 We will come to order. Today, the subcommittee will receive testimony on the posture of the United States Army. First, I'd like to welcome our two witnesses, Secretary of the Army, Christine Warmitt, and General Randy George, chief of staff of the Army. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to your testimony. The US Army provides our nation with our best fighting force in the world. We face a variety of threats from across the globe, which require a well-trained and well-equipped Army. As new threats evolve, it's imperative that we prioritize investments that don't not only contribute to current readiness, but also provide us with a decisive advantage on any future battlefield. I am pleased to see your ongoing efforts to improve force posture in Indo-Pacom, to over 70,000 soldiers serving in the region, your work with our regional allies and partners, and investments in critical munitions will help secure greater operational access to the region and provide a much-needed deterrence posture. I look forward to discussing more about how your fiscal year 2025 budget requests invest in Indo-Pacom Theater. We are keenly aware of the need to modernize the Army of today and to address the great power competition in the future. And I appreciate this process began several years ago. I think you'll agree that the subcommittee will work with you to balance supporting your strategy while ensuring that successful ongoing programs continue to receive an appropriate level of resources. However, I see a disturbing trend in the success rate of your modernization programs, particularly the Army's big-dollar investments. I'm thinking of $2 billion for a helicopter program that has now been canceled, a $3 billion for a long-range hypersonic weapon that has not yet had a successful test flight and was well past its fielding date, and $1 billion for a long-range artillery cannon that was recently canceled due to engineering challenges. That's $6 billion invested into three major programs, no operational capability. Imagine the number of 155 rounds or other critical munitions we could have bought with that funding. I support innovation and modernization, but I'd like to have a higher level of confidence that the Army is investing their limited budget appropriately. I'm hoping you can tell us how you're scoping modernization to identify non-feasible programs earlier and working to incorporate successful technologies more rapidly. Threats from unmanned aerial systems are increasing, and the technology for these systems is also maturing at a rapid rate. We have watched this evolve during the past two years in Ukraine and unfortunately suffered the consequences of not addressing the threats of this technology as we continue to mourn the three U.S. soldiers who were killed in January at Tower 22. That is why I'm supporter of the efforts to rapidly prototype and field UAS and counter UAS technologies. Initiatives like the Deputy Secretary's Replicator Program are a step in the right direction. I understand that the Army is already leaning forward by investing in these capabilities. I'm interested in learning more about your initiatives today. Modernized capabilities are only as good as the soldiers operating them. I was pleased to see that the fiscal year 2025 request includes significant funding for new and modernized barracks as well as the sustainment costs to ensure that our soldiers have improved living conditions. I'm interested in hearing about these efforts, including receiving assurances from you that you are addressing important quality of life programs for all our soldiers worldwide. The Army continues to face recruiting challenges and would like to hear about your efforts to address that issue. Finally, I'm pleased to see your recent investments in production lines to boost monthly deliveries of key munitions. The Army has overseen a significant transfer of equipment to Ukraine and I applaud your efforts. However, I continue to be concerned about domestic stockpiles and therefore our readiness rates. I hope you will discuss today how your fiscal year 2025 budget will improve the production of munitions and address any shortfalls that we may have in inventory. With that, I recognize the distinguished ranking member, Ms. McCullum, for any open remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the courtesy. Secretary Womack, General George, thank you for being here to testify before us today. General George, this is your first appearance before the committee. Welcome. The Department of Army's physical year 2025 budget request reflects the priorities for personnel and for procurement. At $182 billion, the Army, again, is having to make difficult choices in what is essentially a flatline budget when and not accounting for inflation. You're also managing personal deployments to UCOM, SENTCOM, and INDOPACOM, keeping our nation safe in the face of threats from abroad all around the world. Well, the hearing today, we will cover a wide range of topics, but I want to highlight a few topics that are especially important to me. First is personnel. The Army continues to strive to meet recruiting goals, and we must do all that we can working together with you to assist you in this effort. I'd like to hear an update on what programs and activities the request has included in it to address the recruitment challenges that the Army faces. Second, the Army has personnel deployed in Europe and the Middle East performing activities in support of Ukraine and to keep our troops safe in Iraq. But the funding for many of these activities all reside in the supplemental. Everyone here knows, and I think most of the committee, we strongly support a supplemental moving forward, but the House, as you know, continues to struggle with passing it. I'm concerned that in order to cover these deployments, the Army is now robbing Peter to pay Paul, or I could even say, Elizabeth to pay Beth. And unless the supplemental funds are provided soon, the Army will have to restrict its activities for fiscal year. Finally, the request for FY25 includes increased investments in counterman unmanned systems. I'd like to better understand how these investments will advance the Army's position on the battlefield, that given drone technology is constantly evolving at a rapid raise. I want to let you know that we stand ready to work together with you to give those who are on mission the equipment that they need to achieve success and come home safely. Thank you again to our witnesses for appearing here today. We appreciate your testimony and answers to our questions. Mr. Chair, I yield back. I thank you, General Lady. I'd like to now turn to the new chairman of the full committee and my good friend, Chairman Tom Cole. Mr. Chairman, again, congratulations. And the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. China's military modernization efforts and increasing assertiveness have raised concerns about the potential for conflict with the United States. At the same time, Russia's continued unprovoked attack on Ukraine underscores the range of threats that we and our allies face. It's vital that the United States Army maintain a robust and responsive force of posture to deter potential threats and ensure the safety and security of U.S. interests. The United States Army's faced with a variety of issues that demand our attention and require us to ensure that our soldiers are properly equipped and prepared to face the challenges of the 21st century. As chairman of this committee, I'm committed to supporting our soldiers and ensuring that they have the resources they need to succeed. The Army must prioritize investment in modern aircraft, strategic long-range fires, ammunition and missiles, and trained personnel to support the force of today while also working to modernize the force for tomorrow. I look forward to your testimony, gentlemen, and today and the Army's plans to maintain and improve its capacity and capabilities, including the development of new technologies and programs to support our soldiers. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I thank the gentleman. I'd now like to turn to the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Laurel, for any opening comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the ranking member. And let me offer my congratulations to the Chair of the Appropriations Committee. A good and dear friend, Congressman Tom Cole, look forward to our opportunities to work together on what is, in my view, the Central Committee at the center of the federal government and its role in what it does with regard to the American people. So again, my congratulations. I want to say a thank you to today's witnesses, Secretary Wormuth and General George. We had this conversation in the past. I'm sorry that Iowa won and defeated the women and Yukon, but we'll get another chance at this and so forth, so. But Go Huskies is all I can just say as a general, but welcome, welcome to you, my dear. I want to thank you both for your dedicated service to our nation. You do keep our nation safe. You keep our troops safe. You ensure that our allies are supported wherever democracy and freedom are threatened around the globe. Through the fiscal year 2025 budget, Congress has the duty to ensure the Army has the resources to be able to fulfill its mission, to keep our country secure, our troops protected and well equipped. The President's budget includes a $400 million increase for the Army that will ensure we are doing all that we can to support our soldiers and their families. I'll get parochial for a moment. I'm proud that in my district, Sikorsky Aircraft Manufacturers, the UH-60 Black Hawk, a utility helicopter that has been used by the U.S. Army and other military branches in numerous roles around the world since its introduction in 1979. So I am especially pleased that the President's budget includes $25 million for research and development to upgrade the Black Hawk platform, keeping it in service for many, many years to come. While we are here to discuss the 2025 budget, I must underscore how critical it is that Congress immediately pass a supplemental funding bill to address multiple ongoing national security concerns. It is as much for our national security issues. It is as much to provide aid to Ukraine and others. But as well, it is what this means in terms of what is spent domestically that ensures our national security. Sometimes we lose track of that or maybe people don't know or understand what's involved in that and what the benefits are for national security for the U.S. The U.S. Army is currently deployed, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in Europe and the Middle East. And the longer we wait to buttress the Department of Defense resources, the more our military will have to dip into annual funding to cover its rising costs. Every moment this funding is delayed, helps our adversaries, hurts our allies, and risks damage to America's military readiness and reputation. We must ensure that we are adequately backfilling our military equipment, stockpiles that are being used in these theaters, and we must ensure we are sufficiently restoring our own industrial base. I look forward to discussing these items today. Additionally, I want to hear about how the Army is addressing recruitment issue and the challenges that attend to recruitment. The majority chose last go round to inject culture war debates into last year's Department of Defense funding process. I'm concerned with how that may further hurt recruitment efforts, especially among women. We must do all that we can to ensure that any American who wants to bravely serve in the United States Armed Forces, defend our nation, feels that they belong, and that they are not going to be drawn into political warfare while confronting legitimate threats to freedom, democracy, and our national security. I thank you for being here, and I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Secretary Wormuth, please take five minutes for your opening remarks. Thank you. Chairman Calvert, Ranking Member McCollum, Ranking Member DeLauro, and congratulations, Chairman Cole, to your new responsibilities leading the full committee. Thank you all, distinguished members of the subcommittee, for your continued support for our soldiers, our Army civilians, and their families. General George and I appear before you today at a moment of profound transformation for the United States Army. We are transforming our capabilities, our force structure, and our recruiting enterprise to ensure that the Army is ready and able to defeat evolving threats, keep pace with technology, and attract the best talent so that we remain the world's best land fighting force. As we pursue this transformation, we must also take care of our people, ensuring that our soldiers and families have the quality of life they deserve to sustain our readiness now and into the future. This year, like last year, the Army's FY25 budget continues to support the most ambitious modernization program the Army has undertaken in the last 40 years. We are making significant progress in transforming our capabilities by staying consistent in our goals and meeting most major milestones for development and fielding. The next generation squad weapon, the integrated battle command system, our mid-range capability, and the precision strike missile are just some examples of the critical new systems we've recently delivered. As we bring these new systems into our inventory, we are also transforming our force structure to meet the priorities of the national defense strategy. We are building out new formations, such as our five multi-domain task forces, and making sure they are equipped with the capabilities we need to conduct large-scale combat operations against advanced military peers. And we are shrinking excess force structure so that the units we have are manned and ready. While these force structure decisions bring down our authorized troop levels by about 24,000 spaces, our goal is to increase the Army's authorized end strength from 450,000 active soldiers to 470,000 active soldiers by FY 2029. To meet that goal, we are working around the clock to overcome our recruiting challenges, and I'm pleased to say that we are making very solid progress this year. Building on successful initiatives like the future soldier prep course, we are fundamentally transforming our recruiting enterprise to better compete in the 21st century job market. Most significantly, we are professionalizing our recruiting workforce by creating new permanent talent acquisition specialties for both enlisted soldiers and warrant officers. The assessment and selection of the first cohort of our new warrant officers is complete, and this group will be out in the field by the end of the summer. As we transform, we also have to take care of our soldiers and families. A key part of that responsibility is providing safe, high quality housing and barracks. And Chairman, as you noted, over the next five years, the Army will invest an average of $2.1 billion each year in the construction, sustainment, restoration, and modernization of barracks for unaccompanied soldiers. This investment will also fund sustainment at 100%, something we haven't done in several years. We are also leveraging the expertise of the Corps of Engineers to stabilize our project costs, and we will hire civilian barracks managers to oversee our barracks so that our soldiers can focus on their war fighting responsibilities. Physically and emotionally healthy soldiers are more resilient, they're higher performing, and they're less likely to engage in harmful behaviors. To build resilient soldiers, we are expanding our holistic health and fitness programs to 71 active brigades. We are investing in financial management services so that our soldiers know how to budget, and we are encouraging programs in our divisions that focus on soldier wellbeing. Our goal is building cohesive teams and proactively working to reduce harmful behaviors from a soldier's first day in the Army. Even as we transform, and we have to because it's a very dangerous world out there, we're continuing to provide combatant commands with trained and ready formations. This year's budget seeks $1.5 billion for activities associated with the Pacific Deterrent Initiative. And we've asked for hundreds of millions of dollars for Operation Pathways, our exercises in the region that strengthen, deterrence, and build interoperability with our allies and partners. In Europe, our troops are demonstrating our commitment to deterring Russian aggression. The Army has been leading the effort to support Ukraine from training over 17,000 Ukrainian troops to providing hundreds of vehicles, different kinds of equipment, and millions of munitions. The Chief and I strongly urge the passing of supplemental appropriations bill that will maintain this critical support for Ukraine, invest in our own readiness, and create jobs for Americans all around the country. With your support, we'll continue to take care of our people and sustain the transformation that will keep the Army the world's best Army. I'm proud of all that our soldiers and civilians are doing, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your comments. Now, General George, please take five minutes too for your opening remarks. Thank you. Chairman Calvert, Ranking Member McCullum, Chairman Cole, Ranking Member DeLauro, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today about our Army. The world is more volatile today than I have seen it in my 36-year career, and there is clear cooperation between adversaries than I've seen in a while. A spark in any region could have global impacts. Meanwhile, the character of war is changing rapidly, which we see from what is happening on battlefields in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Our Army is as important as ever to the joint force. We must deter war everywhere and be ready to respond anywhere. So we are focused on providing the best Army with the budget we are given. Our soldiers deserve it, the joint team deserves it, and our nation deserves it. That means making some tough decisions and finding ways to get better every day. As the Secretary already highlighted, our planned investments reflected in our FY25 budget will help our Army win the future fight and ensure that our soldiers and their families remain ready and resilient. Across the Army, we are learning from global events and continuously transforming how we operate, how we train, and how we equip. And I'd like to highlight a handful of things. We're learning that designs for things like unmanned systems must be modular, adaptable, and software-defined. We are working to get relevant technology into hands of our soldiers immediately. We are learning that counter-unmanned systems must evolve as the threat does to protect our formations and critical infrastructure. We are also moving out on that while being mindful of the cost curve. We need cheaper solutions. We are learning that in some cases the right tech already exists to support transformation. For instance, the tech exists to make our command and control modes more mobile, low signature, and more effective right now. And we are fixing our network. And we are building our magazine depth and modernizing our organic industrial base because we know that wars never end quickly as we hope they take a lot of ammo. We are also transforming how we recruit, ensuring that we have the right talent and the right tech and that we are getting the word out about how our army is a great place to serve because of our mission and our people. Finally, we are also looking at where we need to reimagine our processes and where we can afford to stop doing things that don't support warfighting or building cohesive teams. I'm proud of what our soldiers are doing around the world to help defend our country. We appreciate your support and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, General. I want to make sure all the members have a chance to ask questions. So we'll have the five minute clock on even for myself and we'll go around and get as many questions in as possible. Obviously, we spent some time in my comments and the ranking members' comments and your comments about UAS and counter UAS strategy and what we're going to do to defeat that. The threat from kamikaze drones and unmanned aerial systems has intensified and it changes almost daily. I see that your budget request includes 400 million for systems to counter small drones. I'd like to talk more about your approach to countering UAS threats. So Secretary, how are you ensuring that the Army investments in counter UAS flip this cost curve so we're not just shooting down $500 drones with $1 million missiles? Thank you, Chairman. We're trying to do that in a couple of different ways. As you noted, first of all, I'd say since 2020, we've had $3 billion that we've invested in counter UAS and UAS systems and there's several hundred million dollars in this year's budget request for that and there are also some on the chief's unfunded priorities list as well. I think we all are very focused on growing our investment here. One, we are very much looking at how can we find lower cost, attributable systems and we are working with companies like Andrewle, for example, to try to invest in smaller, very effective, but less expensive types of UAS and counter UAS systems. Another thing I would highlight, Chairman, is our investments in directed energy. So for example, we have directed energy M-shorad, there are four prototypes for that system out in CENTCOM right now. We also have a couple of high-powered microwave programs and one of the things that I highlight DEM-shorad, for example, because we're still working on the costing but in theory, the laser is essentially unlimited ammunition. So it offers the possibility of us being able to shoot down hundreds and hundreds of UASs and have a very quick reload rate. So I think there's a lot of potential in that kind of a platform. Chief, I'm sure you want to add. Yeah, I just would add Chairman that, and what the Secretary talked about, what we're trying to do in the Middle East by sending over the user, the developer and the tester and them all being together, I think what we're learning from the battlefield, for example, what's happening in Ukraine is things are changing in weeks and months and we are gonna have to be able to adapt and so that's what we're doing. So we are sending everything that we possibly can into tougher environments and putting all of those people together. And there's a lot of small companies out there that are doing a lot of great things. We've just got done with a big experimentation with project convergence that was out at our National Training Center inviting them in. The Army is also, is the executive agent for the Joint Counter UAS Office and is getting a lot of R&D to make sure that we're, there's a lot of great ideas out there but we're getting all of those from American industry in addition to what we're developing. Obviously in Israel's in this supplemental, hopefully we'll be able to figure out how we're gonna pass. Has some money in it for Iron Beam and Raphael has made significant progress in this and I know that our contractors have been working with them. I'm curious if we have personnel in Israel that are working with the Israelis as they test in real time, Iron Beam. Is that any of that going on? I'm not, I can tell you Chairman is that we are, I just had met the IDF ground commander and several of his staff and we were just together so we are exchanging lessons and having that kind of interchange and we are looking at sending some people over there so and I've also had some discussions with Raphael so for our part what we wanna do is whatever is working out there and is adapting, we're looking to bring that into the system. And the systems that you've already put on some of our equipment, the testing you're doing are you satisfied that it's moving in the right direction? I mean I think we have more work to do and this is one, there's probably three areas Chairman where I think that we need to be more flexible in our funding approach. Counter UAS is one of them, Unmanned Systems is the other and then EW which is related to both of those efforts and our challenge was with the continuing resolution if we wanted to spend more money we could not reprogram and put other money in there to make adjustments and so again that was a problem for us I think we lost time with that so that is one area that I would recommend those are three areas that I would recommend that we would have more flexibility in our funding so that we could, when something is working in prototype that we could immediately, that those systems are working that we could procure it. Ranking member. Thank you and the Chairman and I in this committee I've been working on trying to adapt and respond quickly to some of the situations we find ourselves in and so I know that we wanna work together to put into place what you were talking about with getting things tested and out then in production but behind all of the equipment is personnel and so I'm gonna go back into personnel for a few minutes. Madam Secretary General, the committee knows that recruitment was a problem for the Army last year and it was true for most of the other services too. You've requested an increase for recruiting activities and I'd like an update on where the Army currently stands with both recruiting and retention. We heard just a couple hours ago from the Navy that they had the recruiting offices empty because they had people out to see and now they're starting to staff them up again so if you could enlighten us a little more about what you're doing and so I know that you had mentioned when we talked that you were making some progress. If you could share with the committee what you think that caused that shift and then we talked about retention as well. So part of the package for recruitment and retention are a lot of things pays, pays a big part of that but there's other things that are part of that too. So if you could maybe help the committee because we're trying to find that sweet spot because for some people it's more than just pay as childcare centers, it's access to gyms, it's barracks and other things that you talked about. So could you tell us what you think has been successful in your recruitment abilities moving forward and what has been successful and made people stay in when you're doing the retention? Thank you. Thank you Congresswoman. I'm pleased to report as I said I think we're making very good progress this year on our recruiting goal. The chief and I have set a goal of recruiting 55,000 new soldiers and putting another 5,000 into our delayed entry program so that's sort of the bank account. And we still have six months to go in this fiscal year so I don't want to be overconfident but I think we both feel that we have a good shot at making that goal this year which I think would be very, very important. Part of the reason that I think we're doing better this year is we continue to have great success with our future soldier prep course. We've actually expanded that. We now are running that program at Fort Jackson and at Fort Moore. We continue to see a lot of interest in that effort. We are also selecting our recruiters differently. We are doing more of an attribute based selection and I think that means we're picking soldiers that are a little bit more inclined to be good salespeople for the United States Army. We have evolved our recruiting college curriculum by about 40% so we've really updated that. And again, I think that's helped our recruiters be more effective in the field. The soldier referral program where soldiers can bring a friend from high school or something. If that person actually signs a contract you can get promoted more quickly and that program is also bringing good success. So there's a lot that's kind of, we've had multiple pieces to our efforts and to our broader transformation that I think are now starting to bear fruit. We've also put, we've surged some medical folks into our MEP stations to be able to work through all of the different waivers that kids sometimes need for different health conditions and that's allowed us to get more contracts through the pipeline. So I think that's a lot of what is behind why we're doing better this year. Retention remains historically high. We are I think already on track to exceed our retention goals for this year. I think the fundamental reason we're retaining well is that when people join the Army they like it. They're a part of something bigger than themselves. There's a sense of family, a sense of community and a real purpose to defending the country. But of course we have targeted retention bonuses and things like that that also help us keep key specialties but I think we're feeling a lot better about recruiting this year. I don't know Chief if you wanna add. I would add, Secretary did a great job running that down. When we spend, there's probably not a day that goes by actually that we're not having some conversation about what we're doing. It's critically important to us and to our whole formation. We're also trying to get the right tech into the hands of our recruiters. There's a lot of things that happen on, I look at Indeed or some of the other. So we're getting commercial off the shelf stuff. We've had a couple of innovation companies with they're actually trying to go out there and innovate a little bit which I think is helping. And then the other thing is what we also wanna approve is have good analysis on what actually is working and what isn't. For example, we're finding that a lot of people are choosing location is very important to people. There's different things that are important to people, a job specialty, 25% are picking location. So that's, I think we're trying to get better at understanding the dynamics of recruiting as well. Thank you Chairman Cole. Thank you very much and good to see both of you again again enjoyed our personal visit. Thank you for taking the time to do that. Let me ask you one proclial question. I am disappointed to once again see in the President's budget or reduction on the Paladin Integrated Management Program down. This is the fourth year in a row that number keeps coming down. We raise it every year here because you're asking for 20, it takes 36 to maintain the production line minimum. Is there a problem here as your budget just stretched that far? Thank you Chairman. I think the investment in Paladin is a good example of where we're having to make hard choices given our relatively flat top line. And there are, you can see that whether it's equipment for our armored brigade combat teams, things like Bradley, things like Striker, we have not been able to invest as much as ideally we would and continue to modernize the new systems. I would add though that again, this is another place where if we get the supplemental, we are planning to invest in 18 additional Paladin systems. So between what we've gotten in our base budget and hopefully if the supplemental comes through, we should be above the minimum sustainable rate for the foreseeable future. That's good to hear. General George, you mentioned in your testimony, you talked about the magazine depth and that's something I think that concerns us all relates back to our own industrial base and so could you just give us an overview on how much have things improved? What, I would assume this is another place where the supplemental would help us a great deal if we were able to get that done. And just your thoughts in general on, it's pretty bad when you're worried about 155 millimeter shells and things that are pretty basic things that we ought to have an abundant supply. Chairman, it's obviously we're putting a lot of energy in the organic industrial base. I think it's important not only just for the Army but for the joint force and what we're doing. So we have invested I think more than $3 billion ourselves. We are, the supplemental has I think four and a half billion that's in there that would go into improving the industrial base and buying the munitions that we need back to the magazine depth. So what I think is important and I've been to several of these is that we're trying to automate a lot of these places so that we could scale and increase production that we have with the workforce. 155 is a perfect example. We started off at about 14,000 rounds a month and 155 millimeter. We're up to a little over 30 right now and we're ready to scale the 70 with the money that goes in the supplemental we can go up to 100. And I think we need that capability again. I think one of the lessons a lot of people have learned over the last year is just how good US equipment is and there's a lot of people buying those same systems so that magazine depth is critically important for us. I'm gonna ask you one other question because you don't have enough time to do this but I know obviously you're very keenly and Secretary is as well looking at what's happening in Ukraine so I'm just, if you can give us lessons learned what do you think a year into the two years into this but that you might not have thought about before and how is that changing the way you think and what you need? I would highlight a couple of things and I know the chief and I, there are a lot of lessons that are coming out of Ukraine. One obviously is the importance of unmanned aerial systems and counter UAS systems. I was just in Germany seeing some of the training we're doing with the Ukrainians and was fascinated to talk to one of the Ukrainian BTG leaders but also see what our forces were doing in terms of actually welding little sort of droppers on the bottoms of drones to be able to drop small kinetic payloads. We're learning as much from them I think as they're learning from us and so that's a huge lesson and I think is reflected in our budget. The importance of long range fires obviously which again I think speaks to the importance of continuing to invest in things like precision strike missile or the long range hypersonic which we have had some challenges with but we are working quickly on that. And the last thing I'd highlight Chairman is contested logistics. We're gonna have to disperse in a future battlefield where everything is transparent. We can't have these big sort of supply bases and we're starting to really bring those lessons into our combat training center rotations. I have seen that myself at Fort Johnson where we're doing a lot to change how we're approaching logistics recognizing how contested the environment will be. I'll be really quick here Chairman and we could go on a long time about what we're doing and we talk the difference between observing a lesson and actually learning it and the learning it is changing how we're gonna train and fight, how we're training our people at Fort Sill and the places that are going on our professional military education and how we buy things. I think you can't hide on the modern battlefield anymore is the big thing and so that has really changed signature management network. We have to be more mobile. We're gonna have to be more dispersed and it's really gonna impact every potential system. I will tell you there's three big things that are happening at Fort Sill that we have a lot of lessons in. Long range fires, how effective, ground base, long range fires that are very hard to find in the clutter and to kill and we've seen that. They're very effective on the battlefield. Integrated air and missile defense, another thing that we do a lot at down at Fort Sill is very, very important to the joint force and what we're doing for protection and then the counter UAS which we're also doing down at Fort Sill is something that we were talking about earlier that we're gonna have to continue. That is gonna be a growth industry, I think, for all of us. Thank you very much, your back, Mr. Chairman. We're all gonna have to get out to Fort Sill. That's a good thing to do. Mr. Laurel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and again, thank you both for being here today. I'm gonna follow up with parochial issue as well. I think it's something that you're well aware of. It's important to the district and that's the Black Hawk helicopter. Sikorsky makes the finest helicopter in the world in Connecticut, sir, district. So let me direct my first question to you, Madam Secretary. I understand the Army is gonna be focusing on purchasing the mic models of the Black Hawk. I'm concerned though that since the multi-year contract expires in 2026, there could be a gap in the contract with the industry. Can you tell me how you and the team will work to shrink or eliminate that gap so production can continue without interruption? Absolutely, Congresswoman. When the current multi-year contract expires, it is our plan to have essentially a heel-to-toe arrangement so that the next five-year multi-year contract will start immediately. We will buy 24 helicopters annually for five years for a total of 120, that's the plan. So we will work closely with the company to make sure that the negotiations are worked out so that we can have no break between the two multi-year contracts. Thank you very, very much. And just in terms of the Army's commitment to the Black Hawk, how many Black Hawk helicopters will remain in the force for how long? What will the Army do to ensure an adequate number of Black Hawks for the Army National Guard? Let me take that a couple pieces in a time. We expect the Black Hawk to remain a very important part of our overall aviation portfolio for years to come. The mic model is a 20-year airframe and those are the ones that we'll be buying with the new five-year multi-year. So they'll be in the fleet for a very long time. I'm sure you're also aware, you know, they are reflecting on the quality of American equipment. There are a lot of allies who would like to buy Black Hawks and so I expect we'll continue to see quite a bit in foreign military sales. So I think those will go on for quite a while and we will be, in terms of the Army Guard, who had originally been intended to get the Victor model, which only has a 10-year lifespan for the airframe, we will be providing the Army Guard over time with the mic models. So I think they're quite pleased about that. What is the focus of the Army's Black Hawk modernization plan? Characteristics and performance needed to improve the Black Hawk to keep pace with the rest of the force during its remaining decades of service and has the Army identified funding for 2025 over the future years defense program to execute the planned modernization? Let me say a few things and then Chief, if you want to add anything, we do have R&D in the budget as we did the rebalancing of the overall aviation portfolio for continued upgrades to Black Hawk. Some of that is looking at open system architectures. Some of that is also going to be doing the integration work to bring the ITEP engine, the new engine, eventually into Black Hawk as well as the Apache. So those are some of the things that we'll be doing with the Black Hawk going forward. I guess the only thing that I would add, Congresswoman, is, and I've spent a lot of time in the back of Black Hawks and it's a great aircraft, is we're also looking at sensors, we're also looking at how you would match launch effects that come with these aircraft. So kind of what we set up front, we're looking at, these are areas we're gonna have to continuously transform and the Black Hawk is gonna be a part of our formation, a very important part of it and we'll have to continue to transform as we move forward. I appreciate your indulging in these questions. As you can tell, it really is a top priority for me. It's a top priority for my community as you've known for a long time. If I could just ask about the security supplemental. The Army has requested approximately 10 billion to support activities in and for Ukraine and for additional activities in the Middle East. How are you funding activities to support Ukraine and the Middle East and what will happen if these activities are not funded with additional supplemental funds? What will suffer without these additional funds? Thank you Congresswoman for that. There's really, I think there's three pieces of the supplemental that are really important to the Army. First of all, we've given the Ukrainians 10 billion dollars worth of equipment and material and we have been essentially planning on the supplemental coming through so that we can replenish that equipment that we've given to the Ukrainians. So we intend to use that money to buy amp-vies, to buy some of the paladins that I talked about earlier, to buy more JLTVs. So that replenishment is really important. The second piece is the investment in munitions, particularly the 155 millimeter shells and getting up to 100,000 rounds a month that the General George spoke about. And the last piece I would highlight in the supplemental that's really hitting us right now is we have cash flowed about 800 million dollars to train the Ukrainians and also to do some support in SENTCOM. So if we don't get that supplemental, we are going to not have money basically by the end of May to be able to get the current units who are over there in Europe doing the reassurance mission. We don't have the transportation money to have them redeploy. We don't have the transportation money to send units to backfill them. We won't be able to support our participation in things like K-4 or exercises in European command in the third and fourth quarter. So there are some real problems for us that are going to come out if we don't have that supplemental. You're back in just a second, but I just want to make the point on the replenishment. I'm not sure how well widely understood it is that we are paying a price for not moving forward on a supplemental. And obviously, Ukraine will pay a very, very big price if we are not there and our own ability to be able to keep our word and let our allies know that our commitment, our word is our bond in these areas. But above all, we cannot replenish unless we have the supplemental. That hurts the industrial base here. Thank you so much, I yield back. Probably need to get out to Stratford, Connecticut too. Amen, you're welcome. It really is a wonderful experience. There you go. Mr. Rogers. President Zelensky says that without the further aid from the U.S., the Ukraine will assuredly succumb to the rapturous war of Putin. Can either of you confirm President Zelensky's characterization of where we are? Congressman, I think General Cavoli, our head of U.S. European Command was on the hill earlier today. And I think he said if you can't decide that can't shoot back loses. And at this point, Ukraine is really starting to be pressed to be able to shoot back. So I am very concerned. We saw Ukraine lose some territory a couple of months ago. And I think there's a real danger that the Russians could have a breakthrough somewhere in the line. So I'm sure chief would want to say more about that. I think that was well stated. I would agree with that. I mean, they need the ability to have return fire, a long range fires. I'd be concerned about what they have for air defense and the ability to defend their critical infrastructure and their formations, all of those. So I would agree with that. Do you worry about the image that we're throwing out there, particularly to the Eastern European former SSRs who see us not defending them? Is that a problem for us to worry about? I'll just comment, Congressman, that I think every child or army chief that comes to see me is very concerned about that. They looking at that as commitment and where is our commitment? And what I have found interesting is it's not just in Eastern Europe, there's a lot of countries that ask the same question around the world. So same thing in the Pacific that are watching what our support is. One of the main problems in Ukraine are landmines, which apparently are being sold throughout the country, by the Russians. What can you say about that and what can we do about it? Again, I think that comes down to what you're providing. It's a perplexing problem with all the obstacles and everything that's been placed over there. It is not only danger to a force, it's danger to anybody who's around in that environment. So I think it's gonna take a lot of engineering assets to clear that and I think it would also take a lot of time whenever we've seen that with mines. Thank you for your service, Volka. You. Thank you and I thank the chairman for the quick time because we need to finish this hearing by 3.55 because we have a special meeting we need to attend to. So with that, Ms. Kaptur, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimonies today. I regret the inability of this current House of Representatives to pass legislation so essential to the defense of liberty and do not count myself among those who are holding up the process and it makes your life exceedingly difficult and all of this is completely unnecessary. Now, I have four topics. Real quickly, I'm gonna ask about hypersonics and advancements there. I'm gonna ask about personnel and your ability to staff with mechanics and people who are technicians. Any shortages there? I'm going to mention Abrams Tanks and Ukraine and then finally Iran and its capabilities. So on the first one, just a quick update on the progress you're making on hypersonics both offensive and defensive. Number two, in terms of your staffing, are you having any difficulty in Army in having enough mechanics and people who are trained technicians to work on equipment? And if you are, are you working with your reserve units around the country that do have excess equipment and could be doing training on some of the reserve bases? Number three, Abrams Tanks have their capabilities. Those are made in Ohio, we're proud of them. Congressman Joyce and I support them and have they made a difference in Ukraine and what more could we do if they're being effective? And then finally, on Iran, give us your assessment of Iran's intent in the region that she is having a tremendous influence on. Is her capacity growing? Is she receding in some of her capabilities? I don't have a real sense of that but I think it's a really important question, thank you. Okay, lightning round. I will start with you, start with Iran and say I think we're all in the Defense Department quite concerned about Iran and its capabilities. I think it's one of the things it seeks to do in the region is to be destabilizing both directly but also through its use of proxies in Iraq, in Syria. I think the relationship that seems to be growing between Iran and Russia is concerning. So that's just a snapshot of I think how I would see Iran. The Ukrainians I think have very much valued the tanks that we provided to them and find them very effective. I can't comment extensively on how much they've used them but I know when I talked to the Ukrainian leader in Germany, he said they have a lot of, the soldiers feel more confident going on offense when they're in the tanks or in our Bradleys because they feel protected and they have that additional protection while they're having mobility at the same time. On personnel, I think the challenge we have with mechanics in my experience, what I hear from soldiers is because of the recruiting challenges, we just, our soldiers who are mechanics have more work to do because we don't have as many soldiers generally as we need. So that's what I've heard and we're working very hard on recruiting to try to make sure that we increase the number of soldiers overall. Long-range hypersonic weapon, we are working on that diligently with the Navy, we will have another test later this year. As I said to Chairman Calver, this is a 10-year program that we've sort of compressed into four years. So we're going very, very fast and I think some of the testing we've done in parallel is part of, it's harder to determine where the problem areas are when you're doing testing multiple things all at the same time. So we are moving to trying to have a more sequential approach to our testing so that we can really nail down where we have issues. And I think we're hopeful that we'll have a good test later this year. Frontier, if you wanna add. I'm just gonna add a couple things. I just was out at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. We have a hypersonics battery that's out there and I will tell you once we get this round which I think is coming, that battery is training, testing, ready to go and so I think that'll be a capability we're coming out on the mechanics. The other thing that we're looking at it is there is broadly, we're down on some of that. We need to recruit more mechanics and people with technical expertise. We do use the Guard and Reserve and we try to plan this out for exercises, Guard and Reserve. General, I wanna help you on this. Just know that on the mechanics side. Okay. To get them into exercises and where they can help us in our ordinance companies. We're also trying to get rid of excess inside of our formation so that we don't have, we're not maintaining things that we don't need to maintain. We're in a process of doing that. On the Abrams tank, it's the best tank in the world and all of these for success on the battlefield and being out there, it requires combined arms so it's with everything else and I've heard the same thing that the Secretary has heard and that you get a certain level of confidence though when you have an M1 tank inside of your formation. Thank you, General. Next, Judge Carter. You got here earlier. No, thank you. Conditioning assistance was at Fort Cavassos. I'm deeply concerned that cuts in these programs will not only hurt recruiting and retention but also hurt the soldiers' ability to transition out of the military and be prepared for civilian life after they've served our nation for a long time. Can you let me help me understand what the Army is reviewing in these programs and that no decision, I understand that no decision has been made yet but I would like to know what you're looking at specifically cutting these programs and what analysis you've done as to how this will impact recruiting and retention. Thank you, Congressman Carter, good to see you. You are correct, we have not made any decisions about the credentialing assistance program or the tuition assistance program. We have been looking at the credentialing program. It's a great program, we support it. We know our soldiers' value certifications that they can then use when they leave the Army. That was a pilot program essentially that has met with catastrophic success and the challenge we have is we didn't frankly really put any guardrails around the program to help us scope it. So what we are looking at, we haven't made any decisions yet but what we are looking at is rather than having soldiers be able to pursue an unlimited number of credentials every year in perpetuity, we may look at saying soldiers couldn't do one certification a year, maybe have sort of a cap on the number of certifications they can get over the duration of their time in the Army really just to try to manage the costs of the program a little bit better. But that's sort of how we're thinking right now and those kinds of guardrails are very similar to what our sister services have done in the Air Force and the Navy. Yeah. Yeah, only thing I would add Congressman is how we transition our soldiers. We obviously want to keep them. That's our number one goal is to keep everybody but how we transition them is critically important to us and doing that and making sure. And that's important to us also for our recruiting mission because we know that when people come into the Army, they're gonna get a skill, they're gonna enjoy what they're doing and then we wanna send them back out there so we're looking at all of this in total. Well, thank you. The Apache helicopter is in my district. With the cancellation of the FARA, I have yet to hear what the Army's plan is for funding modernization of the Apache. Could you speak to what plan you have and where the funding might come from? Certainly. We are very much, you know, the Apache is another great helicopter. My ex-host sitting behind me is a Apache pilot as well as a Black Hawk pilot. We're gonna continue to modernize the Apache over time and there is money in the budget to do that. You know, really what we're looking at with Apache is, again, how to have more open system architecture so that we can do upgrades over time more quickly and more easily than we have in the past. The other thing that we are looking at with Apache is taking a little bit more time to figure out exactly how we're gonna integrate the new ITEP engine, excuse me, into both Apache and Black Hawk. I've got some more time. I understand the Army is considering looking at privatization of barracks. Out of curiosity, have you looked at allowing the E-5s to move out of the barracks? It could potentially reduce the number of barracks we need to build and help reduce costs in maintenance. I don't know the math on how this cause would work, but I would be interested in hearing this. And also I understand you're looking to recruit older people to be brought back, brought into the military, and they're not gonna be wanting to live in the barracks, especially if they're given special duties where they're not gonna have a lot of promotion and they might spend 10 years in the barrack and a guy that you, a 25-year-old, is not gonna be interested in being in a barrack till 35. Would you like to answer that? Sure, I'll start, and then, Chief, if you wanna add, we're looking at a couple of... Also, if you wanna do that for the record, we could get that back to you, Judge, in a way we could do. Yeah, maybe so. Okay, happy to do that. We'll do that. Let's keep things going. Mr. Case? Thank you, Madam Secretary. I just wanted to take off on your brief comments opening on the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. And I think we would all obviously agree that our challenge is in the Indo-Pacific and that we need to focus on that and we need to plan for it from a budgetary perspective. But to be really honest with you, I'm trying to figure out what Pacific Deterrence Initiative actually means nowadays. And whether it has the purpose that I think Congress envisioned, which was to quantify our efforts in a joint coordinated way so that we were sure we are on the right path in terms of doing what we need to do in the Indo-Pacific and funding to it also, so the EDI model. And I understand there's questions about OCO, et cetera, et cetera, but I'm just talking about the use of a mechanism inside the DOD and that we in Congress can use to quantify whether we're on the right track. And I've got a couple of concerns in that department. I think first of all, as I look at the FY 2025 overall PDI summary from DOD, including the Department of the Army, and you cited 1.5 billion to PDI. If I look at the categories of things that you've stuck in PDI, frankly, some of them are exclusively Indo-Pacum, so that's fair game. But some of them seem to be usable anywhere in the world. So then I asked myself, well, what's good at that? That wasn't what PDI was supposed to be about. PDI was not supposed to be about things that are designed, and I'm quoting from your thing, designed to address or deter broader strategic threats, easily transferable between theaters, routine activities, and exercises. Some of that seems to fit in that category, so I'm wondering how they were categorized there. Number one, and then number two, if I look at your FIDEUP over time, the overall PDI is declining precipitously over the next five years, including the Army, which is going down something like 60%. I think the figure I've got here is 1.5 billion requested this year down to 0.9 billion by FY 2029. So I guess my real question here is, I want something that I can look at and go, okay, yeah, we've got everything in that box, and we know what we have to do in the Indo-Pacific, we know what we have to do for the geopolitical challenge of China, and all services, this is what you need to be doing, and this is how much it's gonna cost, and this is what we have to do over the next five years plus, and I don't think I'm getting that in the PDI. So I'm thinking to myself, well, do we have to fix PDI somehow in Congress, or somehow in another way get what we're after here? Do you have any comments on what PDI means to you nowadays? Why are we seeing such a loose bunch of stuff in PDI in my estimation, and why do we see it going down so precipitously over five years? Let me take a shot at that, Congressman. I think what I would say, and I can understand your frustration, I think as someone who was in the Defense Department when the European Deterrence Initiative was created, there is, I think, a pretty significant difference between EDI and PDI, which is that the European Deterrence Initiative came with a pot of money from Congress that was sort of firewalled, whereas when Pacific Deterrence Initiative was created, it didn't have that. It was sort of the same concept, but very importantly, without the money. And so now I do think you have a situation where we in Congress, one thing I can assure you is the Army is very, very focused on Indo-Pakum as the priority theater, and our whole strategy as a department is very, very focused on Indo-Pakum as the priority theater. That's how Secretary Austin and the deputy work with us in the services to try to align our investments. They grade our palms very much on whether they think it's meeting the challenge there. So I think I feel confident that our budget is putting the money that we need to put towards that theater, but I certainly can understand that from an accounting perspective, it can be hard sometimes to get a real sense of whether you have everything. And there's also, I think, the report that Indo-Pakum generates as well, I think, which is a very large list of requirements. Probably because, and I'm just guessing at this, because some of the PDI, it's not in PDI. They have to find it somewhere. They have to emphasize what's necessary in the Indo-Pacific. Do you think it's possible to have a PDI without an OCO style dedicated source of funding as in the EDI? Does it just at that point just become as somebody actually referenced an accounting mechanism inside DOD? And an imperfect one at that, because obviously we're not just spending $9.9 trillion, a billion dollars on the Indo-Pacific. We certainly feel the loss of OCO, I think that's fair to say. And I would say within the top line that we have, it would be hard for us to put more money than we have in our base budget towards Indo-Pakum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to thank you both for your service to our country. I want to focus on the troops here in California last week, and we brought this up in our earlier hearings with SECNAV as well. We've had discussions with SECDEF about it as well. California last week raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour. Okay, so you've got 18, 19 year olds working at McDonald's who are making almost double what an E1 makes when they come into the service. An E1 right now, even with the 5% raised last year and the 4.5% increase in this president's budget request is still $22, $23,000 a year. And so we're competing from a recruitment perspective with fast food workers, right? And those guys aren't putting their lives on the line every day like our soldiers are. This isn't just a problem in California, it's a problem in multiple states, Virginia, Florida where the cost of living is higher and the pay is still low. I have been pushing and this committee's done a great job. This subcommittee's done a great job. Unfortunately, the Senate stripped out our pay raise act which would have started base pay of an E1 from taking it from $22,000 a year to $31,000 a year. And that increase, about a 35, 38% increase would have actually rippled up through the E6 ranks. Okay, so it takes the E1 through E6 where we're recognizing not only the recruiting challenges but also the retention challenges at about the year four, year five mark on the enlistment side. And at least from a salary perspective, get some more competitive with their peer groups in the civilian sector. And ranking member McCall has been very clear about this as well. And this isn't just a money pay salary issue, it's a quality of life, it's daycare on the base, it's quality of the barracks, it's not having to live in squalor where your civilian counterparts aren't. But we need help on this, we need more pull from the secretaries, we need more pull frankly from the president and prioritizing this pay gap right now that is very significant and is a forcing function. There's other things driving the recruitment problems, there's other things driving the retention problems, but the pay is significant. To enact that raise act, and it's my bill, it's called the raise act, it takes it from $22,000 to $31,000 a year that ripples up through the E6 and compresses it. So in general, you wouldn't be getting that 30% pay raise, but you don't need that 30% pay raise, your soldiers need that, the junior enlisted do. But it basically gets them above that $15 minimum wage sort of federal recognized minimum wage number, right? And it gets them off of food stamps frankly, it gets them all above the poverty line. The cost of that is roughly anywhere from half to 1% of the total DOD's budget to implement it. So we're talking $7 to $8 billion to implement this junior enlisted pay raise act. So the 4.5% in the president's budget request is barely gonna keep pace with inflation. The last, I think five years, we've seen a cumulative of roughly 25% to 27% inflation while the sum of the pay raises that we've given our troops and especially the junior enlisted is something like 14 to 15%. So we are putting them further and further behind the power curve. So the ask is that we support higher pay. And I know that that's not in the president's budget request. We are gonna try to legislate our way through that and create a new pay table that increases that E1 through E6 pay. But I think that goes a long way. And right now, if you ask an 18 year old, if he wants to go work in and out for $22 an hour or join the army for the equivalent of $12 an hour, you're gonna get 95% of them going in and out, even if they love the country, even if they wanna serve, they just can't afford to go join the army right now. And that's a fundamental problem. So we would respectfully request support for that. We can look at all the other elements that go into quality of life and the holistic pay and whatnot. I will submit for the record a question around the FARA cancellation. We sunk about $2 billion into that acquisition program by industry put in about $500 million of IRAT of their own money, getting to the point where we did. It did kind of surprise a lot of us. I know you were communicating with some folks, but I'd like to get a deeper dive on the explanation of the sudden cancellation. I know Congress didn't help, the CR didn't help, but if we can get all the details. And the last thing I would recommend is beyond high energy lasers and high energy microwaves that I know are very useful in counter UAS, counter drone. There is new technology out there that I've gotten to do classified briefs on for high energy RF where it's basically an AESA radar that uses larger brick size arrays instead of little TR modules like you find in a fire control radar. The beam steering basically uses high energy RF capability and is a little more stable than high energy lasers for instance. You can get back to them. Look at that. Thank you. That would be great. Dutch, you're recognized for five minutes. All right, can you use that? Hurry up. I'm trying to keep this on schedule. This is for the bridge. All right, good. Okay. For Secretary Warmer, congratulations on what you've done. You've done a good job. General, you too, and you've got a good team and that's what counts. Secretary Warmer, and General, you can answer some questions here too. I mean, what the questions I'm gonna ask, not many. I don't know what this year holds in store, but I do know that the last time the department went a fiscal year without operating under a continued resolution was back in 1997. Now, could you provide a brief overview of how short-term spending measures impact the Army? What do we put at risk when we don't pass funding bills on time, especially when it comes to competing with China? Absolutely. Other adversaries too, but basically China. Thank you, Congressman, and I'm sure the Chief will wanna add to this. You know, I think of when we're operating under continuing resolutions, which you all know we were in the first six months of this year under CRs, we're basically trying to compete with China with one hand tied behind our back. You know, we're not able to spend the money that we have in the most efficient way. We're not able to do reprogrammings. We can't do new starts on some of the, you know, very important modernization programs that we have. Sometimes it can delay our military construction. So at a time where we don't have a moment to lose in terms of all of the new modernization we're doing, operating under CRs can be very challenging. Yeah, Congressman, I'll just give you one example. The battlefield's changing. What our troops were over there in the Middle East, and if we wanted to make some adjustment and bring something to counter-UAS system, for example, and we can't start something new, we can't increase production on the missiles that we need, so it has real impact. And then the other thing I would just say is then when you get the money, you have a very limited time to spend it, and that is also a challenge for us and has been. Well, thank you. In the past few decades, if there are any indication at all, it seems that the department keeps getting put in these intractable solutions. And I'll be honest, I don't know what the solution is, so do you have any ideas about other authorities and spending flexibilities that would enable the Army to overcome the challenges that continuing resolutions represent in both of them? Well, Congressman, the last thing I would want to do is to try to tell Congress how to do its business. Good idea. I think the PPBES commission that recently, I think put out its final report, had some good recommendations in a lot of areas for sort of how we in the department can work more effectively with you all in Congress to have a more agile budgeting system. There might be some good ideas there. But beyond that, the only other thing I would say, and this is something that Chief feels very strongly about, it's not really CR specific, but is it possible in some very targeted ways for us to have more flexibility in where we invest the programs? Inside of a particular portfolio, for example, to allow us to be more agile in terms of going after new technology, but that's not really CR specific. Congressman, I would, I mentioned the subfront. There's three areas where I think we have to be more flexible, and that's counter UAS, counter unmanned systems, unmanned systems ourselves, so that we can detect and do all the things that we need to do on the modern battlefield. And then electronic warfare, all of that is changing really quick. So I think internal to the Army, what we're looking at doing is not having a specific program, but we need to have a portfolio work, because the industry is changing really fast. There's a lot of small companies out there, American Ingenuity is the best in the world, and we need to have the flexibility to do that. What I think would be helpful is because of the continuing resolutions, if in those three areas that we had flexibility between research and development, and then we would come over, obviously, for the oversight and say, hey, this is some, you know, this, we need this system, we wanna procure it, and it would be a notification, but I think that would help us with the continuing resolutions. We've got ideas, but we've got to do something because we're changing so much, and the whole world's changing, and we have to stay dominant as a democracy. We have to start doing more of this and think out of the box for the future. Thank you for your answers, and go back. Thank you gentlemen, Mr. Womack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the two witnesses we have here today, Madam Secretary, Chief, great to have both of you here today. Before I get to my questions, a couple of things, I wanna take a moment of personal privilege to recognize that gentlemen sitting over there by that camera in the very back of the room wearing that navy shirt. To my colleagues, this is Harrison Henry. He is soon to become part of the Class of 2028 at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He's a Fayetteville high school kid in Arkansas. He and his dad, Mark, are here. They're headed over to Annapolis this weekend. They missed the hearing this morning. I actually, I think that was on purpose. I think they're here spying on Army. My spies. But Harrison, we're really proud of you, and I know this committee is proud of you and your classmates that will join you at the Naval Academy. Congratulations. Oh, beat Navy. One other note, I wanna mention this as well because this could involve action of our leadership team here in the house, and that is that two days ago, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War, Colonel Ralph Puckett, passed away down in Columbus, Georgia. My oh my, Medal of Honor, DSC, couple of Silver Stars, five Purple Hearts, probably the most, I don't know if he was the most decorated in Korea, but he was one of, for sure. And I know there will be a request forthcoming from people very close to that family about the potential for him to lie in state, as I think we did with Woody Williams back from World War II. And I hope our leadership team will give that some serious thought. We are losing a lot of our heroes these days, and we should be mindful of the sacrifices they've made for all of us. Madam Secretary General George, I wanna go back to comments made about the supplemental. And I don't wanna beat this dead horse, but I'm gonna join the chorus of people that think that we need to act post-haste on a supplemental. What concerns me as much as anything, General George, is the potential for us to be canceling combat training center rotations as a result of our inability to move forces and train them appropriately. I personally think it's the secret sauce and readiness that gets our warfighters prepared and ready to fight and win. So I wanna give you an opportunity to comment on that. That is a real threat right now. I suppose that we could see some of these training center rotations go by the wayside. I would just tell you, Congressman, we're gonna have to make, based on what the Secretary said earlier, we're gonna have to make some tough choices that we're gonna look all around. CTCs would be very tough for us. I've been to, I think four times already this year, it's kind of our crown jewel of where we're gonna train and adapt for the future. So we don't wanna have to make those kind of tough choices. And we need that for our readiness. Madam Secretary. That's exactly right. I mean, I think we would really try to protect the 22, I think, CTC rotations that we have. You know, we could look at reducing participation, you know, skinning it down a little bit, but I think we would really avoid cancelling it all together. But those are the kinds of hard choices we're looking at if we don't see the supplemental come across the finish line. I think we have a role in that and hopefully we can get to it. I wanna go back to counter UAS. I note that in the budget, nearly $450 million for counter UAS capability in your unfunded priority list. Now there's money for counter UAS but there's additional money in the unfunded list. Is it fair to assume that that's just something that you need but because of all of the other requirements, you're just unable to get the full amount in the base budget? We have, Congressman, we have some, we have a good amount in our base budget. We have some that we've requested in the supplemental. And then, you know, when I was asked for unfunded priority list, the world has changed a lot since we put in our budget, which happened last October 7th. And I know that, you know, there's things on there that we would like to do, like increase production for coyote missiles that have been very effective. There's other systems from Andrew, for example. So we would like to spend on that. So there's really two things in that unfunded priority list. It's ramping up production for the things that we couldn't quite get to and then a lot of it is how the battlefield is changing. Again, I want to thank both of you for your service and for your ascension to the chief's role, General George, and we're honored to have you here today and I'll yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Quare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member for having this meeting. I want to thank both of y'all very much for the service to the country. Madam Secretary, you're from College Station. What happened to Texas A&M? I'm just kidding. The last time I went back, it's gotten enormous. Oh my goodness, the new Kyle Field blocks the sun. Yeah, it has grown. I think John Carter and I know this. I want to follow up on something that the judge mentioned. My understanding, it's $81 million for, we're talking about patches, $81 million for modifications and $8 million to modernize the whole fleet. That certainly is not enough, right if those numbers are correct. What I can tell you, Congressman, is we are committed to Apache. It's gonna stay in the fleet for a long time. I was just talking to the folks who build Apache and they felt, I think, pretty comfortable with where we are. So we do plan on continually upgrading it. It's not at any risk. Okay, but we certainly want to work with you on that, Judge and I. Let me talk about one item that I'm really proud of, what y'all are doing, the Army. I think the Army is leading all services in human performance optimization. And as you know, it's important to make sure that we get elite soldiers, mine, body, everything. And I certainly want to say thank you so much for the efforts that y'all are doing. I know that through the help of the chairman and the ranking, we're able at $15 million there for the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio working on optimization and we're working with your department. But if you can tell us, right now my understanding is that the Army is using that for active soldiers. Any plans for the reserves or the guards or is it just for active soldiers right now? And again, I really want to, I've talked to your folks, my military fellow, we spent a lot of time, past military fellows have been and the Army's doing a wonderful job and I hope that the other departments do the same thing. Human optimization, human performance optimization is make sure we get the best soldiers. Thank you, Congressman. Yeah, we have found the Health and Holistic Fitness Program to be really, really effective. It's both helping our soldiers get more fit but it's also helping them become more resilient. We've been accelerating the buy of those sets to brigades by about 15 to 20 a year. For the Guard and Reserve, our plan is to try to start bringing those types of capabilities to the Guard and Reserve, sort of starting in FY26, 27 and going out to FY30. Particularly with the reserves and how distributed they are, we're gonna have to take a somewhat different approach but we do plan to eventually get that kind of capability to the Compo two and three. Yeah, I think the other thing that we've had discussions with the Guard and I've gotten together with a lot of the tags is how do we, you look at like Peloton app or Nike Fit app or what are ways that we can do this a little bit different. But I just, every time I go to an installation, we're growing 15 more Health and Holistic Fitness. It's making our warriors better and it's not surprising to me to me you feel better about yourself and you're more fit, you're just gonna be more resilient on the battlefield and everywhere else. So we're gonna continue investing that. The challenge that we have is obviously we're competing with everybody else to hire nutritionists, strength coaches, performance coaches and all of those things. And so some areas were growing a little as quickly as we want and others were have to push a little more. Yeah and again, we thank you. Just we wanna make sure we're very supportive because this work especially, it does prevent a lot of the military injuries that can be prevented. And it's not only just what you eat and your exercise, it's really your mind. It's studies have shown that you can use that, especially when you have soldiers who are working under pressure situations and they have to make a decision. There's a lot of things. And as you know, a lot of the research that the Department of Defense does goes on to the general population and it's also on aging, how do you age better? I mean just because you get old doesn't mean that you have to be in a difficult situation. So it has not only good for our soldiers but certainly for our general population. So I wanna thank you, my time is up but I certainly wanna thank you for leading the services on human performance optimization. Thank you. The Army's tactical fire study revalidated the need for IRCA and a longer range military platform. What is the Army's plan and timeline to get IRCA into the production phase with a proposed cut in FY25? I think our challenge was basically was the technology not being ready which is why it was extended. I don't think the requirement to have long range fires Congressman is not changed. I do think that the battlefield is changing. I do think that technology is changing. One of the things that we need to really focus on this gets back to cost curve as well is how do we adjust the round? How do we adjust the missile? What are the things that we can do I think to increase performance but long range fires is critically important. It's ground based long range fires. So we are definitely focused on that particular aspect. Congressman if I could just add to what the chief said. He mentioned the engineering challenges we had with the barrel. What we're planning to do because as the chief said we need the requirement remains we're gonna do a performance demo this summer with industry. There are other platforms that we think could potentially meet our needs. So we're going to have a bunch of folks who have capabilities that they think might be useful and we expect we will probably select one of those for production in FY25. It's been a fair amount of money to date though in testing this equipment, correct? Yes, that's true. And I think what we found you all in Congress have been great about giving us some new authorities to allow us to develop and acquire systems more quickly than we've had in the past. We've been making good use of those and I think one of the lessons frankly coming out of our experience with ERCA is that which we will apply going forward to all of our modernization programs is we need to have more points where we can have off ramps if we see that a system isn't working because I think we probably if we had to do it over again would have off ramped away from ERCA a little bit sooner. So we'll build that into our acquisition plans as we go forward. So that's something you would need on your end not so much we'd have to put it in. That's right. You have given us the authority. We are making use of them and I think we're learning quite a bit as we go. We've been doing much more of this and the chief alluded to it earlier bringing industry soldiers and our acquisition professionals together to do touch points as we go. So we've had a lot of learning in the last several years in terms of how we're using these new authorities and I think we did learn some process lessons from the experience with ERCA. Fair enough. Madam Secretary, on March 1st, 2024 the Army's National Guard issued a memo suspending re-enlistment bonuses effective immediately. The sudden suspension was due to a miscalculation by Army National Guard's planners who forecasted the amount of funds needed and anticipated a volume of troops planning to continue their service. A week later National Guard restarted issuing re-enlistment bonus on March 8th. However, the updated policy cannot be applied retroactively meaning that those who signed re-enlistment packages between March 1st and March 7th will not still not be eligible for those bonuses. A, how does this miscalculation first occur? What actions have it made to ensure that doesn't occur again? And secondly, what are we gonna do those people in the March 1st to March 7th space? Well, Congressman, I think a couple of things. You know, obviously with all of the different tags in all of the different states it's a little harder I think sometimes to manage our pay bonuses, re-enlistment bonuses than it is for us for the active part of the force. So I think there are some lessons learned for the Army Guard in terms of managing these types of programs and putting in cost controls. And this is not the first time, frankly, we've had sometimes these kinds of issues. So my understanding is Army Guard right now is putting in those kinds of cost controls so that we don't have the kind of situation where they find, oops, we've gotta stop giving these re-enlistment or retention bonuses. And I think Chief and I can talk to General Jensen about whether there's something to be done with the individuals in that week period. I mean, we can certainly look into it. Yeah, I'll look into the, what I was talking to General Jensen was part of that was it was coming up against the continuing resolution and they had to go back and look at money. So I do think we have something to learn. I would put the Guard rails in place, but we'll look and find out if there, I was not tracking anybody that didn't get that, but we'll go back and confirm. Close the loop with you. I feel back, appreciate it. Mr. Elsie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. Couple of quick questions. Somehow y'all got stuck with establishing a port in Gaza. That's a big headache. How do you anticipate doing that with adequate force protection? What happens if things go haywire and you get shot at? And ma'am, who's going to be building this temporary port? Sure, happy to talk about that Congressman. I actually had the opportunity to see the joint logistics over the shore capability in Australia this summer when it was out and it's a remarkable capability. Could say more in a closed session, but we are extremely focused on force protection for our army soldiers who are going to be both on the floating pier and the trident pier that will actually touch the beach. There is going to be a very robust and layered security approach that General Carilla in SENTCOM has been working very hard with our general at our army SENTCOM. It's going to be a team effort. Army, Navy, Israeli Defense Forces will all be part of making sure that we have a layered system to deal with air threats, maritime threats, undersea threats, ground threats. We can give you more detail, I think, in a closed session because we want to make sure our soldiers are protected. Thank you. Yeah, I think, as you know, Congressman, these are joint efforts. So that's what we'll need to take place and that's why we've talked to General Carilla on down. We've taken a pretty extensive brief on what that is and I feel like they have the right force protection measures in place. Another question is with the demise of the A-10, which I know that the Army fought against for many, many years, how have you filled the gap caused by the loss of the A-10 in the close air support region? Yeah, I think, yes, I did enjoy the support of the A-10. I think it was also a different environment that we were in and I know that the Air Force, just like us, has to make decisions to advance technology and a lot of that technology would not survive on the modern battlefield. So I think there's a lot of different ways that we're getting it, besides our own internal support that we have and we have a lot of systems that are coming online right now with long range precision fires that have significant capability to provide long range fires. Same thing, we're still gonna rely on the Air Force and the Navy. We have mid range capability, which I know you're familiar with. So I think, again, it's a joint battlefield. Okay, as long as it's filled the gap, I mean, the A-10, it was time for it to go. I just hadn't heard recently if you guys feel like that was being filled. Finally, with the remaining time, one quick question, you guys are responsible for, again, a joint wave, but the defense of Guam, is that going along as planned? You got it covered on the budget and execution. I think we've got a good approach, Congressman. Our job, first of all, that's another place, joint mission. It's not just the Army, it's gonna be the Navy, the Marines and the Air Force, we all have a role to play. Our responsibility is to come up with the architecture for the acquisition system. We are gonna have that strategy by the end of May and the plan is still to have a capability by FY 27. One thing I think that's been helpful is the Deputy Secretary established what we're calling the Guam Oversight Council. It's chaired by Eric Raven, the Undersecretary for the Navy. That brings all of us services and the MDA together to make sure that we're synchronizing. I mean, one thing, for example, when I was in Guam last summer, they have finite construction capability. So we've got to all work together to make sure that we're prioritizing the projects so that we're all kind of moving together as a group. Thank you very much, I yield back. Thank you, and before we conclude, I wanna thank the witnesses for their testimony today. The subcommittee members are welcome to submit questions for the record. I would hope that the witnesses would respond in a reasonable amount of time and with that, we are adjourned. Last decision. Yeah.