 Welcome, and thank you all for coming. Today we're here with the chief of the National Guard Bureau, General Dan Hockinson, and senior enlisted advisor to General Hockinson, SEA Tony Whitehead, to discuss the National Guard's accomplishments in 2023 and its priorities for 2024. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Caitlin Brown, National Guard Bureau of Public Affairs, and I'll be moderating today's media roundtable. We only have until 1.45 today, so we'd ask that you please keep your questions focused on the topic of guard priorities. General Hockinson and SEA Whitehead have some brief opening statements after which we'll open up for questions. To ensure we allow time for everyone to participate, we'll limit everyone to one question and one follow-up. If there's time remaining at the end, we can open it up for additional questions. I have a list of the media joining us remotely and we'll call on you by name. I know some of you, but not everyone. So if you're in the room with us and I call on you, please state your name and outlet before asking your question. With that, I'll turn it over to General Hockinson for his opening remarks. Thank you, Caitlin, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on your National Guard. First of all, I'd like to recognize the five Marines that died in helicopter crash yesterday and the three soldiers who were killed at Tower 22 last week. On behalf of the National Guard, I would like to express our deepest sympathies and condolences to their families. Service to our nation in uniform is selfless and often dangerous. 41 National Guardsmen were also injured in the drone attack on Tower 22, one of whom my wife and I had the honor to visiting in the hospital earlier this week. Fortunately, 30 of the National Guardsmen who were injured have been cleared and returned to duty. It is a reminder the National Guard serves alongside our active duty and reserve teammates on the front lines as an operational force in a turbulent and ever-changing global security environment. And although this may not be news to many of you, when I had the honor of assuming this job in August of 2020, I discovered there was a lot of misunderstanding about what the National Guard is, what we do, and who serves in our formations. So thank you for giving me and our senior enlisted advisor, Tony White, had the opportunity to speak with you today to update you on one of our nation's most indispensable organizations, the National Guard. Rather than giving you a trove of numbers and data on what the National Guard does every day and has over the past year, I'd like to share a few snapshots of how the National Guard is having an impact locally, nationally, and internationally. To be clear, the National Guard exists to fight and win our nation's wars. That is a primary mission for our 430,000 soldiers and airmen across all 50 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia. Our unique constitutional structure and authorities also allow us to support our communities in times of crisis. And our community-based organizations allow us to build enduring partnerships at every level, from local first responders to the 100 nations who are part of our National Guard state partnership program. We're the second largest organization in the Department of Defense, behind only the active duty army, and we comprise 20% of the United States military. We do everything from deploying combat formations around the globe to missile defense of the homeland, protecting cyberspace, and conducting space operations. And at the same time, we respond to disasters in our communities. Today, nearly 45,000 Army and Air Guards when our mobilized performing missions in support of our combatant commanders, and more than 27,000 of them are serving overseas. Simply put, America cannot execute its national defense strategy without the National Guard. With an aggressive China asserting influence in the Indo-Pacific and around the globe, a belligerent Russia invading a peaceful neighbor, North Korea developing long-range offensive weapons, and numerous violent non-state actors at work in the Middle East and beyond, the mission of the National Guard, and the capabilities we bring to the fight have never been more important. Locally, as you see in the headlines out of California this week, the National Guard is making a difference in helping save lives in our communities every single day. For the National Guard, this is business as usual. Our communities expect it, and so do we. As I stated earlier, the National Guard's primary purpose is fighting our nation's wars, and we continue to make a vital difference at the national level across all war fighting domains. For example, most Americans aren't aware the National Guard has a significant role in cyber and space operations. And in September, a National Guard cyber team won the Net Wars Department of Defense Services Cup for the third year in a row. This year's team included National Guard soldiers and airmen from Ohio, North Carolina, Delaware, Florida, and California. These winners embody the best of our National Guard, experts in their civilian jobs who use those same skills to serve our nation. It's even a surprise to many people that the National Guard has some of the most proficient and lethal advanced fighter pilots and crews. In fact, last September, after a 19-year break, the Air Force held once again its annual William Tell Air-to-Air competition. Competing side-by-side with their active-duty counterparts in an intense competition, the Vermont National Guard won the top F-35 Wing, the F-35 Individual Superior Performer, and the top F-35 Crew Chief. In addition, the Massachusetts Air National Guard won the top F-15 Wing, the F-15 Individual Superior Performer, and the Overall Weapons Load Competition, demonstrating our guardsmen are among the best of the very best. If that isn't impressive enough, our National Guard team also took top honors in the most recent International Sniper Competition against 35 3-person teams from all over the world. Lastly, you'll find the National Guard in increasingly impactful roles internationally. Recently, on a trip to the European Command's area of responsibility, I met with Ukrainian troops training with our National Guardsmen. They were just the latest of over 7,500 soldiers from 19 different Ukrainian battalions receiving training from our guardsmen. A few weeks ago, the Mississippi National Guard replaced the Arkansas National Guard, who had been building up the combat capability of Ukrainian forces for nine months. Building on training, the National Guard and Ukraine have been conducting together for more than 30 years through the state partnership program. These snapshots are just a glimpse at what the National Guard does every day, locally, nationally, and internationally, highlighting the fact we're as active and relevant as ever, and will continue to be in the years ahead. Our leaders wake up each day, ever mindful of the responsibility to ensure our more than 430,000 National Guardsmen are the best trained and most ready combat reserve our nation can muster. By taking care of our people, maintaining readiness, modernizing and embracing reform, we will do just that, and continue to keep our promise to America to be always ready, always there. Thank you for your time, and now I'd like to turn it over to our senior enlisted advisor, Tony Whitehead. Thank you, General Hockinson, and good afternoon. I see Tony Whitehead, the senior enlisted advisor to our 29 Chief of the National Guard. You know, our 430,000 soldiers in Amman are an amazing family. And of those 360 happened to be our enlisted force. As General Hockinson mentioned in his remarks, our guards went on duty all over the world, and oftentimes in harm's way. I want to express my deep sympathies too for our three Army reservists, their families and the battle buddies, with their loss, who actually served our nation bravely. And our 41 National Guard Service members who were injured, they're back home, and will be taken care of, and those that are back on the front line, we know they'll do a phenomenal job. And of course, as the general mentioned, our five Marines that lost their lives on Tuesday. Our hearts go out to them and their families. Deployed service members often face traumatic experiences and daily struggles, which can adversely affect their mental health. These experiences may not show when they come back home immediately, but when they return to their everyday lives, sometimes it's there. Our efforts to address individual contributing factors alone does not suffice in enhancing resilience against it. The National Guard is actively addressing multifaceted issues with regard to suicide. We're committed to eliminating the stigma around seeking mental health. By revising our policies and to encourage those in support, we are there for them. Additionally, through strategic partnerships, we ensure that all Guardsmen have free access to mental health services, regardless of their status or location. Sergeant Felizquez Damien Jorgensen from the Nevada National Guard came with his team to visit my office this past week. And while there he talked about the fact that they appreciated the chaplains coming to the formations because that was extremely important to their morale and welfare. What he talked about most importantly was that the talk wasn't about faith, it was about his well-being. And because of that, he made the decision to switch him OSs and become part of the religious affairs team. This was very important to his formation into the Nevada National Guard as a whole. And it also changed his outlook and retention has helped because of that. But that was one of the few that were part of that team that made a huge difference over many. And one of the things he wanted me to share is this. He said, we do have to report suicides. He said, but if he ever had an opportunity to talk about the lives that we saved, that number would be very large. We've performed over 28 million in-person days for our communities over the past three years. And we've done that when we've been called wherever we were needed. Over this past year, we've provided ground and air forces to all of our America's combined commands, whether it was here or overseas. Speaking overseas in the SPP program that the state partnership program that General Hogan's been mentioned. Chief Ambassador Camille Caldwell from the South Carolina National Guard. When she went over with the U.S. Southern Command, she had a profound impact through that engagement to talk about how women, peace, and security would change how they do the NCO development and how females would have an active role in their military. And because of that, now we've seen the changes that have been made in some of their policies and procedures to have some females play some very important roles in their NCO leadership roles. I was also expressed by pride and as a general talked about some of the very, very impressive folks that we have. And we talk about weapon systems, our precision weapons systems, guess what? Our soldiers are themselves. In 2023, the Utah and the Idaho National Guard to include Montana, won the 2023, make sure I got this right, U.S. Army Forces Command best squad, best squad not just the National Guard but for the Forces Command. In addition to that, thousands of miles that were put on their feet, rock marches, just you name it, and they were there. These are the young soldiers that make up our National Guard and then they go back to their communities and serve weapon systems in action. And then lastly, I'm gonna wipe this. There you go. I didn't put the powder on there, sir. Yeah. We also wanna celebrate Airman Daruva Polaroo and I wanna make sure I said that right because I know he's listening. He's from the New York National Guard. He won the 2023 Outstanding American Legion Service Member of the Year Award and the Air Force's 2023 Outstanding Airman of the Year Award. These are our airmen, our Air National Guard, part-time members, full-time commitments. As leaders, hearing about these personal stories and experiences for our individuals behind the uniform, both on and off duty, they are phenomenal representatives of us as a nation. And that reminds General Hocus in our self that we have the responsibility to provide them with the assistance and the resources they need, both on and off duty. As you may have seen, our service senior enlisted recently talked about quality of life issues. I'm grateful that I had an opportunity to be an advocate for our guardsmen. Just the day before, I had a detailed and meaningful conversation with the chair and the senior member of the Quality of Life panel for the House Armed Services Committee and we talked about those issues that affected our guardsmen and their families. I'm thankful for their dedication to the well-being and the safety of our brave service members and their families. And what they were saying to me was they wanted us to make sure that we had everything that we need to be always ready and always there. And so with that in mind, I want to thank you for affording us the opportunity to tell the guard story. And I look forward to your questions with General Hocus. We'll now open it up for questions. I'd like to start with Tara from the Associated Press. I thank you both for being here. My first question is for you both on Tower 22 and the attack in Jordan. You said that 30 of the 41 had returned to duty. Can you speak a little bit about the nature of the injuries of those that are still getting care? And then overall, have you heard back from, especially the enlisted who are there, how concerned are they about their security at that base given all the increased tensions? And then secondly, next topic on F-16 training. Without another supplemental for Ukraine, how much longer can the guard keep training Ukrainian pilots and is that going to affect the ability to get pilots out onto the battlefield? Great, Tara, thank you so much. With respect to the conditions due to HIPAA, we don't really release the injuries that they've sustained without their approval. So with that respect, I'd kind of have to defer. And if we get that later on, we can certainly provide that. But when you look at our guardsmen, we've got over 8,000 in the SENTCOM area of responsibility. And we work very closely with the combatant commanders to help mitigate any risks out there. Sadly, no system is 100% successful in anything, but our teams have done extremely well defending all of our installations in the region. And so we work very closely to make sure they have the resources they have to mitigate the risk as low as possible. But I will tell you, everyone in the National Guard now has either come in or enlisted or re-enlisted since September 11th. And their expectation is that they will deploy overseas, they will serve our country no matter where that is. And so we've seen no change in that so far, but obviously we watched that very closely. With respect to the F-16 training, we do have the resources to continuing the training that's already started. And we plan that's being conducted down at the Arizona in the Arizona National Guard. And in fact, we've been training over two dozen allies and partners since 1989 there in the F-16. So we'll be able to continue the training and hopefully get all those folks completed later on this year. And then if we decide to increase that, obviously we'll need the resources to train additional pilots and ground support personnel. Okay, next question. Oh, it's okay. If I can escape, I will, but no. So thank you for that. And thank you for asking about our enlisted force in particular. I wanna tell you, you talk about force multipliers on the field, they're the ones. It helps with the commanders and the job that they have to do. And those in particular that had to get back to work when they were able to, it's because they had that resilience. The resilience they get from their leadership, they get from their family and the community. And as the general said, any issues or concerns about the other medical welfare or something that we can't talk about. But I will tell you it's their training. And just like with my niece who was a member of the Georgia National Guard just recently deployed, that was what I told her. I said, listen to your training command, remember your training and use common sense. You may be in harm's way, but if you remember those two things, three things is a very good chance you're gonna come back home. And as the boss said, nothing's 100% guaranteed. But following those three, normally gets our soldiers and airmen back home. We'll go to Hailey from CNN. Thank you, hi. I'm curious if you can speak a little bit about some of the National Guard air defense units in particular, what is sort of that looking like, especially in the SENTCOM area. Is there any talk about sort of beefing up, sending more units out? I know that's, you can only speak so much about that. But anything about that in particular? So thank you, Hailey. And when you look at the role of National Guard, we have been involved in air defense for decades now. In fact, the air defense of the National Capital Region is being run by the National Guard and has been for a long time. Additionally, when you look across the United States, we've got 16 air control alert sites, 15 of those are run by the Air National Guard to include our air defense sectors, both East and West. So we're very involved in that aspect of it. When it comes to those folks in the SENTCOM AOR, we do mobilize our air defense units and send them forward. I would really have to deter or defer to the combatant commander, General Eric Carrilla, as to where they are and what they're doing. All I know is that our units are manned at about 95% strength, which is really where we want them to be. That are above and they're trained to the same standard as their active duty counterparts. And we have been conducting air defense missions for a long time to include, back during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we were providing the base defense system for those as well. So our folks are very well trained and we continue to fill all those mission sets that were given. Just a short addition to that, having had an opportunity to work at an ACA unit. As the general said, the history we have with understanding one, our weapons systems and two, the things that we need to do to defend our nation and making sure from the wing commanders in the case of our ACAs up to the Adjutants Journal, what we need to have in place one for the fight back home and then prepare our soldiers and airmen to go downrange. We're in a good place. When ACA is air control alert. Thank you for that. No, that's okay, yeah. I'll just follow up really quickly. It sounds like manning is good in those units, but is there any efforts? I know just generally speaking, it's not just National Guard obviously, but recruitment is historically down. I know there's been efforts by the Army to try to recruit air defense in particular. Is that something that the National Guard is trying to do or talks about trying to bring in more air defense guards then? Absolutely, and we do this in coordination with the Army. As they look at, obviously, we all see the importance of air defense right now, and it looks like that's gonna be critically important well into the future from what we're seeing in Ukraine as well. And so as a result, we work very closely with the Army. If they're gonna grow capability in air defense, of course, they'll consider putting some of that stuff into the National Guard. And historically, we've had large numbers of air defense units that have changed over time, so we have the capability to regrow that if we need to. And just briefly, since you brought up the recruiting, we're actually in a pretty good place. When you look at the National Guard, we focus more on our end strength, which is a combination of what we recruit, how we retain, and then now we bring in people that have served prior. And right now, we're over 99% in both the Army and the Air National Guard when you combine those. But obviously, it's a tough recruiting environment, just like we see with everybody else, but we're doing everything we can to get at that to make sure that if our units are cold on, they're fully manned, and they can do exactly what they're asked to do. As a status first, ADA is concerned. One of the things that we do in recruiting for both the Army and Air, but in particular for the Army and the ADA, is our in-service recruiters. The opportunity to maintain that experience and those skillsets long term, it gives them an opportunity if they want to continue to serve and they may want to get out of the active component, they can join the National Guard, still use that skill set, and that'll help with new accessions on the Army side. All right, joining us remotely, we have a question from Idris Ali with Reuters. Idris, go ahead. Thanks for doing this. Can you provide some details on, you know, there's a lot of talk about the National Guard on the border, on the Southwest border. Are you anticipating a nationalization or federalization of the National Guard to sort of go to the Southwest border? If that's something you've had conversations with your leadership. Idris, thank you for the question. And actually, I'm not anticipating that and I've not had any questions related to that. There are multiple provisions in law that the President, the Secretary of Defense, or the Service Secretary could mobilize or federalize the National Guard, but we've not had any conversations related to that. I have a question for each of you on the Middle East and then I have a follow-up on Ukraine. My first question, you know, you talked a little bit about air defense, but see it, Whitehead, if you would expand upon what the National Guard does, because a lot of the questions I get is, what is the National Guard doing in the Middle East right now? Can you talk a little bit about the mission and the capabilities that the National Guard provides in the Middle East? And then for you, General Huygensen, with this attack, with so many injured, how angry does this make you? What would you like to say to the attackers? Okay, I'll tell you. Okay. I would have liked his question, but no, that's all right, no thank you. Now we'll tell you, without getting into the details of the mission, we're over there to support what our geographic and band commands need us to do. And so that's as far as we can go with that, is that whatever the mission is for us in a support role or in a primary role, we will do whatever the geographic and band command needs us to do. And we're very confident that the soldiers and airmen that we have over there are very capable, very confident, they have the training that they need and they're getting the job done. And Carl, I would just say, our folks are there to provide peace and stability in the region. If you attack, if you hurt our people, we know who you are and we will find you. And there will be a bill to pay much greater than anything you inflict on us. And like I said, we work very closely with the combatant commander in this case, General Eric Carrilla. And he and his team are doing everything to take care of our folks, keep them safe, reduce the risk. But then again, we also will inflict punishment as we feel necessary. And then very quickly we'll follow up on Ukraine. Where are the F-16 pilots, the Ukrainian pilots, in their training now? Are they on track? Are they behind schedule, ahead of schedule? And can you, sir, as the chief of the National Guard Bureau, can you commit to provide U.S. reporters, like myself, greater access to the training of the Ukrainians by the National Guard in the U.S. and also in Germany? So with respect to the training, everything we see right now, they're on track. Obviously we get further on into higher levels than that will, it may change, they may be more advanced or less. But we look at each pilot individually because what we wanna do is prepare them as much as possible before they go back to Ukraine to be successful. In terms of access, I would really have to defer to OSD on, because they're the approval authority for access, but we will take that and follow up to see. Okay, thank you. And I make sure I got this right because I did an acronym earlier. You know, our standard operating procedures in OIs are translated for those maintainers so they can make sure that the continuity of training can continue to take place when they have to go back to Ukraine. Next question, we'll go to Megan for Military Times. Thanks. So given that National Guardsmen make up such a big percentage of the troops who were deployed in some point of OIR and they're being shot at more now than they have in the past few years, what are you doing to advocate for their safety with SENTCOM, but also to provide for their care when they get back home and they go back to their civilian lives? Thank you, Megan. So we work very closely with the combatant commanders and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we provide all the resources that we can to each of the combatant commanders. We can never meet all of the requirements, but we work with them to reduce the risk to the lowest possible level that we can. And so all of our soldiers and airmen that are deployed downrange, they're aware of that. They see the security and the safety setup on each of our installations so they know that our greatest responsibility is do whatever we can to protect them. And then in the case where we saw the 41 Guardsmen as well as others that were injured, you know, we get them the absolute best medical care we can forward and we're able to return 30 of them to duty. As I mentioned earlier, for the one soldier that's back here, I got a chance to visit with that soldier doing extremely well, getting a lot of great care. And that's really how we take care of our people. We know that if they're injured, they know they're gonna get the best care possible to get them hopefully back to work as soon as we can and develop a long-term care plan for them if their injuries are serious. And given that there may be some concerns about some of the air defense capabilities at these remote outposts, are there any deployable guard, ADA deployable guard units right now that would be able to step in if the Pentagon decides that they wanna send more over? And in that case, we work very closely with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to identify those capabilities are needed and get them where they're needed to be. And we have answered every single request that we've been asked for within the Army National Guard and like all of our formations, we stand ready to move or go wherever the mission dictates. Okay, thanks. Just simply put, our soldiers and our Army, they're war fighters, they have an expectation that when they join, as a journalist talked about earlier, that there may be going downrange and the possibility of being in harm's way is there. And we prepare them for that. And in the unfortunate event that something happens, you know, when they get back, we do have the transition that takes place to make sure that before they leave their orders, we do everything possible to get the medical attention, the mental health attention, and even the services for them and their families before they return to their civilian career. Also joining us remotely, we have a question from Moshe Gaines, NBC, go ahead. Moshe, do you have a question for the general? Okay, we'll come back to you. Do we have any questions in the room? Brandy with FedScoop. Hi, thank you both for doing this. Good to see you again. The last time we spoke, I think I asked you about 3D printing. This time I wanna talk about your drone priorities. I believe the Texas Air National Guard recently received and used an MQ-9 Reaper for agile combat employment operations at Shoals. Are y'all also working within testing with smaller drones? Can you speak about that and sort of how you're thinking about deploying different drone groups and sizes in future operations? So obviously we're very vested in the MQ-9. When we look at the smaller drones, we're trying to learn everything we can from what we're seeing in the Ukrainian and Russian conflict. I was just in Poland two weeks ago and I met with our folks there and they're looking very closely at what's working, what's not working, and we're trying to learn from that so that we can develop the capabilities that we need to not only defend our forces, but also look at those that provide offensive capability. I think it's too early to tell exactly what those systems will be, but I will tell you it is very important based on what we're seeing in the Red Sea, what we're seeing with some of our locations in SENTCOM to learn as much as we can and develop counter capability, but then also develop that capability as well. Thank you, Brandy. On Zoom, we have a question from SteveBaininMilitary.com. Steve, go ahead. Appreciate you guys taking the time. General, are you with the National Guard taking up the bulk of forces in the Middle East and are you happy with the current state of doctrine and when it comes to countering drones and the current deployment of anti-drone tech rather than the ADA and for dismounted troops? Well, Steve, thank you. I would say none of us will ever be happy until we have 100% system that's gonna work and protect everybody and everything, but the beauty of our nation is we have a lot of researchers and folks looking at all of these problems and really using technology and what we're learning on the ground to improve the systems we have and develop future ones that are gonna be even more capable. So that said, I'm very supportive of the work that we're doing. We know that there are issues and things that we need to face. We're working on all those each and every day and we're learning a lot of things that we're implementing overseas. But at the end of the day, a lot of the new systems that come out are gonna acquire research development, but that's where our country has a lot of great innovations where I think we're gonna make a huge difference in the long term. Just to add to that, I think the boss covered it completely, but I'll just say that we don't send our folks down range unless they're prepared to go. And if there's any changes in the technology that's there, we make sure the training is in place before. Any changes that we find when we're down there, these are lessons learned for us to get back to, of course, our commands and of course the United States or should I say the DOD so that those changes can be made, the train can be made and new technology that we need to can be increased. And bottom line is some places aren't safe and where it's not safe we understand, but again, as I said earlier, it may be a key and answer, but we do have war fighters in uniform that are our guardsmen and they have that expectation that it may not be safe where they go, but they are prepared for it before they go there, while they're there and when they come home. And if I could just use one example is, so we held an innovation competition twice a year within the guard and General Carilla did the same as SENTCOM and it was a Massachusetts national guardsman on his own time coded a training program for counter UAS and help identify that and it actually won their innovation competition to help train people to look for these small unmanned aerial systems and prepare to defend against them. So it's that level of innovation that we really try and leverage in the guard, as I mentioned earlier with our cyber team, really taking what they learn and their civilian skills and actually applying that to their military job and making a difference. Question in the back of the room. Thank you, Fadi Mansour with Al Jazeera. Thank you, General, for engaging with us. In light of the last presidential elections, do you assess any renewed risks associated with the upcoming presidential elections and its aftermath that require you to deploy a national guard, whether in DC or other places? And are you actively planning for a potential demand for a national guard service? Okay, so if you go back to the elections as early as 2016 is when we first provided support in terms of the cyber realm. We did the same in 2020. We had 18 states that did that. Right now we have eight states that have identified their cyber elements that they're there to help support the state to make sure that there's no intrusion in the nets and that everything goes free and fair. With respect to how the guard would be employed, if you're not aware, actually go back to President Washington. The national guard's been involved in inauguration from the president from the very beginning. And primarily there were there to supplement the DC national guard to provide additional personnel for crowd control and other events. But when you look at anything beyond that, obviously on a regular basis, we look at what we have learned in the past and anticipate anything, whether it's a disaster or a civil disturbance or even COVID. And we make sure that whatever we're asked for, our folks are basically man trained and equipped to do that mission set. And so if asked to do anything like that, we'll make sure that our folks are ready, that they have the right equipment. They know exactly what their authorities are and we'll support our civilian law enforcement agencies as directed by our governors. You mentioned the civil disturbance and this is what I was alluding to, not the cyber threat. I'm talking about domestic threats that came from the highest office probably in the nation. Do you have any assessment of potential risks that would require yourself to deploy forces or can you assure the American people that these elections will be different this time? So we've had no requests at this time. But obviously as we get closer to events, we work very closely with the governors or the mayors of the cities and also local law enforcement. Because at the end of the day, they're the lead federal agency or the lead agency and we're just there to provide additional support or band power that they may need. And as we get closer, we'll definitely keep a close eye on that and we'll be ready for whatever they ask us to do. Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Sandra Arwin, Space News. In general, I was wondering if you have any updates on the possible establishment of a space National Guard. The Department of the Air Force said they do not support that. However, you may have gone back to them with another proposal. Do you have anything to share with us on that? So there's a, a Congressional mandated report called the 924 that we're working with the Secretary of the Air Force now on, and that is to look at what the potential options for the future are. If you go back historically for the last three years, the House of Representatives has passed a bill to create a Space National Guard. It was introduced in the Senate earlier this week and I think there's 12 senators that support that, which is the most that have supported previously. For me personally, I've been very clear on my Congressional testimony when asked my best military advice. I believe the establishment of a Space National Guard is the best use of our folks that have been doing this mission in many cases for over 25 years. But as we look at where we are, no decisions have been made. My ultimate desire is to make sure that no matter what decision is made, that the mission that the Air National Guard folks are doing in space has got to continue. Space is a very contested domain. Our nation needs every single capability we have. And so speaking with the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Space Operations General Saltzman, my commitment is to make sure that those missions continue because our nation needs it. And also to do everything we can to take care of our National Guard personnel, whatever that future is. It's the legislative proposal. Is that perhaps for the 2025 Defense Bill? Is that what they're looking at? Yes ma'am, exactly. Thank you. Okay, we have time for one final question. We'll go back to Tara from the Associated Press. I just wanted to follow up on the elections. Can you give us a sense, you said there's already eight states that have asked, is there a greater demand now? Are you having to throw more resources at helping states protect their election integrity? And can you talk a little bit about what these troops are doing? Are they actually manning networks? What are they doing? So if we look at, it's hard to tell right now. So we had 18 in 2020, we have eight right now so far. And what we're finding in some states, they've realized they need additional cyber capability. So they've achieved that. In other states, they're aware of it. And if they do not have enough, that's when they'll reach out to their National Guard. And we've got cyber units in 42 of the states. So we're available there. But the key is to basically to help monitor the nets, to make sure that there's no intrusion or no attempted attacks at those systems. And that's what we've relied on in the past. Of course, every year gets different technology changes. So we'll watch very closely on what we do. If you go back to 2020, it was not just cyber though as well. It was really, we had COVID back then. And in many cases, some of the volunteers at the polls were in that most susceptible age group to COVID. And so we had guardsmen helping, you know, provide support to those locations as well. Okay, thank you for joining us today. Please feel free to send additional questions to the National Guard Bureau Media Desk. And we'll follow up on those. And any taking questions as soon as possible.