COL Tomasovic, COL Plummer, LTC Lawson, Resolutions Committee members, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. What you do for our Army is of utmost importance as we fight the Long War.

Since the last time I had the chance to talk with all of you, I have visited Soldiers in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, throughout the Pacific, U.S. Army Europe, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Honduras, and El Salvador. I have also been to Fort Hood, Fort Polk, and other installations in CONUS. The operational tempo is high and Soldiers are training, deploying, and resetting from deployments. I can tell you, without a doubt, that your Soldiers are doing a magnificent job for our Nation.

As I travel, I meet with hundreds of Soldiers and family members at each location to get their recommendations on how to make our Army better. I take some of their issues back to the Army Staff and find solutions and answers to their questions. The majority of the concerns I see are tied in to our budget. GEN Schoomaker has spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill recently, educating Senators and Congressmen on how the lack of defense spending in the past is affecting our Army. What is the cost of supporting an Army in combat? Our Army has been under funded for so long, the Nation is essentially ‘buying back’ our Army today.

We are working to affect three aspects of resourcing – Reset, Budget, and Program. More than $17 billon dollars has been approved to reset our equipment. Most of the FY’07 budget has been signed into law. We expect passage of the MILCON/Quality of Life/Veterans Affairs Appropriation bill in November. This is absolutely critical to support our initiatives, to build facilities and motor pools, and to get Soldiers and their families into the housing that they deserve. We need to keep the momentum and build a balanced and executable program in FY’08-13 to sustain the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, improve preparedness for emerging contingencies, and to make prudent investments in Quality of Life issues to sustain our all-volunteer force.


Soldiers reenlist for three reasons – Command Climate, Job Satisfaction, and the third reason is Quality of Life. This is the first time in our nation’s history that we have sustained a long duration fight with an all-volunteer force. We are asking our Soldiers and leaders to carry the heavy load for our nation. By ensuring our Soldiers and families maintain a high quality of life, we can ensure that they will stay in uniform and defend this nation.

Our Soldiers’ effectiveness depends on a national commitment to recruit, train, equip, and support them properly. I would like to share with you some of what I am seeing as I travel around the world, meeting with Soldiers and their families.

I will start with how we recruit and retain quality Soldiers today. As I talk to Soldiers at posts, camps and stations, I usually begin by telling them that they are ‘the cream of our society’. To prove this to them, I use statistics from the U.S. Army Recruiting Command – in the 17-24 age male category, only 3 out 10 young men are qualified to join the Army. Three out of 10. What is wrong with the other seven? Four do not have the education qualifications – a high school diploma, or a GED equivalent – or score so low on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, the entrance exam for the Armed Forces they cannot join the team. Two are physically or morally unqualified, they have a disqualifying physical limitation or have disqualifying law violations. And one is in the ‘all others’ category – in prison, etc. Of the three that are qualified, 1.5 will go to college. So as an Army, we are competing for the other 1.5 with corporate America and with the other services, a population of about 2 to 3.5 million young men. Despite all of the challenges, the active component achieved its mission of 80,000, the Army Reserve ended the year at 99.5%, a few points short of their mission of 25,500, but exceeded last years numbers by almost 6-thousand. The Army National Guard made 98.6% of their mission of 70,000 and exceeded last years enlistments by almost 19-thousand. Those are incredible numbers for an Army at war.

On the Retention side, all three components made mission. Our Retention numbers show how committed our Soldiers are to the mission. The 101st Airborne Division had the highest retention numbers of all 10 Divisions in the Army. The ‘Screaming Eagles’ made 140% of their retention mission for FY’06 while they were deployed to Iraq. 61% of the Soldiers reenlisted to stay with the Division through their next deployment, which comes for some Soldiers in about a year. Our top Brigade Combat Team is the 172nd Stryker Brigade, who also made 140% of their retention mission. Of course, they made mission before they were extended in Iraq, but their retention numbers show the quality of the leadership within the SBCT and how dedicated they are to the mission in Iraq.

The equipment we provide our Soldiers to accomplish their missions has improved dramatically since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The 3rd ID led the invasion into Iraq and as the V Corps CSM, I was right behind the lead elements with LTG Wallace and the assault command post. V Corps and their 11 separate brigades had the latest Vietnam-era flak vests and soft-skinned HMMWV’s. Today, all deploying Soldiers are issued the latest gear by the Rapid Fielding Initiative teams. RFI just fielded gear to the 600,000th Soldier, SPC Kenneth Robinson, at Fort Lewis a few months ago. SPC Robinson is a 20-year-old infantryman who was preparing to deploy with the 2nd Infantry Division. He’s married and has a newborn daughter. RFI provides Soldiers equipment like the Advanced Combat Helmet, the improved first aid kit, or IFAK, ballistic eye protection, and combat optics, just to name a few of the 58 items they issue to Soldiers. RFI continues to be an extremely successful program, increasing Soldiers like SPC Robinson’s effectiveness and survivability.

During my trip last week to Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, I toured the Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center. JMTC has the only remaining foundry in the US Army. COL J.B. Elliott took me around their facility and I watched as their machinists and welders built the Gunner Protection Kit. The GPK provides ballistic blast protection for HMMWV gunners as they patrol in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has already saved many, many lives. The initial GPK was designed by a maintenance Warrant Officer in Iraq, who saw the need to protect his HMMWV gunners and took the initiative to make it happen. His design has been refined and JMTC are producing them now and shipping them to units in the AOR. JMTC is also producing an impressive mobile maintenance system, called the Forward Repair System. The FRS is a flat-rack mounted system, which functions as mobile maintenance shop and has the ability to pull the pack on an M-1 Abrams tank in about an hour. JMTC has increased their production of the FRS from 2 a month to one a day, using Lean Six Sigma principles.

PEO-Soldier is tirelessly working to provide the latest, cutting-edge weapons and equipment to our Warriors on the battlefield. One new system, the Common Remotely Operated Weapons System, or CROWS, gives Soldiers the ability to acquire and engage targets with the crew served machine gun while inside their vehicle, protected by its armor.

PEO Soldier is working hand-in-hand with the Infantry Center to further refine the Land Warrior System. Land Warrior provides situational awareness to the Infantry Soldier on the battlefield by giving him digital, state-of-the-art communications gear and weapons systems. More than 400 Soldiers of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis completed hands-on testing of the Land Warrior system in June. The assessment results will be used to determine tactics, techniques, and procedures, and the future direction of Land Warrior.

During my visit to Iraq in July, CSM Jeff Mellinger, the Multinational Forces Iraq CSM, demonstrated new escalation of force equipment for the M4 and M16 rifles. It is a white light, green-red laser attachment, mounted on the weapon system that Soldiers activate to visually notify civilians that they must stop at a checkpoint, or risk being fired upon. Using the laser allows the Soldiers to keep their weapon at the ready in case deadly force must be used. The laser attachment gives our Soldiers immediate access to a non-lethal device to warn an approaching driver to stop and if necessary, those critical seconds they need to make life and death decisions. We must continue to invest in equipping our Soldiers with the latest protective gear and cutting edge weapons systems. These investments are saving lives on the battlefield.

How we train our Soldiers has also changed dramatically. Our training is Soldier-centric and Warrior-focused. Soldiers in Basic Training begin their “Warrior” transformation early – the Soldiers are issued a weapon on day three of basic training, and keep it with them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the 9 weeks of the basic course. We call this ‘weapons immersion’, and it mirrors what they will experience in OEF or OIF. Soldiers today spend 21-days in the field, as opposed to the 3-day FTX. Drill Sergeants fill the roles of team and squad leaders to teach and mentor the Soldiers, passing along lessons learned from the battlefield. Soldiers coming out of basic and advanced individual training arrive at their units much better prepared for deployment than in years past.

Our noncommissioned officer education system has adapted as well. The Warrior Leaders Course is preparing Specialists and Corporals to become Sergeants by ensuring they are experts in the 40 Warrior Tasks and 11 Battle Drills. During my trip to Europe, I visited the Joint Multinational Training Center in Grafenwohr, Germany. CSM Gioia briefed me on the new 96-hour Situational Training Exercise they have implemented in their WLC. Soldiers must plan a convoy operation to a Forward Operating Base. During the convoy they are hit with several scenarios as they make their way to the FOB. Once they get established on the FOB, the Soldiers plan and execute missions, just as they would from a FOB in eastern Afghanistan, or in central Iraq. It is very realistic, scenario-driven training that prepares our leaders for what they will face in combat. You would be extremely proud of how our young men and women conduct themselves, and how this training helps them develop as leaders.

The operational tempo has caused delays for Soldiers getting into our WLC, BNCOC and ANCOC classes. After deployment, Soldiers have a very short window of opportunity between deployments to complete their professional military education. We have implemented a couple of initiatives to get Soldiers into school. Soldiers today are completing Phase 1 of their BNCOC at their home stations, prior to the resident phase. This allows Soldiers to spend more time at their home station with their friends and families. We have also restructured our programs of instruction to no more than 8 weeks for the resident phase. This allows Soldiers to complete their BNCOC and ANCOC and not miss any vital individual or collective training with their units. Many of our proponent schools are exporting their POIs to the unit’s home installation during the unit’s reset phase.

We are working the process now of transforming the way we approach the self-development of our Soldiers. The recent Review of Education, Training and Assignments for Leaders, (RETAL) study identified a need for more distributive learning and a career map to guide a Soldier in their development between formal education courses. This career map is called the Professional Development Model, and it lets Soldiers know what skills they need to achieve the next rank, what professional military education classes to pursue, and what college classes would be most beneficial in their career field. The PDM will be web-based and gives Soldiers control over the tools they need to manage their careers. The PDM will help develop our Soldiers into multi-skilled pentathletes, who can improvise and adapt to any situation on the battlefield.

Our Soldiers are conducting more joint, multi-national training. I was in Mongolia last month, observing United Nations peacekeeping training, hosted by the Mongolian Army. Soldiers from the Oregon and Alaska Army National Guard, and the New York Army Reserve were in Ulaanbaatar, along with Soldiers from Thailand, Tonga, Fiji, Bangladesh, and India. Soldiers from US Army Pacific assisted in the development of the scenarios for the lane training, which provided some intense training for all Soldiers. This type of training helps us build strong relationships with other nations and allows their senior leaders to observe our tactics, techniques and procedures. Many of these countries are working to emulate our NCO Corps, and these exercises give them a chance to learn from our NCOs first hand.

As I said earlier, the support we provide to our Soldiers and their families is an important reason why they stay in uniform. Housing for our Soldiers is getting better each year. The Residential Communities Initiative, or RCI, has privatized our on-post housing and has dramatically improved the quality of life for our Soldiers and their families. Soldiers like Staff Sgt. James Mooney at Fort Lewis, Washington, are deploying to Iraq, he just moved his family into brand-new RCI quarters. Nothing worries a deployed Soldier more than whether his or her family is being taken care of in the rear. SSG Mooney said he feels much more at ease, knowing his family will be well taken care of.

Off-post, some Soldiers are struggling with Basic Allowance for Housing rates that do not reflect the rise in the cost of housing. I was just out at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, and met with a group of Soldiers from the Army Sustainment Command. The Army Sustainment Command just stood up there last month, so most of the Soldiers are brand new to the area. The BAH rate for a Sergeant First Class, with 2 dependants, is only $874 per month. Soldiers have to pay a significant amount of out of pocket expenses for utilities, while waiting for the BAH rate to catch up.

In 2004, the Disabled Soldier Support System, or DS3, was implemented to take care of our wounded Soldiers. Last November, the name was changed to the Army Wounded Warrior program. AW2 is an important initiative developed by the Human Resources Command to ensure we take care of our wounded warriors and their families. AW2 is a comprehensive program that incorporates and integrates several existing programs to provide “GOLD STAR” support to Warriors and their families. I have had the chance to take part in several AW2 activities and I always leave feeling good about what we are doing for our Soldiers and their families. AW2 provides a system of advocacy and support to our Soldiers and their families for up to five years beyond their medical retirement. AW2 takes to heart our Warrior Ethos of – “I will never leave a fallen comrade”.

Our Soldiers will get a pay raise of 2.2% in January of 2007, with higher targeted pay raises for warrant officers and mid-grade NCOs Soldiers on 1 April. On my trip to Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas last week, Army National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers asked about improvements to the TRICARE health care system. That continues to be an area of concern for our Guard and Reserve Soldiers. Taking care of our Soldiers health issues helps us maintain a readily deployable force when our nation calls, and provides a valuable benefit for those Soldiers to take care of themselves and their families.

We are adapting to change and changing as we fight. We continue to transform from the threat-based Army we were in the 80’s and 90’s, to the capabilities-based Army that we are today.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you and thank you for your support of the American Soldier. God bless you, the United States of America, and all of our Soldiers deployed. Hooah!