 everybody having a good time at AUSA so far? Well it's our last day so I know you're gonna miss you have to wait but you can set your clocks to 365 days till next year's annual meeting. Welcome to the Sergeant Major of the Army's annual initiative brief this is personally one of my favorite briefs and the most watched actually of all briefs here at AUSA because we are going live to our non-commissioned officers and soldiers all across the Army via live streaming broadcast for this event. I am Dan Daly Sergeant Major of the Army retired as a reminder please turn off or silence your cell phones for this form. Let me begin by welcoming our distinguished guests beginning with our host the 16th Sergeant Major of the Army Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Princeton. I want to say that to the end. We have a number of distinguished gentlemen here with us today first I'll start with the 13th Sergeant Major of the Army Sergeant Major of the Army Ken Preston. We have several and ladies and gentlemen this time more important than all what's going on in our world today that we stay aligned with our allies would you please stand for our international SMAs to please be recognized please. Thank you gentlemen your presence means so much to us thank you for being here today. At this time I'd like to introduce the director of the Army emergency relief Lieutenant General Raymond Mason. Well good morning afternoon I suppose check my clock there. I've been the director of AER for about seven years I tell people it's the second best job I ever had in my life the best was being a battalion commander in the 82nd pretty tough to beat that but this is right behind it. Our motto is soldiers helping soldiers that's what AUSA is about as well it's about that great young men and women that are out on freedoms frontier defending our nation. One of our axioms of AER is asking for help is a sign of strength it's rather easy to say it's hard in practice but that's what AER is committed to I know that's what the non-commissioned officer course committed to. I just got back from two weeks in Germany on AER business lots of great stuff happening they're a busy as heck obviously I was a graphing we're graphing beer and stuff was blown up left and right but the biggest challenge that our soldiers and families are having right now in Europe is the price of utilities is going up by about 300% and they're getting those bills kind of all at one time. AER can help with that getting ready to head to Korea tomorrow morning actually for that you know 18-hour trip across the Pacific and look forward to being there in the land of the morning calm. I do have to say that I learned a lot from my dad he was a start-off as a private in World War II and did 30 years in the Army retired as a colonel and he told me two important things along with a lot of other stuff he said take care of your soldiers they'll take care of you absolutely true second thing he told me which is perhaps equally important is listen to your NCOs they will guide you they will train you I certainly have found that throughout my career. I you know as a commander I had a star major that was my right hand battle battle buddy I now have six star majors at AER retired star majors so it takes six to try to keep me squared away at this point in my life but that's kind of where I am but I'm blessed to have him and you're blessed to have him as the AER team so thanks our major the Army Grinston I appreciate it you working us in here this morning he's on our board of managers along with the vice other commands our major some in this room. AER is part of the Army we're not some separate organization yeah we're a non-profit but we're part of the Army we're your official non-profit we are a hundred percent focused on soldiers I want to thank Dan Daly and AUSA general Brown AUSA donated a million dollars to AER this year to help with financial resiliency helping soldiers as they work through all those challenges of life. I want to congratulate all of our active duty campaign winners and that's what we're here today to do to recognize those Hunter Army airfield Fort Leonard Wood and Fort Jackson the campaign we run every year is about informing soldiers our goal is a hundred percent of all soldiers and hopefully Army families informed of the programs and benefits of AER that's why we exist and yet to give them an opportunity to donate. AER has been around 80 years and in those 80 years we're stood up by George C. Marshall by the way he gave us a mission statement his mission statement was help relieve financial distress on the force that was true in 1942 and it is absolutely true in the year of our Lord 2022 same mission statement over those 80 years about four million of your brothers and sisters have been helped by AER every year we do about 40 to 50 thousand soldiers and assistance to the tune of about 70 million dollars it's about 40 to 50 million in zero interest loans where else can you get a zero interest loan I can't think of one or grants and scholarships for spouses about spouse employment as well as college-bound children. We are again as I said a hundred percent focused on soldiers all those dollars that we provide came from look to your left and your right from you from soldiers you see no money from the Army staff no money from federal government it all comes from great soldiers donating yes we get some money from corporations and American citizens as well 90 cents of every dollar that's donated goes right back to soldiers that's in the top 1% of all the nonprofits in the United States we're very proud of that in the Sergeant Major the Army in the previous Sergeant Major the Army keep us keep our you know focused on that as they should so why do we and it's the last thing I'm gonna say that why do we exist why does AER do what we do it's about combat readiness it's about resiliency helping you help your soldiers resiliency let me just give you an example a soldier if they're distracted by something in their life and in this case is its finances they're probably not focused on their MOS training they're likely not focused on the unit mission and if we send them into combat they potentially are a danger to themselves and their brothers on their left and right because what we found and you found in Iraq and Afghanistan one of the most powerful tools against a ground IED was awareness you're driving a convoy in the morning nothing's on the road that afternoon there's a dead animal laying on the side of the road well maybe it's just a dead animal but maybe it's an animal with a couple of 155 rounds inside of it and the guy sitting over there at a coffee shop with a cell phone if that soldier is distracted he might miss that animal in the afternoon so we're trying to help we're just one little grain of sand on that big beach of all the things that you do for our soldiers we're just trying to help with that resiliency minimize that financial distraction those thanks for what you guys do every day for our great army we're proud to be here and we're going to recognize those installations that went above and beyond the call in the active duty campaign this year and you'll hear more about that in a second so Andrew if you come on up here good morning on behalf of our chairman retired general John Campbell and the entire AER board of managers we are pleased to present the following awards to the installations for their achievement of participation in the army emergency relief campaign so for small garrison consisting of less than 2000 soldiers the winner this year with 75% participation was Hunter army airfield come up please thank you very much for medium-sized garrisons consisting of between 2 and 10,000 soldiers the winner with 68% participation was Fort Leonard Wood second year in a row and for large garrisons consisting of over 10,000 soldiers the winner is Fort Jackson with 10% participation also the second year in a row and congratulations thank you to all the soldiers they're garrisons and all of you who donated thank you very much thank you all right let's give one more round of applause for our awardees and for lieutenant general Mason and his team who do so much for our soldiers thank you sir all of sudden the Association United States Army greatly appreciate taking the time to share with you the wisdom and the knowledge and the most importantly the support that a our gives to our soldiers and our families now I have the honor of introducing the Sergeant made of the army first annual initiatives brief ladies and gentlemen please join me in a warm welcome for the 16th Sergeant made of the army SMA Michael Grinchton okay here it is you know we're putting on the last day so you know you put this on the first day then I'm not sure what you'd stick around and I'm just joking there's a lot of great panels a lot of great things but this is really where you know and it's not just me I would you know all the senior enlisted council and all the senior serge majors here's what we've been working on and this is what we're gonna really kind of work on for the next year for the army so this is this is gonna be good we've got some things that we're gonna announce so I will take questions at the end we can do them I don't know if we got cars we got microphones and we are posting things live and we have a few experts in the room that we can call on so please post your questions we've got live on Twitter Facebook and we're doing a Q&A on Reddit and I'm really proud of all these things that we have going on but I really look forward to the questions at the end so I'll try to get through that but before we even get any of that we're gonna do even more awards and some more things and then we'll get into the meat and bones of this and I think we're ready for the video we you know there's actually sound to this to be one of the first competitors is an honor I feel great to set the example for others I feel I feel great to be able to go back to my unit and share my experiences with junior soldiers and other NCOs but every single level we've been having to refine our skills and broaden our horizons of what we need to know for each competition so it's been a long train to get here to strive and try to compete in one of these competitions because not only does it bring good representation to your unit or command all of this training and competitive nature and team spirit we've built at this competition we can now take that back to our squad I guess we know the answer to the who will win part so uh you decide kill me out here come on who is something okay there we go first ever best squad competition was that awesome or what okay I can't let the chief have all the fun right so he gets to promote everybody that's just really cool but I just got to give you awards so we still had a best NCO and we had a still a soldier of the year but the first ever best squad so someone says well how's this gonna work well you know somebody may rise above the other ones in those individual tasks that we had in the beginning and those that excelled in individual competencies and they're in there and what we tested them on and those are still these two great soldiers have them come up and then we're gonna give them a really cool word so come on up hurry up come on man you're a young guy run do something we got to talk about stuff we got stuff to do awesome okay attention on orders stay down the meritorious service medal is awarded for exceptionally meritorious achievement during the 2022 best wear competition your ability to perform under the most challenging conditions set up him apart from every soldier serving the United States Army commitment to the Army values embodiment of the warrior ethos and remarkable soldier skills okay led to his success in the monumental events special alvarez and sergeant Paulson is highly trained in discipline fit and reflects great leadership distinct great upon itself the nice taste forces commanding the nice taste army same james mcconnell chief of staff like for MSM specialist you know if you get your uniform fixed I'd call you a sergeant okay and not and not to be outdone you know we gotta give awards to the best spot right come on now let's go meritorious service medal for example in meritorious achievement during the 2022 Army US Army best quads competition your performance while demonstrating technical and tactical efficiency at part of as part of a highly trained discipline fit and cohesive team sets you apart from every squad in the United States Army your commitment to the Army and this values embody the warrior ethos and remarkable leadership skills led to overall success to the squad this monumental event signed james mcconnell chief of staff okay one more round of applause look at this get a photo use the sake you gotta help me out man they're all out of uniform look at that I said you know the Rangers go figure out to get that ring so no yeah he's hard man he's hard okay I'm really excited to be here with you today we're gonna talk about some things and we'll leave plenty of time for the questions on the crazy things that we talked about here we've got a lot of stuff to talk about on a breeze through so if I don't get all deep into it and I don't cover your topics and please feel free to ask that in the questions if we get to the end I want to say plenty of time for that we've had a heck of a year there's a lot of things going on and it's almost like we forgot that we did a couple of things I want to highlight this as we get into this so a couple things that we may we've gotten done in just the last year we completed the the parenthood policy we have the expert soldier bads expert eib bads and efnb bads and that can all be done at one time we cracked that code and a lot of that is to the 10th mountain and now sir major retired terrainist as he helped us out with that and we're going to talk a little bit about that and yes we have completed the army combat fitness test come on now I mean we've only tried to change it for 40 years so we did get that completed and then we got a lot of things going on with quality of life so those are just a few things we've got accomplished in this year I'll talk maybe about a few more of those but really what what's in store for us for the next couple years okay number one on that priority was having the best squad competition this is the first time we've done it next year it's going to be even better next year we're going to bring all the competitors here we had 12 teams we narrowed it down to four million about four forward so the intent is for next year is that it's going to be all 12 teams they're all going to come up and then they'll compete and then we'll announce that so I want all those competitors to really realize and see and be congratulated by the army leadership they're still only going to be one there you know because winning does matter so we're going to continue that with that the expert badge alignment physical assessment we got the ACFT and guess what it's not going to be the ACFT so you're going to have to take one as you get ready to go for your expert badge expert soldier bags expert infantry bags expert field medical bags but the goal is to still have one physical assessment and one proposal and I think that's a really good one it's going to look like this and I've already done it and I did this while I was at the maneuver conference it starts off with your helmet on with your OCP boots and a vest you're gonna run a mile after you run that mile you can do 30 push-ups hand-release you're gonna sprint for a hundred yards then I might get the saddle order but there's a farmers carry and then you have to do 16 sandbags on the platform and after that you're gonna do high crawl and a buddy rush and then when you finish that you're gonna run another mile what are your questions you ready to go okay good so that's what we're looking at and those are the movements that you do you do a movement may not be a mile but it's a good assessment those that push up how do you get off the ground those movements under fire you're gonna do high crawl low crawl and a buddy rush that's gonna be in there when you pick stuff up you gotta do that and then we're just gonna do another movement so we're looking at a physical assessment and that we couldn't inform us so you have an army combat fitness test if you score high on that do you store high on this other assessment when you get those expert badges so this could inform us for the rest of the army on what we're doing on physical assessments so we're looking forward to that we we've already got it we've already done it we're now we got to figure out is it the right time I think the originally it was 21 minutes I know it's our major guns in here but I think that's maybe it was 25 or 30 minutes and we're trying to figure out is what's gonna be the total time do you get through those movements and that's where we're going with the expert badge alignment all the other tasks are already in the line so you can do e3b and we already proved that we actually did that we tested that at the best squad competition and those three soldiers that went to the best squad competition and earned their eib they earned it at Fort Bragg going through the stations that we set up for the best squad so that's the physical assessment they have not done that physical assessment that that's where we're going in the future the basic leader course we're revamping it you heard the trade ox our major talk about land avanae and navigation yesterday and why that's important bringing back land navigation understanding how to read a map and a compass that still is extremely important as we look for large scale combat in a degraded environment you need to know how to navigate from one point to the next without a GPS and that's a skill that we're gonna bring back in the future we're looking for field craft bringing back a field training exercise and we took that out of the basic leader course we're trying to put that big back in and it'll look like stations you would have some tasks like the warrior task in battle rails everybody needs to know understand how to do load fire and reduce the stuff is your 240 bravo as an example and some people will say well sir major that's not in my skill okay I understand that everybody when we deploy usually is standing behind one of those weapons and it doesn't matter what your m.o.s. is so these are the skills we're trying to bring back for every n.c.o. and that's the future and that's where we're going to be working on for the next year is how do we bring the back field craft and the word task in battle drills into back into the basic leader course as a check to ensure that we are still understanding those tasks and then we're working on digital job books so that you can do all these tasks when you do them you can do it in a digital job book and say I have completed this task and the goal would be I go in and say I'll stay with the load fire and reduce the stuff it's your 240 Bravo so I do on my job book I say I've done my task it's uploaded in the job book and then I'm ready to test not get a class I know I'm working on it and I get a class I get a walk through when you get to your lane for e3b you have completed that task in the digital job book it's already been uploaded your squad leader has approved that you've done that task to standard and now you're ready to test e3b and it'll save us probably about 45 days of sitting out there going oh do it do it again do it again and also we just set a set up you go maybe four or five days do a validation of the lane and then do your expert badges you go in a test and not setting it up for you know six you know three months four months and then it takes a lot of time for the squads with that we're also still working on the my squad app and we're gonna drill down to this one I'm gonna talk a little bit about that and then actually I'm gonna turn it over to master sergeant there you go warner right you got your mic ready to go okay I gave him really clear got it straight from the army sir amazing army I said I want to kick ass out okay and they loved it I guess go ahead start talking thank you guys so many Christmas you can come on that money's not sorry Warner they won't bite right the master Warner I'm the product manager for my squad and I have first lieutenant Alex Wilms he's the product designer for my squad so what is my squad my squad is a suite of tools available on personal devices we are I will I'll forward certified and we are also a secure platform for soldiers to work on next slide feature set so readiness is one of the big things that we've been working on readiness is embedded in the user's profile on the on the my squad application and also we're working on with mods very closely to get automated data into the readiness so that way in the future soldiers can get 30 60 and 90 day notifications when their readiness is up next slide accountability so accountability was something that we tried out with a hundred first they asked us how quick they could concept this because they were not happy with using other outside source apps so we conceptualize this in about two and a half weeks and put it into the app and next slide okay so I promise I'd be quick with this but counseling has probably been one of the major features that we've been working on so as of today you can actually access this right now in the my squad app but we've pushed through the ability to initiate conduct sign and export a DA 4856 anywhere that your phone has signal and then next we're just doing calendaring and scheduling so we tried modeling an outlook-esque experience so that you're able to go ahead and push this through and also receive notifications for it and this is available now on the on the open web you can utilize login dot gov and you can access this create squads issue tasks create calendar events do counselings maintain accountability and just so many more tools yo let's give him a round of applause I mean I like he was gonna have a heart attack coming up here you guys look scary okay the only the my squad app only works if you use it so you have to download you have to put it on your phone I can't you know wake you know I can't say oh you gotta do that we have changed the features of this app so we want to put all this money to a lot of things and I said how do we enable the squad leader to have some technology on their phone that helps them enable and track readiness on their phone I don't have to go to the order room and do this with a laptop or something you can put all those skills in there and you can upload it in the on your phone but I need your help I need everybody in here to actually use it if you don't use it you don't like it then we won't change it if you don't use it you know you go oh it's terrible well okay have you used it like no okay well that's not helpful so we really need you to go in there and start using the app and then we'll change it if there's a feature you want to see or something you want to do it's not tracking and helping you out in your daily day day-to-day duties let us know so this is the first thing that we've done actually enable a squad leader with some technology just to help them with all those readiness tests that didn't tie them to a company battery training order okay thank you okay that's highly trained some of the things we're working on with discipline most everybody in under in here knows that we're doing a monthly solution summit and the sole for so focus of that monthly meeting and we've done this just over a year is to ensure or get down to zero sexual assaults and zero suicides and that's hard and it's a tough topic but I really want to thank all the star majors in here we come together and it's really long meeting because those are really hard topics but we bring in new ideas and ways and things that we can do and we're trying things if we like it we keep it if we don't like it we kill it and if it gets really good then it comes to the star major the army because I'm sitting in there I'm sitting in the meeting and it comes through all the cores in the force column and say yay star major I think we need to do this for the army and one of those proposals is what we're talking about if you heard the secretary yesterday at the family forum if you didn't one of those things we're talking about we're annual list checks that's the importance of the meeting and I really appreciate all the star majors coming in and for everybody here if you have a great idea that's something that can help us make us better get that up to your star majors and bring it to that forum so that we can work as the army we're working on your issues especially for those two topics but it may not look like smell like taste like sexual assault or suicide prevention it may look like I need more money for the better opportunities single soldiers program I need more money for barracks I need more money for this because that's true prevention when I have a cohesive team that's highly trained discipline and fit that's part of a team I get a great place to live I got great food I'm gonna happy and then all those other things are gonna go away in our army so I need your help if you got something with those please get those nominal star majors but one of those initiatives is leader engagement tool please click on that slide what we have seen this was championed by the 18th airborne corps and I want to come in star major pit where yet David okay a year ago he said hey I'm going to check up check the barracks I said so what okay was it you know I like action you know but I you know I want results too so he took my challenge and said okay I said how do you what are you gonna do was it doing because you're in the barracks he said okay we're gonna cute create a QR code and you're gonna go in there and you say you have questions and say what does the barracks look like are there lights out or I talked to Jones while there and I saw all this and then it gets uploaded into vantage and then we take the crime report and then see where crime is on the installation and what we've seen I think it's a 25% percent reduction in crime in those areas where leaders were going to check on the installations and we can track that and prove it through the leader engagement tool that this is an initiative from the bottom up and this is one of the proposals that I've made the Department of the Army this is what I want in every installation when I walk in a barracks scan the QR code I'm here and then what's going on and that will inform us where are putting our resources because what we're fighting with our barracks your barracks may not match what's in the system what we're seeing is what's in the system so your barracks you say it's really bad and the system says it's really good that means I don't fund a new barracks that's another great thing about this leader engagement tool that is a product of the solution summit next responsible alcohol culture this is one of the soldiers on the internet said hey I want it we want this treat us like adults and we said well let's try it and I want to thank Sir Major Williams where you at he's not here he's on the slide is another one okay sir major bless sir major not just joking sigs you're in trouble so first armored division said yeah let's give this to try and general Eisenhower said hey we're gonna remove the restrictions on alcohol in the barracks I don't have alcohol restriction in my house so you know why would we have this in the barracks and we're gonna watch it we're gonna have leader engagement to make sure that we don't incurring crazy and then treat you like adults the the key behind this is not to have you drink more alcohol it's actually to have a very good positive alcohol culture where you don't glamorize it it's not this taboo thing to do is just it's okay if you drink it's okay not to drink too by the way and not glamorize this and that's what we're doing with that so the we're doing a lot of work on counseling for the next year and we're gonna talk about one of those two initiatives we're incentivizing positive behavior and we've seen this now we haven't taken this on as an army but we've seen a lot of units do this already it's a really good initiative and feel free to go ahead and jump on in if you like it but I think it started with the 173rd in Italy where they said hey if you go out and you're a soldier and you do something positive say you want to go scuba diving you go scuba diving you get 10 points if you take your squad scuba diving you get 40 points when you get a hundred points we're gonna give you a day off and that's already gone from the 173rd to the 82nd and out to the 11th Airborne Division as we spread this round and maybe if that's something good maybe that's something we all need to do to incentivize positive behavior in the army but the second one on that is the counseling so please click on that so what we've seen is there are bumps when star majors look like you're in a danger zone and here's some of the danger zones you can see those red marks at the 90-day mark you see a spike there's actually a bigger spike at the 12-month mark and then the two-month mark and then you can see on there it says high risk of investigation our goal is to prevent those things from happening and we're doing a targeted counseling at the 12 month month of battalion star majors and the question a few minutes ago in the media was you know what does that mean for me as a soldier well less dignity and respect behavior from a battalion star major means you have a better leader that understands you don't treat people this way and then that means it's a better command culture in that battalion and that's what it means it's all about making sure that we provide you the absolute best leaders we have in the United States Army and make sure and what I don't want to do is go okay we give a counseling at the 11-month mark to the times our majors and then you know we see a spike at the 14th of 15th the goal is to make sure there are no spikes and we have seen a downward trend for three years and misconduct at the start major level next line go back okay go forward as we get through discipline and then fit workplace gender relations nope stay on the slides are major go back okay yeah I definitely want to close this slide with this right here okay we did the workplace gender relations survey that just come out and I read this and I told you the monthly solution summit was something that we were really working on and we want to get sexual assaults low and then and I do admit the reporting was a year behind us it's October 20 to October 21 but our sexual assaults increased now there is no good news in that but we saw that and that's why we started the monthly meeting but then the survey came out but we also saw that we did a a prevalence survey so prevalence was up sexual assaults were up and then there was an increase I can tell you you know as an army for everybody that's not acceptable we have to do better and when prevalence is up and there's this big gap between prevalence and reporting there's this thing that I would say about trust and that's something we as a non-commissioned officer should never lose the trust of our soldiers again that is unacceptable you have to trust us you have to talk to us that's one of those reasons we're doing the targeted counseling we want you to be approachable we want to say I trust you again the goal of the sexual assaults is to be the zero but I don't want that because you're not reporting it that's not the goal the goal is to have prevalence and reporting match that means if I were to be assaulted I am trust that my chain of command that I can tell them that's where we need to be Sergeant majors sergeants soldiers you have to trust us we're just like you all we're not from you know some other planet in the world we came from your hometowns just like everybody else and it's like it sometimes when this trust comes up to me it feels like you know I was born in the army it's not true I came from a small town in Alabama where did you come from where'd you come from yeah you if you got a point at yourself it's absolutely you okay you have to be a little approaches we're not we're from your hometowns if you don't trust your NCOs and you can't trust the leadership it's our majors NCOs we have to do better and then when that survey comes out I go is make sure that we do our absolute best that at the bottom line when the prevalent survey comes out I am willing to go forward and talk and at least say this happened to me and I told my NCOs and I told my chain of command thanks for that sir thanks okay now once we get through discipline we're gonna talk about fitness we're working on annual wellness tech so I talked about that and we want to improve our utilization our army wellness centers we talked a little bit about this yesterday the family forum we talked about behavioral health and somebody said do we want to see everybody go seek behavioral health I want to be very clear what I say in annual wellness check that is not everybody going to seek behavioral health and I'll caveat that with it's okay to seek behavioral health perfectly fine and I talked about it before I went to behavioral health in November last year I still got to be the sergeant his army I didn't lose my clearance and you know and I'll know I'll let you be the judge where I'm doing a good job or not but I'm still here and I still get to go to those meetings but with the wellness check is maybe you can talk to somebody not behavioral the chaplains the influx and then maybe you can go just get a good old health check at the army wellness center and they can do your VO to max they'll put you do you have the right body weight they can give you a nutrition plan I went last November I felt like after a couple years of wonderful time and terrific time as a service your army I needed to get another check and believe it or not I actually went to the wellness check wellness center phenomenal resource so when I say an annual wellness check it doesn't necessarily mean go behavioral health what we don't want to do is everybody goes to behavioral health and then say this side of the room you just go in I don't I don't need to see behavioral health but we just filled up all those slots with everybody going okay that's not what we want to do there's all kinds of resources so that's those wellness checks are a little different and not filling up we're gonna go down to the physical because I know this is the one that everybody's waiting for at least again as you stop asking me questions about the army combat fitness test but then it just rolled right in the army by composition so please click on that okay I'll start off with the bad news right now there'll be no changes to the height weight tables themselves the data shows that the height and weight tables are correct and when you doubt me or question that I brought the women that have done the data to help me up help me out with that but I'm just gonna lead with that so right now we are proposing no change to the height and weight tables and because they're accurate and in it and I want to be clear on this the height and weight tables are not designed to say you have body fat or not it's just a screen that says hey let's go check something that's all it is there should be no angst just like there's no worry to go to baby help there should be no angst if you go get taped okay so raise your hand in this room if you've ever gone to height and weight and then you need to be taped okay there's a lot of sorry major just raise their hands no worries that's so I don't want to change the height and weight tables because yeah I could make it yeah we could change the weight of course you just carry around more body fat that's not good for the army you can read that on the slide but here's what we did this is the largest survey that we've done on body composition that I know of or ever and I got a head nod so yes but we did double the numbers okay so if there were 16% of the women in the army you got 34% we didn't double it for men so we had to take down the men because we had good data on that or data but you can see that every demographic we have in the army that's what that middle column is so here's all the that's what we have in the army right now and then on the right side that's who had to go through the study so you can see that this is a really comprehensive study okay and I told you about that we could modernize 600-9 total there are four proposed changes three of those I will not talk to you about today and one I will tell you about is what I want to do that I think that we will do very quickly and that is if you score 540 on the ACFT you will be exempt from height and weight so I'm just looking at the table over here to see who could type the fastest so I just I couldn't help it they torture me all the time so I had to so 540 on the ACFT and you would be exempt for height and weight so there are other changes we need more time we're gonna have to study this a little bit but we found it's kind of pretty accurate you know if you score there and you were to be overweight you may not be overweight and that's what some of the study found so the study did a take you did a DEXA which was a scan the dual X-ray Absorbitometry she said that's close enough so our major that's called a DEXA it is the gold standard it's accurate to point five percent of your body fat and I would challenge you if you go no I got a lot of lean muscle mass I saw major I want to go lay on that DEXA I'm like okay I'll take that bet somebody somebody up here said don't do it it's gonna hurt your feelings I'm gonna let you know right now and I am part of the study I went in and laid on the DEXA like I'm good now mr. McGirt I was not that I did not have that much body fat he's like oh yeah he's gonna be like 25% I'm like it was not 25 okay it was 14 but my tape was 11 so I cautioned you with that so we've got some things that we want to do like said there's three more recommendations we're doing out of the body fat of the first one I'm announcing right now if you score high on that and that's what we found you we've scanned your body you had a lot of lean muscle mass and maybe you did actually bust the tape but you scored high 540 on your ACFT you should be good even if you tape you may tape over but you score that high then normally we wouldn't have to put you on the machine it just makes us more accurate because you didn't have that much you actually had a lot of meat lean muscle mass and for whatever reason you just carried it in different spot and then should be good so that's the one proposal there are three others that we're looking to change we just have to do another little bit of study and there's some things that we need to work on but I can't tell you when you have more muscle mass body fat you're 50% more likely to have an increase in injury that's why this is so important we got to make sure that we get that down there will be more changes to come other than that so thank you thanks no alternate I got there yet sorry to stick with me okay fit we talked about the body composition in the warrior restaurant centers go ahead and please click on that we've done a lot of things I want to be I am so where's our major sellers I did it I finally went to a defect and I could pay with my credit card yes after 247 you know years of existence in the United States Army I went into a defect finally and use the credit card to pay for my meal I know we just caught up with the vendor that sells ice cream in DC but we're moving in the right direction because three years ago we couldn't pay if you wanted to pay and you go in the defect with a credit card I mean so we got to do that but even more importantly we've added 16 food trucks meal prep program well some people got star major we've always had takeout okay this is not takeout again a great initiative started by the 18th airborne core this is I go online I go in for breakfast and I want my lunch meal and here's four options I want based on my app maybe I got my fitness app or you got no meal you got some kind of fitness nutrition app and I go hey based off on how I exercise here's how I didn't want to fuel my body and I want this meal this is how many proteins carbohydrates I want and they'll have a meal plan for that you order it before you get there you go in for breakfast and I want lunch and dinner I grab my lunch and dinner based off my meal plan and then if I want to go to the gym at the end of the day and I want to work out an extra time I don't have to spend my money because the defects closed it'll be a container you can go back and it's going to be reutilized we already had meal prep at locations and start major sellers right after you saw the credit card issue it's like okay I want meal prep in every warrior restaurant in the army so that you can have an or a way to order it online go to a meal and then pick up a couple other meals so soldiers can eat healthy the hardest part believe it or not is the reusable container but it is available at 27 locations it's not a styrofoam bag you grab some stuff off the line they're dumping food in there and then you go back your room it's cold and microwavable containers that's the goal quality life we got a lot of quality knife and it's just working on please click on that and I'll just go quickly around this we in the last year the army and DoD we have all tenant bill rights at every installation in the army was 18 14 18 18 to yeah 18 tenant bill rights there at every installation it's already there you should know that but I'm just letting you know we've done just published a barracks explore that that ask us all to go back and check our barracks and that's in really in preparation of the facilities investment program so I need you to check the barracks and say here's where we're going to spend money on barracks does it match if it doesn't match then maybe we need to renovate those buildings okay and that's the whole point of the x-word is to go and validate when we start doing not weed army material command does the facilities investment plan are we spending the money on the appropriate barracks that's why we're going in and doing a wise on check on the barracks PCS moves the secretary defense has announced you know taking care of people initiative they've increased the dislocation allowance they've extended the TLE so temporary lodging has went for 14 days and it can go up to 60 days they're doing this so that if you cannot find the house you do not have to pay out of pocket for the hotel room that you're staying in you need to know that if you go over that 14 days ask and say hey I would like to extend so that you're not paying out of pocket for that you need to know that it's in the memo and then bring that up to your channel commander in ceo's to support channel so if that happens please let us know child care another thing for the secretary defense a 50% decrease on child care for child care workers in the CDC and most people go well what's the big deal sir major did you know that almost not almost a hundred percent of the CDC's I walked in were not operating at capacity and it was not because of the building it was because they didn't hire enough staff they couldn't hire enough staff a hundred percent I've not walked in and said okay if you had all the workers could you have more children in the facilities every every facility I walked in to said yes so I could build more buildings but I needed the staff so that 50% discount for child care workers for their first child in the CDC's is to help us get more see people working in the CDC's if you want to do a family child care home we're gonna give you a thousand dollars and then you get priority in housing when you PCS so we need and that helps us out for those locations say sir major I want 24-hour child care and we go okay let's do it so we tried that at Fort Sill and it didn't have any children so or we didn't have enough so it does you know if you got four people you had turned lights on and then your whole building is being operated and you only have one child it's not cost effective it's more effective for us to give you the money and say here are family care homes that you could take and do child care approved on the installation and they're they can operate in different hours and those are the incentives we're doing on child care spouse employment most of these you've already heard of we've been working on these for a while but the state's license reciprocity when you move from state to state on your spouses if they have to pay for getting license renewed but to move the state to state we pay for that or pay up to a thousand dollars you have to apply for it you have to know that and I say that because I was at pre-command course with the chief and somebody says if we only did that and the chief looked at me and said yeah we're doing that so yeah if you do and you have to re-license if your spouses are re-licensed we will reimburse a thousand dollars okay and health care that the enterprise exceptional family member program we've worked hard on this we need you to register in that program I think we have I can't remember the exact number EFMP family members I think it's over 50,000 but I think we only have five to six thousand registered on the the electronic exceptional family member program it's it's a web-based you get in there and you register you can it's a really good tool but you have to go in I think we're gonna get more people as you PCS and get it in there but it tells you what care you would have at the next location if you're gonna PCS what's available in your area who recommends certain doctors it's all in there if you have an EFMP family member I'd ask you to all to go ahead and register for that program because maybe we need to make it better but we need everybody using the program once again and don't wait till you PCS okay call to life go back please we're doing a lot of things with talent management the step exception of policy right now I really wanted to announce that that we don't need that exception of policy but that's incorrect so right now for the next year or until we do better and getting our soldiers to school on time we're gonna keep the exception of policy in place and it may not be the whole year I may change the next month but right now we are still struggling to get our soldiers to school before it's time for that get promoted and the reason last year we announced this in this forum was to make sure we wanted to promote quality but we also got to get those soldiers to school and we got a lot of work in the SEC the Senior Listed Council we're gonna work on this in the next couple months and there'll be more to follow on step but right now we still have the exception of policy and I don't see us taking that out in the next three months we're looking to do an ask EM for marketplace and the real what that is is when an officer gets ready to PCS and they say hey I'm getting ready to PCS and I want to go to this location they can go in they say I want to go there the unit says yet you want to come here and we accept that assignment we don't do that for the enlisted we're looking to pilot that for the master sergeants in other words you can go in and say hey I want a PCS and then the unit says yes we want to receive you in that unit for master sergeants we're looking to pilot that in the next year and we're gonna go ahead and skip down we talked about a little bit of the counseling but please click on the military the mentorship pilots core compass so out of the summit we said how do we mentor Sarbages or it really was like how do we mentor soldiers and if you go back to the chief senior leader forum in December they said we don't do well with mentorship and leader development and we need to do better so this is one of the initiatives that we said is that when the sergeants go to the Sergeant Major's Academy you have people volunteered to be a mentor and I've volunteered to be a mentor they'll select someone and that's the graph we're gonna do this pilot it and then how do we get this down to all our soldiers we're gonna start at the top and then work our way down and we have some programs are working down that are already at the top but this is one we're gonna work on right now so Sergeant Major's go and they will select a mentor and I volunteered to be in one of those pools please go back and if you're at the Sergeant Major's Academy and you're listening you all cannot select me I know please like Sergeant Major Hendricks and everybody else now that's not true so all the senior Sergeant Major's have elected and if they didn't they just did to be mentors at the Sergeant Major's Academy and then please go ahead and click on the leader engagement metrics so we talked about the targeted counseling and here's the second pilot that we have we talked about counseling in a lot and what we said is on the on one side you'll see the green those are the positives and then what does this look like so we we've done one turn at it and Sergeant Major Haiti looked at this with one of his battalion Sergeant Major's so this is a division Sergeant Major battalion Sergeant Major and says here's the things that are our positives do you have high retention rates you have a good participation in the better opportunity for single soldiers have you done your expert soldier ads how you doing your safety no UCMJ and then and then has that made an effect on the right and this is going to be counseling we don't know when is it going to be once a year it's going to be every quarter but this would be the vision Sergeant Major to a battalion Sergeant Major and saying what are the positives and are they have an effect on the negative and the hope is the same time that battalion Sergeant Major return around with either the first Sergeant's in the battalion Sergeant Major or a tune Sergeant's and have a very similar conversation at least that's what I would do if I was Italian Sergeant Major like this is not about like I got you this is about learning and mentorship and saying hey work on these positives they'll do better with the negatives so this is a little bit different we're calling the leader engagement metrics where it looks at a positive and as it have effect on the negative as opposed to the targeted counseling but there are two counseling initiatives that we have go ahead and go back and then lastly is transitioning out of the Army and I guess this has always been near and dear to my heart I know I've said this many times I said everybody leaves the Army there are three ways to leave the Army if you're in the Army one of those is really bad and two I guess are pretty good okay you can ETS you can PCS or I'm sorry you ETS retire or die but you all leave the military so any leadership out there that says hey you cannot go to a secure career skills program be very cautious of that because maybe I say that when it's time for you to transition and I'm not gonna say that so I need everybody to understand we all leave the military and then we all need to make sure we enable our soldiers to transition this is good for me we want soldiers to leave and talk good about the Army no matter how they leave the Army you all have to do it everybody leaves the Army so don't hinder your soldiers from taking the time to go do their career skills program the transition program because when you do it you want time to do it and you just do the exact same thing at your location and then I'll close with this little story about transitioning soldiers and everybody leaves the Army so I had a soldier about three weeks ago actually his by well one of his co-workers called my my wife a little scary you got my wife's phone number you got the cell phone so that happened he's a policeman so I guess it makes me feel a little better he calls and boss like do you know this guy named JJ McClure like yeah it's like I was a staff sergeant I'm like I'm not sure how this is gonna go but I'll call him back because I chapter JJ McClure out of the United States Army I mean I did it's like well why are they calling me this is like 30 years ago and I talked to him and he said that was my he's my boss and he's talked great about you his whole life I'm like JJ I was the devil and I literally tapped him out of the Army he just got diagnosed with ALS and I want you to call so how people transition matter are you gonna be the leader the staff sergeant that when you chat for somebody out they're on their deathbed they'll call you that's how important it is to our country when people transition we get that right we won't have to worry about our sessions because every person that leaves the military is going to talk well like JJ McClure and I wish him all the best so I'm that with that happy note we'll open it up for questions what do you got somebody's got to be first so artist may well we're getting questions here in the room we'll go online from reddit are there any updates coming you're a start with an online reddit so our major please somebody stand up at something no I'm just joking I love reddit come on now these are good are there any updates coming to the promotion point worksheet specifically with ACFT or any other changes you'd like to see before you leave yes I thought we're put those out okay yeah there we made changes to the promotion point worksheet I don't have all the numbers in my head but we reduced the the amount of promotion points on the promotion point worksheet for physical fitness and increased stuff like weapons call expert soldier badge I think we doubled the amount of promotion points for the expert soldier badge I think it went from 30 to 60 yeah you probably probably want to go do that now so but we wanted to be an expert we and we had a lot of faith in our physical fitness but it's also really cool to know how to shoot a weapon and know how to do those tasks so we and it was not the combat infantry badge combat action badge it was on the expert badges doubled so we made some changes on the promotion point worksheet that's just one or two of those I think those are out I don't know if they've gone completely into effect I think we had to wait till April of 20 something but that should be out already if not those are the that's one of the changes we're doing approach point worksheet okay yes sir and then we'll go back thanks our major excellent segue from taking a question from social media I know the first day of the conference there was a lot of discussion about social media and leaders online but in the last two years I've watched your office empower your staff to be online to get your message out to get messages from the force and we've worked with them to intervene in suicide prevention efforts we've intervened in sexual harassment efforts and made those reportings to the command so I feel like it's been really important the last couple years the standard that you've set in the example that you've made we have more soldiers here because of it so how do we take this example and replicate it for leaders across the force yeah thank you thank you that's a good question I would just say I got your back and I think every NCO in here needs to say the exact same thing and it doesn't matter where I'm on social media if I'm intervening with a suicide and those have been fantastic and we do we have to do better but it also means in person we absolutely and it doesn't matter and believe it or not when you look this up in the army command policy it tells us to do that read it it's a I already looked it up paragraph 4-19 it says you know as a leader we expect this is written in the army command policy and if you hadn't read it please do on paragraph 4-19 and it talks about as a leader you're expected to intervene on behalf of your soldiers and then it says in parentheses online and in person I mean I got it it's like but it's our major yeah it's our policy imprinted out just in case I forgot it but that's what I think we got to do that you got to do it professionally you know you got to do it the right way I think I've learned my own lessons sometimes I did it right sometimes they're getting alright so but but we would never hesitate to intervene on behalf of our soldiers hopefully in person right I mean this is a true story I won't tell you where it was so I was somewhere with one of my soldiers and one of my soldiers just not drink alcohol and somebody offered him something to drink and you know somebody says well you know you couldn't be in my army that's what he said to the soldier I said okay that's good because I want him in my army I'm gonna stick up for my soldiers I don't care where you're at that's how I feel and that's how that's that is me I mean that's what you get and that's what we want you to do every day no matter where you're at in which venue you're at right NCOs we got remember we got to build that trust back we got to be willing to do that more importantly than online you got to do it in person that's what I would say to you too is bottom line we are people and we have to talk to each other and I get really worried when you say well this thing is going on over here you know but this thing going over here should not you know override the trust you have in your squad and your unit and I had this conversation with actually sorry right here very heated conversation I'm looking at him I'm sorry right here no matter what is said online no matter what what did I say to you yesterday I said no matter what would I do this for you you said you die you died for us you would die for your squad you said that very directly I did you know and I said don't you know all these things are gonna happen there's gonna be said but I want you to know you're my squad and I would die for you and I said do you believe me you see that's where the trust needs to be it's not on the internet it's not somebody you know saying stuff bad about you would you die for that squad made would you die for your squad that's all the trust we need so sometimes I think we need to close all that stuff off we need intervening and I'm not gonna stop doing that no matter what the venue is but more importantly when you go back to your squad can you do you have the same trust in your squad and I didn't ask Sardinia and I'm not gonna ask him now I'm afraid demons like hell no I wouldn't die for you okay next question yeah sure okay thanks our major you know you should always get worried when the front row start asking you questions they always got really freaked out when I stand up as a star major I am proposing that I don't have a start date okay so don't walk out tomorrow and then nobody takes that way what I want to do is roll all those initiatives up and some of them are policy that I need to really work on and some they need more study and so DMPM you know start riding so we gotta get this staff but that I think that's one that we can implement much faster I think it's a it's a no cost for the army and I think we'll get that much quicker than we would anything else so I don't know but we also will see how the internet reacts to the eruption I think that's a positive would you all agree okay so that's why we're proposing that I'm proposing it but I think that will go much faster some than some of the other changes because we'll have to make changes to AR's this one I think we'll go a bit faster okay you know she's like star major hold me to a date my goal is they have all four of those proposed and either implemented or started in the army by June the summer next year but again if I remember I don't sign that so I gotta get it through everybody but as I've already tested the wires a little bit I think that's gonna go well and we look to have that as soon as possible okay good a good question next question on the internet artist man just for clarification that last question I was referencing when the start on the 540 exemption would be so yeah from social media has there been any discussion about allowing a non-military spouse's career way into a PCS yes we've we've had this question and I think it was more from a department of the army civilians career to a PCS I don't think you know we're gonna write policy I haven't seen any proposals for policy that says my spouse's career you know and only I do this but this is what I call that other thing other than policy is what it's called good old-fashioned leadership and this should come into play every day you know okay what's good for your family and I I promise we've had this conversation a lot and especially at the nominative level it was this feeling that we were never gonna ask you if you wanted to be a nominative star major it was you do it or get out and I said we probably should ask them what's good for your family they still have families we should do that and that's the same thing so if a spouse says hey I'd like to stay here you know can we do that the Chief of Staff of the Army and I've said that for three years it's okay to stabilize in one location and then we still so if a but we can be creative with this right we still have to fill drill sergeants and this is one of those things we're not finished with this yet we said well if I want to be a drill sergeant go down to Fort Benning for a couple years but I want to go back to Fort Bragg or Fort Hood or JBLM could I go be a drill sergeant for two years and come back to that location why not and so that's one of those things when we get into a you could say hey I like this location it's got all the career advancement that I need I still need to fill drill sergeants that's the number one drill sergeant recruiters are still the biggest draw staff sergeants and why they PCS go do that and then go back to that unit of assignment that comes at cost right because if we're full on staff sergeants and that's the place you always wanted to be there and they fill that slot but those are some of the things we're trying to do to stabilize families but we don't have any policies that says you know your spouse's job I think that's individual and requires a little bit of leadership but we are working on some of those things okay what else yes sir estimate tap and CSP are great programs CSP it provides some people some phenomenal opportunities at right now we're at odds with losing those people and then you have vacancies and no requisitions until they're finally out of the army is there any movement forward on a TCHS account or putting them somewhere or not counting them against you so we can fill those positions yeah or letting them clear and then go into a CSP program and creating a vacancy no and there's why well I can give you the really easy answer to that is that we're supposed to assess 60,000 we got to 40,000 we're supposed to have 485 we got to 462 so I mean I mean I could do that but it you know where am I gonna get the replacement from so you know in other words I'm right I'm you know if I we still need to let them go do that it you know we have to sorry we just I'm not saying you but everybody we have to let them go do that and you're not gonna get me to agree to anything else other than letting them go and transition out of the army if I had all the people that we needed or at least met our instinct it would be easier to do that but we had a TCHS account but it you know if we're not meeting those goals it wouldn't matter anyway I mean I could put them there but doesn't matter I don't have anybody to replace it with but I'm just saying we need to let them go we won't make our assessments goals they're gonna get out and be disgruntled yeah they're gonna just kick me out I have no job and you know I don't have any money I mean is that the recruiter we want to be back on the street no absolutely not because everybody's a recruiter they're gonna say hey where you been for all these years Johnny well I was in the army and they kicked me out they didn't train me to do anything and it was terrible or no I loved it it's awesome I love my job they gave me this career skills and I go be part of a community and like okay I want to go be part of that for a few years it's important it's how we take care of people not when just we receive it's also when they leave so I'd like to do that but right now we just don't have people I could I couldn't even recommend that okay what else yes ma'am in reference to your study when you received your feedback from the study I've been waiting all day for this right here nobody question night and wait tables I brought two experts with me and nobody said anything was there a difference between the level of body fat within the different demographics on that chart okay good that's why I bought Holly and Katie to help me answer that question thank you so you might have to read to repeat the question for him though in reference to the army body fat composition study from the results of the study was there a difference between the demographics in reference to the level of body fat good question so Holly McClung Katie Taylor we're from Eusarium we oversaw the study with CIMT and when we talk about the height and weight table we're talking it's like kind of the first layer so as a screening tool we saw it's screened effectively for both men and women and there was no difference across race ethnicity or race in how accurate it was in kind of eliminating that manpower that would be required for taping so in other words we use the DEXA scan which is probably a gold standard in the research world for body fat Sergeant Major was saying you know like it's 0.5% accurate so we use that to kind of assess how accurate those tables were for height and weight and we found them they're functioning just as as accurately as they should be around 90% and so those are going on to be taped either should be taped or those that aren't shouldn't have been going on to be taped also just to kind of further elaborate on that I think to get at kind of the differences potentially in body fat percentages I think our main goal with this specific study was to make sure that we had a representative sample of the entire army so within groupings of race race ethnicity sex age groups we looked at different physical demand categories and I think what we did well was we got a wide range of and representative range of different body types different you know body compositions and so I think to get at kind of the heart of what you were saying as far as body fat percentage I think what we have captured is not necessarily that one group was different over the other but potentially that we captured a representative sample from each of the different groups that we had did that answer your question okay good okay what else SMA go ahead Rob you go to the micro there or you stand out and yell but there's people online so if somebody could grab that mic and bring it now please SMA as we move forward to Army of 2030 with data analytics being pivotal in the future what steps are being taken or are you aware of to better prepare NCOs and soldiers in regards to future POI in PME specifically in BLC and MLC to enhance our capabilities and what we can bring to the table so as we trade ox our major yeah I know you're like when he's like come on raise your hand is like you know what to be so let me make sure I understood in reference to data analytic analytics how do we get into the NCO of 2030 and make sure I kept just give me a thumbs up or yes that's a man okay um so actually it's two people up here for data analytics so it's actually Army Futures Command and what we're doing with the cross functional team on soldier lethality so we're actually trying to measure soldier lethality from some of the wearables that we have I think is you said we're working on that too I think it's the mastery program so we're we actually had the best squad hooked up to these I mean they we watched everything how did they sleep were they dipping in their performance we had them hook we literally had them hooked up and we monitored everything they did over the course of five to seven days and we could see it on a screen and said yep here's how they're sleeping they didn't get really good sleep which is like yeah we knew that so but there were other things and then we measured how they could perform and what we're trying to do in the future is say okay this person they're about to you know go down they're not using all their cognitive ability they're probably don't want them to go on target right now they need more sleep or they're not going to perform as well as they should so in the future we're looking to kind of digitize how we do with our performance with a capability where you have a wearable that and we can measure it over time and then give you a score on your squad and say your squad's at a 10 and if you did these four things you could get them up to a 14 or how do you get them through nutrition or sleep because they're about to do this really hard mission and that's what we're going in the future and then Sir Major Hester did it is there anything I missed on on that no SMA I think you're good on with regard to mastery and wearables and and human performance there are other things that are happening in the uniform human performance arena but you clever that pretty good I think the other thing to cover here and I don't think it's necessarily something that's going to go into PME with regard to your question is in places like the software factory where we're looking at data analytics we're looking at the ability to code at the tactical edge solve problems for commanders at the tactical edge with regard to prototyping and with regard to talent management so there's places that are happening it's also happening at the artificial intelligence center up at Carnegie Mellon University where we're taking officers and non-commissioned officers and making them experts in at that the number two school in the world with regard to AI so so there's some places I don't think we're at a point and I don't want to talk for Sir Major Hendricks but I don't think we're at a point now where we're going to ingest that into PME but I do think the future battlefield is going to be a place where we are going to have to be able to take a look at data data management with regard to sensors and the speed with which the battlefield is going to change and we're going to have to have non-commissioned officers maybe specifically battle staff non-commissioned officers that are there can take that information in quickly they can use the tools that we have to analyze it and then they can give recommendations to the to the commander for some resource to be applied against a threat so so we're working in some spaces there to get better but I think it's going to be non-commissioned officers that that are come with some of those skills it's also going to be non-commissioned officers that that like that arena and want to be there because we also want folks that you know want to get muddy and sweat and carry heavy things long distances and kill people but it is it is a space in the future where we're gonna have to have people who can take data can analyze that data and can provide good recommendations to their commanders for execution okay Daniel anything that okay Rob SMA someone started make a statement about no alternate events but we didn't follow up on that something we can talk about right now or something come in in the future right now we're looking at no alternate events for the 540 on the ACFT it's a 540 you gotta take all six events I wait good to go that answer your question yeah just bring the microphone back okay take it back out there you know now that we don't have to walk to my phone now or he's like yeah come on we go here here and then we'll close it out yeah good afternoon SMA on one of the slides it had order of merit list unmasking and I was wondering if you could elaborate on what that means I was just curious if you're reading the slides to you that's good here come on up we'll give you a coin for reading the slide you gave me one yesterday I gave you one yesterday good then stay there okay good yeah we've been working on this and we have the task and I thought I've been pretty clear but we found out that the Secretary of the Army has signed an x-word that said you know we don't unmask we don't tell anybody else so that just makes it more complex so now we have to write another x-word and then run it through the army staff to get it signed to unmask and enlisted that's still my goal is to get it unmasked at some point it's how do we manage talent if we don't know who the talent is in our formations what we talked about in the last year was at what level does that go to everybody recommendation was initially is that well let's do it for all this but at the division level but that comes with trust right I'm a very trusting person when that list gets out to everybody and it gets below division then you will no longer have that trust but I think at some point we need to know hey you're on the higher OML you know these 10 of there we got to ensure that they get to school on time because they're gonna get promoted and that's what we're saying we and that's why we had to do some of the ETPs because we didn't know we're sending people down here and they were available and you know and I can't even hold people accountable they go to our major I don't know you know I say you shouldn't know but you gotta get them to school like who goes to school like we have to prioritize about how do I prioritize you know tell me you're supposed to go so we're gonna do it so that's just that's really high on my list to get done this year is kind of unmask it all lists at the division level and not just division because there's other people not division at the two-star level or a sec I think that's what we said okay but good catch yes sergeant last question and nobody wants to bring you my sergeant nobody somebody stand up grab the mic come on drill sergeant good job good afternoon we'll give you a coin right this my name is Sergeant Walker I'm a senior health care NCO for the 354 civil affairs brigade and I was wondering if there's anything in the works for a soldier to be awarded the physical fitness badge for the ACFT yes we talked a lot about that and it might look like 540 I know what do you think so yeah we hadn't gotten there yet just you know went effective for flagging you know 12 days ago so yeah sure I'm not against doing a physical fitness badge but you know there's some other things we're trying to work on with policy and one of those is the body composition we just want to get that really out and make a few more changes on that and that's kind of priority but yeah we're all in for physical fitness pads okay in closing I do want to thank a couple groups first and foremost if you're a former Sergeant Major the Army or we got SMA and and Ken and this is my last a USA as the Sergeant Major Army and I'll be probably in the crowd in a suit and I'm looking forward to that and to you all and being mentors for me in the last three four years I want to say a special thanks to you all and then to really the five eyes but all serge majors of other countries you know been great friends I can say Paul and Jim special thanks to you and you know I I couldn't be happier with everything that we've done in the last few years and the relationship we've had and the torture you've gone to you know 10 miles with me ACFT trans Mountain Runs and all this stuff really great friends and I really appreciate your friendship and and and for everybody all the the serge majors of your country I'd say we've never fought a war alone as the United States Army and and we're not gonna do that again you know just you know we're we're stronger as a world together one group that may not be in the room too much I think I saw one officer in here there's like there's more than one there's two I don't know did Joe Bonner leave it but tell him I said thank you and I say this is the strength of our our army is our NCO core we do none of that without the trust of our officers right they trust they trust the chief of staff of the army trust me enough that I can present those awards he trusts me enough that we can do these forms like this and I don't want to lose that trust and I all want you to do the same thing so I want to do a special thanks to officers for the NCOs of the room I would say for 33 years I've been a non-commissioned officer I've been extremely proud to be a non-commissioned officer I've loved every second of it and I think my basic responsibilities are still there whether I was a sergeant to be the Sarbes the army and that's a long time but those grounded fundamentals haven't changed and what you've done for the army has been a phenomenal and then the in the last group is the soldiers it really comes to what I told Sergeant here is you know people say would you do it again and I would say absolutely I would die for our soldiers because they would die for our country and that's a powerful statement but it's so true I see it in their eyes and their spirit and if you're wrong just look at the the front two rows over to my left and when people and I'm gonna tell you this in my parting ways and people say if anybody tells you that you know what's going on with your generation or any of that it's just great crap you know you're great and you're gonna be greater than we ever were and don't let anybody tell you anything different I'm proud to be your Sergeant Major the Army and I'm proud that you're a soldier in the United States Army so thanks have a wonderful day thank you SMA and ladies and gentlemen please join us this evening at 1830 in the main ballroom on the third floor well we conduct a USA's martial dinner and presentation and thank you for joining this year's Association of the United States Army 2020 annual meeting have a great day