Well good afternoon everybody. Thank you all for being here today. It's truly an honor for us to be here today. I'm Command Sergeant Major John Wayne Troxell. I serve as the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford. I also serve as the senior enlisted advisor to the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Mattis. And on the panel with me here today are my esteemed colleagues and battle buddies and I'd like to introduce them right quick. To my immediate right is the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sergeant Major Ron Green. To the far right, Sergeant Major of the Army, Dan Daly. To my immediate left, the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, Steve Giordano. To his left is the Chief Mass Sergeant of the Air Force, Chief Mass Sergeant K Wright. And to our far left is our Master Chief Petty Officer, the Coast Guard, Steve Cantrell. You know, first, let me say first, it's an incredible opportunity for all of us to be here today, all at one time, to talk about the backbone of our armed forces, that being our enlisted force. We'd like to address three main topics today. First is personal readiness, individual readiness, which includes the manning, equipping and training of our force, especially under the budgetary constraints we have today. Personal policies that affect our servicemen and women and where we are at with enlisted leader development, both now and in the future. From an overall perspective, we can say that our US armed forces are always ready to fight and win our nation's wars. But readiness under a resource constrained environment takes its toll over the years. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen across the total force feel these constraints. If I have one takeaway from my travels and conversations with our troops around the world, its consistency and predictability, whether that's with pay and entitlements or training and operational deployments will go along to keep in our morale high. The services here are tasked with the monumental job of manning training and equipping the force to perform war fighting, peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks. I'll let the gentleman here with me today address their individual services, but suffice it to say our nation depends on our ability to be in the right place at the right time with the right qualities and capacities to protect our nation. And that leads me to the final topic enlisted leader development. We know that without a doubt, our people are not only our most valuable resource, but they are also our greatest competitive advantage when it comes to fighting and winning our nation's wars. What we do to educate, develop and empower our enlisted leaders will be the decisive factor in accomplishing the missions our country asked of us. And with that, we'll open it up to your questions. Yes, sir. With some of the things that came up have come up over the past year, whether it's the Marines United issue or seaworthiness in the Navy with seven fleet issues. How much has have senior enlisted personnel across across the services born to responsibility for some of some of these issues, whether they be accidents, training issues, personnel issues. How much of it has fallen on the officers? Whereas some of this should have should have fallen on the shoulders of senior enlisted personnel. And do you think senior enlisted personnel have stepped up to the plate enough on some of these issues? So I'll start off with that, sir. And then I'll ask my colleagues to answer. First of all, anytime it comes to anything accident related or something that affects the health or safety of our men and women, all leaders have to be involved from the deck plate level all the way to the senior level. So we take all of these cases seriously. And in leader empowerment and leader engagement is something that we talk about all the time. And Gio, I've asked you to comment on that if you could. So if you're not aware, you know, of course, you know, initial accountability was, you know, those things have already been administered. But so that immediate assessment was kind of already done. But we've also just recently established a convening authority, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations established a convening authority to kind of look at that that accountability picture holistically, dot the eyes cross the T's and look at all avenues of responsibility associated with some of those cases. And I'd ask a sergeant of the Marine Corps also to comment.  But that particular day I was there with it. And that was for accountability to show the entire Marine Corps in the world that senior listed are being held accountable. And I invite that I invite that because most of what they were talking about was enlisted business. Leadership is a team. It's a team. And that's the way we show up, not just for the good, but for those things that go wrong as well. Thank you, sir. Um, excuse my voice. I'm getting over a cold. But over the last few years, as the service chiefs have gone up to the hill, they have repeatedly warned lawn makers that the amount of risk the forces were taking was increasing. And I wanted to ask, given the accidents given some of the drops in readiness, are we at the point where the force is breaking and going into 2018, if kind of going across the board of each of you could say, what is the thing that worries you the most going into 2018, whether it's the readiness of your rotary aircraft, your, you know, ground forces, just give us some specifics of what you worry about into this next year. So I'll answer first and then Dan, we'll start with you to go down the line here. Um, you know, over the past 16 years, because of our high operational tempo, because of unstable budgets and things like that, we haven't been able to get after modernization or maintenance like we would like to. However, having said all of that, there's three absolutes that we believe in. And that's we absolutely still as a U. S. Armed Force can defend our homeland and our way of life. We can absolutely meet our alliance commitments and, uh, and support our partners. And we absolutely have war fighting advantages in every war fighting domain, specifically in the human domain. Back to your question, sir. No other nation in the world empowers and entrust enlisted leaders like we do. And I think, uh, that we can still absolutely do all three of those things. So Dan, we'll go to you about the 2018. Yes, ma'am. Uh, we know the world is very complex environment and the army is a very busy organization, along with my counterparts that are sitting here today. Um, and to say that we don't assume risk in places would just not be true. We do. We have to manage that. And that's why the service chiefs have made their testimony on the amount of risk that they feel that we are assuming. What I worry about in 2018 is to make sure that we have predictable and consistent funding in order to make sure that our soldiers are resourced appropriately, one for the threat and prepare for any emerging threats. We have a simultaneous mission and we have to assure, deter and possibly defeat our potential allies. That's probably my biggest, uh, word for 2018. One second, sir. Steve, 2018, I would say for the Coast Guard, you know, we are considered one of the five armed services. I don't worry as much because have you seen over the last three months with the Coast Guard's heavy involvement with hurricane, uh, the three hurricanes that we had in the Caribbean, we really, I think, showed up as a small service, uh, degraded our readiness to some, some degree, but we saved over 12,000 lives, often with equipment that's very old and this mantra that we've heard about, uh, doing more with less, the Coast Guard doesn't buy into that anymore, uh, because we shouldn't be doing more with less. We should be, our folks should expect to get the resources they need to do their job that the American public expects them to do. So I don't worry as much. I think our folks are doing very well. The morale is high. We enjoy a very high retention rate in our service. Uh, despite all the heavy work that we've done on top of all the other missions that your Coast Guard has to do, so I think I'll agree with Sergeant Major DeArmey. A predictable, consistent budget process will help some of that, but I don't, I don't worry that much about it. I think we have a strong enough voice that will, uh, we'll get that message across loud and clear over the next few months. And last but not least, Kay Wright. Yeah, so from the Air Force perspective, uh, I agree with Sergeant Major DeArmey that, uh, predictable budget is, is the thing that concerns me the most, making sure that we can continue to, uh, invest in research and development. We can continue to pour money into recapping the, uh, the weapon systems that we have and, and also, uh, increase, uh, our, to continue our increase in, in manpower. So we're on a pretty, pretty, uh, good pace to increase the manpower that we have in areas like maintenance in space and cyber, so that we can continue to, the things that we do the best, uh, from an air power perspective. Yes, sir. Or if you talk a little bit about recruiting, particularly with the Army, the Army's bringing in more Cat 4 soldiers, those who scored the lowest on the aptitude tests, the Army was considering and then rescinded bringing in those with, uh, mental illnesses. So I want you all to talk about your challenges with recruiting, particularly regard to the Army. And are you worried that you're clearly bringing in a lower quality recruit? What impact are going to have on the force? Okay, I'll start and then we'll start down here again and go this way. Um, from a Department of Defense and from a joint perspective, we understand that, uh, in order to get the talent we need for the force we need now and in the future, we got to continue to prospect for that talent and we can't rely solely on process, meaning that we've got to have men and women that are out there in our recruiting commands that are going out and actively engaging key leaders, key spheres of influence in the community to find the kind of talent we need, especially in specialties like cyber or people that can excel in the nuclear domain or in space. So that's kind of our focus from a DOD and a joint staff perspective. And we'll start down here with your Army and we'll work our way down on each of the services.  Sir, it just, uh, just one comment back with regards to your statement, sir, with us intending to bring people in with mental or behavioral health issues or concerns, that was never the intent. Everything is done from a waiver process. We meet and we have met and we will continue to meet all DOD mandated thresholds for our entry-level soldiers from our sessions command. We haven't, year to year we get closer or farther away from the DOD standard, but we have always exceeded the DOD standard. I mean far away from not making it, but we've always exceeded and we'll continue to do that. Sessions is tough. It's a tough mission. But you're bringing in more CAD for, aren't you? I have to go back and look at the numbers. That's what I've been told. Yeah, I have to go back and look at the numbers. As we talked today, are you talking 2000s previous year or current? I don't know. I have to go back and look at the numbers, the number of CAD for as we have. What we do is we don't look at it from a snapshot in time. We have an annual requirement to make a DOD standard and our team down at USERAC says that they're going to meet or exceed that DOD standard for the year. From a Marine Corps perspective, sir, we meet, we've met our recruiting goals. However, we're looking at what's happening out in our nation with those we recruit when you talk about millennials, when you talk about the IGNs. It's really understanding what's going on outside of the military, outside of DOD, changes that are happening within the culture, over evolution. It's understanding that and understanding the impact that it has on the service and what type of programs you need to meet those challenges or those changes. That's what we're looking at when you talk about emotional intelligence, the different types of, you know, tests out there to take a look at that. We owe that to the people. We owe that to the public. We owe that to those. We recruit to put them in the best situation to put this building that our nation in the best situation to win the war. So quality of personnel will always be looked at from not just from their sessions, but also from retention, from retention. And then we have a responsibility to return better citizens to the nation. So that quality is being looked at all across the spectrum, sir. One thing I'll add before I go on to the Master Chief Petty, also the Navy, if you look at our recruiting standards and our access and enlistment standards, right now around 25 percent of all 18 to 24-year-olds in the United States qualify for military service. So the men and women we're bringing in are the best that society has to offer. Yeah, you know, we've met recruiting efforts for over 10 years now. We've met our recruiting goals and that's both in the active component and the reserve component. And the talent across that timeline continues to be better than the people before them. And you can look at the metrics that will attest to that. They come in more capable, better educated than we were when we assessed into the service. And we continue to go at that talent out there in the civilian sector. By all measures, we are a reflection of society and we all recruit to assess that talent, just like the civilian sector does as well. But we look at, you know, the health of the force through the same external factors that the Sergeant Major talked about in regards to how's the economy do and how's the employment rate doing out there. And then we also look at the internal factors that policies and programs that we control as well, too, to continue to ensure that we're assessing that talent. Okay. Nope, no real recruiting challenges for the Air Force. So recruiting for all of us is can be tough at times with the number of people who are one eligible to serve and two, some things that we may not think about, but those who have the propensity and want to serve and as we, you know, compete with colleges and other opportunities, the economy for folks to go and do. But Air Force, we do a pretty good job of recruiting and meeting the goals that we have. And like I mentioned before, we're in a pretty good glide path to increase our manning and meet our requirements. Steve. And I'll say the Coast Guard has had very, very well with our recruiting over the last few years. Even though we've increased a little bit, we continue to make our goals with an effort on investing in these folks as soon as they come into the service. And that's starting, we're thinking when they join our Coast Guard that we're going to keep them for 20 or 30 years. And we start their investment from recruit training all the way through their advancement through their first enlistment, which by the way we enjoy about a 90% retention rate at that first enlistment. So good in fact, and I won't pick on my brothers here, but we get an awful lot of prior service that come in our service. And I would, I would put the challenge out there for my friends up here to find me a United States Coast Guard when they left the Coast Guard and went to one of their services. And I'll buy them lunch if that happens. But we're doing very well in our folks. Except the Air Force. But we're doing well. How concerned are you with the spike in the aircraft crashes this year? So chief master on the air force. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I tried that to get too concerned about some of these crashes. We try to look at each of them individually and do the in depth research and analysis about why thus far from an Air Force perspective haven't seen any real trends that indicate there's an Air Force wide problem. But we'll continue to take a look at each one of those as as they happen from a operational risk management perspective.  Like chief master on the Air Force. I'm concerned with each one of them. But I understand we had about 155 Marines die last year. About 20 or this this year, last fiscal year in aircraft. Not just the aircraft, but every every incident we're concerned with. Every one of them, the vehicular accidents, you know, everything. Some things you can't, you know, help sicknesses and things, disease, those type of situations. But we look at those as well to see if we miss something. What is it that we missed? You know, we fought for 16 years and we're still in the fight. And we're doing very well. We're winning.  It has consequences. Despite the consequences of fighting, you know, OEF, OIF and everything we're doing now. We're still winning. We're still winning. So we're going to look at each one of those, not just the aircraft, you know, crashes that we have, but every death that we have in the military, especially in the Marine Corps, I'm speaking from a core perspective, but I know each one of us feel this way. We're going to look at each one of them, and we're going to do our best, you know, to put policy procedure in place. If that's what's lacking, training, whatever it is, we're going to get after. So I just like to finish that one off. So when you look at what we're doing across the world in terms of what we need to do to assure our allies, deter any kind of nation-state or non-state actor aggression, be able to do the lasting defeat of ISIS, and also defend our homeland. That comes at a great cost in terms of deployment. And you look at 196 nations in the world, we're in about 167 of them right now, at about 250,000 troops doing that. So when you put the troops out there like that and the operational tempo goes up, obviously the risk goes up. But what we have to do, and just to echo what the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps said, we have to make sure that we look at every accident, and we do an investigation of where we need to get better at and where we don't allow this to happen again. But two, we also have to continue to develop our leaders to not only be able to mitigate risk, but to anticipate and communicate that risk both up and down the chain as we move forward. Sergeant Major, aren't you concerned that twice as many U.S. troops have been killed and aviation crashes this year compared to last year? Absolutely. We're concerned about, absolutely we're concerned about that. But most importantly, we're concerned about any death we have, whether it's combat related or non-combat related. But here recently, we've had a lot more non-combat related deaths, so we really have to look internally at ourselves with a critical lens to see where we need to get better at in terms of handling risk and getting better at being safe. A lot of lawmakers on Capitol Hill are saying the U.S. military is in a crisis right now. All these different accents, whether it's on the air, land, or sea, is the military in crisis right now? From my perspective, from a joint perspective, I don't think we're in crisis right now. I'll let the individual services answer on that. Dana? No, I don't see this in a crisis at all, except we live in a very complex environment. That complex environment is going to create challenges for the military, but we have and we'll continue to overcome each one of those challenges. And you know, to people looking on the outside looking in, it's so like whack-a-mo. You know, if it's not aircraft next year, whatever that high number is, we're going to be talking about it. So whatever that high number is, we're going to get after. We're going to get after. It's aircraft this year, but you look at the aircraft, you know, perspective years before. Then what's happening now? That's exactly what we're studying. Is it, you know, depth of dwell? Is it leader to lead? What exactly it is? We'll get after it as we've done in the past. And we'll make that correction and we'll still be the most lethal force on the face of this earth. You know, I travel the world and I get out and I have a conversation with a lot of sailors, a lot of family members as well, too. And you can look them all in the eye. And first and foremost, they'll tell you they love being a United States Navy sailor. I love being a United States Navy sailor. And there's nothing else I'd rather be doing right now. And we ask our sailors to operate across the globe on a number of different platforms. And sometimes tragedy happens. And that's an unfortunate inherent nature of our business. And but our sailors need to have trust and confidence in their leaders that we'll learn from these things. And we'll go at this stuff and there'll be some things that we can take care of quickly. There'll be some things that we'll have to look at over the over the interim. And then there may be some long term things that that we can kind of go after and correct things on. And our sailors know that about our leadership. And I don't worry about whether sailors are ready to take the fight to the fight. I don't worry about that because they will because that's just who we are as U.S. Navy sailors. And that's what our nation asked us to be for them. And we'll keep being those people but we'll keep learning through these things as well too. And and that's just kind of I think how we view things here in the Navy today. Yeah just to get to the brunt of your question I don't believe we're in a crisis obviously in a a risk-based business like combat arms specifically aviation. You know you'll have some some accidents you'll have incidents. I think the most important thing that that all of us again take a look at is we put the right amount of resources and energy toward investigating those specific incidents and and learning from and growing from. I have a high level of confidence in our aviation community as a from an Air Force perspective all of our pilots our instructor pilots and the programs that we implement too. After the G-38 crash last week are those still grounded? I believe I'm not quite sure but I'll get back to you. One of the points that came out in the recent hearings following some of the Navy collisions was the inability for the services to say no when asked to fill a co-com requirement. And what I am hearing today and I just want to see if I'm hearing correctly is that there really is that kind of inability to say no you will meet what the partners want you'll meet what the co-coms want you can I heard you can do all of these things but there definitely seems to be a consequence so you know is there an inability to say no? I would have to say that at all levels you know commanders manage risk at all levels and when it comes when we say you know we have to defend our homeland obviously we're going to get after that mission of defending the homeland whether that's at sea in the air on the ground or wherever it's at but commanders at all levels are charged and senior listed at all levels are charged to manage the risk at their appropriate level and to get after that so I go back to what I said I don't think we have a systemic problem in terms of you know being unsafe or whatever it is I just think we have to continue to look at these incidents and we got to figure out where the problem in attack it from that angle so go ahead and if I can say something ma'am let me tell you I can tell you now we get more requests than we feel I can tell you that we do not feel every request for forces that comes out of there you all just don't get to hear about everything and that's a good thing because we're not into giving any advantages we don't feel every we feel the request that we think we can do and the common accepts the amount of risk that you think is appropriate but that conversation between the co-coms you know and the service chiefs that's that's at their level and if we're filling the request it's because we know we can do the job and Tara just to finish out I've sat in some tank meetings with the chairman the service chiefs and the combatant commanders and when they talk about capabilities and requirements what they always talk about is the risk to the force and the risk to mission and then even so much the service chiefs will talk about the risk to the institution if we continue to do business like this how will it affect our services in the near future or the long term okay ma'am you had your hand up back there and ma'am I'm coming to you next right here I'm sorry I'm calling about Voice of America thank you guys for doing this with all due respect I'm hearing all of you say that it's not a crisis mode I'm hearing that we're winning after 16 years of war I'm hearing that we're not a crisis we have a shortage of 3,000 maintainers we have sailors that can take the fight but we've had four different investigations that have shown that the sailors were not in training the basics they didn't have the basics down so I'm just kind of wondering what is your definition of a crisis and what is your definition of winning because from the outside looking in with all due respect we're seeing a lot of problems all at once let me hit it first so I'll tackle the winning piece so I was just in Raqqa, Syria about four weeks ago and what I saw over there was our U.S. forces advising partner forces and we had ISIS on the run as a matter of fact I was on the ground for four hours and I could not believe the level of lethality we were putting on ISIS and they were still holding out and if you look at where ISIS was in 2014 where they basically had almost all of Iraq under control and then they started moving into Syria they were a huge problem in 2014 but with the strategy we have now where we are building partner capacity we're training advising assisting and in some cases accompanying our partner forces we have ISIS on the run in the Middle East now obviously this is a generational threat that is born out of an ideology and they're also trying to do things in Africa in Europe and other places but when you look at the effect we've had on ISIS and how that gets to defending the homeland that's huge very huge and I'll ask any other comments I would just say yeah go ahead I was going to say I think it's all about perspective right so you may see the challenges that we have that we all have as a service that any organization might have what you might not see are the thousands and thousands of great things that our service members do on a regular basis both in combat and from a training perspective from a humanitarian support so that's really how at least I can speak for the Air Force how we see it the perspective that we take is while we do have challenges we've always had challenges we will likely always have challenges in the future you balanced that against the great things that we do for this nation and it becomes easy for me to not look at the challenges that we have as a crisis when you talk to an airman who's done 13 deployments that's a tough situation for that guy when you talk to Marines having to scrounge in an air yard graveyard what they call for parts that's a crisis for that individual and for that team so I mean is that not very concerning to you guys when you talk to an average Afghan who says 16 years of war when the Taliban is still making some gains in some areas they wouldn't call that winning so I'm just I'm just wondering is that not a factor in all of this positivity aside from the budget everything else seems to be going positive based on this briefing so that makes understand it's a concern ma'am it absolutely is if you're talking about crisis from a numbers a parts a budget I don't think there's ever been I've been in 34 years every day there's a crisis of something there's a crisis of something but you walk out and you ask the average Marine are we in a crisis I don't need to tell you we're in a crisis we are concerned about parts we're addressing that we're concerned about the budget we're addressing that this is not you know war is not not something you'll always be in crisis from that perspective there's just not a day something suicides sexual assaults harassment safety 30,000 Marines in and out of year so in a four-year term a four-year enlistment 120,000 Marines come and go in the Marine Corps a hundred that's two-thirds of the Marine Corps would turn over you would say outside that's a crisis because Boeing doesn't do it Google doesn't do it 30,000 a year the average age 25 we're bringing 17-year-olds crisis it's like Groundhog Day but the fact that we're sitting there having freedom of speech and we're having this conversation and the people are fighting against a knot that alone tells me we're winning we're winning and I absolutely understand where you're going because we have to look Gold Star families in the eye when we lose someone and that's serious everyone of them are serious not only do we have to look at the eye when we lose the individual but they return to the Marine Corps and to the services to still sit beside us that's a constant reminder that we always have to do better by our people always doing better by our people that's why we're we're so focused in on those things that may not be a crisis outside of the building but it's definitely a concern of ours I don't want you to think that we're not concerned about those things we're not here to paint a rosy picture and try to pull the wool over anybody's eyes but as leaders of our respective services you know we see every challenge as an opportunity an opportunity for us to invest more to engage more to create programs and processes that help our that airman who's deployed 13 times and that corporal who can't get the parts and whatnot so some of the things that you may see as a crisis we see them as opportunities and and subsequent challenges for us to tackle Dan go ahead yeah I would just say the same thing let go some of my my peer's evaluations there is the first time I've ever heard that word is when you said it and I saw it on the news I haven't had a single soldier tell me in three or four years that we're in crisis we have challenges it's a complex world we have tragedies these young men and women need to know that the people in America believe the same thing they do and that they that they are out there doing great work for our nation every day our allies are assured our potential adversaries are deterred and we will defeat if we have to go ahead sir yeah some major task is to propose a lot of congress 2.4 percent raise White House 2.1 percent who knows where that comes out in the end then you got BAH commissaries you don't know what's going to happen and it all might get wrapped up in another continuing resolution and here we go again the troops come to you and they say hey top are going to get a raise or what what are these guys doing what do you tell them how does that affect morale well we tell them exactly what's going on here we we're here in the Beltway and in the Pentagon and we serve in these high-level meetings with our bosses here but also on Capitol Hill so that we can tell the troops exactly what's going on I can tell you in my travels as I go around the world the troops there are concerns about stuff like dual BAH and things like that but more importantly to the troops I want to have great quality of service along with that quality of life meaning you know I want the latest optics I can have on my rifle so I want the latest kind of equipment or technology to get after this emerging unmanned aerial system threat very few complaints do I get on pay raises or quality of life kind of issues it's how can I get better at doing my mission that you're expecting me to accomplish out there open it up go ahead three types of readiness sir unit which our services personal and family now from a family perspective you know it I've been in this job almost three years I've never heard a marine ask about a pay raise what you will have marines and families address is you know child development centers youth sports exception if family member programs those programs that support the family the class B programs it's not that it's a pay raise thing it's when you say BAH dual BAH compensation absolutely absolutely and those things we're absolutely involved in as senior listed those are the conversations that we have about the budget and how it affects talk about continuing resolutions you know you know getting the budget in the middle of the year this last fiscal year having to try to crunch the money we also go to the yield as well to talk to Congress about these situations and those are the things that we address the quality of life issues that families address with us as well as our service members to make sure there's balance to make sure there's balance because I don't care how much lethality we talk about if we can keep high quality warriors to fight for this nation we're not going to win because they're not going to stay we enlist the warrior and for those who have families we try to retain the family because they have a voice in whether they're going to stay or not so that conversation it's absolutely heard and being spoken to ma'am go ahead this is for sergeant major daylight so the army is looking to get bigger next year what kind of mix of retention and assessions are you looking at and what kind of incentives are you mulling on both sides and thanks ma'am for the question so yeah we are and we're happy about getting bigger and we're glad that our elected leaders are helping us do that so we think the majority that's going to come roughly about 80k from as our planning factor for assessions right now and we did so well last year in our in-service retention program that our in-service retention actually is not that big a significant number because we've already accomplished it for FY18 preponderance of that and FY17 so from a center from you know incentives are based upon the need and requirement by skill level in MOS so what we won't see is a whole lot a bigger increase in bonuses unless we specifically need that skill level in MOS and we'll tune our assessions incentives based upon how we do throughout the year do you see oh I'm sorry go ahead do you see doing two-year enlistments again or you know kind of quality of life bonuses like that rather than just money I see that I think we'll have to base it upon the needs I think we'll have to base it upon the needs so far right now we're a little bit below glide and assessions which is not concerning we're coming just first part of the year like I said retention is doing great last year was the best year we had in the decade and I think we're just going to have to take it quarter by quarter and see where we fall sir go ahead thank you this is a personal policy issue the transgender guidance there have been two quarter-ordered injunctions now but yet the SECDEF I believe has a January deadline for assessions so I'm just wondering what you guys are planning at this point and the second part of the question is I'm wondering if you're seeing any type of a morale issue not just among transgender troops but other troops who see the possibility of their fellow service members being separated based on their gender identity so I'll take the first part of the question then I'll open it up to my colleagues for the second part so right now all of us right here serve on a Secretary of Defense directed transgender policy that is chaired by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff it includes our undersecretaries and others but we're part of this panel that is looking to provide guidance to the Secretary on what a transgender service panel or service policy should look like right now we've been at this a couple of months we have till the end of December to come up with a recommendation that will provide to the Secretary then so that he can go forward with implementing the policy and I'll leave that there in terms of the morale I'll let you all open it up to you all haven't seen or don't anticipate any morale issues right now so I think it really depends on how all this plays out we all have varying numbers of members who might fall into the category of a transgender or someone with transgender dysphoria or whatnot but to this point from an Air Force perspective no morale issues I'll say from the Coast Guard being the smallest service absolutely no issues at all matter of fact some of you might have heard our service chiefs a couple of months ago that made a public declaration that he would stand behind all those members in our service that had started their transition under the old guideline so I think our workforce appreciates that support and again I don't have not heard and don't expect it will have any morale issues and our United States Coast Guard I'll tell you most sailors just occasionally it will come up and it's just kind of where are we with the policy that's it they just kind of want to know what are we doing so sir I'm going to go to you because you've got the best-looking haircut in the room and you're giving me some recommendations here in about three years when I retire because you know I've had this haircut for 35 years I've only had this one for 10 so it stays well I'm Scott Moss with Federal News Radio I wanted to ask you know the the retention and recruitment numbers at this point sound like they're pretty good but over the next 10 years you know there's some signs that are coming the Blue Star Family Survey just came out 60 percent of service members say they wouldn't recommend to their children serving I mean you can look at your arms there's a lot of deployments that you're doing how are you going to change your service in the next 10 years to accommodate future recruitment and and retainment issues so I'll speak from a you know joints perspective first of all we have to be prepared to fight and win our nation's battles and with that comes a certain set of standards that we have to have because we can't predict what our enemy is going to be able to do to us so in order to maintain war fighting competitive advantages we have to make sure that we have the most quality people we have to do the job now as you mentioned and as I described earlier you know when 25 percent of 18 to 25 year olds don't qualify for military service either due to not meeting the physical requirements or other issues and then if you look at where that might be in the year of 2030 that's potentially a huge risk to our country right there so as we move forward we have to continue to have recruiting and accessing practices and policies that attract the best talent that we have but we also have to get beyond what you already talked about you know if 1 percent of our force serves right now most of their influences in their family hasn't come from their parents it's come from their grandparents who were in the Vietnam era and things like that so we have to make sure that we continue to provide practices and policies that attract this talent as it comes in that includes the new blended retirement credentialing and other transition benefits that will become a recruiting tool I believe in the future and we probably won't know until this blended retirement system is online for a number of years whether that's a detriment to keeping folks around or if they are able to put money in a bank and get tuition assistance and get some a college degree and get credentials that will work on the outside whether that'll keep them in the service I'm of the belief that folks believe that we invest in them that they will stay for longer because the folks at the 10-12 year mark are the folks that we are heavily invested in and we want to keep them as career servicemen through their time but I think the jury still loves some of that not all young folks who are eligible to serve are necessarily propents you know I wasn't that person I didn't come from a military background and would not have likely joined the military had it not been for certain circumstances however I think the greatest tool that we have is offering young men and women in America today the opportunity to do something that they love and sometimes that's an actual occupation like cyber or being a space operator and sometimes that's opportunity to just serve their country and do something bigger and better than themselves so I mean we always look at ways that we can improve our recruitment and retention we always look at ways that we can make sure that we are you know maintaining ties with the evolving you know ties of the day you know things like recently we started allowing more tattoos than we had in the past I mean that was just something that that's just evolution in recruiting so okay we'll go go ahead sir then we'll go to you next man Steve Losey Air Force Times my question is for Chief right want to ask you about deployments you and the other Air Force leaders have expressed concern about the pace of deployments are you seeing it are you seeing the pressure and the pace increase are we looking at more are we going on say a one-to-one deployment ratio no not specifically so it really just kind of depends on the rear field so most of our one-to-one deployments come from our battlefield airmen our special forces special forces airmen but you know deployments are increasing only because at least from an Air Force perspective you know we're in more places right so a lot more deployments to Africa a lot more deployments on the European UCOM AOR so so not a huge increase in deployments some of them are are spread out we're actually taking a look at some of our 365 day deployments to see if those you know if if we have the right number of folks deploying for a full year so for those airmen like the battlefield airmen aside from trying to add more airmen which I know you're trying to do aside from 365 what else are you doing to try to ease the pressure ease the burden on those airmen who have been deploying the most all right so so one of the things that we try to look at is teaming up we're actually looking at our constructs and how we deploy and how we support support our combatant commanders and so we you know we'll continue to take a account of a comprehensive look at deployments as a whole to make sure that one we're meeting the requirements and two that we're maintaining the right level of readiness and morale for for those folks who frequently deploy go ahead ma'am I just want to go back briefly to the question of whether or not there's a crisis of readiness because as several other people have mentioned there's definitely a sense on Capitol Hill that there is and that's part of the reason that a large part of the reason that the armed services committees pass such a large defense authorization bill one that blows past the budget caps so I I guess two questions on that if there isn't a crisis why why is there such a why is there can you give us a justification for why then why we need to have such a large budget this year and do you feel like your message your this from the senior enlisted perspective is getting to those leaders on Capitol Hill your sense that it's a concern but not a crisis okay I'll take that on first and then I'll pass it on so uh you know I when we talk about crisis I think about once the last time we had an externally planned an externally prepared an externally executed attack well it was 9-11 okay we've gotten much better at defending our homeland whether it's through how we share information or what we're doing it's having an impact on those violent extremists that pose a threat to us the other thing is when you talk to a a man or woman that serves in the United States military there's things that they have to deal with every day they may not have the right amount of people they should buy their table of organization and equipment that they should have they may not have the right amount of equipment to do what they need to do and they may not have the right condition set but every day whether it's a young staff sergeant airman a joint terminal attack controller in Syria that I saw in May that in my opinion he was the only guy out there with a couple of green berets he was the air combat commander if you ask me because he kept putting lethal my term scunion on ISIS that was having a huge effect because of his ability to do the mission and because of his relationship with those remotely piloted aircraft so we don't look at that as a crisis and our men and women don't look at that as a crisis they look at every day I have to manage risk and I have some things that I'm presenting with every day that I have to deal with and they get after I mean the world is unstable right so there's an increasing demand for air power there's an increasing demand for intelligence surveillance and and reconnaissance and so so as the world becomes more unstable around us than the need for increased readiness increased weapon systems you know will will continue to increase so so again we don't necessarily see that as a crisis inside the military but you know we're responding to the threats and the challenges of of the world around us Sir Major you know you look at the club 16 years ago we've been fighting non-nation states for the last 16 years when you look out there if you look back to to nine you know 10 and you look at the view of the world and who we were focused on 16 years later totally different totally different there's some nation states out there that have absolutely captured our attention and on top of that you know technology today doesn't cost what it did then you know when we started this 16-year war cost about $3,500 to outfit the basic infantry marine today it costs almost 16,000 16,000 16 years later so when you talk about budget you try to go from you know from where you started in the 16-year war to the war we're going to fight today or tomorrow significantly different costly we've updated just about every aircraft platform in the Marine Corps Sunset the CH-46 V-22 has taken us further more lethal I mean capability than ever before in the Marine Corps and every aircraft rotary wing has got to chase that monster got to keep up with it to protect it to provide it you know support so when you when you look at it from that perspective and then you look at the people you bring in that's got to have the quality when you talk about technology to work that equipment all of that equipment takes a person or people a group of people and where we you know look at you know arm forces classification testing whatever it is you got to put people behind that that cyber that intel that electronic warfare in numbers that we've never had to supply before it's just you look at aviation and you look at infantry from a marine perspective aviation when we started 9-11 is significantly higher in manpower than it was 9-11 take a look at infantry now that infantry is going down aviation has come up and other areas of you know warfare military occupation specialties for the marine corps so we look 10 years out every year that's what we're trying to get at and trying to match budget trying to match people you know to make all that work it's a very no one else outside of the this building has to do a complex job like that so I would say don't compare us with any other Google or anybody out there because over two million in the uniform over two million every day in the uniform in this building alone 22 plus thousand just on the DOD umbrella attached to the building whether they're in the building physically or someplace else nobody has that complexity to do and the fact that we're sitting here enjoying freedom freedom is not free it's not free and we fully understand that so this this is why we wanted to address you today to let you know we care more as much as our bosses and anyone about personnel and readiness make no mistake about the quality life that is our talk okay we got time for two quick ones I'll go to you sir Christina we'll finish off with you okay go ahead sir thank you very much sir my question is that US and India as far as military to military relations they have been growing on the last 20 years and now that we enter the new year where do we go now as far as we had many exercises and also India is now facing terrorism across the nation from Pakistan Osama bin Laden was found in Pakistan now still there so one of our our Secretary of Defense's lines of effort is to assure our allies and meet our alliance commitments but also attract new partners so one of the things we're doing globally is we're going to continue to keep these international engagements so we can continue to partner with people on our shared defense our shared security and things like that so I think you're going to see more and more as we move forward in the future as we continue to get after building this expeditionary force you're going to see more and more engagements with other countries out there as we look to attract new partners and Christina we'll finish off with you great thank you so much all for doing this Secretary Mathis often talks about the military as a model for society and and so I wanted to ask how do you keep the force strong and united especially when the country seems so divided right now so I'll start off and then Dan I'll ask you to comment on that next so when you look at look at this table up here look at that diversity at this table up here all right and you look across our military it is the model of what the United States of America is and that's where the strength of what we do is built on our diversity on our ability to learn from each other and to make each other better and to lean on each other in times of distress or in combat or whatever it may be so you know the secretary talks about this all the time because he wants us to understand that because of who we are it it comes with responsibility and we have to show the American people what the United States military represents and it is the United States of America Hey let me just say one thing and then then I'll let you you know one a couple of things one you know we're as military members we're we're taught from the beginning to be apolitical when it comes to a lot of those issues now that being said we all have thoughts about various things that happen in this country that happen in our in our communities but I think what to answer your question what keeps us strong is that almost every service member has values that we rally around values that you know we care deeply about and and those missions and those things that that we do together on a regular basis keep us strong and keep us you know and allow us to be able to compartmentalize our political views and thoughts and and and values with the values that we share as service members Yeah I would debate the fact that and I don't believe personally that our country have divided first of all I think we're very much united and and our soldiers how do we keep them united because they all live under the same cause our job is to do one thing fighting when our nation's wars when asked to do so and they have to rely on each other every single day are there pockets of civilian life that could probably learn from that I agree is it divided by no means anywhere I believe tonight that our nation is divided but I'm a very positive based person and I think that's what I agree with my counterpart is that we have a set of values by which we live under and doesn't matter who you are where you're from as long as you meet those standards and want to live by those values you'd be a member of this greatest organization the nation has ever known go ahead to you yeah I our navy understands this we understand our ships we understand what the word shipmate means and we understand what means taking care of yourself is all about right and there's three major moving parts in all those right you're no good to anybody if you don't take care of yourself so sailors do that and once you've taken care of yourself you're going to take care of others you always think of your shipmates you think more of others than you think of yourself in many regard and at the end of the day we're all going to deploy together on this thing we call a ship right and you can call it an aircraft you can call whatever platform you want to call it we call it a ship so you think of ship shipmate self centered on the core values of honor courage and commitment that'll keep you focused on everything that matters and keep you united in those efforts and that's what drives our teams out there and that's what it's all about teams out there doing great things empowered to be the people that you need us to be out there go ahead sorry but you know I'll say one thing I you know I was going to talk about teams and it's great you brought that up make no mistake we come from you know black lives matter confederate flags Charlottesville kneeling down on these that's what we go on leave we recruit from those places we go back and leave in those places don't think for one second we don't recognize what's going on out there there are some things and every life matters the amazing thing is and what he means about the model is that we come from those same places yet we set aside all of those differences to go forward and be willing to die for the very people that we love for the nation the constitution and the flag you know that that we honor that's the unique thing we brought in something called spiritual fitness in the Marine Corps we were challenged by the civilian some amount there about oh you're talking about God well if you believe in God yeah we're talking about that but we're really talking about the spirit that regardless of where we come from when the chaplain says let us pray I've never been in a formation in 34 years and even in combat where a marine sailor anybody under the global anchor would say I'm going to request mass because I don't want to be in that formation we truly understand that that's an opportunity to dedicate ourselves to the soldier sailor airman marine Coast Guardsman National Guardsman to our left and to our right to say if you're down on the battlefield I'm coming to get you I'm willing to put my life on the line like those like a Cal carpenter a Corporal Dunham a Sergeant Dakota Meyer in the last 16 years and all the others who've earned the Purple Hearts you know that's that's what he means about a model on 912 this nation put everything aside and we were willing to accept risk by putting ourselves forward how soon we forget and if we continue to forget like Pearl Harbor like 9 11 another day will come when the enemy will make it a home game for us and on home games we lose we want to play all of our games on somebody else's territory when the enemy brings it to our territory we lose we absolutely lose and as Joe Dunford would say we get no credit tomorrow for what we've done today and we don't want to lose you know to learn as the commandant says those are the things we've that's what the model is all about it wasn't about the spiritual fitness it wasn't about God it was a spirit that embodies us to go forward and be willing to die for people like yourselves on a daily basis that's what that's what the model is so if I could close that out on the worst day of my military career on 19 July 2007 when my patrol came under attack and one of my soldiers was killed in action and another was severely wounded in action and we were pinned down under fire and we called for a quick reaction force I was not worried about what race what gender or who the other person was on the other end I just knew there was an American voice on the other end that said Sergeant Major we're coming to get you and that's the bottom line and that's why the U.S. Armed Forces is what it is today so ladies and gentlemen thank you all so much I'm sorry sir we're out of time thank you all so much for allowing us to be here today we hope this is a start of something that we can do more often because one thing that you're going to find out of all of us and I think you heard it today is we focus on our greatest commodity that we have in the U.S. Armed Forces and that's the men and women that raised their hand and swear and oath to serve in this country and to defend our homeland and way of life so god bless you all thanks again and we hope to see you all soon happy Thanksgiving thank you sir


The title of the conference is Wait for the Barbarians, and if we think in terms of barbarians as the average television watcher, you know, we consider the barbarians to people of ISIS, to people who are doing those terrible things. But how civilized is the West? How are they barbarians and are we civilization? How civilized do you consider Western society? Well, I never bought Huntington's idea about the War of Civilization. Civilized West against the Sabaj and Barbarian East. I never bought it. Just as I never bought Fokuyama's very optimistic idea about the end of history. I think the barbarians in the games are called the fanatics, and unfortunately they are everyone. Not in equal strength. Not with an equal degree of violence. But obviously Europe has a very sinister history. And European civilization contains some very dark genes. From time to time it's not a bad idea to remind the Isis that the small continent of Europe, almost the smallest of all the continents, Europe shed more innocent blood than all other continents put together. From Alibar to Genghis Khan to ISIS, all other four continents put together shed less innocent blood than Europe. It's all now in the blood of others. So it's a reminder. The warning is that Europe is not above the danger of a new wave of fanatics on the barbarians. No one is in Europe. I tend to think that there is a fanatic gene in almost every human being. There is a fanatic gene in almost every culture and civilization. When you will give the keynote at our conference, we will have the pleasure that your latest novel will be published in Dutch as well. I willing to say already a little bit about the plot of your novel or will you keep that a secret? Well, Jonas is actually a piece of chamber music. It's about three very different human beings. The old men, the middle-aged woman, and a young idealistic student. They come back to spend one winter under the same roof. And they start as fierce antagonists because they represent different worldviews, different personal experiences. And miraculously, to all the end of the novel, they almost love one another. I say this very carefully. They almost love one another. Now, in many senses, this is also a novel about treason and loyalty, a loyalty and betrayal throughout history. And one of the characters in the novel, he reminds the others that throughout history, many, many people who happens to be ahead of their time were labeled traitors by many, many of their own compatriots, all the way from the prophets to modern statesmen like Abraham Lincoln, or Charles de Gaulle, or Michael Gaucho, or Anu Asadat, or Yitzhak Rabi, who paid with his life. Anu Asadat also paid with his life. So, sometimes a traitor is simply a person who changes in the eyes of those who do not change and who despise change and who cannot tolerate change and cannot understand or imagine change. This is part of the novel. I said three antagonists, a fewish, three antagonists under the same roof for one winter. But this is not the whole story. There are many, many ghosts in this house. I don't mean ghosts corrupting white sheets and making funny noises at night, but I mean ghosts whose presence is very prominent in the house. Judas, Jesus, Abrabanel, the father of the angry woman in the novel, and many others. And the ghosts are very active in the room. In fact, they debate and fight between themselves. Judas is interesting to me, but they give up on many, many, many years because the character of Judas is, for the last two thousand years, the Chernobyl of Western Anti-Semitism. In many European languages, the word Judas simply means traitor. They give up in the dictionary. And in the minds of many, many, many tens of millions of simple-minded Christians, there is no clear, separating line between you there and you there. There are very similar words, and the distinction is not easy. So the novel tries to move right into the radioactive power of anti-Semitism. The capacity to change your mind is that also part of the cure of the phonetic? Yes, yes, the capacity to change your mind and even more important, the capacity to see yourself in a way in which others may see. The capacity to see the world through the eyes of the other, not necessarily in order to agree with the other. Certainly not in the urge to turn the other cheek to your enemy, not at all. I am not at that basis. But to imagine the other, to put yourself in the shoes or under the skin of another, this to me is a very powerful anti-dodge to phoneticism, to fundamentalism, to cruelty. Okay, for people who did not make up their minds yet, so they do not know if they should go to the next conference, yes or no, what would you tell them? Well, I tell them that I am not the bearer of a new ghost from the Holy Land, I am sorry. I don't have new covenants, I don't have a new testament, I don't have ghosts. I have one or two minimalistic suggestions on how to be a slightly, slightly better human being. And those suggestions I am going to expose to you all these months, along with the painful story of my parents' unrequited love for Europe, which I have inherited from them, which I carry in looking at my genes and soul and in my emotions. I know that you are very, very welcome to be our guest. Thank you. Thank you.