that we have a sizable impact area down on on Fort Carson. Um we could, you know, obviously add that, but again, when we rack and stack things as far as cost, I'm not sure um you know, that that's where I would invest first. Okay.
▶ 3:10:34Um, I'm also very proud of the work that the fourth infantry division uh from Fort Carson working with Northern Command is doing down on the border to stop the flow of illegal immigration. We've heard a lot about that. Um, I think it's great. It's important. Uh, we've seen what this administration's been able to do to stop the flow of illegal immigration and the military support doing that and some of the folks from Fourth Infantry Division and Fort Carson doing that.
▶ 3:11:01Can you give me an update on their activities down at the border? Yeah, I'm sure the secretary will probably want to jump in too, but um we're second brigade fourth ID is down there. Uh every report we get and we um probably uh at least every other week I'm up on the net with uh with the commander that's in charge down there, the division commander that's down Um, we're also trying to besides the great job that they're doing with that mission, we're also trying to be very focused on what we can do to update those units.
▶ 3:11:32And that's, you know, they're doing a lot of the kind of missions that they would do, whether it was reconnaissance or guard missions. Um, so, uh, we're also looking at how we can update their network, what we can do to provide them additional capabilities. So, we're we're also looking this as an opportunity that we can continually transform um, those units as well. And I would just echo I I've been down at the border twice now. One when 10th Mountain took over um the mission there and talking to the law enforcement on the border.
▶ 3:12:00Um my experience from what what they have said and what our soldiers have said is um the mission is going well. They they find it um an honor to work with the law enforcement and provide support for them as they do their job. Um this uh the Customs and Border Patrol have said the assets that the Army has been able to provide have made a big difference. Um and and we're excited that our soldiers are down there and being supported.
▶ 3:12:24And it's remarkable within months uh we've had a we've seen 97% reduction in the number of humans coming across that southern border. So thank you uh for that. I I I won't have really much time on this, but Secretary Driscoll, I wanted to talk to you. Fort Carson, home of the 11th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade, and that's one of two aviation brigades the Army's proposing to inactivate.
▶ 3:12:48And I've heard concerns that the Army Reserve Force structure could be unable to absorb the newly orphaned 11th Brigade personnel, resulting in a loss of technical skills and years of experience if they're forced to reclassify. Are you considering integrating these soldiers into training roles to keep them relevant and sharp if we need them for current and future requirements? We have not heard of those concerns. Um, we can absolutely follow back up with your office.
▶ 3:13:14Um, and just to the broader point, um, as we are shuffling and reordering all of this, we we realize this is a sacred responsibility to take care of those soldiers, um, and that they provide an incredible asset to our army and we are taking that into account. Great. Thank you. If I could just jump really quick, Congressman, that is the idea. That's, uh, you know, one of those units is right there close to fourth infantry division and right close to fourth um, CAB and we could use those pilots. Gentleman's time's expired.
▶ 3:13:43I recognize gentleman from California, Mr. Tran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, General George, well, good seeing you again. Uh, Secretary Driscoll, welcome. Uh, the Army Transformation Initiative has generated more questions than answers in the department's attempt to deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure, and eliminate waste and obsolete programs. In particular, I am concerned with how the ATI position positions the army to better counter a nearpeer adversary like the People's Republic of China.
▶ 3:14:12China's ability ability to rapidly field new capabilities can be attributed to its centralized political and military decision-making stateirected industrial base, incremental fielding of new systems, and their blatant theft of foreign intellectual property, all with little uh to no public oversight. Secretary Driscoll, what a acquisition reforms will help us counter China's abil ability to rapidly field capabilities compared to our slower system that is bound by checks and balances across the DoD and Congress.
▶ 3:14:43Reliance on private sector defense contractors, protected IP, and real oversight. Congressman, um I I I wouldn't want it to seem as if we don't want the checks and balances. I I think that is an incredibly important part of our system of government. And so um I hope that it is not coming across that we don't want the congressional or the constitutionally mandated oversight function of this or anybody.
▶ 3:15:04I think what what we have reflected on what I told one of your colleagues earlier what we think there are a couple of fundamental things that are slowing down our ability to keep up. Uh one of them is our own bureaucracy. We have nearly 35 if you define the number of human beings in the United States Army in our civilian sector and our soldiers that are helping us buy things. We have like 35,000. It it's just too many people. Like it they are all uh many of them are noble and patriotic people.
▶ 3:15:32But we have got to as an army streamline a bit. Uh when we receive our funding and it is so narrowly focused to,400 line items it prevents us from being able to purchase the modern updated version of a thing. And when you look at something like drones that are needing to be updated in Ukraine nearly every 10 to days to 14 days, our way of funding as a country just doesn't fundamentally work.
▶ 3:15:55And so what we are asking is to work with all of you to create buckets of funding to drones and then we would use those dollars to purchase them, show you our receipts, and you would ask the uh constitutionally mandated questions to make sure we're doing that accurately. That's great. Thank you, General. Anything to add? I mean I just the agile funding is a big piece of it and we could you know in modern technology we could come over with a database and show you that every day if you want you know had the appetite for that.
▶ 3:16:23I think we're trying to also change um requirements is a big part of of what we're doing. We're trying to describe things what we need like we were doing out on the west coast when we were you know bringing industry in and you know they would understand our problems. That's part of what we're doing with transforming in contact. we have engineers with our users, with our soldiers that understand the problems we're trying to solve and we don't have these big 300page documents.
▶ 3:16:48Um, and then I think we have to start buying looking at everything we buy as being more modular and open system architecture. Again, you go back to the technology that we have in our pocket and we got to buy a little bit more like that even for larger systems um that we do. But getting away from the program or record is I think in a lot of these things is very important for us. I appreciate those remarks.
▶ 3:17:10Uh gentlemen, Russia's war in Ukraine has also exposed weakness in the US munitions industrial uh base providing Ukraine with over 1.5 million 155 millimeter rounds has pushed the US industrial base to capacity. While China's capacity for peaceime production of artillery shells still outpaces that of the US. Uh, Secretary Driscoll, can you speak specifically about the investment the Army is making to modernize our munitions, industrial base to ensure that we have sufficient stockpiles of munitions and capacity to surge if needed?
▶ 3:17:38And how does this compare to China's munition uh munitions industrial capacity? Uh, I'll answer in reverse order. Uh, we are worse. Uh, I was down in Camden, Arkansas at a General Dynamics load, assemble, and pack facility recently. um which is trying to help us with 155s and it was an investment from this committee and your colleagues that I think helped with that and it even that is insufficient. Um we we are not where we need to be.
▶ 3:18:03Um do do you know how long it would take us to get to that point where we can be under our current funding and our current um um constraints. I I would guess it would be 20 20 years or more. Jesus. Great. With all that talk of barbecue, I'm hungry. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Well, thank you, Mr. Tran. But you raised an issue that is very important and your answer is dead on the money, right? And unacceptable.
▶ 3:18:29We have got to get after this munitions production capability issue and we've got to do it in World War II fashion of speed. So, I want ideas thinking out of the box about solutions and you will find this committee very receptive to being helpful. But thank you for raising that, Mr. Tran. Chair now recognizes gentleman from Guam, Mr. Moand. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chairman, Secretary Desco, and General George, thank you for your service in presenting the Army's FY26 priorities before this committee.
▶ 3:18:59uh secretary in uh FY25 cycle I worked to increase the National Guard's minor military construction budget so that sufficient funds will be available to the Guam National Guard unfunded priorities including a new hardened operations center as we move into FY26 cycle will your budget prioritize facilities used by the Guam Army National Guard and how can I work with your department to advance the
▶ 3:19:29needs of the Guam Guard in the Indo-acific. We would love to work with you and hear more about that and I can follow up with specifics to your office. I appreciate that. Uh, Jendra George, um, talk to me about the steps the Army is taking to address critical gaps identified in the 22nd GAO report on the Guam missile defense system, particularly the lack of long-term installation support strategy, personnel requirements,
▶ 3:20:00and basic readiness infrastructure for soldiers and families supporting Guam Missile Defense Mission. How are you ensuring the army does not repeat the same logistical missteps with the deployment of GDS elements that GAO Um, first I want to just tell you, uh, Congressman, we're very proud of the Guam Guard.
▶ 3:20:24um you know that from being out there and I think they're part as you know part of the part of that unit that we have out there and we're trying to actually make that a better mix you know the people that actually live there and you know defending their um you know Guam right there from the Guam Guard um we're working with the Navy as you know the Navy is in charge of all the installations it's there um when I came out to visit one of our big thing was making sure that um you know we understood what our soldiers were how they were living what they were doing.
▶ 3:20:55Um they're very tough out there um in doing that. But I would agree that we need to make some adjustments. We've just recently signed um anou with both the Navy, I think with Admiral Parto and the comedon of the Marine Corps. There is a base there. There is structure there for our soldiers that could could actually stay in that structure. Um and that's the plan right now for them to move, you know, the the folks that we do have.
▶ 3:21:20So all that we would have as part of the um of that, you know, the missile defense um that's out there would be able to stay. And I think in in facilities that are finished and are um very nice. And Congressman, I would just echo that Guam um we talk about it often. Um I think next month I'm going out there to visit it and so it it comes up in conversations if not daily at least weekly. We have great barbecue in Guam.
▶ 3:21:48Uh, General, what steps are being taken to ensure that the Guam Army National Guard has access to modernized equipment, consistent training resources, and integration of regional exercises under the FY26 budget. I I think you'll see um, Congressman, this comes out. We we talk about the army. Um this, you know, we part of what we were just talking about with aviation, what we're doing to change our mobile brigade combat teams.
▶ 3:22:18This applies across every component and we need to update it. Every component is going to have to fix their network. Every component is going to have to become more mobile and lower signature. Every component is going to have to use drones. So, it's going to be all a part of that. and obviously what they're, you know, what that unit is doing out there, um, that's part of that integrated air and missile defense system, you know, they will be a priority for making sure that they can do those things. Thank you. Uh, let's see.
▶ 3:22:47Uh, Mr. Secretary, can you also clarify whether the army is actively planning to any movements of personnel or units from South Korea to Um we can't um there I can't provide any sort of confirmation on those uh specific movements but um I I think the secretary of defense and president are very actively engaged in um the posturing of our troops around the world and um we we support them.
▶ 3:23:17Okay. Uh finally just a few more seconds. Our T that system general uh there was an incident raised with sir concern about the um infrastructure and surveillance with drones. We did have an incident out there and can you speak of the army's assessment of the incident and what steps are being taken to strengthen against drones. We we've been talking a lot about drones. I think we need to do a lot. I'm not familiar with your specific incident that happened out there, but I'll call the tag out there and find out what he did.
▶ 3:23:47So, thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Chair recognizes a gentle lady from New Hampshire, Miss Goodlander. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Discll, General George, thank you so much for being here today. You know, I wanted to be on this committee because it has a long bipartisan tradition and I'm really grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on acquisition reform.
▶ 3:24:12Uh I kind of talk about this line of effort which has strong bipartisan support in a slightly different way. Um to me monopolies and corporate abuses of power in our defense sector have undermined our military readiness. They have been a prolific driver of waste, fraud, and abuse for the American taxpayer. And they've really hurt American small businesses which are the beating heart of our economy.
▶ 3:24:38I'm very encouraged that uh you secretary Driscoll have prioritized uh one of the most pernicious corporate practices uh the monopolization of repair in in the army trans uh transformation initiative.
▶ 3:24:52I'm I'm encouraged um about your commitment to, as I understand it, and I want to be sure I understand it, um that you have committed to ensuring that um any existing or future contract is going to include a right to repair for our military and our service members. Is that right?
▶ 3:25:15Um, very explicitly, Congresswoman, on a go forward basis, we have been directed to not sign any contracts that don't give us a right to repair. On a go back basis, we have been directed to go and do what we can to go get that right to repair.
▶ 3:25:29And I can say on a personal um um h how important I think this is, we hope that anyone listening to us who hopes to pitch us a contract going forward will look back at their previous agreements they've signed with us and if they're unwilling to give us that right to repair, I think we're going to have a hard time negotiating with them. So, how are you resourcing and executing on this We have directed our staff to um throughout all of contracting follow through on it.
▶ 3:25:56And how much do you expect this will save the American I I would be um I I would be pulling a number that I think would be hard to defend with math, Congresswoman, but I think as important as the dollars is we were telling your colleagues when we when we tour bases, you see pieces of equipment that can be upwards of 23 million that will be unused for a year at a time because it's something that we can 3D print for a cost of $2 to $20.
▶ 3:26:24and and beyond just the sinfulness of not using that asset, the American soldiers see that and they're not able to use it. And that is incredibly demoralizing. And so, um, this is a virtuous cycle that I think benefits us in a lot of ways. And can you commit that you'll work with this committee on a bipartisan basis to codify a right to repair for our military and service members? Um, I can commit that it is an incredibly important topic and I would do whatever I can personally and in this role to help. Well, I I hope we can count on you for that.
▶ 3:26:53Um, I wanted to ask you, I I think you do agree that uh the Army should pass a clean audit. I hope you agree. I I um the trust General George and I talk a lot about the responsibility and duty that we have to the American taxpayer. Um and an audit is a trailing indicator of that responsibility.
▶ 3:27:13I think that um the way that most audits functions as I understand them, the United States Army in how we manage our equipment makes us uniquely difficult to pass audits as uniquely important to make sure you're passing a clean audit. So I I are you on track to pass a clean audit in this fiscal year? I I can tell you that we have had I've had more discussions about audit here in the last couple of weeks. So, yes, we are completely focused on on doing and are you on track to pass a clean audit in this fiscal year?
▶ 3:27:43Um, I think it would be that's our goal. I think it would be very hard to do that, but we're trying to do everything that we can in the We are mandating, Congresswoman, by December 31st, 2028, but we are pushing as hard as we can to do as quickly as possible. I am cautious to say yes because of the unknown unknowns. I understand. I just I we all want to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and passing a clean audit is essential to that task.
▶ 3:28:08It's essential to public trust, and I hope we can work together to make sure that we get the Army across the finish line, just like our colleagues in the Marine Corps. Um I I want to I want to also put a plug for I'm on the small business committee. We have two important programs. Are you familiar with the small business uh innovation innovation research and technology transfer programs administered by the small business assoc I am not. Well, I would love to educate you on these programs.
▶ 3:28:37They will be expiring on September 30th and they've done a lot for tens of thousands of small businesses that want to be a part of our defense industrial base and that could do a lot of good for this country. Um, so I hope that we can work together to extend those programs which have been so important to competition in the defense industrial base. That I yield back. Thank you. Gentle yields back. Chair now recogniz gentleman from Texas, Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, thank you and uh thank you Mr. Secretary and thank you general for for being here. Okay. On the recruiting.
▶ 3:29:08So, Secretary, you were uh talking about hitting the recruiting goals and I was the first one to cheer and that is a huge because we really for the last was it three, four or five years, we weren't hitting those goals and we are in a crisis. So, praise the Lord. One thing I would really like to hear your thoughts on in general if you wanted to pipe in as well is um we we hit our goals, but I want to know why why what happened. We were unsuccessful for two, three, four years. I mean, I have my own suspicions, but I want to begin with doubts and end in certainties.
▶ 3:29:36So, I'd really encourage you both to look into what happened, why are we succeeding, because obviously we want to replicate that. So, I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that, Mr. Secretary. I I'll I'll speak in time and work backwards. So, most recently, I um the the focus on a return to war fighting and lethality, as far as we can tell qualitatively on these tour, like it it seems to be resonating with soldiers.
▶ 3:29:59It seems when I was at the future soldier prep course that the ones who wanted to join and were at like the the very front edge of their careers were excited to join in a time where they thought they could contribute to the safety of their community uh by being on the front line of keeping Americans safe. I think there are some structural changes that this committee worked hard on over the years before to help with things like the future soldier prep course.
▶ 3:30:22some of these soldiers who were right on the edge of the fitness standards or right on the edge of the um the the testing to get in and just needed a little bit of academic tutoring to get over. I think that that helped a lot. It it seems to be a very virtuous cycle where as the momentum has picked up, we've been able to fill all of the the the gaps that we had in individual specialties. We think we're going to go into next year with 25,000 soldiers in the delayed entry program.
▶ 3:30:48And so what is nice about the momentum that has been built by this committee and the army in the last 6 months since President Trump came into office, we hope that that will carry forward into next year as well. And we expect it to. You know, in general, I would just like just an, you know, honest brokering of why we succeeded, what has changed, and whatever that is. And I'm not looking for to score political points. I just want to know the truth, what that is, and I will add on um add on to what the secretary was talking about. Um, we've it's leadership obviously.
▶ 3:31:19It's uh for us it's been picking the right recruiters. And one of the things I mean we what we don't want to do is say hey we're all good to go. Um is that we're continuing to look at this. One of the things that we're looking at is the tech that we need to update to make it easier for recruiters. We've tried to reduce the forms that you when you come in. Um it was something like 670 forms that had to be filled out and we've reduced that to below 10 and it's now going to be you know in a database.
▶ 3:31:48So I think this is something that we need to continue. I mean it's a big portion of what we do. That is the one thing that we I think it have consistently are uh taking a brief on that together you know each and every month. And that's going to continue. This isn't a hey, we're good to go now. Sure. And and I wanted to also thank that chairman Rogers for his leadership on the quality of life. I think that will probably when we ask why they came in be one of the reasons why we've succeeded.
▶ 3:32:15We also as our job and and certainly as a subcommittee chair of military personnel making sure that your recruiters have the access that they need in those high schools particularly if they're getting federal grant money. I think that's very important. I want want to in my limited time skip to um when I took this job I promised to do what's in the best interest of the United States and what's in the best interest of the US military on this committee and I'm fully committed to that because we have people that say that and they say well not my district and I'm not going to be one that says I want to protect my district at the expense of the United States or at the expense
▶ 3:32:45of the military and readiness and taxpayer dollars but I think from a policy perspective when you talk about Red River Army Depo um there is a uh currency and redundancy to some degree. You know, I remember when we asked the Germans after World War II and the uh post-action report and they said one of the things they said was, "If you just kept bombing the ball bearings plants, we would have been belly up, but you didn't.
▶ 3:33:08You kept moving." And we were thanks, I'm sure the Chinese did, too." And if they take out certain things that don't have any redundancy, then what are we going to do? How are we going to man things? And um what I'd love to to visit with you about very quickly is we have a skilled workforce that can help us with drones. I know that drones, unmanned, you're talking UAVs, UVs, the unmanned surface are the future, whereas we're moving away from Humvees and JLTVs as well.
▶ 3:33:38But I just really wanted to make sure that uh we we look at that when we're talking about Red River moving forward from a policy perspective, not from a district perspective. I just wanted to quickly praise you uh for making that comment about from not from a a district perspective. My commitment to you is and the healthy tension of this is we should be able to debate the merits of our argument. We have not taken one single parochial interest into account in this and so we'd be happy to dive deep with you on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 3:34:08Chair now recognize gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Vindamman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Jiskll, uh, General George, it's great to see you again and thank you for your testimony. Um, I appreciate the testimony you provided that emphasized transformation in contact and a commitment to continuous adaptation. And I couldn't agree more. Um, but when it comes to FPV drones, we're still behind. As this past weekend demonstrated, Ukraine has really redefined drone warfare.
▶ 3:34:37Um, uh, using 3D printing, commercial parts, and on the-fly adaptation. And frankly, um, I I don't think it's an overstatement to say that this is a revolution in warfare, much like the machine gun was in World War I or the carrier in World War II. Okay. Um, they treat drones the way artillery treats shells. Um, disposal cheap, fielded in the tens of thousands. Uh, that's why FV drones currently account for 70% of combat casualties between uh, Ukraine and Russia.
▶ 3:35:08Yet we continue to treat drones as durable assets, centrally managed, selectively deployed, and maintenance intensive. Uh I learned on Monday I was out at Quantico, which is one of the three installations in my district. I also have Walker uh and uh Dogrren. Um and this is a rare thing uh given Marines credit.
▶ 3:35:29um they um have a drone team and the army just stood up a drone team um and for a competition and I find this encouraging but we have to do obviously a ton more. Quantico is also uh actually using one-way attack drones um and I'm not sure if the army has found yet a test range for that and I'll I'll get into that in a little bit more detail but I had an opportunity to detonate a one-way attack drone on a range in Quanico.
▶ 3:35:56We have to have that capability across the force. Few questions here. Um, I saw a couple of different drones out there. Some that were actually built by the Marines and some that were purchased. One was a was an ISR drone that we purchased for $55,000 uh dollars. Ukrainians are manufacturing these and we uh the Marines are actually building them for $500.
▶ 3:36:20Shouldn't we be treating these drones more like artillery and ammunition, more um in building them rather than spending tons of money on them. You you couldn't congressman have any two bigger supporters of that argument. Um I think drones is highlighting very specifically at a very important moment in human history and warfare. Um the system that we have that has um built up over the last 30 and 40 years of defense spending is not sufficient for this moment.
▶ 3:36:47that and we as a country have got to get to a place where we can create a tradeable drones that are at least directionally in the same price point as our enemies because otherwise even as wealthy as we are a $4 million shot against an $800 drone we can only do that so many times and kind of more importantly even if we could afford it creating something so exquisite to take down such a cheap piece of equipment um the time costs are important too.
▶ 3:37:15Yeah, I was just going to say we need to get you back out into an army unit, Congressman. I mean, we just had um we were just down at uh JRTC. I mean, that unit, the first brigade 101st had actually built uh more than a hundred of their own drones. I mean, we're doing that really throughout the army at at Innovation Labs. This gets back to the earlier comment we were having though. What we need is uh we need to be able to scale production and that's parts. that gets back to the organic industrial base and what we're doing here.
▶ 3:37:45Um, and it gets back to agile funding and how we're able to, you know, everybody wants to buy these big exquisite, you know, once Well, you have supporters here, uh, General on this committee certainly. And so, one of the things I I watched, um, Secretary, you talked about, you know, the Ukrainians are are years ahead of us in this regard. We don't want to reinvent the wheel.
▶ 3:38:05I think what we ought to do is if we're going to buy uh US manufactured drones uh certainly at any cost, they ought to be tested in cooperation with our with our friends in Ukraine in a in a real combat environment.
▶ 3:38:20Um the other thing is and I don't have a great deal of time so I'm going to try to move through this pretty quickly is we we actually need to develop the whole millf around uh drone warfare doctrine organization training material leadership education personnel facilities the whole kitten kaboodleoodle and we have to do this fast I mean if we I've got skill in the game not just because I'm a a retired soldier uh or a soldier in retired status but I've got a nephew in the 82nd on on the tip of the spear.
▶ 3:38:50Um and and we have a number of folks in that position. So um what authorities do you need to get this done when we're looking at base defense and and so on? Um 7 seconds. Agile funding. We need to figure out how we're going to train locally to do some of this. Um and then we do this gets back to the organic industrial base.
▶ 3:39:15I think we need to start making some of these things and inviting industry in to do this so that we're not buying, you know, gentleman's time. Our chair and I recognize a gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Van. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, earlier one of my colleagues uh was mentioning this celebration, the parade for the army, 250 years, kind of a big deal.
▶ 3:39:39And uh I just would just like to gently remind him that you cannot put a price tag on patriotism. You cannot. And celebrating arguably, not even arguably, the best army that has ever existed in the history of the planet deserves attention. So, um send him an invite, dude. You know who he is. He sits right over there. Do it. Do it.
▶ 3:40:08Um, uh, General, what percentage of the army is You should ask me to throw out a stat. I I would say uh 80% 82. Yeah. Where are your enlisted people, sir? Where are they? Well, thankfully there's not a ton of them in the Pentagon. It's not where we need them. They're out they're the ones that are they're the ones leading our formations and out there doing the individual training and they're the experts on that.
▶ 3:40:38We do have some that are in the Pentagon who are include our wonderful sergeant major of the army and a couple but not a bunch. Senior enlisted leaders are just that they lead. And the same thing in the Navy and the reason I bring that up is that we're here talking about force postures and budgets and all this everything, right? And if 82% of your force are enlisted people, which is true, men and women, soldiers, both, um I would just say that maybe some of them should be here.
▶ 3:41:08Um to to hear this at a at a different level. And one of our com war guys, commander, naval special warfare command, made this habit. It was kind of weird. We thought it was goofy to begin with, but they he just randomly picked SEALs out of different SEAL teams and made them go to warcom and worked there for like a month because as enlisted guys, they're like, you know, what are you guys doing up there? Having cocktail parties and stuff? No. Um, your force needs to know what you're doing. And Mr. Secretary, please. I'm I'm so excited to answer this question, Congressman.
▶ 3:41:37So, uh, some of the first people I brought up onto my staff uh were the E3 who was my driver and now works in the Pentagon. and I see him every single day. Uh and then the uh then E5 who's now a sergeant major who my daughter is named after his daughter uh is on staff too and I talk to them every single day. It's great. And I got to tell you, General George, I am so impressed with you. I was there in Austin and the way that you are looking at these, you know, a different way to do things better is uh it's just admirable.
▶ 3:42:06And uh we're here and I know Chairman Rogers, we got your back 100%. So, whatever we can do um to I don't want to say break the primes, but make the primes be more responsive uh to the American public is something that we will be doing.
▶ 3:42:20And honest to goodness, um if you can give me a list, like please give me a list of the top five dumbest programs that the Army is currently involved with so that we can make sure that when we do these recision packages that they're included. Every single dollar that is spent in a in a manner that does not focus on killing the enemy is a dollar wasted for the Department of Defense.
▶ 3:42:46General, you um I think the top five are on our army transformation initiative, but we'll give you the next five if you want because I think that's what we're talking about. I mean, this is something that we need to constantly look at and that's um part of our everyday discussion, Congressman. Yes, sir. And that support, Congressman um and Congresswoman is incredibly helpful. I mean, I I I think different people look at their jobs very differently and so there's nothing wrong with advocating for your constituents.
▶ 3:43:13Um, but I you could imagine that over the last three or four weeks, I think we've probably fielded 40 to 60 calls on anywhere we're pulling a dollar, we have rightfully been responsible for uh explaining our logic uh for pulling that dollar. And so having the silent majority also say, "Hey, this is important. This is valuable." Well, Mr. Secretary, I happen to know a guy. His name is Mike Rogers, and I know that he is deadly serious about making sure that you are the most efficient killing machine, and uh that's what we're here to uh support you in.
▶ 3:43:43So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I thank the gentleman. I would note that we have been called for votes. So, u we are going to let Dr. McCormack and Mr. Mesmer do their questions and then we will adjourn. So, Dr. McCormack, you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll try to keep this brief because I know we want to have fun for everybody. But uh it was interesting talking about the munitions quandry.
▶ 3:44:07Uh I know that we've had a big backlog in that we haven't figured out how to do it even though we are one of the most innovative countries in the world ever in history. Uh but I thought it was also surprising when you gave the answer that that's something we're still working on. According to what I've been observing in Ukraine, 155 rounds really don't get used anymore. Why? because triangulation counter fires are basically devastating. So what we're using is mobile applications instead of that sort of munitions anymore. So why do we even care about that?
▶ 3:44:36This is exactly the problem. We keep on looking backwards instead of looking forward. We talk about futures command. I really enjoyed your presentation too. And we talked about 30% of the Air Force assets which are obsolete. We don't even know why we're funding and building. Well, we do know why. It's a political reason that we have politicians protecting their own rather than being innovative and looking what's good for the country and for the future of of strategy and tactics. But once again, let's put aside the 155 rounds, talk about what kind of mobile applications, what kind of drones, high mars, whatever it is.
▶ 3:45:06Uh how we're going to use wireguided munitions. Now going back now that is a backward looking forward. But but I want to talk about that. the fact that we even legitimize talking about 155 rounds, it's almost it's almost an obsolete platform now. Uh when we go out and we look at different platforms into the future, we we can't even lament the things we haven't done right in the past. Uh it's it's I mean our our best asset is the fact that China keeps on trying to copy the things that don't work anymore.
▶ 3:45:37Uh but and I don't want to give away too much in a hearing, but but that's what I'm talking about. what is the future and how do we streamline what we're going to do in in in as far as countermeasures too. Look at what Ukraine just did in Russia. Phenomenal. It reminded me was Israel and some of the innovative things they've used futuristic looking. How are we encouraging the army to look forward rather than back in the way we prepare for the next war?
▶ 3:45:57And I know you talked about it general in futures command, but I mean what besides you, how are we developing our young officers to not think about past wars, but think into the future and innovation, tactics, strategy, and even manning and and I think our young leaders are doing a really good job of of thinking forward. And again, some of the things that you were just talking about, Congressman, when we struggle is is stopping doing some of the, you know, hey, I still, somebody still wants us to buy stuff that we necessarily don't need.
▶ 3:46:28Um, I agree with you that we need to in invest more in drones. That's our plan to do that. Same thing with EW. Same thing with long range fires. I think all those things could be done much cheaper, too. And that's why we're working with other companies. if you want magazine depth, you know, the other way of doing that is to actually um bring the cost down. And I think that there's innovative companies that can do that. And it's the same with um what we need on training.
▶ 3:46:52I would uh argue that we're still probably going to have indirect fire is still going to be something that's going to happen. I think the stat that was given out that it was only 18% of the casualties. Um and I can come talk to you about that in a in a classified setting and kind of go through some of that, but I mean, we're going to need some of that, too. because those are not uh they're EW is not an issue for for some of those things. Same with mortars and what you're going to need at the tactical edge. They're still using that.
▶ 3:47:21So, I think it's a combination of things and we're definitely looking to the future. And Congressman, I would just quickly say um the anything I think we are saying about our procurement process, our bureaucracy, the the shining star in all of this and the gem that we have as a nation is our soldiers. So, I was down at Fort Jackson a couple of weeks ago, and these are soldiers who've been in the army for 5 weeks, and what we've started to do is put a drone up while they do their lanes. And then when they do their afteraction review, they see themselves and what the drone can do.
▶ 3:47:50And this is what's remarkable about it. As these uh as these drill sergeants have iterated through these classes, they've actually learned lessons from people in the army for 5 weeks that have trickled up to the Pentagon and spread to our other units on how we can improve, which is absolutely remarkable. And I actually love what the army's doing in their futuristic thinking for training for personnel. I was at University of North Georgia.
▶ 3:48:11Love their scientific approach to fitness, but I also simultaneously see we're still doing a huge massive airborne training of 12,000 soldiers per year on something that we'll probably never use again, which also harms over a 100 people per year uh that we're then going to have to pay disability to for the rest of their their lives. Uh and and really takes them out of the battlefield on something that really is a obsolete tactic in my opinion. So, I hope we uh I don't want to belabor that point because I know we're out of time and uh I want to give you some time. So, I'm going to yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Gentleman yields.
▶ 3:48:42Chair not recognized gentleman from Indiana. Thank you, chairman. And thank you, gentlemen, for being here. General George, a recent report stated that given multiple successful end to end flight test of hypersonic missiles. The Army intends to field LRHW missiles to the first unit by the end of fiscal 2025. Is is that still on on time? Yes, it is. Congressman, do you see any any foreseeable setbacks that could delay it any further?
▶ 3:49:05I think the big thing that we're trying to do with that um is look at are there other things that can happen out there we can actually build those missiles uh less expensive and and more rapidly. I think that's the thinking that we're doing on right now. Okay. Super. But that's on track and we've been partnering with the Navy um with that system and and that's on track. Okay. Great to hear. All right.
▶ 3:49:28Secretary Driscoll, our Army National Guard uh provides operates for pennies on the dollar compared to active duty units while providing a lot of the same capabilities as the Army moves to implement ATI. Is the Guard being considered as an option to keep in strength levels the same while freeing up funds in the budget to modernize uh and and capitalize on cost savings? Um we we are having at least that we are a part of a very few conversations where end strength will go down.
▶ 3:49:56Um, what I've heard the president say is he wants a and I think he said it at West Point two weeks ago, an even larger army. I think to your point on the the National Guard, they are incredible asset for our nation. They've been around for a very long time. And one of the things that General George and I have prided ourselves in Army Transformation Initiative is we have done nothing to the regular Army that was different from the Guard and we have tried to treat them exactly the same. And General George has done an incredible job of working with his peers in the Guard.
▶ 3:50:24I would I would just add and I just we just talked to like 50 of the tags and this is before you know all of this came out to tell them you know kind of what was going on. I think the one area that I would uh that I think we need to adjust inside the guard is I think we need to have actually more people than we have structure.
▶ 3:50:41And I know that that's a you know always been a challenge because everybody wants to keep a certain amount of structure but what you don't have is the flexibility to send people to training you know that you need to do and um send people to school whatever that is.
▶ 3:50:56So, um that's the conversation that we've actually had with them is um we are going to have to make some adjustments just like we're doing in the active uh component on different types of things that we need more like we know we need more cyber, we need more counter UAS, um we may need different of something else and I think we're going to have to have the flexibility moving forward and we'll work we're working with the um director of the Army National Guard and the tags to make sure that we're doing that. Okay. Thank you.
▶ 3:51:26Um, General George on the readiness subcommittee, General Ming has mentioned foreign military sales as a way to sustain uh, Humvees and JLTS moving forward. As often highlighted, those familiar with the FMS FMS process, bureaucratic red tape, approval times, and delivery delays have plagued that process for years.
▶ 3:51:45What reforms are needed to the FMS process to better support allies who want to purchase US equipment and our defense enterprises that seek to sustain American defense production lines like the Humbia and Yeah. Then um as you know, Congressman, the Army doesn't own that, you know, that process. I agree that there's a lot we need to do to make sure that we're moving that um much more quickly. I got a call yesterday actually uh from an army chief.
▶ 3:52:12I've had a couple of those uh in the last month about JLTV specifically and and looking to buy those. And you know, people are just like us. They want, you know, when you decide you have a need, you're ready to get this stuff quickly. Um and they also like uh American equipment because it's good. Um so we can certainly send something over and and have our team come over and talk to you about that in detail. Would appreciate that.
▶ 3:52:37And Congressman, just to foreign military sales, I think it's even more important than um just those two those two platforms, the more we can smooth our demand signal across us and our allies for things like Pack 3es that we need, the more joint ventures could be stood up in places around the world. And so when you start to think of things like preposition stock, that the the best outcome is that people we trust are building the same things we're using. So if we go into conflict, they can either send their people or their things.
▶ 3:53:05Um, and so for military sales is an example, I think, of the United States acting in a massively overprotected fashion that is harming us dramatically. Thank you. Uh, my last one. Well, I'm I'll yield back the rest of my time so we can we can all get moving. Thank you. Gentleman yields back. Gentlemen, you did a great job. Thank you very much for your service uh to our country. And we are adjourned.