 That could be the shortest introduction I've ever had. Now am I required to move my own slides or can I say something and something magically happens? I'll try it. Go back. All right, can everybody hear me back there in the back? Everybody with all the Baptists are back there hiding out in the back. I want to make a couple of general comments before we start here. Because there's a lot in the press that you see about the budget and the strategy and all the stuff that's been going on in Washington really since probably around a year ago in September. That's when we really began to work budget in September and that's when we really began to work strategy in September. And there's lots flying around, lots of energy. And I know you just had General Dempsey in here. And I want to make a couple of comments about the Joint Chiefs, the budget and the strategy that I think are important. Everybody have read all the books from Vietnam about the leadership of general officers and flag officers about Vietnam, how they abrogated their authority and they didn't have the courage of their convictions and they didn't say the things that should have not told the president and all that. We're actually reasonably well read. And the dereliction of duty and all that stuff is not what happened last September, October, November, December, January, regardless of what you might read in newspaper or see coming out and it's a little bit discouraging. Because to tell you what, first of all the really five Joint Chiefs right now because we have the chief of the National Guard Bureau has become a member of the Joint Chiefs. So there's five Joint Chiefs and a chairman. And we all have been parts of groups in all our lives. You know, wherever you are, whether you're from whatever country you're from, whatever service, we're part of groups. And some are better than others. And some you go home at night and you go, my glad I'm away. And some you go home at night and you go, boy, I miss the team, you know, or you're not around them for a while and you, or even when you're around them, you go, boy, this is a great team to be a part of. I will tell you without equivocation that the Joint Chiefs is that team. So for the Army officers in here, the Air Force officers, the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Marine Corps officers in here, and the Guard and Reserve officers in here. I don't have a lot of experience being on the Joint Chiefs. I've only been on it for about 19 months, frightening. I've become the second most senior guy on there, which is frightening, isn't it? Just think the whole world rests on a guy that's been in it for 19 months in all my decisions. But I'll tell you, I can't imagine it being any better than it is right now. There's a sense of teamwork. There's a sense of, okay, what is it you need? How can I support you? The kind of the, I guess maybe some of the nastiest that happens between services that's not seen at all in the Joint Chiefs. Then you take the chairman, General Marty Dempsey, who came in, you know, several months ago. Boy, he's pulled everybody together. So it's a pleasure for me to go to the tank on Monday evenings, go to the tank on Friday evenings, go to the various meetings we were a part of because there's a real sense of ecumenical spirit among all of us. And I'm not, this isn't like I'm trying to be happy. I'm just telling you, I've been in organizations, especially joint organizations where it's been like this. It's not that way. So we look for opportunities where we can help one another and we look for opportunities where we can support one another and I can give you several examples and I don't want to because what goes on inside the tank is private business. But I want to give you that confidence. The second thing, as we began to look at the budget and we all understood that sometime in the future we're going to come out of Afghanistan. The same way we came out of Iraq. In fact, when I was here last year and the year before I made some comment along the lines that we will come out of Iraq. I said that about three years ago when I was on this stage and we have. And I think I said last year we will come out of Afghanistan at some point in the future. I don't know when that will be. And I'm not sure, we have markers on the wall right now but we will. So all the services understood when we come out of Afghanistan where there's a pretty healthy commitment and the services are going to need to downsize some. We understood that in the Marine Corps. In fact, long before the Budget Control Act of this year passed, long before any of that, just about the time, fact that four or five months before I became the combatant, General Conway and I were talking among the three stars that we can't sustain a Marine Corps of 202,000 once we come out of Afghanistan. It's just more Marines than we need. We can't afford it, it's just too expensive. We weren't even talking about what America could afford at that time. We were just talking about internally the Marine Corps. We knew what we could afford and what we couldn't afford. And so to be responsible stewards, we said we need to get smaller. So fast forward, Secretary Gates and General Conway's last month as the combatant, directs the Marine Corps and specifically me because I was the guy that was going to inherit this, to convene a four structure review effort to look at building a Marine Corps in a post-Afghanistan environment. In other words, draw it down and he didn't tell me how big it should be. He didn't say how many Marines or any of that stuff. He just said, Jim, it's got to be smaller than what it is right now and it made complete sense to us. And the criteria post-Afghanistan was completely acceptable and we started down that path. So that's where we were and I can speak for the Marine Corps. So when the Budget Control Act came in and $487 billion, we had already begun to plan to come down to 186,800 Marines. It was going to be a smaller Marine Corps but it was going to have lots of punch, lots of capabilities, going to have a high readiness level and we were going to be ready to rock and roll when our nation needed it. And I was very comfortable with that. We briefed it, it had been approved by everybody. That's where we were headed when we came out of Afghanistan. Of course, we're not out of Afghanistan yet. But the Budget Control Act came in and $487 billion and we had a part of that bill. And it's taking the Marine Corps down to 182,100. We're still going to have a Marine Corps that's manned at 97%. It's got 100% of its equipment, 100% of the operations and maintenance funds that's going to be required. And it will have a Marine Corps where the units on average are in a readiness level of T1 and T2 or C1 and C2, excuse me. That's the Corps. It's going to have all the programs it needs. We're not lacking anything. So the Corps at 182 is very competitive. It's a very capable Marine Corps. So why am I telling you that? Because all the services had to begin to adjust their force structure and adjust all the things that they had to deal with the budget. And guess what? We worked it out. We worked it out among ourselves and actually came down. We took a look at the physical condition of the United States of America and we said, we're taxpayers too. We understand where America is today. We want to be part of the solution, ladies and gentlemen, not part of the problem. And so we worked within our piece of the budget to build the best Marine Corps we possibly could have. About the same time that was going on, we started to work on the strategy. And I'll tell you, it was a team effort. And it came together in the strategy that we have right now. I'm gonna put a couple of slides up and you've been briefed on it by the Secretary of Defense and, excuse me, by the chairman and I know General Mattis was in here so he has a piece of that strategy. I know you've talked about it here but I'm gonna put some of it up there on the wall. But I'll tell you, I think we got it right. So imagine the budget effort going on over here and no kidding, a separate effort called the strategy. What is it in today's world in 2012 out to 2017 out to 2020? How is it that the United States of America should operate in that world? And what are our keen interests? All the things that you study here at school. And we agreed on the strategy. We sat and worked with the president. Now, never having been a joint chase before than 19 months ago and never having sat down and did all the strategy stuff. Okay, so I'm truth and lending. People that had used terms like unprecedented that seems to make sense to me but I didn't have a frame of reference. But the access that we had as we all pulled together to build this strategy, I thought it was remarkable. I've done a lot of hard things in my life, pulled groups together, done this, done that. But I'll tell you this was not without great effort but it was challenging. But we came together and agreed on the strategy. About the same time, the budget was rolling around over there and lots of people can say, well, you got a budget-based strategy, General Amos. Or you, and we said, no, no, we got a strategy-based budget. No, the reality is we got a little bit of both. We actually have developed a strategy absent the budget and now we've got the reality of the budget so how do they fit? And I think they fit pretty good. I get asked all the time by my press. Well, General Amos, you've only got 29 amphibious ships today and of course that's the big claim to fame in the Marine Corps. There's numbers in the feed. And would you like to have more? And I say, hell yes, I'd like to have more. I'd like to have 55. And of course everybody, and the fact is we can't afford 55. I know that. So the reality of what we can afford and what we need to do as a nation all comes, has come together. I feel, I just want everybody to know I'm comfortable with it. I don't go to sleep at night feeling like the next edition of Derelliction of Duty will have my name printed in it. It's not gonna happen. I mean, somebody may write it, but it won't be true. So when you get General Schwartz and General Odierno and you get Admiral Greenert and you get all the chiefs, I'd be the most surprised person in the world if I didn't say exactly the same thing. I think we got it right. It may not be perfect, but I think we got it. I think we got the big arrows going. So I wanted to tell everybody that. I want you to know that. I'm very proud of it. I'm very proud of the Joint Chiefs. I'm proud of the effort of the chairman. Secretary Panetta is just, is an amazing Secretary of Defense to work for. He brings us all together. Plenty of opportunity to be heard. So if anybody stands up and says that we were headed down one path and got jerked back, it's absolutely not true, okay? Next slide. What I wanted to point out here, I think I got the world's greatest laser. I realized it's after lunch. I'm gonna be using this on you and it'll blind you if you fall asleep. In fact, it'll peel your eyelids back, even if your eyelids are closed, okay? But what I wanted to do was just, when I was taking this job, I had about three, four, five months to kind of get my thoughts together. I'd already put some thought to this before, but it was important to understand what I thought and what I believed the world was gonna look like over the next couple of decades. So in a cartoon, this is in a nutshell about that much material rendered down to a single slide. And what I'd like to do is just talk to you about a couple of things here. You'll notice the nuclear armed states, we've got them out here with rockets on them. A couple of things that are of particular note, these big green ellipses are where areas what I call youth bulges. That's where the population of young men and women are growing and in some cases, exponentially. If you take the central Europe part, populations in central Europe conversely are decreasing. So if you take these areas of the world, there is an awful lot of young men and women and for us, read young men that are being born and raised and this is their backyard. So you take a look at the areas where you've got the largest major oil petroleum producers around the world and they're on there. Then you take a look at the areas in orange if your country is in here, I'm not trying to embarrass anybody, but historically, these are areas where there is a severe competition for food. When you get into areas that are aligned in red, these are areas that have water shortages. CNN just produced a piece in February of this year and I typically bring it and I didn't because I read a couple of quotes out of it, but in essence, it says in the next decade, there are places in the world where water is gonna be, potable water is gonna become more valuable than a liter of petrol, clean water to drink. So I've outlined these areas where they're typically water stressed shortages of clean water, areas of recent conflict. By the way, all these are areas where conflict is erupted within the last six months. All along in here, all around the world. And then we've talked about, let's talk about some of the ways I've described it. There's gonna be this competition of resources in this emergency security environment. There is gonna be a youth bulls and that's gonna drive, in some cases, unemployment. Natural disasters are gonna abound. In particular in this area, I'll show you a slide here in a minute where the amount of money spent every year just taking care of natural disasters in the Pacific is unbelievable. Social unrest, hostile cyber activity, violent extremism, not necessarily just religious, but criminal, criminal and terrorist as well. Regional conflict abounds in many of these areas around here, as you already know, weapons of mass destruction and advanced weaponry in the hands of the irresponsible. Weapons that are state like, only states and nations had these weapons before. And now they're in the hands of irresponsible, predominantly men that have no sense of honor, no sense of the goodness of world order. They're just gonna use them to get what they need. So these are areas I think my sense is that are gonna be the, this is gonna be the backdrop on which US forces, and I think our allies are gonna operate over the next two decades. Next slide. In that light, using the same backdrop and switching to being a naval officer, I wanna talk a little bit about the whole idea of the Latorals. Take a look at, in the yellow, 21 of the world's 28 mega cities are within 62 miles, 100 kilometers of the sea. And I've got them all lined up out here in circles. 50% of the world's population lives within 62 miles or 100 kilometers of a coastline. 49% of the world's oil travels through seven major choke points. And I've got them by orange bow ties here. So roughly half the world's oil, as it moves around, passes through these choke points. Virtually all of China's oil and all of the oil that's passed up the, this part of the Pacific, passes through the Straits of Malacca. 95% of the world's commerce moves by sea. This is just updated. It used to be around 23,000 plus. It's 42,000 trading shifts that are underway on any given day. So all of us that fly airplanes for 11 think we're pretty important. The fact of the matter is, is that out there on the sea, on that 95% of the world's commerce moving around, 42,000 ships are carrying it on any given day. If you were to look down at a moving target indicator of the face of the earth, it would look like spaghetti as these ships move across the surface of the earth. And lastly, but not least, 95% of the international communications travels underneath cable, underwater cables. Not via satellites, some of it does, but 95% of the communication travels underneath water. And I make a comment at the geostrategic level, it's all about the Latorals. So I've got a world that I think is going to be stressed for the next two decades. Am I thinking there's going to be World War III? My sense is probably not. My sense is the kind of areas we've talked about where our forces are going to operate for the next several years. They're going to be operating in some nasty areas, in areas doing nasty work against some pretty unseemly characters. Next slide. So we've made a shift to strategy, and I talked a little bit about it before and I told you that I was in complete support of it. And a direct quote from our secretary, says, our strategic guidance rightfully focuses our attention on the Pacific and Central Command areas. And I'll be able to prove why here in just a second. But what does this mean to naval forces? First of all, based on that previous slide and kind of the slide before that, I think it really enhances the requirement for a crisis response force. I think a crisis response force be able to operate in those areas along the Latorals. Of course, I'm singing my own song here, but I think there's a real genuine need for it based on the future security environment. I think there's a real need for preposition forces and equipment. Right now we're talking about when we come out of Afghanistan, where do you preposition that equipment? We've got maritime preposition squadrons right now, three of them, one in Guam, Diego Garcia, and the Mediterranean, we're going to go down to two. We'll have one in Diego Garcia, we'll have one in Guam. It'll be an enhanced afloat preposition, but what about what else? What else, where else do we need to preposition equipment around the world? Whether it be the Persian Gulf or whether it be in the Pacific. And we haven't sorted through that yet, but that's something that's going to, the world order and this pivot to the Pacific is going to require us to be able to preposition some gear to be able to execute the national strategy. For the Marine Corps, we need to continue to lighten the force and we're working on that right now with the equipment that we buy, we field to the fleet. Freedom of navigation and commerce is important. That's really the key, the underlying reason why the Straits of Malacca, all those seven choke points, why we need to have naval presence there to ensure freedom of navigation. Not to push people around, not to have people do what we want, but to ensure freedom of navigation because 95% of the world's cargo travels by sea. I mean, I just built a log cabin in the Western Mountains of North Carolina and I went down to the Boyle headquarters in North Carolina. And for my allied officers in here, my coalition officers, North Carolina is the state in our country that builds furniture. Historically for years, they've built most of the furniture across our country. So I'm thinking, I built this log home there and I want to outfit it with furniture from North Carolina. So I went down to Boyle Hill, I bought just a ton of this stuff and I was excited to the day they delivered and every drawer that I opened up, it said Made in China. Every single piece of furniture I have is Made in China and then it's got a Boyle Hill label on the outside of it. It traveled through those short points, okay? US military must be geographically distributed. This actually has come from Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta. Must be geographically distributed, operationally resilient and the cold reality is it's got to be politically sustainable. This is a function of being invited. This is a function of relationships. This is a function of being invited because we have developed a relationship with the nation and the nation says we want to train with you. We want to saddle up alongside of the United States of America or vice versa because we have mutual interest. We must develop allies and coalitions for the very reason I just talked about and the last point I'll tell you is there is the business of cyber security, cyber attacks, offense and defense is real. My suspicions are you've probably already talked about this year. If you think the problem is this big, I will tell you the problem is this big and the danger is that high. We, there's stuff that we don't have any idea on the average American and probably 99% of you don't have any idea how big the threat is in the cyber world. So I'm a big fan of doing all that we can to prepare the United States and the defense of the homeland for cyber attacks. Next slide. So the strategic pivot to Asia. Let me just kind of walk you through that for a second. I've done my best job of PowerPoint Ranger and I've outlined the boxes that pertain to the colors by their various purple. 12 of the 15 top U.S. trading partners are in the Asia Pacific area. They're the nations that are in purple. U.S. maintains five security treaties in the Asia Pacific region. So he asked, well, what's so big about, why is it so important to pivot to Asia? 61% of the world's population is in the Asia Pacific area. 15 of the world's 28 mega cities that I talked about earlier are in the Asia Pacific region. 13 of those are within 100 miles, 100 kilometers of the city or 62 miles. Look at this, from 2001 to 2010, 70,000 people a year were killed in the Asia Pacific regions due to natural disasters resulting in 65% of the world's total death from such causes. $35 billion of economic damage per year and the Western Ring of Fire depicted. This is all the areas that we haven't read. That's where the natural disasters, they happen. They happen last year, a year and a half ago at Tomodachi, they happen down in the Philippines routinely. This is an area where we have great interest. We also have an awful lot of experience. For the Marine Corps, we grew up in the Pacific. We started way down here. We started down in New Zealand during World War II and worked our way all the way up the Pacific. So for us to be able to reorienting back to the Pacific with 22,000 Marines, which is what the Secretary of Defense said the Marine Corps is going to do in this pivot, we sort of feel like we're returning back to our roots, returning to an area that we're very comfortable with. Next slide. We also said in the strategy that we're going to pay particular vigilance in the Central Command AOR. So using the same construct, I've got state sponsored sponsors of terror in orange. And these are areas that our government has said, they sponsor terror. Al-Qaeda hotspots are in the red. These are areas where we know Al-Qaeda or members of Al-Qaeda, surrogates of Al-Qaeda, operate to some degree. Six out of 12 or 50% of the OPEC nations are in Central Command. Areas that we call fragile states, states that are kind of defining themselves, are in green. I mean, these are areas that we're really kind of redefining ourselves. I mean, here's Iraq. These are the areas of Egypt and all along the area here that are kind of rebuilding themselves. Regional security partners, areas that we have partnership right now with and we have security agreements with. And then finally, the Arab awakening, as we know it today, are areas either in yellow or outlined in yellow. So it makes sense that as we pivot to the Pacific for all the reasons on the previous slide, we've got to keep a very, very interested eye in the Central Command area of operations. It makes sense. Well, now what about the rest of the world? I mean, do we just, you know, there's a lot of discussion, well, you've turned your back on Europe. You've turned your back on South America. You've turned your back on Africa. And the fact of the matter is that's not the case. It's a function of where am I going to put a finite amount of resources in my attention? But I'll tell you from the Marine Corps perspective, we operate very comfortably in Africa. We operate very comfortably in South America and we can do it with small numbers of Marines and we can do it very cheaply and inexpensively. And by the way, we're there today. We're in Africa on the peninsula today and we're in South America on the peninsula, excuse me, on the continent today. Next slide. So you take Africa, Somali pirate activity. You take a look at all the things that we just got state sponsored, areas of terror, nine of the 10 countries in the world with the most prevalence of infectious diseases are in green. We talked about 22% of the U.S. oil imports come, really exports, come from Africa, the terrorist insurgents. We have a vested interest in what takes place on the African continent. We're not always welcome, but in those areas where we are welcome, up in this area, over on the eastern coast, excuse me, the western coasts in Liberia, we are welcome. In other parts of Africa, we are welcome today. So we have an interest in there and we have every reason to keep a very close eye on this continent. Next slide. And the same thing in South America. We're talking about murder and violence and intimidation all throughout this area. As you come down the Yucatan, Panama Canal is one of those major choke points where 12% of the American international seaborne trade goes through. We've got free trade and promotion agreements with all these countries that are on the western coast and all the way up through Mexico. We do have terrorist groups, and oral luminoso in Peru and others that are here. We've got some fragile states in areas that need humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. And again, the top U.S. top resources of net crude oil and petroleum, 10% come from Venezuela and 9% come from Mexico. We have national interest in Central America and South America. And there was no intention in the strategy to turn her back on that. Next slide. Switch gears for a second to kind of talk to you and give you a service chief's perspective on how we fit in on all this. You know, as I sat to become the commentant, I wanted to be able to explain to my army brothers in the Navy and the Air Force that I have no intention of shooting on your target. I lived all the acrimony between us and the Air Force. I've lived all the acrimony between us and the United States Army. And my sense is for the most part, those days are gone. But I began to look at the world in regards to domains. The Army's domain, of course, is on the land. I mean, we think of the Army, we think of the land, we think of the surface of the earth in land formations. We think of the Navy and we think of the water. Above the water and below the water, we just do. We just grab this, that's the Navy's domain. They fly airplanes in the air, I've got it. They've got cyberspace, they've got special ops. I understand that. But when you think of the United States Navy, you think of water. You think of the Army and you think of land. You think of the Air Force and you think of the space. You think of airplanes flying over the land. That's the Air Force's domain. Well, where does the Marine Corps fit in this thing? And how do we fit? We have a lane. That's the best way I can describe it. And the lane is not always present, by the way. The lane comes and goes as a result of whatever the needs of the country are. We are America's crisis response force. That's what we do for the nation. We respond to today's crisis with today's force today. Not tomorrow, not a week from now, not three weeks from now, but today. That's why America has the United States Marine Corps. If they wanted just a land army, they wouldn't hire Marines. If they wanted a force that was big, it was going to fly everywhere, they wouldn't hire just the Marines. But we go in, in a lane that transits all the other services, in a force with a high state of readiness, we're scalable, taxable, or task organized, and we come from the sea. And we come any climb in any place. So that's what we do. That's where the Marine Corps fits in the domains of all the services. Next slide. As we draw down in the strategy, we've got the Marines in here, and really all our fellow services. I want to give you a sense for what the Marine Corps is going to look like. Because 182,000, this is what we're going to have. We're going to have, we're going to go from 27 Infantry Battalions, which is what we have today, down to 23. We're going to go down from 18 fixed wing squadrons, which is, excuse me, this is what we have before the war started, before we grew. This is what we have now, 27. We had 18 fixed wing squadrons at the beginning of 9-11. Now we're going down from 25 to 18, back down to 18. See, I'm reading this thing wrong. That's what we have. That's what we're going to end up with. We started with 27, gone to 23. Started with 25, 18. 32 rotary wing squadrons left from 36. Every unit's fully manned and equipped, operations and maintenance fully funded. The lessons learned from OIF-1. Marine Special Operators are 3100. Marine Special Forces Command, we stood up, we didn't have that at 9-11. We have it now. That's a lesson learned from the war. Irregular warfare Marines. We've plus that up to 8,200 Marines. So we've got a cost of about 11,000 Marines there. What are that regular warfare? That's the human intelligence Marines. That's the signals intelligence Marines. Those are the Marines that are EOD. Those are the Marines that have unique skills that were low density and high demand before the war started. And now we realize, well, we can't live this on that future security environment. We can't live that way. We've got to make them right density and right demand. So that's what that 8,200 is. And then we've added 600 cyber warfare Marines, as I said earlier. So that force coming down at 182 actually is a more capable force than the force we had when the airplanes hit the building in New York City and the Pentagon and the farmland of Pennsylvania. Next slide. Switching to, from a service chief's perspective, what keeps me awake at night? What are the things that just particularly bother me? The drawdown in Afghanistan. We'll be drawing, we're sitting at about 18,000 Marines right now in sailors. And we're going to draw down to some number that's going to be less than that by the end of this year. And it's all in accordance with the president's drawdown plan of bringing the surge forces out of Afghanistan. So what does that mean after September? Excuse me, after October. We don't know yet. General Allen's been in here. We don't know yet because we haven't figured it out. But the drawdown in Afghanistan, getting the equipment out, the reset of the forces I've got down there a little bit later, how do we get the equipment out of Afghanistan so we can get it through our depots and get the Marine Corps reset for the future? The new defense strategy in the Pacific lay down. Let's begin to look like the Pacific lay down is settling down. The early draft documents and what you've seen in the press have given indication that our government, the Japanese government, have come to agreement on what the Pacific should look like. So that's actually, after a lot of work for several years, that actually looks like things are settling down right now and I'm very encouraged. Secretary Panetta said I want to have 22,000 Marines west of the international day line. So where are they going to go? Some on Okinawa, some in Iwakuni, some in Guam. We've just started a relationship with Australia. We've got a Marine Rifle Company down there right now, eventually moving up to somewhere around 2,500 rotational forces in and out of Australia. Putting some more Marines back to Hawaii. So that whole thing is we reset the Marine Corps, stuff that kind of worries me, keeps me awake. Sequestration. I'll tell you what, until about four or five months ago, I didn't even know how to spell that word. In fact, I would say that if I asked, I'll ask September, how many understand sequestration? There wouldn't have been a hand in here probably or if they did, you spent too much time in Washington and Capitol Hill. But I know a lot about it now and I'll tell you that all that I said to begin with, the strategy is right, the budget's right, we're balanced, we'll go out the window if sequestration comes in. You just need to understand that. It's serious business. It will redefine the Department of Defense. It'll redefine our capabilities. We'll be a new budget for sure and there may very well be a new strategy. To go along with that, okay? End strength reductions. I talked to you, we've got a good plan. We're gonna come down about four or 5,000 a year, over four years. I feel good about that. That meets with the SEC, the next bullet of keeping faith with Marines. My goal is to not kick Marines out. My goal is to let natural attrition take its place. We've got a plan to let that work. Both Congress and the Department of Defense and OMB have agreed to help us fund that. Resetting the force is the part that probably, certainly in that portion, worries me more than anything. How do you reset a force that you've taken two-thirds of the equipment at one point or another, almost 100% of the forces and run them through Iraq and Afghanistan for nine to 10 years? And the equipment has stayed there. It's been worked on there. It's gone through minor depot level maintenance while it's been deployed in Iraq. When we came out of Iraq when the last vehicle, the last flatbed, left Al-Tikotem and came down to Kuwaiti Naval Base, that equipment was triaged in a big lot. I was there, I watched it. And 40% of that equipment got back on airplanes and other ships and either went over to Karachi and came up through the Southern Distribution Network or flew in on C-17s. So that equipment has never even been home. It's never seen a depot in 10 years. So we need that. So as a service chief and by the way, these are not the days where you can take and you say, I don't need that equipment because I'm just going to buy a new. I'm going to take that, my 1999 Lexus and I'm going to buy a brand new one because I can afford it. Truth of the matter is we can't afford it. So I told the Marine Corps, I said, you better figure out what's good enough inside there. Let's get it back and let's get it through the depots and let's get it reworked. So we are going to buy some new things because we have to. Sooner or later, you got to take the Commodore 64 and set it aside and buy a new iPod or an iPad. But in some cases that Commodore 64, you get my point, the Humvees and whatever are going to be good enough for some areas of the world. So resetting the force, getting the equipment out right now is a grave concern of mine and it can't happen fast enough. Reconstituting the force, that's a little bit what I've talked about. Reconstitution means getting the force man equipped and trained to get it back up to that C1, C2 level and I'm absolutely bound and determined to follow the Secretary of Defense's guidance. No hollow units. The last thing I want to do is have the units that I grew up in that were sitting there 75% manned, almost 80% manned and 75% of the equipment and half the training money and thinking we were okay. You know, the balloon went up, we had to cobble together two or three units to make one. We're not going to do that. America doesn't deserve that and that's not the kind of Marine Corps we're going to build as we draw down. Critical programs, the amphibious combat vehicle, the joint like tactical vehicle, we weren't cahoots with the Army on it. And the last thing is what I just spent about an hour and 15 minutes talking to all the Marines in here about and that's the spiritual health of the Marine Corps. I'm not talking religion. I'm talking about ethos. I'm talking about who we are. I'm talking about what is imbued and I talked to them about it, was imbued on the prey decks at Parris Island in San Diego, California to recruit depots but officer candidate school in Quantico. What is it that makes us different? Now, most of you are from other services so you're probably sitting there thinking, yeah, right. But I'm telling you, the Marines aren't. They know precisely what I'm talking about. In some ways, I worry that we need to get back to that. We need to go back and remind one another who we are and who we're not and what Marines do and what Marines don't do. There's a lot going on in the world out there today and most of it's being shown on news and news prints and I want to remind Marines where they came from. And that's the spiritual health of the Marine Corps. When I was taking this job, I told the Marines in here, General Met with General Mundy, the former Commandant. He always meet with all the former CNOs and Chiefs of Staff of whatever service. But I met with all the living Commandants and General Mundy told me, he said, Jim, he says, is the 35th Commandant, actually called me General. He said, General, is the 35th Commandant, you're responsible for the spiritual health of the Marine Corps, the spiritual well-being. And I wasn't quite sure what he meant. And what he was talking about is what I've just described. That thing that causes us to do the right thing each and every time. That causes us to, when the whole group wants to go this way, but this is the right way, I'm going to go this way, I'm going to bring that group with me. That's what I'm talking about. And he said, if you fail as the 35th Commandant to maintain that spiritual health of the Corps, you will have failed as the Commandant. So I take it very seriously. I take a lot of what you see today, you see on evening news and you see in the press personally. And that's okay. But I want you to know that, and I told the Marines in here, let's get back to remembering who we are and who we're not.