 Welcome you all to today's hearing to receive testimony on the military's recruiting challenges. The United States has the strongest and most capable military in the world because of the people who volunteer to serve in its ranks. To maintain that advantage, we must continue to attract the best and the brightest America has to offer. This is the second hearing in 2023 alone that this committee has held on the military's recruiting challenges. During our hearing last March, we heard from the undersecretaries of each of the military services. Today's subcommittee hearing includes the directors of recruiting from each of the military services to learn more about the challenges they face to attract the people we need to keep America safe. We are holding today's hearing at Senator Scott's request, but make no mistake, there is strong bipartisan concern that the military services continue to struggle to meet their recruiting goals. This year, the Marine Corps and the Space Force, the two services with the lowest recruitment goals were the only services that met their recruiting targets. If we were assigning grades, those two services got into A. While the Air Force earned a B plus, the Army got a B minus, and the Navy a C plus, and I think that's great inflation, this track record would be worrisome on its own, but it is even more troubling because it appears to be part of a long-term trend that shows that for years now, the military has failed to connect with young people that we need to keep this country safe. The military is in a war for talent in a period of low unemployment. If we want a strong, vibrant military, and if we want to attract the best and the brightest, then we need to acknowledge the importance of making certain that all young people are welcome and that those who serve in the military, all of those who serve in the military, will be treated with dignity and respect. In February, this committee heard testimony from Dr. Bonnie Lynn, who served as a senior advisor for the Department of Defense in both the Obama and Trump administrations. She explained that cutting programs that support our military, including violence prevention programs, quote, would definitely hurt us. We also heard from all of the services that programs to address racism and sexual assault are not a barrier to recruitment and retention. In fact, it is when those programs fail that young people question whether the military really will have their backs. Service members and their families give up a lot to serve their country, including enduring constant moves and uncertainty. How we treat those who volunteer to serve has a direct impact on our ability to attract the next generation. In too many cases, service members have felt ignored or taken advantage of when they have come forward to report problems. All three of my brothers served in the military, so I know firsthand both the benefits and the sacrifices of everyone who serves. In today's hearing, I look forward to hearing our witnesses' perspective on both recruiting and rebuilding public confidence in the military. First, I want to hear their perspective on red tape and the recruiting process. And second, public polling continues to show public confidence in the military is on the decline. And I want to hear our witnesses' perspective on how we can demonstrate to young people that the military is an institution worthy of their trust. And then third, I want to hear more about military housing. Several years ago, this committee held hearings on shortfalls in military housing, including families being forced to live with mold, collapsed roofs, or exposed electrical wires. We changed the laws, putting in place a number of reforms to address these shortfalls. But here we are several years later, and these reforms are still not fully implemented. In fact, families continue to report they feel like they're being silenced. Meanwhile, the GAO details military barracks also have problems with sewage overflow, mold and mildew, and broken windows and locks. I have run out of patience with military leaders who come before this committee and promise that they will prioritize living conditions for service members, but somehow never managed to deliver. And one last note, I do not wish to make this a focus of this hearing, but I want to make it clear that it was a grave mistake for one senator to hold our military promotion system hostage over his personal disagreement with the Department of Defense policy. We need our commanders in the Pacific to deter China and our service vice chiefs to lead the military. I am relieved that he has released most of his holds, but he is weakening military readiness and undermining both recruiting and retention. The Senate should not go home for the holidays until we confirm the remaining nominees. Now, this year marks the 50th year of the all-volunteer force, so I look forward to hearing from our witnesses how the military can continue to adapt and evolve to keep us all safe. To our witnesses, welcome. Thank you for appearing. As I mentioned earlier, we're just going to have the one panel today composed of military service directors of recruiting. Brigadier General Christopher Orine, the commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service, Major General William J. Bowers, the commanding general for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command, Major General Johnny Davis, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, and Rear Admiral Alexis T. Walker, the commander of Navy Recruiting Command. I will now turn to ranking member Scott for his comments to open this hearing. Thanks. First, I want to thank the chairwoman for holding this hearing. I appreciate her focus on the quality of our military and trying to solve this problem with regard to recruiting. Before I get into this, with regard to the nominees, I hope that, firstly, it's resolved, except for, I guess, the four stars, and I hope that what will happen is we'll go through this process quickly, and I know some people have some concerns, and let's go through them, let's do cloture, let's get a vote on them, and so we can get these done as quickly as possible. And I agree with you, if we can get it done before we go off on the holidays, we should. Good. I think it's fine. That's bipartisanship. We both want to get this done. Our military deserves it. Yeah, just to get you guys' perspective, this is my first time actually to be a ranking, and the only reason I'm doing this is because we've agreed we're going to work on these issues together, because there's not an issue in the military that I can find that's a partisan issue. I served in the military. I never thought it was a partisan job. I represent, you know, whoever the president was, that's who I worked for. So as I said in our first subcommittee hearing here, I believe any of the military recruiting crisis should be our top priority. I don't know how we can expect to have a military if we can't solve this recruiting issue. I hope to use this hearing to better understand the scale of the problem and learn what our senior recruiting leadership is doing to improve the situation. I'm a business guy. What you did is you find out what was the best thing that you could do to improve the situation. You worked in some place and you, whether it was your competitor or whether you're somebody you worked with, you took the best ideas and you implemented them whatever you were doing. In fiscal 2023, we know that three of our four largest military services fail to achieve the recruiting goals, as we talked about by large margins. The active duty military force missed that goal by 9% by 15%. That's 27,000 service members. If you include reserve forces, the shortage of 40,000 troops, and if you look at what we've done now over the years, over the last few decades, our reserve force, our national guards are actually almost active duty now, so they're really important. For context, this amounts to more troops than we currently have stationed in Germany or on the Korean Peninsula. The Army and Navy are in the worst position. Active Army is 30,000 soldiers smaller than it was just two years ago. Navy has 12,000 fewer sailors today than it had last year. The only reason these numbers are not worse is because the services are doing everything they possibly can to retain, and they're doing a good job if you retain currently serving military personnel, but as we all know, that's not sustainable. These changes to the size of a military were not the result of any deliberate reduction in force plan. It's completely recruiting. Our smallest military is now causing serious readiness concerns to avoid creating a hollow force. The Armies begin to implement force structure reductions that will affect the Army's ability to respond to the full spectrum of armed conflict, and the world's not getting safer right now, as we all know. The Secretary of the Army has admitted that these force structure decisions are at least in part caused by the recruiting crisis. The shortage of sailors is making it harder for the Navy to adequately man our ships. We are 9,000 sea duty positions short. Ships routinely change. Ships routinely train for deployment with less than 100% of manning that they need. Ships without enough sailors are less effective and increase the danger to our own ships as well as those around them. I don't know what it's like now, but when I was in, he actually didn't just work an 8 to 5 job. You're already working long hours. I mean, when I was there, the only time we were actually off, he either had off 7 to 12 at night or 12 to 5 in the morning. You were on the rest of time. So if you now have the opportunity to have fewer people, I don't know how you're going to solve that problem. If that is not a risk to readiness, I don't know what it is. Giving, we've got lots of dangers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East. I think it's imperative that the Department of Defense figures this out. Some senior leaders seem to be unwilling to acknowledge the severity of the problem. A year ago, the Secretary of Defense said it is, quote, a priority for me. Yet, in his posture statement to Congress last spring, the Secretary devoted an entire section to meeting climate crisis, which we and let's all agree, you know, we want to take care of our climate. But he left the recruiting crisis and didn't acknowledge it. So we've got to, we have to figure this out. You guys are the key to doing this. I think the Army has to be commended for its initiatives to rapidly implement innovative ideas to attract more Americans to serve their country. Thanks for your time yesterday. The Marines continue to prove that it's not impossible to achieve recruiting goals, because you've been doing it all along. I bet I'm a business guy, so in business, every environment's challenging. I mean, I've never had somebody say, oh, it's an easy time to make money, easy time to recruit, easier time to do anything. But it's never, in my opinion, it's never impossible to figure this out. So Marines have figured it out. We all have to figure it out. So I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to underscore that, you know, first off, I still don't get this, 8,500 service members were involuntarily separated for refusing the COVID vaccine. I hope everybody's going after trying to get these wonderful men and women back in and treating them fairly, giving them proper, if they don't want to come back, making sure you give them the proper discharge orders. And if you can, they ought to come back with pay, back pay, because it's, I think it was completely unfair. So the, let me talk about one of my experiences. We get to all of us. I don't know how many of you have already done in years, but we, you know, we, we get a lot of people nominated for these, we get 10, each of us get 10 nominations for the academies. We saw our numbers, my first year, I've been up here five years, my first year was pretty good numbers, then start going down. So we put a lot of effort into it this year, because we went around, we went around to the schools and we pushed our way in to tell people what the opportunities were and it's probably the nicest thing I get to do up here. I get to pick, I wish I could pick 100 people, but these kids that want to come serve are just wonderful individuals all across this country. I know everybody is proud of ones that are in their state, but I think everybody loves that opportunity to give these kids the opportunity. The Chairwoman again for hosting this meeting with me. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, Senator Scott. So if we could start with you, please bring in your General Amrai. You're recognized. Thank you. Chairwoman Warren, Ranking Member Scott, distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear to discuss the recruiting efforts of the Department of the Air Force. At the end of fiscal year 2023, we have seen a steady decline in the military, even being an option for our youth as they contemplate the future with propensity dropping from 13% four years ago to 10% now. Only 12% of youth come from the military as they contemplate the future with propensity dropping from 13% four years ago to 10% only 12% of youth currently have a parent who served compared to 40% in 1995. The DOD's joint advertising and marketing research studies organization characterized the youth as having transitioned from being disconnected with the military to mostly disinterested with it. Reconnecting with our youth and breaking down unnecessary barriers to serve in our Air Force and Space Force is our priority over the next several years. We listed a session recruiting goals by just under 11% for the active duty 31% for the reserve. We did exceed the Space Force and listed a session by nearly 10%. While the overall goals were missed, there were positive strides made throughout talent focused Air Force policy changes and robust Air Force recruiting service summer surge efforts. The Department of the Air Force immediately began evaluating ways to help our overburdened recruiting force. Our chief of staff led a cross-functional team to conduct comprehensive review of our policies and requirements with focus on removing unnecessary barriers and joining and developing effective incentives to attract talent. The team synchronized Department of the Air Force DOD accession requirements as well as sister service requirements where possible to expand the reach for talent across the nation. With these policy challenges expanded upon my written statement, we have changed our goals who would have otherwise been prevented from service in the Air or Space Force. It is important to note the caliber of our recruits remains the same. We have not and will not compromise on quality. In addition to the policy change initiatives, Air Force recruiting also implemented a command-wide summer surge focused on increasing recruiter presence within the community equal to a deployed operations tempo. These efforts built applicant leads and the delayed entry program helped us prepare for a healthy start to FY24. There were lessons learned from the surge that are enduring and remain in place. Most notably, a more robust training program for our first level supervisors as well as a maximized push of recruiter presence within the community. For fiscal year 2024, we are cautiously optimistic as the gains from the summer surge and the cross-functional team policy changes were substantial and have built solid momentum. We started with 32% of our active duty goal already identified and in the bank compared to just 16% of the last year. That 32% is a little higher than what we typically try to have identified to begin each year, which brings that positive momentum. The cross-functional team initiatives continue to bear fruit as we have produced an additional 850 recruits who have shipped or already in the delayed entry program for this year. However, we are rapidly approaching the winter months, which is the most difficult time. In keeping with the transformational changes needed to accomplish our recruiting mission, we stood up a strategy division and a strategic plan for the organization within lines of effort along elevating favorable brand relevance, driving smart operations, bolstering force and families, and transforming and expanding the total force recruiting network. There will be continued challenges in fiscal 2024 and beyond, which includes working medical accession processes as well as increasing the connection with the American population for military service. We applaud the Deputy Secretary of Defense initiatives to resource U.S. MEPCOM at levels needed to process applicants in addition to OSD level initiatives, Air Force Recruiting Service has increased the manning to our medical waiver division to tackle the large increase in medical waiver requests and also just went under contract to add medical administrators to our team who can take the burden of tracking down medical paperwork, giving back critical time to each recruiter. With regard to increasing with the American society, this challenge fuels our need for consistent capabilities to tell our story to the public through a new number of avenues. In fiscal year 2023, our marketing program focused on the value of service in the Air and Space Force. With the funding, our marketing division leaned into both lead generation in the current fiscal year but also postured for the out years. We increased the investment levels in our existing partnerships like Drone Racing League, eSports, and increased the total number of partnerships that explored new ways to connect with the public as we launched a women in sports campaign and partnership with Ultimate Fighter Championship League. Through these partnerships we were able to engage with the public. Our Air Force chief of staff tasked installation leadership to develop a more robust community relations that includes expanding in access and we developed a go blue stay blue campaign designed to give our wing commanders a toolbox to spread the message within the community. The stay blue arm of the campaign is designed to communicate early and often to our airmen the value of our reserve components and the opportunities for continued service for the force. Closer relationships with our civic partners and community partners have provided an opportunity to connect. In conclusion I want to thank you once again for the opportunity to speak with you today. We are cautiously optimistic with the actions we have taken over the past year that have put us on the path to achieve our goal in FY24 for the Air and Space Force. While this momentum and early goal attainment proves promising we must keep our hand on the throttle to continue to work challenge areas of medical processing, predictable barriers to service. All while we transform how we recruit in an era of great power competition. Thank you. Thank you General Amarine. General Bowers. Chairwoman Warren, Ranking Member Scott distinguished members of the subcommittee it's a privilege to appear before you to provide you all an update on your Marine Corps recruiting efforts. Your Marine Corps exists to fight and win our nation's battles. Our performance in recruiting speaks for us. Our combat heritage is embedded within Marine Corps recruiting commands DNA and we share the same fierce competitive spirit to win no matter the challenge. Over the past generations the Marine Corps has made institutional investments into recruiting to ensure that we are resourced with the very best commanders and the very best Marine recruiters to accomplish this demanding mission. This has been and will continue to be our greatest source of strength as we face what some have called the most challenging recruiting environment since the inception of the all volunteer force. Marine recruiters will continue to meet the expectations of our nation by holding true to our warriors ethos and our core values of honor, courage and commitment. We compete for the best people in every zip code in our nation. Our Marine recruiters actively attract and inspire those young men and women of character to take up the challenge of earning the title Marine. We welcome all qualified and motivated applicants to take up the challenge of earning the title Marine but we refuse to lower standards. We understand that to meet the high almost mystical expectations the American people have of their Marine Corps that we must invest in attracting and inspiring the very best people our nation has to offer to become Marines. Despite our success in fiscal year 2023 the Marine Corps continues to face the same challenges as the other services. These are historic glows and qualification rates low propensity to serve labor market challenges and a fragmented media landscape these have all had a compounding effect on the recruiting environment. To combat these Marine Corps recruiting command will do what Marines have always done innovate, adapt and win. As such we are focused on my top four priorities of quality training, securing resources and adapting our structure and we are moving at speed to make these organizational changes. With your continued support we will continue to one reinforce and expand the trusted American people to positively shape the future of the Marine Corps and three enable our Marines and their families to be happy and successful. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you for the opportunity Semper Fidelis. Thank you. Admiral Walker. Good afternoon Chairwoman Warren, Ranking Member Scott and distinguished members of the personal subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the United States Navy's recruiting efforts. Our nationwide team of dedicated Navy recruiters is focused on attracting the highest quality candidates to sustain America's maritime strength worldwide. While the Navy did not meet its recruitment goal for FY23, we continuously adapted our processes to reduce an initially forecasted gap by 50%. As we begin FY24, we are again faced with a challenging environment and continue to scrub our processes to remove inefficiency, add recruiters and expand the pool of qualified and interested candidates. Some of our most important initiatives for FY24 include a dramatic increase in the number of recruiters in the field, the establishment of a National Recruiting Operations Center, and a new marketing campaign to reach the adult influencers in young people's lives. We will also expand our future Sailor Prep course at Recruit Training Command to broaden the talent pool through physical fitness and academic enhancement ahead of recruit training. In partnership with Congress, the Navy's monetary incentives have enabled us to influence the placement of shippers and remain competitive within the civilian market. Within marketing and advertising, our Forged by the Sea campaign allows us to reach every zip code to access previously undiscovered talent. Today, our advertising remains nearly 100% digital resulting in a 30% increase in national leads and taking the message to where our future Sailors are operating which is online. Despite the recent and future challenges, our Navy team stands ready to take advantage of the opportunity to share positive military service experiences with future recruits and their influencers. We are grateful for this committee's continued support and ask that each member consider personally engaging with their constituents and the media in a national call to service. Your public support for military recruiting will make a positive difference. We remain committed to working with Congress to recruit, develop, and retain a ready and lethal force. Women and women of the United States Navy and their families, thank you for your sustained commitment and unwavering support. I stand ready to answer your questions. Thank you, Admiral Walker. Mr. Davis. Thank you. Chairwoman Warren, ranking member Scott, and fellow distinguished members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss Army recruiting efforts. I'm honored to be here today to represent Army leadership and U.S. Army Recruiting Team. They're competing in one of the toughest recruiting landscapes I've seen in over 33 years of service. This recruiting crisis certainly did not appear overnight and cannot be repaired overnight, but our superstar recruiters work hard every single day to recruit the best and brightest volunteers who can deploy, fight, and win in a multi-domain environment worldwide, and I think about them constantly. This fiscal year, our recruiting team with support of the entire Army support and regular Army sessions, plus a delayed entry pool of 5,000 plus to 14,600 Army Reserve sessions. As our recruiters manage current operations, we're continuously evaluating areas where we need to improve to overcome challenges presented by this current recruiting crisis. We're grateful to have the entire Army support from Army senior leaders to our most junior soldiers in our efforts to transform recruiting operations, as well as build relationship with today's generations and share the benefits of military service. The Army is an organization that teaches valuable skills and provides exceptional benefits. I want our nation's youth to know the Army is a career accelerator, and I need them to lead us into the future. And the personal benefits to service extend far beyond cash bonuses, health care, and housing allowances. The recruiting crisis we're experiencing today is a very complex problem with many variables. Awareness, declining eligibility, medical, academic, physical, competitive job market. So there is no one and done solution that will fix it. That's why we must transform the Army recruiting enterprise. The Secretary of the Army recently announced a comprehensive transformation to our recruiting enterprise, which will relook how we prospect, transform our workforce, establish an experimentation capability, improve capability for data analytics, and restructure our organization. This will be one of the biggest efforts in the Command's history and will be implemented in a phased approach. Right now the most important factor is ensuring we keep this year's mission in the forefront. Our efforts are geared toward attracting young talent and re-introducing the Army to the American public. We need your help to be successful in this effort. We will not lower our standards. We will not sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity. Army initiatives over the past year have shown real promise, such as the future soldier prep course transformational. 14,000 graduates 95% success rate both physical and academic. This would not be possible without the support of Army leaders and Congress. We're still in the first quarter of the fiscal year and too early to estimate where we will finish in 10 months, but I will say we're seeing momentum and will continue to build upon it. We will get this right because, like my wife and I, we have skin in the game. We have two daughters that joined. One joined the United States Army, the other joined the Marine Corps. Your continued support helps us gain the necessary tools to attract and retain the soldiers who serve our great nation. It's always an honor to come together with our sister services. We're grateful to this committee for their continued support. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, General Davis. So I'll do the first round of questions or I'll get us started. When potential recruits apply to the military, they have to pass through several screens to actually enlist, including a medical screening to make sure that they are healthy and safe. Last year the Department of Defense launched a new electronic health records system named MHS Genesis that is now used in the screening process. The screen is supposed to identify conditions that disqualify people from serving completely. But the MHS Genesis system appears also to be flagging applicants with manageable or long healed injuries triggering the requirement for the recruit to obtain a medical waiver before they can actually join the military. One otherwise healthy applicant had to wait an extra two months to enlist while she proved that a childhood wrist sprain was not a disqualifying medical condition. This is not a one-off problem. Data from the military services shows that in fiscal year 2022, one out of every six recruits needed medical waivers, the highest proportion anytime in the last 10 years. Now obviously we want a screening process that catches disqualifying medical conditions. But do each of you agree that it is a problem if our process is creating unnecessary barriers to enrollment? Can I just have a yes from everybody on that? Good. A thumbs up. I've got that from General Powers. Everybody's good on this. Okay. I think this is where I want to start this conversation. Because recruiters have told the press that this process is making their job a lot harder. And the data seemed to back that up. The Navy saw an average time between an applicant's final until their first recorded contact nearly doubled. Army Recruiting Command found that waiting through these waivers could add up to 70 days or longer to the application process. The Department of Defense Inspector General verified these delays. Look, it is a problem if it's taking healthy applicants longer to get through a bureaucratic screening process. But it is an even bigger problem if all of that red tape is causing some healthy applicants to drop out of the recruitment process altogether. The Department of Defense Inspector General also recommended that each of the services track medically disqualified applicants to ensure that they're notified of their options to pursue a medical waiver and to better understand the reasons why they may choose not to request a waiver. Each of your commands agreed with this recommendation, but it is not in place for most of the systems. So my question is when will that happen? How about we'll go backwards this time? General Davis, you want to start? Thanks, Madam. The current Army senior leaders are very aware of this and are currently working on it. They don't have the exact date, but they are absolutely working on it. That is not my question. Are you working on it? My question is can you give us an estimate on when we can expect that this will be done? I mean, I hope you notice the irony that I'm asking for questions about delays and what I'm getting back are delays and answers. Got anything for me, General Davis? Okay, Admiral Walker, how about you? I do not have a specific date on when this will be implemented. We continue to look at inefficiencies in our process to try to wring out those inefficiencies so that we can bring more people into the Navy. You don't have to go find this inefficiency. This one is big and there are flashing lights all around it. I just want to know when you're going to get us the information, just the information so we can start fixing it. Yes, ma'am. I will take that back, ma'am. Okay. General Bowers, I think you have a better answer. Yes, ma'am. So we actively track our waiver process. All of our Marines are trained how to submit a waiver had to inform an applicant to go through the waiver process. More broadly to your question on MHS Genesis and the accompanying health information exchange, the Deputy Secretary of Defense has recently stood up a task force to look at the challenges of implementation. They're all very encouraged by this. We look forward to this task force being completed in February 2024 and we look forward to the results because we need to see action in the field. Okay. So you've shown us it can be done. You've gotten this part done, right? You're telling me the Marines have? Yes, ma'am. We aggressively track waivers. Okay. We have a waiver section in our operation section at Marine Corps Recruiting Command. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. Thank you for the opportunity. As far as the process to inform everyone that is initially medically disqualified from MEPs, our recruiters inform them of the opportunity for a waiver so that there is a formalized process to get through and into our waivers division within the Air Force off of the DoD standard. The formal IT system, I think you're from the IG report, we will have in place by January of 21 with specificity on why someone... January of 24th. 24th. Thank you, ma'am. For the correction. With specificity on why a member specifically disengaged from the recruiting process. Having that said, our Surgeon General within recruiting service has kept track of those that left the process during the medical accession process writ large. And from that, we were able to track the numbers of people that essentially walked away from the process. We don't know exactly at what point they walked away, but we know they did not complete through a full disqualification process which only the Surgeon General within the Air Force can authorize. Look, I appreciate that it takes time to set this up, but we cannot afford to lose people who have already demonstrated a willingness to serve. These are the people who say they want to do this. Especially if the only barrier is something that would be quickly dismissed by a medical review. Senator Blumenthal and I sent a letter to DOD about these concerns and the impact on recruiting. We requested answers by October. But DOD claims they can't get answers to our questions for months because they're waiting on information from each of you. So to each of our four witnesses, do you commit to working with DOD to get us these answers by the end of the year? General Amrine. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. All right. I like that. General Bowers. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. All right. Good. Good. Admiral Walker. Yes, ma'am. All right. And General Davis. Yes, ma'am. Okay. We're going to hold you to this. There is a real disconnect between the perspective of recruiters on the ground seeing how this chronic health record system is undermining their efforts to meet our recruiting goals and DOD's willingness to fix this problem. So if we're going to fix this problem, we need to make sure we're all rowing in the same direction. That was a Navy illusion. All right. Thank you. Senator Scott, up to you. Thank you, Chairwoman. First off, thanks everybody for your willingness to serve. Thank you for the sacrifice you've given and your families. You know, when I joined at 18, I joined the Navy. I, if I think back, I could tell you who the president was, but I never thought about that. I never thought about the politics of being in the service. I went in because I wanted to serve. And there's a perception now that the military has become political. It's you know, for whoever is the Commander-in-Chief. The Reagan Institute Survey found, see, they said that the public's confidence in the military is dropping. Fortunately, it's not the level of progress or the media, but slower than it has been. So they, they say the rate, they said that the primary influencers, like military parents or relatives, teachers, coaches are less likely to encourage young people to go into military because of, the military has become political. So can each of you talk about, do you believe that's true? Is that what you're hearing? And what if it is, you know, how are you dealing with? You want to start, John Davis? Yeah, thanks, sir. If I can add, and I've talked to many applicants, families, influencers across the nation, and I would tell you one of the major things that comes up is really awareness. And I think this awareness is is very critical as this population. So I'll, I'll provide two examples. You know, first we have in certain high schools during COVID without recruiter. So that's an entire, you know, two really, you know, coming of age generations without information to really understand the power of service. And the other in population of influencers, and I use always my own example when I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my grandfather's World War II vet. I spent a lot of time with him, but many of the homeowners on the north side of Milwaukee were also World War II or Korea War vets. Now, they were the ones that really answered my questions as a young 10 or 11 year old whenever I had an idea of service because they all spoke of it whenever they came together. And I was always intrigued and had many, many questions. That's not the same today as in terms of that, that population. So I mean, I've served and I've moved all over the world with my family. And we've been sometimes the only Army family in a neighborhood off post. So I think this, this is awareness is a key category. Again, sir, that is one of the things that really come up. So what do you, so that makes sense. What do you, what, but what do you think of this Polaroid, you know, the, there's this perception now that the military is a political part of whoever then whoever is in the White House. So are you not hearing that? And sir, I've talked to many families. I'm not hearing that, certainly at the level that it's what have you, have you seen that report that they, yeah. You just don't, that makes sense to you. Admiral. Sir, thank you. Likewise, we're not seeing that in the young women and men that we're recruiting through our marketing advertising. We want to show the ability for every American to be successful. And those are the stories that we share through authentic experiences and relating with the American public that we serve. As you've mentioned 40 years ago if you had 10 dinner tables four in 10 of those dinner tables would have had a parent, a teacher who, who served today it's roughly one in 10. So we are trying to fill that narrative space about the positivity and benefits of service that isn't happening around the dinner table. Senator, thank you for the question. We aggressively compete for the best talent in every gender and demographic group in the country, period. We do this by projecting our ethos and core values of unencouraged commitment. And we find that young men and women of character who want to be part of something bigger than themselves are responding to that call. So you're not hearing from your potential recruits that the military has become political? Senator, we're not hearing that. That's not a part of the recruiting pitch. That's not part of who we are. That's not what you're not getting to ask. Senator, no. Okay. Senator, like my joint colleagues here, I think this story is very similar. That does, that does not resonate with the issues that are on the minds of other recruits from my recruiting force. I think General Davis captured it as well as the others. I think this is about awareness and telling our story and making sure that you know that, that divide that Admiral Walker brought out about how many have that common understanding of military service is very, very important. And that's on me to be able to do to ensure that our recruiters, every airman and guardian in our air and space forces are charged to be recruiters and tell that story. And within that story, we are an apolitical entity by nature. So you're not hearing it either? No, sir. Thank you. Senator Cain. Thank you, Madam Chair and to the witnesses, thank you for your service. Just a level set here. General, I think you indicated that the Air Force did not meet its recruiting guidelines for the first time in 23 years. Is that correct? That's correct, sir, since 1999. And General Bowers, you indicated the Marines did meet their recruiting guidelines, correct? Yes, Senator. And Admiral Walker, for how many years has the Navy not met its recruiting guidelines? FY22 was the first time, FY23 was the first time we hadn't met it. And then General Davis, how about for the Army? Last 22 and 23. Okay, so relatively recent phenomenon, Marines haven't experienced it yet, but you're wary and you're not complacent. And I thought it was interesting the Air Force recent phenomenon Space Force doing okay. General Bowers, you used a word we don't hear in a committee room a lot mystical. We don't hear that in a lot of testimony, but I do think there may be a bit of a mystique about both the Marines and Space Force that can help. So we might think about is there a way to replicate that more broadly. I will admit some bias as the father of a Marine, but I do think that sort of mystique is an issue. We had testimony at a hearing earlier this year before the full committee where the Army presented results of a survey about this propensity to serve question. And I thought it was interesting because what we heard, and I think that this could be generalized potentially to other service branches beyond the Army, is the top reason that people expressed an unwillingness was a belief that they would fall behind their colleagues. So I'm going through high school, I have some talent, I have colleagues who are thinking about going to college. There's a belief among those and it may be those who don't have military members in their families, but the stories that they're hearing or maybe the stories that they're not hearing lead them if they serve in the military, yes they can be some part of something greater than themselves, that's a plus. And they're not overly worried about their physical safety, that was not one of the top issues. But they worry that if they serve in the military they're going to fall behind so that at four years or eight or 20 or 30 when they leave, those who didn't serve in the military will have moved ahead of them in terms of opportunities. I think that is a really key issue. So talk about how you're trying to solve that issue to convince young people that in the military, in addition to having patriotic benefits, is something that with tuition assistance and the leadership training you get, as well as the technical training, you're not falling behind anybody. In fact, you're getting the ability to trampoline to higher and higher levels of success. Talk about how you make that pitch to young people. Thank you for the question. I believe that individuals join the Navy for one of three reasons. To get away from something to get to something or to change something about themselves. All with the idea of becoming a better version of themselves. To a young woman or man who would say I'm delaying, I would say absolutely not. If you're coming out of high school, as you mentioned, we will train you in a skill set and give you that experience there. If you are already in service or in industry and not ready to commit full time you can join us as part of the reserves. You mentioned tuition assistance and a robust GI bill that will enable you to further your education as well. So all of these you build leadership skills, you build teamwork skills, enable you to either develop or continue with the career path in a lifestyle. So I would tell them that the Navy offers every opportunity to be successful however they define it. Sir, thanks. The fall behind the leaving the family deploying. I've seen that sir. I also thought about the same things about the you know as 18 year old in Wisconsin. But what I've learned and what I share is first of all share my Army story that this is certainly a life accelerator and we're acting on this with our future just current generation and I use that example as the future soldier prep course. Those that would not otherwise qualify. We've said no, they're fully qualified. Let's bring them in and invest in them. And the success of that as I've and I offer everyone to take the opportunity to visit is transformational because those young men and women that are now we are investing in they see the acceleration in their careers and their lives and now are going on to basic combat training and serving in leadership positions that confidence continues to go. Shipbuilders, sub builders, etc. The Navy has stood up a training facility in Danville, Virginia to train the submarine base of the future that's really interesting and my staff and I have been visiting and watching an action and one of the speakers at a recent graduation was there training to be a shipbuilder and had been referred there by a recruiter. Some of the people who may not meet all of your qualifications and please keep your standards high. They still want to serve the country. Just because they may not meet the qualification to come into one of the service branches, there are other ways they can serve the defense mission of this country and in this instance this individual had been told hey, here's a program where you can train to be a shipbuilder you can train to build subs and the person was doing it with a real patriotic sense of duty and service to the country even though they weren't going to be wearing the US uniform. So I hope we might combine the recruiting challenges both for our active duty and reservists and our industrial base and maybe share best practices and even refer back and forth because all aspects of this spectrum of defense right now need some help in the workforce side in the tight labor market and I think we can help each other out with that. I'll yield back. Thank you. Senator Bud. Thank you Madam Chair and thanks for hosting this to my colleague from Virginia and for Virginia. Virginia is awfully close to North Carolina so perhaps we could meet and learn what you're learning up there. Absolutely. So the services, most of the services are facing the most difficult recruiting environment since the inception of an all volunteer force as we heard in the opening statements Air Force Navy Army all failed to reach the recruiting goals this year. General Bowers, congratulations. Appreciate your work. To address the recruiting crisis I believe we must focus on increasing the number of Americans eligible to serve and to seek ways to increase the propensity to serve. So I'd like to ask each of you if you would to talk about, and it's a four part question if you will, talk about one, the ways that the service is working to expand the pool of eligible applicants. Secondly, without lowering standards and I think in some opening statements you all mentioned about not lowering standards. Three, increasing propensity to serve and four, what can't the services do that you all need help from us on? And if we begin with Air Force and work our way across just brief answers if you would. I've got a couple other questions. Okay sir, thank you. From a ways to expand the pool, again we've used our rebuilt strategic plan to really get after this service. Some of this is in marketing, being able to get into places and spaces we have not explored before, some of the partnerships that I discussed, all with identifying the aim to identify talent. Additionally, we've developed an e-recruiter program that actually has the ability to take what we call national leads and continue to work them through the process. And so that gets us into spaces that we may have not been able to work before and gives us capacity in the line recruiter force to maybe work some of the more direct or lengthy accession pieces on that. So our e-recruiter works a lot where the medical process or other is what we call a simple screen and that is an opportunity that then gives bandwidth for our recruiters to be out and about and in spaces that are not. Additionally we do have a detachment within the headquarters it's called detachment one and its aim is to bolster aviation opportunities in underrepresented areas for those that have never had the opportunity maybe to fly or even see an airplane or what it does as well as marry that up with our wings. We have several wings that fall under that, our inspire wings to do that in that capacity. So those are a few of the ways across the spectrum of what we aim to do that expand to be able to have opportunities for folks of quality to come into our force. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator. Well done on hitting your goals. Thank you, Senator. In the Marine Corps we like to replace propensed with inspired. So to say only 9% of the youth are propensed means there's 91% waiting to be inspired and by our best Marines with our best commanders projecting our ethos and core values the chance to be part of something larger than themselves to truly make history. We find that it is working attracting and inspiring the right young men and women of character to become Marines. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Expanding the pool, we have established in mirroring what the Army did with their future soldier prep course the Navy has instituted a future sailor prep course both physical and academic to allow as many people who are eligible and capable and meet our standards to join the Navy. We are adamant about not lowering our standards. We want people to meet them. In terms of increasing the population our marketing and advertising campaign we are able to communicate to our target demographic to share the full experience of what it means to be a sailor so that we can dispel any of the myths about service that concern them and for help needed a national call to service and when I say that I mean a conversation from public leaders about the benefits of service and how those how sailors can use their service to further their lives so those are the things that would help. Thank you. General Davis I want to ask you in addition to that in the limited time that I have in your written testimony you highlight the Army's recruiting enterprise transformation plan so what benefits does the Army anticipate achieving from these new reforms and when does the Army expect these to be finalized? Thank you Senator for that question. Some of these will occur right away Senator so example how we prospect may the techniques that we train our recruiters on how to do this may change quickly because I believe some of the techniques by which we are using or our recruiters are connecting with the current generation is really unchanged from when they contacted me in high school so that's one area that some of the things that we may change very quickly in terms of the workforce that is another area that may take a little bit longer because now we got to look at each how we train how we select and what is the particular knowledge skills and behaviors we want from future recruiters that's different from what it is right now so all of these are looked at right now from our operational planning teams and they are briefing the brief are going directly to the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff for the Army for approval but these are actively ongoing in addition to hey what can we do right now to hey do we need to expand future soldier prep course what additional structure do we need to act on a particular initiative? General as this rolls out will you commit to keeping us informed about developments on this? Yes, Senator Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Senator but Senator Hirona. Thank you very much Madam Chair. Thank you all for coming to testify I know that you all are facing major challenges because private sector is very busy trying to entice people to join up with them and so you're facing a lot of those kinds of challenges and I have to assume that you are wanting to attract people from all backgrounds racial backgrounds etc etc and I'm wondering whether as we have an awareness of some realities such as the barracks that are uninhabitable and there are these quality of life issues I am wondering in your recruitment efforts do your potential recruits ask about things like where do I get to live what's the quality of life conditions do you get those kinds of questions and are those barriers to people signing up with you all any of you? No? It's not a problem? So the questions we get from many of our applicants two things do I have an opportunity to select duty station of choice that's a big one and so that's really connected with the current population in terms of quality of life we tell we train our recruits share your story because quality of life is a huge decision factor in terms of service to the country and barracks it has not come up but from parents that I speak with ma'am it does come up I want to make sure quality of life is in place and I will I will tell you all this is a priority for the secretary of staff of the army they just spoke about that earlier today I mean really once let's say that you're successful in recruiting and then they show up at their barracks and it is a really bad condition mold et cetera so we do need to improve those elements of service and that's why there is a program pilot program to give military secretaries greater authority to replace substandard barracks and standardized barrack requirements so that's something that I've certainly pushed for now you mentioned you agree that diversity is important you need to attract all kinds of people and I know that for example and this is for general Bowers there was a report that there are only 5 african-american marine fighter pilots which is not even 1% of the marine fighter force general Bowers the results of an independent study regarding the lack of diversity in pilots concluded the Marine Corps cannot overcome generations of discrimination and mistrust merely by removing barriers to participation and top tier jobs such as fighter pilots instead it must establish new pathways to reach and recruit african-americans and and trust the role of quote chief diversity officer and quote to the commandant himself general Bowers what's the Marine Corps doing to address these concerns yes senator thank you for the question as noted the Marine Corps is aggressively competing for the best talent in every gender and demographic group in the country for our officer recruiting mission for fiscal year 2023 just concluded we had the highest diversity percentage we've ever had so it is working our message is resonating with young men and women of character out there we will continue to aggressively compete in every for every market I think the issue becomes also one of retention in how we retain our best marines which is a priority of our commandant that's another issue so can we look forward to having more than five african-american fighter pilots at some point yes ma'am how long do you think that would take ma'am I'm not the deputy commandant for marine aviation I know that we are assessing african-american officers they're doing well I can take that one for the record we want them to succeed I'm not talking about fast-racking but some of these things have to be done in an intentional way and I would like it to be noted that we pay attention to the kind of opportunities that are created for our people there's just one more thing ma'am oh well is it okay I just want to say if you don't mind there was a time where single parents could not join without requiring them to resign custody of their children and I believe that that is something that is being changed is that limitation being changed in terms of your recruiting yes ma'am one of the initiatives that we put in place in FY23 is a single parent waiver that allows a single parent to have up to two dependents under the age of 18 but no younger than one and join our navy and continue to serve so do the rest of you allow single parents to join we have a process whereby they can join ma'am yes ma'am same ma'am we do as well ma'am yeah I think you also should think about prior preservation as a way to especially women but men too in terms of family planning and they would enable I think more of them to contemplate joining because of that option thank you thank you Mr. Chairman and gentlemen thank you for your testimony on a really important topic I wanted to ask all four of you very quickly first question is in terms of access I read somewhere that over 5,000 high schools don't allow recruiters on their campus maybe that's wrong maybe that's right but what's your experience in that regard are there any high schools in America who are saying to you all hey sorry we don't want you here my view is we shouldn't allow that right that high school that want the navy to come recruit and whatever federal funds that high school is begging for they don't get a dime similarly with universities I went to a university that banned ROTC for over half century pathetic in my view they're talking about leadership and then they kick off ROTC when I went to Harvard they had a club called the Spartacus Youth Club on campus it was the club dedicated to young communists but they didn't allow army force navy ROTC on campus shows Harvard's values but again under federal law universities are not allowed to ban ROTC on campus or they lose federal dollars so my first question to all of you is is there anywhere you have seen problems with access either universities or high schools where they just tell you hey sorry you're not welcome here and maybe we can take it for the record I'd like a list I'd like a list defending the nation is everybody's job and if we have high schools or universities who are saying sorry army you're not good enough for us the congress united states senate should know so just very quickly are there have you run into that are you hearing about that somewhere I read about 5000 high schools which to me seem like a lot that seems like a lot that's not what we're seeing in the army it's not so much that access is a problem what I would offer is I think meaningful access wherever a young recruiter shows up to a particular school they'll say absolutely you're welcome but we'd like you to set up your recruiting table as say in the cafeteria 1600 on Friday so meaningful access we can get your help in terms of having our young recruiters share their their story across all of the US any other thoughts on that and then again I would like if you don't mind all of you to take that for the record maybe a little bit more of a deep dive because it's really important and if there's a couple high schools or universities who are banning you guys I'd like to know likewise meaningful access and what we notice is inconsistency in that access in school will allow you to come in on a weekly basis but another maybe only on a monthly basis so that's the access challenge but broadly speaking we're not seeing any denial of access okay general senator thank you for the question what we did see in school years 21 and 22 where recruiters basically lost the ability to run a year long high school program due to the shutdowns due to COVID so what we have done in the Marine Corps is an aggressive training program for recruiters to run an effective high school program with periodic access we're seeing this is working is really getting that muscle memory back where recruiters are frequently visiting other high schools okay thank you sir general senator thank you for that I would agree with my colleagues across the board here COVID did put a natural hindrance I think in access to schools writ large we're not seeing systemic any schools but I will take the point for the record to get precision but to their point it is it's conditional access rather than full-federed in certain aspects and so I think that aspect is what is very critical is to be able to do that like general Bowers we have also coming out of COVID part of our training program was to reinforce the operations to get into the schools so we could reconnect with them but I think that so you have that piece of it but very much so I'm not seeing systemic denials just qualified access great let me chairman I'll wrap with just two questions general Davis you talked about this issue which I think is a really big one how the number of people who are serving has diminished so you don't have the connection that you would normally are you working at all with veteran service organizations or groups like that that's one question and then just trying to get these under the timeline so the chairman doesn't gavel me out here general Bowers now I'm a little biased here but I do know a lot about a little bit more than some about Marine Corps recruiting and I know that in the Marine Corps and your bios a good testament to this there has been a tradition for decades to put the top Marines in recruiting it's tough duty because you got to make your mission every month but it also kind of helps you in terms of promotion right so at the end it's not unusual at all to see several general offers and even common answer the Marine Corps who were who had done recruiting before and so that's an ethos that I think has been healthy where it brings the top military officers and enlisted Marines to do recruiting so you think that's a model that's helping with regard to the numbers that the Marines are meeting and I'd be interested in the other services look at that model but general can we start with you yes sir so absolutely I'm actively engaged with the VSOs I have traveled extensively to speak at their conferences either VFW you name it foreign legion just recently I've sent a letter to every retiree in the United States Army through the echoes to ask all of them for a to really call to service to help us out there get the word out as influencers great so that's a good partnership yes sir excellent general Bowers Senator thank you for the question it absolutely is a factor in the Marine Corps it absolutely helps our culture the ethos of Marine Corps recruiting having our best Marines our best commanders out there on recruiting duty to attract and inspire the youth of America right any other general Admiral you want to comment on either of those two questions absolutely we are engaged with our veteran population and it's part of a broader effort for our war on talent and call to service by the entire fleet what we know from our historical data is this is that if a recruiter walks out of his or her front door it typically takes 10 individuals for that recruiter to garner one contract if they walk out of that door with a referral from anyone at ratio drops to 7 to 1 but if they walk out the door with a referral from anyone in the Navy active enlisted or active duty reserve retired or civilian that ratio drops to 5 to 1 so capitalizing on folks who have experience helps the recruiting effort right general you have any last comments yes sir thank you for that as well we have bolstered our partnership with veterans organizations and other civic leadership organizations that are out there most specifically and most recently Air and Space Forces Association the AFA has stood up its own recruiting task force as well and so we partnered with them many of them have served before and so part of this is that if we are able to expand our story and if somebody is there to be able to tell the story the Air Force or Space Force story then that is a multiplier a force multiplier falls into our total force recruiting network we're looking to expand that with civil air patrol on the near horizon and develop the TTPs tactics techniques and procedures for them we don't need them necessarily to be specific recruiters but we need them to be able to be there be present be in the spaces and inform them that we are able to do that. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Madam Chair. Thank you. Senator Blumenthal. Thanks very much. Thanks for being here. The reason I came to this hearing was to ask the two questions that Senator Sullivan has just asked you. So it just shows Marines think alike. But what I would like to do is I'm going to go back to the general institution because I have just discovered when I went to recruiters around Connecticut that in fact the access is very diverse and when you talk about meaningful access a couple of recruiters have told me well you know they have career days at high schools we're not permitted to come to the career days. They say to us okay you can come to the career days 30 and 930. Just as students are rushing have you ever been in high school at these moments when the halls are filled with students rushing to their classes and you can have this corner over here. So we're not denying access. We're going to give you this opportunity to be here and their booths and everybody's going from one booth to another. So I would like to explore in greater detail with Senator Sullivan maybe we'll write you something or do something a little bit more formal but I think this is really an important topic because it shows going to use this nice word euphemism awareness I just think there are a lot of parents who do not understand how good this would be for their kids as a career. You know the skills they're going to learn the discipline all the stuff that you know very well it's your selling point to go to something to get away from something or to do a better version of yourself much better version of themselves coming out of the military and I'd also like to explore as best we can this second question of is the military devoting its ableist to recruiting doesn't have to be to the exclusion of everyone else but you're presiding over a force it should be a force of people I want to make sure that we do as private industry does and they focus on recruiting with their best people putting their best foot forward as role models for those people who are out there trying to enlist people we have an all volunteer so all volunteer military so I want to drill down on that not necessarily here because it's probably a question that you want to answer or maybe we can explore it off the records rather than in the formality of an on the record proceeding where everything is taken down let me come back to this question of medical waivers and I want to second what senator what you have heard from senator warren so powerfully the simple fact is that young people today just aren't as healthy as they were a decade ago two decades ago we see that in your numbers I believe that's correct you can say I'm wrong in a couple of minutes when I give you the chance to say something when I enlisted when I went to paris island even then I don't know what the proportion was I lost count but a major number of recruits couldn't make it through 11 weeks at paris island I don't know how many weeks it is now and that's not a bad thing you know the fact that there are demands my son was a navy seal he went through buds he was I think part of 10% that actually made it not a bad thing that people want to be a navy seal and maybe they can't make it so I'm wondering whether we should and can modify the medical requirements in a way that gives you the chance to shape young people who are probably overweight maybe not as sharp as they should be and again since I'm out of time unfortunately I'll have to beg the indulgence of the chairwoman for you to answer but is that something that you think should be pursued Adam Walker so CNO recently signed out a personal four message on the war for talent and capitalizing on every sailor recruiter because we do believe that every sailor and that includes our civilians as well as a recruiter and in that initiative we've tasked all 5,000 commands in the navy to identify and nurture a applicant through the process to bring them into the navy so we are capitalizing on the full strength and full force of the navy to help us bring in talented individuals into service with regard to expanding the pool or improving performance our future sailor prep courses we have a physical fitness one and an academic one we stood up physical fitness in April of 2023 our academic is in pilot right now in full disclosure we looked at the army as a learning organization and said they're doing something really good there and we should do that too on the physical fitness side since that program has been in run we've taken individuals who are outside of navy physical fitness standards and through a three week course a rollable up to 90 days have brought 95% of them within standards so that they could class up and participate in our basic military training our academic side is still in pilot right now but we're seeing early successes we are teaching individuals more problem solving skills and giving them the tools to improve performance so that they can move from one category of the as that to our higher category expanding the range of jobs available to them but both of these initiatives are helping us to expand the pool and be more accessible to young women and men who want to serve thank you in in deference to my colleagues I'm going to ask that you respond in writing because two of my colleagues are here but I really appreciate your very thoughtful and insightful testimony today very very important thank you thank you and thank you senator Blumenthal senator king thank you madam chair and thank you for welcoming me to the committee even though I'm an interloper a couple of questions for the record thank you I would appreciate it if you all could give me some research on the relationship between unemployment rate and recruiting my sense is that one of the reasons we're having problems with probably I can't remember a lower unemployment rate in other words young people have so many job options today and it would be interesting to see whether what we're seeing is some kind of structural problem or whether it's a major part of reflection of the state of the economy so perhaps someone at the Pentagon could look into that research second I'd be interested in some data on geographic diversity in other words where all volunteer army and navy and marines are and Coast Guard are turning in an Air Force are turning into a geographically limited body in other words more recruiting from the south and southwest or more people coming in rather than from the north and the northeast so I'd be interested in that data one of the problems I'm from Maine one of the problems is we've lost active duty military bases in the northeast almost entirely so our young people don't ever see anybody in uniform we had a naval air station in Brunswick for 60 years and kids grew up in Brunswick seeing seeing the Navy on the street and they were their coaches and their friends and their school teachers and that's something we have to sort of actively overcome it's a lack of exposure to the military among young people so those are some general observations Senator Mike Rounds and I have a bill that I think is common sense that if you're a dreamer if you're a DACA recipient and you join the military and you serve for five years you then have a pathway to citizenship I hope you agree with me that that would be a potent incentive for quality recruits Admiral do you think that would work for you? Thank you we are open to any tool that will expand the pool of eligible and serve That's a bill that we have that's active now and I'm hoping it's something that we can get a general agreement on it's just again it's common sense if you've served your country for five years then maybe a path to citizenship makes some sense marijuana 47% of America is now in a state where marijuana is legal and the question is to what extent are you here to recruitment is it a question have you ever used marijuana is that a box that if it's checked they're out and if so I think that's something you're going to have to revisit simply because a lot of these young people are growing up in states where it's perfectly legal you or I may not agree with that but that's the reality General what are your thoughts? Thank you for the question Senator there's a process for those who have used marijuana before to assess into the Marine Corps but the Marine Corps is a drug free organization I get that I'm not suggesting that at all I'm just suggesting not being a disqualification if it's in your past yes sir there's a process where young men and women who've used marijuana before can become Marines all of you have that policy thank you this is marketing advice as I mentioned with Senator Cain there are few jobs in our society where a young person can have as much responsibility and access to training as in the military you should sell that I seriously think I'd like to see an ad in the Super Bowl that says you want to get a head start join the Navy it's an opportunity that young people have that I don't think is marketed as much I see the ads and a few good men and they're good but one of your selling points is that you're giving people an opportunity at training that they'd have to pay thousands of dollars for if they were going to a community college or an access to leadership that they would never get at the age of 22 or 23 or 24 so that's free advice for what it's worth one objection I've heard on the recruiting process is paperwork it's too slow one of my constituents was trying to sign up and they asked him for his fax number come on he kept getting forms that he had to fill out and it was often the same information what's your social security number so I think you ought to look at pretend you're an applicant and see what you're given for paperwork and whether it's efficient whether it's needed or whether it's a barrier I would urge you to take a look at that the final question or comment is retention one way to alleviate the recruiting problem is to have people stay longer is that a focus of your services general sir retention is a focus for I think all the services and for the air and space force as well I can say is right now in our air force our retention rates are unbelievably high I can get you a follow up with a specificity on the actual numbers but to your point those retention rates to retain have actually have trickle on effects with the ability within the garden reserve because normally people would choose to complete their active duty service and choose to go do anything else I do agree that retention is directly connected to a recruiting requirement I can take any specifics back to the air force half a one that manages our retention as far as if you would like specifics on retention initiatives but those two are interconnected sir I would assume in your jobs you would want to be pushing on other folks about retention because it takes the pressure off recruiting general yes senator thank you for the question retention is absolutely important to the marine core our former commandant made it a top priority and we exceeded our retention goals our current commandant made it a priority and we are already well ahead of our retention goals thank you likewise navy enjoyed really healthy retention goals in FY23 and not only for the active duty but we use retention in terms of active duty transitioning to the reserves because the reserves are as important a mission as is our active component force great general yes sir hi I mean historically high retention rates lately in addition we've turned to these soldiers who have determined his bit you know I'm having quality life I'm doing a lot of great things I want to stay on active duty we've asked them for their referral so that's what triggered us to start a soldier referral program over 35,000 referrals we got about 1500 in the army just based off of the soldier referrals I'd love to see an ad at the Super Bowl this year that says get ahead start and I won't ask for a commission even isn't there a football game coming up this Saturday some wrong team we got both of them here and it's a fellow New Englander I appreciate your point Senator King and want to reiterate it about the importance we see no military if we don't have military bases in New England we will not have recruits from New England and if we don't have recruiters in New England we will not have recruits from New England if we want to have military that serves all of America we've got to be out there with our military and with our recruiters every place not just in the south or places where it's been rich pickens in the past alright good Senator Duckworth thank you thank you chairman I have to say you know adding to this recruiting I mean only 15% of today's youth have a parent who served compared to 1995 when it was over 40% of our youth had a parent who served it really is important for our young people to see people who served I'm going to switch a little bit back to you talk about the soldier referral program at a readiness subcommittee hearing this spring I heard from general Alvin and general George at the time the respective vice chiefs for the Air Force and the Army and I asked about issues with aviation bonus pay in both instances the services failed to process attention pay paperwork correctly negatively impacting its members and in fact in the reserve components we have reports going of the services not processing bonus pay going back to 2018 literally years behind in paying to all of our witnesses do bonuses remain a key recruiting tool and is your service properly trained and equipped to process these bonuses and deliver them in a timely manner to service members yes ma'am bonuses remain an integral part to the recruiting effort particularly in placement in our high demand ratings think of nuclear cyber warfare information warfare in our services posture to to administer the bonus program are you administering them in a timely manner are people getting their bonuses in time yes ma'am they are bonuses really are not an important part of our recruiting process we do have bonuses they are processed in a timely manner but they are not why young men and women choose to become Marines ma'am our accession bonus program is effective it is timely it is similar to the Navy it has a weighted rating for some of the most challenged areas such as special warfare and certain maintenance areas we find I have not gotten any feedback that the accession bonus program has not been timely in its payout nor the enhanced college loan repayment program that was put in place to assume college loan up to $65,000 for anybody wishing to come into the service the Air Force I would take a look at the air guard and the Air Force and the reserve forces as well General Davis yes senator the bonuses remain an effective tool and what we have been able to do is align the bonuses with the focus military occupational skills and right now infantry, armor field artillery, air defense artillery so that is where we are aligning the folks really precision with the bonus but no problems in terms of a payout nor the loan repayment I would ask the Army and the Air Force specifically to rethink your answers and look deeper because I think there are problems but please go further in that obviously we have talked already about how the Marine Corps and the space force have met the recruiting goals the other branches have and I would like to hear from each of you what are the recruiting challenges that are unique to your service in particular and what efforts are you trying to nest your recruiting needs within your unique force designs and is there anything that we here in Congress can do to help you for the Army the key really getting all of the I think again goes back to the awareness ma'am that not everyone understands the you know the 150 plus MOS's I think as we get around I think our youth only understand maybe 15 or 20 but you name it from cyber UAS pilots all of the key areas that are the really moving hot career fields right now are situated in the Army and that's really what's unique for us it's just so many MOS's and trying to get that word out and then training our recruiters to be able to share that that is really unique to us thank you what we found in our analysis is that there is awareness broadly that we have a Navy but what fat Navy does specifically in peace time is often not well understood as an example one of our service you know asked which service is the most important and the response was the Air Force and principally wrapped around the reason aircraft carriers that when folks believe that everything military aviation belongs to the Air Force once we re-associated carriers with the Navy the Navy became the most important force so educating our public about what the Navy does both and in peace time would be helpful and this is also how you can help is in the narrative about service writ large ma'am thank you general Bowers thank you for the question ma'am our challenges in Marine Corps recruiting are the same as they've always been not everybody is fit to be a Marine we are not for everybody we are looking for the select few again young men and women of character who you know are attracted to the ethos and the core values of being part of something bigger than themselves and thank you for the question similar to general Davis and I would say that it is about familiarity with all of the jobs and we heard the story on from Emma Walker on aircraft and aircraft carriers and I think it is recognizable from a brand standpoint that the Air Force has airplanes but we also have medical professionals civil engineers doctors you know maintainers to be able to generate that air power and making sure that everyone understands the over 200 different Air Force specialty codes jobs if you will that can come in is a key component and I think a very big challenge when we are maximizing our out and about and our outreach to the communities is telling that full story getting every Airman and Guardian to tell them what they do for their Air and Space Force thank you thank you Chairman thank you Senator Duckworth so young people who are considering joining the military place a lot of weight on how those who are currently serving are treated and it makes sense joining the military is a big honor but it is also a life altering commitment that requires a lot of sacrifice Major General Davis the Army has the greatest recruiting challenges of all the services so let me direct this question to you do you think that quality of life is an important factor for potential recruits and whether or not they decide to enlist yes Senator quality life is important I mean I have a children in uniform I've I've whenever I visit I I take a look at the barracks situation just like any parent would so I think it's so very important it impacts retention and continued service so yes I 100% agree very important 100% you know your predecessor said quality of life is quote fundamental to both recruiting and retention now it should be obvious what a way to start a question but the way that DoD drags their feet on some of the issues around quality of life really makes me wonder if they get it I have found this particularly frustrating when it comes to privatized military housing for years now at Congress's insistence the Department of Defense has promised to repair substandard housing one of the reforms we passed into law was that the DoD would be required to create a public complaint database which would allow tenants to be able to submit their concerns about their housing it would also give us a way to ensure accountability for housing contractors and give military families information about the quality of their housing three years three years after this law went into effect DoD is only now in the initial stages of making this happen Major General Davis do you think that being responsive to these families concerns makes these families and their service member more or less likely to recommend military service to others in their community? Yes ma'am, if we have the families back they're more likely to recommend. What really bothers me here is we still don't even understand the full scope of the problem of substandard military housing because information is hidden from the public. For example, it was only through a FOIA request by a journalist that we learned that the army was failing to properly inspect homes with lead based paint and asbestos containing materials just to make sure that they were safe to live in 41% of the military homes had no survey identifying asbestos risk areas so Major General Davis do you think it is reasonable for military families to expect the army to do basic due diligence to make sure that service members and their families aren't breathing in fibers that could give them cancer? Yes, ma'am. I know the questions seem so obvious but I don't know what else to do to get the DOD to respond here. What frustrates me here is that we have these private contractors who run much of the military housing and these companies refuse to provide these inspections because they claim it costs too much. Even some of our military leaders have dismissed concerns about housing or actually blame the soldiers and their families. In fact, the army commander at Fort Bliss said and I quote, I don't have a mold problem, I've got a discipline problem and that the soldiers needed to be better at quote adulting. Major General Davis do you think that remarks like this tell soldiers or potential recruits that the army has their back? Senator, I won't speak for those remarks but I will say the secretary, the chief and all of us have these families back. When we fail to fix obvious problems, we lose people's trust. Because DOD has been too little, too late in fixing housing problems I've turned up the heat again. I secured a provision in this year's National Defense Authorization Act to create a military housing readiness council to hold DOD and the services accountable. I will not let this drop. DOD's negligence is shameful. Military families deserve decent housing and that means housing without mold, housing without rats, housing without sewer backups, decent basic housing. I am sick of DOD fighting us tooth and nail on addressing military families legitimate concerns and then being shocked, shocked that they have recruiting problems. It is long past time for DOD to implement the public complaint system and make those data available to families. If they want to claim to put people first, then DOD and our military leadership need to walk the walk. Thank you. Senator Scott. So they made it easier when I was in. They just didn't give us any. So we didn't have any privatized housing. So I wasn't around when that happened and I didn't have a lot of money for that. I don't know if we set up and there was any accountability. Can you talk about the army recruiting enterprise transformation initiative and how it is working and why he did it? Thanks. The transformation based on the announcement about little over five weeks ago is clearly underway. from force management to personnel policy, to contracting, structure, all came together. And they're looking at each of the particular areas based off of the secretary's announcement. You know, how we prospect, what, you know, how we are changing the workforce. These are all huge fundamental changes that are huge for this command. The biggest change this command has underwent over the last really 20 plus years. Each one has a major set of recommendations for the secretary. And they just finished, Senator, they just finished up over the last week and that first brief to senior leaders will really occur next week for the secretary and the chief to consider. Good luck. I went over the memo of the Army recently released about COVID discharge upgrades. Can you tell us what the Army gave to the boards that's going to adjudicate these claims? And if a soldier refused the vaccine but did not ask for a religious or medical exception with the, is the Army going to upgrade their discharge? Senator, I will have to take that for the record. I don't know all the different details, but what I will say is there is a process for those that want to return to the service. Matter of fact, I think as of last, a few days ago, I think the number is about 57. That's not all back on active duty. That's some who are on active duty and some who are awaiting their ship dates to return to active force. So that process is working, but in terms of where they're discharged, the status of that, I just got to come back and give you more time. How are each of you dealing with people that were discharged, but they didn't ask for an exception? Thank you. We have contacted everyone who provided valid contact information. Once the COVID vaccine was rescinded, requirement was rescinded, and let them know that they could petition for reinstatement through Navy recruiting command. Since then, we have had two personnel return to active duty. Thank you, Senator. We contacted all of those who were discharged for using the COVID vaccine. We've contacted them about coming back. We've had 14 come back and there's another one pending. So similarly, our Air Force Personnel Center reached out to notify them on the opportunities to return and the process to do so. Where are y'all on having people that were discharged for not taking the vaccine have to pay for their training? Did you guys, any of you do that? Nobody did that. Okay, that's all I had. Okay, I've got one more issue I want to talk about. A Department of Defense survey finds that one reason that people don't join the military is because they fear being injured or dying. And it's understandable, it's part of the job. But while we all accept that there are risks that come with fighting the enemy on the battlefield, I am concerned that too many service members are receiving lasting injuries or losing their lives due to accidents. In fact, accidents have been one of the leading causes of death for active duty service members. Last week, an Osprey based in Japan crashed during an Air Force Special Operations training accident taking the life of Jake Gallagher, a young father from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He leaves behind his wife Ivy and two little boys. His older son is two years old and his younger child is just six weeks old. The Air Force does not believe that anyone on that flight will return home to their families. Children are all amri, does it hurt or help recruiting to show that the Air Force is taking safety concerns very seriously? Well, Senator, thank you for the question. If I could please start by saying our hearts go out to the eight members that were lost due to that tragic incident. And that they are in our thoughts and prayers at this time for family and friends. Regarding safety, safety is at the forefront of Air Force operations, not only from the flying aspect, from almost everything we do, everything we do, ground safety, there is an element of safety baked into it. I think we take that extremely seriously as well as when you marry that up with the robust training programs that we have. That's what allows us to do our jobs to the maximum effectiveness and to maintain the ability to say where the world's greatest Air and Space Force. From a recruiting standpoint, ma'am, I think that is the point to reemphasize is that we have a safety culture, a safety mindset, and that have confidence that when you come into our Air and Space Force, you will be trained. You will be trained very, very well to be able to execute missions, ma'am. That's how I'd answer that portion from a recruiting standpoint. And I appreciate that. In the wake of this tragedy, Jake's family has asked the Air Force to ground these three aircraft to prevent further loss of life. They are right to raise the question, the crash that killed Jake is only the latest in over a dozen accidents in the past three decades, including a crash in August that killed three Marines. As Jake's father has asked, quote, how many more of our service members need to die on those damn planes? In general, I know the Air Force shares this family's pain and I appreciate your statement on that. But this family also wants to see action. The Air Force grounded the V-22 for safety issues last year. I think it's time to seriously consider doing so again with the Osprey until we can be confident that we won't lose any more lives in what appears to be a preventable tragedy. Senator Scott, do you have any more questions? All right, I wanna thank all of our witnesses for your testimony today. I also wanna thank you for the work you do every day and all the people who are working with you to recruit the best and the brightest. I wanna thank John Clark, Gary Leeling, Andy Scott, Sophia Kamali, Noah Sisk, Jenny Davis, Sean O'Keefe, Katie Magnus and Brendan Gavin for their work in putting together today's hearing, takes a lot of people to make this work well. Our people remain our greatest strength as a nation. If we have programs in place to support service members and their families, we can prove to the next generation that we value their service and their sacrifice. If we get this right, it won't just be the recruiters convincing people to join the military, it will be everyone in the force. So I look forward to working with my colleagues on this committee with my ranking member, Scott, and to turning this crisis around. Thank you, this hearing is adjourned.