 Committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair may declare the committee in recess at any point in the hearing. I also want to admonish the audience that this is a public hearing, but we will not tolerate disruptions. Anybody who is disruptive will be removed and arrested. Today we continue our review of the FY25 budget request for the US Army. I want to thank our witnesses for being here and for their service to our nation. The FY25 defense budget is extremely tight and that's being generous. The FRA caps total defense spending at 895 billion for the year. That is less than 1% increase over FY24 when you factor in inflation that 1% increase is actually a 2% decrease in defense spending. No service has hit harder than the Army. The Army continues to be the Pentagon's bill payer. The president's budget cuts operations and maintenance, putting readiness of the force at risk. It cuts Army research and development, including a 39% reduction in early stage research and development projects that are critical to Army modernization efforts. It cuts procurement of combat vehicles and ammunition and proposes to cancel two major modernization programs. But for as bad as the budget request is for the Army, it will get much worse if Congress fails to pass the National Security Supplemental this week. The Army is struggling to pay the unplanned operating costs of increased deployments in higher operation tempos in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Army is also rapidly running through its supply of interceptors as it defends Israel and our troops from Iran's unjustified missile and drone attacks. Furthermore, the Army is the lead supplier of drawdown assistance to Israel and Ukraine. Without supplemental funding to replace the weapons, we are providing the weapons we are providing and expanding industrial base. The Army will be hard pressed to meet operational requirements in the event of a conflict with China. Making matters worse is the fact that the Army continues to struggle with a historic recruiting crisis. The Army missed its recruiting goals over the last two years by a combined 25,000 troops. The Army is taking action, though. I want to commend Secretary Wyrmuth and General George for requesting significant increases in this budget to improve the quality of life for our service members and their families. This includes increased funding to build new and modernized existing barracks. It also includes increases for programs to expand access to childcare. These requests are track closely with the recommendations of our quality of life panel. The panel's recommendations will form the foundation of the FY25 NDAA. If we're going to deter China, we need to recruit and retain the best and brightest. Addressing the quality of life issues our soldiers face will help do just that. I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact these priorities. And with that, I yield to my friend and the ranking member for any opening statement he may have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your opening comments. I do want to thank our witnesses, Secretary Wyrmuth and General George, for being here today and for their work on so many important issues within the Army. I just want to start with one point that the chairman made about the importance of passing the supplemental. I think it is enormously important for a number of different reasons, but certainly Ukraine is at the top of that list. I know members of this committee understand, I don't know the public more broadly does, just how close to the edge Ukraine is right now. But crucially, if they were to get more weapons, they could successfully defend their country. They have proven that over the course of the two-plus years of this war. Absent that, you will see Russia in Kiev in the not-too-distant future. We need to get that support to Ukraine now. We've already waited weeks too long. And I do also want to go on record as being deeply concerned about the convoluted process that the speaker announced yesterday for trying to get that help to Ukraine. Now, it is certainly true that we don't always just have to take whatever the Senate does. The House should come up with its own idea. But we've had seven months to do that and have not done that. So at this point, coming up with the twisted process that was announced yesterday will only further delay. Best case scenario, if they pull this together, maybe two months from now, we're able to figure this out. Once it goes back to the Senate with all of these additional provisions to it that the Senate has to sort its way through, that is basically boiling Ukraine to death slowly. We have an option. And that option is to pass the bill that the Senate passed two months ago, which would go directly to the President, would be signed, and the weapons would be flowing to Ukraine literally within days. Now again, I'm not unsympathetic. While the House, we can't just do what the Senate does where the House, we should exercise our own will. Sure, we've had seven months to do it and we haven't. Haven't done anything as we've delayed over and over and over and over again to the point where there is simply no time to delay further by once again torturing ourselves to try to figure out what it is that the House Republican majority might want to do on Ukraine. As I've said repeatedly, legislation is not theoretical. It has to actually be written down and we have run out of time. So I hope the majority will understand the importance of that and get something done, as the chairman said, this week, passing a bill that is dramatically different than the Senate bill does not get something done this week. It is really important that we do that. I will just reiterate the points that the chairman made. Quickly, quality of life recruitment enormously important. I too want to compliment our witnesses today for their focus on that issue and also compliment the chairman and the quality of life panel that just came back with I think some excellent and strong recommendations for how to meet those challenges and better support the men and women who serve and certainly the Army as the largest branch is most directly impacted by these issues. So if we can make those improvements for quality of life, that will help support our fighting force in the way that they deserve and their families and crucially help with recruitment and retention to meet those goals and objectives. And I know we've spoken a little bit. There has been some improvements in the recruitment issue. I know there have been a lot of efforts made on that. We'd be anxious to hear from you both about how that process is going and what we can do to help further support it. And lastly, modernization. The Army I think was one of the earliest to sort of see the future with what you did under I believe Secretary Esper started the night court process to go through and where we spend in our money. What makes sense? What doesn't? How can we modernize? The Army Futures Campaign was a very forward thinking moved by the Army that I think has helped. But the goal is clear. We have to field the best, most innovative equipment as quickly and as effectively as possible. What has been seen on the battlefield in Ukraine is how rapidly changing it all is and how it is crucial to have those new innovative technologies to meet the threats and challenges that you face. So again, I thank our witnesses. I thank the chairman without a yield back. I look forward to the testimony. Thank the ringing member. Now I'd like to introduce our witnesses. The Honorable Christine Wormuth is the Secretary of the Army. General Randy George is the Chief of Staff of the Army. Welcome to our witnesses. Secretary Wormuth, we'll start with you. You're recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you so much for your continued support of 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're transforming our capabilities, our force structure and our recruiting enterprise to ensure 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 are also taking care of our people, ensuring that soldiers and families have the quality of life they deserve to sustain our readiness now and in the future. This is my fourth year before this committee and like last year, the Army's FY25 budget request continues to support the most ambitious modernization effort the Army has pursued in 40 years. We are making significant progress in transforming our capabilities by staying consistent in our modernization. Secretary, would you suspend? I'm gonna ask the individuals behind you with their hands raised to cease and if you don't cease, you're going to be removed. You're not going to disrupt this hearing. Now, are you going to take your hands down or do you want to leave? If they go back up, you're to be removed. Officers, just remove them. Just remove them. I couldn't hear what she was saying. Thank you, Madam Secretary, you may continue. Thank you for doing that, Chairman. As I was saying, our modernization program is making good progress. The next generation squad weapon, integrated battle command system, mid-range capability and precision strike missile are just some examples of the critical new systems we've recently delivered. As we bring these systems into our inventory, we are also transforming our force structure to meet the priorities of the National Defense Strategy. Guided by the results of our total Army analysis process, we are building out new formations such as our five multi-domain task forces that are equipped with the capabilities we need to conduct large-scale combat operations against technologically advanced military powers. And we are shrinking excess hollow force structure so that the units we have are manned and ready. While these force structure decisions bring down authorized troop levels by about 24,000 spaces, our decisions will actually, our goal is to increase the Army's authorized end strength from 445,000 to 470,000 by fiscal year 2029. To meet that goal, we are working around the clock to overcome our recruiting challenges and we are making solid progress. Building on successful initiatives like the future soldier prep course, we are fundamentally transforming our recruiting enterprise to better compete in a 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 warrant officers is finished and this group will actually be out in the field by the end of the summer. At the same time, our readiness depends not just on recruiting, equipping and training the force, but also as this committee knows well on the overall well-being of our soldiers and families. The Army is dedicated to providing safe, high quality housing and barracks for our soldiers and families. Over the next five years, we will invest an average of $2.1 billion every year in the construction, sustainment, restoration and modernization of barracks for our unaccompanied soldiers. This investment will also fund 100% of the barracks sustainment requirement for the first time in years. We are also leveraging the expertise of our Army Corps of Engineers to stabilize project costs and we will be hiring civilian barracks managers so that our soldiers can focus on their war fighting duties. Physically and emotionally healthy soldiers are more resilient, higher performing and less likely to engage in harmful behaviors. To build resilient soldiers, we are expanding health and holistic fitness programs to 71 of our active component brigades. We're investing in financial counseling services to ensure our soldiers know how to manage their money and we're encouraging programs in our divisions that focus on soldier well-being. From a soldier's first day in the Army, we are focused on building cohesive teams, proactively working to reduce harmful behaviors and build positive climates in our formations. Even as we transform and we must because it is a very dangerous world, we are continuing to provide combatant commands with trained and ready formations. This year's budget includes $1.5 billion for activities tied to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and we've asked for $460 million for Operation Pathways, our series of exercises that aims to strengthen deterrence and build interoperability with our partners in the Indo-Pacific. In Europe, our troops are demonstrating our commitment to deterring Russian aggression. The Army is leading the effort to support Ukraine from training over 17,000 Ukrainian troops to providing hundreds of vehicles, weapon systems and millions of munitions. In CENTCOM, our soldiers are mission focused and standing ready to provide further support for Israel's defense and to enhance regional stability. The chief and I strongly urge the passing of a supplemental appropriations bill that will maintain critical support to our partners in Europe, Asia and the Middle East while investing in our own readiness. With your support, we'll continue to take care of our people and sustain the transformation that will keep our Army the best in the world. I'm proud of all that our soldiers and Army civilians are doing in service to the country and look forward to your questions. Thank you, Madam Secretary General, you're recognized. Okay, thank you Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today about our Army. The world is more volatile today than I've seen it in my 36 year career and there is clear cooperation between adversaries than we've seen in a while. A spark in any region could have global impacts. Meanwhile, the character war is changing rapidly which we see from what is happening on battlefields in the Ukraine, in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Our Army is as important to the joint force as it has ever been. 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 deserve it, and our nation deserves it. And that means making some tough decisions and finding ways to get better every day. As the Secretary already highlighted, our planned investments reflected in the 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 the 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 nodes more mobile, low-signature, and more effective. 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 as quickly as we hope and they take a lot of ammo. We are also transforming how we recruit, ensuring that we have the right talent and 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 our warfighting mission or building cohesive teams. I'm proud of what our soldiers are doing around the world to help defend our country. Thank you for your support and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, General. And I would like to make an announcement. For members here, please use the anti-room for your entering and leaving the chamber. It is discourteous to our witnesses and distracting to the panelists to have all this activity going through these doors back there. So I would urge members back in the offices or staff of members back in their offices to advise their members of that. I recognize myself for the first questions. To the both of you, can you lay out the risks that you're taking in this budget as result of pressure from ongoing high levels of inflation and top-line spending cap? And what does that mean in terms of our ability to effectively deter China, Russia, and Iran? Secretary Warman. Chairman, I would say I think the challenge we have with our budget in terms of managing risk are a couple. One, it's always a challenge to manage. Do you buy down current risk or do you buy down future risk? Do you invest in readiness or do you invest in modernization of programs that won't field for several years, for example? The other challenge we have, of course, is where do we spend that incremental dollar? Do we spend it on a weapon system like our long-range hypersonic weapon or do we invest it in buying down, basically increasing the quality of our barracks inventory, for example, or looking at buying more combat training center rotations? Those are the kinds of choices that the Chief and I have had to make for the last few years. But I think on balance in terms of our ability to deal with China and Russia, we are investing in the right kinds of systems. We are making good progress with our modernization and we're meeting all of the demands that the combatant commanders are putting on us right now. General, your thoughts and I understand that you're investing in those things or you're investing enough to have a deterrent effect. That's my concern, General. Yeah, Chairman, there's a couple of things that I put in my unfunded priority list if we had another dollar that we would spend on and some of that has to do. Counter-US, for example, is a large portion that's in there and some of that since we submitted this budget is how the world has changed and things that I think that we need to get after. And then I think what you'll also see in there, we've invested a lot in munitions and building our magazine depth that we've both talked about upfront. But there was a couple of areas that we could, if we had another dollar that we would increase and maximize to whatever the extent of production that we could in magazine depth as well. But I agree with the Secretary. I think we're investing in the things that we need to invest in. I think we're seeing that with specifically long range precision fires and what's coming online, what we're doing to invest in integrated air and missile defense and how important that is. And then counter-UAS is something that I think we're gonna, we have a lot of that in our budget and we'll need to turn faster on that. Okay, Secretary Wyrmuth, we've talked about, and you heard me make reference to it in a moment of statement, the recruiting headwinds y'all been facing. How significant do you think the improvements in quality of life, the measures that we're proposing that you've requested are gonna impact that recruiting problem? Chairman, I think of course it will be helpful the more we can point to quality barracks, competitive pay with the civilian sector, for example. I think where that's really gonna help us is continuing to sustain our historically high retention. You know, honestly in the data that we have, we don't see concerns from young Americans about whether the pay is competitive or even whether the barracks are good quality. But certainly once folks join the Army, they see their earning statement, they see where they're living and that shapes I think whether they wanna stay in the Army. I think a lot of what we've done to see improvements in our recruiting has been opening up the future soldier prep course, selecting our recruiters in a different way and overhauling their training to help make them even more effective. So you don't think competitive pay is essential in the recruitment process? We haven't seen it as a concern. Young Americans basically right now see the pay as relatively competitive. And I think that's partly because you all have passed over 5% pay increase last year. There's a budget request for another pay increase this year. So I don't see that soldiers are not indicating that that's a huge concern. At least the folks who are looking at joining the Army. Sure, I recognize the rank member. Thank you. Just following up on the modernization question. When you look at what, where it is most important for you to modernize. You look at the battlefield in Ukraine, drones, counter drone, force protection, long range fires. Those are certainly the things that seem to be most important in a battlefield fight that you would be facing. And there's a lot of concern. We don't have the level of drone manufacturing, certainly in terms of ISR drones and all that. So I think it's something like 90% of your average small ISR drones are made in China. And what are we learning about what we're gonna need to have adequate force protection against incoming threats? What are the key technologies and how are you developing them? And it's for both of you, but start with Secretary Warmer. Certainly. And I know General George would want to build on this. Well, we are making significant investments in integrated air and missile defenses. So this budget has over $2 billion for systems like maneuverable shore ad, which will go along with our infantry forces to provide them protection against things like drones. We have directed energy. We have a directed energy version of that Congressman Smith that's currently in CENTCOM. We think it's very important to invest in things like directed energy and high powered microwaves. Sorry to interrupt, but just to, because I was over in the Middle East a couple of times the last couple of months and force protection is a huge focus obviously, is directed energy actually gonna work? Because we've been talking about this forever and it's not really fielded in any sort of comprehensive way. And have we gotten to the point where this technology is actually going, is it worth the investment? Is it gonna help? Is it gonna get us there? And is this gonna happen like, I don't know, in my lifetime? Our prototypes right now that are in CENTCOM are performing pretty well. And one of the reasons we sent them there is we wanna see how they do in a desert environment. Anytime you've got lasers with sand, but they're performing well. I think the more open question which you alluded to is can we get them to a place where they're affordable at scale? And that we are still working on. But I think there's a lot of promise with both lasers and high powered microwaves, particularly against swarms. That's helpful, sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. No, that's okay. Why don't I let the Chief speak to some of the UAS issues? Yeah, Congressman, I think first, what we're focused on is alert defense. We have to have alert defense with several different capabilities. So both kinetic and non-kinetic. As the Secretary mentioned, what we're doing over in the Middle East, we're actually sending, we want the user, tester, developer, all there together to make incremental improvements. We've seen that, for example, with the coyote missile. And it's been very, very effective of doing that. So I think that that's what we're looking at broadly. You asked, what do we have to do to tie all this together? One of our big focus areas is the network. If you cannot command and control, you cannot be dispersed. I mean, what we know is that you can be seen right now given space and the ubiquitous sensors that are out there. So we have to lower our profile. And I think that's for everything that's on the battlefield. It's gonna have to be more mobile, lower signature. And a lot of that technology exists right now. And that's what we're focused on doing so that we can tie all of these sensors together. But I agree there's three places that I think we need to move faster in. And that's UAS, unmanned systems ourselves, counter UAS, and then EW, because that is changing in weeks. And we need the flexibility, I think, to be able to change with that. And it's something the chairman and I have worked a great deal on. We need to give you more flexibility in terms of how you spend your money and how you make your investments. But we're working on a variety of different ways to do that. I think the R&D, pretty good. Procurement still takes too long. I mean, if you've got an idea in those areas or frankly any innovative technology in your company out there, DOD will probably help you with the R&D. But if you actually get to the point where you have something that is developed and is ready to go, we are still way too slow in purchasing it. And that's undermining it. One final question along those lines. Partnerships are gonna be crucial in meeting our production needs when it comes to ammunition. I know when there's a Turkish company now that's getting ready to build a plant in Texas that will be making a substantial portion of our 155 rounds going forward, who are the key partners that you see? When you're trying to figure out how do we make sure we have enough munitions, ammunition, everything we need, who are you thinking about partnering with globally like we've done with Turkey and some other examples out there? Congressman Smith, I would point to a couple of examples. You know, we have entered into an agreement with Australia. They are going to be producing Gimlers, for example, in Australia and they hope and we hope that that will expand to the precision strike missiles. So that's a great example. We are also actually co-producing strikers with India. So I think the more that we can find some of our allies and partners who wanna have those kinds of arrangements, the better, particularly when they are actually in the theater because that allows us obviously to produce munitions in theater and not have to bring them all the way from the United States to a conflict. Yeah, I think that's absolutely crucial. I mean, we have a lot of partners out there who wanna work with us who have incredible production capacity. We're gonna have to work with them to meet our needs going forward. Without a yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chair, I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank both of you for service as a 31-year veteran myself. And I had three sons serving in the Army. One year, Iraq, field artillery. Another signal in Egypt and my youngest, a year in Afghanistan. So Army service is very, very important to me. And that's why what we're into is so incredible. We need your leadership now more than ever. Today, the Army has engaged in multiple fronts across the globe. We find ourselves in a war we did not choose of dictators with rule of gun, invading democracies with rule of law. This, of course, began with war criminal Putin invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022. And then Iran puppets invading Israel on October 7th with the Chinese Communist Party threatening Taiwan. We need peace through strength, protecting the border of Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and America. And sadly, with the Biden open borders, we have so many terrorists coming across into our country. What a risk of this coming in and of 9-11 attacks across the United States. And we understand that attacks could be imminent as the FBI has over and over again warned. It's vital that we maintain an Army able to rein in and project ready forces to defend our Constitution, our interests and our foreign allies and partners. Secretary Worthmuth, this weekend, we witnessed hundreds of drones and missiles by the regime in Tehran and its puppets against the people of Israel. I was grateful that despite the size of the attacks, Israel was able with the United States, UK, France, our allies to stop and defeat the threat. But this reinforces ready now US military. Secretary Wooden, a supplemental provide for the production of critical munitions and benefit our nation in building a robust defense industrial base. Yes, Congressman, it would actually. The passage of a supplemental would be crucial for the Army in a number of ways. But one of those ways is certainly allowing us to continue to strengthen our industrial base. For example, you've heard us talk a lot about our goal of getting to 100,000 rounds of one five five a month. If the supplemental does not pass, we will not be able to reach those production levels. And that's just one example. And I would also highlight that those munitions are made in American factories with American workers so that they benefit people right here in the United States. And that point just has gotta be restated over and over. So thank you very much. And General Warmer, we continue to see the downsizing of the military with the Army's Fiscal Year 25 in strength request well below what is authorized in strength for the Fiscal Year 2024. I was grateful, I am grateful to represent the US Army Training Command at Fort Jackson, South Carolina where we have a great commander with Major General Jason Kelly. And he's done so much working with the trade-off commanding General Gary Britto on running the Army's Future Soldier Prep Course. This Future Soldier Prep Course has been so successful. Army is already expanding the program. With the success of this program, do you think it's instrumental in increasing recruitment and should other services establish and maintain a similar program? Congressman, we're really proud of the work that's going on down at Fort Jackson with the Future Soldier Prep Course. We've had more than 18,000 new soldiers that have come through there. And as you mentioned, we've expanded that to four more. What's important for us is that we are taking people out there and we're bringing them up to our standards, both academically and physically. And so we think that that's critical. So I'll leave it to the other services. I think the Navy is doing something similar, but we're looking in the Army at this holistic at recruiting and we have found this to be very helpful. Well, it's an excellent program. Additionally, General, we can learn from what's going on. War Cradle of Putin is conducting transwarfare. We thought that was over with. Putin is also conducting a barbaric tactic of attacking a civilian apartment complex. And then a few minutes later, when the emergency personnel come, fire, EMS, police, that's when the real attack comes. The intent is to discourage the population and also discourage the EMS. What are we doing to learn on this? How to address this? I will tell you, Congressman, that we have, and this is something that we talk about almost as much as we do recruiting, is what we're learning from the lessons in Ukraine. We have a fairly extensive team that's over and we're doing a lot to support Ukraine right now over with US Army Europe. General Times expired. Chair and I recognize the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to both the witnesses today for your service and your testimony. Just again, I wanna begin by foot stomping what the ranking members said. The testimony we heard last week from General Cavoli in terms of just how dire the situation is in Ukraine, we do not have time for the gymnastics of a bifurcated, fragmented legislative package. We have a bill that passed 70 to 29 on February 13th, sitting in the clerk's desk and all it takes is frankly just getting it to the floor for a vote and letting it work as well, which I believe will pass the measure and get it to the president's desk. And we heard from Transcom at our subcommittee the other day. I mean, we know that our planes are ready, our ships are ready to get the help there. So it really, the house is the bottleneck right now and we've just gotta move in terms of solving this problem. Also just to comment really quickly on the quality of life measures. Again, I represent a district with the largest military installation in New England, the Grottin subbase. We have E4s and less who basically, if they have kids, rely on food assistance in terms of SNAP to put food on the table. So I wanna applaud Mr. Bacon and Congresswoman Hulahan for their great work in terms of this package. The Navy was off by 7,000 in terms of their recruitment last year. And to me, it just is kind of blindingly obvious that we need to boost the package to attract more people. Secretary Wormuth, recently the Army's Aviation Rebalancing announcement on February 8th terminated the FARA program. We've had good briefings from your team to sort of walk through folks, particularly from Connecticut in terms of the thinking behind that. Again, looking at the FY25 budget, it's clear that the Army has restored procurement for 24 aircraft in terms of the Black Hawk program that's there and obviously sends a strong signal that the Army is committed to that program. If Congress were to provide multi-year authority early in terms of that program, could you execute that authority to again just further sort of solidify the industrial base? Congressman, it's certainly our plan to use multi-year authority for that contract when the current contract expires, which is I think a couple years from now if I'm not mistaken, but we're prepared to sit down with Lockheed and Sikorsky and negotiate that follow-on contract in the relatively near future. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, again, clearly I think there's a pretty solid consensus that this is the path forward. Our foreign allies are also chiming in in terms of their orders into that program. So the benefits of early authority in terms of just price and as I said, stability is, in my opinion, very attractive and hopefully we can continue to work with you in your office to try and achieve that goal. And honestly, that was my number one, two and three question for you here today. So with that, I will yield back. Thank the gentleman. And I recognize Jim from Colorado, Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and for having this hearing. I want to thank you, especially General George for being here, or both of you actually, but this is your first appearance as Army Chief of Staff. You're a former commander of the storied 4th Infantry Division headquartered in Fort Carson, Colorado. So welcome here. I'm really concerned because and we've been talking about drones and counter drone efforts, both the ranking member and the chairman have addressed this and General George, I think we're failing. We do not have a program of record for counter drone, either laser or directed energy capability. We have no program of record. We're doing some research and development. We've been researching and developing for a long time, but we have no program of record. We're not producing any kind of meaningful capability to put out in the field. When are we gonna come to actually having this operational? Congressman, we do have air defense equipment that is coming online that we have right now. And as I mentioned earlier, I think this is gonna be a layered approach. And we're very effectively using coyote, M-Lids, other systems that are forward. I agree with you that we need to do more and do it quicker. One of the things that I talked about a little bit up front that I do think we need is to have, it's changing very rapidly with drones is the flexibility to go from R&D to procurement, making sure that we have modular open system architecture and that we are doing things that we can get what's best that's out there. That's how fast it's moving right now. It's changing really quickly. The drone that works now with the EW situation changing, we need to rapidly advance with that. I have to agree. There was a marvelous effort over the weekend to help Israel shoot down the drones and ballistic missiles and everything else from Iran. The only problem with all that is that we had to use very expensive munitions to do so because we don't have the lower cost lasers and high energy capabilities fully deployed yet. That's my concern is the cost effectiveness of it all. And when it comes to drones, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal on the 10th of April saying that a deadline, how American drones failed to turn the tide in Ukraine. Drones from American startups have been deemed glitchy and expensive, prompting Ukraine to turn to alternatives from China. And this is bad news for the Pentagon, which needs a reliable supply of thousands of small unmanned aircraft. So on the offensive side, when are we gonna have good drones that we can use in large numbers in places like Sankan? I'm pretty confident, Congressman, that we have the technology here, state side. I mean, I just was out at National Training Center and saw a UAS, it's the ghost, and it was modular, very survivable, and in any EW environment, so I'm confident we can do that. Part of that is, is what I was mentioning earlier, I think we need to put the demand signal on them. So the world fundamentally has changed here in the last six or eight months. We were not able to reprogram, this gets back to something that's working, it's in R&D and you wanna buy additional capabilities of it, and because that's what companies are gonna respond to, I think that that flexibility would help us. Well, absolutely, I have to agree with you 1,000%, but I don't see that demand signal in the proposed budget. That's my concern. If I can shift gears, you know Fort Carson really well, you know the Pinion Canyon training site, a premier, a jewel for training for the Army, but there's one problem, and there is that active pipeline that goes through part of that training range. Would you support researching and looking at ways of mitigating the limitations that that pipeline puts on training at Pinion Canyon? I'd certainly be interested in looking into that, Congressman, and we can follow up with you. I've trained at Pinion Canyon a whole bunch, it's a great training area. I know our units are still getting after it right down in that training area, so absolutely can look at that and follow up with you. Thank you, let's work on that, and I thank you so much. Thank you both for being here, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, the gentleman. Chair Nowak, I love the efficiency up here today. Recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman, and thank the witnesses for being here and having this very focused, at least what I'm hearing so far, is we're looking, excuse me, at our industrial base. Obviously, we go back a few years, and it was the night corps where we reevaluated, quite frankly, everything that was on our agenda. And the idea that is a living document that you've made adjustments, I think work extremely well in what you started there. We started probably four and a half years ago building up the munitions industrial base because of the condition it was in. Quite frankly, if you went four years ago, you would think you were dropping back in time to the Second World War on some of the different facilities that we have. But the fact of the matter, and I heard the ranking member talk about the facility we're building down in Texas for the 155s along with some Turkish partners. Secretary Wormuth, if you were to take a look back at how the Army is managing this industrial base, what items, I mean, we've expanded many of them, what still causes you concern in our industrial base? And let me ask that question in lieu of the supplemental, which everything we did to get ready, unless the supplemental comes through, just sits there and wait. Could you touch base on where you see we've been and what the future is looking like? Certainly, Congressman, I think one of the, if there is a silver lining to the terrible invasion into Ukraine, it's been that it allowed us to sort of drop the scales from our eyes about the fragility of our industrial base. And I think thanks to a lot of the resources that you all have provided here on Capitol Hill, we've been able to invest both in the Army's own organic industrial base, places like Scranton, Holston, Radford, as well as work with our partners in the industry to see them invest in their industrial base so that we can create more munitions. I think the two pieces, separate from the supplemental, which we very much need to be able to realize some of what we've done with the industrial base, two things I think we still need to work on. One is working with our partners in industry to help them to continue to identify where do they have difficulties sourcing particular components or materials for things like explosives and propellants. And then the other place that's been very helpful is multi-year authority. You all gave us multi-year authority for Gimlers, for example, for the PAC-3 MSE. Being able to send that consistent demand signal to our partners' industry is very, very healthy. It's helpful. They're more willing to lean forward if they see that consistent demand. So thank you. And the idea of a long lead item, and I heard some comments earlier about our recruitment goals, this is not unique to the Army or any of our services. Getting that next generation of worker to go out and wanna work with their hands is something that's going on across. And in particular, the longest lead item is the human capital. The ability that young man or woman coming out of high school to go to work, whether it's serve their nation in a uniform or to go to work in one of our industrial factories and how important that is, incredibly important. Let me just, as we, assuming we get the supplemental and the time frame we need, we are ramping up significantly across this country and quite frankly, in some of our partnering nations. What happens when it ends? How are we gonna manage? Because this goes to the demand signal that we're talking about. These eps and flows that we go on. How are you going to mitigate some of the drop off when that happens? Well again, Congressman, I would say a couple of things. One, multi-year authority creates more of a consistent demand signal. And I think that's something that will help us with industry. We also have been re-looking our own total minimum requirements for all of these kinds of munitions. Again, I think there's a realization now that in a protracted conflict, there are going to be huge demands for munitions. So we ourselves are in the process of looking at, do we actually need to be buying more than we have the last few years going forward in the future? And I think that's something we'll have to look at carefully. Hey Congressman, could I just add one thing to that? Part of what we're trying to do also is modernize. So if you modernize, I give you an example down at Radford or the Iowa ammunition plant. If you modernize, you have the same workforce but you can expand your output. And I think that that's what we, that's the big point I think of modernizing our plants that we have. And I think the other thing that we have to look at potentially is should we stockpile hard to get things? Gentlemen's time has expired. Chairman, I recognize this gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Whitman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses for joining us. General George, we want to begin with you. We've seen the proliferation of drones by Russia in Ukraine. We see that they're using commercial versions of drones to pretty good effect. ISR, pretty rudimentary loading of munitions, but effective in that realm. We see to our efforts, obviously you talk about the technology side, that's fine. And we see what we're doing there at National Training Center and other places. The question is of scale. We see scale happening in Ukraine as we speak but we also see some threats here at home. We see overflights of US military facilities by small UAS. We also see that our ability to do counter UAS is limited, especially when it comes to scale. Again, this whole issue with expendables is all about scale. I don't question that we don't have the technology. We have the technology. The question is, is when are we going to scale it? When is it going to be operationally effective? When is it going to be a deterrent? When are we going to be able to use it in ways that really have an impact on these building threats? That is the key. And I want to get your perspective on how are we going to do that? How are we going to deal with several things? Domestically, overflights, how are we going to deal with counter UAS? As we have canceled the FAR program, to me the focus needs to be on SUAS and counter UAS. Let me get your perspective. Yeah, Congressman, I must share your concern on this. And the Army is leading, we have the Joint Counter UAS Office that work the Executive Authority for the Department of Defense, and we spend a lot of time on this. And I think we have to get to your point. Again, this is non-kinetic and kinetic, but stateside it's non-kinetic that we have to get after. And I think that some of this is authorities and permissions that we're working through, obviously with other interagency and what you have with airlines, FAA, and all of that. I think what's going to help us again is, I think we have to go, it's the environment's changing really quick. I think to get scale, we have to have build things that are open system architecture that can plug and play with all of our systems that go into all of our radars and all of our sensors. And then we buy the best thing that's out there on the market and continuing to do that. And that's kind of where I think our point is on flexible funding. If you could go from R&D, you got systems that we're working, you could buy it very quickly. And I think that that's in UAS, counter UAS and EW systems, I think that we're gonna have to be on a faster schedule. Let's not agree. We have to operate at the speed of relevance. We send the demand signal. I think the technology is there. The key is we're gonna take some risk. There's not gonna be the 100% solution that's gonna happen immediately. We want the 80% solution that can be delivered next week, next month. That I think is the key. Secretary Warmerth, let me ask you, another element, logistics in the Indo-Pacific. Key, army, in order to get around, needs watercraft. As we know, the army's gone through a period of time where now watercraft's back in the game. For Eustace, Virginia, the logistics center, being able to move and put that temporary facility there going into Gaza, it brings to light the key for logistics and army watercraft. The army, unfortunately, through the years has been divesting in watercraft. Now you look at testing and project convergence with the Navy and Marine Corps, figuring out, hey, what should the future hold? Give me your perspective. It seems like we are on a roller coaster here. We sell watercraft and now we're gonna get back in the business of buying watercraft. What's the army's vision for the logistical need, especially in the Pacific, for army watercraft? Listen, our sailors are great and our soldiers are great, but until they can walk on water, we gotta put them in watercraft. Thank you, Congressman. I will say I was a little surprised when I came in as secretary of the army to see the extent to which the army had divested its watercraft because the distances in Indo-Pacific are obviously considerable. So we are trying to reinvest in watercraft. We're gonna have a composite watercraft company in Japan very soon. We are looking at, frankly, trying to find ways to build up our watercraft capability maybe in a way that's a little bit more cost affordable. So I think we're gonna be looking at leasing and some other options, but we are making a significant investment in watercraft. Another part of contested logistics is obviously prepositioned equipment. We've gotta be working on that, and we've gotta be continuing to work with our allies and partners in the region to gain greater access and basing opportunities, which is also really important. One key measure in SUAS, counter-UAS, army watercraft, the speed of relevance matters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, gentlemen. Chair, now recognized gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Hulahanton. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you all today. I'm gonna start with where the chairman and the ranking member started, focusing on the urgency, the sense of urgency, the dire urgency of getting our supplemental passed as it stands from the Senate is the only path that I think many of us see to happen. I would like to not be political, but have to be for a moment. We just recently discovered that votes were going to be canceled in the June timeframe so that a large contingency of the House could go to D-Day observations for the 80th, and there seems to be a lack of understanding of the irony of us piling into aircraft to go overseas to honor and observe the 80th of D-Day without understanding the history that went behind that and the fact that the United States remained largely isolated for a very long period of time, arguably way, way too long, and then we ended up in a global war, a world war. And I worry that we're heading towards a world war three if we don't do the right thing by voting for the supplemental and having voting for it now. It has been now, I think, since October that we've had the opportunity to do something, do the right thing, and we haven't done that. And speaking to world war three, I do not wanna see our men and women in uniform engaged in any way, shape, or form in any sort of conflict on any soil, but we do have to face that. You all said that in your testimony that this is one of the scariest times in your careers in terms of what's going on around the world. And so we need to think about our readiness. We need to think about the men and women who are in uniform. And so that's why the work, I think, of the Quality of Life panel has been quite essential so that we're preparing for the fact that we wanna make sure that we have the best military in the world, which I believe that we do. So my first question to you would be to talk a little bit about the Quality of Life panel. There were five categories, member pay, spouse employment, childcare, housing, and healthcare. I would love to know from each of you which of those resonates most, do you think, with you? Well, Congresswoman, I think they're all pretty darn important, you know, and I wanna first thank the Quality of Life panel for the work that you all have done. And I think a lot of what we've tried to put in our budget is consistent with the recommendations that you all made. We have a very significant investment in Barracks. I think that is absolutely critical. There are just too many instances that I've seen myself or I've gone and seen Barracks that just are not acceptable. So that's key. I think we do wanna continue to look at making sure that our soldiers are being compensated competitively with their civilian counterparts. Healthcare and childcare is really important. We have, frankly, I think keeping families in the Army, childcare is really important. And we have been investing in CDCs. We've also really been trying to focus on staffing at our CDCs because if we can get the percentage of staff closer to 90%, we're better able to take kids off the wait list. That's a challenge in a lot of different places, but we're very focused on that. We're giving recruiting bonuses to our childcare workers, retention bonuses. So that is really important. And I think spouse employment is another piece of keeping people in the Army. I think one of the best things we've done there is the career accelerator pilot, which is a 12-week sort of paid fellowship to put spouses in companies in small firms that eventually lead to permanent employment. And about 40% of the participants now are Army spouses. So that's a few things. Thank you, I appreciate it in general. Yeah, I'll just comment. I mean, Congresswoman, there's always been five buckets when I've been a commander. You've been four of them are on there. The other one I would add that's always important to family is schools, where you're gonna go to school in the local area. And for us, I think it depends. The approach that we're trying to take is that every location is a little bit different. I was just up at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, up in Washington and Tacoma, Washington. Housing and CDCs were the two, the challenge right there. And they're, everybody's struggling to hire workers on and off base. And I think that that's gonna be our challenge is that we're gonna need the flexibility to get after solutions locally, because everywhere is a little bit different. Housing is also a problem there. In other areas, it may be spouse employment or schools. And that's the kind of the approach that we're trying to take with these. I absolutely look forward to working with you guys and with the committee on the next NDAA on these really essential issues. And I agree with you, having grown up in the military as a military child, your school really mattered. Every year moving a different school and a different set of rules, it definitely affects the family. Thank you, and I yield back. Generally yields back. Chair, I recognize a gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too hope that we get to have a vote this week on Ukraine aid and Israel aid and Taiwan aid. I will say, I personally think the speaker is doing the right thing to separate them. I think they're three separate issues. And whether we roll them back together at the end of it or not is a leadership decision. But there are people in my party that will vote to support Israel, that will not vote to support Ukraine. I think they've made that very clear publicly. And I think there are people on the democratic side that will vote to support Ukraine, that will not vote to support Israel. And so I think that every member should have the ability to vote their convictions on each of those and more importantly than that in our democracy, I think the citizens should have the right to see how their members vote as we go into this election cycle. General George, you've been in the military a long time and I will quote a historian, an army historian, Vail Mottor from oil and war, no matter how well fed, equipped and offured without oil and gasoline, the modern army as a hopeless monster, mired and marked for destruction. Was he correct in those comments? I missed the first part without oil and gasoline, is that? Does the military need oil and gas to function? Yes, we do Congressman. The Russians have shown no mercy in attacking the energy infrastructure in Ukraine, regardless of what type of energy infrastructure there is, including the oil and gas. In a war, if your energy is targeting your oil and gas in your energy infrastructure and you were the commanding general, would you attack theirs as well? Well, I don't really on hypothetical situations. I guess I would, we normally do a center of gravity analysis congressmen and kind of determine what targets that we think would be most effective to achieve in our aims. Well, I would think it would be a pretty simple decision to attack the diesel that was allowing the, your enemy's tanks to run, if they were using those tanks to fire on you. And we don't understand, I don't understand why President Biden thinks it's okay for the Russians to attack the oil and gas infrastructure in Ukraine and the Ukrainians not to attack the oil and gas infrastructure in Russia. I mean, Secretary Wormouth, can you tell me why President Biden is opposed to the Ukrainians attacking the oil and gas infrastructure in Russia when it is the oil and gas infrastructure in Russia that is funding the war against Ukraine? As General George said, Congressman, I think the Ukrainian military, and again, this is outside the sphere of our Title X responsibility, so I myself am not having conversations with the Ukrainian military leadership. But I think, as General George said, we would be looking at the range of targets and how lucrative those targets are. There may be targets in terms of a military perspective that may have more immediate detrimental effect than hitting the energy targets, for example. You know, good and damn well in a war when someone's firing at you, you fire back at them. That's all there is to it. You can't let them attack your oil and gas infrastructure and your energy supply, and you not attack theirs. Even if they're not attacking yours, if you want to win, you're going to attack theirs. That's just all there is to it. I would only add, Congressman, that given the relative scarcity of munitions that the Ukrainians have at this point, in part because they're waiting for us to pass the supplementary. Madam Secretary, with all due respect, the reasons the Russians have as many weapons as they have is because Joe Biden did not enforce the sanctions against Russia. And Putin took all of that money from his growing economy and he put it into weapons manufacturing. If Joe Biden had enforced the sanctions against the Russians, Putin would not have the weapons that he has and he would not have been able to rebuild the military that he has. I hope we get the supplemental done. I hope we get the supplemental done. But the White House has not done their job in helping to win this war. I yield. Chair, I recognize Jenner from Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton. I just gotta say, I mean the hypocrisy, the utter hypocrisy of House Republicans refusing for clearly political reasons to pass Ukraine aid and then blaming Joe Biden. I mean, I have been critical of certain aspects of this Ukraine war. I'm not afraid to criticize a democratic administration. But the alternative is a president who has said and has proven he will support Putin and Russia. That's the alternative here. It's amazing to focus for a second on China. General George, can you just articulate to me what the Army's strategy is in the Pacific? The Marine Corps has laid out a very clear strategy for how the Marine Corps will be used to deter and counter a Chinese aggression in the Pacific. What is the Army's role? Congressman, thanks for the question. First, we're a global Army and we're very busy around the world. One of the things that we have not done as busy as we've been, we have been very focused in our forces out in the Pacific. And what I always say is that there's no such thing as an air or maritime theater. It's a joint theater and I think the Army plays a huge role over there. So I'll run down and give you some of the examples. I think we've seen just how effective and hard to target land-based long-range precision fires are. We're continuing to add those. And right now we have the medium range capability that's actually out and exercising with our partners out in the Indo-Pacific. I think that we bring integrated air and missile defense to the joint force and to our partners and assisting with that. I think the Army plays a huge role in contested logistics. The question came up earlier before us, which is its preposition stocks and what we're gonna do, those are gonna be joint missions that are over there. So I think we have a big role and I'd end with command and control because I think that that's something that we have exercised on a daily basis around the world in large-scale operations. You're ready to go to war today if that's necessary, but are we where we need to be for the China fight in the Pacific or do we have more work to do? I, how we're looking at this is I think we're, we gotta get better every day. And I mean, that's what we're tasking everybody to do. I think we need to grow ADA forces as one, as an example that I think, and we talked about getting, recruiting more and growing that capability. But I think we're on a great path forward with the capabilities that we have and now it's just expanding those capabilities. Yeah, so that's exactly my concern. You've hit the nail on the head, General. The capabilities that we have, a lot of your modernization efforts seem to be on modernizing existing capabilities. And yet in the war in Ukraine, we've seen how $5,000 drones can very easily take out $5 million tanks. Now the Marine Corps has a much more aggressive modernization program where they're just saying, we gotta move on. We make some tough divestitures, not saying that you can't find some use for a tank, but the Marine Corps has said, we're gonna get rid of tanks. We're gonna invest in long range rockets and missiles. We're gonna do things to fundamentally change the nature and constitution of marine rifle units at the lowest level to make them more lethal and effective in today's world. Why is the Army pursuing an incremental modernization strategy rather than a revolutionary strategy? I actually don't think that we are, and I will tell you first, Congressman, is that we're still gonna need tanks. We're still gonna need artillery, and the Army is still gonna be, our country is still gonna require that for us. So we can't- How are you gonna use artillery? General, how are you gonna use artillery? I'm talking around the world, and we are gonna need that capability in other places, but we are- Are you divesting of any of it? We are making adjustments. We're buying additional long range fires. We're taking a look at our whole fire's portfolio. I'm just, I'm almost out of time, but Secretary, do you think the Army modernization schedule is fast enough? Congressman, we always wanna be faster. I think General George and I are very focused on figuring out how can we go faster, but- Well, here's how you can go faster. Get rid of old stuff you don't need, or it's not as relevant today. We are doing that. In the Marine Corps- We are doing that, Congressman. It's taken some tough criticism for this, but as a result, they're really modernizing their force at a pace that can at least have a chance of keeping up with China's modernization efforts, and I just worry that the Army is hanging on too much to old gear. Well, we just decided not to pursue the future aerial reconnaissance aircraft. We also have stopped operating shadow and raven, so I would give those as examples of things that we've divested pretty recently- General, it's time. So that we can move forward. I recognize General from Nebraska, Mr. Bacon. Thank you both for being here. There you go. I know it's hard to find who's speaking. I want to talk about the suicide rates we've been hearing about with the Armour units. We hear they're significantly higher than the other specialties. Some thoughts are it's because of the high-apps tempo and the rotating deployments to Poland. What is your assessment of why the suicide rates are significantly higher for Armour personnel? Congressman, we are looking into that because we want to better understand it. Our data shows actually that the suicide rates are higher actually in our striker units. They're higher generally in striker, Armour, and light inventory. So it's not just the Armour folks, and I'm not even sure that the Armour units are having the highest rates, but we want to understand what's happening there. I do worry about the op tempo for those units, and one of the things that we are going to do and are already doing for a number of reasons, but to include trying to make sure we're reducing pressure on those soldiers is lengthening the windows in rearm. We had said that basically they would have eight months to deploy, eight months to come back and do modernization, and we found that in reality, they just can't move that fast, so we're going to lengthen those windows to give them more time. But we're going to look further into that because we obviously want to prevent suicides everywhere we possibly can. You're right, I have just one sore, so maybe that data isn't right, but it was concerning to read. It's absolutely concerning, and again, and we share that, and I'd be happy to follow up with you and have our folks talk in more about the data that we have. Is there any thought about permanent basing in Poland? I think there are pros and cons associated with permanent basing. It's going to be overseas military construction. We would want to build schools and the kinds of amenities that our families would need. Certainly that would have some benefits in terms of operational tempo, and I think the polls, I'm sure, would be very interested in hosting us in a permanent way, but I think we'll continue to look at those kinds of issues as we look at forced posture in Europe going forward. Okay, can I mention just one thing, Congressman? The other thing we've done is made an adjustment on the, for example, we had an ABCT that was rotating to Korea. It's now a Striker unit that's doing that, and I think the other thing in looking, agree with the Secretary, I think that the challenge would be on anything permanent basing, it'd be like, okay, what are we, where is it going to come from? What unit is it going to come from stateside? And so right now we have flexibility, I think, with deploying our units that helps, and there's probably other things that we need to grow right now if we're going to grow a new unit like air defense artillery or counter UAS batteries or some of those other capabilities. Thank you. Turning to Barracks, I appreciate your plan for increasing your spending and trying to repair the damage that's been done over the last decade, and you've already addressed this, I won't drill into that so much, but I am curious, how did we get there? Because when I was the Commander of Ramstein in 2008-9, I was Commander of Off-It, 2011-12, I had four Star Generals inspecting the dorms, and if they would have been bad, they would have got fired. So I'm trying to figure out what happened in Army, but it seems to be in all the services where we let the standards decrease to the level we did, because I'm just trying to understand it. Any thoughts on that? Congressman, my view is it's a, there are a lot of factors at play. It's a little bit like recruiting. You know, a lot of things went into it. We didn't kind of get into the crisis overnight, and I think it's a little bit the same with Barracks. Part of it is, you know, we have an enormous inventory. We have the biggest inventory of Barracks of any service. A lot of our Barracks are in places where we're experiencing climate change, and the temperature is increasing, the humidity is increasing, and all of that makes maintaining Barracks more complicated. Some of it, frankly, I'm sad to say, is the harvest of sequestration, if you will. You know, we went in and we basically cut lots of folks out of our departments of public works all across installations, all across the country, and that meant we had fewer people overseeing the Barracks, and some of it is, I think, you know, the Army has always struggled to find enough to invest in Barracks and do modernization and other things. So I think there's a lot of things that went into it, but we are very committed now to doing everything we can to get out of it. Thank you, with three seconds left, I'll yield the remainder of my time back. Very generous of you. Chair now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Gary Mindy. Thank you, I'll take the five minutes, 30 seconds. Thank you. No. I really want to follow up on what the ranking member, Mr. Smith, raised early on, and that has to do with the process of getting a supplemental done. It is, it appears as though we're headed for a very complex mechanism that may very well cause significant delay in the enactment of the supplemental. And so for Secretary Wyrmuth and General George, could you speak to the imminency of the problem of not having a supplemental for these many months? In fact, it's been one year since the Congress has voted for any support for Ukraine. So if you could speak to the nature of the problem that you're facing. Certainly Congressman, you know, first of all, I think in terms of the imminence issue, as General Cavoli said when he was here last week, I believe, you know, the Ukrainians are in dire need. They are running very low on ammunition. They're running very low on Patriot interceptors, you know, the things that they need to intercept all the missiles that the Russians are launching at them. And the sooner the supplemental passes, the sooner we can turn this bigot back on. He actually said a matter of a few weeks and then redefined it to probably three weeks. Get it done or else? Yeah, it is very concerning. It is very concerning. And for the army, you know, in terms of imminence, we have been cash flowing almost $800 million to support largely the Ukrainians, all of the training that we've done for them, but also some of the work we've done in SENTCOM. And if a supplemental doesn't pass for us, probably by the end of May, we are going to have to look at things like reducing our participation in the K-4 mission or canceling our participation in exercises in the third and fourth quarter, because we just don't have the money to be able to pay for any of that. So those are some of the time-sensitive issues for us. Good. General, anything to add? Yeah, the only other time-sensitive thing that I would add to what the Secretary mentioned is we were, the question came up earlier about magazine depth and 155s. Every bit we're weighting, we are not modernizing our own industrial base and we're not actually increasing our own magazine depth. We will be able to go to 100,000 rounds of 155 millimeter a month for production, but without the supplemental, we'll stop well short of that. So I think that that's what it does for us as well. Thank you. Very few of us are left here, both Democrat and Republican, but this is here and now. The problem that ranking member Smith pointed out at the outset of this hearing is very, very real. Add any bell and whistle to the supplemental that was passed by the Senate and the delay will be substantial. Well passed. The dates that were given to us by General Cavoli and by General George and by Secretary Wilmuth. We really cannot play this game any longer. It's on us to get it done and specifically it's on our Republican colleagues. Don't play a game. Don't try to seek perfection. I do have another set of issues that I want to put on the table. We did talk about this earlier in our earlier meetings, but the contested logistics and the intra theater logistics. My colleague from Massachusetts who happens to have been or is a Marine seems to think that the Army ought to be the Marine Corps. However, that won't happen, but the fact of the matter, the Pacific is different. How, what do you need to be able to operate intra theater in the Pacific? Things that you don't now have that you need to have. Congressman, I'll start and then quickly turn to General George. I think as one of the other members of the committee pointed out, watercraft is very, very key. So we are investing in that and we are exploring what we can do to grow our capability there in a cost-effective way. Another thing that we need that, frankly is more controlled by our allies and friends in the theater is access. Because the more we're able to put our soldiers there with their capabilities, the better the more effective we'll be in that theater. And so that's something we're working on. And then another thing I would point to is the kind of co-production of munitions like what we're gonna be doing with Australia. That will be very helpful from a logistics perspective. Yeah, we'd add. Well, I claim my 30 seconds. You know, gentlemen's time's expired. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Guam, Mr. Moreland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary, the top item on Indo-Pakom's fund-funded priority. List is Guam's missile defense system. This system is largely operated by the United States Army personnel. Now, will an increase in funding for the Guam missile defense improve the Army's ability to defend my constituents? Thank you, Congressman. We are very focused on the defense of Guam. At the same time, it is absolutely going to be a joint mission and a joint responsibility. We're working very closely, for example, with the Navy on defense of Guam. We have money in our budget to enable us to be able to bring forward a defense of Guam by FY 27. It'll be a mix of Patriots, Thads that are already there in Guam. I had the opportunity to visit our THAAD battery there. And then some of our newer systems like the IFPIC, and we'll have a battalion of that by the FY 27. So I think the money in our budget right now is gonna keep us on path to be able to build out the defense of Guam as we've planned. However, we do have a top number one unfunded priority. So that's my concern. General, can you expand on that importance of the missile defense and getting it fully funded? Yeah, I wouldn't. Congressman, I think to what the Secretary said, I mean, the Army, our big role is actually is helping technically. And Mr. Bush is kind of helping with that in our acquisition professionals and integrated air and missile defense to figure out how to get that together. But it's Air Force and Navy. There's a Navy base there. There's an Air Force base. Right now there's just one Army battalion that's on the ground. So we're leaning in fully to help do this and understand the importance of doing it. And I know that there's a team led by the Under Secretary of the Navy that's actually pulling all of that together and we're doing whatever we can to support and really focusing on the technical aspect of the solution there. I appreciate it. Thank you. And Secretary, I'm also very proud to represent many of my constituents who are members of the Guam National Guard. Brigadier General Cruz, the Adjutant General of Guam Guard, related to me his wish to have closeness and presence amongst the forces on island. How is the Guam Guard being incorporated into the strategic planning for future operations on Guam? And will the new Joint Task Force, Micronesia, impact the Guam Guard's operation? Congressman, right now my understanding is that a lot of the great National Guard soldiers on Guam are providing some of the force protection for some of the active duty Army folks and are doing a great job. I actually had the opportunity to meet your tag when I was in Guam last summer, I think. And we're very open to exploring how the Guam Guard can be more involved as JTF Micronesia stands up. I'm happy to see that they're a part of the Joint Task Force, Micronesia, to give their inputs. These folks are no Guam, live Guam, know all the roads. If disaster happens, there'll be an asset. So I thank you for that. And my last question, last year, General Carbler testified that demand for THAAD and Patriot systems has all paced supply. He stated, quote, every combatant command wants more Patriot. They need more THAAD, unquote. So has anything changed with the respect to this demand signal, especially for Indo-Pakam with respect to Guam? Congressman, we continue to see huge demand for our air defenders, whether it's Patriot, THAAD, with everything happening in the Middle East right now, they're wanted there, they're wanted in Indo-Pakam, they're wanted in U-Com. What we are doing in addition to growing our capabilities is we are growing our force structure for our air defenders. So we are trying to create, we're creating an additional Patriot battalion over the next several years, and we're also creating new, what we call indirect fire protection capability battalions. So we're trying to grow our air defender community to give us more supply. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. I thank the gentleman. Chair and I recognize General Lee from Michigan, Ms. Lutkin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just will reiterate the calls of so many of my colleagues on the urgency, which you all have articulated of getting our supplemental package, bipartisan package, voted on this week in the House. And I just want to say, since we've been in here, there's been rumors on Twitter that again on the Republican side, there is a threat to Speaker Johnson, a potential motion to vacate, to remove him because of this vote. And I just want to say very openly and publicly that there is a bunch of Democrats willing to have a conversation about helping in that scenario, if it means we get this supplemental through this week. That's how important this is to national security, to America's leadership role in the world, to making sure that Ukraine is not rolled. The first time a democracy would be rolled since World War II. So I just want to state that outright. It is insane to me that we are so desperate in Ukraine that the Pentagon notified with the Department of Justice the transfer of Iranian weapons that we seized off of Yemen to Ukraine. And the insanity of that I think is lost, I hope, on no one. So in any case, you all know the consequences of that. Shifting gears, Secretary Wormith, it's great to see you. Thank you for coming to Michigan and seeing all the great ground vehicles that we make in Michigan. Obviously, that's our sweet spot and our skill set. And I just want to ask you a number of questions. They're not trick questions. It's just to help us grapple with what we are growing concern over in Michigan, which is the threat of Chinese electric vehicles on the commercial side, flooding the United States the way they flooded the EU. So just a pure sort of yes or no question. I believe I know the answers, but would you support Chinese produced cameras being put on our ground vehicles in the Army? No. Would you support Chinese radar technology being put on ground vehicles in the Army? No. Would you support Chinese made lidar being used on ground vehicles in the Army? No, not if we can avoid it. Would you support Chinese software that would process all the information from those cameras, the radar, the lidar in American military vehicles? Not combat vehicles, no. Okay. And my colleagues have, we've all taken a lot of votes on the threat of things like TikTok and the Chinese government having access to all this personal information of Americans. What I would pose is that we are about to have a big moment of inflection here with the possibility of the saturation of Chinese electric vehicles being sold in the United States. The first Chinese electric vehicle sold in Europe was in 2021. They now have up to 25% of market share. That means every vehicle collecting information, collecting mapping data, collecting all kinds of information about our cities, our infrastructure locations, our military bases, and everything else. So I make this point only to say that our military would never allow the national security risk of those Chinese components or those Chinese things being on our military vehicles. Why would we open the door with a red carpet to allow those same Chinese commercial vehicles, that same technology rolling around every single American city, every single American town? So I will be submitting a number of amendments in the NDAA that just help us make clear that from an American military perspective, we're never going to use those component parts. And I know we have bi-American requirements, so that shouldn't be hard to fulfill. But I'm also gonna be asking that the experts on ground vehicles provide some assessment of what that kind of Chinese technology would do in the United States of America, again, commercially, and what kind of national security risk that would pose. So I appreciate your participation in that, and thank you for coming, and I yield back. Chair, I recognize General from Alabama, Mrs. Strong. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, and thanks to each of our distinguished panel persons for being here today. Redstone Arsenal in my district is a federal center of excellence, but the Army gave us a start back in 1941, and because of that, every day is Army Day in Huntsville. As my colleagues know, I could and would gladly spend the entire hearing sharing all the great things that the Army is doing at Redstone Arsenal, but unfortunately, I only have five minutes. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't express excitement about the newest Army cross-function team, the all-domain sensing CFT standing up shop at Redstone Arsenal. Four out of 10 CFTs isn't too bad, if you ask me, and only further prove that you can't talk about Army priorities and modernization without talking about North Alabama. Secretary Wormath, the FY 2018 NDA mandated that mature MDA programs should be transferred to services. However, Congress repealed that requirement after sustained advocacy from the Pentagon, sharing how this would be highly disruptive, especially to programs like THAAD. Is this still the DOD's view that this would be disruptive? Congressman, there are a lot of conversations that happen inside of the Pentagon that I'm not necessarily always aware of, but I think at this point, there's not any plan to transfer MDA responsibilities to the Army. Thank you. Given the sudden change of policy, this committee is going to need a very clear explanation as to why. Can I have your commitment to provide a written report on the reasoning? Certainly, I'm happy to have our team lay out kind of our thinking on where that is right now. Thank you. I remain focused on our nation's hypersonic fielding strategy, especially relating to the work coming out of the Army's rapid capabilities and critical technologies office, otherwise known as RICTO, which is headquartered at Redstone. To the extent you can share in this venue, I have two questions. How is the Army progressing in the long range hypersonic weapons program? And how is the fielding of the new units to operate these systems progressing? Happy to give you a quick update, congressman. The work on the long range hypersonic weapon is going well. Obviously, when we didn't have a successful test most recently, we've spent a lot of that time looking at what happened there, how do we understand it, how do we fix the problems so that the tests that we'll have later this year will be successful. And I think we have a good handle on that. We've been working very closely with the Navy. In the meantime, the unit out at JBLM that will eventually get the round, the hypersonic round, has been training with their ground equipment. And so they're gonna be ready to go just as soon as we get that all up around to them. I don't know, chief, if you wanna add. Yeah, I just was out, congressman, and went through that unit and they're ready to go. They're actually training. And whenever we get the missile to them, which I think we'll be shortly, they're gonna be ready to go. That's what we'd like to hear. Secretary Wormann, General George, I want to applaud your efforts and that of the Sergeant Major for your support of the Army's efforts in the space domain. The space mission area is only continuing to grow as proven by the standup of Space Force. However, as you both know, the Army is still the top user of space in the Department of Defense. It is my understanding that several months ago, the Army approved the elevation of space operations career field from a function area to a branch. I have three questions. What is the status as to where the Army stands with the space branch? When can you expect it to roll out? What help do you need from this committee to help? Sorry, congressman, we work closely with our colleagues in the Space Force. As you said, we're the biggest consumer of space-based capabilities. In terms of sort of the specifics that you'd asked about, I'd like to take that question for the record and get back to you unless the chief wants to add something. Yeah, I'll just add congressman General Ganey was just, we were just having this discussion actually. So we haven't, and right now we're analyzing, obviously space is very, very important to us. There are several branches right now or functional areas like in military intelligence, certain aspects of air defense artillery and signal and all of those that have been going back and forth. And so what we're trying to determine if we do go with the branch, what is it gonna look like and how are we gonna do that? But we're invested in space and we'll continue. And I will tell you that we're growing that with what we're doing like for our multi-domain task forces that all have a space component in there. So it's critically important and we are happy to come talk to you about how we're looking to move forward. The gentleman's time's expired. Chair and I recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both for being here. Just wanna build on many of the questions actually, particularly around innovation and modernization. I feel like in the last few years, we've really seen and experienced a preview of what God forbid we were to fight a major war, what it would look like, particularly between Ukraine and Russia, some of the TTPs there, and then even just over this weekend, what we saw in the way that, in an unprecedented attack in and of itself, but also the employment of a treatable drones and various other means by Iran against our ally Israel. Based on all of that, what are you all at a high level taking away from, I think in some ways it's an opportunity for us to, without our own forces directly engaged, learn and quickly, urgently adapt. So what are the high level takeaways there? And then specifically, can you talk about how that ties into project convergence and what you see coming out of that in terms of technology and command and control specifically and sort of JADC too. I know that's a lot there. Start with you, Madam Secretary, please. Thank you, and I'll make sure to be concise so that the Chief has time. I think lessons learned from Ukraine, from what we're seeing right now with Israel, validate in a lot of ways the programs that the Army has been investing in in recent years. The incredible importance of integrated air and missile defenses. We saw that, how important that was this weekend. The Army is investing in that in very significant ways. The importance of UAS and counter UAS in a transparent battlefield. Again, we've since 2020, we've invested over $3 billion in UAS and counter UAS. We need to do more and we need to do it more quickly as we've talked about quite a bit. The importance of long range fires. Again, whether it's precision strike missile, whether it's our mid-range capability that is ground-launched and has a mobile seeker that allows us to hit ships, incredibly important. I think all of what we've seen in Ukraine and what they've done with the Russian Navy underscores that. Let me turn it to the Chief. Yeah, I would say broadly, Congressman, you're gonna have to be mobile and low-signature on today's battlefield, which really affects everything else and why we're starting with the network. I think everybody has seen that American equipment works really well. So I think that that is, and what is good about that is our partners and allies that are buying that same stuff and we're using it and helps with interoperability magazine depth. I think we've covered that a couple of times of how important that is. So we could go on for a long time about lessons learned and we're really focused on that. What can we 3D print, for example? How can we use added manufacturing and tele-maintenance so that we can reduce our logistical footprint that's out there? But we're looking at this in every warfighting function and really across all what's open source and what's at the more higher end. EW is another one. We're learning the electromagnetic environment is changing almost on a daily basis and so how do we adapt to that? I appreciate that to push you a little bit. Can you give a few specific examples of with speed and urgency, some new programs? And I spoke about convergence and JETC too, but if there are other things that I know it's a quick turn but we've now had a few years of this, are there specific investments in this year's budget that you think directly speak to the high level points that you rightly brought up? I'll mention a couple. We're actually adjusting our network right now and doing that inside what we're changing from and what we were talking about is not dragging around big antennas and having server stacks or we're making those kinds of things and so we're investing in other capabilities. We're also buying other short range reconnaissance UAS. You'll see other aspects in our budget the same thing on counter UAS. So there are things where prism is an example for long range fires. We could go down a lot of what we were, like the secretary said, producing is what's gonna work on today's battlefield, anywhere it's gonna deploy and I think on the smaller systems UAS, counter UAS, those are the ones that we need to, I think pour a little more fuel on the fire on those. And Congress and I would just add also the integrated battle command control system that's gonna tie together a lot of the air and missile defenses. That kind of capability allows us to be able to share data not just across Army platforms but with other services and I think that's gonna be critical for JADC too. Gentlemen, it's time to expire. Chair and I recognize gentlemen from Indiana, Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wormuth, is race a factor in admissions to the Army's officer candidate school? To be honest, Congressman, I'm not sure off the top of my head. We basically are looking for the best qualified, diverse folks to come into our officer corps. So the Army has said repeatedly that affirmative action at West Point is quote critical to our national security. So why is it critical at West Point? You don't seem to know about officer candidate school but why would it be critical to our national security to protect affirmative action at West Point? Congressman, I think it's the same reason it would be true for OCS and our West Point officers. It's to try to make sure that we have the best qualified, diverse set of people to lead a enormous Army made up of people from all different races, all different religions, all different demographics. The Supreme Court's ban on affirmative action at universities obviously applies to ROTC programs. Has that ruling harmed our national security? I think we're still seeing the implications of the Supreme Court's decision but in the meantime we're doing everything we can to recruit the best possible folks into our officer corps and to the Army more broadly. But if the Army says it over and over again, I mean what does it really mean that quote affirmative action is critical to our national security? I'm just wondering what does that mean specifically? I think what I think- Why is it critical to our national security? Why is affirmative action critical to our national security? What's critical to our national security is having the best qualified officers we can have to lead our soldiers. A large number of our soldiers are African American, our Hispanic, our women, and we wanna make sure that they have leaders that they look up to, that they have things in common with and that they see as credible. So I think we wanna have a diverse set of leaders to lead a diverse set of Americans who are serving in the Army. Is affirmative action the only way to accomplish that? Well, I think we're taking a number of factors into account. And does it seem hypocritical that affirmative action at West Point, but not for our OTC, how does the Army compute that? Congressman, I think, frankly I was a little puzzled at the Supreme Court's decision and the fact that they created a carve out for the military academies when they decided that affirmative action wasn't legal for all of the colleges and universities. Why were you puzzled? Well, it just seems interesting to me. Why would they treat the academies differently from regular civilian colleges and universities? I wasn't sure what the line of thinking there was. But I'm not an attorney, so. If Congress eliminated affirmative action to, I agree, it is puzzling. If Congress ended affirmative action at West Point, would the Army abide by that? And like every other college and university in America and do away with it? The Army is gonna abide by the laws of the United States. So yes, I think if Congress passes a law, we'll abide by it. At a conference at Duke University, you said, quote, today more than 80% of recruits come from military families. There is a risk of developing a warrior cast when only 1% of the population serves in the military. What did you mean by that? What I meant by that is, I think if you have the preponderance of folks in the Army coming from Army families, you have a possibility of becoming more and more distant from the 99% of the other Americans who aren't familiar with the military. And I just think that's something you wanna guard against. I think it's healthy for us in the Army to have a broader representation as possible. Where is the biggest source of military recruitment? Where does that come from? We get people from all across the country. We take a lot of people from the South and Southeast. It comes from military families. Yes, about 80% of service members. Yes. How far off is the Army of its current recruitment goals? Right now, we're actually on pace. I think I don't wanna get overly confident, but I think we're going to make our recruiting this year, which is a goal of 55,000 contracts. So you agree that you've reduced your goals from last year when you were way off the mark? We had a very ambitious goal last year. I think General George and I agreed that a goal of 55,000 new soldiers plus 5,000 in the delayed enemy program is healthy. I take it from what you just said is the Army intentionally avoiding new recruits from military families. I mean, this is really stunning. No, certainly not. We are very proud of... Warrior cast. We're very proud of all of the folks who come from military families and we welcome them with open arms. Really shocking testimony. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Gentlemen's time has expired. Chair now recognizes a gentle lady from Texas, Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and many thanks to our witnesses. I want to reiterate a couple of things that my colleagues mentioned. Number one, it really is stunning to me that Republicans have unfortunately stood in the way of help to Ukraine, especially as Ukraine is on this very dangerous precipice. Number two, I want to also say that I'm so proud of the work that the Quality of Life panel did and the work that we've reported out, I'm grateful to the chair and the ranking member for their support and encouragement of this work and I look forward to working on implementation once the House, the Senate have passed this and the president has signed. But I want to turn my attention to Fort Bliss, incredible military installation that I have the honor and privilege of representing. Secretary Wormuth, General George, I was so pleased to see the $44 million in additional funding included in the budget request to complete the rail yard at Fort Bliss following the $74 million investment requested, authorized and appropriated for the project in fiscal year 24. The rail yard is a critical infrastructure requirement I've advocated for throughout my time in Congress and I'd love for you to speak to the importance of these Mil-Con investments to support Fort Bliss' power projection mission requirements, please. Certainly, thank you Congresswoman and I'll turn it over to General George shortly. As you alluded to, it is very important for us to be able to project power out of the United States, to flow our forces wherever they may be needed and sometimes they're needed on very short notice. So those railheads like the one at Fort Bliss are key to us being able to move our soldiers' equipment out rapidly and we have a number of infrastructure requirements for power projection that we're continuing to get after but I'm very glad we were able to put the investment towards the one at Fort Bliss, chief. Yeah, Congresswoman, Fort Bliss is a great place to train it's a great place for our families so it's a crown jewel for us down there and I think like the secretary said to get first armored division and all of the other units that we have important units to include air defense artillery out of there having a really good railhead and being able to move that those formations quickly is critically important to us and that's what that's gonna provide. Thank you both so much. Secretary, I understand that through earlier iterations of the Army's 2030 modernization plan and the stationing actions to follow Fort Bliss was projected to receive an IRCA or extended range cannon artillery battalion in fiscal year 26. As you know, the intent behind this was to provide improved lethality and range to our armored brigade combat teams such as the first armored division which I'm so honored to represent. Given the relatively recent decision to cancel the IRCA program, can you speak very broadly on the Army 2030 objective to deliver precise longer range fires and specifically how will post-cancellation recalibration efforts address the first armored divisions need for improved fire capabilities? Thank you, Congresswoman. As we've said at a number of times during this hearing long range precision fires are incredibly important to the Army and we see their value playing out right now on the battlefield in Ukraine. We did make the decision to not go forward with IRCA because of some significant engineering challenges that were jeopardizing soldier safety but we still have the requirement for that kind of a fire system with that kind of range. So this summer we're actually gonna be doing a performance demo with industry. There are other systems out there that we think may be able to meet our needs and I think it's possible that we could even sign a contract for production in FY25. So I think you're still gonna see an IRCA-like capability if you will eventually going to Fort Bliss but we just have to do some work this summer to look at what's out there. Okay, thank you both so much. Appreciate it. Just about out of time. I yield back. Generally yields back. Chair and I recognize the gentleman from Florida. Mr. Walton. Mr. Chair, Madam Secretary General George, thank you for the meeting a few days ago. I just wanna talk to you for a moment about, again about recruiting and the crisis that we're in and particular junior ROTC programs in our high schools. Senator Wicker and I in the last NDAA with the support of many on this committee increased the cap for the number of junior ROTC programs from 3,500 to 4,000. Unfortunately, the president's budget requests nowhere near funds these programs and just for everybody watching and listening, we're talking about two to three people, half of their costs because the school system covers the other half. So really this is what you call in the Pentagon budget does, but I think the impact is huge. You get, there's a lot of talk about Gen Z doesn't know what it's like to serve or wanna serve so now you have Gen Z that's showing up right place, right time, right uniform, positive male and female role models, leadership, discipline, followership, teamwork, and even if they don't join the military, you get a better citizen out of it. I think you would agree. Yes, thank you. And what I have here is a correlation of the states where you have the highest concentration of junior ROTC programs, mainly in the southeast and the Midwest, you have your highest percentage of recruiting here and here that are actually joining. So my question is, why do we have the army shutting down junior ROTC programs right now and what's concerning in line with the diversity goals that you were just talking to with representative banks, 80% of the junior ROTC programs in the high schools that are being shut down are in minority, majority high schools, 80% of the ones being shut down. Can you speak to that, Secretary Wormuth? Why is that? How does that fit your recruiting goals? How does that fit your diversity goals? Shutting down minority, majority, junior ROTC programs. First of all, I wanna say I completely agree with you that JROTC programs are great. I've had the opportunity to visit a number and the kids in those programs are terrific. Will you commit to work with us to increase what the president's budget requests requested? Because I think the outsize impact, the bang for the box is tremendous. I think if there's a way to get additional funding for these programs, that would be helpful to us. The limiting factor is really is funding and then also instructors, finding people who are qualified and who- We also broaden in the last NDAA the type of people that can serve as instructors and increase their pay, but please continue. That's helpful because in many cases, frankly, congressmen, it's the instructors and the availability of instructors that can be a limiting factor. And you'll recall there was, I think, a series of news articles looking at some very unfortunate circumstances where we had instructors engaging in very inappropriate ways with some of those cadets. So we wanna make sure we have the right people. Absolutely, but I think those are outliers. I think the vast majority of the ROTC are continuing to surges. Absolutely agree with that. The interest of time, please take a hard look at the programs you're shutting down and where. Number one, and we'll have a measure to reduce the number of minimum cadets in this next NDAA. I think if you have 50, 60, 70 kids, that program should continue. Right now it's at 100, and that puts them on the list to be shut down. So we'll work with you to look at that. Just switching topics very quickly, we've talked about the cuts to our soft enterprise, to our special operators. General George, you well, and everyone knows, it was Green Berets, I'm proud to say, that were training the Ukrainians from 2014 on to get them ready for this fight. I think they've had an outsize impact and will continue in Great War competition. One of the biggest concerns is misinformation. We're seeing that in Gaza, we're seeing misinformation in the Pacific, we're seeing, there's a lot of talk in this town about misinformation, yet the biggest cuts are to PSI-OPS. Why is that, Secretary Wormrith? Congressman, my understanding is actually the preponderance of the 3,000 slots that are being reduced are actually enablers, they're communicators, they're administrative support people. I think that SOCOM and SOLIC have worked very hard to have very targeted reductions to authorizations and that the reductions to PSI-OPS are relatively small out of that broader 3,000. We'll re-look that and then just in a few seconds, I have remaining. Back to the EV issue, are there any charging stations in Ukraine or Africa or anywhere else? I think we did take a hard look at the carbon neutral goal and what we're doing to. Although I will say, I want to foot-stop what he said about JROTC, those are outstanding programs, we need to do everything we can to maintain those as viable. With that, I recognize the gentle lady from New Jersey, Ms. Sherrill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you've stated, the Army continues to aggressively pursue modernization as a top priority to ensure our land forces can dominate any future battlefield. And as we've seen in Ukraine, the ability to strike at extended ranges allows forces to hit deeper into enemy territory while maintaining a standoff. And when we talk about long-range precision fires, many default to precision rockets and missiles, but the reality is that while these systems have their place, they're not an economic solution for any sustained large-scale conflict. So you mentioned that you think there are opportunities out there with the cancellation of the extended range cannon artillery program to meet some needs, even having some procurement goals. As you said, I think FY 25. Are there any other research and other programs you're pursuing to ensure we achieve overmatch against any potential enemy with our current and future howitzer platforms? I'll talk about this a little bit, Congresswoman. So yeah, we are looking, and I agree with you, it's not just, this gets to same thing as integrated air and missile defense with long-range fires with extended battlefield, we'll need mortars, artillery, all of that. We're looking at that. And I think what we're looking at right now is how do we become more mobile on the battlefield with all of those systems? Excuse me. And then we also gotta look at the round. What can we do to adjust the round? And we've done a lot with Energetics and made some adjustments so that we're not changing out our systems, that we're actually getting increased range, increased accuracy, and increased lethality by using that as well. So we're trying to look at it in totality. And then the other thing, I do think that there are loitering munitions and other things that we can do that we can reduce the cost on that that will also expand the battlefield. That is, we are looking at those as well. Thank you. And our support to Ukraine has also opened our eyes to the shortcomings in our defense industrial base, especially for artillery shells that continue to show their necessity in modern warfare. So Ukraine is limited to firing, I believe I last heard 2000 artillery shells a day, roughly one third of Russia's capacity due to shortages. If the US is to find itself in a large scale conflict, our industrial base must be able to quickly and effectively increase production of critical munitions to support our armed forces. So Madam Secretary, this committee is done much to support the Army ammunition production base. What further investments are needed to ensure our organic industrial base can scale production of munitions to meet the requirements of not only today with respect to Ukraine, but potential conflict in the future? Thank you, Congresswoman. The work that's been done at places like Picatinny and elsewhere in the past couple of years has just been outstanding. I think we've strengthened our industrial base considerably. In terms of future investments, our budget invests a billion dollars a year across the five years in our organic industrial base. So in our 23 arsenals, ammo plants, and depots. And then of course we need to work with our partners in industry to continue to build up our munitions. And so this budget requests over $3 billion a year for munitions, everything from javelins to stingers to gimlers to PAC-3, MSE. So there's a very substantial investment in munitions and the broader industrial base in this budget request. Thank you. And then as we've seen from the war in Ukraine, it's given us valuable lessons learned as we prepare our forces for large scale combat operations. It's one thing to develop and adopt technologies such as drones and electromagnetic warfare, but we have to incorporate those lessons into doctrine, training and the organization of our land forces. So General George, can you provide an overview of how the Army's incorporating lessons from Ukraine at Echelon? How are our soldiers mastering these new technologies while also working on old school tasks such as trench warfare and analog communications? And finally, how are we preparing to counter the lessons our adversaries are learning from this conflict as well? Okay, thanks for the question, Congresswoman. Yeah, 20 seconds. I'll try to be quick. We have Center for Army Lessons learned over there, Trey Dock is leading this, but really all the organizations from the Army Futures Command making sure that we're learning what we're doing. And we say there's a difference between a lesson observed and a lesson learned. For it to be learned, we have to change how we train, we have to change how we equip and how we operate. We've been at CTCs, I've been out to every one of them here the last three months and we are doing that. One quick example is we haven't been looking up and with drones and what you can be, how you can be seen and now signature management is increasing. Generally these times expire. Chair and I recognize gentlemen from Florida, Mr. Jimenez. Thank you, thank you very much, Ann. I want to follow up a little bit with my colleague from Florida in terms of electrification. Secretary, do you believe that the climate change is the greatest threat that we face as a nation? Congressman, unfortunately right now we face a number of extremely pronounced threats, whether it's Russia, China, Iran, but I think climate change is- It's not the question, it's not the question. Is it the greatest threat that we face as a nation, existential threat we face as a nation? I generally don't support sort of one-to-end list prioritizations, but I think climate change is a concern for us, certainly. Do you believe that what's more important for a weapons system to be carbon dioxide neutral or is it to be effective? Of course it's for it to be operationally effective. Very good, thank you. So I would hope that when we look at this charged electrification, that we look at effectiveness more. It's the only, really effectiveness to me is the only criteria that we need to follow. So Secretary, one of my biggest concerns is our defense industrial base and the current status of the 155-millimeter stockpiles. What is the Army doing to invest in the industrial base? Congressman, we've invested a billion dollars in the organic industrial base, the base that we control, and then we have over $3 billion in our budget for munitions. I think the biggest thing that would be really helpful is if the Congress is able to pass the supplemental, we will be able to get up to the target we've set of 100,000 rounds per month of 155-millimeter shells. If the supplemental doesn't pass, we won't be able to reach that target. Well, I think we agree on that. I actually support the supplemental or at least parts of the supplemental. I mean, the ones to me that concerns me, the benefit that I get from the supplemental is that we help our allies, but we also help our industrial base and we need to ramp up our industrial base really quickly. And obviously you're concerned with our stockpiles of the 155-millimeter. Yes, yes, I'm very supportive of investing that money so that we can build up those stockpiles. What is the size of the current army? Right now, I believe we are at 452,000 active duty soldiers. Is that big enough to deal with the threats that we're facing all over the world? We've been able to meet the combatant commander requirements, yes, we have, but General George and I are committed to increasing the size of the army, in particular the active component. By how much? Well, we're aiming to get to about 470,000 congressmen by 2029. Will that be sufficient to face our threats around the world or potential threats around the world? Obviously talking about the potential threat of China. What's the size of their army? I think they have a very large army, particularly because they have a very large police force as well, an interior ministry force. And that's considered part of the army? It has some similar roles to the army, yes. Okay. Is it significantly bigger than ours? I think congressmen, it may be bigger than ours, but one thing I will tell you that I think is a huge comparative advantage for the United States army is the quality of our soldiers and our leaders. That is a comparative advantage for us. We are much more effective and able to execute mission command than the Chinese army. And that translates to combat effectiveness. All right, General George, my understanding of the army is working on to upgrade the precision strike missile weapon system and increase its range to more than 1,000 kilometers. Known as PRSM, increment four, the army requires additional funding and fiscal 25 to maintain the schedule and resource of competitive program. This is one of the army's highest modernization priorities because of its relevance to the Indo-Pacom theater and contested environments. The current missile has a maximum range of 500 kilos and can reach only a small percentage of identified maritime and land-based targets in China. Is that correct? Congressman, yes, PRSM is a very important missile for us, long range fires, and we're working on research and development on how we can take the range out. There's other increments and we can come by and brief you on those different increments that allow us to hit mobile targets as well. So that is part of our portfolio. And the great thing about that system and that missile is it works with our high-mars, which we know those ground-based fires have been extremely effective. They've proven that in Ukraine and they can hide and move and very hard to target. So the focus for it. What is your target date for operation of the new enhanced missile? Well, we're getting, we'll actually, some of PRSM will come online here this calendar year. Gentlemen's Towns expired. Chair, I recognize Jen Leigh from Hawaii, Mr. Kuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Wormouth, I appreciate the extent to which you have made childcare priority for the Department of the Army under your leadership. Last week, Military.com released a damning article detailing systemic delays in reporting child abuse and harm in the Department of Defense's child development centers. Too many instances when processes and systems or lack thereof have failed our children and our families. Given that the Army owns and operates the majority of the Department's child development centers, its policies on childcare are especially important and impactful. In reviewing Army regulation on child development services, the sectional reporting requirements for allegations of child abuse is, quite frankly, confusing. The threshold for action is far too high, especially when we are talking about potential child abuse. It takes too long, and quite frankly, the determination of what sufficient credibility means is subjective. Noticeably missing from this section of the regulation is any mention of notifying parents and legal guardians. In fact, the regulation only explicitly requires parents to be notified about their child in very limited circumstances in medical emergencies, instances of communicable disease, acute illness, unusual occurrence, excursions, availability of care, change in personnel, no mention of child abuse. Secretary Wormith, in the interest of the health and safety of our children, what steps can the Army take to clear up its policies on reporting these instances of child abuse and ensure that parents and legal guardians are part of those policies? Thank you, Congresswoman. And as a mom who has two grown kids now but who had kids in daycare centers, I would certainly want to be notified if something had happened. So what I'd like to propose is that our team work with your office to look at the regulation and look at some ways that we can strengthen it and make sure that we're notifying parents if something happens with their child. We certainly want to make sure that that happens. I will say we have very high standards for the employees who work in our CDCs. They go through background checks and I want to make sure we don't have any instances of inappropriate behavior, but I think on balance, the quality of our CDC employees is very high. I've been very impressed with what I've seen. Thank you. And then the bottom line is those policies need to be reflective of the actions we like to see and we have to make sure we hold them accountable. Military.com also reported that some updated policy is marked as CUI-controlled, unclassified information, making it difficult for some parents to see those policies and actually know the information they should be getting about their children. Secretary, would you please explain why these policy documents have been marked CUI in many cases and what will the Army do to make sure that parents and legal guardians are clearly informed of these policies? As I'm sure you know, Congressmen, CUI I think stands for basically, unclassified information, but it is official purposes, but we want to make sure that parents understand what our policies are and have access to that information, so I'm confident we can find a way to make sure that our regulations and policies are available for parents and we can be transparent with them. Thank you. We'd like to remove as many barriers as possible for parents to know how their children are doing and the care that they're receiving. One last issue I'd like to flag is the fact that the regulations rely significantly on individual garrisons to implement standard operating procedures, meaning there is no clear single unified standard. Not only does this create a patchwork of procedures for reporting incidents, but it also makes it harder, quite frankly, to track these issues more broadly between garrisons. Secretary, what is the department doing to implement a clear unified standard for documenting incidences of all kinds at Army Child Development Centers, especially for those incidences involving child abuse? Congresswoman, what I'd like to do is take for the record that question so that I get back to you with accurate information. I do think we want to have a clear consistent standard for all of our CDCs, but I also want to emphasize that I think every installation is different, every installation has different programs, so my goal would be to try to make sure we have a clear standard, but we still give our garrison commanders flexibility so that we can tailor to what makes sense to their area. Thank you, I look forward to those responses. And while we all want flexibility, bottom line is we all want our children to be safe. I cannot understate how absolutely unacceptable all of these things are that were in the article that's happening even in my hometown of Hawaii and how important it is that the department act quickly to fix these issues that were raised in the story itself. This is a broken trust, and for the state of readiness we've been talking about today, for our military men and women to do their jobs, they need to trust that their families as well are also safe, and I worry that if we don't act quickly and we don't aggressively enough tackle this issue about how we keep our children safe in childcare institutions, we erode that trust and make it even harder to recruit and retain the talent that we need. Thank you, Mr. Chair, yield back. Jen Lee's time's expired. Chair, I recognize Jen from Texas, Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Really appreciate your time. The Army's at a pivotal moment in time right now where we must modernize our force to meet the challenges of a future conflict, but we need to assure we are leveraging our investments in the right way. With our strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific, we must prepare and adapt for the vast ranges and contested battle spaces in which we will operate. In the Army's Aviation Investment Rebalance Announcement, I was happy to hear that you both are fully committed and dedicated to the future long-range assault aircraft and the Bell V-280. As you both certainly know, I've been one of the chief advocates here in Congress for the Army's aviation modernization efforts. I think we all understand that this new aircraft is a massive leap ahead in terms of capability, flying twice as far and twice as fast compared to the helicopters that we'll replace. General George, I would like to ask you, can you assure us that the Army has an ironclad commitment to this program? And can you describe in some detail how the new capabilities provided by this platform will be advantageous to our operational forces and why it's so critical to the future of the Army? Sure, Congressman. It is a leap ahead technology. I think it's gonna change how we're able to insert forces on the battlefield and do a plethora of missions with this. It's also gonna give us the ability, what we've been working on to working with as far as other launched effects that could come with this program. So it's gonna provide a significant capability. We are committed to it and I agree with you. I also wanna point out too, as an emergency medicine physician and a physician in the military that served in the combat zone as well, I fully understand the importance of what we used to refer to as the golden hour, but obviously time is translated into lives and lives that we will or won't save. With the Indo-Pacific in particular, obviously there's gonna be some long Medevac distances and I believe that some of these V-280s are gonna be outfitted specifically for that mission and I think that I can't reiterate how important that's gonna be in a future conflict to be able to get someone from the point of injury on the battlefield to the next higher level of care and I think that this platform is right now the only thing that's gonna be able to do that. In the budget request for this year, it looks like there's a roughly 1.26 billion included for future long range assault aircraft development. General George, can you speak to that funding, what that funding will provide for future long range assault aircraft program and is it the amount of funding, is it the right amount to keep this program on track and on schedule to fill the first operational unit in FY30? Yeah, I think it is the right amount, Congressman, to make sure that we keep everything on track and keep moving forward and like you said and I mentioned just a couple of missions, this will be this aircraft with its speed and its legs, how far it can fly will be a multi-mission aircraft for us and it's important that we get it into the force as soon as we can. Well thank you, as a member of this committee, I'm committed to doing everything I can to make sure that we stay on track and you have everything you need to make that happen because I believe in it as well. Real quickly, I just wanted to ask you a quick question. A few weeks ago the commander for SOCOM told the intelligence and special operations subcommittee about the dangers of the proposed cuts to the special operations forces in the Army. I get it with constrained budgets and record inflations, difficult decisions have to be made by cutting specialized personnel and the unique capabilities from the force. I don't think, I think that it's a little bit strategically short-sighted. It undercuts our strategy to compete and deter our adversaries because I promise you our adversaries are not doing the same. When asked about the Army's decision to cut these special forces, General Fenton said, the challenge is that it's against the backdrop of every increasing demands from our combatant commands. A 150% increase or more in our crisis response missions over the last three years and this ever-changing, more challenging character and environment of war. And I agree with him on that. I think things with the new focus on the Indo-Pacific and the continued focus on counter-terrorism and the global war on terrorism, I don't think that's going away. I've been briefed on this topic and I was told not to worry about it because it's not the operators that are being cut, it's just the soft enablers or those positions. I just wanna reiterate that I think that those enablers have a lot of extra training with these units and they're very special in their own regard and I don't think they can be easily replaced or interchanged and so I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on this number? Can you tell me what the level of risk is that we're absorbing by cutting these 3,000 soft personnel during a time where conflicts are growing worldwide? Again, we left it up to SOCOM to look specifically at these cuts, Congressman, but actually the enablers that they were cut were the least deployed that we had units that we had in the Army and we are still supporting soft around the world. Chairman, I recognize General Lee from Virginia, Ms. McClellan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, you may recall that last year we had a conversation about childcare and you've gotten a couple of questions I wanna follow up on today. And if I recall correctly, you said one of the biggest challenges that the Army faces and I think this is probably true across branches was with the workforce and with the length of time it takes to get through background checks and I just want to follow up a year later to see if there are any steps that the Army has taken to try to streamline that process. Well, Congressman, if only I as Secretary of the Army controlled the security clearance process because that is often a moment in the pipeline that takes quite a while. There is a separate agency in DOD that's responsible for security clearances and background checks. So that's outside of the Army's control but we are certainly doing everything we can to try to help folks who are applying to our CDCs to help them fill out the forms in ways that reduce the number of questions and back and forth that they get. But the background check continues to be a bit of a long pull in the tent. At the same time, I will just say Congresswoman Takuta's points, that security clearance is important. We do want to make sure that people we hire are in our state. And I don't doubt that. I know. I think it's, I think if it is the largest challenge to filling these childcare centers, over the past year I've spent a lot of time either visiting bases across the, not just the Army, talking to CDC providers, talking to service members. And it is a critical issue that I hear one of the biggest issues with recruitment and retention and frankly, morale is the inability to have quality affordable childcare. And when they can't get it on base, there's also a crisis in the community where the base is and we've got to do everything we can. So I don't disagree with you that they have to go through the background check. But if it's one of the biggest impediments, we also got to do something to fix that impediment. One of the other impediments that I hear is or one of the programs that I have heard is benefits with tuition assistance, professional development that the DOD is trying to give to recruit and retain employees at childcare centers. But a lot of these employees don't know that these benefits are available. And I heard that directly from employees and their supervisors. Can you tell me whether the Army has conducted a review to ensure that employees and potential employees know about these benefits that are available as they are recruiting and trying to retain their childcare workers? Congresswoman, I don't think that we've done a review at the headquarters level. That's something we can talk to our G9 about doing that. I think our garrison commanders who are usually the folks who are interfacing most often with the CDCs and the employees there are very aware of the different incentives we have, whether it's recruiting bonuses, whether it is discounts for people who work in the CDC for their children to go there. First child goes free, second child goes 50% off. Our garrison commanders are, I think, very familiar with those, but we can certainly look at how we can do more to get that message out. I'd suggest you do that because there are a lot of people that just don't know. Given the developing Russia-China partnership, we've seen it's more important than ever that the U.S. work with its allies to deter threats, and obviously this weekend was a perfect example of the importance of that. Can you elaborate, either of you, on how the Army has sought to deepen its ties with partner nation militaries at all level, from industrial-based coordination to technological interoperability and multilateral training? A couple things I'd highlight on that, Congresswoman, and then turn it over to General George. First, we have something called Security Force Assistance Brigades. We have five of those. They're each aligned to a combatant command. So for example, the SFAB in the Indo-Pacific works with 12 different partner countries there doing amazing things. On the industrial base, we are gonna be, the Australians are gonna be co-producing Gimlers missiles for us. And then another program I would highlight is the terrific state partnership program that our Army National Guard has with countries all around the world that does training. So those are just some examples. Thank you. I'll just, 88 State Partnership Program, just a plug for the Guard and what they're doing. And every time I go to Romania, what I hear of the first thing I hear is roll tide. So I know they're having an impact over there. The Secretary mentioned AUKUS Pillar II. That's something that we're working with both the Australians and the UK. General A's time expired. Chair, I recognize you. I'm from Missouri, Mr. Alford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Ranking Member, for this important hearing today. And thank you for our witnesses. As our witnesses know, my district hosts Army's Fort Leonard Wood home to training and doctrine command Maneuver Support Center of Excellence under the leadership of commanding General Beck. The Maneuver Support Center of Excellence is the only location for soldiers and Army leaders to hone their expertise as engineers, military police, chemical biological, radiological, and nuclear seaburn specialists. Later this week, sappers at Fort Leonard Wood will compete in the annual best sapper competition. I encourage everyone to watch on Fort Leonard Wood's Facebook page, U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood. It starts this Friday. ought to be good. I want to thank in particular the Army and personally thank you, Secretary Wormuth, for going to Fort Leonard Wood, for your attention that you have paid to this distinguished installation. In the President's budget, $144 million is now dedicated to advanced individual training barracks at Fort Leonard Wood. Thank you so much. It's great news. It's gonna mean a lot for our soldiers. Additionally, the quality of life panel, which I was a part of, released a list of recommendations last Thursday that will dramatically improve the livelihoods of soldiers and their families all over the world and across the military. And I want to personally thank General Bacon for having me on this panel and for his leadership. I'm excited for these recommendations to serve as a foundation of the fiscal year 25 NDAA. We have the opportunity now to take care of the service members who take care of our nation. And I know we're gonna do the right thing. The Army is also going through changes related to its structure. And I'm supportive of the Army's efforts to do that, to meet our new challenges. However, I encourage the Army to ensure that as it changes, it continues to support the communities that in turn have supported the Army for so many years. Secretary Wormuth, as the Army does restructure, it's cutting military police battalions and engineer units. It's going to affect Fort Leonardwood. Fewer positions in these specialties will mean fewer soldiers over time attending basic training at Fort Leonardwood. It's going to disproportionately impact the rural community around the installation compared to that of other installations. And I will submit to you, it already is. Is it feasible to plus up the number of soldiers attending basic training at Fort Leonardwood to ensure that the community is not too adversely affected? Congressman, first of all, we look at our Army force structure and how it's arrayed every year through the total Army analysis process that we use. So we will continually be looking at that to include at places like Fort Leonardwood. I do want to note, and we have in the restructuring that we've done, we were looking at authorized spaces, basically spaces, not faces. And at Fort Leonardwood and at many of our installations around the country, the actual number of soldiers right now is below the number of authorizations. So it is possible, and the reason I'm hesitating a little is because I don't have Fort Leonardwood's kind of footprint in my mind in terms of numbers, but in many of our major bases, by the end of the next five years, the number of actual soldiers at Fort Leonardwood may be higher than what you have now, in part because in so many places due to the recruiting challenges, we're actually below the number of authorizations. Do you have a percentage of that increase? I just, again, don't have those numbers off the top of my head. Would you get that to us? But we can get them to you, absolutely. Thank you so much. We do have them. Can you talk about the changes that the Army is making to the Army's criminal investigation division? I know we've talked about this in my office, and the impacts it will have across the Army and also at Fort Leonardwood where CID agents get their training. Absolutely, and our CID agents get terrific training at Fort Leonardwood. Again, I was pleased to be able to see a lot of what the installation offers when I was there. Broadly speaking, what we're trying to do with CID, and a lot of this came out of the commission that looked at everything that happened at Fort Hood in the wake of Vanessa Guillen's murder, we are essentially transforming at least 60% of our CID agents to civilians, so it won't be a fully military force anymore. And I think one thing that's going to do is improve the level of professionalism, the level of experience that our agents have, which is really important, I think, particularly given the importance of their investigative role. So that's broadly what we're doing with the transformation, but happy to have Director Ford come and talk with you in more detail, if you'd like. I would love to have a discussion with Director Ford personally. Thank you so much. And again, thank you, Secretary, and General, thank you for your service to our nation. I invite you to Fort Leonard Wood anytime. We'd love to accompany you there. All right. I yield back. Thank you, gentlemen, and yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Vesquez. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Warmouth, General George, for taking the time to speak with us today. I have the privilege of representing New Mexico's second district, home to White Sands Missile Range, the birthplace of America's Missile and Space Program, and the Department of Defense's premier research and testing facility. As you both know, White Sands is one of the department's most valuable assets. Receiving, but it's not receiving the prioritization and attention that it deserves from the Army. Rural installations such as White Sands face unique challenges to provide sufficient and adequate and modernized housing for service members and their families. During my visit to White Sands this year, I spoke with base leadership about how they're currently at over 90% capacity for their on-base housing and are struggling to meet housing demands. Unfortunately, the Army's own calculations don't recognize that White Sands is reaching maximum capacity because the formula only counts uniform personnel who are living on base and does not count additional civilian and contractor workers who also live on base. Because the Army marks White Sands at a significantly lower capacity, the base faces greater challenges getting the resources needed to modernize, expand, and improve its housing conditions to meet actual demand. Secretary Warmouth, would you say that updating outdated housing for service members is a top priority in this budget request? Yes, we've put a lot of money towards barracks. We've also put a lot of money towards new homes, for example, or renovating family homes. What could the people of White Sands expect from this $2.1 billion, I believe, per year to achieve safe quality housing over the next year if this budget request is granted? Well, the $2.1 billion is focused on barracks exclusively for unaccompanied soldiers, so it's not gonna get after some of the housing issues. I think, Congressman, what I would suggest is that we look specifically at White Sands and see if, in fact, we are, for some reason, not appropriately thinking about soldiers plus civilians and contractors. I think we can certainly look into that with you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, Secretary, and that is a challenge that we continue to face because we do have a mix of both civilian, contractor, and, of course, enlisted personnel that rely on on-base housing that currently is not being met. Many of the buildings at White Sands Missile Range were also constructed in the years following World War II, including much of the housing, and decades later, on-base housing is in dire need of upgrades. Last year, I was proud to help secure Section 2833 in the FY24 NDAA, which terminated all waivers that allowed for unsatisfactory housing to ensure that all army housing adhered to current living standards, particularly surrounding square footage per soldier. Secretary, given this, how exactly does the army intend to go about improving housing given this new directive? Congressman, we're looking at a few things. To include looking at the design, for example, of our housing, of our barracks in particular, one thing we're doing is trying to shrink the inventory of the worst barracks, the Q3, Q4. We're hiring civilians to be barracks managers to go into our Department of Public Works to help us do oversight better. And the Chief and I and others are looking at the standards for design to look at what is the bare minimum for square footage, how many soldiers per room. We want to look at that and do that in a way that's cost-effective, but gives soldiers good housing. Thank you, Secretary, and do you believe that currently the army or in your budget request has the adequate personnel, resources, and planning ability needed to execute these directives to improve these housing conditions? And if not, what else can we do to make sure you have those resources? Thank you, Congressman, two things I'd say, and again, I'd like the Chief to add. One, we do need to hire more barracks managers, and there's money in the budget to do that, although we continue to be looking at what the requirement is for that. Two, I do want to say, given the inventory of barracks and housing that the United States Army has, it's enormous, it's bigger than any service, and we don't have the money in our budget to get that inventory up to a high standard in a short timeframe. It's just gonna cost in billions of dollars. So while we put a very strong investment towards barracks, it's going to take some years to really get after that problem. Thank you, Secretary, and Chief. Yeah, the only thing I would add, Congressman, is we are reviewing on the barracks, and we can come back, and we want a little bit of flexibility, and we're talking to soldiers out there. I've lived in those barracks. So the second is we're also looking at how we can spend our money better, and some of the process things that we've just done with including the Corps of Engineers to kind of streamline what our process is. So we're studying what they're doing out there. One of the places that we went and looked at was University of Alabama, and kind of comparing the cost for what we're building. And I would love to have our team come over and kind of walk you through that. Thank you, General. Thank you, Secretary. Thank you both for your service, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. And I thank you for talking with the University of Alabama. The Chair now recognizes General from Texas, Mr. Fallin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, it's great to see you again, and thank you so much for coming and visiting our office. I think it was very productive, and I have every confidence that we'll have a great working relationship, if not partnership moving forward. I wanted to visit with you on the Humvee Retrofit Program. The, you know, some people may not know that IEDs were posed a great threat to Humvees, and to mitigate that, we created another issue, which was its susceptible to rollovers, as you know. Unfortunately, there's been 349 rollovers, over 700 soldiers have been injured, and tragically, 130 have been killed. And so I was, when I read the base budget request, I was a bit, I have to admit, I was a bit befuddled because it was a request for $45 million, and it was even more so confusing to me because it was published after the Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions told Inside Defense, and I quote here, "'The core issue with the program speed and volume "'is Congress isn't appropriating enough money.'" And I have to take offense to that. I have a sliver of anger, bewilderment, and bafflement because for three straight years since I've been in Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, in a bicameral manner, we have appropriated four times as much as what the Army has asked for. So please help me, help you. You know, I think it's feasible to do it within five years. There's gonna be NDA language that will be written in to do that because we're talking about soldiers live. So General and Madam Secretary, help us please do the right thing, and can we count on you, Madam Secretary and then General George? Congressman, certainly soldier safety is critical to us and we wanna work with you. I think one of the things we're doing, frankly, and the Chief may wanna elaborate on this, is General Rainey at Army Futures Command is actually looking at do we have the right number of vehicles in our formations? In some cases, we may wanna actually be reducing the proportion, if you will, of Humvees that we have in some of our formations. So that's something we're gonna have to factor in as we look at the investment in the anti-lockbrake systems. Thank you. I would say it's a safety issue. Yes, we're focused on it and we appreciate all the assistance that you've provided. To Red River Army Depot is critically important to us and this kind of gets to the larger discussion that we've been having today and I think that that workforce, I think what we need to look at is, and I think we talked about this a little bit, is how we, what is the next projects? What are the things that we're gonna need to do just based on the skilled workers that we have there and the capability? And that's where I think even beyond this that we need to start looking longer term. Yeah, to keep that hot and also to retrofitting as opposed to buying new one saves about $8 billion and when you have the kind of budget crunches that we're facing, that's a good thing. What I also wanted to visit with you both about is what I really feel is an absolute accidental threat to our national security, which is the recruiting crisis. And I do think it's a crisis. Every once in a while we might not hit a number, but when it's year over year, it's getting to be we have to ring the alarm bells. So I think it's an all hands on deck. The 1.1 billion in increased marketing is a good step. What we all want is we don't wanna just throw money at an issue. We want, and we really need measurable results. So we wanted to wanna visit with you on, Madam Secretary, is talk about how we can measure some of these new, because I do think we need to be innovative and creative, quite frankly, and need to be committed to addressing this. And so what if you could share with us kind of a comprehensive plan as to how to address this looking at it in some new ways and how we're gonna measure it? Certainly, Congressman. First of all, well, I don't wanna be overconfident because we have six more months left in the fiscal year. If we continue to perform the way we have in the last few months, I think there's an excellent chance that we will make our recruiting goal this year of 55,000 soldiers and 5,000 in the delayed entry program. So the things that the Army has been doing in the last year and a half, I think are starting to work. And one of those has been the future soldier prep course, which is done exceedingly well. We have a soldier referral program, the additional marketing that you talked about. I don't know if you saw our commercial during the March Madness Tournament. All of that, I think, is starting to bear fruit, but to your point about- Is that with Coach Hasefsky? Coach K, yes. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And we've got more ads, I think that we'll be rolling out in August of this summer. But to your point about metrics and the broader transformation, that is critical. And the chief and I made a series of decisions last fall to transform our recruiting enterprise. One of them was to give us an analytical capability to actually understand what we're doing that's working and what's not working. Because frankly, before that, it was a little bit throw spaghetti at the wall. Like double up on what's working, ditch what's not working, and we're not gonna succeed in every innovative and new idea that we have. And I think that we can do some help. We can provide you some help as well. We're drafting legislation right now to compel institutions of learning, high schools and colleges, if they receive federal funds to give access to our recruiters to mandate that. Thank you very much. I'll be back. Gentlemen, this time's expired. Chair now recognized. General from Nevada, Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking member, the Army's 23 arsenals, depots and ammunition plants play a critical and crucial role in supporting the war fighter through sustaining readiness requirements across the joint force. In my district, it includes the Hawthorne Army Depot, which apart from storing conventional munitions has been tasked with demilitarizing and disposing of unservosable obsolete and surplus munitions. On March 20th, the EPA released a proposed rule to revise the standards for the open burn, open detonation of waste explosive. This rule affects 67 resource conservation and recovery act OBM facilities, including Hawthorne Army Depot in my district, even though the installation currently has permits until 2029 and 2023. The proposed rule would require the implementation of identified viable alternatives in lieu of OBOM. This means that no matter the cost, OBOM facilities must evaluate and reevaluate whether safe alternative technologies are available and facilities must use those alternatives. EPA is estimating that this rule could cost the installations between $6 million to $28 million annually. For rule installations such as the ones in my district, this amount of money is just staggering. I don't have to tell you that smaller installations, which often have little to no active duty, receive much less attention than their larger counterparts. So I worry that this rule will only exacerbate that issue. While I understand the need to invest in alternative technologies and address the environmental impacts these practices cause, I'm concerned that this rule will have wide implications for installations such as Hawthorne. Secretary Wormuth and General George, are you aware of this proposed rule and the impacts that we'll have on Army depots across the United States? Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I am broadly aware of that EPA rule on open burn facilities. And certainly I think you are correct. It could have significant implications for Hawthorne. So I think this is something that we need to look into to better understand precisely what those impacts would be. I would like to have our Army Materiel Command, which oversees our arsenals and depots, look into that and be in touch with your staff, because I think we wanna understand what those implications are. As you said in your statement, in some cases we've been able to find alternative technologies to allow us to do that kind of demilitarization in a different way, but I think this is something we need to dig into a little more and we would do that with you. Well, I would like to work with you on that to address this issue that so that installations such as Hawthorne are not adversely impacted by this proposed rule. So I'll follow up with you. Also, as you know, Hawthorne, which is housed on over 140,000 acres and provides an explosive storage capacity of 7,685,000 square feet. Can you please outline the steps that you're taking to address the special requirements and funding needs of the smaller rule installations in order to ensure proper maintenance and readiness at these crucial sites? Certainly in broad terms, I can do that. All 23 of our arsenals, ammo plants and depots are critically important to our organic industrial base and through the leadership of Army and Materiel Command, we have a 15 year facilities investment plan and an organic industrial base plan that looks at our investments and we look at each of them individually to try to determine what their current and future requirements are. And then we basically bring that into our budgeting process to try to make sure that we are investing in those facilities in the way that's needed. I'll be honest, given our top line, we don't always have all the money we need to get to everything right away, but we do have a 15 year plan. Thank you and again, I'd like to follow up on a few items specific to Hawthorne, some of the issues that I've been able to work with the chairman and the ranking member on in the past. I do not want these installations to be forgotten or ignored, we have critical needs throughout, but places like Hawthorne and other rule installations are vitally important as well and should be given priority. So with that, I yield back. Gentlemen, you yields back. Chair, not recognized, a gentleman from Georgia, Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Ormuth, I noticed that we have a recruiting shortfall this year. How many thousands are we below our, what's our shortfall for the Army right now? Well, Congressman, right now we're, again, I don't want to be overconfident, but we are on track, I think, to make our recruiting goal this year, which is 55,000 new contracts plus 5,000 individuals in what we call our delayed entry program. I'm familiar. Now, given the recruiting shortages we had in the past, we're still undermanned, though, correct? Well, we're able to meet all of the requirements of that the combatant commanders had levied on us. We would like to grow, absolutely. General George and I want to see our end strength come up and our plan is to have our end strength be at 470,000 by 2029. And you're 452,000, but is that 452,000 manned right now or do you have a shortfall? It is manned right now. I mean, yes. Our authorizations are above that, but we are manned at 452. Gotcha. And I noticed a couple things. First of all, the former Sergeant Major of the Army still owes me 100 push-ups for not making his goals last year when we made a bet on it. I always say that it's because the Army doesn't have as good a commercial as the Marine Corps, but that's just my opinion. Obviously, the barracks conditions has something to do with morale and retention. I was in the Marine Corps barracks in Camp Lejeune recently. I saw some really bad ones and some really, really good ones. There's a disparity as we continue to build towards something better. One thing I noticed in Georgia though, Fort Stewart is really bad right now. I'm sure you're aware right now, but one of the recent analysis showed that there was brown faucet water, moldy ceilings, raw sewage on the bathroom floors. This is for the Third Infantry Division, Fort Stewart. What are we doing to improve that and what can we expect for a timeline? Congressman, that's what the $2.1 billion investment is all about. We are trying to reduce the inventory that's Q3, Q4 as quickly as possible. So we're going to be investing in construction of new barracks. We're investing in sustainment at 100%, which we haven't done in years and years. We're hiring new barracks managers. And we have a whole process where the Fort Stewart, Garrison Commander and Division Commander can weigh in and basically hold up their hand and say, we are in dire need, but we are investing a lot of money to try to get after that exact problem. Good, I'll look forward to updates on that. I know one of the things we noticed with Ford reconnaissance general, we're using drones now, autonomous drones for Ford looking in place of reconnaissance. I think it's great because we used to always say about force recon, that you are swift, silent and totally surrounded. This is a better technology for outward looking looking technologies that we're gonna use to give a battlefield update real time. Is the Army fully committed to this and do we need to do something in Congress to accelerate that program to save lives and form the battlefield better than the fog of war? I think we get that that's where we have to go, Congressman, that we are investing in that at every level. I think that we're gonna have to have for reconnaissance. And it's also joint because we're looking at the space assets that are out there from the space force. So I think we're learning those lessons and we're moving forward and trying to do it quickly. So we dedicate to that as a priority or do you think that's lower in the priority as far as the, obviously you guys need a lot. Everybody needs a lot right now. We have a worldwide challenge whether it be in different multiple arenas, funding allies that are fighting wars. Is this a priority? I think it is a priority. There's three areas that we've asked for that I think we need to have more flexible, more flexibility and that's with UAS, counter UAS and EW, it's gonna change. We're gonna, we're buying off a blue list which is all U.S. stuff right now. I think that we can produce those things. I think we, all of those systems, I think we do need a little bit of flexibility to move stuff from R&D immediately into procurement and we could certainly use your help doing that. Great and then final question has to do with what's going on over in Ukraine. Obviously Ukraine's being outshelled about 10 to one. A large portion of their munitions are gonna come from us and our sustained support. Obviously a lot of the munitions we send to Ukraine are gonna be replaced here in America about 68% I believe is the recent statistic I heard is our failure to get this package done to help Ukraine in what they're trying to do against an age old adversarial opponent. Do you think that's hampered by our, hampering your efforts to do what you need to do be prepared for the next war, by us not passing what we needed to get done over in Ukraine? Short answer to that is yes. We need a supplemental to build our magazine depth and replace equipment. Gentlemen's time to expire. Chair and I recognize Jennifer from North Carolina. Mr. Davis. Thank you so much Mr. Chair. Madam Secretary General. Our service members and especially Army personnel are forced to cope with substandard and often toxic filled feeding systems. Madam Secretary as part of the 2024 NDAA there was a report provision that would speak and address towards this situation in the planning. Can you give any update in terms of the status at this? Congressman I'm sorry, did you say feeding? Yes. Okay, sure. We are very focused on trying to make sure that our soldiers have access to quality food. And we have had some challenges in the last year but here's what we're doing about it. First of all, we are investing in things like meals on the go that soldiers can go and grab and take home to their barracks later to prepare. We are building food kiosks that are again have a great variety of food. I actually saw one of our food kiosks at Fort Kavazos recently. We're also bringing in food trucks when soldiers are sometimes away from their de-facts. So I think all of that is gonna improve the quality and sort of availability if you will of food for our soldiers. But we're also engaged in a broader effort really to try to transform our de-facts and have them be more like college campuses in terms of the quality and variety that they offer and also the hours that they're available. So we have a lot of work that we're doing on our food strategy. Okay. Can I jump in on that one, Congressman? Just because I've been eating all of those. I mean, I think outside everywhere we've changed. People want quick food, they want healthy food, they want really flexible hours. I mean, I think we're seeing that and what we need to do is do the same thing on our installations. And I think you're gonna see some really big changes here in the next year and how we're approaching exactly that. And the secretary mentioned a couple of the things that we're looking at doing and some of this is getting some outside help and looking at how industry is doing it. But I think we're gonna make some changes here real soon. Very positive. And could you speak specifically in terms of the field program out? Yeah, well, I think every location is gonna be a little bit different. So I just, it depends on how spread out everything is and what they want, what their access is to off base. And kind of like the secretary said, it's more like campus style dining. It's gonna be a little bit different. We've had a kiosk, for example, that they opened up and we partnered with DECA, which was the commissary to put the food in there. And they're very, very popular to the point where they had 300 people showing up a day. And a couple of days later, there was 1,800 people. And so we think we got the right strategy. We're just gonna have to implement it at every different location. I'm super proud of Fort Liberty and especially Headquarter Dairy Special Operations Command. General George, how's the special operations command making up for what we would lack in sheer volume of personnel in terms of equipment and greater efficiency and precision itself? Yeah, I mean, I would just like to overall talk about Fort Liberty in general. We got use of SOC there, but we've also got 18th Airborne Corps. We've got the 82nd Airborne Division. I mean, there's a lot that's there at Liberty. We're getting ready to invest with some additional multi-domain task force is gonna go there. So obviously very, very important to us. And there's a lot of innovation. I mean, I could probably go on for a good long time about what we're doing down at Liberty right now, but they're really helping us to innovate use of SOC specifically with like high altitude balloons or small UAS. So it's really across to all the war fighting functions. I mean, we're one big army and we're a big piece of that. And army makes up a big part of SOCOM in total. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, you'll bet. I thank the gentleman. Chair, now recognized gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gates. Secretary, with this train and equip money you requested in this budget, right? Certainly, Congressman. And the train and equip mission in Niger is owned by the army, right? Yes, but we certainly provide soldiers for that, yes. General, do you know what is going on in Niger right now? I know there's some challenges over there in Niger right now. And I don't think that we are actually in charge of that mission that's on the ground. Well, yeah, we just heard the secretary say you've got soldiers there. So we're gonna dive into that to some extent. Do you know what the status is of diplomatic overflights to our installations in Niger? Yeah, I'm vaguely tracking that that's a challenge. But yeah, I mean, it's not a challenge, it's binary. Are we allowed, right now, to do diplomatic overflights in Niger? Yes or no? I don't know, I don't know exactly. I'm not tracking it that close. I don't think... Secretary, do we're allowed to do those diplomatic overflights? I don't, but I'm sure the AFRICOM commander does. Yeah, but you guys just said it's in the budget you're asking for to do these train and equip missions. One of them is in Niger. In Niger right now, the government has stopped us from doing diplomatic overflight missions. So we have army soldiers right now in Niger who aren't getting their troop rotations, who aren't getting their medicine, who aren't getting their supplies, who aren't getting their mail, and the two senior people in the United States army are sitting before me, and it's like, here, no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Are you gonna do anything for the soldiers that are in Niger right now who can't get medicine? Yes or no? Congressman, certainly. We can talk to General Langley and make sure that... Oh, I've talked to General Langley. He comes in here and never has really good answers. I mean, I asked him for information about how many of the coup leaders we had trained, including in Niger and Ghana and Mali and the Ivory Coast, and he didn't even produce his report on time. So pardon me for a lack of confidence in General Langley. What I'm telling the two of you is that you have a responsibility for these soldiers in Niger. And General, you would agree with me with the premise that we should never sacrifice the well-being of our service members to avoid political embarrassment, right? Congressman, I will tell you, I'm not tracking that somebody in Niger is not getting their medicine or their mail, but I will follow up. Okay, but you don't even know the stats for diplomatic overlays. How about the great power competition? You would agree on training and equip missions. We would never want Russian soldiers at the U.S. installation where we're doing training and equip, right? That's not even a tough question. You would agree. Yes. And so if there were Russian soldiers behind the wire at Air Base 101 in Niger where we have soldiers doing the training and equip mission, that would concern you, wouldn't it? Right, well, I'm here to tell you we've received reports that they run out of medicine in May that they cannot get their troop rotations. And you know why you don't know that? Because it's a cover-up. Because the U.S. Embassy in Niger is covering it up because of Secretary Blinken's embarrassment. Because Blinken went there in March of 2023 and said this was the centerpiece of our Africa strategy. This was the model of resilience. And then, lo and behold, the very coup leader we trained takes over the country. And then we struggle with whether or not to call it a coup. We've now called it a coup. Since we've called it a coup, now they won't let us get folks in and out. And so I'm looking at what could erupt as another Benghazi where there is no mission to do. There is no training and equip right now with the coup leaders. So we got a bunch of people sitting around without their supplies, without their medicine. And the whole reason intelligence isn't getting to us is because the embassy is blocking it because Blinken is humiliated that this failed. And I've used my five minutes on everything in the Army right now because I have constituents who are there in Niger and they're wondering how to get water. Did you know they can't even get clean water? Did you know that the partner nations that we have at that base with our soldiers, the partner nations, the Italians and the Germans, they've stopped cooperating with us. They won't even help us get provisions to our troops because of the status of forces agreement that we have with the government being deemed invalid. I am just a country lawyer from North Florida, but this strikes me as something the two of you should know about. I get the blank stares, but Secretary Wormuth, can I take as your commitment that you're gonna leave here and you're gonna see to the well-being of these folks in Niger and that they can get the rotations and the medicine they need? Certainly I will make sure they're getting the medicine and the water that they need, yes, Congressman. Great, Mr. Chairman, I have a number of unanimous consent requests. First an article from Politico. It's like a bad movie. US officials who helped train Nigerian troops reel from coup. Without objection, so ordered. Russian troops arrive in Niger as military agreement begins and from the BBC. Without objection, so ordered. Uranium, Niger termination of US military ties followed accusation of uranium deal, March 17th, 2024 from the Wall Street Journal. Without objection, so ordered. Generalist Times expired. Chair, I recognize you gentlemen from California, Mr. Carbohal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you both, Secretary Wormuth and General George, for being here today, hearing some experts on conspiracy theories and otherwise, but having served in the military, I have a little bit more confidence as a service member veteran in what you do. Things aren't always perfect, but I think you do a great job in trying to lead our men and women in the service. General George, as you know, the Army is undergoing substantial modernization efforts. Can you speak to where you see space-based assets fitting into the Army's modernization efforts and do you foresee challenges with integrating space-based assets with legacy systems? Congressman, we are growing this capability. That's for us, we've stood up already three multi-domain task force. A big component of that is what we have with our space-based assets that are inside of that. We're gonna grow two additional. The Army is the biggest user of space and on the ground, so I don't see any challenges right now. We are updating our network, which will allow us to share all this. We are learning a lot from commercial industry as well, so I think we're on a good path as it relates to space and building that capability and working with the space force. Thank you, Secretary Warmot. The Army is simultaneously undergoing both a significant force structure and recruitment enterprise transformation. Do you see these two reforms complementing each other? How will the new recruiting enterprise help fulfill new force-strength goal of 470,000 soldiers by fiscal year 2029? Thank you, Congressman, and thanks for your comments of opening comments of support, appreciated. I am confident that our recruiting transformation is gonna help us. We're already doing better and I think we'll just keep doing better over time. We have just started, we just selected our first cohort of warrant officers who are gonna be focused on recruiting. They're gonna go into the field this summer. We're in the process of developing the pipeline for how we're gonna start taking enlisted soldiers and making them specialized recruiters. I think that'll be really important. We are looking at things like what is the recruiting station of the future look like? We have a new innovation cell that will be standing up that's gonna help us understand to a conversation I had with another member earlier what's working and what's not working. And then of course we're looking at as we build new units like our multi-domain task force or as we grow additional air defenders or grow soldiers with space capabilities, we're working with our recruiters and our G1 to make sure that we are filling those billets and able to recruit that kind of great talent into the Army. Thank you. We have heard a lot about hypersonic weapon systems on this committee. General George, how do you see hypersonic weapons changing the landscape of warfare we have seen over the last few decades and how is the Army adapting to this new technology? Congressman, I think hypersonics is an important capability. It's gonna be another arrow in our quiver. It's not one answer. We have, there's other aspects of long range fires that we will use, but again I think it's an important capability, provides extra range and could go after critical targets, but we're gonna need the whole portfolio to be successful. Thank you. It seems that each year cases of military sexual assault continue to happen despite military leadership saying that they will address this issue. I know the cases of sexual assault in the Army have dropped compared to other service branches, but what is the solution to getting our hands around this? This is an issue that's been around forever. Military brass always says we're dealing with it. We're doing our best. What is the solution? Congressman, first of all I would say, this is a national unfortunately problem, sexual harassment and sexual assault, not an exclusively military one, but we are really focused on it. And I will tell you one of the things I think that's gonna help us significantly get our arms around it and start doing more to prevent those kinds of incidences is by adding some new training for our soldiers at basic training. A lot of our soldiers come in today and they just don't understand kind of the basic right and wrong, what consent means, what boundaries are. We need to teach our soldiers to respect each other and to say no and starting this fall we're gonna be adding some training into basic training so that every new soldier that comes into the Army learns about that. And then we've also on the response side, our special trial counsel's office has reached full operational capability and they are starting to prosecute those kinds of cases. That organization reports directly to me and I think that will help restore some trust. The gentleman's time's expired. Thank you. You're not recognized, General Lady from California, Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wormuth, General George. I wanted to follow up actually on some of where my colleagues, Mr. Walton and Mr. Jackson left off regarding some of the proposed cuts to the soft community. I specifically wanna know about the impacts to civil affairs teams who represent the department's capability to do stabilization operations, understand the information space and civilian environment and engage in strategic competition. This capability is particularly important to the DOD's implementation of the Global Fragility Act, which has civil affairs teams deployed to coastal West African states. So given all this, can you explain the rationale for cuts to civil affairs? Certainly, Congresswoman. First of all, I'm a huge believer in civil affairs. One, I wanna be clear that General George and I fully support and endorse the value of special operators and what they bring to the table. Civil affairs is just one example of that. Basically, working with SOCOM and SOLIC, we looked at the overall capacity of our special operations community, which grew substantially during the last 20 years. And we basically ran a series of analysis that looked at a conflict with Russia, a conflict with China, and also looked at what did we need to be able to compete during peacetime. And what we found was we had some excess capacity, essentially. So we have made some trims. As I said to another gentleman earlier, 65% of the 3,000 comes out of enablers. So it's a small number of reductions in the civil affairs authorizations, but we still need that overall capability. It's important. Can I add one thing? A lot of our capability on civil affairs, when I've deployed Iraq, Afghanistan, came out of the Guard and the Army Reserve. And so none of those cuts came out there as well. So I think we need to remind everybody if we're gonna go do something that's very consequential for our nation, it's gonna be a total army that's gonna go do it. And we do have those capabilities. So when we're looking at all of these things, we try to look at, that's why we call it total army analysis. We're trying to look at the depth of our formation. I understand. And I think when it's a big conflict, that would be the case. But one of the things I'm concerned about is that AFRICOM's already an under-resourced command. So I was wondering in your assessments of these cuts, did you have any analysis on how this would impact civil affairs positions in AFRICOM's AOR? And in particular, I've heard concerns that potentially Cote d'Ivoire might not be able to have a civil affairs presence after these cuts. And especially as the coastal West African states are so important for the Global Fragility Act, how will you mitigate these impacts, especially in those areas? Congresswoman, I think the way I would say that is we worked with SOCOM and SOLEC to look at the overall capacity, with what is still there after the cuts, it will be up to say again, the AFRICOM commander to decide where to allocate those. So I think if there's a pressing need in Cote d'Ivoire, there's still going to be a capability to be able to be provided there. So those kinds of decisions about where to send our civil affairs folks generally comes from the combatant commander. That's a, it's kind of a GIFMAP request. So if AFRICOM wants to do that and working with the joint staff, we do support with Guard and Reserve and Active Duty. I mean, we look at a total army solution if something is important. And we're obviously as the Title 10 supporter we're in that, we're directed to do that mission. We'll do it. Great, thank you. I appreciate that. I'd like to turn to the implementation of the civilian harm mitigation and response plan. As part of this, the department established the Center of Excellence and committed to achieve full operational capacity by FY 2025. Can you discuss the progress in achieving this capacity and how the department is ensuring staffing reflects a range of service branches? Certainly. We have established the Center of Excellence. As I'm sure you know, Mike McNerney is the director of that center. He has a military deputy director and I believe a civilian deputy as well. The different services have contributed to staffing that center. And as far as I know, everything is on track and that they are already working with the combatant commanders to provide advice and counsel where needed. Great, well, we will follow up with you on implementation of the CHIMRAP as it continues because it's a priority for all of us. We passed a lot of the enabling language in last year's NDA. So thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I go back. I think the gentlelady, I wanted to ask Secretary Wyrmuth, over the last three years, the Army's requested about half of the funding required to sustain Army modernization goals. I'm hoping that that's not a resetting of the baseline and that's just been dealing with funding constraints to be parochial. Shortfalls in the Abrams, Stryker and Paladin are particularly acute this year. Can you tell me where you're going with this? How do you intend to close that gap or have you reset your baseline for spending? Congressman, I would say the investment levels you pointed to are good examples of where the chief and I have had to make hard choices about how do we allocate the incremental dollar to enduring systems like Abrams or Stryker or Paladin versus Flora or NextGen Squad Weapon or Precision Strike Missile. I will say if the supplemental passes, for example, that'll help us be able to buy more Paladins, just as one example. So it's important there and Stryker. But yeah, what you're seeing there is the tension between enduring systems and future systems. Great. Thank you all. Y'all have both been very helpful. We appreciate you being here. Appreciate your service to our nation and with that we are adjourned.